My group has played several games with Mandy and I've found her ability to be way too good, and her stats not too shabby either. Was wondering if other people feel the same way and if so, whether any household rules have been developed to tone her down (aside from not playing with her)

Ornendil said:

Not playing with her.

I've been playing this game for years. She's one of the five best investigators.

One way of weakening her a little is making it so her ability can only be used on herself and/or so that it rerolls all dice in skill check, not just the failures.

Her personal story also helps to balance her.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Mandy_Thompson

I really don't know how i feel about this one. Her ability is powerful, to be sure. I generally find though that it *isnt mandy that uses it*. I think maybe the design philosophy here was that if you were going to have an ability that other players used more than you, then it better be badass. See Mandy, Leo, Patrice.

I dunno, Mandy has solid stats, but they're all mediocre. She's not an amazing caster, not a great fighter, or great at sneaking. So its almost like you're wandering around with no special ability and a boon for someone else to use sometime. Most turns your ability will be spent helping somebody pass a combat or horror check, or "saving it" to help that poor sod in Rlyeh. You don't really get to use it on yourself much, in contrast to say, Skids O'Toole, whose ability in some ways is similar, though it is restricted quite a bit.

Avi_dreader said:

Her personal story must be truly awful to balance her.

jhaelen said:

No... Daisy and Wendy are both also very overpowered. And Joe allows for some really nasty exploits (especially in smaller number of player games) if you're willing to abuse him. And of course Darrell can single handedly subvert the game mechanics if you're ruthless about using him. And then there's that monster, Patrice.

avec said:

Not really. I almost never let my terror track get to five in a normal game (although I'll admit it's more problematic with some of the custom things I've been playing).

Her pass power's pretty crazy too :' an instant gate seal? That'll often be an auto-game winner when it's deployed. I don't think her personal story is balancing at all.

With my setup, I honestly can't see her ever passing her PS because even 1 bounce on a seal is a gift to be cherished, 2 or more and I start to wonder if the deck got shuffled properly. Normally I expect 0 bounces these days, 1-2 surges at most, rest are just gate openings or double-doomers . Terror has been hitting 5 in recent times, if you get a string of Mythos cards which increase it by their effect, not much to do about them. Since I also see monsters are sideshow distractions, I don't really care about Outskirts overflowing or monster moving into vortices during the early part. Really, Terror 6 is to me the only meaningful point on the track, since it closes Curiositie Shoppe.

I'm with Dam. Assuming somebody who has the Personal Stories isn't merely using just the base game, it's a lot easier to get TL5 than even a couple gate bounces. Plus if you're using Innsmouth, a gate bounce is also a bad thing (and five of them? Hope you're insured!).

That's pretty much how I see it, Dam. Also, I always play with the Tattered King herald (sometimes in addition to other heralds). The Velma blight gets me to a Terror of 5 more quickly and the Abigail blight compounds Mandy's fail condition. Plus I'm a lot more likely to lose by having too many gates open than by having the Doom track fill up. So Mandy's personal story definitely increases the pressure.

Tibs said:

If you only seal high frequency locations and play a slow game, you can still get five bounces with relatively high frequency. And as I said before, an auto-seal, if you're planning for it, can be enough for an instant win. But I do see how it could be a bit negative for people with different play styles.

Avi_dreader said:

Haven't noticed sealing high-freq locations to make any difference in getting bounces. With 20 unstable locations, even with some being very low, low-freq, it's usually 14 Mythos to fill up a 12-13 doom track, purely on different gate openings. Also, if you have the other seals in play, during the time you wait for Mandy to maybe get ticks on her PS, you can probably get the remaining 2 seals with the normal route, so again, the pass clause is not of real value.

I think I average more gate bursts than bounces and I don't even have Atlach-Nacha .

Dam said:

Again, your strategy does not involve the deliberate plundering of the Unique item deck to lengthen the game.

Dam said:

I mostly agree. Though statistically, seals on high frequency locations should bounce more often than seals on low frequency locations. That's what "high frequency location" means - they're the locations upon which gates are more likely to open, or attempt to open, during the Mythos phase. Maybe in your games the locations cease to be "high-frequency" or "low-frequency" once seals are placed upon them, but that's probably just a statistical fluke.

I agree though that getting five bounces in a game is rare.

There is no time nor money to shop after turn 1 for me (turn 2 if said investigator can't reach C. Shoppe turn 1). Every turn is adding a doomer pretty much, so unless you want the GOO to wake up, need to get your act together and fast. Newspaper has what, 3 Retainer encounters in the 31 encounters on offer with a couple more $5 for a story encounters. And even with 4 investigators shopping for a turn, there is only a 50% chance of getting 1 ES. Camping out at those two locations for any length of time is just asking for the GOO to wake up, doom track past the halfway mark with 0 seals out there. And with monster surges being only slightly more common than bounces, there are no "free" Mythos phases either.

avec said:

I'm not saying they aren't high-freq. Mathematically, the standard 4 in Arkham have a vastly higher number of Mythos cards for them than DH and IH locations. That doesn't stop 2 gates opening in both DH and IH each game on average. It's also not uncommon to have the doom track hit 10 without any of the Arkham-4 having a gate open at them.

For Mandy passing her PS, Arcane Insight would be a must in my games, 5 bounces is just inconceivable otherwise (especially if you take her PS literally, meaning only elder sign tokens blocking a gate add a Clue to the PS, not Kate). There is another method that I can think of, somewhat crazy, right up Avi's alley . Seal a location that has "a gate and a monster appears" encounters, spam that location with Darrell (or just some investigator if no D), hoping to get those encounters, running up the DOR and Mandy's PS "track" by bouncing gates off the seal.

Dam said:

It sounds like what you're is saying that, in practice, the high frequency locations do not behave differently than the low frequency locations, especially when both the Innsmouth and Dunwich boards are in play. If so, that's an intriguing possibility.

I don't really give too much thought to it TBH. I just chalk it down to my über shuffling skillz . Bottom line for me is that I have on average 14 turns in which to get 6 seals, regardless of which locations I seal.

I'm with Dam again. Tons of unstable locations and a huge UI deck makes gate bounces rare and Elder Signs rare. My playstyle is, of course, to seal as fast as possible. But I don't remember the last time I saw three gate bounces in one game.

I think it's far less to do with playstyle so much as expansion mix (anyone with Innsmouth is probably not a beginner).

Dam said:

avec said:

For Mandy passing her PS, Arcane Insight would be a must in my games, 5 bounces is just inconceivable otherwise (especially if you take her PS literally, meaning only elder sign tokens blocking a gate add a Clue to the PS, not Kate). There is another method that I can think of, somewhat crazy, right up Avi's alley . Seal a location that has "a gate and a monster appears" encounters, spam that location with Darrell (or just some investigator if no D), hoping to get those encounters, running up the DOR and Mandy's PS "track" by bouncing gates off the seal.

That's a ridiculously funny strategy ;'D

Tibs said:

::Shrug:: you've seen how I play, even against something like The Crevice of Chaos, I like a leisurely game where I control the mythos instead of the mythos controlling me :') I'm still annoyed how we lost that one by the way ;')

Eh... I agree that her pass condition would be difficult for lots of playstyles. It's not *that* rare with mine.

Well we did lose because the terror level effectively reached 5.

:-D

thanks for all your responses. I hadn't seen her personal story before, right now I have only the Dunwich and King in Yellow expansions. Not sure if it's enough to really change things unless you are playing with two extra boards otherwise you do get a number of bounces if you close some of the more frequent gates. And because she starts with four clue tokens she can do a second turn gate enter and seal by fourth turn. The ability to close and seal a gate of your choice seems pretty powerful.

I do like the idea of modifying her roll to work only for herself or perhaps her and other investigators at her location.

Tibs said:

Heh... I remember... But what I don't remember is how we let the terror get so high. I wonder if part of the issue was the Curiosity Shop closing at terror level three essentially. ::Sigh:: the game was going so well too... And then... Death!

Avi_dreader said:

Herald's hidden power? Bad luck? Shouldn't be the General Store closing, when terror hits 3?