
As a rule, investigators are especially good in the campaigns they arrive in. And since almost all of Ursula’s reviews are from 2+ years ago, it’s worth revisiting her post Return to TFA.
Moving and investigating is great. You often want to move every turn, unless you have In the Know and active teammates. The forgotten age offers a move that doesn’t seem like a move: the explore action. Multiple scenarios require you to explore over and over, with text like “when you successfully explore, reveal and move to a new location”. And if Jake Williams is around, you also draw a new card. Combine him with fieldwork, and you can move to a location your group no longer needs to be, evade an odious enemy you don’t want to deal with (Starting at a +6), and then come back and investigate again with Pathfinder at a cost of two actions. Just leave a clue or two around.
Over the course of a regular adventure, Ursula is going to be taking more actions, and when you take more actions in your specialty, you complete the scenario faster. If you go faster, you see less of the encounter deck, which means fewer obstacles.
That’s why Ursula is often pitched as the best solo seeker; she can outrun her problems, adequately deal with the encounter deck, and compress essential moves into essential investigates. (When she gets pathfinder, she can turn one free action into two. The expedition journal can turn a free explore into a move and an investigate.)
Now that Rex doesn’t get to clues for every investigate and Mandy has the least spend paid to make her infinite combos work, Ursula is back at the top. She’s a character who will make a new player feel very effective, especially when you’re busting out TFA.
(Also, if you’re curious about universities in Boston that would’ve existed in the 1910s and offered archaeology degrees, most likely Miss Downs went to Boston University. Go Terriers.)