I really like Joe Diamond. Sure he has low will but his speed is good, his fight is great, he starts with a weapon, a skill, 3 clue tokens, $8, and 2 other common items which, depending on what you draw, can balance him nicely (especially when coupled with his hunches skill). Mandy is pretty awesome too. Low fight but great will and good speed. Plus her starting items and abilities rock: 2 common items, 1 unique item, 1 skill, $6, 4 clue tokens, and her research skill makes her pretty OP. All in all every investigator adds a little something and, depending on how many players there are and who they pick, the game always ends up interesting.

Tibs said:

Horrid stats, using Clues to guarantee a success seems nice, but when those Clues are needed/used for sealing gates, yeah, can't spend on the close roll. Getting arrested in IH doesn't happen much at all, even rarer in Arkham. And if that investigator happens to be a bad one, let him go to jail and hopefully get devoured, you'll get a new one.

EcnoTheNeato said:

Jim is another investigator that is pretty weak. I had one game in which he excelled thanks to succeeding at his personal story and a steady stream of undead monsters, but that was a rare coincidence.

Tibs said:

Really? It's been years. Why?

mi-go hunter said:

Well... If she understood the rules, winning the base game with sealing with six investigators isn't difficult.

@catH

I'm a bit worried that you're going to continually crush the Ancient Ones like that. If you're finding the game too easy let me know, and I'll let you know how to make it considerably harder (beyond the obvious "buy expansions").

Tibs said:

Agreed. I'd add Kate and Gloria as the next worst investigators.

Playing the four Tibs named vs a stronger Ancient One will amp up the game difficulty quite a bit :') but that was not going to be my suggestion (I have game variants, but I'm not going to dig for them unless they're actually requested).

Avi_dreader said:

More AOs meant fewer Yog games. Originally I'd play lots of 2p games with just Dark Pharaoh. That meant that there was no Epic Battle cards and, while the hardest, Yog could still be rocked in final combat with the right preparation.

When Dunwich was released, it had more unstable locations and gate bursts, so the extra effort and time it took to get a gate sealed just stung more when it was burst or when too many gates opened. Changing to 4 investigators made final combat much harder. Kingsport brought Epic Battle cards and I won't play without them. Innsmouth brought so many new AOs that now, Yog games are quite rare.

Julia said:

Poor Mary ;') And I'm not just saying that because she's a broke nun. Besides, she's not really weak post-Innsmouth.

I agree with what's said about George generally (the negatives). His starting cash is decent... But when I draw him I tend to see if I can trade away all his stuff and get him killed somewhere so I can draw a different investigator ;') You'd think that with such lousy stats they could at least have given him 4 speed, but no ::eyeroll:: If his clue expenditure could add to anyone's die roll (once per turn), then he'd be a decent character...

Tibs said:

I don't accept this answer as valid :') but okay. Go! Go defeat Yog-Sothoth!

Avi_dreader said:

I don't know. It would probably just make him run out of clue tokens faster. George's problem is that his ability depends on having a fair amount of clues. But he doesn't have any way of getting clues. He can't move around very easily and he can't deal with monsters on the board. If you gave him a motorcycle and a good weapon, he'd be okay. But if you gave ANYONE a motorcycle and a good weapon, they'd be okay. If you come across items in the game that could actually help George, it usually makes more sense to give those items to a more capable character. So George is invariably stuck in a situation where he knows he'd be okay if he had 4+ clues, but he doesn't have the slightest idea how to get them.

A possible (long term) solution for this could be throwing George as soon as possible through a couple of gates (regardless of the fact he can seal them or not) in order to have a George Deputy able to patrol wagon the town searching for clues. But probably there is a timing issue in this (I mean, closing two gates shouldn't be a quick thing, and by the time he is the deputy, most of the clues on the board would already be gone)

Sorry I haven't dropped by in awhile. Wrapped up the game with Yog-Sothoth vs. the Doctor Vincent and some other lame characters to see how it went. I lost miserably in final battle. That's Ancient Ones: 1, and Investigators: 1 I suppose. Probably I should try a fight against Cthulhu next. Oh yeah, one question: I don't get about how investigators can trade things with other investigators. So they have to be in the same location? Can you trade clue tokens and money too? How about monster trophies? Since I was unsure, I never really traded my items and things with other investigators yet.

catH said:

You have to be in the same location. And I think it has to be during the movement phase. Money yes, clues and trophies no. Of course, there are a few cards where if you draw them it makes certain exceptions to the rules.