Hi all,

Just wondering if there are any lists, articles or threads that discuss the different investigators and their plusses and minuses. I would like to read what other people have thought.

I believe I have seen a few polls or some suh, but can't seem to find any at the moment.

satakuua said:

I think we might've had a thread on this waaaay back when, but I can't remember what exactly or where (I think it was on the old forums). It might be fun to start a new one... But perhaps we should wait a while longer. Innsmouth is still relatively fresh fish.

Yes, it might well have been here. And yes, time has passed since.

heh, i'd post to one if it was started. We've already been discussing the merits and drawbacks of Ursula on another thread. And I think I've played enough with the IH investigators to get a nice handle on what they can do.

i remember seeing a tier system of sorts, somewhere. There were some investigators that were considered poor choices in almost every scenario imaginable, some that might be called 'specialists' of some use and then the just plain good ones (Mandy and others).

satakuua said:

Yeah. There was a giant voting game. I was insistent on clearly demarcating first tier vs. second, third, or fourth tier investigators. If I were doing it now, I'd consider making a fifth tier (for the lowest of the low). What I used to call the second tier I'd say would break up into two tiers (since you can get non-game breaking investigators that are *very* powerful as opposed to moderately powerful), a fourth tier for decent characters who can be played well, but aren't really anything to brag about, and a fifth tier, who seem almost to be built to break the game for the ancient ones (I say this strictly for the sake of parallelism, the truth is, if you know what you're doing, there are no investigators who are as bad, as some of the best investigators are good).

NO there is one bad investigator! ONE! Jim Culver.

He's a bad luck magnet!

Maybe in YOUR games. One of my Cultists has recently announced that Jim is his favorite Investigator, because he's cooool, cat. Since Fight is the easiest Skill to compensate for, Jim has some solid stats. Somehow, whenever we pass his Jim's Personal Story, all the Undead in the Cup leap into our hands. Green Encounters in R'lyeh? Smooooth.

To be fair, I haven't played with personal stories, so I can't really judge that.

All I know is that every time anyone in my group plays Jim, he is practically useless and always gets devoured. And even going through other worlds, we rarely actually get to use the green ability.

It would have been nice if FFG had given each investigator a star rating (0-5 stars) to indicate an investigator's power relative to the other investigators. If you were playing with Patrice or Vincent, it would be good to know what you were getting into.

Of course, we on the boards could endlessly quibble about the accuracy of any given star rating.

avec said:

mmm I always thought FFG attempted to make balanced investigators and just didn't do it. Sounds like you think they deliberately made some much better than others.

mageith said:

::Laughter:: that's possible. Maybe. But I think you're underestimating FFG even more than you ought to ;') If they playtested the game at all, they would know that some characters are *much* stronger than others. C'mon, you really think they didn't know that Mandy was a huge team bonus? They're not subcranial cavedwellers ;')

Personally, I think it was a very good idea having variant investigator powers. That way teams who want easier games can make it easier, and teams who want harder games can make it harder, and teams who want randomness can make it random. :') Everyone's a winner!

jgt7771 said:

Closing that gate to R'lyeh? Yeah, we'll be here all night.

mageith said:

They either tried to do it and failed, or they didn't intend for the investigators to be balanced. I think the latter is the case. There's no way you can see Amanda and Patrice as equal or even close. Patrice is a few levels better than Amanda. Their PS didn't help close the gap either.

The balance that I can see is that they made some investigators better/more suited for the increased difficulty with expansions.

Avi_dreader said:

I've played lots of games and over and over again I've seen failures in playtesting that seemed glaring but were actually unintended consequences. However, it didn't take very many seconds to see Patrice as totally out of line. At least with the other above average investigators (Wendy, Daisy and Mandy), it does take a little experience and some strategic choices to make them sing, but with Patrice all you really have to do is litterally sit there and the clues rain down and then get passed out. Not only is she way too strong, she's boring.

In the majority of cases, the PS help a lot of weaker investigators and imposed some restrictions on some of the stronger ones, but not with Patrice (or Dr. Vincent on the other end).

I don't think everyone is a winner with this vast variation. I play with dozens of different people and some get kind of pouty if they can't have their favorite investigator. That's OK if its Jim Culver*, Monterey Jack or Ashcan Pete (all multiply requested), not so OK when its Patrice*, Mandy and/or Daisy*. (Nobody asks to be Wendy, however, though I think she's one of the strongest.)

*I've made special rules for these three along with the politician for balance purposes.

grr, still hating the quoting...

mzonic said:

George Barnaby still got the really, really short straw.

Dam said:

I like George. Only had good games with him. He holds onto his retainer a long time for me and usually lets more than one person get out of jail.

mageith said:

If you're constantly getting arrested, you're doing something wrong .

Dam said:

Playing Innsmouth with non sneaky investigators. Plus with George in the game, we take more chances maybe.

I can only remember playing with him in the game about 4 times, but each time was fun, but he doesn't always survive. Once an investigators gets devoured, he doesn't return until everyone else has been devoured.

He's not a very physically attractive investigator and he's a lawyer and I think that makes a difference. Just ask Daisy.

Dam said:

Well, I said they made SOME investigators more suited. It goes along with my thinking that they made some investigators better than others. Though Patrice isn't more suited; she basically changes how you play the game (if you want to abuse her ability), and hands you the win.

mzonic said:

Well, I said they made SOME investigators more suited. It goes along with my thinking that they made some investigators better than others. Though Patrice isn't more suited; she basically changes how you play the game (if you want to abuse her ability), and hands you the win.

Patrice still isn't an auto-win. I know, stupid Zhar waking 1 Mythos too soon . Bad luck in the OWs and/or Mythos can still cause the GOO to wake up. Or with Rhan-Tegoth, standard Dam-draw from the monster cup (averaging around 3 Cultists I think) . Not saying Patrice doesn't shift the game down a few ladders as far as difficulty goes, just doesn't erase all the variables.

Dam said:

mzonic said:

Well, I said they made SOME investigators more suited. It goes along with my thinking that they made some investigators better than others. Though Patrice isn't more suited; she basically changes how you play the game (if you want to abuse her ability), and hands you the win.

Patrice still isn't an auto-win. I know, stupid Zhar waking 1 Mythos too soon . Bad luck in the OWs and/or Mythos can still cause the GOO to wake up. Or with Rhan-Tegoth, standard Dam-draw from the monster cup (averaging around 3 Cultists I think) . Not saying Patrice doesn't shift the game down a few ladders as far as difficulty goes, just doesn't erase all the variables.

Okay. She was handing you the win, then just as you were about to grab it the GOO slaps it out of her hand.

Just looking at how far apart Patrice is from Amanda, you figured they can switch their PS- Amanda gets 5 clues while Patrice gets the stats increase. But no, because Patrice doesn't have enough clues, they gotta give her 5 more. =/ This obviously is evidence to me that they want disparity between investigators.

mzonic said:

Okay. She was handing you the win, then just as you were about to grab it the GOO slaps it out of her hand.

Just looking at how far apart Patrice is from Amanda, you figured they can switch their PS- Amanda gets 5 clues while Patrice gets the stats increase. But no, because Patrice doesn't have enough clues, they gotta give her 5 more. =/ This obviously is evidence to me that they want disparity between investigators.

Roland did some heavy lifting in that game as well. Amanda the Mediocre (just referring to her bland stats, overall she is down there with the botttom-feeders for me) would've been better with Patrice's PS no doubt. Heck, as it is, I don't really care at all whether Amanda passes or fails her PS, but if there is an early R'lyeh gate and Mark isn't in the game, I'm rooting for the second to pop out.

When Daisy the Horrible was first revealed, you could compare her to Amanda and see she got all kinds of breaks, Patrice upped the ante even more.

mzonic said:

How do you not abuse her ability? Just make her stingy? Give her a clue umbrella? I suppose one way is to make her greedy and send her to all the dangerous locations. In any case, she adds 15 or 20 or more clues to the mix. It makes Hypnos and even Prof. Rice seem like pikers.

Like I intimated, I changed her rules with Strange eons, but short of that she's hard not to abuse.

I'd like to know what FFG was thinking. Or if they were.