kroen said:

Suggestion, use the previous Providence text (but make it so you can only use it for one drawn card per turn). As things are now that ability is horrifically broken. It will encourage investigators to stockpile crappy items that they get from stores, and aim for better items. It's basically like giving him a delayed 20-40 cash (depending on how much players will abuse it).

Last night while falling asleep, I thought of an assassin investigator who would treat monsters' Toughness as 1 less. That ability evolved into something a little simpler. Meet Anthony:

That beautiful art , by the way, is by *henning over at DeviantArt.

kroen, I just noticed that James's portrait looks very much like The Doctor. Is this intentional?

Not really, just couldn't find anything better.

I understand the ability is quite potent, that's why I gave her a -1 penalty on focus and 1$ unspent.

Yenreb said:

It seems you found the sorce art for the Calvin Wright Ally from the current Arkham Horror legue.

I don't quite like the fact that he auto-wins against ANY 1 toughness monster. The fact that you gave him the .45 Automatic and 2 random items means his 1-4 Fight will turn into something in the area of 6-12 Combat. Not to mention you gave him two skills (a very awesome ability) which means you have a good chance of getting a combat based skill. He seems like quite the beast and is probably a little over the line in power level. The base idea is cool and if it dropped the toughness 1 to a minimum of 1 I would print him out and use him immediatly.

As a side note it seems like you tend toword the more powerful but extremely flavorful abilities when you design. Just try to compare your characters to the existing ones and make sure you don't go to far above how good they are. Keep the cool ideas coming.

I decided to further penalize Chloe and now she has 4$ unspent:

I don't like Chloe. Her power, while very good, is completely uninteresting. There's no meaningful choices or special effects at any point with that character. She's just "better than you" numerically. She's very powerful, but she sucks as a character because her abilities don't ever feel like anything in particular.

-Frank

Frank said:

And he's a speed three character. I'd say his main advantage is being able to pick out of nearly a quarter of the ally deck at the beginning of the game. When I first saw his ability I stuck my tongue out, but then I noticed two allies as starting equipment :')

I'd say he'd be "balanced" (ish) if his luck and lore were both down one point, as things are he can set them at 4/3 pretty comfortably (not that he'd make a great spellcaster with only 4 sanity, but still). Or perhaps just take his luck down one point if you think the Lore is necessary for gate sealings and you don't want to leave him crippled with focus one (still, I suspect that allies will end up supplementing speed or luck, or lore, or fight most of the time, so in reality I'd imagine all of this will turn out to be moot).

Dark Jco. said:

Hrm... I'd say reduce sanity to four (and increase stam to 6) and reduce focus by one and he'd be balanced(ish) (it'd make horror checks more of a threat to him— especially if he also wants to seal gates). Hrm... As things are now, he basically has three skills (one of which is top notch) and a high quality fixed item.

kroen said:

That's very strange. There's no way to manipulate Strange Eons to let you just change everything to 3/3? I'm not really sure how I feel about him... The rumor autopass ability might be a bit overpowered (unless the players do not collect the reward for him discarding a rumor).

I wish there was...

And considering the rumor ability is his only good ability, and even that is one-time only I think it's fine. Note Marie and her ability to remove a doom token from the doom track for free once per game plus her third eye ability.

kroen said:

Perhaps if you just made it so he could discard rumors (without collecting rewards, and without a limit on the number of times he can do it). I guess it would be okay most of the time, but there are some rumors (such as the one that gives you allies for completion) that really are problematic if you can just autopass them. Mmmm... He starts with plenty of cash and *3* skills. I guess he's not too overpowered (3 speed and 3 will are both handicaps). Errrr, wait what am I saying? The problem with rumor autopass is you aren't just getting the items from the rumor reward, you're also not having to spend the price in turns or sacrifices for them. You're getting too much something for nothing I think (assuming you draw a rumor, and in most games there is usually one rumor drawn). ::Shrug:: anyways, it's a neat ability, but I think it's a little too strong (even though its usefulness is unpredictable).

Being able to remove one doom token is like starting with half an elder sign (you can increase the doom track, but you can't seal). Marie also doesn't have 6/6 stamina sanity, *three skills*, and a load of cash. As things are, I think he starts off considerably stronger than Amanda Sharpe (he gets to keep all three skills, and he's flush with cash).

Also, re: Luce Rose, unless it's something from a custom expansion, there's no such thing as "Street Encounters"

um yeah it's fro my custom expansion (check my sig if you're interested).

And... umm... you're actually suggestion that I'd lose the reward from the rumor on Mr. X, but have him use the ability as many times as he wants? were you just seriously typing that? I won't even start to tell you what's wrong with that offer and if you can't figure it out on yourself than I can't help you...

and I think you're overestimating that ability. it's a one-time effect. that's all. and it's not THAT huge of an effect. most people would prefer a constant, medicore effect (e.g. third eye) rather than a one time good effect. And sure, he starts with three skills and cash, but that's it. There's no gurantee that money would get him a good weapon. And then there's the drawback of not being able to manipulate his skills for certain situations. Everything has has is on 3, and unless he gets a +1 Lore or a +1 Fight skill he's going to have a hard time closing gates.

and again with your argument of something better/worse.. okay, so he's better than Amanda (in your opinion; amanda has a potential 4 on all skills and random common item, uinuqe item and spell plus she can get allies if she wishes to and her ability may come in handly later on in the game), so what? there are many investigators better than amanda, do we need nerf them too?

I know where you come from, really, I am; I am perhaps the most pessimistic person on this planet and I can find flaws in everything. But unlike you, I don't feel like sharing the most minor flaws I find with everyone.

Ask yourself this, and be honest with yourself: If non of the existing investigators (or ancient ones, for that matter) had existed, and I or anyone else would've posted them here, would you really have found nothing wrong them? really? because if you do, then it's to show you that nothing has to be perfect. Nothing can be perfect. In fact, perfect is boring. Just my 2 cents.

Cheers.

kroen said:

There's actually a number of Ancient Ones and Investigators (from the base game) that I'd like to see altered somewhat (Hastur and Nyarlethotep in particular come to mind— I helped dkw work on a herald that gives Nyarlethotep a... more proper power— Hastur's disappointed me ever since I realized how easy he is to beat provided you don't go for a sealing victory— unfortunately I don't know of a good terror level raising herald to stick with him). I think one of the things I find very disturbing about Mr. X is if you are playing a large game the reward vs. cost his ability gives is really unfair. If it's only a three player game, or possibly even a four player game, as long as it isn't the draw allies encounter, I could live with it. But imagine that ability being used in a 5-8 player game. It just gives too much for too little cost (none). If you don't mind the imbalance, fine, but I think he's very overpowered for a large team. As for investigators I'd alter... Well... I won't say until Innsmouth comes out :') because essentially the investigators *will* be altered by the story cards. Ummm, I'd want to fix a few of the weaker investigators. I don't mind there being a few investigators who are overpowered, but I don't really like how there are several who are much weaker than all the others and with little positive tradeoff (and no, I'm not one of the people who thinks that Vincent is horrible). Heh... Probably Dexter, Harvey, Amanda, and Mary. They all got sortof shafted, especially comparitively speaking (once the later expansion investigators came out). One of the things I love about the heralds is that they help firm up Ancient Ones that are too weak as they were originally designed (for newbies). I would also want to alter Cthulhu. He's disappointing. Even after the Epic Battle Cards (although not nearly as much— at least two of his sinister plot cards can basically squish his opponents). Ummm... If Grozoth didn't exist, I'd want to alter Azathoth, but with him, I think he's fine. In away it's better that way (you can have one Azathoth for newbies, and another for a speed challenge). Arg... But I could go through this for hours and I have a paper to work on... So... Heh... And besides ;') the AOs are already published, but that's why I like thematic and powerful heralds to supplement them.

If I could change anything about anything in the base game, I'd want to have Cthulhu do -2/-2 max stam/san so he'd be the ungodly terror we know and love, and have his cultists be tougher. ::Sigh:: alas, that is not to be ;') unless someone creates a herald for Cthulhu.

Avi_dreader said:

There is. But not on the first date.

Thelric said:

I read that. Then reread that. Then rereread that. Then I started laughing :')

Thelric said:

What?

Avi_dreader said:

My advice to you is that: Stop being a perfectionist. Some investigators are weak, some are strong. Same with Ancient Ones. It's the natural order of things. I can promise you that if you'll stop being a perfectionist you will enjoy things much more.

You mistake my character. I'm much less of a perfectionist than a personn who likes a good challenge. Having excessively strong investigators undermines this (when there are too many of them). Likewise, weak AOs ruin the game for me (which is why I won't play them even if I draw them randomly, which is a shame, because I like them thematically). On a personal level, I actually enjoy drawing weak characters like Mary because they add to the challenge of the game, but on an impersonal level, plenty of players hate her because her equipment and stats are clearly substandard. On the other hand, I dislike an impossible challenge, because then there's no fun in the game (I like a reasonable chance at winning too).

Oh, and if I understood correctly, Thelric was implying that if you had sex with Strange Eons it would let you change all the stats to 3/3. I could be wrong, but I don't think so ;')

If you have sex with Strange Eons, it will indeed let you set all the numbers to 3. Only way I can do it generates every character with all threes. So you'd have to make the modifications, start the program, make the character, export a pdf of the character, close the program, remove the modifications, open it back up again and do whatever else you wanted to do.

-Frank

You don't need to go to quite those lengths. In fact, you don't have to restart the program at all, and you can restrict the change to single investigators. You just need to set the "on-paint" setting of the component to some script code that will paint what you want, and move the "real" stat lines somewhere off the card so they won't be visible. Like this:

1. Open an investigator.
2. Open the Quickscript window.
3. Paste this script into the window.
4. Run the script.

This investigator now has constant skill lines. Forever. Muah ha ha ha ha. Or until you remove the on-paint setting.

Cheers,
Chris