Investments and House Rules

The thread about Alan Sovereign got me thinking about Investments. So I've got two questions for our esteemed community.

First -- does anyone else think that using a Master Phase Action to take a blood off of Investments is a little steep? It actually seems worse in some ways than the ascendance standard, because you spend two of your MPA's (for Short Term) or four of your MPA's (for Long Term) just getting back your initial investment and putting yourself into a position to get some cardless Ascendances.

Second -- if you share that intuition (that Investments aren't really that worth it) -- and you were the type of player who doesn't mind fiddling with the rules to make the game more balanced or enjoyable as you see it -- what sort of house rule would you adopt?

Just allowing one per turn?
Allowing one per turn, with an additional one per MPA?
Letting the removal be a trifle effect?
Letting minions take actions to remove the pool?

Just thought I'd plumb for some thoughts on this.

Making that action trifle.

Most of cards, which "freely" give you pool during untap/master phases, have burn clauses for a reason.

And similarly, there already are cards, which allow to move counters from cards to pool/blood.

Still using (trifle) master action for moving pool from investments seems both balanced and close to the initial idea.

Investments should themselves be trifles.

Really, Alan is the only reason to run investments other than having !ventrue in abundance.

Ive always thought of them as something to do with extra master phases, such as in a deck with 14 ish master cards. But, other stuff is simply easier. Making it a "may during master phase" would be better. But, for now, one vamp lets you get cheap assault rifles, not much else.

Our playgroup used the investments quite a lot when the game originally came out but I think it has been way over a decade since I last saw anyone anywhere use an investment.

Legendre wrote:

Letting minions take actions to remove the pool?

This or something like it is the only one I would consider. Bloating without minions is a terrible mechanism.

Suoli wrote:

Legendre wrote:

Letting minions take actions to remove the pool?

This or something like it is the only one I would consider. Bloating without minions is a terrible mechanism.

True -- the last thing we need to do is make MMPA decks better!