Jim Culver
The Musician

Investigator

Performer.

Mystic
  • 4
  • 3
  • 3
  • 2
Health: 7. Sanity: 8.

Treat the modifier on tokens you reveal as "0."

Anytime you reveal a token, you may choose to instead treat it as a token.

effect: +1.

"No, not quiet at all. Dead folks get downright rambunctious when I play my horn."
Magali Villeneuve
The Dunwich Legacy #4.

Jim Culver - Back

Investigator

Deck Size: 30.

Deckbuilding Options: Mystic cards () level 0-5, Neutral cards level 0-5, up to five other level 0 cards from any other class.

Deckbuilding Requirements (do not count toward deck size): Jim's Trumpet, Final Rhapsody, 1 random basic weakness.

Jazz has been nothing but trouble for Jim since the day he picked up his daddy's trumpet. There was something weird and otherworldly about the writing on the inside of the bell, but the tones from it were smooth and dark, like good coffee. That trumpet landed Jim a lot of gigs until the time it made Widow Jenkins get up and dance, the day he played at her funeral. After that, it was kind of hard to find work. Since then, Jim has learned a lot about jazz - and the things the graveyard ghouls talk about on cold autumn nights. Lately, they've been talking about The End, as in the end of everything that is and could be. The Final Rhapsody. The fact is, Jim isn't too keen on that idea.
Jim Culver
Jim Culver
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FAQs

(from the official FAQ or responses to the official rules question form)
  • NB: ArkhamDB now incorporates errata from the Arkham Horror FAQ in its card text, so the ArkhamDB text and the card image above differ, as the ArkhamDB text has been edited to contain this erratum (updated January 2022): Erratum: Jim Culver's Deckbuilding Options should read: "... up to five other level 0 cards from any other classes (, , , and/or )." - FAQ, v.1.5, April 2019

  • Only treat the modifier on skull tokens as 0, not the whole token. It's still a skull token, so any additional effects (from the scenario reference card, Spells, etc.) trigger.

  • Q: If the newly-released Parallel Jim uses Beat Cop (2) or Field Agent (2)in his Spirit deck, can he successfully pay for and use their abilities? The Beyond states that damage/horror that "would be placed" on Spirit allies is instead placed on Jim. There is a standing ruling that canceling or preventing the damage/horror cost of abilities like Beat Cop(2)'s causes the cost to no longer be considered paid, effectively canceling the ability's effect. Is this a similar situation, where the damage/horror being redirected to Jim means I failed to "deal 1 damage" to Beat Cop(2) as a cost? Or is this redirection more of a side-effect that doesn't actually go as far as disrupting or canceling the cost? A: Good question! Our ruling is that if Parallel Jim has Beat Cop (2)/Field Agent (2) in his Spirit deck, he can redirect the damage from the cost to himself, and as long as that damage isn’t prevented or canceled, the cost is considered paid and he can resolve the rest of that ally’s ability. (Rules Form, January 2024)

Last updated

Reviews

Jim is frequently under-estimated, and for two main reasons:

  1. Most people play on Standard, where his special ability is not as important.
  2. People miss the single most important thing to know about Jim!

The single most important thing to know about Jim is that the particulars about his character make Grotesque Statue super powerful. There are 3 key reasons for this:

  • Jim can use Scavenging to pull Grotesque Statues Back
  • The fact that =0 shifts the mathematics of the chaos bag in such a way that you are extremely likely to prevail when you get two draws. In fact, since =0, you are very likely to prevail by 2 or more, and since Grotesque Statue goes to your discard pile immediately, you can actually use a Grotesque Statue pull to get a Grotesque Statue back!
  • Double the draws means double the chances for tokens. This is less important now with Carcosa out, but earlier it was very important to get to activate Jewel of Aureolus. Now, with Uncage the Soul, this is less important.

Once Jim gets a statue, he is essentially (invincible) [arkhamdb.com

FBones · 17965
"Now, with Uncage the Soul, this is less important."...could you explain this statement a bit? — KillerShrike · 1
KillerShrike: If I may speak for FBones, I think he's suggesting that triggering Jewel of Aureolus was previously really important for the sake of Jim's economy, but now that Uncage the Soul exists, Jim's economy doesn't need the help as much. — CaiusDrewart · 3004
I think the suggested Grotesque Statue + Scavenging build is super clever, but it's also slow and XP-intensive. Other investigators can be more effective at less expense. Overall I can't say that Jim's special ability is good. Compared to what other investigators get, getting better results (often only slightly better) on 2 or 3 tokens is not much. — CaiusDrewart · 3004

One of my favorite Investigators, if a bit of a sleeper compared to other Mystic investigators.

While Jim Culver has the basics of a good Mystic Investigator, he does not have the longevity of his spells like Akachi or the Sheer Willpower and low health enemy removal as Agnes. Nor does he have the potential of controlling Doom and using it to his benefit like Marie Lambeau. However, how he plays is something more subtle, with the ability to use the Skull token at a constant "0" value in most scenarios. This ability it still pretty powerful for balancing the Chaos Bag in your favor. (Note though you will still have to deal with the effects of what the skull token brings for scenario and even on player cards).

Being a Dunwich investigator as well, he has access up to five out-of-class level 0 cards. This means you have a bit of flexibility of building out Jim how you see fit. This makes him very good in terms of playing him as a strong solo investigator but also an investigator that can slot in well in multiplayer as a support character. And one other benefit is that he has one more health compared to Agnes and Akachi, which does make him more survivable.

A downside to the jazz player is his low agility and having one less willpower compared to Agnes and Akachi. However this is made up with Mystics having ways to buff their already amazing willpower and spells that cover their stats. And while his Intellect and Fight is at three, he is still going to struggle with hardier enemies and high shroud locations without the spells.

If you are looking for an investigator who is provides an interesting challenge to deckbuilding but has a large degree of both reliability and versatility, Jim Culver is your main man.

I've just recently started a 2 gator playthrough of Cirle Undone with Jim. I'll have a deck list to come soon but at the moment it has gone well using the sealing cards as well as Defiance to mitigate the bag in Jim's favor. Most every test so far as long as I can at least match the test value has gone my way. I feel like sealing mechanic may have jumped up Jim's power level by quite a bit.

How'd it go? — MrGoldbee · 1388

Jim’s weakness, Final Rhapsody, used to be a rough setback. Now, with the Innsmouth Conspiracy, you can mitigate it. Fill the bag with blessings and curses, draw five tokens, and take much less damage than before.

There’s not much else to say, except that Jim’s Trumpet scales well with more players. More players means more tokens, with four people out it’s likely that you’ll trigger every turn, especially if you bring Olive McBride on the road.

MrGoldbee · 1388

Jim Culver is an investigator whose power level varies wildly depending on which difficulty settings you play with, and that's a big reason why Jim tends to vary so much in tier lists.

For most play groups on Easy or Standard difficulty, Jim is a Mystic investigator with a mediocre stat line and strong synergy with card interactions that involve skulls. Outside of Jim's 4 Will, none of his stats are particularly noteworthy, his signature Jim's Trumpet is a mediocre source of sanity healing, and Jim's primary appeal will probably be 5 level 0 cards outside his class. The ability to treat Skulls as "0"s isn't that attractive when the worst modifiers in the token bag usually cap at "-3" or "-4".

For play groups that play frequently at Hard/Expert difficulty, Jim becomes a functional god of the token bag. Skull tokens are relatively mild in most Standard/Easy Scenarios, but Skulls scale upwards at high difficulties until they're functionally auto-fail tokens, so Jim becomes one of the few investigators who can consistently pass skill test by fishing "0" tokens or skulls out of the bag (with cards like Dark Prophecy, Nksoi Mabati, or Grotesque Statue. When the token bag is full of modifiers like -5 or -8 and you have to overcommit by 2-3 cards to guarantee a success, Jim becomes a godsend. Jim doesn't need a great stat line or level 1-2 cards from other classes if he can near-guarantee drawing a "0" modifier on important skill tests.

Telosa · 43
The chance for Dark Prophesy to pull a skull out of the starting Night of the Zealot bag on hard is 35 out of 68 (or 51% for those of you who like percentages). That's pretty good for a desperate bid to pass on a weak skill, especially since there is a small but significant chance to reveal no face tokens at all, but it's not good compared to actually having and testing a strong skill. A 5 Will Mystic with a Holy Rosary and a committed Guts is testing at 5 above a typical difficulty of 3, which beats much of the contents of even a quite hostile chaos bag, usually INCLUDING SKULLS. Because as memorable as hard/expert -10 skulls are, a majority of scenarios don't have uncapped scaling skulls, and those that do normally only push them below -5 for a handful of rounds. — Spritz · 66
By all means play Jim. Build cool taboo-Winchester, Nkosi Mabati decks. Laugh at the chaos bag's failed attempt to kill you with two consecutive Elder Signs while you were fighting with Azure Flame (5). But it seems to me that telling people Jim is a strong investigator for Hard/Expert or that you'll find consistent success on those difficulties by leaning on his ability will ultimately just frustrate them. — Spritz · 66
Or to put this more viscerally, it's not that he gets better on hard/expert. It's that he gets less worse on hard/expert than other people do :-P — NarkasisBroon · 10