thecorinthian said:

Any phase: Aubrey may spend points of his Sanity as if they were monster trophies. Each point of Sanity he spends is equal to a one toughness monster trophy.

I'd say use the above unless you only want him to be able to use his ability if he already has monster trophies.

From a thematic standpoint, I"m not sure if it works if you spend all of his sanity to gain something. Would you join the cause of somebody who talked himself into the asylum? Would Father Michael bother to bless this man? Mechanically, though, it's a very good way to get stuff. Allies, Clues, even money if you were so inclined (River Docks might get used!?). I would say he either can't spend all of his sanity, or he has to spend at least one monster trophy.

His fight is probably lower, like our other Author, Gloria. Putting his sneak or his will up might be fun.

Avi_dreader said:

Aha - a very good point. Your wording does the trick.

flamethrower49: Hmmm. I see what you mean. Originally the whole concept for the character was that he was using his own horrible experiences as the basis for the wierd tales which he made his living from. He was deliberately confronting the Mythos in order to get source material. That covers the second special ability, but when I decided it wasn't enough, I added the first one and then tweaked it until I don't know what it's meant to represent! It could represent Aubrey coming to terms with the fact that most of his 'fictions' are actually true - so he knows a lot about the Mythos already, more than most people do, but going around telling other people about it takes a terrible toll on his sanity. That's a bit flimsy though.

I'm leaving the skill tracks quite flat on purpose, because he has a starting ally, and allies are a strong way of 'specializing' a character. I like that random element - you take the Horror Writer but you don't know exactly what he's going to be good at until you draw the ally.

(What are monster and gate trophies meant to represent? It occurs to me, now, that I'm not exactly sure. They seem to me to represent different things in different circumstances. In the case of spending them to get clues at the University, they represent objects or information whcih has to be analyzed in order to be properly understood, so you dissect the monsters in order to learn things to your advantage. In the case of Ma's Boarding House and South Church, I think you're simply cashing the trophies in in exchange for favours and/or help from the other townsfolk. So Father Michael will bless you if you can prove you're doing God's work by battling evil, and the boarders at Ma's are likely to sign up to help you if you can provide evidence that something sinister is going on. I'm not sure what the 'Shady Character' ability at the River Docks represents - unless it's something to do with collecting bounties or selling specimens. Anyone have any other ideas?)

Change Avi's wording to this for simplicity:

"Any phase: Aubrey may spend points of Sanity as though they were 1 toughness monster trophies."

As for theme, I like to think of that ability as Aubrey having other ways to prove his worth than simply killing monsters. As a horror writer in a Lovecraft setting, you would have some special insight into what's happening.

Weird Tales is an awesome ability, and I like that he starts with an ally. That's always fun. Nice job!

one of the best horror writers i have seen in a while great job, and thanks again!

Oh yeah and you might consider starting the ability with "When using the special ability of a location..." Otherwise he will also be able to spend Sanity in place of monster trophies in situations that don't care about the toughness, just the actual trophy (such as when fighting Shub). I don't think you intended it to be used in place of actual trophies.

i would say scratch the out of his depth ability and do something different

If you do that, put the ability on another investigator. It's a good idea and would be a shame to lose.

Here's an investigator that's directly translated from a Call of Cthulhu character I have:

Link: i614.photobucket.com/albums/tt221/sergiomybro/Alphonse-Durick.png

He's pretty over the top, I know, but so is the original character. I feel it's a faithful adaptation. He's lasted over three generations of other PCs, has Library Use, Psychology, and Occult skills over 75%, and well over 60 sanity points. If anything he's toned down.

good character, no POW!!! he needs a edge, he is too much like other characters!

flamethrower49 said:

Actually, trying to explain those situations thematically would be terribly fun, in my opinion :'D especially if you're roleplaying ("Bless you my son... Insane as you are, you'll need it!")

Sothis said:

That wording doesn't state that he can't spend other people's sanity. I know, it kindof seems obvious from a balance issue, but if you don't say it, it isn't said. This is why FFG has so many rules issues after they print their cards :' ::Shrug:: I thought of that wording this morning but I wanted to eliminate all ambiguity. Granted, if you use the shorter wording it's unlikely anyone will misunderstand it (until some smartass gamer goes, "well, it doesn't say that...")

::Shrug:: to avoid the Shub problem, you might want to attach his sanity expenditures to the spending of a monster trophy. I.e. "When spending a monster trophy, Morgan may..." etc.

Avi_dreader said:

You might be right, but the 'spend' bit is going anyway. Here's the latest version of the wording.

" Any Phase: When using a location special ability, Aubrey may lose any amount of Sanity, up to his current Sanity. Each point of Sanity lost is treated as one point of monster toughness spent on the ability."

He can only lose his own sanity that way, and if you can find a clever way of losing extra sanity (using items or whatever) then good luck to you, because those things are nearly always limited resources themselves. And it doesn't break Shub-Niggurath.

As usual, this ability which appears simple is driving me totally insane now. I think I'll give up at this point, it's probably specific enough, and tbh I'm not sure he's that interesting an investigator anyway. Onward to new things, I think.

Avi_dreader said:

LOL! If someone says that just kick them out of the game. That is not something that needs to be said.

Sothis said:

Ah...then that's were you differ from Avi and me!

Because I absolutey would regard that as a problem with the card phrasing, and if I was still using the word 'spend' I'd also be using the word 'his'. I'm not even completely comfortable with the way it is in my previous post - it could also do with the word 'his'. As far as I'm concerned, the goal is for the phrasing to be completely airtight - no ambiguity gets in or out, no matter how stupid an ambiguity it is.

At least we're not talking about one of Kroen's cards. If I'd made this point about one of his investigators, he'd have bitten my head off.

(What happened to Kroen, anyway? Has he completely stopped posting? I'd probably feel bad about that, if he hadn't tried to claim that he was the only one "keeping the forums alive" or whatever BS it was.)

thecorinthian: hey if you combined your weird tales ability and my vision of yuggoth ability it would be the ultimate horror writer character!

I couldn't resist making this. Not intended to be used of course, but it was fun.

thecorinthian said:

It looks like he's gone, but we'll see. In the meantime, apparently the forum is undead now ;') but quite functional.

I do disagree with how it affects shub. You have a guaranteed extra four turns of combat. That's quite a bit. True, that alone doesn't break her (although it's fairly overpowered), but if you have a sanity restoration spell, then you can turn those four turns into *alot* more. Keep in mind, Lily's ability was nuked just beause of it's effect on Yig and Ithaqua.

Well there's rules lawyering, and then there's nonsense. Nowhere in the game is there ever any indication that you can spend other characters' Sanity (or anything else). There isn't even a precedent for it in gaming in general. What would make you think a character could spend someone else's stats to power an ability?

There's airtight, and then there's silly.

Sothis said:

He's a horror writer. Horror writers are MAGIC ::wiggles fingers::

Sothis said:

Alright, alright, I'll admit that we might be erring on the side of paranoia there. But only because AH isn't very good at carefully defining terms...there's no strict definition of 'spend' anywhere in the rules, for instance; we're just inferring what it means by looking at rules and FAQs on how you can spend specific things. 'Spending' is something that an investigator can do in almost any circumstances (because encounters, items and the board itself can give you the option) but the way it works has only been explicitly defined with reference to some of those circumstances. It's fairly safe to generalize and say that you can't spend something whcih belongs to someone else - but it is a generalization. 'Common sense' might point us in an obvious direction here, but there are plenty of places in AH where 'common sense' has led me one way, only for an official ruling to come along and tell me I've been doing it wrong.

Although of course there is one person who can spend other people's sanity: CHUCK NORRIS.

Chuck Norris does what ever he wills... spend you Sanity, Stamina... Money, flip game board over, destroy AO with Beard!

Beware the beard of doom! BEWARE!

lol yep that's true, Chuck can definitely spend other people's Sanity. I stand corrected!

I'm surprised it's taken this long for someone to make an investigator for him. Nice!