Hello folks,

I was wondering, is anyone playing with a special kind of house rules for the camera of Darrel Simmons. It feels to us that the camera is fairly overpowered, and we came up with a bunch of ideas how to play it another way.. but until now we couldnt decide how, therefor I wanted to see if and how others work with it.

Idea 1: The +2 for combat is only applied if the investigator with the camera is in the same room.

Idea 2: If the camera is dropped for whatever reason, the monster on it goes back into the keepers monster pool.

Idea 3: If the camera changes hands, the monster goes back into the keepers monster pool.

Idea 4: The combat bonus is reduced to +1.

Idea 5: To get the monster, the investigator with the camera has to kill the monster himself.

Idea 6: The monster doesnt go to the camera at all, leaving it in the keepers monster pool. The investigator only gets a small token to indicate which monster it was.

These were mainly the ideas after 30 minutes of brainstorming after the game yesterday. We were playing Lost in Time and Space and the poor keeper didnt really have a chance with only one hound left. It just felt broken. The effect of the camera doesnt show up as hard in multi-monster-type sceanrios, but if the keeper only has one type, and only 2 of them, that camera is just darn overpowered. Or are we missing something?

What does the Camera do originally? Dont have the expansion yet since Im still waiting for the reprint, so a bit hard to judge if your house rule changes are balanced and if the Camera is overpowered.

Darrel Simmons camera allows him to take a picture of any monster killed in a room with him. He then takes that monster miniature and its square of information and sets it on the camera. The keeper can't play that monster anymore, and for example if it was a shoggoth the keeper could now only ever play 1 shoggoth.

On top of this it gives the entire investigation team +2 to all combat checks against that type of monster. So you would get +2 to all combat checks against any shoggoths, but not every creature in the eldritch class.

Or if you used it on a cultist, you would get bonus checks to all cultists, but not zombies or other humanoids. As Humanoids, beasts and eldritch are classes not types.

And the card is far from overpowered as the keeper can force it to be dropped, not 100% but maybe even destroy it. Kill the person holding it or do any number of things. I'm surprised that you find anything in the game with investigators overpowered considering they are already against a severely stacked opponent. The keeper has every advantage and if the player plays aggressively he will almost always win against the investigators.

(Also, I tend to follow a house rule I suppose. I too make the monster return to the keeper if the camera is forced to be dropped although it is not otherwise specified in the manuals.)

As long as he cant continue stealing monster figs I dont find it overpowered per say. Yes, its powerfull. But then again I play as the Keeper and I win most matches as is and would welcome something that tipped the balance towards the players. The item is indeed more powerfull in stories where the Keeper is restricted to one or two monster-types but I think its important to remember that it really only limits the amount of monsters the keeper can have on the board at one time. The keeper can allways choose to kill a monster on the board to place a new one if he wants to place a monster in a better position and depending on what victory conditions the Keepers after one can often play unhindered even if one would be restricted like that.