Both good points. I'll see about figuring something else out for her. Maybe just 10 toughness worth of monsters, and on a fail, she just loses a sanity?

Due to a new level of enthusiasm for Arkham and some extra time on my hands, I've crafted another custom investigator! Due to its having the "Killer Instincts" special ability, this is basically a repackaging of my ill-fated Sgt. Slaughter character. I've decided not to ever use Sgt. Slaughter because he doesn't at all fit into the mythos of the game. So this time it's...

Selene from the "Underworld" series! I only used the main promotional image from the movie, so I wouldn't think copyright problems would result from posting a custom investigator based on that character. I would think this would be "fair use". Anyway...

In the first movie, she's living in some nameless American city. Since she's immortal, my reasoning is that she very well could have been living in Arkham during the time in question. She'd certainly be living at the Silver Twilight Lodge, since in the first movie the coven's house is pretty much a spitting image of the Lodge. But since she seems to be something of a maverick and outsider, I didn't feel the need to buy her a "Membership". I'm actually not wild about this home location for strategy reasons, because I don't want her getting sucked into an Other World right off the bat. But if it happens, I'll roll with it.

In the first movie, she's constantly dual wielding identical pistols. In the modern day, they are highly advanced and fully automatic machine pistols. In the 1920's of course, she'd make do with what was available at the time. Since I didn't want to hog the only two .45 automatics (the weapon that most closely fits with what she would choose), I chose to create the Colt .38 Super. Even though a .38 Super is supposedly more powerful than a .45 automatic in real life situations, I didn't want to reflect that in its stats. I just wanted it to be about the same as the .45.

I couldn't think of a way to differentiate them from the .45 automatics without making them more powerful than the .45, so I simply left them at +4 just like the .45. The images are actual pictures of custom Colt .38 Supers (which according to the info I found, first became available in 1929).

Her personal story is similar to that of the Chef's, since they have the same Special Ability. I think she's fun, but I'm concerned you guys are gonna say that pairing decent weapons with this particular special ability makes her too strong. What do you think?

You guessed it. She's kind of just a better Zoey, who doesn't start with weapons in order to balance her starting ability. It's an ability that, like you say, becomes considerably more powerful with immediate access to two +4 weapons as opposed to one +1 (maybe another +3, but only against Undead). Having high will and better sanity doesn't hurt either.

mattherobot said:

So do you think that what FFG's intent with Zoey was to make her intentionally weaker in important areas (low sanity, low fight/will, bad fixed items) because of her special ability? Here's my question; is her special ability SO good that they had to compensate for it by gimping her other aspects just so she'd be reduced to "normal"?

Brooks said:

I don't think it's an overpowered starting ability, on it's own. The thing about it is, that no component exists in a vacuum. I do think there was an intent to deliberately make Zoey 3/7 San/Sta and to not give her any starting weapons beyond the Knife/Cross in order to prevent her from overshadowing every other combat investigator. To put it another way, your character gets the "best of" both Mark and Zoey -- arguably the more useful ability and more reliable weapons.

Here's one I've been thinking about doing for a while:

Constructive criticism is welcome!

Here's an investigator I've been working on for a while. A few comments that the game needs a Preacher type spurred me to finish him. I agree with some others that members of the church should not be such "paladins" in AH. While they might derive comfort from their faith, it shouldn't ultimately confer any godly powers upon them, since it seems to go against the mythos. That said, here's Max Baer, who no doubt needs some work:

Instead of going the Sister Mary route of divine protection, I decided to focus on the character as a driven, charismatic leader. Thus, he gets an ally. He originally had a second ability that limited the number of skills he could have to one, but I dropped it. It seemed flavourful (it was called "Impatient") but ultimately was a weird kind of penalty. I should probably make some room for a skill though, and maybe a clue or two -- $6 isn't very interesting as fixed equipment goes.

Starting in the street is an uncommon decision (since monsters could move into him) but I feel like it does a good job of representing how driven this guy is -- he can't even wait for the game to start before he gets moving! It confers some small advantage as well, since it puts him closer to the action on the first turn.

His ability, Hotheaded, could be very useful or disappointing, depending on the player and the scenario. Used well, it could let him move first to take out monsters, freeing up the path for other investigators, or arrange trades that don't work out due to the vagaries of turn order. I'm not sure how it will interact with QU, though. I may have to change the wording so that he only acts first, but the first player is still treated as first for the purposes of dust decks, mythos cards, and so forth, otherwise he might break something. Thoughts?

Oh, and finally -- the picture is something I grabbed off DA. Not the best representation, this is really more of a dour looking fellow, but I think it works well enough.

That's a very interesting ability, and one I haven't seen before. Good work!

I think - for a preacher - his skills might be a little off. I would imagine a preacher having a higher will and a much higher lore. Also, I'd see him as being more of a 5/5 at least; maybe even a 6 san 4 stam.

I think part of the reason that people generally give religious figures paladin-like powers is that it's a delicate line to cross, adding a religious figure into such an obviously demonic and evil mythos (Lovecraft constantly uses the words daemonic and evil in his writings). I like your idea that the religious aspect is a source of comfort, rather than direct power. This may be something to capitalize on with this, or another investigator.

As always, my opinions are worth what you paid for them. Corinthian usually has really good suggestions. Hopefully he'll have an idea for you.

Here's a personal story I cooked up today for the Preacher. I know many people don't like the "free gift" angle on personal stories, but I feel like the fail results have the potential to be more interesting than many of them are. Max's story represents his attempts to gather the people of Arkham to fight back against the Mythos -- he begins to question the wisdom of this direction if he loses an ally or another investigator is devoured. In that case, he believes that he should shoulder the full burden, becoming something of a "sin eater" and diving into the Mythos, perhaps sacrificing himself, in order to defeat it. I feel like gaining a spell is probably not going to be too useful, and balanced against the loss of an ally and the permanent Will check modifier, it really isn't too powerful. However, I could see the player simply passing off the spell to another investigator and then getting devoured, so perhaps I should add a further sanction against trading for the rest of the game?

Hi!

I'm making my first custom investigator and I'd appreciate your feedback on the special abilities I've planned for him (as the investigator will be a birthday present for a friend of mine and I'd like to "get it right" on the first try).

The character (let's call him Steve) will be a "Performer" (and will be loosely based on my friend). He has only recently discovered the true nature of the strange inspiring visions he's had in his dreams. Realizing the terror he has passed forward to his audiences he tries to fight the evil with the same gift that has been used against him.

Special abilities:

Gather 'Round

Upkeep: When in Arkham, immediately after the Monster movement phase, Steve may spend 2 Clue tokens to make all able monsters take a step towards him.

Tough Crowd

When Steve battles two or more monsters consecutively he only has to pass the Horror check of the first monster he battles.

I'm planning to give him 5 Sanity and 5 Stamina, max Will of 4 and Fight of 3. His Sneak would be pretty low and Luck quite high. His strategy (as an able performer) could be to a.) Lure monsters away from gates or b.) Try to get good weapons after which trying to engage in battle with several monsters at once.

What does 'Steve' sound like? Would he be balanced in your opinion? Do the special abilities sound interesting and/or useful? The wording of the special abilities may be awkward as I'm not a native English speaker but I'll try to improve it. I'd also appreciate if you'd point out any grammar errors lurking there (for example, do you say "Horror check _of_ the monster" or should I rephrase that?)

Kelhanion said:

This seems a bit too expensive, since it's probably going to be quite hard to move some monsters into less awkward positions without also putting other monsters into more awkward positions. Also bear in mind that for most purposes, a monster in a street is just as much of a pain as a monster on a location in the same neighbourhood. So if you wanted to get monsters away from gates, you'd have to use the ability twice anyway - once to get the monster out to the street, then again to shift it into another neighbourhood. Two clue tokens doesn't seem like the right price - maybe he could spend a monster trophy in order to use the ability, instead. Just a thought; it needs playtesting really.

It's also not a simple ability - exactly what route the monsters take is often going to unclear, and you probably need to specify that if there are two equally direct routes, Steve decides. Also - you should probably phrase it in terms of "All monsters move in the direction of Steve." In theory that just about brings the ability in line with the phrasing of other monster movement abilites (like on the Dark Druid), so the ability will employ the monsters' usual movement tyoes, which is usually helpful in avoiding rules clashes and odd effects.

The monster movement step is part of the Mythos phase, so this ability shouldn't say 'upkeep'.

All things considered, the ability probably needs to say something like this: "Mythos phase: Immediately after the monster movement step, if Steve is in Arkham, he may pay [whatever the price is] to cause every monster to move according to its normal movement type. Monsters which move do so in the direction of Steve." It's not totally watertight but it'll do.

Monsters like the Hound of Tindalos will override this ability just like they override the 'black' and 'white' direction, so if you used this ability while a Hound was around, it'd jump the lowest-sneak person (or whatever it is) as normal.

Kelhanion said:

This isn't a bad idea at all. You probably don't need to specify that it's during a "two or more monsters" situation though, since that's just about the only situation in which you could ever possibly make more than one Horror check in a single turn anyway. Horror checks on encounters are very rare so it's not like the ability would somehow be open to abuse.

How to phrase it depends on how exactly you want it to work. Would he have to PASS the first Horror check in order to not take the subsequent checks, or would he only ever take the first check even if he failed it?

"Any phase: Steve automatically passes any Horror checks if he has already passed a Horror check this turn." It's a bit of a perverse way of phrasing it but it probably makes the most sense on terms of what's actually happening. Otherwise:

"Any phase: If Steve has already made a Horror check this turn, he can ignore all Horror checks for the rest of the turn."

Admiral142 said:

Curses! I just noticed this! Obviously I can't ignore a remark like that! So I now have to comment on all these new investigators!

@ Brooks: I think Mattherobot is absolutely right about Zoey Samaras and Selene. It's not that Selene is necessarily too powerful; it just seems like a shame that she's basically a Zoey 'upgrade' who has no new downsides. I think Zoey herself is too weakened by her lack of starting weapons, and in my experience the character never "gets off the ground", but you might have swung the idea too far the other way. Just give her one pistol, not two, and it'll be a lot less broken. Alternatively, give her a reasonably good weapon which is limited in some way (one use per combat, like the flamethrower, or it costs money to refresh it maybe). In practice, I've found that Zoey Samaras will not be too powerful even if she gets her hands on a good weapon; however, the fact that she can't get starting killing monsters right away is quite an important limiting factor which your Selene doesn't have.

Personally, I also think it's a bit disappointing that Selene's starting set of weapons is nearly "perfect" (i.e. it's nearly impossible to improve upon it, since almost no other combination of weapons you can buy/draw will reliably get you more than +8 in two hands). I prefer investigators' starting sets of items to have an aspirational element - there should be something missing, and it doesn't feel like there is. Technically Selene doesn't have a magic weapon, but her special ability makes this less important anyway, since nothing will ever be completely immune to her .45s.

If it was me, I'd just give her 2 random commons and 2 random uniques, and not give her any fixed weapons at all, and have her take her chances. You could always give her more cash so she can go shopping on turn 1 or 2.

@Admiral142: Not sure if I've understood the Druid right: is the idea basically that the Druid can use spell cards as clue tokens? In my view that's really not a very powerful ability at all. How much does it add up to? You could get three extra dice off her starting spells, three more off 'Acceptable Sacrifice' (which isn't worth giving up +2 Combat for, in my view) and after that you're forced to buy spells the same way anyone else does. Some of the Innsmouth investigators (Violinist, Federal Agent) get more clues tokens than that, basically for free, as secondary abilities! You could make the ability waaaay more powerful without stepping over the line. For example, have her be able to discard spells to add one success to the result of any skill check.

@Matttherobot: I quite like the Preacher, but the ability's wording is a bit confusing. It seems like it'd be simpler to just say "Any phase: Whenever a player gains the First Player marker, Max may choose to gain it instead." It seems to me that if Max is acting first and First Player events are happening to him, he might as well just be making himself into the actual First Player for the turn, so that things aren't confusing. Plus, the advantage is that the ability only works IF someone is actually gaining the marker, so things that prevent the marker being passed (like Quachil Uttaus) will also prevent Max using his ability.

I feel I have to point out that I did already make a custom investigator a month or two ago who had almost the same ability as the Preacher - in fact, a more powerful version. He was 'the Chess Player' and his ability was simply that "whenever the First Player marker is passed, you choose who gains it." Yours might be too weak or mine might be too powerful, or neither - it's hard to tell with these tactical team-based powers, since really it relies on the group being willing to work together to exploit the advantages.

Anyway since the Preacher's ability is limited to putting himself in the firing line (or shouldering responsibilities which other investigators might otherwise have to deal with), I think another self-sacrificing ability is in order: he should be able to be voluntarily devoured in another investigator's place. So whenever anyone gets devoured, the group have the option of getting Max devoured instead. Seems like fun - there isn't an official investigator with that ability as far as I can recall.

The personal story for the Preacher is ok, and I wouldn't bother with the trading restriction thing you mentioned. But be aware that if the story is passed, the ability to refresh any one ally once per turn will cause Max to become invincible in some Final Battles. If Max gets Herbert West or the Terrible Old Man, he can gain 2 sanity or 2 stamina every upkeep, so Ithaqua and Hastur can never kill him with their attacks.

P.S. Regarding art for priests: I quite like that picture. Did you add the priest collar yourself? If not, you should consider just using whatever picture you want and just adding a little square of white to the throat, since it's easy to make any picture into a priest if the neck is in shadow. There are plenty of pictures of shadowy figures on DA and most of them can probably be made into priests in five minutes using MSPaint.

That picture was ganked as-in from DA. I like your idea about the self-devouring ability, so I think I will toss that in. And now that you mention it, yes, I do remember the Chess Player. I think the Preacher is probably not powerful enough compared to your previous effort, but I think I'll leave it as is for now and try it in a few games. I'll likely switch the power to the wording you recommend as well. It does solve the QU issue, and it is clunkier as written now, but it seems more useful in that since players are still rotating, the Preacher will be able to "jump the queue" at different points each turn.

Thanks for pointing out the personal story issue. Damnable Kingsport allies not getting discarded when the AO wakes up. I'll try to fix that up. I also realized that except for the need for them to be monster trophies, it's just the same cost as an Ally for a slightly better reward, so that might need some tweaking.

Version two of the Preacher. I think he is a far more interesting investigator now. Starting with two clues is a lot better than $6, I think, and more characterful. I gave him an additional point of will as per suggestions and added a second ability that thecorinthian suggested. I thought of adding some perk to Max being devoured, such as the original investigator getting back some sanity or stamina, or maybe treating the event as a "retire" in that no events which trigger off a devouring would occur. Instead, I left it as a one-for-one trade, which seems more balanced. Sometimes, this ability will be extremely useful -- keeping someone alive in another world or giving the team's hard-hitter one last shot against a powerful AO. I'm looking forward to trying him out in this form.

Nice job, Matt! Here are the revisions I made for Briana

The idea is that she can pitch a spell to roll a die and add the result of the die roll to a skill. So, for example, if she were in combat and she had her fight set a 3, she could then pitch a spell (even an exhausted one) and roll a die. She then adds the result of the roll to her fight skill. So if she rolled a 3, she could add that to her fight skill, giving her a 6 fight until the end of the phase. I'd like to make it clear enough so that I don't have to put the example on the card, but I'm not sure if that's possible or not.

I look forward to feedback!

Okay, now I see the intent. How about phrasing it like "Briana may discard one spell to choose one skill and roll a die. She gets +X to checks using that skill until the end of the phase, where X is the result of the die rolled."

I might even say that the ability should last a whole turn -- it's unlikely to make much difference, barring lucky encounters, but the power doesn't seem too strong to limit it to just one phase.

For those who love the show Supernatural , I have created Dean and Sam Winchester and two custom items. The idea is that the two characters could work well together but that if only one of them were in the game or one happened to be devoured that they would stand up just fine on their own. I await any feedback!

I think your idea of two investigators that are tied together is interesting. I find their special abilities also interesting, they're kind of like Mandy Thompson's ability, but more restricted in the kinds of things you can do with them and less variable in terms of the number of extra dice you will get. Overall I would say that the "Presence" abilities are weaker than Mandy's "Research". But then again, your guys also get the ability to share stuff between them, which is nice.

I have a couple things I noticed that you might want to change.

1. Heroic presence's wording is unclear as to whether it works just for one check, or for an entire combat.

2. Why is the language about Sam never losing his journal on his stat card instead of the item's card? And this is more of a personal preference suggestion but how come they can't lose their items unless they allow it? There could be many dangerous story situations that involve losing a car or a journal, I think the chance that you might lose an item makes things more interesting. Also, items that cannot be lost are supposed to cost like $1 more than normal. Which leads me to the one thing that really does need to change, and that is:

3. The Impala and the Journal should not cost $0. They should definitely cost something and I think the Impala should cost at least $6. The way I came up with that number is that Ruby of R'lyeh is +3 movement and it costs $8. Since the impala costs $1 to refill, that's a $3 discount (the elephant gun is only a $2 discount, but other "pay to refresh" items apparently have a discount of $3). Since the car also is a built-in Rail Pass, you ought to add at least $1 onto the cost, bringing you up to $6. I say "at least" because the Rail Pass has a cost of $3 in the Strange Eons software, so if you did add $3, then your Impala would cost ... umm.... $8, the same as the Ruby of R'lyeh. So maybe it needs to cost as much as $8. For the Journal, it should definitely cost something too, since it sometimes just up and gives you a clue token, or it can add to checks which might be useful or might not. The item it sorta reminds me of is the Cryptozoology Collection, which costs $4, and I think the journal is at least as good or maybe a little better, so I would put the journal's cost at $5.

Aw, man! You beat me to it! I made a Sm and Dean a while back, but haven't posted them yet because I wanted feedback on my other investigators, and because I've only seen through season 3. These guys look cool though, and I like the stand alone abilities that you gave them. I also like the idea of the brotherly love ability. I think that on Dean, you can write the brotherly love power in the same way that you wrote it on Sam. That would eliminate confusion if only Dean were being played due, say, to a random draw.

With the items, I think that the journal is a bit "fiddly" as they say. I think you might want to treat it as a tome; something that gives a good continuous effect, or something that you can use each turn to get something (particularly a clue token). That, or you could take away the die roll and the upkeep requirement and just have it exhaust to give one of the desired effects. In this case I would increase the price quite a bit, and there should probably be a drawback. For example:

Movement: Exhaust and spend 2 Movement points to make a Lore (-2)[2] check. If you pass, gain 1 Clue token.
Any Phase: Exhaust to gain +2 to one Spell Check.
Any Phase: Exhaust to gain +2 to one Combat Check.
Dad's Journal does not refresh unless you spend all your focus to do so.

Or something like that. As usual, my advice is worth what you're paying for it. I think I'll make that my signature...

Here are my versions of Dean and Sam:

Interestingly, I think we made their stats pretty much the same! I also made a Colt, which I'll post in the items and allies thread...

Good luck with your Supernatural team!

Thanks for all your great feedback let me just clear up somethings though.

1. I agree that the wording for the Heroic Presence writing does need to be changed. My intent was that each combat roll after the activated ability would get the fight bonus. We tested Dean twice and it never came up because the check never failed so thanks very much for that. :-).

2. The language on Sam's card for the journal not being on the journal was purely aesthetic. I didn't like how small the font was on the item card. lol. The reason for the items not being able to be lost was more lore focused in the supernatural world. I feel these characters should have these items since in the show supernatural they are almost inseparable.

3. The reasoning for the cost of $0 was an issue I had with Strange Eons. I think that these custom items should come with the character and the only way that the program would let me add them without marking it as "unbalanced" was to make them $0. So let me ask you this. Don't you think that giving the items a cost, which would make me limit the number of random items they receive, make them weaker?

I did make personal quests for each of them but im still working them out. I have about a dozen more created characters but I thought since these came from a show that more people would like them! :-D

Thanks for all the feedback.

PrimeObsessed233 said:

Well, you could look at it that if they get special abilities and also cool items for free, maybe they're too strong? Anyway, the only items that cost $0 are tasks, it's unprecedented for tangible items to be free, but if you want to do it, it's of course your prerogitive.

The way you add custom items to a character's possessions is that underneath all the specific item dropdowns on the "possessions" tab of the character builder, there is a button with an icon that looks like a sorta like a bright star, which is called "New Item". You click that, and a new window will pop up. You can create items with custom costs right there, or you can click the "Import Settings from Card" button to import items you've already created.

I recently made a character that kind of fits me well as I am a Forensic Scientist and I need some imput on whether this characters special ability may be to powerful. I plan on playing several games with her with my wife this weekend but I could use some input before then. Her Story Continues and Personal Story are going to be tied into her Patrolling the Streets common item and the Southside Strangler mythos cards. I am using the character that Johnny Depp played in From Hell as a bit of inspiration for the character concept (with a bit more attitude). I am using the southside strangler as a sort of Jack the Ripper metaphor in the town of Arkham. This will all play well with the characters background and story that I will upload when I finish writing it. Anyway please post some insights into the characters skills, stats, items, and specifically the special abilities section as there is no real way to gauge how powerful it is.

Hi Whyllwyst,

I like Isabelle. I don't think either of her special abilities are overpowered by themselves, but put together they seem pretty awesome. But then again, some of the official investigators' abilities are pretty awesome too. So in my opinion you're fine with that part. By the way since your default speed only goes up to four, if you get Ruby or R'lyeh or the motorcycle the usefulness of Picking up the Trail will skyrocket.

Isabelle seems to have a specific script in the early game of what she's gonna do. She's gonna work on her task and hopefully while doing it kill enough monsters to become deputy when she arrives at the police station. At that point she's really ready to rock and roll with double pistols. Some investigators just start picking up clues and then jump in a gate. Or if their starting equipment was disappointing they might go shopping, Or they might head up to Kingsport to do rift duty (I have hatred in my heart for rift duty). Isabelle isn't gonna do any of those things, at least not right away. So, as long as you're ok with her having a clear script for her first few turns, that's ok too.

By the way, great picture!

Brooks said:

I did not think that the Ruby or Motorcycle would break her that much considering what the Necronomicon does for Daisy Walker (Practically makes her a God). Anyway I thought the ability would be balanced primarily by the fact that she looses 3 Arkham encounter phases in the early game in order to gain more later when monsters are more prevalent. I actually wanted a slightly scripted opening game with the character since it makes her feel more organic storyline wise. Also we usually assign a character to monster cleanup duty anyway and I tend to play the characters who fill that role. I cleaned up the language a bit on her special ability, making it a littler harder to misinterpret I believe. So without further adieu I give you the completed one part Frank Black from Mellenium, one part Frederick Abberline in From Hell, Isabelle Ingram...

Whyllwyst said:

Ha! You're certainly right about Daisy. One of my friends always plays Daisy, and he camps himself out at the library for the first few turns, trying to draw the Necronomicon while using Alchemical Process (which he acquires via Daisy's fixed Tome) to get money to buy yet more spells at the Magic Shop. Then once he has something awesome like double Shrivelling, he starts heading out to kick butt. So yes, I'm familiar with the fun of a scripted first few turns. After all, there are lots of tasks in life that have some scripted aspects, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, yeah, I like Isabelle a lot.