Here's an Investigator based off of a Hunter: The Reckoning character I played a few years back. Definitely would like some feedback on his abilities, both from a balance perspective and from a wording perspective.

I haven't found a good cane sword picture yet, which is why I didn't include that card. But it's just a +2, one handed, physical weapon that can't be lost or stolen and costs $4.

And no, he is in no way related to or based on the author of Sherlock Holmes, I just thought it was a cool name and would provide for some amusing jokes from fellow players. Also, I just realized I randomly used the British spelling of "favored" for no good reason. I'll have to fix that next revision.

Hm... I like the idea! As with most custom content, there are some things that should probably be tweaked. IMHO, this guy is extremely powerful. Also, the ability is very wordy. There are some ways to trim it down. As with Supercz, I think that perhaps the favored weapon ability would be better as a personal story. You could even make it so that he could choose any weapon he has to become favored. Just a thought.

Ok, so enough "constructive criticism," here are my suggestions on how to balance it a little better:

Cleave:
Any phase: Choose a weapon <name> is carrying and make a Will (+1) check. This weapon becomes a magical weapon and gains +1 for each success rolled until the next upkeep phase (mark this weapon with a doom token).
Upkeep: Discard any weapon with a doom token on it.

Or

Cleave:
Any phase: Make a Will(+1) check and choose a weapon <name> is carrying. This weapon gains a +1 combat modifier for each success you rolled on your will check until the next upkeep phase. Discard this weapon on the next upkeep phase.

That last one seems a little more concise, I just don't know if it would be better to mark the weapon in question. You probably notice that I take away the ignoring of magical resistance. This is because since the weapon is becoming magical anyway AND gaining bonuses, it is likely that you'll be doing the equivalent of the original weapon damage without worrying about overcoming resistance. For example, let's say Arthur had his will at 2, fight 5. You roll 3 dice and get two successes (perhaps optimistic). So you add +2 to the cane sword making it +4 and magical. Since resistance only cuts in half the bonus, you still get +2, which you would have gotten anyway. Another thing just occurred to me; you're only going to want to use this ability really on something that has physical immunity or resistance. Usually (not alway), if a monster has physical resistance/immunity, they won't have magic resistance. In this case, you'd get the whole +4 combat bonus. This makes the ability still very powerful without being quite as overpowering as before.

Just FYI, and I'm sure you know, there is an item called Enchanted Cane that comes with the "cannot be lost or stolen" ability, though it is not specifically a cane sword, so this may not be what you want.

Here is a link to an image of a cane sword that I thought looked pretty cool:

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ALSO, I like the character, great job, Whirlwind! Are you thinking of doing a themed expansion based on Hunter?

Here are two investigators based on the graphic novel I'm currently working on.

I'm unconvinced about a 2/8 split for any Investigator. Even with the protection from Horror damage abilities and his Sanity gaining capability, there are far too many encounters that would kill him in one hit - and that's before we put Cthulhu into the equation....

Admiral142 said:

Thanks! I do like the idea of make the favored weapon a personal story, I might go with that, especially since I was having a hard time coming up with one to begin with. Of your two suggestions, I like the first better, especially since I feel like it's worth it to mark the cards, since he theoretically could dual wield and boost one, both, or neither. And going through weapons that fast means you'd probably try to stock him up with cheap weapons.

I still feel like that might be a little bit underpowered compared to some of the other investigator's abilities, but looking at it again, that's definitely a lot more balanced than the first attempt.

And yeah, I did base the cane sword off the Enchanted Cane, I was just trying to make this as similar to my hunter character as possible, and he used a cane sword (more specifically, a max-power perma-cleave cane sword per the Avenger special ability/ritual thingy). I do like the image, so I'll post the Cane Sword card with the next revision.

Jake yet again said:

Yeah...Lenore is either too strong or far too weak, depending on how you look at it. :-P She's tremendously strong at making horror checks, but there are those monsters that do sanity damage even if you succeed at the check. And if she goes up against other checks that could reduce her sanity, she has no special defenses and would be very likely to go insane. She's pretty much limited entirely to monster hunting, and even for that she really, really has to succeed at the check...she has a very good chance to do so since she'll always roll full Will, but against a lot of monsters, even with her reduced san damage ability, she could be taken out easily.

Plus, as has been pointed out, Cthulhu would make her Max sanity 1 , which would make her pretty much unplayable.

Lets not forget that Delirium causes you to loose sanity when you get no successes in an encounter roll. Consider how many of those rolls are luck/lore and look at her lore and luck track. She'd be making frequent trips to the Asylum just over that. Then there is also the Colour out of Space...

Veet said:

Okay, yeah...so I'd say definitively underpowered.

Here's another fun themed character for you all to enjoy!

As you can see, I wanted to play with the 'Secret Identity' Batman. The goal here is to try and juggle between Batman and Bruce Wayne. Batman's powerful, but he's got some severe drawbacks. Bruce Wayne doesn't have the stats, but he can gain money fairly easily and get useful skills and weapons for Batman to use with relative ease. He might be a bit overpowered, so what do you guys think?

Ha ha, first, that's awesome.

My only criticism is Bruce Wayne has basically Jenny's ability, but better in every way. I don't really know how to resolve this, though. Maybe something where he can delay himself to avoid paying the cost of something? Might be overpowered in the curiosity shop, though. Maybe he can spend clue tokens or items as money, say 3$/clue token or the item's price for money?

I really like the switching mechanic. I think Batman should have better sneak, but then again, if it accurately reflected Batman pretty much all his skills would be waaaay up there (especially luck... how many times has he been shot at where they just happened to miss?)

Very fun concept though. And if I'm not mistaken he was actually around back then, so fits in thematically.... kinda.

I like the concept, but honestly I'm not sure Bats is really strong enough to justify switching. Gaining $3 a turn is huge , and Wayne's fight is high enough that with some good weapons he can be very effective without even going Batman.

I'd suggest dropping Bats Stamina to Wayne's level. I think it'd be better (and cause less confusion) if the differences statwise were only in the skills.

I agree that the sneak skill should be higher. I know we can't perfectly represent Bats, but he's known for 3 things in comics: Fighting, Sneaking, and Detective work. Thus, I'd give him high Fight, Sneak, and Lore. If you're going to give up getting an extra $3 each turn and buying anything in the game for $1 less, the character needs to be pretty major. As it is, I don't know that I'd ever switch to Batman unless I was absolutely forced into a fight against multiple monsters and didn't already feel I had a good chance with Wayne.

That said, I also agree that Wayne basically having Jenny's ability but better is kind of bad. If he were weak in pretty much every other way, it would work, but he's still pretty good overall. And honestly, his ability set is more than 3 times as good . Not only does he get $3 per turn instead of $1, he gets to spend less money!

The "lose double money" thing might be painful if it comes up, but I'm trying hard to remember when I've actually drawn a card that said that and I can't recall more than one. :-P

I'd suggest at the very least that you lower the $3 per turn to $2 per turn, and probably remove the "spend $1 less," leaving him with just the disadvantage part of that one.

Good calls on all those. One thing I did disagree on is having Batman's stamina be higher - it represents his suits armor. I weakened Waynes ability somewhat, and also dropped his base stamina down to average (dropping Batmans as well). They get another skill now (Why? Because he's BATMAN, that's why!). He's still rich (down to 2$ though), but being rich puts his clue tokens at risk if you lose money in an encounter. That's pretty huge, so I also went with some incentive to switch between the two - I'd clarify that you'd could only switch between them once per turn (so no switching back and forth to gain sanity and stamina), but I'm not sure how to word it. Same with clarifying that you can't start with Batman. How're they looking now?

MustardTheTroops said:

Maybe that's because, Jenny, is... BATMAN!

I have to admit, while I'm not crazy about using fan created investigators... The idea of having Batman travel in time to help battle an Ancient One is *very* appealing to me.

He ought to interact with the "masked avenger defends the night" (or whatever that card is) - the one which clears the streets around Arkham Asylum.

Master Fwiffo said:

Look better now...I think I'd have to playtest them to actually get a further feel.

For preventing starting as Batman, I'd just add a note at the bottom of his powers section that says "You must start the game as Bruce Wayne" or some such.

For preventing using the switch over and over...hm...how about this?

On "Wayne's Secret," add: May not be used if "Who is behind the mask?" has been used this phase.

On "Who is behind the mask?" add: May not be used if "Wayne's secret" has been used this phase.

Hey, all. Not ready to put up the investigators yet, but I'm making some based on my little gaming group. They will probably be uploaded here in some form or another when done, but I wanted to put up the powers to see what people thought of them if I can get some comments:

Investigator 1 (I1): Personal Library

Any Phase: Whenever an investigator successfully uses a tome, I1 may also claim a success using that tome, gaining the benefits but also suffering any negatives. If I1 uses a tome successfully himself, he may claim success twice, gaining the benefits twice but suffering the negatives twice as well.

Investigator 2 (I2): That's Pretty Stupid

Arkham/Gate Encounters: I2 may spend a clue token to draw a second Arkham Encounter or Gate Encounter card, after reading the first, and may choose whichever he likes better.

Investigator 3 (I3): Fierce Defender

Any Phase: Once per turn, I3 may either double his Fight rating for a combat check, or add his Fight rating to the Combat check of another investigator in the same neighborhood.

Investigator 4 (I4): Inspiring

Any Phase: Once per turn, I4 may allow another investigator to use his current Speed/Sneak/Will/Fight/Lore/Luck rating (without item bonuses) instead of their own for skill checks, if his rating would be better.

Sdrolion said:

I'd be a bit worried about potential abuse of Personal Library with a lucky draw of King in Yellow or Old Journal. I'd either explicitly state that those items can not be duplicated, or generally make it so duplicate uses do not produce clue tokens.

The doubled fight might be problematic too (especially for pulping The Dunwich Horror)... There should probably be a cost involved in its use. Stamina perhaps. I'd have to see what the investigator's max fight was to know. If it was 3 or something, it wouldn't be *that* bad... Higher and it could be seriously exploitable in certain circumstances.

Avi_dreader said:

For the library thing, I'd honestly kinda just chalk it up to really good luck, for that...and remember that he does have to be willing to suffer the negatives twice (or suffer them along with whoever else used the tome). The Old Journal wouldn't have any, though, so I may say only Unique tomes...that leaves KiY as the only one that would provide a large amount of clues if they were lucky enough to draw it, and even then, he'd have to be willing to suffer the negatives (he has no defense against san loss from tomes). So yes, it'd be powerful, but in general it'd be a very lucky draw.

Alternately, I could maybe put in something that lowers the "duplicated" benefits, so he's getting less effect (if possible) for the same penalty. Or maybe (and probably more easily) instead he can't just claim a success, but when someone else succeeds he can also attempt a roll for that same tome. That would make it less than a 100% chance that he could do it, even if he had the sanity for it.

I was concerned about the doubled fight, too...I will probably put a cost of some kind in there.

Sdrolion said:

I wouldn't really say it's a lucky draw, I get a King in Yellow at least one in every three games. Anyone who plays a shopping strategy will come across the KiY fairly often. Okay, how about this fix, exclude common tomes (since so many of them come without sanity costs, it's not really necessary though), and King in Yellow by name? Or you could just bump KiY by name and forget about Old Journal (it tends to be drawn much less since players don't typically try to spend much time at the General Store hunting for Elder Signs).

Hmmm... I was about to suggest a fix for the doubled fight. Fixed +2 bonus for other investigators, and doubled for self, but at the cost of not being able to retire, and drawing an injury whenever he does this (and then I remembered you don't have Dunwich yet. Sigh).

Hmm... Perhaps have him discard a weapon or 2 spells for each round of combat he uses this skill? That would make it useful, but place some limits on how much it could be used.

So I didn't plan to make anymore Batman themed investigators, but then the ideas hit me and I couldn't let them go. First, here are the 'corrected' Batman/Bruce Wayne sheets. If you'd like the Stories for them, they're on the previous page, but when I print out the finals, I think I'll have him be a double-sided character sheet for ease and clarity.

After them, I had two fun, and unusual ideas. Both these characters have very powerful abilities - and very big drawbacks. Check out Two-Face and Catwoman!

I realized that I had three Batman themed Investigators (and one Herald), and that most of my games are played with 4 Investigators. So I needed one more. There's only one Batman character left that would fit the theme (as I wanted to avoid Robin and Batgirl, and Gordon and Alfred would be better served as Allies), so I threw him together. He *might* be too powerful, so we'll have to see how his two abilities play out in an actual game.

You didn't specify what the horror check for trading with Two Face's modifier is.

And why not make a batgirl and robin?

Also, I don't have time to think about the mechanics right now, but you're aware that you've still made it possible for easy devourings by The Joker because of his simultaneous sanity/stamina damage? If an investigator goes to zero on both simultaneously, they're devoured. You might want to specify that that'd also trigger the terror/blight effect.

My first shot at creating a custom investigator: Titus Crow, the protagonist from many of Brian Lumley's stories. He's a reclusive occultist with a large collection of tomes and objects relating to the occult.

I'm a little worried his "Unlock Power" ability is overpowered. He essentially starts with the ability to seal a gate and a half, putting him up there with Wendy. Like Wendy, though, he needs sacrifice some items to do it, and his three to Wendy's one makes it a little more balance in my mind, at least. Any criticisms? Maybe bump it down to one clue token?

I'd say use the Unlock Power once per turn (you gain 2 clues / round using the Science Building special ability, and for balance reasons you cannot use with the same investigator a location's special ability more than once / turn). He should be pretty balanced then. Being essentially a spell caster, discarding spells for clues is an interesting sacrifice (I assume that it's more likely to sacrifice spell instead of Unique items, unless you have some very useless stuff to get rid of). Any PS for this guy here?