dj2.0 said: Good on you for saving so much worktime! But you are saving more than player time, you are creating circumstances that effectively give the investigation more time, and I suspect this significantly increases your winning odds. Its not in combat so much as gate closing that this makes the game easier. Consider: Jenny moves to gate, goes through, is LitaS. Same turn, Joe thinks, Ill go instead. This could not happen in normal turn order. In normal play, Joe would have moved before Jenny was lost. These are common cases, and they do add up to a lot of "extra" time on the clock of doom. It's probably happened. Not sure I'd bring it up to the common level, however nor that it would "significantly" increase my winning odds. I don't think if it happened every game (it doesn't) or even twice a game, it would significantly increase my winning odds. Usually an investigator jumps into a gate as soon as he has 5 clue tokens or found an elder sign. If it's not Jenny's gate, its another. No time gained or lost. We play with name sides down. I think playing with all expansions significantly increases winning odds, so I play with only one expansion at a time. I think playing without Kingsport monsters significantly increases winning odds, so I include all monsters in play. I think choosing you investigators increases your winning odds, but sometimes we do that anyway, but its usually by less experienced players so they don't pick very well (IMO). We don't do any of this to increase or decrease our winning odds, however. I fool around with the game a lot. Have lots of personal modifications. I try to make them either neutral or harder than the normal game. If it does significantly increase winning odds we must be a very bad players because I think, (pretty sure) our average is less than 62%.

Ken on Cape said: Just curious as to what people think are the 4 investigators that work the best together. I'd go with the Patrice the violinist, Mandy the researcher, Daisy the librarian and Wendy the urchin. You Go Girls! Who would they have trouble with? I never go for a combat win so I wouldn't worry very much about fire power, though Daisy can be just about anything she wants to be! I might try them against Rhan-Tegoth, though as far as I am concerned its mostly luck against that one anyway.

hungerer said: 1)the rules say that an evade check is required when a player attemps to leave a space that is occupied by a monster or when he ends his movement in a space occupied with the monster. What about the pass-through a space occupied by a monster?? Is an evade check required there or not? 1) When you are moving through a space you do have to attempt to leave it, so yes, you need to evade the monsters. And if you fail the evade, your move ends, and you have to face them (horror + fight) The first thing that happens when you fail an evade check is the monster deals its combat damage: "If the investigator fails to evade a monster, the monster immediately deals its combat damage to him (see “Combat” on page 14) and he immediately enters combat with it." For teaching purposes, I say the monster "stabs/claws/beaks" your investigator in the back. Then you must face it normally. If you survive each step you may then attempt to hunker down in the same spot and evade again.

Siromist said: On each phase all the players play. It's very clear on the rulebook. The difference is VERY BIG!!!1) You MUST plan your whole turn as a single player from the begining. it's like announcing what are you going to do and press the PAUSE button. All players do that and then the PAUSE button is released and all actions happen simultaneously. If players play all phases in a row, then this allows the other players to change their plans which is not fair, it's stealing the game. 2)if the game is in this way(each player playing all phases in a row), there is no use of the explored markers because when you return to arkham from the OW you remember what you just did and try to close the gate. 3)The other players cannot wait sooo long for 1 player to think what he is going to do. Yes, I've played hundreds of games with serial phases. Mostly to save time. However, you are absolutely correct that the rules are perfectly clear and your description is pretty close, though I don't consider all action to be simultaneous. Wouldn't that allow investigators to join together in combat? 1) Not fair to whom or what? The game? We don't play actually all phases in a row. We have a joint upkeep phase, then the middle three phases are played in a row. Then the first player does the Mythos phase. We do understand that the actual rules do underly this variant and when a question comes up we will occassionally slow the game down to illustrate what happens strictly to the phases. 2) I think most players don't use explored markers anyway based on comments from other threads. Be we do use them because sometimes we fail to close or choose not to close. 3) This is really the place we think we pick up so much of the "wasted" time. Most of the time tricky maneuvers are not part of the play and so the games goes along pretty fast with players doing what they want to do. Sometimes we whine when another player picks up a clue we wanted, but our players would have done it anyway for the most part. I'm not saying my way is better for anyone else but we figure we've saved about an hour a game with 4 players and having played over 250 games, thats about 6 work weeks at 40 hours a week. Occassionally we go back and try to play it the rules way but within 2 turns we've reverted back to our evil, stealing ways.

Stenun said: The rules we are following are simple: We have two Investigators each (for a "four player game"); one of which is a total random selection from the pool of all 48 Investigators, the other is our choice of anybody we like. We then pick a random Ancient One from the total of 24 and play. If we win, the Ancient One is placed in the Defeated pile and any surviving Investigators go on to the next game against the next random Ancient One. Any devoured Investigators are placed in the Devoured pile and are replaced accordingly (i.e. the randomly selected Investigator is replaced with another randome selection, the chosen Investigator is replaced with another chosen Investigator). If we lose the game, the Ancient One is placed back in the To Be Played Again pile and we get four new Investigators. The idea is simply to beat all Ancient Ones once before we run out of Investigators. That's nearly exactly the same campaign I played several times. The first 2 times I won, one I barely lost and the last, mostly against the Innsmouth board was devastating and very disheartening. The games were with 3-8 players, though most were 4 and 3. If I played a solo game, I randomly picked investigators from those surviving. If I played with a group, I let those who wanted to pick their investigators from among those still surviving. So everyone who played was in the campaign, though they didn't necessarily know it. You seem to be doing better in games won but you are apparently very hard on your investigators.

Graksnor said: The King in Yellow: This, i'm afraid, just plain doesn't work. Six of the twenty seven mythos cards are "The Next Act Begins" meaning it is very probably you'll run into four or five of them over the course of a game. So... y'know, 8-10 doom tokens, cut with removing elder signs or just straight up losing. The risk of losing by Third Act is extremely high, and throw in the double doom cards from the deck (two, I think) and you have a nightmarish, painful game. I've never won this way and I expect I never will. So, your thoughts? Has anyone else been playing this way? What are your findings if you have? Am I just being a wimp about Innsmouth and King in Yellow? Very interestesting. Been thinking of trying something like this. Even more interesting is the only expansion actually desgined to work by itself is the one you evaluate to work about the worst. I've played the King in Yellow opening night (touring) version several times. I always add the 2 doom tokens for the first Acts card. On the average there's going to be an Acts card every 5.5 turns. My games tend to last about 16 turns (except Innsmouth seems to have added a couple more more turns), so usually that's enough. However I have been "Acted" upon a few times. Nevertheless I'd judge Innsmouth more difficult than the King in Yellow touring version. If you add in the Blight cards, its really a rough game. Right now I play one expansion and one herald (often of my own devising) and roll a die so that 1/3rd of the cards come from the expansion. So far this is killing me. I've lost 9 of my last 12 games, so I've apparently made it too tough or I've forgotten how to play. Yesterday Kingsport beat me. Usually that's vacation land for me. However the first three gates were: Historical society, Hibbs roadhouse and Science Bldg. I've never had three minor gates come out like that. Then we got a double doomer! We got four sealed but that wasn't fast enough against Chaugner Faugn (12).

Ken on Cape said: Here is a question I thought of. What if due to a run of bad cards and bad rolling, during the course of a game many investigators were devoured and you started to run out of investigators to replace them? What happens then? Does the player stop playing if there is no more investigators to replace the one that was just devoured? I just had such a run of bad luck, but for a somewhat different reason. I've lost 8 or 8 of my last 10 games in the campagin I just finished. Whenever an old one wins, the devoured investigators are removed from the pile of investigators. I was down to my last four investigators and one was devoured. I went on with the three I had left and they were subsequently devoured in the final battle. You just can't stop tying to save the world. This was my 4th such run through. I won the first two and the Old Ones won the last two. This last tun through was really a convincing loss. The Old Ones are meaner, and/or the investigators are weaker and/or I've forgotten how to play. Of course, you are asking for a ruling on the possibility of losing enough investigators in a single game. That would truly be a run of bad luck. The most investigators I've had devoured in a single game before the final battle was 3. As far as I know, losing irreplaceable investigators is not one of the timing clocks.

squad said: mageith said: I don’t mean to keep belaboring the point, but you originally defended your position as being according to RAW, and I think RAW leads to a different conclusion. I want to settle the RAW issue because of its implications for how other monsters work. I have no problem with people playing it differently for thematic reasons. Not quite true. I just mentioned that as I read the rule on the back of the nightgaunt, its different than the rule in the book. Even though the nightgaunt is mentioned in that rule, it doesn't specifically address the case at hand. In my most recent post above, I gave the two possibilites that I see. If you only see one possibility, so be it.

Either the wording on the back of the Nightgaunt chit overrides the rules on page 15 (specific rules override general rules) or it confusingly only reiterates part of them. If we assume it overrides the rules on page 15, then the nightgaunt acts more like we'd expect. If the words on the back of the nightguant are only (incompletely) emphasizing the rules on page 15, it leaves open another chance to game (IMO) the rules. Being a thematic AH player rather than a RA(mis)W player I hope the FFG intended the former. Very few of my rather large group will figure out the gaminess anyway, so I'll just keep quiet during the games. When it comes to rules disputes we either let the first player decide or, more often, leave to the player to reasonly interpret what is supposed to happen. Also, I've had occassion where being LiTaS is better than facing certain devourment at the hands of another monster that moved into my space.

Knuckles Eki said: How do you fellows differentiate between the set monsters? Do you put a letter on the backside of the monsters? Do you color the edge differently by set? Do you freehand draw the expansion symbol on them? Do you use dark sorceries to somehow only use the sets you need? Do you ask Yog-Sothoth to guide your hand so to not picking the expansions you don't use? Tell us about it. Very small Letter or symbol in black in upper right hand corner of back. They are so small no one has ever commented on them. . (Dot) for basic kp for Kingsport bg for black goat d for Dunwich Horror Right now Innsmouth is unmarked but since I had also blackened all the edges of the normal monsters from the other sets, they stand out a lot. I don't recommend blackening the edges of the monsters, however. It looks great on the black bordered but the lighter colors look pretty ragged.

squad said: mageith said: I don't think its that easy. In order for the Nightgaunt to take you for a ride, you must fail a combat check. If you merely fail an evade check, the nightgaunt delivers combat damage which is none. So then you face its horror and then attempt a combat check (without weapons) and then you get your ride. It is that easy. The rulebook specifically addresses Nightgaunts (and by extension the other creatures with similar wording): Note that some monsters have abilities that add some special effect to their combat damage. For example, the Nightgaunt drops the investigator through the nearest open gate instead of causing the investigator to lose Stamina tokens. [Page 15] Note that the effect (being dropped through a gate) is added to their combat damage (of 0 Stamina). This is just another example of the designers using inconsistent wording (like 'delayed' and 'stay here next turn') to refer to the same event. What the Nightgaunt should read on the back, in order to bring it in line with what the rulebook states, is when you 'take combat damage' rather than when you 'fail a combat check'. Like I said, I can see a clarification going either way. This may very well be an example of inconsistent use of language or it may be an intentional method to make the nightgaunt seem more like a nightgaunt. Even if the nightgaunt is "friendly", its hardly a pet* and being picked up by one and taken to another world would seem like it should have some horrorfying aspects to it, even more so being lost in time and space. Every other failure to evade requires an eventual horror check unless unconsciousness occurs first. *even though they sometimes tickle people into submission with their claws and barbed tails.

Dam said: mageith said: Until then, I think I'll go RAW on all of these. What's your RAW on those? I read them as having "text" as combat damage, whether failing an Evade or combat. DH causes a problem, would need to draw a card to see what exactly its combat damage is. You didn't fail a combat check, so so there's no combat damage. There's just nothing. Failing an evade check also avoids the horror check all together too. That's just not right in regards to the nightguant and even for the shambler. The text specifically refers to failing a combat check. That just didn't happen. That's what I meant by Rules As Written. However I can see the clarification going either way.

Until then, I think I'll go RAW on all of these. I did find the Wailing Writher that specially says if you fail an evade check you are devoured. But combat is normal.

mattherobot said: Can you make a similar "free" evade check against monsters that devour you or cause other unpleasant effects when you fail a combat check? I see where you're coming from and we've ruled it that way before, but I'm just wondering how this would play out. Good point. We'd have to play it consistently. However I can't think of the monsters that do that. I looked up the Shan and Moonbeast but they aren't quite on point.

I might be that guy. I did it to be sure I got enough aquatic monsters for Innsmouth Horror. But other than theme, it hardly made a difference on aquatic movement so all my monsters are back cavorting together again.

Dam said: mageith said: Based on the statistics report, Kingsport is actually harder than Dunwich Horror. I think the reason is that the monsters from the Kingsport set are really much stronger. The GOOs might tilt that balance as well toward KH. Yep, the Old Ones are harder but they are not in every game of Kingsport, like the monsters are. On the other hand, every game after Kingsport has those same monsters too. I personally don't find Kingsport very difficult but sometimes I over allocate investigators to reduce the rift effects. But whatever the reason, Kingsport is a bit more difficult for the reporters in the stats data. Kingsport adds tougher monsters, tougher Old Ones, an additional timing mechanism that either takes up investigator turns and/or adds doom tokens and monsters, adds Epic Battle (optional), but also adds Guardians to help and a couple of over powered (and a couple of underpowered) investigators. Since guardians are optional and investigators are random, over all it still does ramp up the difficulty.

mattherobot said: Tiamat said: I imagine that most people have encounter the situation where it is better to fail a check than to succeed. (The best example I can think of is being dragged through a gate by a Nightgaunt.) Is there any provision for failing a skill check? The rules suggest not, and it makes sense that the characters would try to succeed at doing something rather than fail, because they don't know the outcome. Of course, I recognize that if I am making a skill check, say a combat check versus the nightguant, I don't need to use all of my best weapons; I can just submarine my Fight skill, use no weapons, and roll 0 or 1 die. Thoughts on this, and whether this kind of mechanic is a useful house rule? There's no rule which allows you to intentionally fail a skill check. Against Nightgaunts, you could always jack up your Speed and then fail the Evade check. I don't think its that easy. In order for the Nightgaunt to take you for a ride, you must fail a combat check. If you merely fail an evade check, the nightgaunt delivers combat damage which is none. So then you face its horror and then attempt a combat check (without weapons) and then you get your ride.

Based on the statistics report, Kingsport is actually harder than Dunwich Horror. I think the reason is that the monsters from the Kingsport set are really much stronger. Also interesting is the Curse of the Dark Pharaoh, supposedly the easiest, is the hardest small expansion. Black Goat is the easiest expansion of all (which is probably is if you don't play the herald)! • Expansion difficulty The percent of games lost involving specific expansions: IH 47.2% KH 44.5% DH 41.0% CotDP 39.9% KiY 38.4% BGotW 37.6% none 24.6%

We leave them out. They washed up and somebody's going to pick them up, they just don't dissolve. We leave the ghosts and manics out too if no one kills them.

pumpkin said: Hi, Pretty new to arkham horror and just trying to iron out potential issues before they arise and I've found a really useful variant on the BGG boards that help prevent the watering down of mythos events in locations other than Arkham when all the expansions etc are used, whic looks great, but I think I read somewhere that the same can happen with the gate cards where the majortiy of OW in encounters in worlds other than on the main arkham board can end up in the "other" option being taken (this is possibly even true of OW on the main arkham board?) does anyone have or know of a relatively simple variant that helps resolve this? I'm thinking that maybe keeping a couple (or more) gate decks, one for each board, rather than one for all boards might work, but haven't looked at all the expansion gate cards in detail yet to see if this would work or not? I sorted my gate cards sort by location, based on the name on top. When we experience the name on top, we put it behind based on the 2nd name. When the second name is used in goes into Other = Another Dimension (there are no Another Dimension cards). Problems: Another Dimensions slots fill up fast. Also Dreamlands because it has twice as many cards as any other location. In addition, the expansion locations have very few cards and are usually almost empty. When a slot empties (or actually gets down to about 5 cards), I draw it from the Another Dimensions slot and so that's how the "Other cards" get used. All the gate cards fit easily into a plastic magic card box (about 4 inches deep).

Elder Signs are always welcome. Especially in Innsmouth. But my elder signs are no more rampant than yours. I use all the items. Innsmouth usually eats up 6 of your clues in the Feds raid. It adds 4 clues but mostly in out of the way places. And Innsmouth has more tests, for example, the evade checks under martial law that tempt one to use clue tokens for skill checks. I think the discussion is what expansion to get first. I still hold that Innsmouth is the most perfect expansion of all time. Dunwich is quite good--clearly a close second. The rampantness of elder signs is just one factor. There's all sorts of factors to take into consideration in weighing this. Not the least of which is unified theme which I think Innsmouth does better. BTW, Wendy is even better than you think. Her free elder sign is only the tip of the iceberg. Her personal story sort of limits her early use of the elder sign however and so does that fact that as long as she has it she can't be arrested--very helpful in Innsmouth. When I play with other people, I do let them choose investigators if they want to but only from those who haven't been devoured in my recent campaign--so its not like we play Patrice, Wendy, Mandy and Daisy every game. In fact at this point only Daisy remains undevoured and she's not even the real Daisy, she's more like Tib's Daisy.

Dam said: Worst thing about IH is that it adds no items. If you run base + IH, Elder Signs will remain "rampant". No more rampant than the base game. mmmm. Maybe that's why I wasn't doing so well with just Innsmouth and base Arkham incl monsters. Not enough elder signs! Thanks.

Last vote: Gott Hurt: Glaaki Eihort is really a great GOO to go up against. He's challenging, offers the possibility of actual devourment yet quite defeatable. Ghatanothoa is about the same with a little more chance of being devoured. Both require "life or death" decisions for players and the team throughout the game. They are just fun. Glaaki less so. Egads, I almost sound like a cultist. I am not. Eihort 3 Ghatanothoa 4 Glaaki 1 THE BANISHED 4th Quachil Uttaus 5th Shub-Niggurath 6th Bokrug 7th Yog-Sothoth 8th Abhoth 9th Y'Golonac 10th Zhar 11th Cthulhu 12th Cthugha 13th Shudde M'ell 14th Nyogtha 15th Yibb-Tstll 16th Chaugnar Faugn 17th Nyarlathotep 18th Tsathoggua 19th Hastur 20th Azathoth 21st Ithaqua 22nd Rhan-Tegoth 23rd Atlach-Nacha 24th Yig

cim said: Innsmouth is excellent, but you will not get full use out of it without at least some of the Dunwich components (not necessarily the extra board). On the other hand, Dunwich can be enjoyed entirely without needing Innsmouth. It's an expansion, I think, for people who have already been playing a while with at least some of the other expansions. Over all a good answer. However what's in Dunwich that enhances Innsmouth? The injury and madness cards that actually make the game easier? I'd recommend Innsmouth over Dunwich (though Dunwich is definitely second). Innsmouth is probably easier to get too. Innsmouth is as tough as advertised even without the heralds. The only problem I have with Innsmouth is Patrice, otherwise FFG did its best job ever with an expansion of Arkham Horror. On the other hand, if you get Innsmouth first, you'll probably even be more disappointed with any subsequent purchases. All expansions are good and challenging except I'd buy Black Goat and/or Kingsport last. Though I could have gotten along without either one of them.

ced1106 said: A small-box expansion of the scenarios, DH and Curse Heralds, etc. would be a fine idea. For one thing, the expansion would be a *revision* of what's available online, and would contain new components that didn't make the "print and play" format (eg. cards). We have plenty of cards in the printed expansions, but no campaign. The CoC RPG rarely had gates, and had more investigation. I'd like to see a casebook expansion set for AH. Online "print and play", which would include fanmade cases, would work fine. Then there's Dreamlands and the Other Worlds. IMO, the OW's could use more fleshing out. And, of course, FFG printing one of the fanmade expansions would be great, too. Most of this sounds like great ideas, especially campaigns, casebooks and Other World Expansions, even player expansions. But I think the best thing would be to fix and/or balance some of the weak and strong investigators and Old Ones, fix the goofy cards in the in some of the expansions, including the healing stone, add a bunch more OW encounters for the 4 in the expansions that hardly ever come up, publish with the final FAQ and other rule clarifications and print them out. Anyone with Strange eons can print out and/or create scenarios and heralds, etc. But printing the fixes on offical card backings is something that takes lots of work and still isn't probably fully integratable. I have the name of the Expansion too: "The Repairer of Reputations".