Any Arkham Horror Fans?

[Bhu]

I've just discovered the Strange Eons program for making custom content and I'm hoping for some feedback if anyones interested in weird homebrew for it.

[BridgeCity]

I'm a big fan of the boardgames, never heard of the Strange Eons thing, have you tried it yet?

[Ianuagonde]

I've created one character with Strange Eons. It's a smooth program, with a predetermined balance between skills and focus: more in one area automatically means less in other areas. The list of special abilities is a nice touch, and you can always add your own. These do not adjust your other abilities, so you need to balance it yourself.

The character I created, Auntie Darla, was an Agony Aunt, the local gossipmonger. I created the special ability 'gossip' for her: she can give and receive clue tokens from others in the same way that you can trade items. With three players, it never saw action. With six, very much.

Also, you can add your own pictures. That's sweet.

[ninja_penguin]

I'm a huge Strange Eons fan. I'm actually finishing up creating an Eternal Darkness 'expansion'. I've got the character, Ancient ones, and monsters all finished up. I just need to playtest it with my gaming group.

[Suedars]

I'll have to give this a look. We've started houseruling the original Ancient Ones to make them more interesting and roughly in-line with the expansion Ancient Ones in terms of difficulty.

[Bhu]

http://cgjennings.ca/eons/index.html

You can find it here. I was thinking of posting some of the stuff Ive made for review and feedback. I've gotten some odd requests for investigators...

[Bhu]

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=113&efcid=1&efidt=354310

Well I cant seem to get a way to link the images here for various reasons, but they work fine in the FFG forum. So peek away if you're willing to leave me feedback somewhere :smallbiggrin:

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

I love this game, and often make things for it. Our main homebrew so far is upping the power of all the lesser Investigators so that their abilities are as useful as some of the newer ones. Ashcan Pete's ability, for example, is decent, but pales in comparison to some of the newer abilities: with the Makeshift Shelter ability added on (Ignores the negative side effect of environment cards), he becomes a little more level with them, without becoming truly overpowering.

And so on. That program, however, looks INCREDIBLE.

[ninja_penguin]

Here's the ancient ones that I've made from Eternal Darkness. They haven't been playtested yet I'm afraid, so your milage may vary. Right off the bat, I expect Xel'lotath and Ulyaoth to be challenging. Chat'turgha I'm not too thrilled with.

Chattur'gha

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Chatturgha-Front-Side.png

Again, not too thrilled. had a hard time thinking up a 'Start of Battle' thing, currently he just has extra health, the 'default' ability from Strange Eons.


Xel'lotath

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/XelLotath-Front-Side-1.png

As a note, Song of madness does not cause Nightmarish to inflict extra sanity loss. Xel'lotath's thing is just sanity loss everywhere. If you can stay sane, she's an easy actual fight.


Ulyaoth

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Ulyaoth-Front-Side.png

I still can't feel like Master of the Planes is going to obliterate groups.

[ninja_penguin]

I'll dump the Eternal Darkness characters that I have created as well. Rictor Wright is just a joke character I created based on my uncanny ability to get sucked through gates.

Alex Roivas

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Alex-Roivas-Front-Side.png


Elia

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Ellia--Front-Side.png


Karim

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Karim---Front-Side.png


Anthony

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Anthony---Front-Side.png

An extra thing here as well: Anthony ignores the usual limit of two trauma or injury cards.


Maximillion Roivas

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Maximillion-Roivas-Front-Side.png


Paul Luther

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Paul-Luther-Front-Side.png


Edward Roivas

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Edward-Roivas-Front-Side.png


Edwin Linsey

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Edwin-Linsey-Front-Side.png



And then my joke character:

Rictor Wright, the gate magnet

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r238/shallorwain/Rictor-Wright-Front-Side.png

[Bhu]

Karim and Anthony might be a lil weak,

Rictor is just funny (and possibly useful...)

[fknm]

Huge fan of both the game and Strange Eons- my group has a huge roster of custom investigators, custom ancient ones, and even our own custom board expansion.

A few things I've created (sadly, I don't still have the Strange Eons files for any of them- I lost those when my previous computer's HD had a mechanical failure), most of which are terribly anachronistic, and most of which were created before the Black Goat/Innsmouth/Lurker at the Threshold expansions

Lady of Pain (it's important to note with this one that if a gate is in the street, you can't just walk through that street location without entering the gate, even though in the Lurker at the Threshold version of this mechanic, you can):
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2553/3837535501_fb16811f91_o.jpg

Kerghan:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2533/3837825525_8d32e3b679_o.jpg

Prince of Lies (this one is a bit more recent- inspired by Quachil Uttaus from Innsmouth. I liked the idea of a second deck, but QU was just a bit too boring...)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3542/3837535847_f43f159909_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2541/3838326536_89ff8c97e3.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2542/3837535925_ab873a4ff1.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2635/3837536005_a6dc463142.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2568/3838326638_e3f0241374.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3526/3838326692_10ac9f850c.jpg


Now for some investigators. This first one is Fallout inspired...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2650/3838328000_476d1c92d4.jpg

My D&D Druid-inspired caster:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2645/3837537173_d26deec594.jpg
If her text is too hard to read due to small size, here's a card with it (the version we now play with, we just tap/untap the card to indicate which mode she's in, instead of messing with the extra slider)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3459/3838327860_172a481e08.jpg

And, another caster:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2479/3837537525_dc3ab001aa.jpg

Ninja Penguin, looking at your stuff:
Chattur'gha is going to be way too easy to beat by seals. He needs a slumber power that actually does something.

Xel'Lolath seems of about middling difficulty, although the ability isn't that interesting. It does totally screw spell-casters over, though, which isn't good, as spells already see too little use unless you edit the crap out of the spells deck to make it not suck, and out of the unique item deck to put more emphasis on spell tomes.

Ulyaoth is likely to be completely impossible unless someone gets a Gate Box...

Alex Rovias is ridiculously overpowered. There's a reason that my group has banned the use of Rex Murphy- he wins games single-handedly, and there's no need for that ability to make a return, especially on an investigator who starts with an extra clue token.

Ellia is also insane. A weaker version of Darrel Simmons's ability, and the ability to sneak monsters in the streets? Clue token monster.

Karim, on the other hand, is hopelessly useless. Starts cursed, can't use basically any item worth using? Uh... no thanks.

Anthony seems like a weaker version of Rita Young, who herself isn't overpowered. Plus, 3 speed on an investigator nearly always means "this investigator will never get played".

Maximilian's ability won't come up often enough to be of any real use. Especially since the two abilities conflict with each other.

Paul Luther- Uh... isn't it already 5 toughness at the South Church? What is the point of this character? Also, 6 lore, doesn't start with a spell? 3 Speed?

Edward Rovias- Could be ok. Not much of a fighter, but he'll be able to seal well.

Edwin Lindsey- Broken. Those abilities are vastly overpowered.

[ninja_penguin]

Karim and Anthony might be a lil weak,

Rictor is just funny (and possibly useful...)

I try to go for keeping them close to the spirit of their game incarnations. In fact, two characters from the game I dropped because they basically had nothing special anymore, in terms of Arkham game mechanics. Karim might deserve a little bit less fight and more will, but his whole shtick is basically 'I HIT IT WITH MY SWORD AND IT DIES'.

Anothony is a bit of a game experiment to replicate his curse in the game that kills him off at the end of his chapter. He slowly becomes weaker and weaker as you keep going, but he can't ever die. If your health hits zero, he degrades further and gets back up again. So I was going for a 'bizzarre, crippled unstoppable force' kinda thing.

I have yet to get a group together to playtest everything.

[Suedars]

Ulyaoth is likely to be completely impossible unless someone gets a Gate Box...

Not really. His effect is pretty brutal, but it doesn't come up all that often. Not only do you need a monster surge to occur, you also need to roll a 5 or 6 (which for consistency should be a 1 or 2, which is the "bad" trigger for most things, be they rumors or Chthonians). You'll just want to close gates ASAP to keep them from accumulating to keep the chance of surges down. Instead of looking to win through 6 seals you'll want to win by gate closing.

He also has a doom track of 15 which goes a long way toward making him much, much easier. Finally there's the fact that he's completely trivial in a fight. Not only does he attack clues, which are relatively easy to amass, he attacks your choice of stats and at +2 to start, which is an easier check than any other AO. His Physical Immunity has some nice synergy with him eating Spells and Unique Items at the start of the fight, but he has a -0 modifier, so you'll be able to contribute even with your fists. Even if his special does really screw you, you should have no problem fighting him at the end.

He's probably about average for an AO out of the original game, and significantly easier than most of the expansion ones.

[fknm]

Not really. His effect is pretty brutal, but it doesn't come up all that often. Not only do you need a monster surge to occur, you also need to roll a 5 or 6 (which for consistency should be a 1 or 2, which is the "bad" trigger for most things, be they rumors or Chthonians). You'll just want to close gates ASAP to keep them from accumulating to keep the chance of surges down. Instead of looking to win through 6 seals you'll want to win by gate closing.

He also has a doom track of 15 which goes a long way toward making him much, much easier. Finally there's the fact that he's completely trivial in a fight. Not only does he attack clues, which are relatively easy to amass, he attacks your choice of stats and at +2 to start, which is an easier check than any other AO. His Physical Immunity has some nice synergy with him eating Spells and Unique Items at the start of the fight, but he has a -0 modifier, so you'll be able to contribute even with your fists. Even if his special does really screw you, you should have no problem fighting him at the end.

He's probably about average for an AO out of the original game, and significantly easier than most of the expansion ones.
Ah, ok- I didn't notice the "roll a die" part of that. It's still going to be brutal (I'd expect it to happen two or three times in a normal game), but not impossible, if you don't roll badly.

My group never fights the ancient one- we consider it a loss if we get to the point where we'd have to- so I can't speak to how well he'd fare there.

That said, I still dislike AOs with abilities like "see if you randomly get screwed!". There are quite a few of them in recent expansions, too- Eihort, Ghatanothoa, Quachil-Uttaus, and Zhar.

[ninja_penguin]

Good points overall, and thanks for critique. It's a rare day when we can pull out Arkham, and I'm not the person who specifically owns the sets, so a lot of this stuff I was pulling from memory.

As I've mentioned, I'm trying to go for a general theme with each character from how they play in the game. I wasn't aware that 3 speed is such a kiss of death, I can bump that around a bit. I'll try and fix up some of the really bad ones. I'll have to post Mantorok and Pious Augustus as the Guardian and Herald, as the intent is to use as much of the stuff as possible.


RE:

Chattur'gha: Yeah, like I said, I was less then impressed with him. I had a hard time visualizing something to do with him. He's the least interesting Ancient One in the video game, and his whole thing is 'I have more health, wee' in the game.

Ulyaoth: I was a little hesitant about the gate swapping effect, but I just want to try it out. Ulyaoth's theme in the game is control over magic, so I put that into his starting the battle effect. Should I start his clue attack at a -0 instead? (although you are right, I should put that down as a 1-2)

Xel'lotath: For some reason, sanity always seems to go faster than stamina with our group, so Xel'lotath was intended to be an easy fight if you can actually avoid going insane immediately. In game she has the weakest monsters.


Alex Roivas: I was feeling that she was likely to be overpowered due to her initial loadout, but I was unaware that the extra clue generation was so powerful. I'll have to think on it.

Ellia: I'm quite surprised on your take on this: I wasn't too impressed with Ellia, I know that she's highly mobile, but I figured that her lowish lore and fight would make sure that she was not the fist of god when it came to sealing gates.

Karim: Okay, I'm kinda okay with redoing him. What would you suggest? His chapter in the game involves hunting down an artifact, and getting cursed to guard it until way later in the game when somebody else retrieves it. That's what i was going for, but apparently I went a bit overboard. In other news, I think I need probably pull a point or two from fight and stick it to will.

Anthony: All right, I'll add up his speed a little bit. Past that, I want to actually play him and see if he'll work the way I want. If he doesn't I'll scrap and re-concept him.

Maximillion Roivas: I probably need to do some rewording there. The general idea was to let him keep on killing things if necessary but bumping his sanity back up by chopping things into fine bits. Might need a reconcepting.

Paul Luther: I'll fix the speed. And my fault with the church bit. Either a.) I thought it was 2 gate trophies and 10 monster tokens and I thought I was giving him a discount, or b.) I meant him to be able to bless two people when he turns them in. That was supposed to be his 'thing'.

Edwin Linsey: He's basically Indiana Jones. Suggestions on how to give him abilities that would fit that theme?

[The Glyphstone]

Why does Karim, the Swordsman, have a baseball bat in his picture?

[ninja_penguin]

because it's hard to find pictures for an obscure Gamecube game.

That's actually his huge sword that he chops zombies in half with. Seriously.

[Suedars]

Ulyaoth: I was a little hesitant about the gate swapping effect, but I just want to try it out. Ulyaoth's theme in the game is control over magic, so I put that into his starting the battle effect. Should I start his clue attack at a -0 instead? (although you are right, I should put that down as a 1-2)

You could get a similar theme with a gentler effect. Basically as it is, the gate-swapping is so powerful that everything else about the AO has to be nerfed down. You could get a similar feel just by making it so that when you get a monster surge, on a 1-2 (maybe up those chances, I might start at do it on a failure, skip it on a success) remove all gates from the board in a temporary pile, then draw Mythos Cards and add them on one by one in the locations indicated (draw again if you get a repeat).

Then you'll want to go about making his other aspects much harder to compensate. Reduce him down to a doom track of 13 or so. Azathoth's 14 already gives you an eternity to seal him away. 15 would probably trivialize things. Next try and make him harder in combat. First give him a fight modifier of -3 or so, even the AOs who aren't particularly good in combat, like Nyarlathotep, have at least that much. If you're going to go with the base game method of "roll against a stat at steadily increasing difficulties to keep things you need to live" I'd make it either a Lore or Will check and start it at +1 for consistency's sake. Just losing 1 clue token might be a bit soft though. You could try losing two.

The base game method tends to produce pretty easy fights though since you generally get a few turns before the check is actually threatening (since usually there's nothing stopping you from cranking that one stat), then a few more turns of failing checks before you actually run out of resources. I'd ditch the Start of Battle trigger then make his attack force each investigator to discard a Spell, Unique Item, or 2 Clues or be Devoured (though giving three choices might make it a bit to easy to stockpile, you might want to cut it down to just two of those options).

[fknm]

Good points overall, and thanks for critique. It's a rare day when we can pull out Arkham, and I'm not the person who specifically owns the sets, so a lot of this stuff I was pulling from memory.
Ah. Yeah, it helps if you play regularly. I play at least weekly, and there was a time during college (during the Dunwich/King in Yellow era) where I was playing at least once daily, usually more.


As I've mentioned, I'm trying to go for a general theme with each character from how they play in the game. I wasn't aware that 3 speed is such a kiss of death, I can bump that around a bit. I'll try and fix up some of the really bad ones. I'll have to post Mantorok and Pious Augustus as the Guardian and Herald, as the intent is to use as much of the stuff as possible.
Three speed is an absolute killer in most cases, unless the character has some way of mitigating it (one custom investigator in our group has 3 speed, but usually has 4 movement points thanks to one of her abilities), or is totally broken in some way (such as Charlie Kane). Think about it like this- say you're in a location grabbing a clue token. The furthest location you can get to next turn is one neighborhood away. That's really painful.



Chattur'gha: Yeah, like I said, I was less then impressed with him. I had a hard time visualizing something to do with him. He's the least interesting Ancient One in the video game, and his whole thing is 'I have more health, wee' in the game.
Some ways you could play off of that:
1. Something similar to Shub Niggurath, where monsters are tougher to kill. Obviously, you don't want to steal Shubby's ability outright, but something pertaining to the modifiers could work.
2. Something that makes it tougher to seal. Could be particularly neat if it interacted with option number one in some way- such as having to discard a monster trophy to seal, if monsters were tougher to kill.


Ulyaoth: I was a little hesitant about the gate swapping effect, but I just want to try it out. Ulyaoth's theme in the game is control over magic, so I put that into his starting the battle effect. Should I start his clue attack at a -0 instead? (although you are right, I should put that down as a 1-2)
If his main theme is magic, put that into his slumber power, instead of his current ability. All sorts of fun could be had here- anything from making spells harder to cast, adding more monsters when spells are cast, limiting the number of spells that can be cast per turn... the potential here is limitless, no need to do some cheesy "roll a die to see if every investigator is LiTAS, thus ensuring that you'll lose!"


For some reason, sanity always seems to go faster than stamina with our group, so Xel'lotath was intended to be an easy fight if you can actually avoid going insane immediately. In game she has the weakest monsters.
That's not just your group :P Everything in Arkham drains sanity, it seems. What does Xel'lotath actually do in-game? Let that guide you...



Alex Roivas: I was feeling that she was likely to be overpowered due to her initial loadout, but I was unaware that the extra clue generation was so powerful. I'll have to think on it.
Extra clue generation is incredible. Remember- the goal of the game is basically to get 30 clue tokens and sacrifice them, plus the clues that you'll waste on extra dice on checks.


Ellia: I'm quite surprised on your take on this: I wasn't too impressed with Ellia, I know that she's highly mobile, but I figured that her lowish lore and fight would make sure that she was not the fist of god when it came to sealing gates.
Four lore gives her a better than 50/50 shot at sealing anything that isn't R'lyeh. Auto-sneak in the streets, with her speed, will make it VERY easy to pick up clue tokens. Her speed will make it very easy to get into gates. That weaker version of Darrel Simmons' ability (who himself is very powerful) takes the risk out of those nasty unstable location encounters.


Karim: Okay, I'm kinda okay with redoing him. What would you suggest? His chapter in the game involves hunting down an artifact, and getting cursed to guard it until way later in the game when somebody else retrieves it. That's what i was going for, but apparently I went a bit overboard. In other news, I think I need probably pull a point or two from fight and stick it to will.
I'm not certain how that would translate well to Arkham. Generally, you don't want investigators with detriments but no benefits.


Maximillion Roivas: I probably need to do some rewording there. The general idea was to let him keep on killing things if necessary but bumping his sanity back up by chopping things into fine bits. Might need a reconcepting.
The problem with making an investigator who can "keep on killing things" is that it can get really overpowered, really quickly. One of our group's early experiments was an investigator who if he went insane from a will check could take a madness card, but keep fighting the monster... it was ridiculously strong, and having him in the group was pretty much an auto-win. The will check mechanics are important, and finding ways to sidestep them doesn't end well (there's an investigator in the Innsmouth expansion who is driven by a similar idea, and he's also incredibly overpowered).


Edwin Linsey: He's basically Indiana Jones. Suggestions on how to give him abilities that would fit that theme?
Every time I've seen an investigator interact with the unique item deck, it always either ends up worthless or incredibly abusable (such as Ashcan Pete + King in Yellow). Having an investigator that has the ability of an "official" investigator plus something else just smacks of power-creep.

[Bhu]

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/3663/secard15761591361277791.jpg

here's one I'm undecided on. He has some limitations, but he can get around those. And his fighting ability I think makes up for them. Not sure if he's too powerful, or underpowered, and it probably depends on what kind of game your in.

[Suedars]

Karim: Okay, I'm kinda okay with redoing him. What would you suggest? His chapter in the game involves hunting down an artifact, and getting cursed to guard it until way later in the game when somebody else retrieves it. That's what i was going for, but apparently I went a bit overboard. In other news, I think I need probably pull a point or two from fight and stick it to will.

I'm not familiar with the game, but would it be possible to have him start the game with a Curse and then have his Investigator Ability be some benefit related to the Artifact?

[Suedars]

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/3663/secard15761591361277791.jpg

here's one I'm undecided on. He has some limitations, but he can get around those. And his fighting ability I think makes up for them. Not sure if he's too powerful, or underpowered, and it probably depends on what kind of game your in.

Definitely overpowered. First of all, almost every investigator has 10 combined Sanity and Stamina, you generally don't want to break that equation. Secondly, reducing all Sanity damage is good enough to be its own ability and really makes up for only having 3 Sanity (and not being able to read Tomes and cast Spells is a minimal drawback). He also has 5 move and a huge Fight/Will track, which are the most important things for a fighter. Finally, the +1 to all Fight dice is absurdly good, basically giving him a permanent Blessing for Fight checks (and makes him wreak utter havoc with a Shotgun).

[Bhu]

So remove the sanity damage reduction or the fight bonus?

a bad guy

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/6433/secard69599136118553797.jpg


a really bad guy

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/7453/secard17030625938733801.jpg

someone you should all recognize

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/35/secard13931022064104260.jpg

ditto

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/8373/secard11475259473081162.jpg

[Bhu]

Karim: Okay, I'm kinda okay with redoing him. What would you suggest? His chapter in the game involves hunting down an artifact, and getting cursed to guard it until way later in the game when somebody else retrieves it. That's what i was going for, but apparently I went a bit overboard. In other news, I think I need probably pull a point or two from fight and stick it to will.



If he's gonna be a monster killer he does need more will, but that's not his problem, it's his ability. It's all drawback with no benefit. Maybe you could work the Cure into a story card?