Hi ppl. Been into AH for a month or so now(got AH+DH) and there's some things in the game I don't feel ok to play with. And one of these thing is: Darrel Simmons, the photograph dude. So I've checked all my investigator skill/stats/stuff and I came to this conclusion: Darrell is ****** imba or wut? So Basically he got very good paired stats so he can cast+fight. But what disgust me the most, is his unique skill. So when Darell does an encounter in town, he picks 2 cards and CHOOSE the one he wants. Well is it me or this is ****** dumb!? First, you can dodge some of the crappiest/powerful encouter cards, which is totaly BS to me. Second, it tends to make games longer since you ALWAYS do encoutner with this guy and you ALWAYS read both cards. SO i've banned this investigator from my games since it too time consuming and it gives players too much of an edge. I know theres is some chick who got the same ''unique skill'' for OW encouter, but you arent in OW as often as you are in town. I'd like to have your comment/thoughts on this. And I'd like to know if you ban some investigator too and why you do so.

Darrel is certainly one of the more powerful investigators, and I love playing as him. His ability is certainly good, to be sure, but I wouldn't consider it game breaking. I personally don't ban any investigators, but I think many people play with random investigator draws, which could solve your problem if you don't like people being the same investigators over and over again.

Once you collect all of the expansions, there are many investigators who seem to leave poor Darrel in the dust. Daisy, for instance, starts off with a very powerful tome and can cast spells with impunity, and Patricia is so powerful she changes the very mechanics of the game. Even in the base set, though, I'd say that Mandy, the researcher, is more powerful than Darrel... her re-roll ability is one of the most useful in the game.

I think one investigator in Dunwhich, the handyman, is even better at avoiding encounters, and his ability has caused similar gripes. He just gets a buck.

We use random pick. And gawd knows what our game would be if we could choose them....well he might come back into my shuffled investigators once I stacked more of them. Since more x-pac = more challenge, he could be in our future games without being too powerful indeed. For now he's still too much for me.

winning usually isn't done by doing encounters, so Gloria would be way worse since you use the same ability, but while progressing towards winning.. and if you aren't in other worlds "that often" with Gloria, you're playing her wrong.

we haven't banned any investigator, but alter between two different random systems:

1) each player draws 2-3 (depending on # investigators to play the game) each and chooses between them. if the player who draws them are utterly unhappy, he could draw a new one which he has to choose. this makes it random, but not "oh god not dexter AGAIN" random.

2) each player draws one investigator from each expansion set (one ah + one dh + one kh, we don't have innsmouth yet). after everyone have done this, everyone draws one additional investigator randomly from all characters left undrawn. and then chooses one of these four. it makes a more mixed randomization where you don't have to end up with all base game characters to choose between, but still not make it "i'll always play mark harrigan!"

edit: unless doing a scenario, we always pick investigator before picking ancient one, completely randomly (no pick-n-choose there).

Arkham Encounters won't win you games. And Darrell's PS nerfs him nicely enough. Darrell doesn't even come close to the people who could get on the banned list (hi Patrice). Also, are you seriously saying Darrell is a spell-caster? Sanity 4 + Lore 3??? Caster?

I use every Investigator equally by having a 'draw' pile of investigators and AO's.

After each game, the used investiagtors and AO are put to one side and not put back into the draw pile until I have gone through each character.

I take the good with the bad, plus the random draw of items can make all the difference. Even a so called 'weak' character can be beefed up with a +1 Fight, Tommy Gun and a Healing Stone.

But if you really dislike one character so much.... don't use it.

Daryl is good in town, but once you start adding in the expansions you'll find that you are too pushed for time to use his ability fully. Every turn he fights a monster in the streets is a turn where he doesn't use his powers. Every time he collects clues brings him a step closer to 5 clues for a seal and a trip through the Outer Worlds, where his power will do him no good.

He is a good investigator, who encourages exploration (a good call IMO) but he is far from over-powered.

Now Patrice.... that's a different story altogether.

So playing with Darell is a guarantee to win the game?

There are so many ways in which the difficulty of the game gets randomized ... drawing items, skills and monsters; playing with a Herald; monster movement; resolving encounters; ...

I'm sure everyone can come up with an example of each of these which would make Darell feel smaller than his camera ...

Some games will be harder than others, is it by playing with another investigator, against another AO, finding a magical sword, a tommy gun and being blessed in 3 following turns.
This is just the way AH works and imo one of the benifits AH has compared to other games.

Replayability ftw !!

Haven't come on any situation where we really felt like banning an investigator yet. We use the "draw 3 at random and choose" method, but if a player doesn't like any of those 3, he can draw another 3 at random and has to pick from those 3. If we get one that seems rather powerful we just count ourselves lucky, and if we get one that seems less powerful, well, we just try to deal with it.

When I first got Kingsport, we also used a "draw 2 from original and 1 from Kingsport" method to ensure we got some KS investigators to pick from.

Got myself KIngsport expension today since you guys kept saying x-pac's investigators are powerful. Indeed they are some kind of ballers and I decided to give that poor Darrel a chance and get him back into the pile. With this post, ive seen all kind of opinions about it and made up my mind. So thank you guys you just cost me 60 bucks and im glad the community is THAT awesome. thx for feedback/opinion/house rules.

I agree that you could have a grouping of too many strong investigators making the game too easy, but one investigator doesn't usually make or break the game. We do random picks, and then sub in one investigator the party is too strong or too weak. It doesn't often happen that we have to do this, but occasionally it does. Usually it just depends on how the cards and gates come out. One investigator being able to pick between multiple cards can get you out of a tight spot sometimes, but the other investigators still have to go through the encounters which can more than make up for this strength. That being said, you just have to do whatever makes the game more enjoyable for you.

None of the Investigators are so powerful that they should be banned (no, not even Patrice).

There are certainly times when Darrell is strong but there are many, many times when he is useless. If he loses his Retainer early then he has lost one of his strengths, if he's in another world then his text is useless, he can't cast decent spells effectively at all, and as for his Personal Story ...

As for him taking up more time due to extra encounters, well, so what? Each encounter is only a few sentences long, not exactly War And Peace. And most of the time you are going to want him shopping (because of his Retainer) or fighting anyway.

As others have said, random picks can also solve a lot of problems. For example, I love using Lily Chen - without doubt she is my favourite investigator - but I rarely get to use her because before we play we randomly select three Investigators out of the 48 available (or 4 if we are running two Investigators each) and have to pick our characters out of those.

The other day I ended up with a selection of; Vincent Lee, Sister Mary, Lola Hayes and Gloria Goldberg. I took Gloria and Lola and due to the random distribution of skills and items, we actually started the game with Gloria being the best fighter available to us.

I find games like that more than make up for the times I have laughed in the face of the Llogor with Lily.