Yes, but you're occupying *two* investigators for multiple turns to do it. Pete+ your Lore/Money character. And you can't really have anybody else shop either, because you'll get yourself into the situation where you won't have the desired item on the bottom of the deck anymore. And once the terror reaches 3 the usefulness of the ability plummets, if the terror reaches 6, it plummets again.

Dexter may be a favorite, but I have yet to hear an argument as to why he is so good to be in the top 5 investigators...

awp832 said:

Who cares? What else would you be doing with your investigator? Hunting for clues? One or two at a time (get the third investigator to do that). Besides, you multitask, you get the other investigator to do shopping while Pete is recycling the item. Even if it's just the Old Journal and you might not want to shop for common items, you can just pop in and out and spend the turn in the street. You really think spending two turn for three extra *safe* clue tokens is a bad idea? Uch. And besides, you send your third character out to gather clues that are doubling up at locations due to mythos cards. This combo makes it so you have a hell of alot more resources on the board to work with. Even if you only get 9 clue tokens from OJ, or eight from KiY, that's nearly doubling the number of clue tokens that initially appear on the board. If you think that's not worth spending a few turns with a couple investigators then I'd love to hear what you do with *your* investigators. Also, you're assuming a player wouldn't want to shop at the common item store or the unique item store. Personally, I'd usually be happy to have an additional reason to shop for unique items. I wouldn't be too thrilled to spend cash at the common item store, but if I had some extra, it wouldn't be like it was a wasted turn shopping there.

The arguments for Dexter have nothing to do with his quality as an investigator, they have to do with affection people have for his character. People like him for sentimental reasons rather than strategic ones (in other words).

awp832 said:

Who has him in the top 5? Even Avi's not that crazy . If you mean top 5 as per the AH Stats report (as in the pure number of games featuring said investigator), then first need to look at the facts. Of the top 10, ALL are base game investigators (so there is basically a 1/3 chance for any base game investigator to be in the top 5). Top 20 has all 16 base game investigators. League Scenarios I think have also contributed to the "popularity" of the base game investigators. When you play with random investigators, like I do, you can get odd draws. There was a good stretch of about 20 games in a row where I never saw Carolyn Fern. Since I only redraw if an investigator was in the previous game, same investigator could appear in games #1, #3, #5, etc. I don't redraw because I happened to draw someone I hate. As to Dexter, too lazy to check my "popularity" for him, but I won't even rank (as in going by how well he does in a game/how powerful an investigator is) him in my top 20. Note that I only have AH + DH, so that's 24 investigators total .

Dam said:

You just had to throw in an Avi jab, didn't you?

For those of you who don't know, Dam has long been envious of me for owning Kingsport Horror while he does not (although he attempts to disguise this emotion with sour graping). Furthermore, he resents what this implies about our relative sanity points :') (mine are higher, don't let him try to persuade you otherwise).

Avi_dreader said:

Wouldn't want you feeling left out . As to sanity, your current points maybe higher, but with your max Sanity a glorious 2, I have more durability .

Maximum sanities of 1 and 2? You boys had better watch out for Cthulhu and Mythos Lore.

R.I.P. Dam and Avi

They died during setup.

I guess my logic was as follows. If investigators are picked randomly, than, over time, you ought to have a roughly even distribution, correct? Therefore, any investigators who float towards the top, are there because they were 'picked'. And if they were picked with fair consistency, than that means that people tend to like them enough to pick them.

Second point: Let's say there are two possibilities: 1. Either Dexter is popular just because he's in the base game or: 2. That isn't the case.

If, 1. than my statement is this. Ouch! Dexter is by far the *worst* he can be in the base game. There are only like 8 different spells in the base game, none of them (with the possible exception of find gate, and even then) are even worth "dextering" for.

If 2., than I have more respect for those who use him, but we still ought to see a decline in his popularity as expansions add other investigators.

And don't discount the stats groupings entirely. Dexter is certainly in the top notch of popularity. He has about 20 more 'plays' than Kate Winthrop of Harvey Walters, both quite strong investigators. 35 more plays than Bob Jenkins or Gloria Goldberg, who I think are very solid as well. About 40 more plays than Sister Mary.

Tibs said:

Hey, I said Avi's max is 2, which is higher than my current Sanity of 1(naturally I have a max of 6), but everytime I read about some strategy Avi uses, Sanity drops . Haven't had time to replenish.

Dam said:

Shhhhh, no one tell him that his max sanity is really one, it might cause him to be devoured ;')