On a recent topic, people had thrown around ideas for how to make the Bureau more worth the cost. I suggested that Agent tokens cost 1 clue each, but you roll dice equal to the number of tokens and remove the monster if you roll its toughness or more in 3s–6s. An Agent is only removed if you roll less than the toughness.
Anyway, I had an opportunity to test that last night, but things went a little strange.
While everyone else was taking care of business in Arkham, Jenny was up in Dunwich to kill some monsters so that they don't get into any vortexes. Three of my four characters failed their personal stories on Terror Level 3.
Once those monsters were cleared out, I sent her out of Dunwich because there was no way she was going to handle the –4 R'lyeh/Abyss gate.
She moved into Innsmouth and blew all her six clues to plant six agents at Joe's Bus Station (three monsters were heading in), and then kept moving to Kingsport to take care of rifts.
Jenny's first encounter called on her to draw one Innsmouth Look card and that was enough to do her in. Guess it was good to blow all her clues on agents. Her replacement, Lola, made her first task to run up to Innsmouth and plant all her clues (4, thanks to some cards) at Joe Sergent's, then move forward one more space and use the Milk of Shub Niggurath.
I figured that 10 agents was plenty. Turns out it was.
Jenny and Jacqueline were Business Associates, so they were both getting $1 per turn. Plus, turn zero's Mythos card put a Retainer at the newspaper, so Jacqueline got that . Suddenly, Jenny was making $2 per turn, and Jacky was making $4.
All within the last few turns, I managed to get Lola the Egyptologist skill (you know what that can do!) and Finn got the Mask of Vice (that, too). We didn't have time to use them though, because the Black Goat herald had sped up Nyogtha's awakening. There were five seals on the board, so it was a very close call!
During final combat, Lola kept switching out skills and someone with the Psychic card had kept moving Egyptologist to another investigator, to keep giving away Exhibits. Lola's Exhibit Item allowed her to draw one ally per turn, only for the turn. Eventually she had the Wrestle, Grapple, and Endurance skills, and a leveled san/sta with the Balance of Thoth. It was awesome. Too bad we were against Nyogtha.
Jacqueline's first (and only) attack combined Summon the Beast Within with Spectral Razor for some huge amount of dice. Everyone (except Finn) provided a great opening attack and we managed to get Nyogtha down to 4 doom tokens, but only one defense roll was successful. Good game, in the end.
All in all, a good game. Miskatonic is great, and I'm glad that I can get away with using only four investigators rather than six.
In summary:
- It was far too odd of a game to give a specific opinion on the Agent variant, but I feel like the rolls should succeed on a basic 5 and 6 and/or the agent count should always decrease after a "battle" Both may not be necessary though. Perhaps they succeed on a roll of 5 or 6, and no Agent is removed if twice the toughness is rolled?
- Lola/Egyptologist was moot since someone could keep "Psychic"ing the skill back and forth.
- Mask of Vice was moot, since the game ended (and we were rolling in dough anyway)
- Black Goat is not the hardest herald or my least least favorite—it sure does provide an interesting dash to the finish line.
