Hi guys! Once again, I will be porting my investigators over to another Arkham Files game! This is a preview and test thread to gather people's opinions on the balancing of my investigators so that I can get feedback to fine-tune a finished ensemble of Eight additional Investigators to play as.

EDIT: This is the link to the finished file download on BGG!

EDIT as of 5/31: Astrid Lee has had some significant changes made; if you want to do me a solid, check out her new version on the next page. The link above still includes her older version.


Sadie Godfrey: The Abomination



NOTES: Backstory has a typo "loosing" instead of "losing."


Eunice Goulding:

Edmund Moore:

Note: Mother?'s image is pretty bad, but it's the best I could do atm. Hopefully will change.

Obi Laveau:

NOTES: Obi's Weakness & Asset should say Obi Leveau deck only. Should include "Sorcerer" trait on investigator card. Gris-gris should say "heal 1 sanity" & "heal 1 damage."

Looks like Obi and Ashcan Pete have something in common: SPOILERS http://arkhamdb.com/card/02015 (correct wording on weakness).

Guess I will re-word Papa Legba's Price!

*** Astrid's Cards have been redacted as they have been massively overhauled. They are not available for download yet, the BGG download has her initial version***

NOTES: Astrid currently has no traits on her investigator card as there are no traits currently that fit her character. Make one up? Or wait and see what come with the new releases? Also, correction on Rumor Has It: "Astrid and all assets you control are immune to treachery card effects other than effects form Two Can Keep a Secret..." & "rev: When a trachery card would normally affect you or assets you control, discard a card from your had or discard Rumor Has It."

Hosea Mayhew:

Thanks! As the game is new, I'm sure I'm not as experience with balancing as I am with AH & EH. Let me know what you think!

UPDATE: 12/13/16 Eunice v 1.0 added

UPDATE: 12/14/16 Edmund v 1.0 added
UPDATE: 12/15/16 Obi v 1.0 added

UPDATE: 12/15/16 Astrid v 1.0 added
UPDATE: 12/16/16 Hosea v 1.0 added

Update: 12/17/16 Anton Pavel 1.0 added *

Update: 12/19/16 Anna Anderson 1.0 added *

*Anton Pavel & Anna Anderson are posted in a post near the bottom of this page, there were too many images for one post to put them here.

Hmm, there are definitely some interesting systems at work here but I think some of it needs refining.

Upright Beast is an interesting concept for a card, but if you're playing solo then it has no downside. You could modify this by changing the revelation text: "Put Upright Beast into play in you threat area. Discard any allies you have in play." Another way you could resolve this is to change the Forced text to "Jenny may not target or be the target of investigator cards. Jenny may not use the Parley action while upright beast is in play." This would prevent her from healing or being healed by other investigators, and prevent her from using options on cards that involve discussion, persuasion or making deals.

I think Sadie's Lucky Cigarette case might be a problem. I think there are good elements, but it needs some brainstorming. Let's use examples from a couple of other investigators: Roland's .38 is a gun (with the normal stat line for a gun) that encourages you to chase clues, which sums up his playstyle. Agnes' Heirloom of Hyberborea rewards her for using spells as her solution to everything, which is her intended playstyle. I think in this case Sadie's Lucky Cigarette case should not heal horror, as that's one of the limiters of Sadie's abilities (and particularly as it heals more horror than anything else in the game currently). It should instead encourage her to play to her playstyle and provide an incentive for doing so.

With survivor/guardian she fills a tanky/combat role. Personally I would model this as the opposite of Skids "On the Lam" card. Fast, play after the round begins. Non-elite enemies can only engage/attack you. Alternatively you could put it as: Engage all enemies at your location. Non-elite enemies at your lcoation replace current Prey target with Prey: Sadie Godfrey.

That's my feeling on it anyway. We only have a limited number of current cards to pull examples from.

Thanks! I had some similar thoughts while working on this first draft as well. I'm still familiarizing myself with some of the formatting of the cards, but I think the more games I play the better my execution will become.

My concern was that perhaps her ability was too limiting as there don't seem very many means to heal horror currently, hence the cigarette case function. In my head the engagement action on the cigarettes allows her to pull threat while also sustaining her ability to handle the combat by using her own ability more often (importantly, without wasting any actions). Hmmm.

The biggest issue I have with the Prey engagement ability wording suggestions is that it's only effective if an enemy is currently "ready" in that case, so to pull an engaged monster with Prey, you would still need to dis-engage them from their target first, and that in most cases would cost at least another action.

I might have to do something with the horror heal or maybe just up the cost to 2 cigarettes so it would be only usable once (unless it was redrawn later on somehow). And Upright Beast will likely be tweaked to offer some sense of threat in a solo game as well. Thanks much for the suggestions!

I don't understand her ability. Why would a test be changed into another kind of test AFTER chaos tokens are resolved? Or is it WHILE? Will a new token be drawn after the first one is canceled? It's too complicated I think.

I don't understand her ability. Why would a test be changed into another kind of test AFTER chaos tokens are resolved? Or is it WHILE? Will a new token be drawn after the first one is canceled? It's too complicated I think.

Thanks, the Elder Sign ability allows you to cancel the original chaos result (a +0 can still be a failure, for instance an investigate check against a location with a shroud value of 3 would fail because Sadie's Intellect is 2). You would then redraw for the test as if it were a combat check. Since her combat is 4 (and if you add a lot of combat bonus cards to commit in your deck) it can give you quite the advantage to a check. It also then allows you to sacrifice horror to increase that check further prior to pulling your token if you want yet more security.

I think it will take some time to get used to, but I don't think it's a problem unless further people find it too complicated.

The flavor here is that Sadie strongarms her way through problems as she taps into the mythos abomination she is becoming. Got a will check because something is too scary? If you pull the right token, she can tap into the mythos to allow herself to cope with the unbearable. Similarly, her mind may be filled with alien knowledge or her body with ethereal reflexes.

Thanks for your input though, it'll help me decide whether it's too complicated in the long run.

Update: 12/14/16 Edmund Moore v 1.0 added.

Some thoughts on Eunice. (And you thought Daisy needed help:))

Arithmophobia: I think the penalty should be a tad higher, such as -3 intel, right now it just makes her average, while -3 would make it a bit below average. I do like it is an Intel check that fixes it, but not a special test. So she has to pay the penalty at least once.

Her special ability is sort of meh. Spend an action and a resource to discard a unknown card (unless they scoped it out) doesn't seem to be something that would be used much.

Yig's Constant: needs some sort of limiting feature, as written, she can repeatedly place a doom token, cycle the encounter deck, until all the doom tokens in the game in play, then discard immediately for massive resources. I would suggest something like the line on ancient evil: This effect can cause the current agenda to advance. Making getting greedy dangerous. Or limit once per turn.

Thanks, the intent is that Yig's Constant can advance the agenda. I wasn't aware it would need more text to specify that. But I will add it if it is needed.

Eunice's ability only lets you look at the card, but then you can decide how to best plan your turn from that knowledge (but maybe it should just take and action OR a resource?). The benefit is that her ability in combo with Yig's Consant (if you have it in play) lets you discard the encounter if it is one that is really bad for the price of a doom. But that doom can be removed if you discard Yig's constant by amassing more than 3 resources with it.

As it is, it is meant to be a little like a permanent nerfed "Scrying" but at a higher risk. And Yig's Constant is a bit like a permanent Supply Cache (also usually nerfed), but also at a risk as you lose your means to discard encounters if you lose it.

She's a little tricky so I will definitely need to playtest her to see if she is worth using in the long run. And Arithmophobia is sort of meant to be a little weak as her playstyle relies pretty heavily on card synergy so I don't want her to be hit too hard. Thanks for the feedback. I'll use it to tweak her in playtesting.

12/15/16 Update: Added Obi Leveau v 1.0

Thanks, the intent is that Yig's Constant can advance the agenda. I wasn't aware it would need more text to specify that. But I will add it if it is needed.

Eunice's ability only lets you look at the card, but then you can decide how to best plan your turn from that knowledge (but maybe it should just take and action OR a resource?). The benefit is that her ability in combo with Yig's Consant (if you have it in play) lets you discard the encounter if it is one that is really bad for the price of a doom. But that doom can be removed if you discard Yig's constant by amassing more than 3 resources with it.

As it is, it is meant to be a little like a permanent nerfed "Scrying" but at a higher risk. And Yig's Constant is a bit like a permanent Supply Cache (also usually nerfed), but also at a risk as you lose your means to discard encounters if you lose it.

She's a little tricky so I will definitely need to playtest her to see if she is worth using in the long run. And Arithmophobia is sort of meant to be a little weak as her playstyle relies pretty heavily on card synergy so I don't want her to be hit too hard. Thanks for the feedback. I'll use it to tweak her in playtesting.

Since Agenda only advances during the Mythos phase, unless the card states otherwise, it would be needed. I kinda like the idea of limited to once per turn vis the automatic advance, allowing her to build it up, but not giving her 3+ resources per turn. Would also make the timing vulnerable to things like "An Ancient Evil".

With her ability, might try something like scrying except with two cards, then that gives her a choice between accepting what she finds or the lesser of two evils. Right now it's a choice between the evil she knows and a complete unknown. Then the ability might be worth the cost.

Arithmophobia might just need a more costly way of removing it. Maybe like a Forced Int(4) at the end of the turn. Then she is probably going to have to spend a card to raise her intelligence to pass. Then keeping the -2 wouldn't be much of a issue as it make her Intelligence a 3, so the removal test wouldn't be very easy. Right now I feel, Arithmophobia is more an annoyance than a weakness.

I do like what your doing. Please keep it up.

Thank you. Great ideas here, and pretty in line with how I intended her to play.

12/15/16 UPDATE: added Astrid Lee v. 1.0

Some quick thoughts,.

On Obi: I see where you are going with it, but I'm not sure I like the elder sign draw being a bad thing for the investigator.

On Strong Gris Gris, Should read heal 1 horror, vise 1 sanity, to be consistent with other cards. Would change the [Auto-fail] to [Elder Sign] and have it refresh an asset since that's what Papa Legba's Price exhausted.

Maybe for threat add something like. Forced: When you draw an [autofail] have something bad happen.

Again love what you are doing, somethings are just clearing up what's written to have it match what's already in play.

On Sadie: Can almost see this, Bad things swarm the party. Sadie starts working up self into a rage. She throws down her cigarette, saying the 1920's version of "Hey, Scumbags", and then after the battle has a cigarette to calm her self.

For Upright Beast, maybe add Take 1 horror to the revelation. Then: Forced: When an Investigator is in the same location as Sadie, take one horror (once per investigator). In effect, it gives her the same penalty.

I should probably change the gris-gris auto-fail symbol to a different one, but that being said, Legba's Price does not allow assets to be refreshed while it is in play regardless of whether the Strong Gris-gris card would activate.

Not sure what you mean with the elder sign draw being bad for investigators.. it says +1 for each charm or relic. Quality on these versions is a bit low so maybe you are seeing a -1?

And I appreciate the syntax corrections. You're correct and I appreciate the edits to get the language as in line with other existing cards as possible.

Looked like -1 to me, ok.

Looks like Obi and Ashcan Pete have something in common: SPOILERS http://arkhamdb.com/card/02015

Guess I will re-word Papa Legba's Price!

12/16/16 UPDATE: Added Hosea v 1.0

How did you make the cards?

@ Xenu's Paradox

I used the software Strange Eons. Someone has just recently made a plug-in for AH:TCG.

12/17/16 UPDATE: Anton Pavel v. 1.0 added

Notes: Anton's deck building options should also include Neutral cards 0-5.

Anna Anderson:

NOTE: Anna's Weakness, Phantom Melody is a neutral card like all signature weaknesses. It is only a "survivor" card until the next Strange Eons plug-in update. Also, The Voynich Manuscript should say "Anna Anderson deck only." Also, a note on an easily missed rule--Just as with Agnes's weakness (Dark Memory), when Phantom Melody's forced ability activates, you simply reveal the card, you do not discard it. Weaknesses cannot be discarded from your hand unless another ability or card forces you to discard them. If you can choose to discard any OTHER card instead, you must keep Phantom Melody (or any other weakness) in your hand.

Someone has just recently made a plug-in for AH:TCG.

That would be me. Feel free to ask if you have any questions (or offer suggestions, etc).

Someone has just recently made a plug-in for AH:TCG.

That would be me. Feel free to ask if you have any questions (or offer suggestions, etc).

None so far. I've used the software before and the plug-in works just how I would expect it to. Thanks for your hard work! Love it. The only thing I think that is missing that I'd appreciate is another tab for the Investigator mini card when you start a new Investigator file.

Maybe one question, what is the best way to create a layout of cards for printing? Does it work just as the AH plug-in does and are the cards automatically scaled to the correct size for printing? I haven't tried it yet, but it would save a lot of time and effort from a non-tech savvy fan-designer standpoint to be able to easily layout a page for PDF and printing purposes.

I think it should work the same as for AH. I haven't done printing from Strange Eons myself yet, but I've played around with laying things out in the Deck Editor. There are a couple videos on YouTube by StrangeEonsDemos that show how to create a project and create a Deck of Cards task and use it to automatically lay out cards for printing/PDF. If you want to fit 3x3 on a page, I think I had to use the Custom Paper Size option to shrink the margins. Or you can just do it by hand in the Deck Editor by creating a Deck of Cards component.

I see you've started doing this on the later cards, but I just want to remind folks who are making cards to remember, if you can't credit the art properly, to at least remove the name of the artist of the default art.

12/19/16 UPDATE: Anna Anderson 1.0 added. She is in the same post as Anton Pavel on the first page.

Please leave any feedback on the investigators that you think is relevant to balancing or formatting. Playtesting will begin sometime post 12/25/16 as this is when I will have my own core set to mess around with.

I plan on including suggested starting decks for each of these investigators in a .doc file in the final printable file download. Until I have my own core set to playtest with, there will be no progress updates. I will likely try to put them in 2-player games with each other, but may also include them in solo games or 2-player games with core investigators. It depends on who I can find to help me playtest and whether they are willing to use custom investigators.

Chances are that the first finalized versions will be playtested ONLY with the first scenario from the core set. I likely just will not have the time to playtest them against each scenario. If you want to help with the process, feel free to playtest the versions in this gallery and let me know how your experience went! Please remember to include a deck list so that I know how you constructed your deck. If you have any problems or questions about card interactions, please feel free to PM me.

Just a progress update: Astrid, Anton, and Edmund have begun playtesting. A few minor tweaks have been made. All 3 of these are pretty close to where I want them and seem to be quite fun to play. I most likely won't release revised versions until I finalize all of the images and complete the pdfs. Seems to be going smoothly, however.