This is a fantastic post - hat's off to Shining Aqua for the comprehensive review of characters. But like Fenyx, I have a slightly different list using a very different set of criteria: understanding immediately what the heck you're supposed to do with this character. Because everyone in this game is a puzzle piece or a cog in a machine that is supposed to work together in order to succeed, how fast a player catches on of what to do is key to winning this game (unless, you know, you want to boss around all your friends the whole time).

In my limited opinion, I think Lola, Lily, and Silas are tops (for the same reasons everyone else gave) but also because they are the most newb friendly characters to play with when someone is having their first session of EH. There's always something for you to do that you're good at and your chances of rolling well are on your side (not for everything obviously but for many aspects of what the game calls for). Next comes Mark, Akachi, and Charlie because you can instantly tell for what specific purpose they were designed for.

Everyone else? Start reading and scratching your head. Because the rest read and function strangely. Don't get it twisted: in no way am I saying the rest of the cast stinks, it's just more difficult to click with this character the first time around. Oh, and you best hope you be gettin' Blessed lickety-split lest your deficiencies get the best of you, unlike your well-rounded teammates.

Diana Stanley is my favorite. She already starts near arkham/buenos aires. Go there and get some spells. 5 dice rolling spels is awesome. I already have solved 2 mysteries in a game alone (3 player game) because of her valuable spells. I've played EH 4 times so far, i haven't win yet though. :/

One time i lost because of a turn. If i had one more turn i'd have win. Really frustrating, but i'm loving EH. Looking forward for an expansion (though i'll keep playing the core a lot of times, really loved. It is AH simplified, but with its grace).

I liked Akachi too, but i confess i need to be more "pro" to use her "action" skill to its maximum performance. It's not that simple for novice players.

After playing the game a couple times, I really enjoyed Leo Anderson and Akachi.

I, however, miss some good 'ole Irish mobster lad doing gangster stuff. We need Mike McGlenn soon.

Beat my first game in Eldritch Horror and it was against Yog-Sothoth (5th time i've been playing). Solved 2 mysteries and half myself (3-player game). Diana is really MARVELOUS against Yog. Discarding spells isn't a problem for her. She gets (easily) tons of spells if she stays in Buenos Aires and Arkham. Her initial position on the board really helps a lot to get spells.

Won a second game, this time was against Cthullu. His initial doom track is 12. But his mysteries are the easiest ones to solve (we've solved all 3 and the doom track was still at 8). I'm having problems against Shub and Azathoth.

Azathoth's initial doom track (15) is not THAT high because it's an illusion. The eldritch token(s) on the green comet omen help a lot to reduce the doom track quickly; and i think his mysteries are the hardest ones of these first 4 AOs we have on the Eldritch core, it takes long to solve them.

P.S.: I've been playing only with Diana Stanley so far. I tried Trish once, but we lost the game (Azathoth was the AO).

I'm having problems against Shub and Azathoth.

I think everybody has problems against Shubbie...

For Azathoth: try a game with Akachi or Jacqueline. You need to close gates quickly to avoid the super doom advance triggered by the green comet, and these gals are the best gate divers in town. Especially Akachi, considering her special ability

As i said earlier, Julia. Here we play with a little bit of RPG in mind. We choose the investigators first, then we randomly pick an AO (you can choose your profession in real life, but you can't choose the enemies you may come to fight in your life). ^^

Just a house rule to make things more interesting. Hehehe.

And in the setup phase. Step 3 is we choose our characters. Just in step 5 we choose the AO. So even playing by the rules, you choose an investigator FIRST.

Jacqueline is actually the main sealer of the game: 52% of closing a gate with a sequence of Check 1 and Check 2 passed, 19% of closing a gate when triggering the failed condition of the OW encounter (the so called Check 3)

Akachi and Norman come second (48% / 19%), followed by Jim (46% / 18%).

Have statistics like this been done for the other encounter decks?

I'm working on them. Some more patience (it has been a hell of a month) and I'll post something, I promise

I'm working on them. Some more patience (it has been a hell of a month) and I'll post something, I promise

Thanks! I hope things get better for you soon.

Yup, don't worry, just to many things to do, but no real issues. The Excel spreadsheet is ready, I just need to enter the test requirements for each of the cards and then it's done.

So, here's my list ... based on a large number of plays .. mostly with 4 players. Note that although I've ordered them, some of them are actually pretty even with other investigators. Really, the difference between most of the investigators is pretty small. I've really split the investigators into 3 groups ... really good, ok, and relatively weak.

1. Lily - We've never had a game where she wasn't anything other than awesome. It doesn't take long or much for her to quickly be able to do everything, often maxing out most if not all her stats. Obviously, turn 1 she wants to go to Sydney. After that, she can kill stuff as she heads to other cities to up her other stats, or to an investigator with Feed the Mind.

2. Akachi - Good rounded investigator for closing gates as well as picking up clues

3. Silas - Extra movement and good stats helps him do everything.

4. Jacqueline - Passing clues helps immensely, as well as getting a clue every time someone gets a non-common condition.

5. Diana - She can be a combat monster when set up properly.

6. Trish - She's a good investigator. Her ability to always have a clue can come in very handy, she starts as a decent combat character. Her high Observation helps immensely with rumors (especially combined with her clue ability). Really, her only downside is her low lore, making dealing with gates difficult.

7. Lola - While her ability to shift her skills around can be useful ... you need to know ahead of time what you are going to do ... and you still need to spend the time to get stat increases. That takes time you don't normally have, and other than her influence the rest of her stats are mediocre.

8. Charlie - Great at what he does ... equipping the rest of the investigators. Useful for larger groups, but he's pretty weak himself. Both his abilities though, are useful for others. His ability to give an action can be HUGE if done at the right time.

9. Norman - He's a good spellcaster, and his ability to spend sanity instead of clues can be very important.

10. Jim - He's kind of bland, honestly. Although he's fairly balanced, his abilities are fairly mediocre. Extra sanity recovery is helpful, but not major. His reroll can be handy, but it is only once per turn and only during combat, so is pretty limited.

11. Leo - He's very inconsistent. Wilderness spaces generally don't have much going on, so his ability is of moderate

usefulness. If few or no allies get pulled (which happens fairly often) his other ability is useless too. Overall, he's fairly weak.

12. Mark - Very limited. He's decent, once he gets equipped with weapons, at killing stuff, and that's about it. His starting gear is pretty weak (he really should start with a rifle or something). His damaging ability is of very limited use, to weaken just a few monsters that he might have trouble killing in a single round of combat. It also damages himself, and there are plenty of spells, items, and artifacts that do the exact same thing as this ability ... and also do not hurt the user. Not being able to be delayed and detained can be useful, but it is pretty random (a lot are voluntary).

A couple of things Dvang:

About Jim, you should note that his ability is not a re-roll, but rather an additional die for all tests in combat encounters by all investigators in his space (not once per-round) so it's actually a lot more powerful than the way you play it. With a proper weapon Jim is one of the best fighters in the game.

Similarly, Lola's passive ability - to add a die for one test in a round can be extremely useful. In most rounds you only have one major test, and having an extra die in this test can make a lot of difference.

Leo is pretty useful if you send him on expeditions, which five times out of six happen on wilderness spaces. His abilities are great for expeditions too, and the rewards can be positively game changing. Of course, in the late game it's hard to spare the time for expeditions, but a couple of successful ones in the first few rounds can make a lot of difference.

Leo is pretty useful if you send him on expeditions, which five times out of six happen on wilderness spaces. His abilities are great for expeditions too, and the rewards can be positively game changing. Of course, in the late game it's hard to spare the time for expeditions, but a couple of successful ones in the first few rounds can make a lot of difference.

Especially if you get a few key artifacts for the rest of your team to become strong early game. He is also very strong against Shub, which has a lot of interaction with wilderness spaces.

Lola can easily make it to Shanghai on turn one, and then just keep cranking out improvement tokens. She's also good to just sit on Tokyo and remove monsters that way.

Thanks, Barl!

I was surprised to see that after 1,000+ votes, EH ranks as the 12th most thematic game!

Cheers,

Joe

Did you expect it to be higher or lower? What was number one?

For me it's Akachi and Jackie, no question! If my first losses at this great game told me anything, it was that I really needed to get a clue, so I grabbed a couple of em' along with some combined teleportation just in case!

Lily Chen never ceases to amaze me with her combat stats as well as double-improving skills.

But for pure thematic enjoyment, I really feel for the redeemed cultist, Diana Stanley .

Diana can cast those spells and throw a decent punch, but seeing her glaring, weak, '1' Will is thematically perfect.

Her deficit glares as if she's a recovering evil-worshipping addict, but who can also grow and improve during the course of a game.

She most often is defeated in my games, but her demise feels right, like she's fought the good fight and made the ultimate sacrifice to show she will never again stray to the side of evil.

Jacqueline Fine is quickly becoming a favorite, too.

Have not played with Lily or Jacqueline, but Diana has become my go to Investigator when we play. Her 1 Will is easily overcome with things like Feed The Mind, or Allies, but she shines brightly in combat because you pit her against something with a terribly high Horror test and she only takes at worst 1 sanity.

Some months have passed since the last time i posted here on this topic so i learned to like Trish a lot in this meanwhile. I've never been able to do this combo: Trish + silver key artifact. But with this combo you can overcome almost (if not all) clue dependent objectives/rumors. Her ability to get clues from thin air is awesome, i like her a lot (rerolling two dice instead of one when spending clues is marvelous too). I want to remind that you can't reroll 2 dice when you spend clues with her if you roll only one die in the test. Her initial .45 automatic asset is very good too, you can kill standard monsters easily (except elite or very tough normal ones) right in the beginning of the match. Her only drawback is her sanity 5. You should be careful with sanity chewer monsters.

My favourite is probably Diana, because of her sheer power. In 4 investigator games, Charlie shines and Leo has helped me quite a lot. But I haven't played with Lola and Norman yet, so the list may change a bit.

Nainphy, if you think Trish and the silver key are powerful, try giving the silver key to Norman...

I'd like to comment how i think about choosing my favorite investigator(s).

I've been playing RPG for more than 20 years (i've started to play in 1993). My mind works like that: create a character the way you like, but you never know what the GM/DM/Storyteller would create against you. So i always play EH/AH and so on (boardgames that you easily convert in your mind as a RPG game) by choosing the character, but never choosing the AO (after all, you don't know what the GM/DM/Storyteller would plan for you). Each character to me have a spark of life (i like to imagine background stories for them and etc...). And there are some characters that i'd never like to play (like the Sailor or Leo Anderson). So i can't choose the investigators randomly because if i get an investigator i don't like (and i don't play for power, i play for the story/fun factor), i wouldn't have fun in that match.

I know the sailor has very good skills and a lot of people like him, but i look at him and i think "no, that's not the kind of character i like to play".

The variant rule let me choose the investigator (i always play by the rules) and i thank this variant rule for that.

The characters i'd easily create to play a RPG game would be characters like Trish and mainly Diana Stanley. Thus, they are my favorites.

Honorable mention: Akachi. I like her shaman image and her role fits perfect in an horror story.

P.S.: My favorite character on AH is Jenny Barnes. The idea of a rich woman sponsoring an horror hunt is something different from the muscle "cliché" guy fighting a monster/entity/evil. I know Charlie Kane sort of replaced her on EH (he's the rich character who buys everything for the others like Jenny does on AH). I'm looking forward to see how Jenny "trusted fund" skill will work on EH (hope they create something very different from Charlie, but at the same time i hope they don't lose Jenny's essence role).

I've tried using Akachi once, and due to some bad luck in the early game she was absolutely abysmal. She ended up losing her starting Mists of Releh spell to some in-game effect (I don't remember what, it's been ~5 months), so she couldn't do much of anything for a very long time. I've shied away from using her ever since.

My personal favorite investigator is Lola Hayes. She's so versatile that you can tweak her abilities to face any situation, and the bonus die once each turn is very helpful.

By the way, I love that everyone has different rankings for each investigator. It's a very good sign when there's no clear-cut "best" characters in a game.