Hogan Brimacombe
Canada
Edmonton
Alberta
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It was a subject of much debate for me whether to post this in the innsmouth forum or the kingsport forum, but i decided that since stories come with innsmouth i would put it here. Now then...
I dont understand whether the designers got the idea that tony morgans pass is better than his fail.
For those of you who dont have it, if tony has four monster trophies he passes and discards them all as well as all his clue tokens to gain 15$. If tony has 5 clues, he fails and has to discard all monster trophies. From then on whenever he claims a monster trophy he gets a clue in addition.
Now his special ability is that monsters are worth one extra toughness when spent for him, and that he can spend monsters for cash straight up in the streets/locations. So just doing some math....
If tony(Who starts with three clues) goes and picks up the first or second double clues without killing a monster, he loses nothing and now gets a clue every time he kills a monster. Based on the standard math that one gate or five toughness is worth five dollars or two clue tokens(river docks or science building), in order to pass his story tony (with his increased toughness ability) is going to throw away at least 8 toughness(monsters are at least one toughness and tony sells them for extra) for 15$.
Now giving tony the benefit of the doubt in that he hopefully used his 3 clue tokens, 15$ is still a very poor trade for the at least 8 monster toughness, which is only one more 1 toughness monster away from ten bucks for tony. Also if he needs cash that bad tony can just sell the monsters for cash in the street, so his ten toughness is ten bucks and he doesnt need to do the encounters to do it.
So basically him getting a clue every time he kills a monster has got to be better than the one time payout of 15$, since if he just fails before he kills anything, from then on he gets at least $2 + the equivalent of 2.5$=theequivalent of 4.5 dollars multiplied by the four monsters he had to kill to pass the story=18$, three more than he would have had had he passed.
Or am i on crack?
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Tristan Hall
England
Manchester
Google 'NinjaDorg Fantasy Quest'
Google 'NinjaDorg Fantasy Quest'
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IIRC there are a couple of guys (including Tony, EDIT - maybe Sister Mary too?) whose PS Fail condition is better than/equal to their Pass. It might be because they're a bit pants.
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Evan M-D
United States
Los angeles
California
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Sister Mary's fail isn't as good as her pass, though it's still a positive effect. But there are plenty of others whose pass effects are hardly ever worth the cost of doing so (Wilson Richards, I'm looking at you). So yeah, I wouldn't necessarily chalk it up to a design oversight.
That said, there's one minor thing you're overlooking in your calculations, which is that selling the trophies normally carries a fairly significant opportunity cost. Tony can only trade in 5 toughness per turn at the river docks, needs to skip an encounter to do it, and had better hope he has exact change; his Blood Money ability seems like a better deal in general, except that he can likewise only do it once per turn, and has to be in the streets (though he will probably often be there from monster hunting).
All of which is just to say that, insofar as there might be circumstances in which you're better off going for the money than the clues (either to pass a Mad Bomber rumor or send Monterey Jack Elder Sign shopping against Hastur or what have you), doing so by passing is probably the best way to do it.
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Brian Mc Cabe
United States
Arizona
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The only time Tony has ever passed his personal story on my table is when another investigator slayed . . . slew . . . killed five monsters, wound up getting devoured and Tony was the random draw. Auto pass.
But, since I hate math, I just used basic logic. Start with three clues, gain two (I believe it's if Tony has five clues) and then kill a cultist for six. Ready to seal.
You might be on crack, but failing Tony's personal story is still the way to go. In this case, the two things are mutually exclusive. :-)
Brian
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