What's up everyone. I wanted to make some investigators and was curious how theirs stats fell on the bell curve, so I made an excel spreadsheet to analyze the stats of the official characters. I found some interesting results:

When you add up the lowest values for a character's stats, and then add their focus to it, you should come up with 8. Almost every character follows this paradigm, allowing a "bonus" point when the character's ability is weak or rarely used. This is what I found:

• Amanda Sharpe's total is 1 point over. This is pretty commonly known, and was likely on purpose because of her rarely-used ability.
• Wilson Richards is 2 points over if you count his focus as being 4. But his primary ability is focus-related, so that's not a big deal.
• Rex Murphy is 1 point over. However, this is likely to counter his significant disability, for those in the know.
• Lily Chen's 1 point over. Though to be fair, her focus ties in with her ability, and her starting gear is short of the normal amount.
• Rita Young's 1 point over. I suspect her ability isn't used often, but I didn't think it was that poor...
• Wendy Adams is 3 points over! That seems like a lot, even for a character with lower maximums.
• Tony Morgan is 1 point over. Is his ability that weak?
• Lola Hayes is 1 point over. Why?
• Joe Diamond is 1 point over. But his ability is great and so is his starting gear—am I missing something?
• Daisy Walker is 1 point over!!! A character who has an arguably broken special ability and obscene starting possession does not deserve this bonus. What is up?
• No characters add up to less than 8.

Additionally, if you add up all the minimum Speed scores for every character, you get 34. Same with Sneak and Fight—34. But Will, Lore, and Luck add up to 36, 35, 36. I hope the slew of new characters fixes this.

The base game investigators have 1 character with any given stat that's 3–6;
4 characters wih that stat at 2–5
6 characters with the stat at 1–4
5 characters with the stat at 0–3

A perfect balance! But the Dunwich and Kingsport characters throw things way off.

Interestingly though, their stats do allow me to make predictions about the upcoming Innsmouth investigators (assuming they will balance the bells, so to speak):

Speed:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 6 should have 2–5
• 2 should have 1–4
• 7 should have 0–3

Sneak:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 5 should have 2–5
• 4 should have 1–4
• 6 should have 0–3

Fight:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 5 should have 2–5
• 4 should have 1–4
• 6 should have 0–3

Will:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 3 should have 2–5
• 6 should have 1–4
• 6 should have 0–3

Lore:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 5 should have 2–5
• 3 should have 1–4
• 7 should have 0–3

Luck:

• 1 should have 3–6
• 6 should have 2–5
• 0 should have 1–4
• 9 should have 0–3

Can't say anything about how focus will turn out, but you guys can draw your own conclusions from these figures.

My prediction on focus:

• 2 should have a focus of 3
• 6 should have a focus of 1
• 8 should have a focus of 2

Just my 2 cents.

• Wendy Adams is 3 points over! That seems like a lot, even for a character with lower maximums.
• Daisy Walker is 1 point over!!! A character who has an arguably broken special ability and obscene starting possession does not deserve this bonus. What is up?

Weird? I used to feel like I was cheating when I used them. Plus daisy's such a time eater as player search the spell deck. Mysteriously she no longer comes up in the random mix. Probably due to the hand (tentacle) of some Old One. Wendy still appears in the two choices of a novice player. Most of the time, she's rejected in favor of the male choice.

I don't think FFG is going out of their way to balance characters. Besides the different stats are not all equal are they? Speed is certainly more important than Luck (and maybe everything else). Rita Young, for example is an excently designed investigator, maybe the best, counting only stats. Her power is next to useless. I all the times I've used her, I only used it once and (as I recall) it wasn't that beneficial even then. Still, she's one of my favorites because everything works together so well, especially speed. Maybe it's the retainer, which is undervalued in the character makeup IMO.

The balance of characters is in their random selection. Though I do think Daisy was just a mistake or a failure of playtesting?

Thanks for the work.

BTW, how do you make the little circle bulletpoints?

>sigh<

I will not argue that Daisy isn't broken, for that way lies madness. But I will say that Daisy is arguably LESS broken if you play her with only the cards she was playtested with: Kingsport and Arkham ONLY. No Arcane Insight, no Alchemical Process, no Storm of Spirits...all of the "Death to Daisy" combos are due to MIXED Expansions.

I'm not saying that FFG shouldn't have paid more attention to the insane possibilities our diseased minds could come up with. But y'all could cut Daisy some slack. She was tested in a vacuum, and the real world is sharp and painful.

jgt7771 said:

We should cut slack because FFG didn't playtest her fully? I'm an advocate for using limited expansions, but I only carry that as far as the Mythos cards. All the spells, encounter cards, monsters, etc. are always in play (well except the 3 BG dark young). They are not part of the mythos.

I'll check on your theory about only Daisy with KP and base game. I still think unlimited reduction of spell cost would still be broken, perhaps just not as broken. Clearly her librarian inspiration was to be a tome user. Why she got the spell suing bonus and why they thought unlimited was a good idea is still beyond my puny mind powers to understand. Then on top of it, give her choice of any spell? Wow, three strikes and she should've have been out.

She's still able to cast two shrivelings per turn at no cost.

Storm of Spirits is broken. It's one of my favorite spells. It's like a +5 to spell users. I feel guilty using it, but not guily enough excise it yet.

I agree that Rita's stats are one of the best, if not the best. She can run, she can seank, she can fight, she can will, she can luck... the only thing she can't do is lore, and lore checks are the rarest checks there are anyways.

Funny thing Lee is used more than Walker in or group! lol for the given reasons... Walker boring to play because yadda yadda... Lee because he's fun to kill!

mageith said:

1) I actually don't agree with your assessment on stat balance. The base game characters all had their different levels of each stat balanced perfectly (as stated above) and the number of characters with a stat that goes to 6 seem to be even, including all expansion characters so far. The number of "holes" missing in certain levels for each stat adds up to 16 exactly to accommodate the Innsmouth characters. Which leads me to believe that the nuttiness factor comes in only with all the extra focus. I proposed some explanations for bonus focus, but something is definitely up with Joe Diamond and Daisy Walker. They would probably be better if their focuses were dropped by 1.

2) IMO, Daisy's problem doesn't come from her selection of spells so much as her unlimited -1 sanity cost ability. If it was only useable once per turn, and she couldn't use both it and the tome ability in one turn, then that would be better. Or if sanity costs were always reduced by 1 only for spells above 1 sanity cost, then her power would be weak enough to justify the added bonus focus. But as she is, she's three strikes too high. Daisy is a combination of probably a bunch of different ideas, wasn't thoroughly playtested, and wasn't considered with much foresight. She could have been fair, I believe. I may make a revised card for all such afflicted characters.

3) Above the text box, there is a button for starting an indented, bulleted list. You can do a numbered list too—I use both these literally on my stats reports.

I don't think Speed is better than Luck. Speed sure seems to get used the least in random encounters. Getting around town fast is awesome, and I would always be happy to see a Speed stat boost rather than a Luck one—but not falling down stairs or landing in traps or picking the wrong path is relieving.

Tibs said:

I wonder if Kevin Wilson ever dated a woman named Daisy. Or perhaps lost a bet to her.

Tibs said:

Can't help you with any Kingsport characters, but, according to the lost Squashua method:

Low Skills Exception: If no Skill is ever greater than 4, add +1 Focus.

This is Amanda, the only Base Game Investigator with no remarkable stat.

Weak Character Exception: If Combat + Non-Combat totals 8 or less, add (9 - Combat + Non-Combat) to Focus.

This is Joe. Combat was defined as Fight+Will; Non-Combat as Lore+Luck. Also, Squashua was adding up all the rightmost numbers of the stats, straight down (instead of your way, taking only the minimums). Using his totals, you will find that Joe is the only Base Game Investigator whose lower 4 stats add up to less than 9. In fact, to date, Joe is STILL the only Investigator with this distinction.

This method completely breaks down with later expansions (Leo himself specifically breaks the first rule), but I always thought that was a good reason for why Joe was "bending the rules".

Tibs said:

Obviously the original game was very mathematically even. It resulted in uneven or unbalanced characters. Some of the least effective characters are from the base game as well as one of the most effective. Mathematics doesn't always translate into balance.

Since then, or somewhere along the line, FFG started going in a different dirrection. It may have worked even worse. They'll probably go in even a new direction in the massive addition to characters.

2) I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment on Daisy (in fact, I thought I said as much but apparently wasn't clear). I have made a "fairer" Daisy pretty much upon your lines of thought but so far no takers.

• Thanks.

Tibs said: I don't think Speed is better than Luck. Speed sure seems to get used the least in random encounters. Getting around town fast is awesome, and I would always be happy to see a Speed stat boost rather than a Luck one—but not falling down stairs or landing in traps or picking the wrong path is relieving.

All the stats are useful. Are you saying over the length of the game, they are all equal?

I'm just going by the Strange Eons scoring system, in which bonus points are only awarded for bad abilities. It used to include a focus bonus for "bad with gates" but that appears to have been since removed.

This can be applied to pretty much everyone except Joe and Daisy (and Lola! Forgot), who I suspect were just mistakes in this manner. Maybe their stats or abilities used to be worse during development, warranting a +1 focus "compensation" but were later changed and the bonus was not removed.

The principle of adding down one side is exactly the same as taking the minimums or maximums, so long as you're consistent and change the values in your formula to compensate, so there's no difference there.

In short, I don't think that Joe's bonus was derived from his particular combo of stats. He's great as it is, even if his luck and lore are a bit weak. But you are right, none of the other characters, even from Dunwich and Kingsport, add up as low as Joe in those areas. I think these were just oversights, and probably all the other "bonus" characters were intentional for their abilities.

@mageith:
I happen to think that mathematical balance really is fairness balance. You just have to implement it correctly. That said...
I think any "better" or "worse" characters in the base game come not from their numbers, but from their abilities and possessions. Mary's blessing is overpriced, Mandy's ability works better than it was intended, I'm sure. Vincent is just not well liked. I still like you, Vick.

Tibs said:

My grandson is always making investigators for this game. They all have 6 fight and 6 will, 2 or less lore and low sneak. It will all add up to a balanced character (though strange eons will go crazy). In other words, within certain limits, mathematical balance might be fairness. Overall a stat of 3 is weak, a stat of 5 is good. There are some sixes, as you point out and random skills can change that. Trying getting an injury that lowers your speed to 2 or one of these rumors that raises the cost of movement.

Perhaps another way to look at it. Is that droping from a 3 speed/movement to 2 is a 33% drop, while dropping from a 4 to 3 is only a 25% drop.

Or maybe correctly implementing mathematical balance is not so very easy. It's perhaps only proven in the play testing.

I used to be a big player of Warhammer and was a major proponent of mathematical fairness. Now I'm on the other side. Go figure.

And finally, I gave Rita as an example of an excellent character who's special ability is of little or no consequence. Her stats are excellently arrayed and her retainer is underpriced (which sort of supports your point. I agree that possessions make a big difference. Most weapons are underpriced (or everything else is over priced). Especially weapons that have no cost to use.

All stats are useful. Are you saying over the length of the game, they are all equal?

kroen said:

At least one of the new investigators will either have no focus or use it in a different way than every other investigator so far.

0 focus on an investigator is a bad design, even if he doesn't need focus to use skill sliders. with 0 focus, he can't use any of the items/skills that require focus to refresh, and he auto-dies against Yibb-Tstll.

The percentage view isn't a good one to use in this particular game. Stats are increased and decreased at intervals of 1, and most checks require a -1. No checks that I know of modify your stat by a fraction. Plus when a stat increases from 0, you're dealing with undefined fractions.

mageith said:

Over the course of all games played, yes I think they are all equal. Luck is the only thing that doesn't give you before-hand preparation, but the plurality of random encounters call on Luck.

I was aware of the phenomenon you state, Tibs, because I am an obsessive freak. I'm pretty sure I can name all of the investigators, their stats, and their stuff without much problem, even ones I don't have. The base set investigators in each skill break down into (max) 1 6, 4 5s, 6 4s and 5 3s. The newer investigators throw that off by a bit.

I don't think, however, that FFG is going to be a slave to numerically balancing the characters. It would require some interesting work to make up for the discrepancies they have now. Although it would be helpful for my addled brain. I don't want to sit around thinking, "Man, I wish they had made one more investigator with 5 Lore, because then it would fit into a pattern."

Basically, the investigators from Kingsport had it so good. I'm not sure if they were trying to make them better to make them look attractive in comparison to (say) Mandy, or if their difficulty was adjusted for harder Ancient ones, but it seems as if they were just built with more stat points. With the exception of Charlie and Luke, everybody has a stat bonus, and their abilities aren't all that weak. I can see giving Rex an extra point for his curse or Wendy an extra point for her youth (but not three), and I do like how it sets Tony Morgan further apart from McGlen or Harrigan as more flexible. But the rest of the characters didn't need it. Just something that's odd.

It also makes me wonder what they are going to do with the Innsmouth Investigators. Will they be made out of the Arkham mold, or the Kingsport one?

Alright I'm going to rattle some opinions off.

What people said about Joe being "Bad on Gates" is the same as saying any character with a Speed+Sneak >= 10 needs an extra stat bonus.

I believe that only Joe and Wendy fall into this category and hey look they have a stat plus.

I veiw this as a mistake though I do believe bonus focus should be awarded in certian conditions.

1. Sneak >= 5. Face it. Sneaking just isn't as useful as the other stats. If your sneak is this high then you probably don't have enough stats to go around or enough focus/speed to make good use of your high sneak. I'm sure that when making Wendy (ie the second 6 sneaker and the only character to have conflicting stat sum max >10) the developers made sure not to recreate the Ashcan Pete problem where you either can get through any monster but cannot go any where (0/1 speed 6/5 sneak) or you still have trouble going places but 3 of your base stat pluses are more or less being wasted on a skill you probably won't be able to use when you really need it (2/3 speed 4/3 sneak). Instead with high speed and focus Wendy can make excelent use of her high sneak.

This creates an unfortunate problem that if a character has a sneak of 4 then adding a +1 to sneak wouldn't cause a decriment of any other stat but considering how less used sneak is compared to speed I don't view this as a bad thing. In fact I hope there are a lot more elusive monsters just so sneaking becomes for useful.

2. Stats Maxed at 4 all around.

Nuff has been said on this topic.

3. Sanity 3 will maxed 3

Like it or not the guys (god this game is sexist. There are no insane, buff females ) with max sanity & will 3 have it very hard. You need to constantly make horror and combat checks yet the three stamina characters can pick up guns and knives to cover their weakness. There is very little one can actively do to help with horror cept collect clue tokens. Giving them low focus makes this even worse since they must painstakenly grind their fight up (since I'd assume their will is maxed) when they go gate hoping and grind their will up when their done. I'm glad that they seemed to go out of their way to fix this with Tony though I have no idea in hell why they gave the +1 bonus stat to him nor why he has a (totally awsome) luck of 6 or why (I hope I'm remembering correctly) his starting equipment sums is $1 more than it should be.

Six should be saved for some really good at that certain skill!