I've wanted to do a Native American character for a while, and have been rolling ideas around in my head for one. After doing a little research, I found out that the Iroquois (Nation) are from the North East, and that they believe heavily in dream imagery and dream questing. They are also a matriarichal society, from the info I got. So here is what I came up with:

As always, constructive criticism is welcome! P.S. Corinthian also has a Native American in his Golden Scarab expansion!

P.P.S. Her home is supposed to be the Administration Building, per her story so far (which I didn't post, for the sake of room.).

@m3ds334:

I'm not sure if I understand the Medic's special ability correctly. When it increase another investigator's maximum by 1 for the phase, does it heal them to maximum? Is it that if you're not at maximum, you just heal 1 point? Either way, it's too weak! Vincent Lee is one of the weaker investigators. Stamina is actually quite a cheap resource in the game - it's already pretty easy to get more of it if you lose some. So if a "healer" investigator is going to be worth having, the way he provides Stamina needs to be significantly more efficient than a visit to St. Mary's.

I've had an idea for how it might be possible to do a good "healer". I'll post it soon.

@Admiral142:

This is already in pretty good shape. One thing I don't quite get: is the "step sideways" ability meant to be something you use to enter the other worlds if you're in Arkham during that phase, or is it just meant to be for switching between Other Worlds once you've already gone through a gate?

It's meant to allow her to enter an other world from Arkham, but she could switch other worlds too, I guess. I wanted this to happen during the Other World encounter phase so that she wouldn't have an encounter her first turn in the Other World. Since she's going to be there for about 3 turns anyway (stand up, encounter, move, encounter, exit), I thought it would be a little easier that way. Is there a way to make that more clear on the card? Having things happen in the other world encounters phase isn't very common, so I'm not sure if I phrased it correctly.

Hey folks!
Here's the custom character I usually use - Lobster Johnson (yes, I'm a bit of a Hellboy fan). For his Special Ability I simply used and renamed Brutal. I designed him to be what he is - a monster wacker.

Nice one Booger! If you go back some pages, my friends made a couple investigators from comics. One was Hellboy, the other was John Constantine. There's also some good input from people about how to adjust them to work well!

I need some help with this guy. I AM NOT GIVING HIM 4 ABILITIES, I just can't decide what abilities to give him. Any suggestions?

Here are the abilities in a more readable format:

<h1>Celebrity</h1>
<b>Any Phase:</b> Investigators in the same neighborhood as <name> receive +1 to all skill checks.

<b>Arkham Encounters:</b> <name> receives +1 to all skill checks when having an encounter in Arkham.

<h1>Batter Up</h1>
<b>Any Phase:</b> When <name> uses a weapon in combat it gains an additional +1 to its normal bonus.

<h1>Slide</h1>
<b>Any Phase:</b> <name> does not automatically take damage from a monster when he fails his initial evade check against it.

Feedback is encouraged! Thanks!

@ The Boogerman:

Nice work on the Lobster. Good picture too, since Mignola's artwork doesn't work well for AH characters and it's rare to find other artists who do a good job on Hellboy characters. (In case you haven't gathered, I also am a Hellboy fan. Almost obsessed, one might say.)

Two things I might change:

- Ignoring resistances is fine, but it often just amounts to a few more dice, so it doesn't really feel like the investigator is doing something special. Also, 'Overwhelming' is quite rare. What I'd do is, I'd give him 'Ignores Overwhelming and Nightmarish' as a second ability and then... come up with a more powerful and unusual primary ability. I'm not sure what. He burns the Claw symbol into the heads of his enemies, so something to do with monster trophies maybe? If you just want him to be really good at combats, you could try just making him super tough - "Any phase: all sanity and stamina losses Lobster Johnson suffers in combat are reduced to 1." or something like that. Although then you might have to make him 7/3 in order to balance things out.

- I wouldn't bother with the special weapon. Just give him a normal .45 Automatic. It's not like he's not going to upgrade to a Tommy Gun if he gets one, and the 'lost or stolen' ability on weapons is (in my view) not very useful anyway. Also, it's one of those abilities which isn't very well defined.

Aha! Here's an idea: instead of giving him a special weapon, give him a unique item called 'The Lobster's Claw' which takes up one hand but doesn't actually add any dice... except that if you use it in combat it gives you some special bonuses. "Magical Weapon. Any phase: Exhaust when making a Combat check. If you do so, your combat bonuses from weapons on that check are not reduced by Physical and Magical Resistance." The wording might need work there, I dunno.

@Admiral142:

(Is the Louisville Slugger that thing which is better against Undead? Remind me.)

'Celebrity' isn't a bad concept but the thing where other people get a bonus is barely worth it, and the thing with +1 to all Skill checks on Arkham Encounters isn't all that great either. It doesn't seem to me that just giving +1 is enough of an incentive to make you go and have lots of Arkham encounters - and even if it was, having Arkham encounters isn't usually a particularly satisfying way to spend the game anyway.

You could change it so that he automatically passes any skill check if it's part of an encounter which includes a "named person" - so that would include most of the Ally encounters (although not all of them) and also all the ones with Joey the Rat, Bill Washington, Miriam Beecher etc etc. It would mean that a significant proportion of all Arkham encounters would give him free stuff.... although that might take away some of the suspense and be less fun.

- You could just have him sign autographs to get good publicity: "Arkham Encounter phase: After <name> resolves an Arkham Encounter which includes a named person, <name> gains $2." That'd mean there'd be less reason to give him such an outrageous pile of cash to start with. Although the words "named person" have no defined game meaning, so it wouldn't always make sense: he'd end up signing autographs for Nephren-Ka and the ghost of Keziah Mason.

- Just getting +1 per weapon is a bit lame, mainly because there's already an Ally who provides that exact ability. On the other hand, coming up with new ways of adding extra dice is getting increasingly difficult these days.... here's one idea for a very powerful way: "Any phase: if Johnny has a free hand while using a weapon, his combat bonus from that weapon is doubled." It doesn't make much sense that holding a .45 automatic in two hands would make it twice as powerful, but it makes some sense for most of the Unique weapons - he wields the magic swords two-handed and his baseball technique helps when he's hitting things with the enchanted cane...

- 'Slide' isn't bad although it would be better if he had better Sneak. The ability basically allows the player to attempt to evade without risking anything; however if you're going to encourage people to attempt to evade, it would be nice if there was a chance they'd ever actually succeed.

Hi, I've made a series of over 25 custom investigators for my friends and I to use during our games of Arkham madness! They persuaded me to post them online and share them with fellow enthusiasts.

They've all been playtested, but I would still appreciate any feedback.

The first is one of my favourites, Jack the sadomasochist. EDIT: right-click and View Image to see the whole thing.

His low sneak skill is his major weakness (as he is not particularly exceptional in combat) but is justified because he wants to experience all types of horrible monster pain

Memorable moments with Jack include him particularly enjoying a pocket of bad air in the Black Cave, getting off to an arm wrestling match with William Brinton, and a punishing but clue-filled encounter with a Star Spawn. Jack often ends the game with quite a few injuries, but a healthy amount of extra clue tokens.

I hope you enjoy. Let me know if you want me to post more of my investigators.

OMG, I love pessimistic. That is very flavorful.

Hey, Gamura, you could rename the courtesan's ability as "Hey, baby..."

I thought I'd post a couple of abilities I came up with for an investigator I am working on...

<b>Any Phase:</b> Whenever an investigator in the same location suffers stamina loss, <name> may take that loss in their place.
<h1>Loyalty</h1><b>Any Phase:</b> Whenever another investigator encounters a fight, <name> may move one step closer to their location.
<h1>Empathy</h1><b>Any Phase:</b> Whenever an investigator in the same location suffers Sanity loss, <name> may test <b>Lore</b> and decrease the damage by the number of successes.

Oh, the first one is called "Martyr".

Wow, Gamura, I love the ball player. Cobb is my father-in-law's favorite old-timer, I gotta show that to him next time we visit.

Thanks Nargy!

That's great, Cecilia is Dione Warwick! I can see why she hangs out in the Magick Shoppe LOL

Hello! I am admiring many of these custom characters posted in here. I decided to drop off some of mine. I need criticism please!(not that I won't fight back) ;]

Mk, so my first two are of Solid Snake they are identical except for the special, number one has him take all the effects of a normal failed evade check except that you auto take the horror sanity loss. The second one is a standard failed evade check, taking damage and rolling the horror.

And the second one ( different pic to help me differenciate.)

And an unrelated one, I choose an ex-mental patient gone forced military service.

So those are them, not all entirely made by me, but still in need of some judgement. =]

Hi all,

I know it's been a long time since I've last posted. I took a break from creating Arkham custom materials, but I'm back with hopefully a good one. It's Alucard from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night ! I'll post the pic here, and then explain my reasoning below that:

First off, there's been some talk in my game group that my previous characters, Garrett and Selene, have been too powerful. I've had to make modifications to them (which I have not posted in this thread) to bring them more into line. So this time, I'd like this new character Alucard to come out more balanced right from the start, while still having a fun and unique feeling to him.

His items are the same as two items which already exist, the .45 Automatic and the Gruesome Talisman. My idea for those is that I wanted to incorporate two of the items which are in the Symphony of the Night game (in roughly the same way that they work in the game), but in forms which are well balanced. It's getting pretty hard to come up with balanced items which haven't already been used in the retail expansions, so I just went with copies of retail items in which they differ only in their names and artwork.

His special abilities are quite strong. Because of that, I used the option in Strange Eons to give a -1 Penalty to focus. With his current stats, Alucard normally would have had 2 Focus.

Dark Metamorphosis is a spell taken from Symphony of the Night that Alucard uses to heal himself. In the video game, if he has the spell active, when he strikes monsters that bleed, and if the blood touches him, he regains health. I figured that by consuming "blood" drops (toughness), Alucard as an Arkham character could conceivably do the same, especially since he is a Vampire.

Rare Treasure is another concept brought over from "Symphony of the Night". In the game, whenever Alucard killed a monster, there was a small chance that money would drop, an even smaller chance that an common item would drop, and a very rare chance that a special unique item would drop. I decided to try to translate this into game terms via the "roll two dice" mechanic (see image above), which was suggested to me by a friend. My original idea was to use a very hard luck check, but that presented various problems with the check being too easy if Alucard used clue tokens or other re-roll mechanics, or if he gained luck-based allies, items (beyond his fixed ring) or skills.

I have not yet created a personal story for Alucard, I'm having trouble coming up with a concept or mechanic for it. But I'm open to ideas or even on my own will likely come up with something.

What do you guys think of Alucard?

Ok I came up with a possible personal story for Alucard:

In the video game, Alucard can gain a "Familiar" which, some more than others, can assist him in his adventure. They mainly help by doing extra damage to the monsters near Alucard. Also, Alucard often talks about, and feels conflicted about, the struggle to hold back his vampire side, so that's where the fail comes in. If he uses his special ability too much, he loses some of his sanity.

One thing with Alucard that I definitely need to change ASAP is that he ought to be 6 Stamina 4 Sanity. Since he's a fighter, 4/6 is more in line with the standard investigators.

I like the idea you have going there, Brooks. I would suggest that you make his Dark Metamorphosis power effect only his Stamina. This seems to make more sense as far as vampirism goes, as, "The blood is the life." I think if you did this, you could also give him back his focus point. Or maybe you could even do something like, "If <name> defeats a monster in combat using only his fight skill (i.e. no weapon bonuses), he gains Stamina equal to the monsters toughness." Just an idea. As for the rare treasure ability, I know Corinth would advise against a dice rolling unique ability. I think in this case, it makes sense, as you are trying to keep the character in line with the video game theme. I'm sure there is another way to make it work, but I can't really think of one right now. Maybe base it on the monsters movement type or dimensional symbol or something? I dunno, just some thoughts. I do like his personal story though. I think the effect is good, and it gives you pause when using the currently powerful Dark Metamorphosis power. You might add that in addition to losing the Sanity, he can't gain allies for the rest of the game. Depends on how harsh you want to be with the fail condition.

Thanks for posting! The threads of Atlach-Nacha's web have been still for some time... (insert creepy music)

I think you're right about Dark Metamorphosis . I guess my past thinking was that Vampires drink to replenish their "health". In the context of Arkham, does Sanity count as a sort of mental "health"? I don't have an easy answer to that, although clearly having a choice replenishing Sanity or Stamina makes the ability much more powerful, too much so really. So I'll make the change you suggested.

I've never liked Michael McGlen's setup... he has huge stamina and also prevents stamina losses, but he has huge problems with Sanity. I guess the idea is everyone is supposed to have a "weak point"? Alucard will sort of share Michael McGlenn's situation, where Stamina is really not a problem, but Sanity is a big concern. The differences are that Michael McGlen's Stamina ability is stronger than Alucard's, while Alucard has less of a problem with Sanity (because he's a 4/6 and has a better Will track).

If I do go Stamina-only, it's gonna greatly reduce the instances in which I want to use Dark Metamorphosis. I feel like I would have mostly wanted to use it on Sanity if I had a choice. Stamina-only will also make it harder to fail my personal story. Therefore, I'm also thinking of making the Personal Story conditions harder by changing the number of toughness uses of Dark Metamorphosis at which Alucard fails to 3 or more, down from 4. I also worded it differently so that it's Stamina replenished, and not toughness comsumed that will cause clue tokens to be added. That will make it so Dark Metamorphosis won't really "unlock" for significant use until Alucard passes his story by acquiring an Ally.

Even if I nerf Dark Metamorphosis , however, I'm having a hard time deciding whether to give Alucard his focus point back. I don't want to get rid of Rare Treasure , I like the concept. But with the nerfed Dark Metamorphosis and Rare Treasure together, they still seem overly strong, and I believe deserving of the -1 penalty to focus, if I want to claim that this character is "balanced".

Oh I also meant to ask, what's the problem with a special ability (Rare Treasure) in which you do a (small) amount of dice rolling? I don't mind it doing it, but is there some way in which it goes against the spirit of the game? Also I'm not wild about the name " Rare Treasure ", but I couldn't think of anything better...

FEEDBACK WANTED

Ok, so I decided to do a series of investigator based on Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV Show (Yes, I know I'm not the first one to do it. I don't care, I want to make mine ). On my list are (more or less in order) Buffy, Xander, Wilow, Giles, Angel, Spike, Faith, with maaaaybe Dawn, Oz and Satsu (from Season 8 comic-books) to complete.

I also want to make some of the Big Bad, but probably as Herald (Drusila, Angelus and Caleb are good candidate for that. Maybe the First and Glory as Ancient Ones)

So, without further ado, here is the first investigator of the series, the Buffster hersef!

And for those who want to read the backside with little story I did to explain why Buffy is in Arkham: img17.imageshack.us/img17/1821/secard21819380835880119.jpg

Now, for the explanation: Speed and Sneak are high but not too much, because Buffy is quick on her feet and quite sneaky, but not as much as other may be. Fight is high because, duh, she's the Slayer and Will is high because having killed those thing since she's 15, she isn't very much impressed anymore. Her Lore is low because I rarely saw her read a book in the show (except maybe to impress a guy) and her Luck is low because Buffy is extremely unlucky (Her chosen soulmate can't have sex with her, her mother died quite young, she died herself twice, she lacks a father figure and a whole lotta problem. Poor Buffy)

I gave her Strong Body to represent her Slayer's healing capabilities and also to refer to the fact that Buffy is really hard to kill. As for Slayer's Arsenal, Buffy has a chest full of weapons in her home, and she doesn't always bring the same weapon with her. And no, the fact that Stake is mentionned two times is not a typo, it's because you can choose two Stake if you want.

The thing I,m less sure is the balance of the new items. Could anyone help me on that? Feedback is also more than greatly appreciated. I wanna know what you think!

Collex said:

I'd like to do my best to give constructive criticism, so please take the following with an open mind.

The biggest problem I see in doing a Buffy investigator is how anachronistic she is (1990s character in a 1920s setting,) however, it is your game, so you can do whatever you want.

Still, there are a few things I think are off. 4 sanity and 6 stamina is acceptable, although personally I'd probably have made it 5/5. Focus 2 is good, means she has some flexibility.

That being said, her skills are very bad. The speed and sneak are average, but the fight and will are really high. You've set this character into the monster hunter role, yes, but a character shouldn't be focused entirely on that.

A max Lore of 2 is crippling. She'll be failing just about every Lore check unless she spends clues. How I see Lore skill is not just the ability to read a book, but rather as a general knowledge of the occult. I'd have though Buffy would have a max of 4 in Lore.

Also, why does she have 2 skills? The only official character with 2 skills is Amanda, and those skills are to offset her average stats. She also only has 1 common item. Perhaps 2 common and 1 unique would have been appropriate and given her more versatility. In fact, you made common items related to her, but didn't give her either to start off with? I'd have thought she would at least start with a stake.

Having copied McGlenn's ability feels a bit lazy to me. Perhaps you could have come up with something a bit more unique?

As for your items, let's take a comparison. Crossbow is close to rifle. Both take 2 hands to use and both give a +5 bonus. Crossbow is $1 cheaper, but I think I'd choose rifle over it every time. Why? The crossbow is a burst weapon. That's understandable, as those things tend to be one shot before reloading. It ignores Physical Resistance, but if that came up, I'd probably use either a Magical weapon or spells. Also, it costs 2 movement points to refresh, which means you can't refresh it in Other Worlds, because you get no movement points. Maybe if it cost a point of focus instead, it would work better.

As for stake, I'm not sure. Only +1 one time, yet it takes up no hands? And it acts as a blessed attack if your target is undead. But let's take a look at the monsters that are undead in the base set:

Zombie. Only one toughness, and not to hard to beat. Don't really need to have a blessing if you roll enough dice.

Ghost. But it's physically immune, which I play as you can't even use physical weapons against, so a stake is worthless.

Vampire. Physically resistant, although you'll get the 1 point anyway. Even so, it's only 2 toughness, so you could beat it with a tommy gun or even a weak magical weapon.

That's it for the base set. The only other set I have that grants extra monsters is Kingsport, but the only undead monster there is the Skeleton, which looks similar to the vampire.

For the most part, the stake seems to be a situational item. I'd rather have something that's good in several situations than an item that's only good for only thing.

I think you have some good ideas, but they just need to be refined a little more.

Okay, that's weird. The second ability didn't show up. I think it's because I use a already-existing ability, and it don't allow me to add things to it. Grr. So I changed the name of Strong Body and added her second ability that should have showed up.

She's supposed to begin with up to 5$ worth of items in the following list: stake, stake, cross and crossbow. So she could take one crossbow, or 2 stake, or a cross and a stake.

As for the skill, I don,t know. I feel they represent Buffy very well. She's the one to mangle the name of every demon she faces. "So I'll kill these Disciples of Morgan Freeman" Giles: "Morgala!", so low lore. Or to smash a demon sign, which summon the demon, because she didn,t read the book in whole. I think I'll have to give this a pre-test first.

As for the crossbow, I completly forgot about the Other Worlds! I'm gonna change the movement cost for Focus (it was my second idea anyway).

And for the stake, sure it's a very low-quality items, but stake are quite lousy weapon right? I mean, except against vampire, they are pretty useless. But it's just SO iconic, I have to find a way to create one. ANny other idea than what I did?

Also, I would LOVE if there was a mechanical way of prohibiting her from using guns. Because Buffy never wanted to use a gun. In Season 8, she has lost her Slayer's power, there is the army coming up on her, and she still refuse to take a gun. But gun are not different than any other item, so other than enumeratng every items she can't take, I don't know how to do it.

As for the anachronistic nature of Buffy, I agree it's quite weird. But the theme of the chracters fit so well, I still believe Buffy investigators are a perfect fit, if not time-wise, than atmosphere-wise. Also, Buffy vs Cthulu? That I would pay to see...

I like where you're going with this. I have never watched Buffy myself (Except for the original movie. Who would've thought it would have spawned such an empire?), but I think I might be able to help you with your ideas.

For the items, I would use the checkbox at the top of the possessions tab in SE. It says use custom text instead of shopping for items. First, shop for the items you want, then hit the checkbox. It will change the field to two big text boxes, one for fixed possessions, one for random. In the random section I would write something like (<name> may $5 worth of items from the following list: Stake, Cross, Crossbow.) That way this doesn't take up space in the powers section.

As for the not using guns, I had a character that I wanted to do the same thing with, and here is the Unique Ability I came up with:

<h1>Purist</h1>
<b>Any Phase:</b> <name> may not use weapons that include the words, "Gun" or "Rifle", or that have a caliber (.18, .38, .45, .357, etc.) in their name. She is not required to buy these types of weapons.

This pretty much excludes any firearms in the game. The deputy's revolver still works, as does the flamethrower, but I think that's it. This seemed to give the desired effect without having to list every gun in the game on her sheet.

Hope that helps, and I look forward to seeing your future creations!