I'm just starting out with ES and I am only playing with one investigator. It seems too easy if you can start over with a new investigator every time you die or go insane. Does anyone playing with one investigator say that they lose immediately and game is over if they die or go insane? Does playing this way make it too hard?

This is how the electronic game handles all investigators going crazy or dying, the game ends. Of course with that game you are given the choice to build a party of up to 4 characters.

There are a few things to keep in mind as far as when a character is dead. Each time you have an investigator fall they increment the doom counter. And once the ancient one is summoned, if an investigator falls they are not replaced. Depending on which investigator is being used the game should already be very tricky. The variable powers tend to make the game work better towards a team based effort, since health and sanity can be depleted quite easily with some of the trickier adventure cards. Especially the ones that you need for Elder Signs.

One of the reasons I like the Grave Consequences expansion is the addition of the phobia cards. Rather than the investigator being eliminated when they lose all sanity, they earn a phobia card and have to deal with the lasting, negative effect. Makes it a little harder rather than easily replacing the investigator.

Also, I always solo with 2 characters.

3 hours ago, mhuber said:

One of the reasons I like the Grave Consequences expansion is the addition of the phobia cards. Rather than the investigator being eliminated when they lose all sanity, they earn a phobia card and have to deal with the lasting, negative effect. Makes it a little harder rather than easily replacing the investigator.

Also, I always solo with 2 characters.

Yes, this is a fun mechanic that changes things up. It can get quite tricky when you've stacked multiple phobias!

I limit it to 3 investigators, as mentioned before a lot of the adventures become quite tricky playing solo, thus I like having some backups.