The most useless/unplayable investigator

Now, I can already think of what a flaming thread could come out of this... hoping this subject has not been discussed yet.

I spent almost one year thinking that Monterey Jack was the worst investigator: Will 3, SAN 3. Why should I play such a rabbit-scared wimpy guy?
Now I consider him to be my favourite investigator, as I choose him 4 games out of 5.
His skill is so good, so useful that really helps with such a bad STA/Will combo.

But since I started playing AH 2 years ago, there are two character wich NOBODY wants NEVER to play:
Vincent Lee and Amanda Sharpe.
But Dr.Lee's special ability is still somehow useful to all the other players... though not as useful as the psychologist's counterpart.

All my group thinks that Amanda sharp is just useless. useless to the group and useless to herself: FFG tried to craft a completely averaged character (4 to all skills, one item per type...) but the result is an investigators unable to even tie her shoes.
Her special ability might be amazing... but Skills are very rare, and even if they were easier to get, her skill just works for herself only, since she can't trade'em.
Ok, Michael Mc Glen's or Darrell Simmons' skills are for themselves only, but they get to be used a lot more often.

Amanda starts out with 2 skills (one more than other investigators... though this costs her $10 of the starting budget), but this makes her become a randomized character.
The point is, if I want to play a spellcaster, I choose Dexter Drake or prof. Walters, If I want to play a brawler, I ring ad Mc Glen's phone.
Even if Amanda is lucky enough to get those juicy Dunwich Horror's new skills, she still might be a hard time.

We can even compare her to Leo Anderson (from DH): he's very similar, but his special ability is far more useful, and he starts with one random Ally: it's worth $10 too, but as we know all allies (except for Duke and William Brinton) give a total bonus of 2 skill points, and some extra item or special ability.

Sorry Amanda.
Still, you are the cutest.

Amanda is just the template for all other characters, and having here in there doesn't really matter to me either way. She is just sort of a "mold her any way you like" type of character. Her ability lets you dig for the +X Skill cards you want to make her good at whatever you want. She is not good at anything, but she isn't bad at anything... she just has the potential to be something you need her to be.

357magnum wrote:
The point is, if I want to play a spellcaster, I choose Dexter Drake or prof. Walters, If I want to play a brawler, I ring ad Mc Glen's phone.

You shouldn't get flamed too bad on this one, and yes, it was discussed in length early last year or before. Funny thing is, Dexter Drake was continuously voted worst investigator by the majority of players.

We play random investigators, so there are no "bad" ones. I like Vincent Lee's ability, and the insane look on his face is pretty sweet, too.

I personally find the "underpowered" investigators to be more appealing, since I like to root for the underdogs.

-The Count

This is interesting.
Why do people think Dexter is such a bad investigator?
Yes, he could really use a 6 SAN/4 STA pattern, But it's still better than the 4 SAN/6 STA of the redeemed cultist in DH.

I don't like spellcasters much, I played Dexter only once in some 50+ games, But I had a great time.
He can be an excellent fighter and/or gate closer, since he can easily choose spells according to his taste and needs.
A friend of mine is so fond of Dexter that he always chooses him, AND plays wearing one of those lovely hats (what's its English name by the way?).

Talking about spellcasters, I think Dexter, Carolyn Fern and prof. Walters are really equal: they're so well balanced that I still can't say who's better. Just My opinion

I canÂ´t agree with your choice either. Amanda is a decent investigator - starting with two skills and being able to chose these two out of three cards isnÂ´t bad at all. Of course you should buy at least one other skill if at all possible. I donÂ´t like Vincent Lee too mucht but he isnÂ´t bad either.
In the end there is only one investigator I wouldnÂ´t play with (and which I remove from the deck when we play with random draw): The Nun. Unless you use some house rule, that at least make it easier for her to keep her blessing, she is is completely useless and boring.

Bob Jenkins. No one ever wants to be Bob in my circle of friends. We usually draw our characters at random and get to redraw it once if we arent pleased, but we even have a special house rule stating you can always redraw if you get Bob, simply because people dont want to play him.

Wow, this is the first time I hear of people disliking bob!

His special Ability is not so useful (is it just my impression, or most encounters lead to draw Unique items more than Commons?) but still comes in handy...
But I think his skill chart is great! He is the only character with a Will of 6, This helps a lot.

About the Nun: I remember reading Kevin Wilson talking about her: he said that a good house-rule would be allowing her to spend 2 Clues (or was it just 1?) in order to re-roll a lost blessing.

Oddly, Even though all my group thinks that Kate Wintrop is a great character, nobody never plays her.
Is she lacking some appeal, maybe?

The redeemed cultist seems to have got the shaft... but I would rather have her than Dex or the Prof. in many cases. Her speed of 3 sux, but as spell casters go Carolyn and Diana both have abilities that gain sanity directly back. Their abilities are key if you want a true "spell caster" type character.

In any case, most people don't play full-time spell casters, so it really doesn't matter to much, but regaining that sanity is soooo key in my book. (or you can just go spec yourself with a healing stone and cryptical books

)

Wow, this is the first time I hear of people disliking bob!
His special Ability is not so useful (is it just my impression, or most encounters lead to draw Unique items more than Commons?) but still comes in handy...
But I think his skill chart is great! He is the only character with a Will of 6, This helps a lot.

Well. he probebly has his strong sides. For my part he was the first character I played in the new Arkham Horror, and I didnt manage to do anything during the entire match, so ive never really got a good first impression of Bob. Why my friends dislike him varies a bit, but mostly I think its his special ability.

i like the redeemed cultist. i just go and chill out in the inner sanctum the whole game. those encounters are interesting. screw the other players!

Bob rules!

His max will of 6 means you can actually stand a decent chance not to lose sanity even against monsters like Star Spawns or Elder Things, so his relatively low sanity doesn't really matter.

His special ability combined with his starting money and his good number of starting cards mean that he is pretty certain to have a good physical weapon. No use against Physical immune, I admit, but the majority of monsters falls like flies before Mighty Bob (His Bobness?

)

And he's got a great speed (sneak doesn't matter anyway when you're aim is to kill monsters) so he was able to come to the rescue of the other Investigators many times.

In our last game, Bob was the monster clearer and he rocked the world ... until he got devoured by going lost in Time and Space (We were playing against Yog Sothoth), but that's not really his fault, is it?

Bob makes a great monster sweeper. He's a good chance of getting weapons to begin with and his high Will means he won't be running off to the Asylum all game. Amanda can be pretty cool too. If you don't get anything worthwhile in your starting hand, (or you get a use and discard like a Tome), grab a Loan and pay for some education. 3 Skills from 5 isn't to be sniffed at.

IMHO, The worst investigators are:

Sister Mary - Her special ability to far too specialised to be of any use. However, with the 2 Clues to a Blessing upgrade, she becomes lot more playable. At least her Lore/Luck/ability make her a good Gate Girl.

Monterey Jack - Low San and Low Will. He just doesn't have enough staying power. Also, his special ability should be improved by applying it to Exhibit Items.

Dexter Drake - He needs 6 Sanity and 4 Stamina. His Sanity is too low to be an effective spell caster.

In our group we used to have discussions on favorite chars a lot, but after a zillion games for most of us it doesn't really mater.
We still have our favorites but no absolute bad or good characters.

True only Sister Mary we disliked all in the beginning, she had a few specs that where mayor sitbacks at first.
But we play her now with the "may spend clues to reroll blessing/curse checks during upkeep) as additional special ability and this is a mayor improvement.

We usually find characters with less than $5 starting money a bit of disadvantage because it'll give you a bit of a head start if your starting equipment was not so successful. Other than that we found out that we play every character that we randomly pick.

A good house rule for the ones who really don't want to play certain characters but still want "fate" decide

you can always pick two characters and choose one of them.

But to answer the original question: My favorite characters are Darrell Simmons and Bob Jenkins

vinterdraken wrote:Bob Jenkins. No one ever wants to be Bob in my circle of friends. We usually draw our characters at random and get to redraw it once if we arent pleased, but we even have a special house rule stating you can always redraw if you get Bob, simply because people dont want to play him.

First off, this is exactly the reason why I never give leniency when drawing investigators. Before the game starts, players can trade among themselves if they really want to, but essentially you get who you get.

Secondly, I love Bob. He may start with no clues, but he does start with a decent chunk of change and usually at least one decent weapon. You know what you get when you pair a maximum potential Will with good weapons? A very reliable monster hunter.

Dexter Drake's only downfall is that his max sanity is only 5. Otherwise, his ability is quite good: it's nice to be able to avoid the really junky spells, and improve your chances of acquiring a truly useful one (Find Gate, Feeding the Mind, so on).

With Amanda Sharpe... I'm never really happy to get her, but her unused ability is compensated with a third focus point. This at least makes her able to prepare for anything, in theory.

Kate Winthrop's lack of appeal is due to the unpredictability of her ability. Granted, it's a good abilityâ€”it's gotten us out of trouble on many occasionsâ€”but it's unpredictable.

Let me just say that I love Diana Stanley. Healing herself and getting clues with terror/doom increases is an awesome ability. Her low speed is inhibitive, yes...but making good of bad situations is great compensation.

Yes, Sister Mary is lacking. But everyone seems to have a good solution to her shortcomings. I personally start her with 3 clues (And I rationalized this in an older thread). This at least gives her a direction when the game begins. I mean, she normally starts with no money, no clues, and no weapons. What a pain. I do not play the "clues to save Blessing" ability though, because I like the idea that God's brainwaves are being occulted by the evil smog of the Ancient One. And I don't want to make new rules and exceptions, just starting gear.

A friend of mine HATES the musician (JIM).
It's no logical reason, just a bad first playing impression when we bought DH. She would rather use ANYTHING, including Kate, Sister Mary, Ashcan or Vincent Lee that are the less-liked investigators in our group. (They all hate Dexter Drake, even if he's probably one of my favorite)

geki wrote:A friend of mine HATES the musician (JIM).
It's no logical reason, just a bad first playing impression when we bought DH. She would rather use ANYTHING, including Kate, Sister Mary, Ashcan or Vincent Lee that are the less-liked investigators in our group. (They all hate Dexter Drake, even if he's probably one of my favorite)

Oh snap. I forgot Jim Culver. Yeah, I don't like him.
He can't move, he can't fight, and his undead ability is often unused. But that Green in OW draw can come in handy when he seals. So I still respect him and don't mind playing as him.

I agree that Sister Mary is the worst and most uninteresting investigator. When we play here we don't require that she roll at all to keep her blessing during upkeep. If she is cursed, then she loses her blessing and has to go back and get a new one (but that has not yet happened.) Even with that special rule its hard to get anyone to play her.

I really like both Amanda and Bob and both seem to to well for me. Starting out with additional skills makes Amanda very Flexible and I spend all of Bob's money on additional common items right away. It makes him very popular.

The other investigator I don't like is the one who has the Flux machine that prevents gates. She's OK in the solo games where I just have her sit for a long time in a popular gate location but that would be very boring in a multiplayer game.

Jim

mageith wrote:The other investigator I don't like is the one who has the Flux machine that prevents gates. She's OK in the solo games where I just have her sit for a long time in a popular gate location but that would be very boring in a multiplayer game.

It would seem to me to be both boring and not very useful in a solo game, as you would sit on one gate while gates are opening all around you and monsters are swarming the neighborhood. Plus, every turn would be: sit on a location, draw an encounter card.

At least in multiplayer, you could shut down a popular gate location while the other investigators take care of monsters and close/seal gates.

Hastur wrote:It would seem to me to be both boring and not very useful in a solo game, as you would sit on one gate while gates are opening all around you and monsters are swarming the neighborhood. Plus, every turn would be: sit on a location, draw an encounter card.

I guess I used my terminology wrong. By solo I meant I was the only player. I usually run 4-5 investigators.

In a multi-player game where a player would only run one investigator does Kate have much to recommend her?

Jim

mageith wrote: I guess I used my terminology wrong. By solo I meant I was the only player. I usually run 4-5 investigators.

Ahh. That makes more sense, as I also often run 4 investigators solo. It was the use of solo in one sentence and multiplayer in the next that threw me off. She is a lot of fun in solo games in that way.

mageith wrote:
In a multi-player game where a player would only run one investigator does Kate have much to recommend her?

Jim

Well, if you have a well-rounded group of investigators (you know, monster whacker, gate closer, etc.), then Kate sitting on a hot spot can be a very valuable asset to the team, particularly if you have 4-5 gates sealed and want to keep a new one from showing up. It's not the most glamorous job, but if it stops a gate from popping up, everyone will recognize her valuable contribution.

Also, there is a card in the King in Yellow expansion that lets you look at the next three Mythos cards and arrange them in any order (Arcane Insight?). I once had an investigator who could successfully cast that (it's -4 spell check, but you get +1 for each tome you have**) and if you know where the gates will show up, Kate becomes the MVP of the endgame!

** this spell is one of those times where I occasionally regret weeding out so many tomes from my item decks, to tie this in to another topic on the board. Even with weeding, I usually manage to get 2-3 tomes among my investigators during a game.

We draw investigators randomly, and I think all of them are good; but somehow I don't like the nun (I think she doesn't fit in a Lovecraft adventure), and the "quality" of investigators is very situational (e.g. 3/7 investigators are bad vs Cthulhu, and Montery Jack doesn't have much fun when the Dark Pharaoh herald is in play).

357magnum wrote:Talking about spellcasters, I think Dexter, Carolyn Fern and prof. Walters are really equal: they're so well balanced that I still can't say who's better. Just My opinion

May it be that you missed that Harley Warren's...er...Harvey Walters' special ability only applies to sanity losses, but not to sanity costs (-> spells)? It's in the F.A.Q.

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:We draw investigators randomly, and I think all of them are good; but somehow I don't like the nun (I think she doesn't fit in a Lovecraft adventure), and the "quality" of investigators is very situational (e.g. 3/7 investigators are bad vs Cthulhu).

357magnum wrote:Talking about spellcasters, I think Dexter, Carolyn Fern and prof. Walters are really equal: they're so well balanced that I still can't say who's better. Just My opinion

May it be that you missed that Harley Warren's...er...Harvey Walters' special ability only applies to sanity losses, but not to sanity costs (-> spells)? It's in the F.A.Q.

This is true. Walters's only claim to (spell) fame is his high sanity and lore. On the other hand, he's not going to lose sanity in most other cases, so he should be able to cast a whole lot before having to go to the asylum. This would make him a good spellkeeper.

Carolyn's sanity restoration avoids the technical shortcoming Walters suffers from, but she starts with no spells and borderline Lore. It would appear that there are precisely zero characters who have mastered the art of spellcasting.

I surrepticiously play the Visiting Exhibit variants, so all those nice Magical Weapons and Combat Spells are lost in the bottom of the deck. Dexter then becomes more useful -- he's often the only Investigator who starts with a Magical attack! In a multiplayer game, he's the Tome guy. If you get a Tome that allows spell draws, give it' to Dex. Let him draw the spells and pay the Sanity cost!

aka. Washu! ^O^

357magnum wrote:This is interesting.
Why do people think Dexter is such a bad investigator?

Well, here he has a rep for being invisibly cursed. Bad things happen around Dex. Gugs block him in. Visible curses fly at him and stick like glue. Encounters blast his sanity. He is never Lucky. Thats why hes one of our favourites!
As you have discovered, there is no consensus on this question. AH is just too situational, and people have very different perspectives on what is enjoyable or not.

357magnum wrote:A friend of mine is so fond of Dexter that he always chooses him, AND plays wearing one of those lovely hats (what's its English name by the way?).

Its a top hat, and your friend is cool.

deejay wrote:

357magnum wrote:This is interesting.
Why do people think Dexter is such a bad investigator?

Well, here he has a rep for being invisibly cursed. Bad things happen around Dex. Gugs block him in. Visible curses fly at him and stick like glue. Encounters blast his sanity. He is never Lucky. Thats why hes one of our favourites!
As you have discovered, there is no consensus on this question. AH is just too situational, and people have very different perspectives on what is enjoyable or not.

Lol, here we have a similar opinion about all characters: those who keep a high Luck, always get to roll a lot of Lore checks in encounters, and vice versa investigators keeping a high lore always get mauled by nasty Luck-rolling encounters.

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:

357magnum wrote:Talking about spellcasters, I think Dexter, Carolyn Fern and prof. Walters are really equal: they're so well balanced that I still can't say who's better. Just My opinion

May it be that you missed that Harley Warren's...er...Harvey Walters' special ability only applies to sanity losses, but not to sanity costs (-> spells)? It's in the F.A.Q.

I know it, but he still proves to be a great spellcaster: a score of 7 SAN allows him to cast a lot before paying just a few dollars to get restored to his maximum.
it's like paying $0.3 per sanity point.

Formerly known as Jake wrote:
Monterey Jack - Low San and Low Will. He just doesn't have enough staying power. Also, his special ability should be improved by applying it to Exhibit Items.

That's why I love these threads: opinions

I love Monterey, he's my faaaaavourite.
You just have to play it tactically: he's definitely not a monster sweeper, unless he gets some good items like the Gruesome Talisman or a +1Will skill or a healing stone.
Basically, I think he's the best item-finding character in AH, and the ultimate Mi-Go killer.

Sometimes you can also use him for kamikaze actions: boosting his fight to 5, failing any horror check which damage is 2 or less, and then blasting out any single powerful monster with some good magical weapon.. though this could be done by just anybody else, so I don't think this makes much of a point.

Does anybody like Ashcan Pete?
I think his ability is rather useless...
We improved it by house-ruling that if he's in play, each deck must be shuffled after anybody draws a card.