Agnes Baker

## Distinguishing Features

* You may spend  1 Health to roll 2 additional dice when resolving a  test as part of a Spell effect.

### Flavor Text

#### Quote

*"I remember another life, one of sorcery and conquest."*

#### Biography

*Once, Agnes lived quietly, taking orders and serving up food at a diner in Arkham, but one night, she fell from a ladder, striking her head. After that, she could recall a past life as a sorceress in the ancient world of Hyperborea. Her mind flooded with memories of arcane lore. Amazed by this new magical knowledge, Agnes has traveled to London, to learn more about Hyperborea, but is she driven by her own curiosity or compelled by the will of her former self?*

### Origin

Agnes Baker made her first appearance in 2009 in *Innsmouth Horror*, the 6th expansion for *Arkham Horror: Second Edition*.

## Team Role

### Combat or Support?

Agnes Baker is a combat-oriented spellcaster who should be considered like a "glass cannon". Her starting Spell and her passive ability makes her as one of the best investigators for one-shot fights, as she can roll up to 6 dice on the  test during a Combat Encounter immediately after starting. She however tends to spend a lot of  Health; an investigator like  Vincent Lee could help her. Despite the Profane Tome, her lack of  combined with a somewhat low  Sanity could also be a problem for the multiple Combat Encounters she can do, so it should be better to improve Will or acquire an Asset to boost it a bit. Her passive ability, like any other triggered effect, is limited to one resolution per condition; in this case it means for a test, she can only spend 1 Health to gain 2 additional dice, not 2 Health for 4 additional dice for example.

Her active ability allows her to easily gain Spells, but with her starting possessions, she doesn’t really need any combat-oriented Spell. A few Spells can help her in combat: some Glamour like Markings of Isis or Mind's Eye to boost her skills, or some Incantation, like Flesh Ward, Instill Bravery and Healing Words to recover or prevent a loss of Health or Sanity. Note that Flesh Ward cannot help to avoid the loss of Health from her ability as it is not lost but spent (see Health and Sanity); however it works to avoid some unpleasant surprises during the Mythos phase, thus she can spend Health without being on the razor's edge. Most of the other Spells she can gain are only great if wanting to be a more support-oriented investigator.

One of the best action she can do (if not focused on a more important goal) is Rest because of her passive ability that siphons her  Health, and  tests during Combat Encounters which tend to make her lose  Sanity. She is therefore limited in using her active ability, unless she chooses the support path, gaining more Spells and having more room for other actions like casting Rituals.

If wanting to go to a more support way, Agnes will merely have less Combat Encounters, thus she uses less her passive ability and more her active ability instead of resting. The result is a caster with a bunch of Spells some of which will really help a lot. Because it is so easy for Agnes to gain Spells, she is very powerful when playing against an Ancient One with Mysteries which requires discarding Spells, like  Syzygy or  Yog-Sothoth.

### Next Steps

Her skills do not allow her to perform well as a Gate Closer at start, but if she can acquire an Asset or a Spell that gives her at least +1, she can do the job, killing the monsters guarding the Gates, then closing them. She can also try to improve this skill in  Rome, as it is only 1 Space from her starting position. Thanks to her  and her active ability, she can easily Acquire Assets or gain Spells to fill in her gaps. As a spellcaster using Storm of Spirits, obviously any  boost by any means is a must: the more dice the better.

Her Personal Story asks her to defeat Monsters, so she can do her job faster if focusing on combat rather than support. The Reward makes her a beast at slaying Monsters or casting all kind of Spells, but she has to be very careful with her active ability until she completes her Personal Story, so focusing more on support will be longer, but safer. However, if she is lucky and has the 4th variant of Storm of Spirits, she can go for a kill without paying too much attention to her  Health pool.

## Gallery

Front of Agnes' Investigator SheetBack of Agnes' Investigator Sheet