Welp, I thought I'd try my hand at this whole custom Investigators thing. They're not of printable quality yet, because as my first attempt, I'm anticipating having to make some revisions here, but once everything is in order I'll gladly upload images of higher quality. Anyways, presenting Sabrina, the Chauffeuse. (Which is the term for a female chauffeur, in case you were wondering.)

Anyways, I've built her to fill an interesting niche. Her purpose is to help other characters get around the board faster, and make sure everyone is where they're needed. She can even help others get past monsters that would otherwise be blocking their path with her Sedanette, which becomes substantially more useful upon completing her personal story. Failing her personal story still allows her to ferry other players around, but not as often, since every time she does so, Paranoia will cause her to lose a Sanity. Use it too often, and she might go mad, running the chance of taking one of the two Paranoia cards from the Madness deck.

I spent a lot of time configuring her ability because I was worried about making her too overpowered. To clarify, she may only take a single passenger per turn. She may pick up a passenger any time during her movement in Arkham, and while traveling with a passenger, the result of her Evade checks apply for both the passenger and herself, hence the Sedanette. I had started her out with a Map of Arkham, but I figured that since she already had a speed of 6 that it would be overkill. Instead I have her the Revolver so she'd have something to aid her in completing her personal story. I'd appreciate any feedback you guys have to offer.

At first glance I rather like Sabrina. She has a unique niche an in-genre flavor and a personal story that actually has a story attached. I don't see any major balance issues with her but a few play tests can do wonders for revealing that sort of thing.

re: Sabrina

at a glance, I saw a typo, "afterwords" should be afterwards.

You should rephrase Sabrina's ability so it is in the passive voice, that way it won't sound like she can only use it on another investigator if she moves before them, but also if they move before her and choose to allow themselves to be driven. I think that'd work anyways.

Avi_dreader said:

Actually, I had originally made her power work like that. It'd certainly make things more efficient, and then she wouldn't always have to go out of her way to pick people up. They could just move in a space along her planned route for the turn. But like I said, I was worried about unbalancing her so I nerfed it a bit. In retrospect, I suppose that's not really game breaking or anything, and if everyone ignores monsters for too long then the terror track will start rising, so it seems the problem fixes itself. And playing against Cthugha will already hose her pretty bad. I'll do some play testing on her and see how things turn out.

Mighty Maltim said:

It's really not game breaking. It's not even a Migo Brain Case level power. She'd end up as a second tier character at best (if the other investigators had high movement her ability would be worthless), and her basic stats aren't that powerful.

Avi_dreader said:

Originally, she was able to use her power regardless if the passenger had already moved that turn, and her Skilled Driver ability also contained her personal story bonus of the Sedanette being able to evade monsters of up to two points of toughness, and her personal story reward was instead +1 Focus and +1 Fight. That way, even if the other Investigators had a high Speed stat, she could still assist them in evading groups of monsters. Do you think I should have left it at that, or would that have been too much?

It's your custom investigator, you decide if you think it'd be too powerful :') I still don't think it'd be a first tier skill, but it sounds quite a bit stronger.

I know I've been absent from this forum for quite time, but I was hoping for some suggestion and feedback about my investigators.

Any idea?

After my play testing, I've found that in my efforts to keep her balanced, she ended up terribly underpowered. Go me. Anywho, I've restored her abilities to their former glory, and then she was able to actually do what she was MEANT to do. I also slightly altered the pass condition for her personal story, because it was way too specific.

Well I guess that's that. Printable images are below. Any thoughts on the changes?

This was adapted from an investigator posted a while back named Judith Jennings. I like that one a lot as it is, but I also thought of a variation that is more of a floozie as opposed to a femme fatale. I like how she chases the other women (Allies) away, leaving more men for her to go through. And thematically, I like that when she discards an Ally, it goes back to the deck, so she might end up going back out with the same guy some time later.

If there was room for more abilities, I would probably include some kind of influence over male/female investigators as well as the Allies (e.g. male investigators in her location gain +1 to skill checks and female investigators in her location get -1 to skill checks)... but what she has is probably enough as it is. Anyway, let me know what you think...

Hahaa, I like Fanny. The idea is fun and Ally interaction is always good. You might want to change some of the wording to "Whenever a female Ally is drawn, it is returned to the box." It's more consistent with Arkham's terminology. But that's just me splitting hairs.

Heh, Fanny needs to meet Asenath from over at the Herald thread.

Veet said:

I'm getting a glimpse of the future...it's the greatest cat-fight ever to occur in the streets of Arkham.

A male human ally, huh? You mean Duke won't hump her leg?

Avi_dreader said:

And we shouldn't have Foolishness and Young Zoog involved with her, either.

Well, I don't know about the mating habits of alien animals (or how to determine their sex).

This is the final version of an investigator that was floating around here with a couple variations. First I made it a boxer, then a fighter, each with small variations. Now it's a boxer again, but with a lot of little changes and tweaks. This is, by far and without bragging, the best designed investigator I have ever made. Notice I said "designed". This is, by no means, a tier 1 investigator. But I think it is now perfectly designed and perfectly balanced. But you be the judge:

This idea occurred to me for an investigator special ability:

Charmed Life: The investigator cannot be devoured. His maximum Sanity and Stamina cannot fall below 1. The investigator loses this ability once the Ancient One awakens.

I was wondering if anyone has tried this special ability and/or had thoughts about how well it would work. You'd need to come with special rules to handle Ghatanothoa, Eihort, and Quachil Uttaus (and maybe other AOs). For example, you could rule that the investigator is immune to Ghatanothoa's and Eihort's abilities (pre final battle) and is ignored by Quachil Uttaus. He'd also be pretty effective against Yog-Sothoth (but no more so than Sister Mary, who is not considered to be an unbalanced investigator). On the other hand, the ability could work against you, since sometimes it's to your advantage to get an investigator devoured. Still, it seems like an obvious idea with some useful applications.

Any thoughts?

avec said:

Have it so the investigator gains a clue token instead of being devoured?

So you think it's a bit underpowered? I can see that. It probably wouldn't come up that much.

avec said:

It still won't be that strong. I would say two clues, except it could be exploitable when a devouring monster shows up (you might want to consider what happens if someone tries to exploit a moonbeast though).

If a monster would devour <name> return it to the cup instead.

???

Avi_dreader said:

I don't think I follow you. The moonbeast would be nerfed for the investigator, but I don't see anything game breaking.

The Skinless One and the Servitor of the Outer Gods might be a more serious problem.

I realized that the Innsmouth Look cards would produce an interesting effect. If the investigator draws the devoured card, he ignores the text about being devoured, but he stills add a Deep One to his location and advances the DOR track. So essentially he sees someone else turn into a Deep One in front of his eyes.

The problem would only occur if you added the effect of gaining a clue token when they would be devoured. The Investigator would be able to just run themselves into the moon beast over and over to get clues.

Oh, okay. Though that's a pretty expensive clue token if it costs you an injury or madness card.

Re Skinless One and Servitor, I might add "If failing a Combat or an Evade check would cause you to be devoured, you are knocked unconscious. If failing a Horror check would cause you to be devoured, you are driven insane."