How's this for a fix for George?

Knowledge Is Power currently reads: "Any Phase: When spending a Clue token to add to a skill check, George may add +1 to the result of one of his rolled dice instead of rolling an extra die."

Change it to: "Any Phase: When spending a Clue token to add to a skill check, George may receive one automatic success instead of rolling an extra die."

It expands on his "sure thing" advantage, which Kevin* said was George's strong point.

What do you think?

* http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/3527750#3527750

Hmm... it's a bit too strong, for the same reason that the Fisticuffs skill card requires two clues to add a success to a combat check. With Barnaby's ability, getting a success on a combat check could sometimes take only one clue, but sometimes more. It would be no good if he could the Dunwich Horror with only three or four clues.

Fair enough, though keep in mind that with a max Speed of 3, a max Fight of 3 and no starting clues or fixed weapons, George is not exactly a clue gathering machine. That's perhaps the biggest flaw in his design - his special ability requires clues to work, but he has a harder time getting clues than pretty much any other investigator. And his stats aren't balanced well. He's got a low Speed and high Sneak, which is almost always the kiss of death. And he's not much of a spellcaster unless he maxes out his Lore, which nullifies Luck, his only other good skill.

Also I think Fisticuffs is an underpowered skill. Any of the skills that require you to spend 2 clues are much less useful than the other skills.

Currently, George is one of the weakest investigators in the game. Even with this change, I'd say he's still less powerful than Mandy, Joe or the other tier 1 investigators.

This is probably not the response you're looking for but since George is my hands down favorite investigator I feel like i should chime in here...

IMHO: George doesn't NEED to be fixed. (None of the investigators do) I get the impression that some people want all of the investigators to be equally balanced. I don't think all investigators are created equal and i don't think that they SHOULD all be equal. Some are super powerful some are not. But they each have their own uniqueness and charm. That's one of the things i like about Arkham in general is the great variety that all of the Characters/AOs ultimately lent to the gameplay.

I find this akin to trying to balance Yig with Cthulhu. Not all AO's are created equal either... Yig is not as tough as Cthulhu, but i don't think Yig SHOULD be. .

I've always like George because of his "character". (past games/backstory/abilities/picture/etc.) And the fact that he isn't uber powerful (Hank Samson, i'm looking in your direction!) is what i like about that character. Oh, and i'm pretty sure he's drinking a Guinness in his picture

Lord_Nerdhammer said:

I agree with what you said, except for about variable AO difficulties (I don't enjoy easy AOs since the game doesn't challenge me with them-- it's one of the reasons I made the custom heralds, to bring them up to par with the other AOs).

Lord_Nerdhammer said:

Um, yeah, I could see that. I personally think that ol' George is so weak that he's broken, but I agree that the investigators should not all be equally powerful. The way I look at it, I'm trying to give George the chance to *have* a personality. Right now, he's so hopeless that in my games he usually does almost nothing. (But hey, maybe we're playing him wrong.) My fix just takes his Knowledge Is Power skill and amps it up by increasing the bonus from +1 to +4 (more or less).

I think part of the rationale for personal stories was to "fix" some of the investigators who were either too tough or not tough enough. Dexter got an easy personal story which made him more playable. Darrell got a hard story, but since he was already powerful, it actually made him a more well balanced investigator. George, on the other hand, is weaker than Dexter and his story doesn't help him very much.

I suppose you could take George, Vincent, Jim, etc. and use them together in some kind of uber-challenging scenario ("The Island of Misfit Toys takes on Atlach-Nacha"). I personally think it's more fun to have each investigator be viable, if not equally good.

avec said:

I think it's interesting to notice that George is the less effective investigator ever, according to the data recorded in Tibs' statistics. Games with George end with a victory (of any kind) only in the 53% of the cases, while generally speaking the game ends in a victory in the 62.63% of the cases. So, having George in your team seems to be an advantage for the GOO rather than for the players...

Well, George is included in one of the hardest expansions out there, so of course his stats are weighted towards the difficulty of Innsmouth games. Perhaps he is the weakest of the Innsmouth set? Maybe he hasn't been mastered yet? Maybe he's just had bad luck?

Time will tell.

Tibs said:

That's an interesting point. For all the people who like playing George, do you have any tips on how to play him well?

Tibs said:

I don't think he's the worst, I do think he's bottom tier though. He's money, potential security vs arrests and roll failures, and that's it really. I don't really like him except in the way that I like all the horrid investigators :')

Tibs said:

Yep, his stats are certainly affected by the difficulty of the expansion he belongs to, but... how many games have been played with George? From the statistic you can't see this. If he has been used just a few times, then bad luck or improper use can be significant; if we have 100+ games with George, well... maybe there is no proper way to make him rock. Don't know. The stats are pretty horrible, he's almost static. Having a high Sneak value could make him good in Innsmouth after Martial law is declared, but whatelse? Not able to fight decently (3 of maximum Fight is a real pain in the..., and it's not even balanced by a decent Will), nor to cast spells properly (a Lore of 4 again gives you some chance with the basic spells, but no chance with the most complex ones, I'll never go for a Dreaded curse of Azatoth with just 2 dice to roll), so his high Sanity seems not to be good for spellcasting nor for monsters wacking. He's a lucky man, so maybe a good strategy could be use him for Encounters, hoping to get some Allies able to boost him, but...

Don't know, the more I think about him, the more I see him as helpful for the others (2$ for not being arrested could be useful), hopeless for himself

Julia said:

Julia, you n00b ! Under "Investigators" tab, there are two colums, "Most Used" which shows the number of games each investigator has been involved in and "Most Effective", listing win-%. George Barnaby has been in 117 games as of 1 April (least of any investigators).

53% for George in 117 games doesn't look so bad when you look Vincent Lee, 348 games, 57%. And Vinny really got the short straw with his PS as well. There is also Sister Mary 336 games and 55%, but she's been my favourite from day one and I always have good games with her. Plus, her PS is at least worthy.

Dam said:

Well, Dam, sometimes reading is a difficult task, and it's even more difficult reading all data on a spreadsheet, especially when they lay on the same page, almost in the same place. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Me stupid. And consider I DO wear glasses.

Apologies to everyone for my misreading.

In fact, George is the less effective, and the less played. Maybe it's not such a rip-off. Time will tell

For my group we track our own stats separate of Tibs sheet (so we can have bragging rights in my group)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Atmdi0RhTot6dGV6ZHpYajBHckR0Y0xHaTNxTC1yZWc&hl=en

But after 6 games, George has an 83% win rate! (sadly only 67% win rate for me) but 2 of his games have been on a team with Jim C. and 2 of his games have been on a team with Vincent Lee...

But as for Tibs Question of mastering the Guy...

Its been my experience that with most players new to the game, the combat heavy fighter is the way people play a character. They get weapons and start fighting monsters. If their are a lot of new players adding stats to tibbs sheet i think you'll see a lot of the weaker players moving to the bottom of the stats because people rush in against monsters hoping against all odd to defeat them. George (and Vincent lee) both belong to a specific type of investigator.

In my experience George needs to start slow and finish strong... George needs a little time to prepare himself and while he's doing that he can help out the team in a big way... What i mean by that:

1. Start the game going to the store and shopping, with the retainer there is a chance he could get a lot of $$$ He usually buys some good items that i'll trade with other players to make the team stronger, usually i trade for tomes that give George clue tokens or spells. But usually he will end up with the equipment that will allow him to fight the easier monsters reliably.

2. Get clue tokens, That +1 ability is actually really good because you can almost always "Buy a success" if you really need one, and if he needs to take down a harsh 3 toughness monster he can usually do that once or twice late in a game (with a little luck )

3. Use the luck for encounters! go places that give $ or Items, pick up a clue token

Most new players won't tailor their play style to the investigator, they enforce their style of play on the investigator. This fails spectacularly with George. Just let him practice law for a bit, he is a lawyer...

That's about all i have to say other than this: if you really believe in the investigator, you'll roll better

And if you clap your hands together, and say I believe, George will live forever.

Or is that Fairies? Whatever ::applause::

But seriously, good strategy post. I still don't think he's that good (I have a tendency to lose my retainers in the first turn or two), and I probably wouldn't waste team resources to make his character strong, but I'd definitely give him sneak items if any came up, unless it was a very small team that needed everyone well equipped. He's a lousy fighter, and while you *can* equip Wendy with a shotgun, that doesn't mean you should ;') so to speak.