Subtle cardinals were first introduced in a paper by Jensen and Kunen [JK]. They show that ifκis subtle then ◇κholds. Subtle cardinals also play an important role in [B1], where Baumgartner proposed that certain large cardinal properties should be considered as properties of their associated normal ideals. He shows that in the case of ineffables, the ideals are particularly useful, as can be seen by the following theorem,κis ineffable if and only ifκis subtle andΠ½-indescribableandthe subtle andΠ½-indescribable ideals cohere, i.e. they (...) generate a proper, normal ideal.In this paper we examine properties of subtle cardinals and consider methods of forcing that destroy the property of subtlety while maintaining other properties. The following is a list of results.1) We relativize the following two facts about subtle cardinals:i) ifκisn-subtle then {α<κ:αis notn-subtle} isn-subtle, andii) ifκis -subtle then {α<κ:αisn-subtle} is in the -subtle filter to subsets ofκ:i′) ifAis ann-subtle subset ofκthen {α ϵ A:A∩αis notn-subtle} isn-subtle, andii′) ifAis an -subtle subset ofκthen {α ϵ A:A∩αisn-subtle} is -subtle.2) We show that although a stationary limit of subtles is subtle, a subtle limit of subtles is not necessarily 2-subtle.3) In §3 we use the technique of forcing to turn a subtle cardinal into aκ-Mahlo cardinal that is no longer subtle.4) In §4 we extend the results of §3 by showing how to turn an -subtle cardinal into ann-subtle cardinal that is no longer -subtle. (shrink)