pittplayer said:

Hey thanks, I can make Lovecraft characters all day although I don't have that story you mention. I need to get some more of his stories.

Only thing though, I just started playing 3 days ago, LOL, so I might need help from experienced players whether or not an ability is balanced or too powerful.

Here is the Main Character from "The Hound" He didn't have a name since the story is in first person so I tried to find a sleazy name that would fit him.

Randolph Carter's Frantic search is way over the top. It basically does the same as Jaqueline Fine's ability (letting you prevent a Mythos card), only for no cost instead of two clues.

In addition, as he can use the ability during upkeep, he can look at the card, decide not to put it on the bottom and then prepare for exactly that card. it becomes outright ridiculous if paired with Kate. Talk about the Daisy + Arcane Insight + Kate combo without having to do a spell check.

I would suggest retricting the ability to the Item and Skill decks, or perhaps include Injuries / Madnesses as well. That's good enough.

Aura Blast should cost two clues like similar abilities (Jaqueline and Charlie come to mind), and would not necessarily need a skill check in that case.

Chester is almost too powerful; get a Bank Loan and then go buy three Elder Signs. Even worse, imagine all investigators giving him their money, then he amps at the Curiositie Shoppe, buys the Carcosan Page first and then gets all the Elder Signs from the deck. As he is in a stable location, those stalker monsters will be unable to touch him. I think that might become gamebreaking.

Also, his ability doesn't remind me of a graverobber. Perhaps you can think of something else.

Fireblaze said:

I would play with her, awesome. With a potential +2 horror check, i would park her at 3 will/fight, and with that lore of 6, she's a monster. Almost too powerful? hard to say...

I suggest losing "Fortune telling", since i personally don't value focus all that much. That's just me though, others should weigh in on it. She seems strong enough with just "See the future".

Morgaln said:

Agreed, shopping the Unique deck will only mean getting all the Elder Signs. Since he's a grave robber, what if he could take some items from a devoured character? You would have to put a limit on it, like 2 or 3, could be interesting depending on how often people get eaten.

All of Lovecraft's work is available online for free at feedbooks.com. I have it all on my iphone, but you can use it on any e-reader device, or print them out yourself!

Cool, i downloaded a bunch of his stuff. I will do some reading for inspiration. I updated Chester also, how is this?

And with your advice, the updated Randolph Carter. I think this will limit his powers to an acceptable level.

and one more non Lovecraft character. I hope you guys don't mind me posting so much, I keep coming up with ideas.

I really like the picture on this one too

I am assuming that the Curator at the Unique Item shop would like to trade for Monster trophies because they are unique as well.

.

Huh... I never knew stalking didn't effect stable locations... Thanks again badly organized FFG rulebooks ;'D (DH pg 7). It even has an instruction to "See the 'Stalker Movement' diagram on page 8..." (of course, there is no such diagram on page eight, only on page six ::rolls eyes: . Arkham Horror rulebooks strike again! Lose three sanity!

hey ivorytower!! if i gave you some ideas and abilities could you make me a investigator? i dont have strange aeons!

pittplayer said:

Sure, I would love to do that. I will check back tomorrow and see what you have for me.

ivory_tower said:

Chester- Seems like a legit ability to me, more experienced players should weigh in. Did he get bonus points for starting with that cursed item?

Randolph- Also seems more balanced now. Would basically result in being able to target a shop for something that's good, or get something that's crap out of the way. You may want to rethink starting with the necronomicon though, it seems too powerful for a high lore roller to start off with. He could sit back and milk it for spells right from the get go and suffer little consequence. I feel like tomes in general are iffy fixed items, you mostly use and discard them for something you could have just started with anyway. Perhaps a magnifying glass to aid in the use of tomes aquired later on? This would free up a few points to spend as well.

Victor- 5 toughness is equal to $5 at the docks, so i'm not sure how much of a benefit this is. Whats the minimum price of a unique item, how would know you can afford something to go trade at all? What if it was spend 5 monster toughness to draw 3 cards and keep 1? That could work out being a nice deal if you draw something worth more then $5. Could screw you too if they all end up as less then 5, so nice balance!

I think you should totally keep thinking of ideas and posting, you come up with some really interesting stuff. Making a great balanced character is a puzzle in itself, and very rewarding in it's own right. I have a few ideas as well i want to put up soon, i hit something of a block trying to figure out Jonathan and neglected the other characters i was working on.

DeepSix said:

There is also a searchable collection of his work available as a plug-in to Strange Eons, which can be useful if you want to look something up while designing. The search is fairly powerful and accepts wildcards. Click the magnifying glass for syntax, or if you want to find out what words your wildcard search matches.

Cheers,
Chris

Thelric said:

Is there anything this program can't do???

DeepSix said:

I tried to get it to clean my bathroom but it refused. Said it was there to create unbelievable horrors, not to clean them up!

Morgaln said:

Clearly you don't have the bathroom plugin.

(There MUST be a good way to do a Strange Eons bathroom/plugin joke, but I can't make it work.)

DeepSix said:

How do the bonus points work? I wanted to make an adjustment for the penalty but didn't know how to do it.

I played Victor last night. You're right about Monster trophies at the river docks but with his ability it saves you a turn from having to go there. Still, I should come up with something unique that can't be done by other characters by using the regular game mechanics. I like your idea about spending 5 toughness to draw 3 cards and keep one.

Here is another character I made up. I included some of the special abilities I was pondering before settling on the 2nd one.

Angelic Blessing
Any Phase: When having an Encounter at St. Mary's Hospital, Marian may have another player gain 3 Stamina instead.

Repentance:
Any Phase: Marian may (insert detriment or sacrifice here) to have any Creature deal damage to itself equal to its Combat Damage Rating.

Exile:
Any Phase: Marian may spend 3 clue tokens to have any Monster removed from the Sky and returned to the cup.

Cradle of Vitality:
Any Phase: Whenever you gain Stamina, you may pay 1 clue to gain 1 stamina and 1 sanity.

ivory_tower said:

If you look at all the negative starting abilities, they add +$3 or +$5 to your spending pool. That card would probably be worth $3 since it's a negative but it doesnt effect your stats.

Marian is pretty cool, i think she could get by with just Sanctuary, seems like a useful ability to me. Death Ward is a little fuzzy, since the penalty seems so high, and people getting devoured doesnt happen all that often. Plus is leaves some questions, like does the investigator that was about to be devoured still lose half items and go to the hospital/asylum?

I agree, I think Sanctuary would be just useful enough by itself; I'll make the adjustment and test it out today.

Here is my version of the Reanimator. I seen someone else post him and thought it was cool. Those are such great movies.

The special ability words are lengthy, they could probably be cut down some. I made sure to include the chance that Dr. West would get attacked if the monster enters his location. That seemed fitting.

@ivorytower!

ok here you go some ideas i have been working with,

A seeker after forbidden knowledge, a poet or traveler. Dont know what to name him.

Dark Discoveries:

While in the graveyard he may instead of having an encounter lose 3 sanity. Search and take a ally card. He may only use this ability if he has no allies. During upkeep roll on allies as if they were retainers.

Foul Companions:

IF he has any allies and ends his turn in the Church or Asylum, put a blight card in play.

Drawn to the Dark:

When he enters a open gate he gains one sanity.

I kind of wrote this down fast, feel free to change it around or whatever. And i would prefer if the character art matches the other AH art. My preference thats all. Thanks in advance. O yeah, i think he should have a Dark Cloak as one of his starting items. Cant wait to see what you do with all this!

what i mean by art is no movie art please, ; )

pittplayer said:

Hey, thanks for the input, that really helped generate something new. Here is my first rendition. I made her female because I just couldn't pass up that bad ass picture. Hope you don't mind.

ivory_tower said:

Mmmmm monster control, that is certainly interesting. Would modifiers like physical/magical resistance be ignored in a monster vs monster battle? Would West get the trophy if his monster wins? Just now drawing some random monsters to test, it might be best to simplyfy this by eliminating the rolls, and just base it on combat damage + toughness. Stronger monsters always beat weaker monsters. The game has so many die rolls to keep track of as it is, best to cut them out when you can.

I would like to try using him in my next game, since i play with a huge reanimator fan. A few tweeks and he should be good to go. Probably just discard his ally from the deck as well.

Great art selection too.

Jack the Ripper needs to be modified again due to Innsmouth's martial law. It doesn't thematically make sense that the isolated spawn of Deep Ones would recognize a human serial killer (or if they did, care), unless perhaps of course ;') he had a little bit of a fishy look about him.

I made some unorthodox changes to the Multiple Personality character-

I made the Multiple personality disorder a madness card that is a fixed possesion, and i cut the special ability area out of his card.

So when you draw another investigator you can just place Jonathan's card on top. Gameplay starts with a random draw as well, there is no longer a "normal" personality to revert to. There is no "i", only "we".

Ha ha, that is fantastic.

@ivorytower

1. Movie art? urgh A chick? argh

2. She is way too powerful. The blight thing i had kept him in check. He carries around zombie minions and if certain people see the zombies they lose their minds!!! you kind of lost that flavor of my idea.

3. I appreciate you working with me on ideas please dont get me wrong!!

4. Is there any way you could make a version for me??

Your really on to something with this one, that power set is very cool. Looks like a good mix of sacrifice and reward. You could probably stand to lose Dark Caress, the Ally specific powers stand well alone. Only being able to get one if you have 0 was a great idea, it can't really be abused very much.