Am I missing something or are the Innsmouth investigators, in general, a bit more powerful than the base game investigators (or even most of the Kingsport and Dunwich additions).

I now own every big box expansion, plus King in Yellow and Dark Pharoah, but because of space limitations, I only play with the base game board. We've finished 4 games (and won each time) in with either 3 or 4 players (although today's victory over Hastur using the King in Yellow herald and cards was won as a matter of luck; we summoned Hastur when the terror track was only at 3 and he had only 5 doom tokens and defeated him in combat).

Are the Innsmouth investigators too powerful for that kind of setup?

Nah, in general the Innsmouth investigators aren't overpowered. Silas's aquatic bonus is very nice no matter what expansions you're using. Clearly, you need at least Kingsport or Innsmouth to get good use out of his aquatic movement ability. But without Innsmouth there's no risk of getting the Innsmouth Look, so it's pretty balanced. All the investigators are designed for use with whatever combination of expansions you decide to play.

Patrice is the only real outlier. Her ability is WAY TOO POWERFUL. If I could, I would make the font larger to emphasize this point. Make her focus 1 and only allow others to spend her clues on skill checks. Also, knock Daisy Walker down to 1 focus and only allow her spell ability to be used once per turn. And disallow Wendy from becoming Deputy. And remember that Wilson has a focus of 4 technically.

Voilá! Your set is better balanced, and closer to how I play mine. (Coincidence? )

So...I get all the other ones, but why no Deputy Daisy? I don't have KH, but know of her, and can't think of anything off-hand. So maybe I can't think of anything 'cause I haven't used her...?

EcnoTheNeato said:

I think you mean Wendy. Oh and the reason she can't be deputy is because she's just a lil' kid

Oh, and in reply to your post jscott991, I don't think that Innsmouth investigators are overpowered other than Patrice or maybe Roland. One in particular, the lawyer George, is in fact quite weak and performs the poorest according to Tib's statistics report.

In my games, Trish and Ursula usually kick ass. I've never played with Hank, but he's GOT to be overpowered.

I'm surprised to hear this.

I know there is more to an investigator than their special abilities, but most of the Innsmouth crowd have two, compared to one for almost every base game investigator.

Is Amanda Sharpe really equal to these Innsmouth folks?

I will have to do a closer analysis because I didn't realize that this would be all that debatable. It seemed to me that characters like Jenny, Dr. Fern, Amanda, etc. couldn't hold a candle to some of these newer investigators.

jscott991 said:

First, why did Hastur only have five Doom tokens? You do realize that when an AO awakens by any means, you fill his Doom Track, right?

Second, in answer to your question, I would say that once you have some experience with Arkham, virtually ALL Investigators will be much too powerful if you're only using the main board. I imagine you'd pretty much have to use the Black Goat Herald to restore a decent level of challenge.

Under other circumstances, I don't believe the Innsmouth Investigators are too powerful, with one notable exception: Patrice Hathaway. My group uses every board expansion, and we still found Patrice to be broken in our favor. She's the only Investigator we've ever removed from the game.

Oops.

We did not realize that you filled the doom track when you awakened an Ancient One by other means.

That leads me to wonder what the point of the Massa di Requiem per Shuggay is. If you gain no advantage by summoning the Ancient One early, then why would you ever want to summon it?

jscott991 said:

Well, to me she is very much equal to George Barnaby (from IH), as one of the WORST investigators in the game (that unholy quartet includes Vincent Lee and Dexter Drake, Jim Culver as alternate) .

Jenny has always been kinda meh for me (from IH Norman Withers is the same), but I would never mind drawing Carolyn Fern, any and all spells in the game just become more useful with her, just hand her the spells and let her do her thang.

jscott991 said:

There are some Ancient Ones that will be progressively more difficult to defeat if they're not awakened early: for instance, Eihort, Shudde Mel, Glaaki, Hastur.

A lot of people removed that from the game because of that. But hey, it's a tome! And against Hastur it can make sense, if you have a bunch of proper weapons and the terror level is low. Remember that in the rules it specifically says that when an GOO wakes up the doom track is always filled regardless of why (Tome, too man gates, too many monsters, etc).

(and yes, Mi-go, I meant Wendy. I was in alliteration mode...sorry! But yeah, it makes sense theme-wise, but hey, it was a different time back then )

EcnoTheNeato said:

Then I'd say no woman should be allowed to be the Captain of the White Ship. Especially no kid!

The problem with Wendy is:

• Starting with an Elder sign (and 3 clues) makes it easier for her to get 2 gate trophies than anyone, except I guess for Akachi. This means she is qualified to be deputy earlier than anyone else! What?
• She's a KID!

White ship is a different matter. It is magic and lets you sail on dreams. Duke could be captain of the white ship if he wanted. Though since dogs are colorblind, I guess it would be the white-and-gray ship.

Tibs said:

I don't know. Women on ships is bad luck, even worse if they're the captain. And do we really need to add to the bad luck in Arkham/Kingsport?!

Yarrrr, it be bad luck to have a woman on the ship! And a kid, no less!

I guess you need all the luck you can get when it comes to traversing the Abyss...

Taurmindo said:

Excuse me. I've seen all four original Pippy Longstocking movies, and I'd think that they know better than you would. After all, they were documentaries, and the events happened in real time.

Tibs said:

That cracked me up!

jscott991 said:

There is a rumor whose reward is to have all investigators blessed. Not a bad moment to awake the AO :-) The real, useless unique item is the Naacal Key. And, to me at least, the mission "Joining the winning team". Not because it is really useless, but simply because it's totally against what makes Arkham so fantastic, i.e. working together for the very same goal

Tibs said:

I believe dogs are able to perceive blue and yellow. Their sight is not black / white but... ha... my English failing.. dualchromatic? Does this word exist? Anyway, being them able to see blue and yellow, they should be able to glide safely through Lost Carcosa ::laughing::

(in case somebody is interested in this stuff, give a look here)

Julia said:

No chance! They'll perceive the blue on Lost Carcosa as purple instead, and they'll suddenly be unable to see it!

Looking through all 48 investigator cards this evening, I remain convinced that the Innsmouth Investigators are more powerful, on average, than the base game sixteen and probably than Dunwich and Kingsport set. I am not saying every Innsmouth character is better than every other investigator, but, on average, (and if I cared enough I'd "prove" this mathematically by summing their stats and such), they just have more and better powers and choices.

Some base game investigators that I've never used are quite terrible. And you look at a few's items, stats, and esoteric power and wonder why you'd ever choose them over investigator X with a better inventory, better stats, and a more useful power.

Tibs said:

jscott991 said:

Actually, all the investigators have stats that add up to the same number, and starting equipment that adds up to the same value (by Strange Eons parameters), with very few exceptions:

Amanda Sharpe
+1 focus point, probably because her ability rarely comes up.

Joe Diamond
+1 focus point, probably because the designers thought that when you're using clues for skill checks, you weren't using them to seal gates (which is more important).

Rita Young
+1 focus point, because her ability rarely comes up.

Wilson Richards
+2 focus points (his focus is 4), because that's part of his ability.

Daisy Walker
+1 focus point. The designers probably thought her ability was underpowered, but in fact it is overpowered. I lowered her focus by 1 and only allowed her sanity cost ability to work once per turn.

Lily Chen
+1 focus point, +1 maximum, but far less starting equipment. It balanced out.

Lola Hayes
+1 focus point, because her ability is only randomly useful.

Rex Murphy
+1 focus point and lots of extra starting stuff to compensate for his permanent curse.

Tony Morgan
+1 focus point for his relatively weak special ability, but also missing $1 in starting funds (this was probably just a mistake).

Wendy Adams
+3 focus points for her reduced maximums.

Hank Samson
Less starting funds, made up for with his extra maximum and hairpin-trigger personal story fail condition.

Patrice Hathaway
In my humble opinion, this is the one investigator who should qualify for a -1 focus penalty. I went ahead and gave her that, and also restricted her clue spending ability to other investigators' skill checks only.

Roland Banks
+2 focus points because his ability only really comes into play when he's hurting for cash or clues.

Silas Marsh
+1 focus for the fact that his so-so ability is further reduced by his Innsmouth heritage penalty.

Trish Scarborough
+1 focus point, (which essentially translates into 1 focus and 8 other points) because that's part of how her ability works.

In my opinion, the only two investigators who were overclocked are Daisy and Patrice. There may be unpopular and popular investigators, but they all are very good about staying close to equal average ability.

Tibs said:

Not like it's actually permanent or really a true Family Curse when any chump off the street can clear it for him. Would've been much more thematic if he'd had to get Blessed himself to remove it. Not that with the PS he'll bother OW jaunting early, just pass your PS, problems over. And with his ability, passing it is a cakewalk. So you're left with nice starting stuff, okay stats and one very nice ability (with the occasional Ghatanothoa drawback ).

jscott991 said:

The only investigator I feel is overpowered is Patrice. Her ability should really limited to be only usable once per turn, or something. Also she doesn't really need the extra boost of five clue markers. In a recent game she accumulated 24 clue markers at one point. That's nuts!