Alright, a couple things stand out to me.

1) Never, under ANY conditions, leave any stat at 2. Edmund's life sounds fairly depressing, and it doesn't ever appear to be improving nor is there any easy way out, but even with all that misfortune you cannot justify a Luck track of 2/1/0/0. For any stat, 3 is the bare minimum in order for the investigator to be at least functional in that area. Part of how Arkham's mechanics work is that advancing one area of your character means sacrificing another area fairly so as not to create imbalance. When you have a track with two 0's on it, there is no trade off in Luck between having 3 or 4 Lore, so 4 Lore is always automatically the answer. In fact, you wouldn't ever bother trying to raise Luck even if the game's current setting encourages it, mostly because the value never gets to a point where it's even scraping the surface.

TLDR: Minimum for any stat is 3.

2) I do very much appreciate how much story went into crafting this character, and as a result I won't recommend removing the Silver Key item since it has so much importance to his situation, but unfortunately your mechanics and stat alignments are a little too heavily lopsided. Your character has a whopping 5 Speed and 6 Sneak. That's quite a lot to give one character on it's own, but that's not really the problem here. The problem is not only did you give him practically perfect stats for evading and running into gates, you also gave him a Silver Key in case of emergencies or bad rolls, which gives him too dominating a stance on gate running and evading monsters. Since the Silver Key is clearly a very important element here, you may want to consider toning down his Speed and/or Sneak in order to at least make playing him more interesting.

3) I think your character can benefit from having more random possessions. Part of what makes Arkham interesting is that the same character won't necessarily play the same every game since starting items change frequently. Your character will always start every game with a ton of money (which, based on his background doesn't actually make enough sense), a ton of clue tokens and a Silver Key plus a Sheldon Gang Membership. Also, he will get 2 random items and the skill doesn't actually matter since it won't change how he is played. Take away some funds from this guy and put them into at least another random common.

Small things:

-Why does he get Lure Monster when passing his story, none of the dialogue or context there suggests monsters in the slightest.

-Why can he gain clue tokens from cutpurse? The ability sounds like one where you steal money, not information. Not to mention, gaining free clues on that ability is incredibly strong on a perfect gate runner.

-The way he's been described doesn't make me feel that he's a 6 sanity character...

-I know it seems right, especially since I see it on most custom child characters, but I don't really think it's necessary to give him the Minor ability.

1) I hadn't thought of the impact of 2 0's on the same track, mostly because in my head I had pegged down this character as a high risk/high reward character. But you're right in terms of there never being a reason to move his lore from 4 to 3. I could argue that doing so is a larger risk due to his 1 focus. It would take an extra turn to get him back to even 1 luck. But, there are very few luck (0) checks, so even 1 luck isn't much use.

That being said, the largest reason, balancing-wise, is that due to his ability, Edmund would have the choice to risk clues to overcome luck checks. This, in my mind, would counter-balance his ability to accumulate clues so fast (should he be having many encounters with named characters, which he might not). This brings me to...

Why he can gain clues from cutpurse: the majority of named characters in encounters offer valuable information or have seen/obtained artifacts from the mythos lore, which they sometimes give you instead. I wanted to add a die roll or something to make obtaining a clue token more random, but I hate overly complicated abilities. Would this, in your opinion, be more balanced?

Also, his personal story, which revolves around the silver key, encourages him to NOT use the key as an emergency escape. By failing his story, another doom is added (which could be the deciding factor that leads to an end-game battle to the death). So I didn't think the combo of stats plus key would be overly powerful.

That being said, I do think that there is not enough incentive to use the key and potentially fail his story due to his excellent sneak. I will be lowering his sneak by one and upping his luck by one (for tradition's sake), but I do think forcing clue use in one particular trait roll (luck) would both be thematic and fun. Especially on a character that can obtain clues relatively easily, and on a stat that does not impede combat.

In fact, if Patrice had to do something like this, her ability might not seem over-powerful. She often gets banned from my games unless there are particularly nasty circumstances.

2. I always found money to be less useful than random starting cards (even common ones), which is why I had chosen to start him with some cash. That, and I found it reasonable he might have some on him as he has become fairly good at thieving and panhandling. The clues were related to his background and personal story where he has come into contact with the silver key and a lodge member. Unlike some characters, it felt to me like he had a fairly solid lead. That being said, I may lower the clues by one, and maybe also his money to give him a few more starting random possessions.

3. My understanding of the Silver Key lore-wise was that it allowed the user to open/close gates, which in turn, allowed them to travel via them to other places. I thought that by finishing the personal story, Edmund would become more of a utility character by using Lure Monster (through a gate) so that others may move around the board more easily. Additionally, his story implies that the lodge had planned on using the Key to effectively lure monsters (or the ancient one) by opening gates. Using lure monster, at the cost of having to risk sneaking by the monster in question, would allow him to use the remaining key to good advantage. I will be lowering his sneak by 1.

4. Ultimately I gave him 4 health because he is a child. The 6 sanity was a balancing act. What would you suggest? 5/5 or would you suggest to even fall in the steps of Wendy Adams and lower the total to some degree?

5. I think, personally, that Minor is necessary as Edmund already has some pretty solid ways to gain money. I wouldn't like to see him be able to take out a bank loan on top of it.

Thanks for the suggestions. Let me know if my logic/thoughts have any bearing on your owns, as I am still tweaking this character and really want him to be fun, but not unbalanced. As for being pegged into a role, there are investigators that really do become pegged into a role by the nature of their stats/abilities. Any spellcaster, those that are better at closing gates, those that have high fight/will, etc. When these guys are drawn or selected, it really does become a game of finding items that will enhance their strengths. Very balanced (mostly 5/5) characters have more leeway. But I don't really have a problem with roles. Otherwise, why bother with a cast of ~40 investigators if they can all do everything at the same level?

1) Alright, so you mention that you created your character to be a high risk, high reward character by having the tradeoff to gaining clues from cutpurse even out with needing to decide when to spend clues on Luck checks. What you may not realize is that where Lore and Luck is concerned, there isn't really any choice. Maxing at 4 Lore and 2 Luck with only 1 focus means there's really only two options with this character right from the start: Play with 2 Luck and 1 Lore, or play with 4 Lore and no Luck. All the middle ground selections there are terrible (1 Luck with 2 Lore is bad, 3 Lore with 0 Luck is strictly worse than just having 4 Lore), which means you force your Luck at a max of 2 (which doesn't even feel rewarding), or accept that your Luck is garbage and just stay at 4 Lore all game.

Here's the truth: I don't actually have any issues with Cutpurse power-wise (I mostly think it's balanced) , but I'm still not feeling it theme-wise. You say that named characters are giving you information instead of giving you money if that's your choice (Since clues are technically priced at about $2 each, this is fair) , except the word "giving" doesn't match with "cutpurse". The word you are looking for is "stealing", and the reason I'm not really feeling Cutpurse is because I don't know how you are "stealing" information. That would be eavesdropping at best.

Also, he's really not that risky. Being a 5 Speed/6 Sneak character with a Silver Key means that monsters are never a threat to him, and gates are pretty much always open for business. More of his money has gone into a lot of Fixed Possessions rather than Random Possessions, taking away much more of the random element and thus making him a more consistent (aka less risky) investigator. For a high risk character, it sure feels like he comes with a lot of safeties...

2) Honestly, I think replacing $1 and 1 clue token with 1 random common item will go a long way in making him more interesting to play with. Starting items aren't always about power, it's about game variety.

3) I guess I can see Lure Monster being used to some good effect with this character, so if you like it then keep it. One alternative I will offer up is to allow you to spend 1 use of the Silver Key when entering a gate to have it take you to an Other World of your choice instead of the listed one.

4) Generally speaking, I put most children below 10 total Sanity/Stamina. In your character's case, I think you could go 5 San / 4 Stam. Use the extra $4 to start him with an extra spell, or take another dollar out and start with a unique. Or you could just ignore the $4.

5) Alright, the Minor ability thing is honestly pretty...well, minor. Whether it's there or not doesn't really change much, so doesn't make a big difference.

As far as the topic of roles is concerned, I would say they definitely do exist. I think characters generally fall into a few broad categories: Brawler (Great at Monster Control and fighting things) , Gate Runner (Better suited for monster evasion and traveling through other worlds) , Support (Abilities designed for helping other investigators) or All-Purpose Sleuth (Can pretty much do anything with the right items, might need a push though) . Spellcasters tend to fall into one of these roles based on what kind of spells they have ( Shriveling makes a decent Brawler, but Sigil of Hermes Trimegistus makes an insane Support) . After it's all said and done, you can also mess with the roles your team is fulfilling by trading items and adapting to the random nature of the game, but every team of players wants at least 1 of each role generally speaking.

But, if you are worried about creating 40+ versions of practically the same character, don't be. The roles I've defined here are all extremely broad, and the truth is they aren't set in stone. There's hundreds of ways to create any character to fit into these roles with All-Purpose actually having the most overall creative potential. Additionally, you can sometimes create a character that doesn't fall into any of these roles because he/she/it plays so differently than your standard investigator. There really are a ton of possibilities to explore in this game.

Here's an example of a character I made that I feel really breaks the mold despite having Sanity and Stamina of 5, Focus 2 and all stats set to 4:

Thank you for the examples, and I see what you mean about replayability. I like most of these suggestions, though I am still stuck on what to do with his ability.

In terms of "stealing information" thematically to represent the clue token for cutpurse, I was actually implying in the previous post that Edmund may thieve his way into the clue by finding himself suddenly in possession of a strange address on a piece of paper, or an ambiguous note about a peculiar artifact or piece of lore. Not so much that there would be an 'additional' conversation. But I always assumed clues could be tangible objects as well, not just the result of a verbal discussion.

Possibly, I could cleave the ability into two separate ones. Cutpurse, which would gain money upon meeting a named character, and Eavesdrop, which perhaps could gain one clue on a single successful evade check (sneak check?) per turn. The problem there is that, then, with careful consideration, it may be possible to activate both abilities in the same turn. Cutpurse, as is, leaves the player with a choice of one over the other.

Kocking off a max sanity will also help translate Edmund into a higher risk character as the horror checks alone can become quite an incentive to use the silver key, since if you fail your "evade" check you are then forced into taking damage (which Edmund only has a max of 4) and then into combat and, therefore, a horror check. I like this as it puts additional pressure on finalizing those dangerous runs through the streets.

I'm at work but this has helped quite a bit.

EDITED 9/9/13: I just play-tested the edited version of Edmund, and he seemed very balanced. The best thing about him is that he never has a wasted turn, because he always has something he can do (at a risk).

Combat was still tricky enough. And his personal story pass condition (which requires only one gate trophy) is balanced by the fact that in order to finish it, you must have an event at the Silver Twilight Lodge, an unstable location. This means, that if a gate is open there, regardless of how many gate trophies you have, you must close it, or at least pass through it, to meet the pass conditions.

I will post the updated version in a new thread for anyone interested in trying him out, but additionally, I will likely be making a few more ivestigators, which when finished and tested will be added there as well.

I am attempting to create original characters with stories that feel at home in Arkham, as I am not a fan of bringing in characters outside of the setting (IE, comic characters, anime characters, television characters, etc).

So if you're intersted let me know and I will likely add them to this thread for feedback and perusal. Once I have a collection of varied investigators, I will likely upload them to boardgamegeeks officially for use. Investigators in progress will likely be posted here for feedback from players and interested parties.

Thanks!

Edmund has been finalized and I will add him to a new thread with my finished/playtested Investigators.

Here is the next investigator I am working on. I really like her as is, but I would like some feedback as well. I have not playtested her yet, so throw me your thoughts.

The main character sheet is fine. She has a clearly defined goal and stats that make sense (I might've pulled a point out of Lore and into Fight with her whole struggle against Rasputin's devil, but you could argue it the other way since she knows about it when no one else does) and her abilities function just fine. I'm not a particular fan of Resilience mostly because I don't know how resistance to what is arguably an illusion equals being immune to the weather. There's a disconnect there that I can't really identify.

What bothers me a tad is the personal story. It's very easy to pass, just finish your task as soon as you can and either use monsters to generate more sanity or trek it back up to the Asylum, and then you just become this murderous killer that with a good weapon will just destroy EVERYTHING.

On the flip side, if you fail her story she becomes pretty useless. At that point you finish your task, pass off all your goods and get devoured ASAP. So, it doesn't really feel like a fail since you can turn it around so quickly.

1) I have a few of the same concerns about her story as well, but I won't know exactly until I play-test her. Her fail condition seems just as easy to fail, imo. Three failed horror checks can come about quite easily and before she finishes her task. Especially if a gate opens at the Graveyard (a location in her task).

One of my goals with this set of investigators is to make their personal stories more relevant, as usually there is very little incentive to go out of one's way to pass them.

And with "Living Proof," it appears to me that "The Paralyzing Truth," while certainly something you want to avoid, will not be overly crippling. If you continue to pass horror checks, you will have enough sanity to pay the double cost. It's encountering multiple enemies in the same turn that will become a problem.

2) I would argue that her 5 stamina, max of 5 willpower (plenty of characters have 5 fight), and the cost is of 1 stamina per use (which she has no way to regain) will make her into a very destructive force for a few combats...but then she'll suddenly find herself in a very dangerous situation. If her willpower is maxed to make use of "Czarina" she will have 0 fight and 1 stamina. She will be forced to retreat to St. Mary's.

3) As far as Resilience, I suppose with all the tactics related to will/fight and potentially lore (due to spells), the mechanic is there to allow the player a little more consistency for Anna. Story-wise, I see it as either her actually being Anastasia (who was raised in a very demanding fashion and climate) or as being incarcerated in an institution for 10 years, thus making her resilient.

Let me know if any of this solves any of these issues for you. I will continued to consider them as I eventually play-test her. Also, thanks for your feedback.

I love the theme of the character--good on you for finding someone historical (and 'fictional' enough) that make it entertaining to play.

I have a character with an ability very similar to 'Resilient' and I think your logic is perfectly fine--historically speaking, the Princess went through not just the weather of Russia but was treated as a prisoner until her disappearance. She's gonna have some serious mental and physical resistances based simply on being exposed to so much at a young age.

Moving on to the mechanics, I see we're alot of like--the character's stats and abilities are based on the character themselves, less than, say, wanting to be a mechanically useable character. Not to say she isn't useable as is, but I know a great number of folks focus on how they can be used to /win/ the game and not how the characters stats and abilities blend with the theme and character themselves. Not an excuse to over-power a character, mind you, but in this case, that isn't a problem anyway.

Thanks, Dr. Faust. Can't wait to play-test her.

I did have a question about environments though, if any of you can field it. My group has always played that one of EACH environment can be in play at the same time, and the card of each sub-type in play does not get replaced until another card of that sub-type is drawn and put into play.

Is this correct? Or is there only ever supposed to be ONE environment in play? Because this may possibly effect investigators I create in the future when designing or balancing them.

THat's how I play it, yeah--one of each type (unless I decide to go easy on myself and only count one at a time). Usually, I have one of each though: weather, mystic and Urban. I think it is in the rules somewhere about it, but I think that it makes sense to have one of each playable at any given time--it adds dynamic and sometimes boons/difficulties. It's why in my own version, like yours, I specified Weather.

I did have a question about environments though, if any of you can field it. My group has always played that one of EACH environment can be in play at the same time, and the card of each sub-type in play does not get replaced until another card of that sub-type is drawn and put into play.

Is this correct? Or is there only ever supposed to be ONE environment in play? Because this may possibly effect investigators I create in the future when designing or balancing them.

Here's a line straight from the Arkham Wiki:

There may only be one Environment effect in play at once. The effects of Environment cards stay in play until another Environment is drawn, regardless of subtype.

Obviously you can play the game however you choose, but officially there's only ever one Environment in play unless some other effect changes them.

Now onto something I couldn't help but notice:

One of my goals with this set of investigators is to make their personal stories more relevant, as usually there is very little incentive to go out of one's way to pass them.

Just for the record, the amount of attention paid to a personal story is usually based on the impact of either passing or failing vs its difficulty of passing or failing. In most official characters' cases, personal stories are not truly ignorable and usually have a fairly large impact on one side or the other. I'll use Monterey Jack's story as an example (Archaeologist):

You pass by having 3 monster trophies, but fail if you ever have at least 5 clue tokens. On the one hand it's fairly easy to pass assuming you get enough easy monsters on the field (and otherwise, Monterey still starts with 2 weapons totaling effectively 5 more dice). On the other, its quite easy to fail assuming you collect clue tokens like most people do, which is what you should be doing most of the time. However, you have almost 100% control of failing since you can choose not to fail by simply not going over 4 clues, and just wait until you have enough monster trophies not to fail.

What about the rewards and punishments? Passing gives you an extra max sanity (3>4), and using Archaeology gives you a clue token, which means you get a clue token every time you get unique items (or even when you shop for them). That's quite strong if used correctly. Alternatively, failing prevents you from using Archaeology without first using a clue token, but honestly the ability is kind of superficial anyway so you just don't bother. In this case, the impact of passing is much greater than the impact of failing. Combined with the difficulty of passing (which is moderate, but not overwhelming by any stretch), I can think of a lot of reasons why you should try to pass his story. I also know that the penalties of failing combined with the amount of control you have over failure (100%) means that you could also just ignore your story entirely and not care.

Regardless of these factors, however, most people would prefer to pass their stories.

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As for impact, your reward is having a very powerful combat ability with a small cost, while your punishment causes you to take 1 extra sanity loss on every failed horror check. However, you can also choose to just be devoured on a failed horror check, adding a positive attribute to the punishment. In this case, the impact of passing is fairly noteworthy while the impact of failure is practically non-existent.

The verdict: You should always try to complete her PS, and failing it (somehow) is still positive for her, so it's just 100% positive.

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There are times when it's better to give players 3 hard choices rather than 1 obvious choice.

Advice absorbed. Lots of good observations here.

I think we also generally have a difference in playstyles. I find turn/time management essential for winning, so very often I do not bother completing tasks unless there is already a clue there to pick up, or the task will result in being able to seal a gate etc.

1). That being said, I have wavered on thinking her pass condition too easy as it allows a pass in 3 turn in the best case scenario. However, if a gate opens at the graveyard, or you have to lower her speed by even 1 to attempt a sneak, the amount of turns will increase.

2). Anna's sneak is really quite bad. And her speed isn't so great that you can max your sneak and still get around. This means that sneaking by monsters will likely not be a great solution to avoiding the failed horror rolls. You will have to rely on her willpower 80% of the time. Yes, her willpower is high, but her fight is pretty miserable until she can optionally use her will post personal story success. Her spells may give her a bit of leeway here in either department.

3). I think the fail condition is fine, as it is, to some degree, about managing what the board throws at you (which I prefer), over something like Monterey Jack's which you have nearly complete control over. I like the fail condition to feel like something you have to actually worry about.

4). I do believe that you are right about the pass being to easy, or fast to resolve should the best case scenario occur (monsters appear in places you can avoid without adjusting your speed, and a gate does NOT open in the graveyard). I am trying to decide what would be a fair clause to add instead of the sanity clause. I could replace it with the 5 clues concept, which I think might overall be better. You will need more turns to acquire clues, and therfore more chances for horror checks before being able to complete.

5). I really cannot think of a benefit to failing. Unless there's something about the core rule that I'm missing, I think you misread "The Paralyzing Truth" to read 'devoured' instead of 'delayed.' The only other thought I have is that you are assuming there is a way to get Anna's stam and sanity to 1 at the same time, which I'm overlooking. The idea of occasional delays caused by combat (and possibly by encounters while passing through the otherworlds, to me, is a VERY good reason to try to not fail.

You're right in that the obvious choice is that in order to play Anna, you should really focus on her personal story from the get-go. But, to me, sometimes the 'fun' of Arkham is dealing with the repercussions of falling prey to the very unpredictable clutches of the board.

Besides, if you want to have the option of NOT doing the personal story, you could either play without personal stories or you could just opt to use a different investigator.

But please do tell me if you think adding a "spend 5 clue tokens @ X location" as a pass result would make a difference to you. I think that it would, but I also don't want to make it impossible to play Anna (for fear of horror checks) before you pass a lengthy PS. She only starts with 1 clue.

Unless there's something about the core rule that I'm missing, I think you misread "The Paralyzing Truth" to read 'devoured' instead of 'delayed.'

HURR DE DURR, I'M RETARDED.

I completely misread that.

Okay, that's actually a fair fail condition then, nevermind.

One thing you could try for her pass is to make the PS a separate task/mission, and slightly improve/change the reward. At that point, since you happen to value time so much, it suddenly forces the choice of "Easy task for small benefits, or hard task for great benefit." It might be a worthwhile venture, but that choice is up to you. I don't think I'd force it to cost a surplus of clues though, since spending 5 clues to pass often places you at odds with your team. Your team wants to win, and spending 5 clues on a personal story instead of a seal is a rickety bridge to cross a lot of the time.

That's a pretty fair and interesting idea. The only concern I have is for text room on the pass condition. But I like the idea that should you choose, you could forsake her story to complete the genealogical research task. But the biggest problem I can see is that the choice is not forced unless you discard the original task on completion of the PS task. Otherwise, you would just do the PS first, and if you had time (or if you had enough errand characters to pass it off on) complete the task afterwards.

But that's an idea. If you pass, then the genealogical research task is lost (thematically she wouldn't really need it anymore).

Another update about the pass/fail condition: What if I changed them to these:

Pass: Upon completion of the Task (Genealogical Research), if Anna has 5 Sanity ignore the reward on the task and place <pass> in play. If Anna has less than 5 Sanity take the reward but place <fail> in play.

Fail: Put 1 Sanity token on this card from the bank each time Anna fails a Horror check. If there are ever 3 Sanity tokens on this card, place <fail> in play.

This way, Anna will not receive both rewards, and additionally she must have 5 sanity at the end of the last Encounter to received her pass.

I would try your task idea, but I really simply do not think there's enough room on the card to explain it.

Another Investigator ready for critique: (just a note, I'm working on spell users first. There will be high stamina characters in the final pack).

Soak, did I ever tell you that m y love for you is like a concave up function because it is always increasing?

Seriously though, your themed characters are fantastic and the personal story is even better (both the background and actual cards). Now, for the mechanics of it:

Her special ability, 'Impossible Angles' is a blessing and a curse, obviously. Being able to rotate spells is great but losing it after a one-time shot makes you have to pick and chose. I don't know if you gave her an extra Focus point because of it, since I know that Strange Eons gets on your butt if you try and give anyone a free focus point, but I would be tempted to say that she should have one, really. Maybe her second ability makes up for it, but that's someone's prerogative I suppose.

I would also be tempted to say that, at least based solely on my play record, her Personal Story might be a bit too difficult: let's say for all intents and purposes, that you get only single-Gate openings, you could have her personal story wrapped up in two Gate hops, even if you don't seal them. The smallest Doom track, appropriately enough, is Yig's at 10. That is simply not enough time in some instances if your luck with Mythos openings is poor or you use multiple boards--on average, if everything went well with her, it would take about 8 rounds (taking into account movement in Arkham) to get to any given Location. If Yig is involved, the odds of the Doom track being full by the time she got to finishing her PS, she would have already failed.

I would be tempted, this one time, to say go with the Terror track and keep the number low (like maybe 3 or 4 at most) OR increase the Doom track requirement. For the reward (which is nothing an ally couldn't do) it's more like you're playing to simply not fail her personal story then to be rewarded by it since her Pass essentially 'cures' her.

Thanks, I will think about this. And also, thanks for the lovely encouragement.

I used 8 as a placeholder while I'm balancing and playtesting her. Very valid point. Thematically, it makes more sense for the fail to occur if/when gates are being places, rather than terror increasing. This is the main reason I chose doom over terror. But there may be a mechanic I can figure in, in regards to gates, that would be worthwhile considering.

I just figured that even if she failed, at 8 doom, there really wouldn't be THAT many more turns/gates left to open before the end of the game anyway. So it wouldn't be too incredibly punishing for the players.

And yes, not sure if you understood the pass as intended, but it lets Eunice choose whether impossible angles discards her cast spells and replaces them or she, instead, has the choice to keep the cast spell. This effectively allows her to pick and choose the spells that are available to her. The wording may be a little off. That also allows her to be a spell cycler for the entire group should you choose to use her that way. Possibly rotate out all of your utility spells for some magical firepower before the AO wakes up and trade them back for the final battle.

I'm not sure about penalising *all* the players for failing the PS. I'd keep the penalty to Eunice. I'd also drop a CI and give her some extra money. This gives the player the tempting option of trying to buy and early spell and then score a cheap skill.

Thank you Jake. I am torn on this issue also. Thematically, it is everyone's reality that is at stake, not simply Eunice's. But yes, if one player does not pull his weight or pass his story (or as it stands now) has significant delays, everyone is punished. I don't really see the punishment as that terrible. Again though, it may be warranted to provide a die roll for each player at least. Something like, pass a will check or loose either one sanity or one spell.

Would this be sufficient? Or I could up the pass to balance the force of a fail, perhaps pass a will check and recieve one spell (or a clue?) for each other player. This would create a choice for the player to pick a character that can personally influence each character with her story. The spell idea might be bad, as they can then pass them all to Eunice to recycle, however.

Hmm. Lots of things to think about.

@Jake: I do like the idea of giving the player an early option to swap spells for a skill. This is a change that I think would enhance her replayabilty as well.

@ Dr. Faust: I originally did think that giving her another focus would be really optimal. As you say, prior to passing her PS (which is intended to be farily difficult), her "cool thing" is potentionally a burden if she starts with a particularly nice spell. Thematically, too, it is fitting with her history as a Geometrician. But as this is likely my favorite custom character of the bunch, I don't want to succumb to oversight and accidentally overpower her. In my games, whereas having too few focus can be a serious hinderance, having more than 2 is usually not that great of a boon. This is particularly the case with characters that have less than 6 as a max on their tracks (because min/maxing is less rewarding), or when their fight/flight stats are already easily optimized.

@ Everyone: I did wonder how you would play Impossible Angles in regards to one-off spells like Greater Banishment; or activated spell effects like Inner Beast/Opening the Third Eye. In the case of the former, should she STILL replace the spell after it is cast? In regards to the latter, it would seem that she should probably cast the spell, retain the effect for the remainder of the turn, and then discard/replace it. But I'm not sure. Also, do these out-lying occurences need clarification on the Investigator sheet? I'm afraid it might become a little too wordy. Maybe I ought to insert something such as "Whenever Eunice successfully casts a spell at the end of the turn remove the spell from the game and draw a replacement." This would alleviate issues of how-many-hands-is-my-mutating-spell-occupying, as well as addressing activated spell effects (Inner Beast). The only question is regarding the one-off spells. This wording suggests that the card would not be replaced (?) as it would be discarded prior to the end of the turn due to the original wording on the spell (it is removed from the game immediately).

Thoughts?

See, I keep forgetting that Spells can be traded between players! XD Even so, that ALSO falls into the notion of, 'A waste of time' when she should be spending all of her time trying to solve her PS. She literally has no time for anything else if you are playing with her personal story in place until /after/ she's passed it. Other players would have to go out of their way to give her one-shot spells and trade off for spells that they want until Eunice can start moving around as she wants again. That's my logic--theme or not, she is a slight burden on the rest of the team until she's managed to complete her story and if she FAILS her story then I could see everyone else playing becoming annoyed beyond all reason at her. If she was with others that have a 3 in Sanity, she could effectively get them killed or tie them down to Arkham until the AO awakens.

So, on the game mechanics side, I would say that I don't foresee a lot of people picking her simply because she has far too many detriments and not enough gain--on the theme side, I love her. A lot. She fits into the notions of battling against terrible odds and dabbling in a cure that it almost as bad as the disease. She fits the world perfectly, and for players that desire theme and roleplay over actual gameplay viability, she's amazing.

Also, you might want to remove the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh marker from the corner of her card since she doesn't have any Dark Pharaoh components.

@ Everyone: I did wonder how you would play Impossible Angles in regards to one-off spells like Greater Banishment; or activated spell effects like Inner Beast/Opening the Third Eye. In the case of the former, should she STILL replace the spell after it is cast? In regards to the latter, it would seem that she should probably cast the spell, retain the effect for the remainder of the turn, and then discard/replace it. But I'm not sure. Also, do these out-lying occurences need clarification on the Investigator sheet? I'm afraid it might become a little too wordy. Maybe I ought to insert something such as "Whenever Eunice successfully casts a spell at the end of the turn remove the spell from the game and draw a replacement." This would alleviate issues of how-many-hands-is-my-mutating-spell-occupying, as well as addressing activated spell effects (Inner Beast). The only question is regarding the one-off spells. This wording suggests that the card would not be replaced (?) as it would be discarded prior to the end of the turn due to the original wording on the spell (it is removed from the game immediately).

Thoughts?

I happen to have played with these exact conditions and as a result can offer some deeper feedback. Here's my proof:

Here are the conclusions and a few observations I've found:

>For spells that are discarded upon casting them, replace it with a new spell. This allows the character to have at least a few optimal interactions that players as a group can take advantage of. Example: If your party has the Bless spell, it suddenly becomes worthwhile to try passing it to the spell-cycler instead of casting it immediately, just because you know she'll get a replacement spell out of it. It creates some nice interactions that people love taking advantage of, and it doesn't especially break the game powerwise either.

>It's best to leave the wording as is and simply accept that the character isn't going to be all that great with any of the three "Magical Effect" spells. If you wish to use the alternate wording you suggested, it would make those spells a bit more usable, but you'll still end up cycling them likely all too early (Inner Beast and Third Eye are the kind of effects you generally want to keep as long as possible) . Also, by using the alternate wording, you lose out on that cool interaction I mentioned in the last point, since by the time the ability checks to try and replace the spell, the game rules can no longer find the spell in your inventory (since you already discarded it) and the effect fizzles. Ultimately, I recommend leaving the wording as is simply because the alternate case drags the overall enjoyment of interactions down; you end up gutting a fun and powerful interaction for the sake of only slightly improving a bad interaction.

>This kind of character is great is large groups, especially for her ability to filter out unwanted spells. While many spells offer great utility, some spells tend to be quite undesirable to start with (Fist of Yog-Sothoth, Wrack, etc.) . While it's true that constant filtering of spells makes her harder to play, the ability to trade spells ends up heavily empowering the character and making them a great team player. In all my games with Millie, I never once considered her ability a detriment, even when I acquired spells that one would be reluctant to toss. With proper coordination, the spell-cycler is incredibly effective.

As for your investigator in particular, I noticed you mentioned bumping her focus up to 3, but I can tell you that she doesn't need it. Her stats are actually in a good place as is.

Also, I do agree that you've placed a lot of emphasis on her personal story, perhaps to the point where it's overbearing. The pass condition is horrible (in the sense that it's very tough, not badly designed), while the fail condition looms over your head like an approaching storm cloud, and even with your best efforts you might not finish the pass in time. This is perfectly acceptable so far, but unfortunately the output of passing and failing don't match the difficulty of the conditions.

Passing requires you to spend 2 gate trophies at the Science Building, which luckily will yield 4 clue tokens in the process but also means that you need to spend extra time going to the Science Building to make the payments, which will take at minimum another 2 turns. Let's assume this is your route: jump into a gate on the first turn and close it (3 turns), immediately go to the Science Building, pick up a clue and spend your first gate trophy (4 turns), then immediately jump into another gate and seal it with your clues (7 turns), finally ending on Science Building and spending your second gate trophy (8 turns). This plan assumed that there were no monsters barring your path, that every gate would be close enough to you at each interval that 4 movement would be enough to get everywhere, and that nothing interferes with you on your Otherworldly travels. It's also assuming that a gate didn't open each turn, in which case you still would've failed despite literally going as fast as possible. Now, obviously both of those outcomes are fairly unlikely (8 doom tokens will probably happen closer to turn 10 or 11), but there's no denying that this is a very time and resource consuming effort. So, after all of that running around, what do you have to show for it?

Lore +1, and the ability to cast spells like a normal investigator. Since that reward isn't appealing enough for that cost, I will cast my choice towards "ignoring the story while trying not to fail it" which is normally legitimate. Except, the failure in this case is not avoidable, but rather inevitable. This is also fine assuming the penalty is fairly minor, but such is not the case here:

For failing this story, each gate opening for the rest of the game forces all players to either discard a spell or lose 1 sanity. It's not too terrible, but the fact stands that you are likely to fail it and it negatively affects everyone for the rest of the game. Upon failing, the likely outcome will be to give all the spells to a single player, and slowly but surely discarding spells until you only have the most needed ones and losing sanity for the rest. That's quite a burden for something you can't actually stop.

So, my recommendation stands as such: Either make the story easier to pass, or make the reward more enticing. In either case, lower the penalty of failure.

Thank you very much Aquas. That was incredibly insightful. And you've convinced me pretty solidly.

Also, the rest of you have pretty much convinced me to tone down her fail to affect only Eustice. I may adjust the personal story flavor text to better reflect this, however it may not be necesarry. The impending awakening of the AO might just be enough to snap the reality-shaping effects of her Geometry, while leaving the regular powers of spell-casting in tact.

In my head (I know, unsupportable), most spells (especially cast by untrained investigators) are never really possible until the ancient one begins to stir anyway.

Thank you very much for all of your feedback. She will begin play-testing along with Anna Anderson ASAP. I hope to bring you more investigators with quality flavor and theme.

These are the end decisions about Eunice's PS that I will be playtesting her with:

Pass condition: the same .

Pass reward: Lore +1