For a long time the Dunwich deckbuilding was my least favourite deckbuilding rules, but the Edge of the Earth permanents completely changed them for me. Now I'm constantly going back to them to build decks that no other investigator could build.
When it comes to duplicating 5/2 deckbuilding, on top of gimmick investigators I would add ones that can't utilize large parts of the pool, like Leo's 1 foot kills a lot of rogue cards and Daisy's 3 willpower means she doesn't want to touch most spells. I would love to see a 5 guardian/2 rogue that cares about foot. It also always annoyed me that when looking at characters that combine rogue with survivor that Bob and Rita have the best combat skill with 3, it would be an interesting card pool with someone who could fight easier. A 5 rogue/2 survivor with 1/3/4/4 again would add something to the investigator pool.
In my experience, there is a point (around the start, before you do any playtest) in game design when you just pull numbers randomly on gamepieces with very loose benchmarks, with the intent of coming back and adjust them in case something goes over the edge. I found that often deckbuild restrictions miss that last adjustment. Let's take Kate as an example, but a lot could be said similarly with other gators: it seems they just went with random Kate 0-5 seeker 0-4 science, nothing was broken, and no one came back to it to adjust anything. Or i'm wrong and there will be a non seeker lvl 5 science that is gamebreaking with her in the next set. I'll take it as a win-win situation
I've always wanted to see a mystic investigator with no access to spells. I believe there is still a lot of design space left untapped in mystics aside from "only brain matters."
A provocative gimick might be a suite of investigators which had a strict stipulation of constantly maintaining a balance of ten cards from across a mix of three specified classes from level 0, with each of those classes then being uniquely restricted to respective level 1,2 & 3 upgrades only. Doubtless, some players would complain at launch, but those investigators would prove to be enduringly interesting. The trait tags in Arkham were really badly thought out at the outset (as MJ has previously acknowledged) and as such the categories are far too broad, with not enough sub-sets to develop ongoing distinctive investigator characterisations at this stage in the game's life. With this in mind, I think we might begin to see investigator design shift increasingly heavily toward firmer unique weaknesses and special abilities that inform deckbuilding choices with a less formal but more practical emphasis. P.s. I agree that Kate should have gotten Lightning Gun, but then I've always thought Lightning Gun should have had an arc effect, which spread the damage across multiple successive enemies. Perhaps they can do a level 4 "lost prototype" version and make me happy on both counts. P.p.s. We still need a big game hunter, a gaucho, a syndicate assassin, a police chief, a mob accountant, a political fixer, a firefighter, an exorcist, a roughneck, a witch or warlock (of Nodens), a time traveller, an engineer, and Lita Chandler as a playable investigator.
If the Dunwich investigators had been in the core box, you weren’t be able to play the game with the old core box. I remember that there were only the cards for a certain combination of investigators in the old core. You could not play Roland and Daisy together because both use seeker cards and there were only around 10 cards of each color. So maybe that’s the reason, why they released the Dunwich investigators not with the core box.
For a long time the Dunwich deckbuilding was my least favourite deckbuilding rules, but the Edge of the Earth permanents completely changed them for me. Now I'm constantly going back to them to build decks that no other investigator could build.
When it comes to duplicating 5/2 deckbuilding, on top of gimmick investigators I would add ones that can't utilize large parts of the pool, like Leo's 1 foot kills a lot of rogue cards and Daisy's 3 willpower means she doesn't want to touch most spells. I would love to see a 5 guardian/2 rogue that cares about foot.
It also always annoyed me that when looking at characters that combine rogue with survivor that Bob and Rita have the best combat skill with 3, it would be an interesting card pool with someone who could fight easier. A 5 rogue/2 survivor with 1/3/4/4 again would add something to the investigator pool.
Nobody’s ready for the “player responsibility” talk yet, but I agree!
In my experience, there is a point (around the start, before you do any playtest) in game design when you just pull numbers randomly on gamepieces with very loose benchmarks, with the intent of coming back and adjust them in case something goes over the edge.
I found that often deckbuild restrictions miss that last adjustment.
Let's take Kate as an example, but a lot could be said similarly with other gators: it seems they just went with random Kate 0-5 seeker 0-4 science, nothing was broken, and no one came back to it to adjust anything.
Or i'm wrong and there will be a non seeker lvl 5 science that is gamebreaking with her in the next set.
I'll take it as a win-win situation
I've always wanted to see a mystic investigator with no access to spells.
I believe there is still a lot of design space left untapped in mystics aside from "only brain matters."
A provocative gimick might be a suite of investigators which had a strict stipulation of constantly maintaining a balance of ten cards from across a mix of three specified classes from level 0, with each of those classes then being uniquely restricted to respective level 1,2 & 3 upgrades only. Doubtless, some players would complain at launch, but those investigators would prove to be enduringly interesting.
The trait tags in Arkham were really badly thought out at the outset (as MJ has previously acknowledged) and as such the categories are far too broad, with not enough sub-sets to develop ongoing distinctive investigator characterisations at this stage in the game's life. With this in mind, I think we might begin to see investigator design shift increasingly heavily toward firmer unique weaknesses and special abilities that inform deckbuilding choices with a less formal but more practical emphasis.
P.s. I agree that Kate should have gotten Lightning Gun, but then I've always thought Lightning Gun should have had an arc effect, which spread the damage across multiple successive enemies. Perhaps they can do a level 4 "lost prototype" version and make me happy on both counts.
P.p.s. We still need a big game hunter, a gaucho, a syndicate assassin, a police chief, a mob accountant, a political fixer, a firefighter, an exorcist, a roughneck, a witch or warlock (of Nodens), a time traveller, an engineer, and Lita Chandler as a playable investigator.
Imagine the next seeker (after drowned) to have restriction: no allies.
I think I would like to see a no illicit rogue, with access off-class events
Not me wondering why you said my name at the beginning of the stream and remembering I attended this on twitch lmao
If the Dunwich investigators had been in the core box, you weren’t be able to play the game with the old core box. I remember that there were only the cards for a certain combination of investigators in the old core. You could not play Roland and Daisy together because both use seeker cards and there were only around 10 cards of each color. So maybe that’s the reason, why they released the Dunwich investigators not with the core box.
Let's imagine that the alternate reality Core Set that had the Dunwich investigators also had a slightly modified player card suite.
Can we get a paralel investigator rank?