Hi everyone, Collex here. I was active on this forum once upon a time, but I took an long hiatus, from both this forum and AH, but now I'm back in the game (pun intended) and back having a lot of ides for Investigator. My first project is a series of investigator and one scenario based on an awesome comic-book I just finished, called Y: The Last Man. For those who don't know it, it's the story of Yorick Brown, a, well, loser, who ends up, along with his pet monkey Ampersand, to be the sole survivor on a plague who killed very other male mammals on the planet. So Yorick,Ampersand, a secret agent called Agent 355 and Dr. Alison Mann ends up walking the Earth trying to find three things: what caused the plague, why did Yorick survive it, and where s Yorick's girlfriend, Beth.

The first investigator in the series of 5 (Yorick, Agent 355, Dr. Mann, Yorick's sister Hero and the antagonist Alter Tse'Elon) is Yorick Brown himself.

So, on the rationale. This part will include some minor spoilers, nothing fatal, but still, be warned.

Ampersand power, which I'm not entirely sure of (is it overpowered?) is because he is the one who , SPOILER protect Yorrick from the plague. Thus, it makes sense that not only he boosts Yorrick's luck, because Yorrick was lucky to have him and also makes sense he protects Yorrick from environnemental condition i.e. not direct attack.

The first of Yorrick ability is named for a trick he is very good at - disappearing if you let your eyes off him one second. The second represent his ability to pick up lock and get out of restraints, but soemtimes it fails because the restraint are very though or he doesn't have the right tools. On a purely mechanical standpoint, it's a weaker version of the One Man Army ability, because One Man Army was the sole ability given to its investigator.

. Any thoughts on the investigators? What work, what doesn't? The playtest is only planned for when I'll have completed all them.

P.S. I have a personnal story written up for it, which explain his presence in Arkham, but I need to correct a few typos and such and it's getting late. I'll post it next time, promised.

Well, seems there is not a lot of activity on this board lately. I will still continue to post my Y:the Last Man inspired investigator in the hope someone will have some constructive things to say

Next up is famous geneticist Alison Mann, who tries to find why Yorick and Ampersand survived the plague and how it could help bring mankind back on the planet.

And here is the backstory, which explain my investigator are in Arkham. As for why the town would still be on 1920's technology, well, remove 905 of the workers maintaning the power station and what do you get? Total blackout.

So enjoy, and don't be afraid to comment!!!

It's a clever ability, and it fits well thematically. However, 4 Clues seems like a hefty price to pay. That's almost enough to seal a gate. I'd suggest making it 2 Clues and a skill check, or some other requirement, maybe 2 Clues and 1 Sanity or 1 Stamina (the effort it takes to make the clone happen).

Grudunza said:

Well... Ma's boarding house is essentially the equivalent of 4 clues in trade... But if you factor in the time savings, maybe 3 clues?

Avi_dreader said:

Right, but I guess I'm thinking that a special ability should be something you'll actually want to use in a game. Ma's very rarely gets used in my experience, and people seem more likely to spend their trophies to get the Clues to use for sealing. I understand this ability can be nice because you can specifically choose each time whether you want to keep the Ally once you see who it is... but a lot of times you may look and say, meh, definitely not worth 4 Clues. Of course, some Allies are definitely worth paying 4 Clues for (esp. Granny Orne who can give you a Clue back every turn, in essence), but a lot are not, I'd say.

But another thing is that I really think the ability as it is handicaps the character, because you have to have 4 Clues on hand at all times just in the hopes of being able to use the ability, and it's also dependent on whether the Terror Track moves, which it may or may not. That seems like a pretty severe limitation to the usefulness of the character, and I wouldn't really want to play this character in that case. I think 3 Clues is okaaay, but I still think that 2 Clues and 1 Sanity or Stamina would be better.

Grudunza said:

Heh... The problem with this is you then have a character who can get 3 allies for 6 clues... The deal is *too* good. True, the discarded allies might take a while... But I think the ability would be somewhat overpowered. She's basically allowing you to choose to buy allies for half price and teleport them, and not have to spend a turn or two going to pick them up.

Okay, I'll meet you at 3 Clues. But I still think 4 is definitely too many.

Yeah, the cost is probably the main thing I scratched my head when making her. At first it was 5 clues, then I was like - nobody will ever use it. Three clues seems too cheap, and four clues too expensive. Maybe 3 clue and 1 Stamina? Or maybe, to represent the time it take to clone someone, 3 clue and get delayed?

Collex said:

I like the delayed idea.

Grudunza said:

Interesting. Seconded :')

So I changed modified her ability and changed her picture. You like it?

The third investigator of this series (out of four for the moment) is on the workbench right now. Should be done in a few days. In the meantime, any comments on Yorick or on Allison Mann?

I haven't read Y, so I can't comment on accuracy, but I do think both of these characters look fun and unique. For Yorrick, I would actually give a free bonus focus because of his horrible skills. For Allison, I would give a minor secondary ability that the players could have some control over. As it stands her ability may never come up in a game, which would really bum me out if I was playing her. One suggestion for a secondary ability maybe could be "gain 1 additional clue token from using the Science building location ability". Not great, but at least I can FORCE it to come up, and it would give me the resources to use her other ability when I needed them.

Thanks for the reply. For Yorick, I don,t know I'll think I would have to test it before making changes. Strange Eon tells me his Skill/Focus is blanced, so I don,t know. His skills aren't great, true, but his focus is already 2, so well I'm don't know here. I'll have to test him first.

As for Dr. Mann, I agree a second basic, controllable ability would be nice. However, here I'm faced with a techical difficulty - do I have any space for it on the card?

The third investigator should be done by Monday - I actually have free time, so I'm gonna use it. I'm also working on a totally unrelated herald based on The Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Stay Tuned!

So here is the new investigator, I haven't made the personal story yet, but it's not the most important part, so it'll wait (I want to playthis this at our planned game two weeks from now and I still have one to go). This one is completle the feature trio of the comic. It's Agent 355 - an agent of the secret Culper Ring (a fictional version of the historical US Civil War spy ring of the same name) who is given the mission to escort Yorick to Doctor Mann and keep him safe from any dangers.

Her ability represents how she is a very brutal fighter and is very,very skilled in killing people- but she doesn't like how this constant killing is taking a toll on her sanity and how killing is getting easier and easier, thus the Sanity loss. I thought of giving her a secondary ability, but I think this one is powerful enough.

I'm not sure about her fixed common item- I'll have to look at what the item does again cause my memory is blurred.

Anyone has comments? Questions? Praises? Sermons? Don,t be afraid to speak up, I'm posting them for that.

Throwing my hat into the custom investigators ring too.

We used these investigators in a game this weekend, and I did a little bit of tweaking to them afterwards to make their special abilities a little more capable. The idea for all of these was to give a pretty powerful benefit, but one that wasn't entirely reliable. In William's case, his abilities are pretty conditional, so he ended up with more.

The characters are all modeled after the player characters from a Call of Cthulhu campaign I ran, and the story shown is the story of the first case of that campaign.

So here they are: William , Alexander , and Cole .

Eon files available from my signature links.

Pretty good. I especially like Alexander and his Adaptive ability. William is kind of a mish-mash, but not bad. His Play Night might be a bit much, though... a perpetual Retainer is huge, even if it doesn't pay off every turn. I think Cole needs something else, though. His ability is nice, thematically, but most of the time it is essentially Carolyn's ability, only worse because it's not guaranteed. Or maybe make it so he can do it on the fly by spending movement points... if he stops to play a tune in a street area he can restore 1 Sanity to anyone in that neighborhood. And/or have that serve as busking, so he can make a buck or two. He is completely broke to begin with, so it would be good if he had some means to get some cash.

Grudunza said:

Hm...the idea of making him able to spend movement points to do it is interesting, though I worry a bit about that making it too easy to use on the fly (move to area, spend points to play song, move out). Are you suggesting doing that and keeping the roll requirement, or just making it cost movement points and be guaranteed?

I do agree that most of the time it just serves as a weaker version of Carolyn's ability, though. The few times he got to use it with others in the area, and it worked, it was really good, but I do think I need to play with it more. The movement thing could work. Or, alternately, I could keep it as it is and add some other minor ability.

Cole actually turned out to be easily the most useful of the three characters in the trial game, largely because of his very good Fight and high Speed (he's very tall, you see, so he takes big steps ). He got Mountain Murphy as an ally pretty early on, so he had up to 8 Fight without even having a weapon. Money actually turned out to be pretty unnecessary for him as a result...and if he does need it, he can go to the river docks with his monster trophies. I can see maybe adding busking as an idea, but I actually find Cole having low/no money and having to struggle to get it to be something of a balancing factor for him.

As for William's "Play Night," I originally had it set to a Will -1 check, and it went off precisely once in the entire duration of the game. Thus, I felt it better to have it at 0 to give him more of a chance with it. Do remember that if he ever goes gate-hopping, he isn't able to benefit from it during that, so he'll only get huge sums with it if he stays in Arkham and actively pursues that. He also has only average abilities, so if he's going to give himself a good chance at Play Night he'll have to have less of a chance of actually being useful for other things. As far as him being a mish-mash...yeah, kind of. The top two both hit on him being good at talking to people and acting, though, and the last...well, let's just say William tends to be lucky in the campaign, so it fit. I gave him three abilities because none seemed like they would come up all that frequently.

As far as Alexander, the idea was to basically make a character who had a good chance to be effective as a spellcaster, and even as a combat spellcaster. I really liked how it worked during the test game.

I can't figure out how to get my pics posted, so I'll just post the link to my page. I've got 8 custom characters. Just click on the Investigators link on the left of the page. Here's the link. sites.google.com/site/mcwcustomarkham/home

Any feedback on any of my characters would be appreciated. Thanks.

Generally speaking, really great characters. A few quick thoughts from initial impressions...

Cain: His first ability seems overpowered... basically, unless a 4 is rolled, he gets a free re-roll on everything that fails for every skill check. It's almost like having twice the dice. I would knock that down to "2 or lower" or find some other way to limit it. Not sure about the thematic connection there, either... How about instead, have it so that once per turn, he may roll a skill check as if Blessed. That would seem to fit the name of the ability better, since he cannot ever really be "Blessed".

Cora: I like the Relationship ability, but the second one seems way too powerful. Maybe have her just roll one die, or have it be a specific skill check (e.g. Will (-2) check).

Doyle: Very good character all around. Search and Rescue is fantastic. I love that. However, I think it should also involve him immediately moving directly to the location of the devoured investigator. Or perhaps better yet, instead of a Speed check, he just has to move there, if he can. So how about, "Any Phase: Whenever another investigator in Arkham is devoured, Doyle may make a free move (in addition to his normal movement this turn) up to his current Speed, evading all monsters along the way. If he can reach the other investigator's location, that investigator is instead driven insane or knocked unconscious (player's choice). This ability may not be used on an investigator that is devoured by max stat reduction."

Elva: The abilities seem a little wonky, but I like the combination of her 7 Lore and the extra Clue token required for sealing.

Geneva Evans: I really love this idea. I would reword it to say "She may not exhaust the same one two turns in a row." I wonder if having that many extra skill bonuses might be a bit much... perhaps the skills of those allies shouldn't have effect when they are exhausted?

Ivan: Meh. Not real crazy about the character as it is. Blind Luck seems like it should affect Luck, specifically. And how is a blind person good at "Sneak"? Quiet and unassuming, perhaps... "Will" makes sense for that, though. Anyway, I like the idea of a handicapped character, but it seems like a blind person in particular would require some serious limitations (use of weapons, etc.), so I think it would be tricky to get right.

James: Not bad, but I'm not sure why a pickpocket would gain a Clue in the streets, or how that connects to Speed... But the main problem I see is that there's no danger to it. A pickpocket runs the risk of getting caught every time they steal something. I have a "Pickpocket" ability for Short Round on my Indiana Jones campaign, which works like this: "Movement: Once per turn while in a street location, Short Round may make a Sneak (-1) check. If he passes, he may draw Common Items equal to his successes and keep one if it is $2 or less. If he fails and rolls a 1 or 2 on any dice, he is arrested." I'm not saying you should emulate that... I like that your ability targets the different locations in a different way... but I think you may want to consider adding some kind of condition where he could be arrested.

Ruby: Pretty good as it is.

Grudunza said:

Pickpockets special notes or information from cultists or other Mythos-crazed Arkhamites?

Sdrolion said:

Yeah, I had thought of that, but what seems weird is why that would always be the thing in the streets. Certainly, he'd be as likely, or more likely to grab money or items from people. I'm okay with it as is, though, and I do like the variety of what is gained, depending on the type of location. I still think there should be some possibility, however remote, of being arrested.

Grudunza said:

The problem with making it a specific skill check is that you generally have a better shot at rolling a success than if you're just rolling 1 or 2 dice (no skill check), since the amount of dice rolled in a skill check can be increased by items, skills, spells, allies, etc. When we test played her the first few games, he had her only rolling 1 die, and one game it didn't hit at all until it was too late.... the ancient one woke. Which pretty much meant she had no second ability that game.

Obviously you don't want it to hit every upkeep, or else it is way too powerful, but the chances of both dice hitting a success are only about 10-11%, and the chance of one hitting with two dice is around 56%, which is just over every other turn. This of course changes if she's Blessed or Cursed, but so would a skill check. The only way to prevent that would be to specifically state that it needs to be a 5 or 6 rolled.

A middle ground would be to have her roll 1 die, unless she passes her personal story, in which then it is increased to 2 dice.

Thanks for the input Grudunza. You're probably right about Cain, but I'm going to rework him completely anyway. Also going to rework Ivan. I'm just not happy with those two characters yet. With Cora it's like Cimmerz said, we've test played her three or four different ways and it's works pretty good the way it is now. I'm confused about Elva and Geneva though. What's wonky about Elva and Geneva only get's the stat boost from the one ally that is exhausted per turn, not all three at the same time. I thought about having James possibly get arrested, but I just didn't know how I wanted to do it. As for alyways getting clues in the streets, I only done that so that he would get different stuff depending on where he was, rather than get random stuff no matter what. I like your suggestion about Doyle, I might try that out. You said Ruby was fine, but let me tell you that's the third or fourth version of her. She started out way too powerful. lol Again, thanks for the input.

Re: Elva Her abilities just seem a little odd, or likely to cause some confusion. It may just be the wording.

Re: Geneva. My understanding of Allies (and I recall asking about this on the forums here or on BGG to confirm) is that when they offer a stat (e.g. +1 Lore, +1 Maximum Sanity, etc.), that stat bonus remains applicable even if you exhaust them for their other ability (e.g. exhaust to gain a Clue token, etc.). I kind of wish that wasn't the case, because I think it's more difficult to remember that you have that stat bonus if the card is flipped over. And to me, it would be better to have to make the decision to exhaust something, knowing that you'll temporarily lose that stat bonus. But if that is indeed the correct way to play it (where you keep the stat bonus even when an Ally is exhausted), then I was suggesting that for Geneva's Allies, that not be the case... to add wording to the effect that when one of her invisible friends is exhausted, their stat bonus does not apply.