Custom Investigators and Investigator Cards

Interesting character. I like.

MaddMatt wrote:
I hope one of your other investigators is going to be a pretty girl. Wouldn't be Dr Who without a pretty girl on the team!

you obviously haven't been watching the new series...

Billie was as good as it got...

Freema ? Catherine Tate ?.... Oh dear Oh dear ...

madquest8 wrote:

MaddMatt wrote:
I hope one of your other investigators is going to be a pretty girl. Wouldn't be Dr Who without a pretty girl on the team!

you obviously haven't been watching the new series...

Billie was as good as it got...

Freema ? Catherine Tate ?.... Oh dear Oh dear ...

I guess thats all personal opinion I think all three of them have their moments....

Over in the other threads, Lola Hayes is deemed useless by many posters.

Here's my take on designing an actress. No backstory yet as I just want a template. The idea is that an actor/actress must have a diverse skill set (hence starting with two skills) and is rather adaptive to many situations. Hayes does it by cycling through the Skill deck; I am proposing one who cycles through other team member's special abilities.

It's like the masks in CotDP except that the abilities rotate. Method acting is probably most powerful with two or three investigators though, since it's easier to synchronize one's action with who holds the first player token.

kingtweety wrote:Over in the other threads, Lola Hayes is deemed useless by many posters.

Here's my take on designing an actress. No backstory yet as I just want a template. The idea is that an actor/actress must have a diverse skill set (hence starting with two skills) and is rather adaptive to many situations. Hayes does it by cycling through the Skill deck; I am proposing one who cycles through other team member's special abilities.

It's like the masks in CotDP except that the abilities rotate. Method acting is probably most powerful with two or three investigators though, since it's easier to synchronize one's action with who holds the first player token.

I think she should gain other players skills. Gaining their abilities seems overpowered IMHO.
Cheers - Chris

Joe Slater from Beyond the Walls of Sleep. It is just a new concept that maybe someone from this forum may develop to a well refined character. I specially like the unpredictable element of having new madness every turn.

Saludos

Suckiest... investigator... ever.

Not necessarily. For one, he is an actually thematic character which didn't make me immediatly groan with agony. I personally think he may be slightly overpowered, but a friend of mine had a similar character with 8 stamina and much better stats in the top two rows (and worse in the middle). Guess he needs playtesting. But definately not worst ever.

Here are the newest versions of the Occultist and the Hit Man; thanks go to Carcosannoble for some valuable input.

Those guys look great. I am prolly gonna have to steal the Know the Enemy ability for another investigator I am working on

Naomi Watts ?

LOL!!!

BRILLIANT !

Hi Folks,

I have a number of small investigator cards that I've been folling around with & I'd like to post for comments. Some are made with invetsigators such as fishermen or farmers in mind. I'll post them in themed batches.

Here are some weapons:

I couldn't find a decent image.

Similar to a 2handed gaf (boathook might be better)

An alternative version of the Pitchfork

and finally a weapon at which small children excell

Wendy should be pretty good with this. Ash-Can does ok as it allows him to keep his will maxed. More amusingly Harvey & Vincent would be pretty good shots as they revisit their youthful transgressions

- Marianna the ex-nun cultist

Here are some common item tomes. Not sure if I have the cost/benefit trade offs right.

This is a prototype local newspaper. I might put up Arkham & Kingsport ones as well. Kimgsport may have to be a little different as relatively few clues get placed there during a game. Arkham should cost more movement or have a different payoff. Anyway:

I believe that self improvement & distance learning courses were poular throught the 1920s & 1930s

Autograph hunting was popular with the development of the cinema industry. (Although here it is local personalities that are sought

)

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Another couple of common item tomes

This one allows for clues to be found inside stories. Or for inestigators to write up their own experiences and sell them as fiction.

This last one is especially for Victimiser

Think of it as putting blinkers on "Auntie Em...Auntie Em... There's no place like home....". Wilful blind faith in the face of otherworldy horrors does come at some sanity cost

Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Two final items.

Pipe Tobacco is a common item which like the Gaf Hook is planned starting equipment for a Fisherman character I'm playing around with on Strange Aeons.

Byakhee Whistle is a Unique item that even I can see is over-complicated. But what the hell

Any comments on any of these items (or the investigators I previously posted to deafening silence

) would be appreciated.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

I think pitchfork and Slingshot should cost more, according to some balancement rules, though I see little sense in them costing more than $2 of course

Also, ignoring Physical Immunity makes little sense to me (I'd see this feature fit better the Flamethrower, by the way).

I'd lower the sling combat bonus do +1.

I also particularly like the Pipe and the Byakhee whistle: this latter is good, but I think the SAN loss is excessive. I'd remove it.

The tomes are nice, though Weird Tales is kind of metagaming, and all the pictures are not the best... though I know how difficult looking for good ones is.

357magnum wrote:I think pitchfork and Slingshot should cost more, according to some balancement rules, though I see little sense in them costing more than $2 of course Also, ignoring Physical Immunity makes little sense to me (I'd see this feature fit better the Flamethrower, by the way).

I'd lower the sling combat bonus do +1.

I also particularly like the Pipe and the Byakhee whistle: this latter is good, but I think the SAN loss is excessive. I'd remove it.

The tomes are nice, though Weird Tales is kind of metagaming, and all the pictures are not the best... though I know how difficult looking for good ones is.

Thanks for the reply Magnum. On the pitchfork I wanted a 2H weapon that basically wasn't very good, but cheap and had a situational boost. Maybe +3 to comabt rather than +4 would make sense? Ignoring Physical Res maybe isn't such a good idea though.

I thought +2 was ok for the slingshot, it is a very low add for a 2 handed weapon. Basically only good for sneaky types, most of the more fight inclined investigators wouldn't enjoy using it much

Weird tales is admittedly a bit of an in joke. But it did actually exist at the time and some of the stories it contained do resemble game write ups

I'm a bit worried that I got the $cost of the tomes in particular wrong.

Oops family duties call got to run - Chris

ps absultely right on the pictures. Harder to fiond than you would imagine. Something like the gaf I thought would be easy to find what I was looking for, b ut it turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. This time I'm off

I like the tobacco and the gaff hook (it's written with two "f" by the way). Why a Pitchfork would help against elusive or ignore physical immunity is beyond me; perhaps a torch would be the better option for that.

The whistle is very interesting, especially as it allows you to go to OWs; however, I would probably change it to a spell. Could also be done with Nightgaunts.

The Correspondence Course and the Autograph Book seem too cheap for tomes that give a Skill or an ally, but admittedly I don't remember what the Cabala or the Dhole Chants cost.

Like the Pipe Tobacco and the Dunwich Newsletter, but the asterisk about Dunwich resident really doesn't apply, so I'd drop it. Also you might want to change all references to SAN to sanity.

Some of the items like Pitchfork seem to do too much for what they are (a Knife does +2, so I'd doubt apitchfork is much better than this). I like the correspondence course I deas, but it is a bit powerful to be able to get so many skills out of it. The Byakhee whistle is neat, as well as the pipe tobacco.

Would I guess correctly that your references to the Whistle and SAN mean that you're a CoC rpg gamer? :p

Hi Folks,

Thanks for the feedback. I think I replied in too much of a rush to Magnum yesterday and missed the part about "Balancing Rules" are there guidelines or rules of thumb for this somewhere? I don't think I have the right feel for this yet.

I'll reply to everyones points in one big message as I'm pushed for time tonight (I hope that isn't considered rude).

Pitchfork:
As a couple of you have pointed out the pitchfork doesn't really work. Looking at it again, I think it should only be +3 i.e. a weak 2H weapon. I wanted it to have some kind of boost to make it not absolutely rubbish as I intended assigning it to a Dunwich Famer character (hence the asterisk in the Newsletter decsription, Formerly Known as Jake). I nicked the anti-elusive idea I had for the Gaff (thanks for the 2nd "f" Morgaln

) but it maybe isn't a good fit fot the item. I'll probably just drop the pitchfork as an idea.

Whistle & CoC stuff:
I think there should be some sanity loss to blowing a whistle and knowing it will summon a monster. This item does act in many ways like a spell, as Morgaln notes, and could be changed to a spell. But personaly I like the whistle as an item. I don't think it should work on Nightgaunts though something similar could. Byakhee Whistles I think, i'm fra from sure, appear in Derleth's fiction first, they definately have a long history in CoC where an enchanted whistle is required for summoning a Byakhee.

Yes Victimiser, I've been around CoC for a long time although it has been many years since I've been an active RPGer. I was first introduced to CoC when I bought the 2nd edition in the mid 80s. 1st edition was still available in some shops, but 2nd edition was about half the price & I went with that. Harvey Walters was the example character in the 2nd edition, I'm not sure if he is still in the latest CoC rulebook. Now does anyone here remember Rurik the Unready

. I hadn't even realised that the stats weren't shortened on the character sheets to SAN & STA until I just checked. You are right and this should be changed Formerly Known as Jake.

Tomes:
Correspondence & Autograph may well be underpriced, I found it difficult to decide on how to set the price. But notice that unlike most (all?) tomes in the official game, the Correspondence Course can be lost at upkeep before its benefit can be gained. This is riskier than other tomes which should eventually pay out. (This is also true of the Dunwich Newsletter & Weird Tales although re-subscription is an option for these last two). Autograph book isn't lost, but the investigator is delayed if successful : getting the book signed & fussing over the personality

Maybe just trying to iuse the autograph book should delay an investigator? After all it is a cheap way to try for an ally and should involve a lot of waiting around.

On Victimisers point about the correspondence course, it is discarded after a succesful roll and so only one skill at the most can be gained. It is only refreshed if the Will roll was previously failed. As pointed out above there is a chance the course will be failed without anything being learned (no skill gained).

**edit of course any tome can belost before its benefit is gained e.g. when unconscious etc. But the Tomes above can be lost through using the card, failing the roll & rolling badly at upkeep i.e. without external factors. Sorry if this was unclear **

Again, thanks for the feedback guys. - Mariana the ex-nun cultist

Cool. Harvey Walters is indeed still present in the gaming examples (and funnily enough in one involving going mad froms eeing Byakhees, if I recall correctly). Who is Rurik the unready, by the way? Doesn'T sound like a Cthulhu character...is he from Stormbringer?
The Whistle...or Flute, I don't remember really...is indeed from August Derleth's "Trail of Cthulhu" and was used by Doctor Laban Shewsbury and his pawns.

If you wanted to be complete, there is (in the CoC RPG) a preparation to make a book magical which aids in summoning a star vampire, as well as a specific sort of metal knife used in summoning Dimensional shamblers. I have not heard of these two items ever coming up in fiction though.

Victimizer wrote:Cool. Harvey Walters is indeed still present in the gaming examples (and funnily enough in one involving going mad froms eeing Byakhees, if I recall correctly). Who is Rurik the unready, by the way? Doesn'T sound like a Cthulhu character...is he from Stormbringer?
The Whistle...or Flute, I don't remember really...is indeed from August Derleth's "Trail of Cthulhu" and was used by Doctor Laban Shewsbury and his pawns.

If you wanted to be complete, there is (in the CoC RPG) a preparation to make a book magical which aids in summoning a star vampire, as well as a specific sort of metal knife used in summoning Dimensional shamblers. I have not heard of these two items ever coming up in fiction though.

Hi Victimizer,

Heh, that happened to Harvey in the 2nd edition (among many other things).

Rurik played the Harvey role in 1st & 2nd Edition RuneQuest, Chaosium's first RPG & the game on which CoC was based. I was a RQ player before I encountered CoC. D&D never really grabbed me as a kid, but RQ touched a cord with its BRP-like system, the down & dirty fairly ordinary characters and the richness of Gloranthan setting (which had more in common with Greek etc myths than cod high fnatsay novels). CoC has similarly appealing features: the BRP system, invetsigators who aren't superheroes, and a very rich bachground mythos (in adition to the horror & investigative aspects of CoC).

Thanks for the whistle info. You are right about the book & knife for star vampires & dimension shamblers in CoC but I think having all three in the game would be overkill. NO reason not to change the little details and use whichever item was prefered (except perhaps that I can't imagine a Star Vampire being used for transport rather than assassination).

In the Bloch story where the Star Vampire first appears* (& Bloch kills off his fictional version of HPL in response to his own fictionalised death at Lovecraft's Hands in "the Haunter of the Dark) IIRC an old book containing enchantments plays a prominent role and I think the doomed character reads aloud an incantation that calls the monster forth, but I could be wrong it has been many years since I read this tale. I can't think of anything similar for the DS.

Cheers - Mariana the ex-nun cultist

*I've forgotten the story title it might be "<something> from the Stars"? .

Interesting stuff! The story you are thinking of was "The shambler form the stars", however, it was "The Haunter of the dark" which was the response to this story (though Bloch later wrote a sequel to the Haunter, entitled "The Shadow from the Steeple", though this was many years after Lovecraft's death).
Dimensional Shamblers don't really appear in Cthulhu mythos fiction; Lovecraft makes a reference to them in "The Horror in the Museum", but noone has used them so far, so their abillities are all things made up by the Call of Cthulhu RPG (similarly to the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, which were an invention of the CoC RPG team, though these beings have become so well known that there is now plenty of Cthulhu Mythos fiction featuring them). Though "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" by Robert Bloch is cited erroneously as this being's origin, the actual creatures were *spoilers*: Shoggoths.

In the CoC RPG, Star Vampires and Dimensional shamblers could indeed be used for transportation, though these beings were more often used for assassinations/guarding things.

Victimizer wrote:Interesting stuff! The story you are thinking of was "The shambler form the stars", however, it was "The Haunter of the dark" which was the response to this story (though Bloch later wrote a sequel to the Haunter, entitled "The Shadow from the Steeple", though this was many years after Lovecraft's death).
Dimensional Shamblers don't really appear in Cthulhu mythos fiction; Lovecraft makes a reference to them in "The Horror in the Museum", but noone has used them so far, so their abillities are all things made up by the Call of Cthulhu RPG (similarly to the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, which were an invention of the CoC RPG team, though these beings have become so well known that there is now plenty of Cthulhu Mythos fiction featuring them). Though "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" by Robert Bloch is cited erroneously as this being's origin, the actual creatures were *spoilers*: Shoggoths.

In the CoC RPG, Star Vampires and Dimensional shamblers could indeed be used for transportation, though these beings were more often used for assassinations/guarding things.

That is right I had forgotten that the Bloch story preceeded Lovecraft's. Yes, the CoC Dimension Shambler appears to have been extrapolated from the museum exhibit in "the Horror From the Museum". I think that the monsters in "Notebook" fit the CoC/AH style Dark Young better than they do "shoggoths"b as presented by HPL or CoC. But really I don't think the mythos monsters became codified into discrete races or definate entities until CoC. I suppose Derleth could be seen as starting this trend towards more solid definitions, which I think works fine in a game from the keepers side of a screen, but undercuts the horror in fiction.

Best wishes - Mariana the ex-nun cultist