i thought that casting spells was a sanity cost not loss (which is what Calvin saves against)

Boojum said:

The way that I'm reading this, you're doing it incorrectly. Sanity cost and sanity loss are different. You pay Sanity cost for Spells unless something reduces or prevents that (such as Planetary Alignment). Calvin Wright reduces Sanity loss by 1, in the same way that Harvey Walters does.

Pairing Calvin with Harvey or Dexter does work well, however, since they can worry less about Sanity loss and so more freely use spells that cost non-zero Sanity. In fact, in Scenario 1, Harvey with Calvin would only lose Sanity from random encounters that lose him more than 2 Sanity, so that's very nice.

But yes, losses and costs are different.

We gave Calvin to Ashcan Pete but our geatest boon in points came from teamwork and luck. We made sure the right people got the right gear through trading. Picking Investigators that complemented each other, made a spread sheet with all the locations and encounters there, including what type of roles for what rewads were likely to come across. That way we knew that some investigators were better off going to certain places to try for items, spells and money. In the end though an Elder sign for removing a doom token and alot of luck in rolling the dice and drawing cards gave us a great victory in scenario 1.

Scenario 5.......

Where is Michael McGlen?!?!? Calvin will be lost without his mentor in mafia madness. I guess Leo Anderson will have to start an expedition to find the frozen fighter. Unfortunately Calvin cannot join Mr. Anderson (matrix jokes are not setting appropriate, I know, but funny for this situation none the less) on this trip.

Joe Diamond is very nice to see on this list and might be a good replacement for the everpresent gangster but alas Calvin cannot join him either. Bob Jenkins seems like he would be nice enough to show Calvin around and Calvin might show the salesman how to become a terrific monster slayer.

It seems that the choices for Calvin carriers is slim but it is also scary to see that the number of Unique Items to go around is also lacking.

Maybe pairing Calvin with "The Great" Drake, Sister Mary, or "Ashcan" Pete would help them avoid the 4 toughness cultists!

So once again we ask "What to do with Calvin?"

Calvin? Is that you Calvin? You look different..... and I don't want to be around you anymore.

Dark Jco. said:

I'm going to use him with Jenny!

Dark Jco. said:

We did a first trial of Scenario 6 last night and had Calvin paired with RIta. They seemed to work OK together. Rita's resulting 2 sanity was always a concern, but she never was forced to take a Madness card. We won without too much trouble -- and how refreshing it was to be able to dawdle in the streets again without harm -- plus there seemed to be so many clue tokens, we didn't know what to do with them all! We'll try it again probably pairing Calvin with Amanda to see if she can manage the new Calvin even better.

I haven't looked at the character stats *too* carefully, but I'd actually say you might be best off coupling new Calvin with Pete. True, he'd still have a bit of a speed problem, but his focus problem would be fixed. His sneak would be excellent. And more importantly, his fight/will would be excellent (and because he has the one extra stat point, he'd miss the sanity/stamina loss less than some other characters. He'd still be a 4/5. He'd actually make a pretty tough bastard, in my opinion :'D pair him with Wilson and toss him the Motorcycle and Shotgun, and... EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEE!

Yeah, we tried Amanda... but not much luck . She just wasn't strong enough in either mind or body when allied with Calvin to be much of a factor until enough equipment could be pooled together to pass most of the checks -- then she was awesome (but until late game she always seemed to be running off to get herself healed after every fight). Pete, on the other hand, when paired with Wilson's bike as you suggest, has been working well for us.

Now if we can only get a little break from the seeming constant surges that rob us of the win, we'll be doing OK. Heh, in each of our four games, the Newspaper has been reduced to rubble within the first few turns, so money has been a big problem for us. Every time we thought about grabbing a loan, the bank crumbled into dust before anyone can get there!

Aeaea said:

Advice: if you're not too concerned about your score, money launder. Have everyone take out loans on turn one and deliberately trade off equipment and cash so as many people default on their loans as possible. That's the fastest way to gain cash. If you have no scruples :')

Alternatively you could go for a gate closing (as opposed to sealing) approach for the first couple gates, just to try and buy yourself time (and hopefully time to get cash for elder signs).

How many investigators are in your team?

We're definitely playing for score! I've never tried bank loans because I figured I'd get lazy and forget about them and then get surprised/nailed by a loan default. I should try it sometime though -- it would be interesting to find out if the early equipment (and/or skill) advantage could make up for any lost score by killing more monsters.

We play 4 investigators. I think our main problem with surges has just been bad luck.... In our last game, the Witch House went off and closed the Newspaper on the first turn, then surged again the second turn and again while we had an investigator in the other world trying to seal it off. Then it had the gall to gate burst a few turns after we sealed it too.

We had a good team -- Rita, Mark, Wilson and Pete (with Calvin). Rita lost her Retainer on her first check but she started with Grapple and a Tommygun so she became a sweet killing machine along with Pete using Wilson's Shotgun. Everyone except Pete got themselves cursed (Mark and Wilson were cursed for most of the game), but we drew pretty good equipment and in spite of the bad luck (though we had some incredible saves too) we were close to a very nice 30+ point win before the Science Building popped and brought Shudde out of the rubble.

Maybe next game....

Its always the science building!