Corpus: I don't have time to review your investigator right now, but I will say that's one of the most clever ideas I've seen on the boards in a long time. Excellent concept.

Hi! I made some Big Trouble In Little China -themed content for me and my friends since we are huge fans of the movie. I thought l would share them here to get your opinions. Feel free to use them if you will!

Investigators:

Jack Burton

http://i.imgur.com/5HH2y6V.jpg

Wang Chi

http://i.imgur.com/XCLybxz.jpg

Gracie Law

http://i.imgur.com/inNJnI7.jpg

Egg Shen

http://i.imgur.com/PRnHdbP.jpg

Ancient One, David Lo Pan

http://i.imgur.com/G6snaIi.jpg

Monster Tokens, The Three Storms

(Front)

http://i.imgur.com/sJcEbvz.jpg

(Back)

http://i.imgur.com/m92zpf3.jpg

I used the Strange Eons-software and did my best to stay faithful to each character, while at the same time give them unique playstyles.

Here's what I have to say about the BTLC characters:

Jack Burton

If you actually want his first ability to be relevant at all, you have to replace Bravery with Marksman. I'm sure that was probably your original intent, you just chose the wrong skill since Bravery rerolls Horror checks. Another minor thing I'd probably recommend is removing 1 max sanity from him, I don't feel like he has enough of a grasp of the situation around him to really warrant 5 sanity on top of 6 stamina.

Now for the big stuff. Assuming you give him Marksman, his first ability is completely broken currently. Anytime he rerolls using Marksman, he gets a free +4 dice on account of starting with a 45 Auto. I do feel that Dice Rerolling is the correct approach to his main ability, but it needs to be toned down. One possibility would be to say "Once per combat, he may reroll up to 2 dice on any combat check.", at which point you could potentially leave Bravery and solidify him as a guy that never backs down from anything (which is accurate to the character) . His second ability is also possibly too strong right now, but that's a little more debatable.

Wang Chi

He's just way too strong all over the place. You've created a character that, without any weapons, starts with effectively 8 fight. If he does get a weapon, he's unstoppable. On top of being a ridiculously overpowered fighter, he also gets a free dollar every single turn with no detriments. He needs to be seriously toned down before anything else happens.

As far as overall design goes, Wang Chi I feel should definitely feel strong, but I also feel that the design should try to make that strength "subtle". Right now, his strength is too front and center when in the movie he operates a little bit more behind the scenes.

Gracie Law

Her first ability should be completely unfair, but it's actually balanced out but her abysmal stats. She needs to get monsters trophies but can't really fight, and she needs gate trophies but has a hard time closing them. I feel that overall she's very likely "fair", but by the same token I'm not sure if there's any fun to be had in playing her. Either you win hard or you lose hard.

Egg Shen

Six Demon Bag is somewhat aggressively costed: Clue tokens are valued at $2 a piece, and random Unique Items at $5, so technically you end up positive 1 dollar each time. That being said, it should be fine since clue tokens are way more valuable overall than random items. His second ability needs to be completely removed or overhauled though. Having a completely detrimental ability on this character isn't a good idea since he's not ridiculously strong, and especially since it's super easy for him to be knocked unconscious (3 stamina). If his ability triggers even once, everyone else you are playing with will hate you guaranteed. You could try something a little cheekier and give him an ability that gives him a large bonus only when fighting the Ancient One, which wouldn't impact him too much currently and removes the troublesome ability he currently has.

David Lo Pan

You actually don't need to include the additional -X at the end of the combat modifier, -4 is enough; the players can make the adjustment easily enough. You also need to reword the Start of Battle to say "Each investigator that has been rendered unconscious or insane this game".

Lo Pan is not really that interesting unfortunately. He makes cultists pretty rude, and that's it. I guess you throw 3 monsters in the cup, but that's kind of a "whatever" clause since the monster cup is generally massive. He just doesn't really affect the board enough to be a really unique Ancient One, which is a shame because he's definitely an interesting character comparatively. Maybe take another look at Lo Pan's motivations and personality and use that to reconstruct his effect on the board. Alternatively, he can remain as he is but he needs to have a different way of placing Three Storms on the board.

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Anyways, I recently did an entire rework for one of my characters and was hoping to get some critique before I start playtesting.

Every year in October I run a full day Horror one shot using one of various tabletop systems for a group of friends complete with goodie bags and souveniers. This year I thought it would be fun to make their characters into Arkham Characters for a souvenier. So far i only have one character sheet done (still looking for image and completing story) and was wondering if I could get some feedback on it.

So, you gave him 6 fight and he starts with a strictly better Sledgehammer , not to mention also having a 45 automatic, with abilities that completely take away any weakness his starting weapon provided. Not to mention it also somehow kills 1-toughness physically immune monsters.

Congratulations, you made a Sniper Rifle that kills Ghosts.

As combat characters go, this one is just never interesting since he has way too many advantages and way too much consistency. His starting weapon costs $7 but feels like it should cost closer to $13 in it's current state...which is to say nothing should reasonably go over $9 in value ever, with the only thing coming close being the Mask of Vice .

I see your point about the weapon It was not well thought out. I changed it to the Sledgehammer text instead of 1 free success to stop the afore mentioned from happening.

The Character is being made for a military buff and the official side arm the character had is a .45 which is why I gave that gun to him. As far as his abilities go it's why I gave him a 3 in Will to try and counteract it. The idea was glass cannon, easy to go insane. Any suggestions on how to make him a more interesting character?


A hopefully more interesting character I worked up.

I'm afriad I'm not good with BBCode. Is there a website someone could recommened so i could display the images better, like the expandable ones posted by Aquas?

For the sake of image hosting, I use Imgur. It does a great job showing your stuff and it's free.

I don't have enough time to give long critique right now but here's a couple small things:

Usually the best way to make a character interesting is to find one or two characteristics about them that stand out. You say you have a military man with a sniper rifle? Cool, tell me about him. Even better, show me what kind of person he is through his stats, title and abilities. It's very easy to tell an engaging story with very little, so long as you capture the key details. Here's a great example of a single game element that tells an entire story with very little:

Even if you don't play Magic The Gathering, there's a lot you can gather about this character just from the card. He's an old man that lost someone very dear to him, and instead of setling with grief he chooses refusal of her departure, attempting to create a replica of her knowing in his heart that it is likely imperfect. This is shown a bit by his mechanic of being able to create temporary machines that replicate those that have died, but are simply not meant to last. The whole idea conveys a sad story of a man trapping himself with a temporary fix that is always doomed to fail.

You can convey ideas similar to this with Arkham Horror characters by using all the things available to you: Name, Title, Starting Items, Stats, Abilities, Starting Location. If anything, Arkham Horror gives you much more freedom to explore a character driven space, especially with the inclusion of personal stories.

At the end of the day if you want to create a character that has the aim of being interesting, it ultimately comes down to making that character real, breathing necessary life into them.

Hope that helps

Just a little something I put together the other night. My little siblings/AH players have been overjoyed about the Lego company bringing back their "Bionicle" toyline for months, and one thing led to another, and befor I knew it...

NB: I tried to make the backstory accessible enough that anyone could "get it" without being familiar with the franchise, but, in case I failed, most of the info released on the character so far can be found here:

http://www.lego.com/en-us/bionicle/story/the-legend

A couple recommendations.

Make Forge Hammer's Upkeep ability an exhaust effect. Just giving you blessed dice on that ability is fairly static, while making it an exhaust effect adds a layer of risk to the move.

Reduce the actual cost of getting masks, and probably reduce the effectiveness of getting them. 2 focus and 2 movement to roll 2 dice is pretty brutal. Not to mention your odds of getting further penalized for the entire turn is 4/9, so the risk for reward is horrendously hit or miss. If you spend the entire game trying to get masks and continually failing, then you've effectively been a wasted investigator on your team. Alternatively, you hit a mask on the first turn and suddenly you are the strongest thing on the board. The character is very binary in that regard.

So, the alternative way to play the character is to completely ignore his ability unless you are stuck in place for the turn. Probably the correct way to play him anyway since starting the game with the equivalent of an enchanted blade and great combat stats is already very strong, mask or not. In this sense, your character is completely functional but is also lost in a way.

So, my recommendation would be to tune down the actual strength of the masks, greatly reduce the cost to attempt acquiring one, and reduce the number of faulty masks in the deck. Additionally, instead of removing the faulty masks from the deck, shuffle them back in. Helps keep the odds constant.

My final recommendation is to completely remove the strange masks from the deck. Almost every single item in either deck with the word "Mask" in it is extremely powerful, one of which is completely broken (Mask of Vice). Not to mention that for unique items, the only one is the "Pallid Mask", which means searching there would guarantee it. Ultimately, it feels like the most outstanding problem with your design right now.

Otherwise, it's not a bad design. Kinda feels like it want to encourage some kind of switching mechanic between all the masks.

My playgroup has been playing around with a lot of custom investigators and I would love to post some of our creations. I don't know the best way to post these though. Our favorite creation has been Deadpool, Wade Wilson. Here are his cards, let me know what you think. Since his creation, we've dropped him to a 4/6 and starting with the madness, Schizophrenia.

So I finally got around to tweaking Ekimu. Reduced the cost for his ability, nerfed the Forge hammer and elemental Masks a bit, completely replaced the Strange Masks with something less overpowered, and reduced the number of Faulty Masks in the deck.

Ekimu:

You are definitely moving in the right direction. Let's get specific now.

Mask of Fire - Thematically, a mask that wields the power of fire doesn't seem like it should be granting bonuses against a being made entirely out of fire. Don't know what the exact lore behind the masks is, but that one feels a little weird to read.

Mask of Ice - The freezing effect is pretty solid, but also fairly restricted in range. Because of that, I don't think you actually need to add a focus cost to it. Up to you, but it probably could do without.

Mask of Earth - Mechanically, it's just a little too similar to Mask of Ice. See if there's another avenue you can come up with for this element.

Mask of Water - Seems fine. You might be able to give an even greater combat bonus in aquatic locations just because there are so few.

Mask of Stone - Personally, I'm not really understanding why becoming a rock gives you extra movement and evasion. That being said, the effect seems fine, albeit very powerful.

Mask of Jungle - Seems fine.

Another thing that might be worth looking into is assigning different combat bonuses to the masks. There's nothing wrong with making them all +3 bonuses, but some of them are a little more themed around combat while others aren't. Just something to keep in mind.

Deadpool:

Alright, first thing's first: Do not give your character 6 Fight lightly.

6 in any particular stat usually implies a near superhuman quality. Deadpool might be a mercenary but outside of his healing factor there isn't much about him that says "superhuman strength". He's just got lots of weapons.

In my opinion, he should be a 5.

For his third ability, I think it would execute itself more cleanly if you said "Any time Wade gains a Madness, he also gains a clue token". It will more or less accomplish the exact same objectives.

For the Teleporter Belt, have it say "cannot move after using this" as opposed to "ends his movement". This way, if he jumps on a monster he will actually encounter it. Currently, he can warp onto a gate full of monsters, which will end his movement and thus stop him from actually encountering any of those monsters. He will then enter the gate during Arkham Encounters and just not care.

The last thing that really stands out to me is his personal story. It's just too strong. It's very hard to pass, and it's also fairly difficult to fail, but the benefits he gets in either case are ridiculously huge. I think it's kinda weird that by failing his story, he becomes one of the best fighters in the game. Having 6 fight and skipping your horror check is kinda nuts against anything, especially since he can just teleport past anything he really doesn't want to fight.

Ekimu:

You are definitely moving in the right direction. Let's get specific now.

Mask of Fire - Thematically, a mask that wields the power of fire doesn't seem like it should be granting bonuses against a being made entirely out of fire. Don't know what the exact lore behind the masks is, but that one feels a little weird to read.

Mask of Ice - The freezing effect is pretty solid, but also fairly restricted in range. Because of that, I don't think you actually need to add a focus cost to it. Up to you, but it probably could do without.

Mask of Earth - Mechanically, it's just a little too similar to Mask of Ice. See if there's another avenue you can come up with for this element.

Mask of Water - Seems fine. You might be able to give an even greater combat bonus in aquatic locations just because there are so few.

Mask of Stone - Personally, I'm not really understanding why becoming a rock gives you extra movement and evasion. That being said, the effect seems fine, albeit very powerful.

Mask of Jungle - Seems fine.

Another thing that might be worth looking into is assigning different combat bonuses to the masks. There's nothing wrong with making them all +3 bonuses, but some of them are a little more themed around combat while others aren't. Just something to keep in mind.

Mask of Fire: My reasoning was that the Mask lets the wearer absorb fire as well as create/control it, meaning you could pretty much "put out" a Fire Vampire like a big candle without too much difficulty.

Mask of Earth: I had wanted some sort of tunneling mechanic, but wasn't sure how to make it work; best I could come up with was an auto-evade for everything except Cthonians, but I'm not sure how thematic/balanced that is.

Mask of Stone: This one really made me wish I could fit flavor text on these. Long story short, the element of Stone includes sand; the mechanic represents summoning up a sandstorm to travel around in (as the canonical wearer of this mask often does), hence why the evade bonus applies to other investigators as well.

As for the combat bonus, I wanted to make the elements roughly equal without being identical. The simplest way I could figure to do that was to have a uniform combat bonus accentuated by a unique second ability for flavor.

First Post Ever on this forum. But I just got back to playing Arkham Horror soon and I redownloaded Strange Eons and made some Investigators. I've not play tested any of these yet and am just looking for feedback to see if these Investigators would work well.

First Characters Associated with Hellblazer and John Constantine:

Epiphany

Zatanna

Papa Midnite

Now Two Marvel Comics Characters

Daimon Hellstrom

And his sister Satana Hellstrom

And a curve ball, the Grand-Uncle of the title character from the Gabriel Knight video game series

Wolfgang Ritter

I'm sure all these have some critiques that need to be done before they are playable in the game, which is why I've brought them to this great community of players. Let me know what you think and what needs to be changed.

I thought it would be fun to make a character that's sort of a villain, operating with the mindset of "if the Ancient One rises and the world ends, that's bad for me too", and I thought that Lestat from "Interview with the Vampire" would fit nicely, so...

You're aware that stats are paired, and if one goes up, the other must go down, right? A progression of 2/2, ..., 5/5 makes the character absurdly overpowered and destroys the importance of Upkeep (you'll always be choosing 5/5 over 2/2)

Like, maybe if he had an ability that said "At the beginning of each upkeep, shift all sliders to the left by 1 stop unless you pay a stamina" and also amended the Feeding ability to say "on the upkeep immediately following Feeding, his focus is increased to 4 or 5."

But yeah, pretty much what Julia said. Stats in Strange Eons start off going in opposite directions for the reason of adding choice and conflict with your stat performance. Wanna be good at moving fast? Well, it's gonna make it harder to be sneaky. Are you the sort of person that relies on knowledge or luck? I never understood the thematic purpose of Fight and Will being separated, but it makes sense mechanically: protect your sanity or protect your stamina. (I guess when you have weapons you tend to shift towards Will, which thematically says that means of self-defense offer a certain peace of mind)

Aside from the stat lineup however, this character looks like they also have an issue with too much consistency. The only random elements on this character are 2 Unique Items, with the rest being fixed. That tells me that in most games this character will play exactly the same way. You will pretty much always spend your first turn doing one of two things: buying a unique item if you didn't get any weapons, or picking up a clue on a high traffic location; you'll probably do the second after the first regardless. After you seal a gate, you'll fight all the monsters by yourself with no difficulty (5 fight, 5 will, assuming nothing changes), kill a few and then get an ally. You kinda play it by ear at that point, but leading up to that moment feels pretty set in stone.

It's ultimately up to you, but I feel like shaving off a clue or two and some money for the sake of adding more random possessions might be a little more interesting.

You're aware that stats are paired, and if one goes up, the other must go down, right? A progression of 2/2, ..., 5/5 makes the character absurdly overpowered and destroys the importance of Upkeep (you'll always be choosing 5/5 over 2/2)

Like, maybe if he had an ability that said "At the beginning of each upkeep, shift all sliders to the left by 1 stop unless you pay a stamina" and also amended the Feeding ability to say "on the upkeep immediately following Feeding, his focus is increased to 4 or 5."

But yeah, pretty much what Julia said. Stats in Strange Eons start off going in opposite directions for the reason of adding choice and conflict with your stat performance. Wanna be good at moving fast? Well, it's gonna make it harder to be sneaky. Are you the sort of person that relies on knowledge or luck? I never understood the thematic purpose of Fight and Will being separated, but it makes sense mechanically: protect your sanity or protect your stamina. (I guess when you have weapons you tend to shift towards Will, which thematically says that means of self-defense offer a certain peace of mind)

Aside from the stat lineup however, this character looks like they also have an issue with too much consistency. The only random elements on this character are 2 Unique Items, with the rest being fixed. That tells me that in most games this character will play exactly the same way. You will pretty much always spend your first turn doing one of two things: buying a unique item if you didn't get any weapons, or picking up a clue on a high traffic location; you'll probably do the second after the first regardless. After you seal a gate, you'll fight all the monsters by yourself with no difficulty (5 fight, 5 will, assuming nothing changes), kill a few and then get an ally. You kinda play it by ear at that point, but leading up to that moment feels pretty set in stone.

It's ultimately up to you, but I feel like shaving off a clue or two and some money for the sake of adding more random possessions might be a little more interesting.

I'm definitely aware that stats traditionally work inversely to each other but, you're both right: while I had been thinking that it would be sensible for a vampire to be stronger (thus the stats going up together), I hadn't considered just how ridiculously overpowered that would make him. Even with his inability to regain Stamina without raising the Terror Track, it's unlikely he'd ever lose much Stamina with Fight and Will checks so high. Good calls all around.

I love the idea of the steadily declining stat sliders, so I'll definitely be including that. And, you're probably right: his possessions could use some revisions. Thanks!

Any thoughts on this Sherlock Holmes character build that I've put together?

As always, constructive criticism is more than welcome!

Ineffable,

For the vampire: introduce a day / night mechanic linked to changes in the Environment. When it becomes day, the guy is at the minima. When it's night, stats move to maxima, but during each upkeep you must reduce one value by two shifts (and you recover one due to focus). Killing crescents during Night gives him a chance to move one slider one step

Sherlock:

I don't think there's anything wrong with him, but he's not terribly fresh. I don't mean the character either, though the number of Sherlock's on this website and off are kinda ridiculous; in this case I'm referring to his abilities.

So, he has the Student's ability, and also has a weaker version of the Private Eye's ability, and I guess starts with blessed Lore. I mean, none of those abilities or traits are especially problematic, so he's fine, but there's nothing in there that feels especially at Holmes (HA!) . I'm basically trying to say there's nothing that's uniquely "Sherlock" in there, except for maybe starting with Library Use. So this is no longer a balancing problem and instead becomes an identity problem. That type is much harder since if you don't fix it your character would still be fine, even if nothing really makes it stand out.

Also, wording change on Deduction: "Once per turn on any given skill check, Sherlock may roll an additional die per clue token spent."

As always, I'd love to have some of you guys' constructive criticism on a character, with abilities inspired by some of the fine work I've seen here and around the web. This time, an investigator who's dealt with the Ancient Ones before...

What if the shops are closed due to Terror?

What if the shops are closed due to Terror?

For the purposes of regaining Stamina and Sanity I was of the mindset that he'd be out of luck, so keeping the Terror Track low would be a priority. I hadn't considered what to do if he is knocked unconscious or driven insane and one of those two places was closed. Maybe he should be returned to the Graveyard instead of one of the shops if he goes down?

Thoughts?

Also, as I look over Ben as a whole, I'm wondering if his spell casting ability is too strong. On the one hand I feel as though, as a spirit, the 6 on his Lore stat can be justified, but I'm wondering if the addition of Spectral Razor doesn't take it a little overboard. Also, while he's not losing Sanity from Monster encounters, he would still be paying a heavy Sanity cost if he uses Spectral Razor too often, and he also runs the risk of being unable to regain more if the magic shop closes; does that balance?

Ben Kane

He's completely overpowered and broken. He's definitely overpowered as a fighter no matter what his stats are from simply not losing sanity to horror checks. He's broken because if the terror level rises enough he's literally not functional.

His first ability should either make it so that you can use those locations as a possible alternative as opposed to the only location available for that service, or you need to amend the ability to make it possible to visit those locations even when they are closed (which might fit a specter's haunting nature)

The second ability just flat out cannot exist in its current form, so you will have to remove it or replace it entirely.

Also having a Lore of 6 might also be a little strong, but he also has a Focus of 3 which helps balance it out well enough. The real question is actually "Does Ben deserve to have 6 Lore? Is he really so completely knowledgeable and intuitive that no Lore check could possibly conquer him?"

Finally, he has too many starting Fixed Possessions. He needs more variety in his starting possessions, needs more Randoms or money or clues.