18 hours ago, mwmcintyre said:

And the other key part for me is that it's a co-op game, so it's not like someone in a competition would have an advantage over you. I'd be more sympathetic to the frustration if it was a competitive game. Just like the novellas, I would like to have them, but at the end of the day, it doesn't make a huge difference to my gameplay options.

This.

I'd certainly like to have Marie, but I can wait. It's co-op, so others don't have a advantage if they play her.

That said, I'm suddenly wondering if Marie is an alt art and we'll get a different picture, weakness & signature card with her release. Did ffg say anything about that?

Neither Baron Samedi nor Mystifying Song has the Replacement keyword, so those are her default signatures.

4 hours ago, rsdockery said:

Neither Baron Samedi nor Mystifying Song has the Replacement keyword, so those are her default signatures.

Also, if you look at the replacement investigators that have been released, the default signature cards are listed on the card. Replacement cards never are, so whatever signature cards are listed on the deck-building requirements are the default ones.

This is how we know, for instance, Carolyn's default cards are Hypnotic Therapy and Rational Thought despite the fact that we've only seen Foolishness and To Fight the Black Wind.

It's also probably not alternate art on Marie, that's been her investigator art for a while.

I have been picking up the promos from the fiction because they offer different ways to play the characters. What i have noticed though with characters being released early is they are not as well supported as the current non-promo cast. They are still enjoyable to play, but i get the feeling i am only playing half the character, where as with the current officially released investigators deckbuilding falls into place.

To sum up, i can wait for promo investigators like marie lambeau and norman withers to get their deluxe box release.

Clear answers. Thanks guys.

On 09/04/2018 at 5:58 PM, Jobu said:

There are 4 cards that can be used to trigger her ability. Blood Pact, Arcane Initiate, Reinfield and Alyssa. I think you can use these to good effect.

I doubt we will ever get a ton of level zero occult cards. That seems to be there for a specific purpose.

I did run Jim through a campaign where he used Blood Pact and Moonlight Ritual to great effect, I could see similar items happening for Marie.

Arcane Initiate is an absolute must, I always put two in her deck and when I hit the 3 xp, Blood Pact is right on the table. With that and The Baron, you can have a pretty good control over Doom, but it's also best to shore things up with Charisma for a soak damage Ally or a Bulletproof vest. If she starts taking damage with The Baron in play, it'll be a short game, not to mention the disgruntled looks from players at the same location.

On 10/04/2018 at 7:42 AM, Khudzlin said:

The Baron obviously didn't come for you at the beginning of The Gathering, in a 4-player game.

I've had him in numerous games, and he's never been the cause of defeat yet. But I agree , early on you need an agility boost and any cards that give her a good chance of avoiding damage (which is the norm for mystics), as she can scarper fairly well too.. Most I've played is two player

It was one of our first game in hard and we were a bit overconfident. Having the Baron come up at the very beginning was the worst of luck.

Reading this, I realize I'd like to read a book from "Ashcan" Pete's perspective. Also, his character is so grounded in beginning play with Duke, is it conceivable to give him an alternative to that card? A character's replacement asset & weakness can be played with their signature asset & weakness, so they can't simply replace Duke with another Duke...

Do we think that they'll offer alt versions of every investigator (on a long enough timeline)?

1 hour ago, Duciris said:

Reading this, I realize I'd like to read a book from "Ashcan" Pete's perspective. Also, his character is so grounded in beginning play with Duke, is it conceivable to give him an alternative to that card? A character's replacement asset & weakness can be played with their signature asset & weakness, so they can't simply replace Duke with another Duke...

Do we think that they'll offer alt versions of every investigator (on a long enough timeline)?

I actually wouldn't expect Duke to be replaced. They may provide another asset that has similar abilities though. His investigator card has been balanced around the fact that he has Duke. To offset those stats, he'd likely have an asset that has health and sanity (or a way to soak those) that he starts with, or possibly the first replacement cards that canNOT be included in addition to the default signatures. I wouldn't be surprised to see a variant Duke asset that can exhaust to heal horror or exhaust and investigate to retrieve a card from your discard or something similar. In essence you'd have to pick which version of Duke you'd want to run.

Just a thought. I really have no idea how they will balance it. It's the same questions that I have for Carolyn's default signatures because they built her stat line, it appears, to account for Foolishness. The difference, of course, is that Duke starts in play and so Pete has less health/sanity whereas foolishness does not and Carolyn has normal values for those. I still think Duke is vastly superior though.

I want Patrice's book. That is all.

I could see a different version of Duke with different abilities.

Just now, Buhallin said:

I could see a different version of Duke with different abilities.

If they made him unique and had the same card name, you would still only be able to put one out at a time, so you could actually still include both in your deck and just swap them if you wanted when you drew the other version.

3 minutes ago, Soakman said:

If they made him unique and had the same card name, you would still only be able to put one out at a time, so you could actually still include both in your deck and just swap them if you wanted when you drew the other version.

You can't play a unique card if one is already in play, so you could only swap if one of them went down. Still, would be an interesting bit of flexibility for Pete, but it might actually do too much to cover his big weakness (losing Duke).

5 hours ago, Soakman said:

I want Patrice's book. That is all.

I want Diana Stanley's. She's in the Silver Twilight's inner circle, before coming to grips with what she is helping to bring forth. Then she works from the inside to prevent it from happening!

That brings up one point I was thinking about for a while now: there should be more alternate scenes for special investigators in the game. Like with Lola Hayes in Curtain Call. Maybe not even with specific investigators, but with certain investigator traits, like "Criminal" or "Detective", which I don't think do much at the moment. That would be pretty cool.

I mean, imagine an adventure where you're fighting the Silver Twilight, and one of the characters is Diana Stanley. That could end up quite cool.

18 hours ago, Soakman said:

It's the same questions that I have for Carolyn's default signatures because they built her stat line, it appears, to account for Foolishness.

Foolishness isn't her default signature.

7 hours ago, Eldan985 said:

Like with Lola Hayes in Curtain Call. Maybe not even with specific investigators, but with certain investigator traits, like "Criminal" or "Detective", which I don't think do much at the moment. That would be pretty cool.

I will tell you what I keep hearing: the game is still young, give it time.

4 hours ago, rsdockery said:

Foolishness isn't her default signature.

That's my point. It's going to be hard to justify her low stat line unless her default also gives her bonus stats.

If you count them up, all of the investigators have a total of 12 stat points. Pete and Carolyn have 11. Presumably because their signature assets give them multiple stat boosts. In Pete's case, he also takes a sanity hit because you start with Duke. Carolyn does not because you do not start with Foolishness.

What I'm saying is that the -1 overall stat line would be hard to justify if her default signature does not also provide significant stat boost. She's already at a disadvantage even to Pete because he starts with Duke.

26 minutes ago, Soakman said:

What I'm saying is that the -1 overall stat line would be hard to justify if her default signature does not also provide significant stat boost. She's already at a disadvantage even to Pete because he starts with Duke.

This could actually be in response to her wide deckbuilding options. With solid access to three different classes she's going to have access to more stat boosts than most characters, so the lower stat line may be to account for that.

8 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

This could actually be in response to her wide deckbuilding options. With solid access to three different classes she's going to have access to more stat boosts than most characters, so the lower stat line may be to account for that.

I mean, it could be a lot of things, you're right. But the only other 11 stat investigator we've seen is Pete, and he happens to be very unique, so I imagine it would require something other than just a versatile deckbuild. I almost feel like if that was a consideration, we'd have to look at Lola too. Just curious why they went this way with Carolyn. I think she could easily have another point in something and not feel like she is overtuned.

10 minutes ago, Soakman said:

I almost feel like if that was a consideration, we'd have to look at Lola too. Just curious why they went this way with Carolyn. I think she could easily have another point in something and not feel like she is overtuned.

They kind of did though, just in a different way. Lola takes it in her health stats, which are lower than anyone but Pete. If you consider Duke in his health/sanity, he starts at 16. That makes Lola unique at 12, which is 2 lower than anyone else (and 3 lower than Carolyn).