or at least walter should be only able to use his ability if no allies, whatever you think

ivory_tower said:

Woo, Thanks! Chirstmas!

pittplayer said:

i will update Walter for you a little bit later.

I might be over thinking things, but what do you all think of this guy? It's kind of complicated I know.

I like the idea of controlling monsters to fight other monsters, but I think the details need ironed out. The idea is, after completing his internship, Alex can reanimate zombies for the rest of the game (1 at any time on the board and as long as he has enough sanity; assuming bringing back the dead is a little unsettling.) The mission is about him gathering the gear for Dr. West to be able to complete his formula. Any input is appreciated, this feels like a good idea that has not been perfected yet. I only want the Zombie to be powerful enough to be able to kill about half of the monsters so he's not too strong and not too weak.

I updated the wording on David. He won't be able to use his ability all the time, since their isn't always flying monsters out, so I think that would balance it out.

Here is his .eon file if anyone is interested. I'll start posting these with my investigators.

www.thefourseasonsboutique.com/pictures/arkham/David.eon

isnt the pic of alex a girl?? ummm...

alex has a sweet ability and is prob the best control monster i have seen! bravo to you sir!

ivory_tower said:

There have been a few attempts at making 'friendly monster' abilities before, and it's a very tricky one to get right. It requires a lot of special rules - so many, in fact, that I think it might be a job for a Guardian rather than an individual investigator. 'Herbert West's Lecture Tour' or something.

But fitting it all on an investigator is worth a try, and it's an interesting exercise in card design, so here are a few things that I think you need to do in order to get this investigator concept to work: You basically need four abilities, and you need to split them up between one item, one monster marker, and the special ability box of a single investigator (which can hopefully hold two of them). The four abilites are:

1. Where the monster goes when it's not on the board.

This you can deal with by giving the guy an ability like: "Game setup: Place the Re-Animated Zombie monster marker on this sheet during Step 10. If it is ever removed from the board during the game, return it to this sheet." That's a bit clumsy (it's a 'game setup' ability that includes a clause about things that happen later) but it's about the best you can do.

2. How the monster appears

Scrap the 'mission' idea. It's a nice idea, but this investigator's concept requires so many rules that you are very limited on terms of space on cards. You can't give the character a lot of fixed items to explain the rules you need - one fixed item is probably the sensible limit, and you can't afford to waste space on it by listing sacrifices etc. And it's also a bit contrived to force the player to do a mission in order to use their investigator's special ability. It's colourful background/theme stuff, but it would play out in roughly the same way every game, restricting this investigator's playing styles too much.

Instead, the monster needs to appear in a simple way: "Arkham Encounter phase: Instead of having an encounter, <name> may spend 5 toughness of monster trophies to place a Re-Animated Zombie from this sheet at his location." or somesuch.

3. How the monster moves (and does a few other things)

This is where it gets difficult. The zombie monster needs to be exempted from most of the normal rules to do with monsters. Making it a Spawn and making it Elusive will get you some of the way there. Spawn don't count towards the monster limit I think, and the zombie being Elusive won't affect its encounters with other monsters anyway (since you're making up how those work from scratch, see below) but it'll spare you from having to make complex rules for how other investigators deal with it. If you make the monster only move according to its normal movement symbol, it won't move much, which severely limits the control that the investigator has. But there's no precedent for a monster having a special ability on the back which the investigators have to 'look at' in every Mythos phase; the only special movement rules are "green borders" and those explicitly only apply when the monster's dimension symbol matches the Mythos card. So the zombie's movement has to be managed some other way - it's got to appear as an ability on a special item or on the already-crowded investigator. The zombie has to be allowed to occasionally shamble its own way (normal monster movement) because it takes too many words to 'exempt' it from that.

4. How the monster fights

This is the real nightmare. The 'Corpse Dance' ability is a valiant effort, but it doesn't even come close to providing all the rules you need. When does the fight happen? If it's happening in the same space as an investigator, does it happen before or after that investigator encounters the other monster? Is the zombie's Fight check a skill check? If so, who's making it? The investigator who controls the zombie? Will it be affected by Environment penalties? And who rolls Fight first - the zombie or the monster it's fighting? How do you decide which monsters the zombie fights first? Monsters with no combat damage rating would be defeated automatically, since they couldn't win. It doesn't matter much if the zombie can duff up the occasional Dimensional Shambler or Nightgaunt, but the zombie would also automatically beat the Dunwich Horror, because the Horror has no stats of its own. And there will be any number of Unique items which create ambiguous effects. The only solution I can see is to radically simplify the way that the Zombie fights, so that instead of actually having a combat system, it's a sort of walking 'bomb' - it just destroys monsters of toughness 2 or below that it encounters, and if they're powerful enough they destroy it - so you have to pay to spawn it again. Maybe it could also 'help' with tougher monsters, so if you're fighting a tougher monster and the zombie is in the same space as you, it reduces the monster's toughness or something. I really don't have an answer for this problem yet - I'll think about it some more.

Other misc. stuff: S tart the investigator at the Admin Building, not the Science Building. You can't possibly spare the space in his ability box for that thing about the starting clue token.

Sorry, I know this is all very long and not necessarily very constructive, since I've basically re-written your whole investigator! Will you take it amiss if I try to come up with my own 'zombie-spawning' investigator? I'd like to give it a go.

Ok, here's another take on the same sort of idea. There's a surfeit of Herbert Westalikes out there, so let's have some 16th century Jewish folklore instead. Because 16th century Jewish folklore is ace. It has giant killer robots.

I have no idea if this will work. But I am about to playtest it. Will report back with results.

thecorinthian said:

Sure, give it a go and I'll try to re-work some things as well. Appreciate the in depth input. I am new to this game so sometimes I can't think of every scenario.

thecorinthian said:

This sounds awesome. I was thinking it would be too complicated to actually have "monster fights", the only way to do it is to have it ba an automatic win/lose based on toughness or combat damage. The movement spell seems like a good idea, would it still move on it's on if it's mythos card comes up? And should the player get to keep the monsters it beats? It would seem too easy to hang out in a safe location and just have the Golem clean up little stuff all over the board. If the investigator is not going to risk themselves, they shouldnt get a reward.

I went a different direction and I think this solved the problem of monster fighting monsters. I should have thought of this in the first place. Just make the zombie a character.

I found a better picture for the zombie.

ivory_tower said:

Hmm table space is at a premium as it is for most people... I think your better off sticking with the older idea and working out some bugs

DeepSix said:

Adding another investigator is going to cause trouble. For one thing, how does it affect the gate/monster/outskirts limit?

I think a 'middle ground' is called for: you could do a set of special cards, like the Dunwich Horror cards, which explain the way the zombie works, and you just draw one of those whenever the zombie monster marker moves into the same space as another monster. That way, the zombie could be a bit unpredictable. I already had the idea that when you 'create' a zombie, it ought to be one of two or three variants, so that you're never quite sure what you're getting.

@DeepSix, regarding the Rabbi:

Thanks, it is fun - I just playtested it in a four-player game. We were fighting Atlach-Nacha, and using the Dunwich board, and we were on course for a gate-closing victory (although we had to pack up before we actually got it). Basically, playing as the Rabbi is a bit like being Rex Murphy: he's rubbish at first, then he starts to really be great in the mid- to late-game stages. The Rabbi is almost no use until you can get a trophy to deploy the Golem, at whcih point the Golem can hoover up the game's weaker monsters. Yes, the idea IS that you get them as trophies. And yes, the Golem will sometimes move in the Mythos phase, of its own accord. That's deliberate and I think it's quite characterful. They can be tricky things to control, these golems. Also, it balances the movement spell a bit, because you can't always predict exactly where the Golem will be.

Based on the one game I've played, I don't think this investigator too powerful, but you're right - it would let you 'camp' somewhere and take no risks. I'll think about including some penalty, or some way of the Golem 'dying' and inflicting a loss on the Rabbi himself. The obvious one is that if the Golem encounters a monster with Stamina damage 3 or above, the Golem is returned to the Rabbi's sheet - but there's no room to write that anywhere, so I might have to go back to the drawing board for a bit.

Another minor change I'll make: the 'Maharal's Word' spell should let you move the Golem one space for each success on the lore check , rather than just 'two spaces'. That's just more interesting; if you want to make it move faster you need to be rolling more dice. I'm also mulling over how to phrase the card properly. At the moment, the Fixed Possession entry "1 Spawn Monster (Golem)" is doing the work of a special ability which he ought to have which would say "Game Setup: Place the Golem monster marker on this card etc etc etc". Investigators having fixed 'spawn monsters' is obviously a bit mad and right now it relies too heavily on the players realizing how it's meant to work. Any ideas? Or can I just leave it as it is and get away with it?

I'd also appreciate input from anyone on the following question: should the Golem be Elusive? In other words, should it get in the way of other investigators, or not? I just playtested it using it as Elusive, but the alternative is to simply leave it with an easy Awareness modifier (+2) and rely on the other investigators being willing to mostly stay out of its way. I like the idea that the Golem isn't completely friendly and will sometimes attack its master's allies, but on the other hand if another investigator ends up fighting the Golem and is forced to destroy it, that's a disproportionate setback for the Rabbi himself, and liable to create divisions in the player group....

Here is a custom Investigator I came up with. I purposely left him with a couple dollars unspent to balance the increased upkeep money. Thoughts and feedback welcome!

Ok, obviously I've got to work on scaling it right for the forums....

lets try this again...

While I'm still trying to figure out how to work with Isabel (after playtesting her), I thought I'd post two more investigators that I intend to try out with isabel and Sid.

Nothing really too fancy about Xavier. He was made with the intent (like the majority of the investigators I've been working on) to emphasize teamwork. The spending of Clue tokens to help other investigators is pretty straight forward. I'll know more about how well he works when I get a chance to playtest him (hopefully tomorrow). I originally only had him with 3 Speed, but just by looking at it, I realized 3 speed was horrible with his ability. What good is spending the clue tokens to help out your fellow investigators if you can't get to the Clue tokens to begin with?

Nina was designed specifically to be a gate hopper. Kthanid's Aid ability is similar to Jim's Strange Luck ability, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. As red is generally considered the most dangerous, she has a little less to worry about. Vigor makes it a little easier for her to seal gates. It's because of the Vigor ability that I only had her starting with 1 clue token. Her Find Gate spell insures that she'll always have a way back from Other Worlds (assuming she doesn't lose it). I've yet to playtest her , so I don't know how well she'll work, or if she'll be too good or too one-dimensional or what. So when I try out Xavier, I'll try her out as well.

I like Xavier although I probably wouldn't use his ability very often. I would give him another (weak) ability, because it might become boring if your ability only works for other investigators.

Nina is also cool, I'd like to play her. Giving her Find Gate might almost be too much, but only testing her will tell.

As for Richard, is there a reason you just took Jenny's ability and doubled it? Of course it helps to keep using the Elephant Gun, but giving him only 1$ per turn would do the same without making the Elephant Gun's drawback obsolete. I'd rather give him a more original ability, but I am a bit biased, as one of the characters I posted when starting this topic also was a Big Game Hunter.

@Cimmerz:

Xavier Solomon is great. Interesting and very, very simple. This is the type of thing we need more of. I feel stupid for mucking about with Rabbis who need five-page rulebooks of their own.

Having Xavier on the team suggests a whole other play style, in which Xavier goes and gets all the clues and everyone else runs around doing the risky stuff. I think this is fascinating, but if the team does agree to play that way, I think it'll so drastically increase the efficiency of clue token usage that it'll be the equivalent of having Hypnos on the board, or better. So you might want to add one limitation to his ability: he can only spend clue tokens to aid the skill checks of investigators in Arkham , and those in OWs are on their own. I'll print and playtest this guy as he is, and let you know how I get on.

Nina Fisher is quite good too, although she's a 'mixed bag' - her abilities and items don't particularly interact with each other. Surely having 'Find Gate' and having an ability which helps you survive OW encounters is a bit redundant?

(Also, I've gotta say, her abilities are quite 'passive', preventative things - there's not much special that she can actually do . Red OW encounters do tend to be the more difficult ones, but I still like having them...)

@Feonor:

Hey, it's Lord Dunsany! Groovy. I agree with Morgaln, though. The character needs another 'angle'. How about this: instead of having extra money just so he can keep killing elephants, give him this ability:

"Any phase: Whenever Lord Dunsany defeats a monster, he may refresh an item in his possession."

That way, you need a nice clean kill rather than just 'wounding' the blighters. It would basically make this guy the multiple-monster-fighting 'heavy weapons' man, using the Carbine or the 357 or the Flamethrower to great effect too. Plus, there are probably plenty of other ways of exploiting it using unique items etc. If you don't want to use this ability, I will.

thecorinthian said:

So let's make it so he's not counted as an investigator; and I cut his sheet up to make it smaller.

I do like the idea of having different zombies.

Morgain: Sorry, didn't mean to copy your idea. I just thought the idea of somebody who was too stoopid/arrogant to be afraid of the monsters, instead viewing them as just another kind of big game to be hunted, was a great concept... Anyway, you have a point. I don't want to completely undermine the downside of the elephant gun.

thecorinthian: Thanks for the feedback. That was a briliant idea!

I've kind of combined both of your suggestions into this:

Thoughts?

Right now I'm using my DeviantArt page to host the images so I can post them here. Is there a better way to do it than that?

Also, how about the sizing; is this getting closer to right?

Thanks again!

No need to apologize, you didn't copy anything of mine and I didn't intend to imply that.

I think he's fine now, thecorinthian's idea really is good. I'll consider testing him, although I am always a bit wary of giving an investigator the same ability as an official one.

umm nice post

Morgaln said:

Nina's fairly strong... She'd probably make a upper tier two character. Vigor is essentially equivalent to three clue tokens (possibly even four or five, depending on how much you toss her around the map). I've never said this about an investigator before, but you might want to consider giving her one or even zero dollars. Find gate and a skill that half neutralizes places like R'yleh shouldn't gome so cheaply.

thecorinthian said:

::Shrug:: remember, sealing gates is not a skill check— so the only way you'd be able to pay for that is to actually have clue tokens on a particular character. Consequently, I wouldn't worry about him hording all the clues (this would only be a problem in a game where the team decided they were going to fight the AO from the start).

Morgaln said:

Yes, but he's clearly Jenny's brother ;'D

I wish his picture was changed, but other than that, I found the card enjoyable (making elephant guns come back in style).

thecorinthian[ - Glad you like them! I sometimes wonder if I overthink things, which is why I decided to go simple for Xavier. Still, a less simple character can be fun too, as they require some thought. I like your rabbi character.

avi_dreader - Yeah, I agree, but after what thecorinthian said, it made me realize that Nina doesn't need the Find Gate spell with her ability to ignore red OW encounters. Having an ability that helps protect her in Other Worlds doesn't really go well with having an item that just takes her out of them anyway. So, instead, I dumped the Find Gate spell, and just gave her another random spell. I updated her image to show this.

Feonor] - I created just a simple Coppermine photo gallery. You're more than welcome to use it to upload your creations to. In fact, anyone is welcome to it, as long as its just used for custom AK stuff, and not a dumping ground for random images/videos. So yeah, go ahead and use that if you'd like for now.

www.jauston.com/gallery/index.php << That's the link to the Coppermine gallery. Use it if you need it.