Brooks said:

Yeah I know this maneuver I also play daisy alot (though I switch out with Carolyn Fern and Darrell Simmons occasionally). I just love the Alchemical Process spell, its like having Jenny Barnes ability x3 since she hardly ever fails it. Anyway what did you think about the personal story, I am begining to think it may be a little to week on the pass for way to harsh a sentence on the fail.

Thanks for the encouragement btw

Re: Isabelle, I'm not sure how to interpret the first ability. It seems to me that you want her to be able to move, fight monsters, and continue moving. So far, so good. You also want to encourage the player to become Deputy, which grants the Patrol Car. If she has the Patrol Car, how does her movement work? Can she really jump around to all the spaces on the board, assuming she can keep killing all the monsters?

Also, the wording seems a bit finicky. I think the assumption is that she continues her movement with the number of movement points she had left before entering the area, but keep in mind that one usually loses all of one's movement points when engaging a monster in combat. Maybe it works the way it is, I'm not sure.

She does seem to be a pretty good combat investigator with Will/Fight maxing at 5 each. Starting with a .45 is always helpful, and while I'm usually against fixed items, as a cop it does make sense. Like Brooks said, this character will probably be following a pretty set path through the early game, which is fine, as long as you realize it. If I were playing her, I would probably try to pass more for the avoidance of the fail result (which is pretty bad) than to get the pass result (which seems meh).

@ Whyllwyst:

Nice work on Isabelle Ingram - I can't see any serious problems with it. A couple of very minor recommendations though:

She starts with a .45 Automatic , and she's probably gonna get the Deputy's gun, so the two random commons might be redundant. I'd change one of them into a random spell, just so there's less likely to be a redundant item (such as another small gun that she wouldn't need anyway). Also, since she's more likely to get into scrapes with monsters early in the game than go shopping, I'd convert $2 or even $4 of her money into Clue tokens.

Matttherobot has a point. It seems pretty clear to me what 'Picking Up The Trail' is meant to do, but it isn't worded as elegantly as it could be. Normally, if someone stops in a street or location, they encounter the monsters there when they end their movement , which means you have to decide to end your movement in order to ecnounter the monsters. The way Isabelle's ability is written at the moment, it implies that in order to use it, she would decide to end her movement and then after fighting the monster she could decide that she hasn't ended her movement after all , which is a kinda perverse way for an ability to work.

It also seems to me that the question of whether Isabelle defeats the monsters or not isn't the important part, since all that really matters is whether she encounters them. If she encounters them and doesn't defeat them, she'll usually be going to the hospital anyway, so the fact that she can continue to move is fairly irrelevent (there are one or two very odd circumstances in which this wouldn't be true but I don't think you need to worry about the ability making allowances for those).

There's one other oddity: as the ability is currently written, if she ran into two monsters, she could continue to move if she evaded them both (like anyone could), or if she defeated them both, but not if she evaded one and defeated the other.

So what I think the ability should actually say is this: " Any phase: Combat does not end Isabelle's movement." That's all you need. Everything else that ends her movement - such as her voluntarily ending her own movement - still ends her movement, and you don't have this confusing idea that someone's movement can end and then continue and then end again.

On the other hand, if the thing about having to defeat all the monsters is deliberate, then feel free to, y'know, ignore me.

Wow thanks for all the insight! I am changing the ability to read that combat simply does not end her movement as that was my only intention with the ability. While having the Patrol Wagon with her movement ability is a little wierd its has some very specific effects. One the one hand her ability allows her to travel 4 spaces possibly defeating several monsters on different spaces during a turn. This is very intentional on my part as I wanted a character who kind of hunts the "monsters" of the night. On the other hand using the patrol wagon can move the character across the board or even into Dunwich, Kingsport or Innsmouth to deal with threats in those areas. In addition, since the patrol wagon can get discarded after fights with monsters (something she is sure to do alot) its unlikely to stick around forever. So while it seems a bit wierd there are benefits to having both. I am also unhappy with the story cards so I will possibly be revamping them soon. I agree with you that she may have to many common items so I will look in to that as well since I forgot about the deputy's gun. Thanks for everything and keep them coming.

I am thinking of changing her Story Pass to gain a single ally of her choice, essentially representing her new partner. Do you feel this goes to far in the other direction of making her story to powerful? I have noticed that others have the same choice with their story cards and figured I could tie that into her story fairly easily.

Okay I give you Isabelle 2.0... Okay I changed her ability to not be so wonky sounding. She now gets 3 clues to help with monster combats, and essentially gains 2common, 2unique, and a skill. A combination that many investigators start with. I choose not to go with spells because her Lore is terrible and she's likely to never cast them anyway. I removed all of the random common items because I noticed that finishing Patrolling the streets gives her a common item, she will also gain the deputy's gun as soon as she becomes deputy so I think that will be fine for the character.

Whyllwyst said:

Whyllwyst said:

That final form looks great! I like how she gets a good start on Clue Tokens now, and a couple uniques. Uniques in my opinion vary more than the Commons in their effectiveness (hmm Milk or Sword of Glory , lemme think...) but there are some REALLY good ones, as you know. So that'll be fun to see what you get.

I think gaining an Ally as a reward for passing makes a lot of story sense, since cops who are detectives almost always work in the form of paired partners. Although as far as I'm aware, the other official investigators who have Ally-type rewards are just special personalized proto-allies whose bonuses are enumerated on the card. For example Hank Samson, who gets "Pa" who simply gives +1 Will and +1 Lore with no special other bonus, like most normal allies come with. By the way, the Lore for Hank is a little perplexing, if I was playing Hank I'd rather have more Fight than more Lore). You might want to consider creating your own custom ally right on the Pass card.

Giving you the choice of taking a normal Ally of your choice like The Messenger would be, I think, more powerful than any currently released official personal story reward. Although you could still do that I suppose if you made the Fail result equally significant.

Okay a specific "partner" ally sounds like a good idea. I'll give it some thought and see what I can come up with.

Okay what about a partner that gives her +1 speed and +1 fight. The speed benefit would play into her special ability and the fight represents the partner "backing her up". Failing the story now reduces her to 0 stamina forcing her to choose to loose stuff or gain an injury. A little less drastic than gaining an Injury and a Madness.

Whyllwyst said:

I'd go with something like +1 Speed and +1 or even +2 Sneak. She doesn't need another Fight bonus all that much, since she already has a good Fight track and will probably end up with a very good set of weapons. Since Combat usually deals with large bonuses and large modifiers, adding a further +1 is also less likely to be a big noticeable change to the character, whereas +2 Sneak would suddenly make it practical for her to actually evade monsters.

I think the fail condition on the personal story was better when it was nastier, though.

thecorinthian said:

Good point, her fight even when at minimum would already be a 9 which is a decent bonus by any standards.

I Chose +1 Speed, +1 sneak since every other official story ally only gives +1 to two skills.

Okay Here is Isabelle in what should be her Final Form

A friend of mine is an actual economist and I just created this guy out of thin air. Tell me what you think!

@Prime

My initial impressions are that the character itself dosen't seem to have a purpose or story for the game itself other than; I would like to have a character that starts with the credit rating skill. While this is not inherently wrong by any means, the key to making an organic investigator is to understand the motivations then let the statistics fall into place.

That said, all his stats and items are within legal limits so nothing wrong there. While his first ability is certainly useful, its not useful enough to stand on its own. So there needs to be a second ability. The problem comes in with the second ability. He has a minor version of both Monteray Jack's and Bob Jenkins's ability. Still not crazy bad but here is where it all goes wrong. The ability to gain an additional item at half price and then use Credit Rating to reduce it by a further 2 dollars means that you will only pay $2 for the most expensive item in the game while drawing 4 items at a time. In my opinion that is very broken and needs to be re-evaluated.

Now my suggestion... Start with the concept you want to go with (in this case the Economist), flesh out the story and background of why this economist has either come to Arkham or what his role is in Arkham. Then flesh out his stats and items including his "Cool Thing". If this means you don't have a character with the exact item or Cool Thing you wanted thats okay because in the long run you will have a organic character that feels like he fits with the rest of the game. If you need inspiration think about how your friend would react when confronted with the mythos and go from there.

@ Prime - I really like that initial ability! Kind of like a different spin on the Martial Artists ability, but I like yours better because it doesn't require a whole other stat line and it just seems to flow better. I agree with Whyllwyst that he should have a second ability, and that the second ability he currently has might need some tweaking. What if you did something like: Whenever any investigator (including himself) gains 2 or more dollars, he gains 1 dollar. That would make it so that it gets set off by a retainer, but not by Jenny Barnes ability. Also, if he managed to get a retainer, he'd be pulling in $3 instead of the normal 2. Lastly, that will make it so that he doesn't need to buy things half price, especially in the latter half of the game or so, because he'll be filthy stinking rich (most likely). Additionally, you could start him with a retainer rather than the credit rating skill, if you wanted to. Just some thoughts. I was going to make a Union Representative with that power, but if you like it and think it works with your guy, feel free to use it! Also, Whyl has a good point about fleshing out the story first, but I usually do it the other way round... Different strokes, i guess! As always, my advice is worth what you paid for it.

I like admirals suggestion about money gains but it may be a little more useful if worded that whenever he gains 1 or more dollars he gains an additional dollar. This flows alot like all the other abilities of gaining an extra something when you gain something. Also as Admiral said this would work great if you started him with a Retainer. This to me would feel a lot more like an economist.

Ps. My advice is worth even less than his

@Whyllwyst:

Although I don't agree with you completely on how to create an organic character, I do believe that the second ability needs work. I have to admit that I have had this character on my computer for quite some time and that I just recently found him and thought that I should post him to the forums and see what the masses thought. I like to think of myself as a chess player when I go into creating a character; i.e. the story of a character really doesnt concern me as much the mechanic of the character. I let my friend handle the backgrounds of all my created investigators. When I thought of my actual friend Adam, I thought of what it meant to be an economist and thats where we get "Cost and Benefit" now the secondary ability was put together in a rush as I wanted to get the character done in order for him to play his character. He has had one test run but that was it. I do agree that the second ability needs working.

@Admiral:

Thanks so much for your advice!! I do like your ability, I do, however, want to work on something a little different but I now see the flaw in this. Ill try to post some of my other more polished characters in the future. Time to work on this one!!

Whyllwyst said:

Heh heh...I'm with Prime on this one....this is exactly the opposite of how I design characters! I just try to think of a special power that hasn't been used before, and then I balance the character using the stats and items, and then I make up a flimsy "in-character" justification for the ability, usually based on what sort of person I can find a good 1920s picture for...

Adam Nobles isn't bad, but the second ability is a bit lame. The first ability is the interesting part - people have tried to make "san/stam combiners" before but this is probably the best approach yet. It has the advantage of not really protecting you in a crisis, because you have to survive until the upkeep in order to heal yourself (which I think is a good thing; it means that sanity and stamina aren't totally interchangeable in the short term).You've phrased the ability in a pretty verbose way though. All it needs to say is this:

"Upkeep: Adam may spend any amount of Sanity to gain that many points of Stamina, or vice versa."

That has the exact same effect as what you wrote (I think). The game rules do the rest of the work for you, since you can't ever exceed your maximums anyway, and you can't spend more than you have. He could send himself to hospital or the asylum by spending his last point, but that's his own problem.

(Now that the rules are out of the way, I think Whyllwyst does have a point about the character's personality: a healing ability this good really doesn't seem like an Economist type of thing. If you're willing to change him, I reckon he should be an Indian Fakir who has spiritual powers over his body and that type of thing. That's a classic 1920s pulp stereotype right there. Then you can make a more convincing Economist by having a guy who gains an extra dollar whenever he gains a dollar or whatever it was.)

I'm making a custom investigator set with my friend. The set will consist of great Victorian literature characters and they are meant to be played together (mainly for the atmosphere). Most of the investigators will be quite complex to play (meaning that their special abilities will be quite unique) but hey, we get excited if we can think of a reason to add more markers to the table

Here is the first draft for Victor Frankenstein. He can be quite a powerful character if he can gather a formidable posse of allies but he must always be on his toes as the vengeful Creature does not want to see him happy and would be glad to see him crippled and alone. When alone, Victor is not only weak but also handicapped. So there should be enough motivation for some "ally rally" (sorry for the pun). The movement speed of The Creature is random to increase the tension of the chase (and to make Victor take his chances in trying to get past it).

Does Victor sound balanced? Are the handicaps for "no allies" play too harsh? Can you see loopholes in the behaviour of the Creature (he can enter locations and use transportation as he is intelligent)? And could you point out any grammar or game terminology errors if you feel up to it (as I'm not a native English speaker and there are sure to be some)?

And now for the character and his "accessories".

I appreciate any feedback as we are very excited to make this set as enjoyable as possible!

In america we do not "throw" dice, we roll them... Throwing dice is how people loose teeth (true story friend lost a tooth from a thrown D20) lol

Whyllwyst said:

Really? In Britain we throw them. Often we throw them at each other. We encourage it. I've got some jumbo-sixed metal d20s whcih will take a man's head clean off his shoulders.

Enough about that.

@Kelhanion: Your English seems pretty good to me, man. I just think you need to fix the investigator's rules a bit. Do you have the Innsmouth Horror expansion? This character's concept would benefit from being re-organized so that it's mostly handled by a 'Personal Story' card. (Also, just to be annoying, I'd like to point out that Frankenstein isn't Victorian literature. It was published decades before Victoria took the throne, and Frankenstein himself would have to be about 125 years old at the time Arkham Horror is set... but I think we can all agree to not care about that. This is a great idea for a character, and here's what I reckon you need to do to make it work:

Henry Clerval: Reduce this guy's Fight bonus to +1.

Victor's stats: Make the Fight/Will track much less extreme (since Clerval is modifying it anyway). Make it Fight 1-4 and Will 2-5.

'For The Love Of God': This is really four abilities all mushed together, and there's a limit to how many different effects you can fit under one heading before it becomes confusing. Try this wording instead: "Any phase: Whenever Victor draws an encounter card which provides a specific ally, he gains that ally without needing to pass skill checks or pay costs. He may gain allies this way even if they have been returned to the box." The thing about Ma's board house is nice, but I reckon it's not essential to the character, and you've got a serious 'word count' problem, so it should probably be cut. The bit where Victor loses sanity is also a good idea, but it needs to be put elsewhere (see below).

'It knows I'm here': I reckon you should just cut this ability altogether. It's another interesting idea but it has no business being on an investigator sheet, because it's an ability which allows other investigators to interact with another special card. Instead, you need to include a two-part special ability which helps set up the Creature. "Mythos phase: If the Creature monster marker is on this sheet, place it at the Graveyard. Any phase: If The Creature is ever taken as a trophy, return it to this sheet instead." (Yeah, I think the Creature needs to be a spawn monster. That's the only way you're gonna make it work with any semblence of sanity. Keep reading...)

Give Victor a 'Personal Story': The 'pass condition' should be "If Victor defeats The Creature , place [success] in play." The fail condition should be "If Victor has no allies, or another investigator defeats The Creature , place [Failure] in play."

The 'Success' effect should be: "Return The Creature to the box. Victor loses the ability 'It Knows I'm Here'." And some other reward is probably needed, otherwise the character is a bit too risky. The 'Failure' effect should be "Victor automatically fails all Horror checks." That will probably have the same effect as your second ability, in the long run.

The Creature: This has got to be a proper monster marker, not just a special card. Otherwise it's going to create all sorts of problems. It needs to be a Spawn and Green-bordered (special movement) , with the moon dimension symbol . The Awareness modifier needs to be quite easy (probably +0) because other investigators are not going to want to fight this thing. It needs to have a harsh Sanity test, a harsh Stamina test and probably 3 toughness. Most important of all, it needs this special text on the back: "The Creature moves three spaces, in the direction of Victor Frankenstein (if able). When you fail a Combat check against The Creature, discard an Ally."

I THINK that should all work. What happens now is: The Creature appears at the Graveyard and chases Victor around, trying to kill his friends (and killing the other investigators and their friends seems like a reasonable extension of this). If Victor is using his Personal Story (and he'd be crazy not to), then he can kill the Creature permanently, but if not, it'll keep resurrecting and chase him for the whole game.

Is that close enough to what you envisaged? My only concern is that being stalked by the Creature is a real pain and this character doesn't really have a game-changing special advantage to make up for it! The ally-recruiting ability is almost identical to one which I used on one of my own custom investigators a while back, and in my experience it's not very powerful since ally encounters are so rare and you have to waste time waiting for them to show up.

Small maybe pointless suggestion:

Lovecraft wrote a story about a professor tinkering with the dead, do not remeber the name of the story though. Staying true to the lovecraft-mythos you could change the names to fit this instead. In short the story is about a professor trying to reanimate the dead and realises that their tormented bodies once alive haunt him down. With this you could still keep the ally-card along with the creature and only change a couple of names. Just a suggestion..

Sounds like you're talking about Herbert West: Re-Animator , which HPL pretty much admitted is a re-telling of Frankenste in anyway.

Hey Guys, you're making some fantastic stuff! Hopefully mine can kinda compare.

So, I took my first try at making my own character (not based on other material). Niclas the German medic. The only thing that may be unbalanced is the ability, so any tips would be great.

My first thought about the ability is that it may be underpowered. The extra stamina boost is nice, but only for one phase probably won't have an effect. The ability I could see it most similar to is Vincent Lee's, but Vince can use it on himself, which in my games is much more common.

Perhaps raise the boost level to three stamina? That'd be pretty significant. Or change it to the rest of the turn? Or make it permanent, but a maximum of one per player? Or maybe he can give them +1 max stamina but -1 max sanity as often as he wishes?

I'm just shooting from the hip here. But otherwise I think a solid idea.