mageith
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Posts posted by mageith
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Avi_dreader said:
dkw said:
Unintended consequence
: Another investigator may just want to bless the holder of this little doll! -
Sothis said:I also like Gam's idea of having a certain dimensional symbol on each, and all cursed items are discarded just like monsters when a gate is closed. (I also keep shortening MrsGamura's name with each post I make. Soon you will just be G!) I don't know if this is practical though, since we can't add those symbols to items without just typing it out.
You could use the corruption card front and add the item back from strange eons. Corruption cards have an active and/or passive action.
Cursed Items should usually have a cost of $0, with both an upside and a downside built into the item's effects. Though if one is created with a particularly nice upside it could be given a non-zero dollar value. The downside should be just bad enough to make the upside *almost* not worth it. i.e. They're very give-and-take.
Perfect!
"They should only rarely be optional to use (otherwise you can just decide not to use it, which makes it pointless if it was also free to acquire).
This makes me think we'll see a few different kinds of Cursed Items. Some will be optional to use but cost money, some will be free but take effect automatically, some will be expensive but have only a minor downside (so the fact that it's Cursed is the only real issue with it), etc. Sooo many possibilities..."
I'll be interested to see your ideas
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dkw said:
Lets move the Cursed Item discussion into its own thread, so we don't clutter up other threads.
Unless you are making a herald, I'd strive for a neutral effect on the game -- it's just something different that happens--half good/half bad. The Voodoo Doll could be an example of that (assuming that stamina and clues are equal). However, since there is a choice on when to use it, it's probably overall a benefit. There's many times having another clue just coming out of the Other World will save another whole adventure there and another investigator would gladly give up a stamina for that.
I'd do the voodoo doll effect: Every turn, gain 1 clue token but an investigator loses 1 Stamina. (could be yourself). (Would be great for the gangster, even the doctor, so you could deliberately exempt them if you wanted, but I wouldn't, though I'd probably just make it untradeable). Otherwise you can get rid of it like a normal item.
Theme: It's not exactly how voodoo dolls work but it's a cursed voodoo doll and the owner can't help but use it. (or maybe s/he doesn't even know the clue gain is at the expense of someone else.)
Every time an item is gained, draw a cursed item along with it. The cost, of course, is free (Muhaaaaa). It that's too much, roll a die and on a 1 (or whatever number) gain a cursed item.
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I am wondering what the downside is of putting each Old One, investigator, item, or one idea on its own thread? Is bandwidth a problem? That way if someone develops a really nice example, the rest of us could help him/her perfect it. If one example is so out of line, its not worth saving, it will just eventually drop off the front page and become Lost in Time and Space.
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Mike: Occupation: Belly Dancer,Sanity: 7 Stamina: 3
Mike: Special: Seduction - at when she begins Combat, she can try to "seduce" another investigator into taking her Stamina loss. If a male investigator who wants to resist can roll a Luck(-2) check, a female investigator a Luck(-1).
So she picks some hapless male, probably a spell caster who's down on his luck. I guess if Doc Vincent were in play there's be a nice combo. Otherwise, over all a neutral skill, ie, sum zero skill for the team.
Mike: Common Items: Physical Weapon - Scimitar 1H if used with magical Zils, 2H otherwise otherwise like Ancient Spear, Veils of Illusion (+1 to Sneak) Unique Item: Magical Weapon Zils of Medusa 1H (freezes monsters +2 Combat, +2 Lore ) I think she'd be very high in Sneak, Will, and Lore
Isn't Lore really knowledge of the Mythos? I suppose a half naked female could reasonably sneak by alien monsters. Not all monsters in the game are alien however.
Mike: My thought is that she might be fun to play - although she's not a great fighter, if she successfully seduces another investigator (who does not need to be at the same location) into taking the fall for her, then she might be pretty tough to kill. The idea of conning some other character into taking damage for you intrigues me.
For being not a fighter, you give her two weapons if I'm reading it right. Overall, it sounds a little like you're not really picking up the cooperative nature of the game, though I think in the actual game the seduction skill would probably end of being more mutual than your last thoughts indicate (though apparently it doesn't have to be). Also, while lots of skills are like this (Leo), her ability to seduce another investigator while she's in an Other World strains my ability to suspend my disbelief.
It's interesting that her power takes effect BEFORE she knows the extent of her damage. So another investigator could fall unconscious out of the blue.
And the other posters are correct. Get ye to Strange Eons.
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I think cursed items opens a whole new area of fun and games. However, the ones I've seen so far are too cursed. Exhausting all spells or skills just ruins some investigators. And there's no way to get rid of those cursed items. I could see eternally exhausting one spell, skill, item (even the most expensive) but all? What would the gangster be like if he could never reload his tommy gun?
Or Rita could never use her life long martial arts skill?Zero cost is a great idea. I think that the investigator must take the cursed item and must buy another item. After all, he did go shopping.
Also in the case of drawing the item in the course of an encounter, they investigator might be able to draw a second item. (It's as if the curse is associated with the drawn item.) In fact, they could be forever associated and getting rid of the good item also gets rid of the curse.
Taking a corruption card is a good idea too, except not everyone has Black Goat.
Giving something a little good might also be nice, for example "Automatically restores 1 sanity per turn, but if so removes a stamina."
Also I think there needs to be some way to rid oneself of the cursed item. A blessing would be the obvious way, but I'm sure more clever ways can be devised (like by killing a monster of a certain symbol or returning a gate of a certain symbol.)
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Gar_Stazi said:
(In the coming weeks expect to see a bunch of posts by me with lots of custom things! I could work on Strange Eons all day!)
No one can say you make overpowered investigators.
Broom saves a clue maybe 3 times in a game.
Screwhead gives no power, just a ability that he he loses in one location and gains in another. He is guaranteed a slightly better than average skill, just slightly.
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kookoobah said:
When I decided to house rule it that I only had a Mythos Phase after 4 movement/encounter phases,Who have you played this way? If you played Mandy this way, the game would probably be terribly easy. If you played Dexter or Vincent this way, probably less awesome. It's essentially like playing a four player game with everybody playing the same investigator. All investigators are not created equal.
Any idea how many turns (Mythos Phases) it took?
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Allies: Note that you get your choice of allies that are Ma's Boarding House! Your choice of 11 different allies and that you can look at theallies any time you want!
That said, we hardly ever go there.Spells: Spells land on spell users, at least at the beginning of the game. They count as items for losses in case that ever happens. Most spells drain brains, so we seldom use them. Carolyn is your best basic spell user and she begins with no spells! That said, spells tend to not be used in our games either. Partly because trading is so inconvenient.
Shopping: We shop til we drop. That is until we drop all of our money. One strategy is with Jennie is to always get a bank loan, so she has $21 dollars next door at the curiositie shop. The item I am looking for is an elder sign. One of those takes a lot of pressure off. Always happy with a magic weapon too. Great common items are the Press pass (expansion) and the motorcyle.
Blessing: Rarely do we take the extra turn or two it takes to secure a blessing. They are too fragile. The first thing we get is the deputy. If we do get blessed, it's usually as late in the game as possible where the blessing impacts the final battle every turn! Though we rarely go to final battle.
Location special abilities: Yes science building is used so much we've memorized the encounters. Same is true for the Newspaper (jobs and money) and to some extent the Train station using multiple boards. Many train station cards give you a free trip to anywhere you want to go. Other than those we seldom stop in anywhere unless there's a clue token to be had or a deputyship to be acquired.
Closing the gates victory: We try to close rather than seal. It seems our score is higher when we do this. It still takes 3 or 4 gates being sealed to work though. Since we play 3 or 4 players, it can be a little faster. Still most often we end up needing to seal to win. We start off collecting clues and sealing. We ALWAYS go into a gate when we've collected the 5 clue tokens. Sometimes we don't make it through of course to seal, but I'd bet 90% of the time we do. I won't merely close a major gate if I run out of clues but most of my team will. Of course, 90% of the time that gate reopens in the next few turns and I get to say "I told you so."
Neglected aspects are addressed by expansions? None that you mentioned. Usually its worse. There are more spells and more undesirable spells, though there are some gems added too. Chances of getting an elder sign are diminished, but there seems to be more and better common and unique weapons. Kingsport does try to address going to stable locations with the Guadian Hypnos and the orange Mythos cards in Kingsport, Dunwich, Black Goat generally send a clue to some unusual place, even the streets. The chances of running across an ally are diminished in Arkham since only 11 of the allies are in play at once.
Kingsport offers the overpowered Daisy who never neglects spells or tomes, so I guess that's a fix, of sorts. One of the expansions has several Crystals of the Elder things that gives you three free spell castings. I love the Seven Criptical Books? of Hasan if I am a spell caster. I can't remember if that's an expansion addition, though.
Dunwich adds more neglected stuff, especially the condition cards as well as the Dunwich Horror itself. I can't see why anyone would turn of Rare Books or worry about Velma's Gratitude. Coded messages and Darke's blessing are great but the chances of being there at the right time with the right stuff hardly ever happens.
The King in Yellow herald makes the terror level significant, but the blight cards are widely varying in their effects and some are just too mean and so I don't use them as much as I should. Also, there's only 13 of them, so they get repetitous. I've actually made blight monsters out of the blight cards and the 34 allies, but still don't use them every game.
Another interesting fix for locations is found on BBG. There's a guy who made Rift tokens for every STABLE location in the game. It demphasizes Kingsport though you still have to go there and three of his tokens are in the headlands, so you really want to be sure that rift doesn't pop because it will be very hard to get rid of. If you don't have Kingsport, then you might not know what I'm talking about.
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Orpheus101 said:
7) Similar topic to above. I play that if an investigator is devoured, he is not replaced with a new investigator (also that investigators can't retire from too many madness/injury cards). Because this is a house rule, I'd like opinions on this one: if you start the game with 4 investigators, one is devoured during the game, then the remaining three enter combat with the Ancient One, would you consider the number of investigators used to determine successes to remove doom tokens 3 or 4?
I'd be interested to know why do you play that way? Are you playing solo?
Rarely are investigators devoured, though I was once devoured three times in the same game. Believe me it wasn't deliberate.
If you are playing solo, killing off investigators makes sense. However, if you are playing with other people that's really harsh. What do they think of that?
As to the final battle, fairness would indicate that your final battle would be with the reduced number of investigators.
I've seen fewer investigators retired than devoured, though I have run into a few people who realize that taking madness and injury cards is really helpful in a number of ways. It saves a turn of paying for sanity/stamina and save items/clue tokens with really very little penalty in most cases. One abuser would often end up with four of those cards. He didn't retire either.
The major abuse with retirement and devourment, IMO, is the passing off of items just before death or retirement. But maybe that's not your issue.
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Back to the original question. It's a great combo and I don't really see a problem with it. It does take some work to get everything together. What AH lacks is more paths to victory. On the other hand, I don't really think FFG thought of this combo when they devised the spell and the Crystal of the elder things. Still it's far from a first turn victory.
[Gamemaster] reacted to this -
I've had this choice often. I almost always take the elder sign. To get a major gate sealed right away will usually reap two bounces before the game is over, not to mention one less doom token. The goal of the game is to seal gates, not kill monsters.
I usually play games with4 or three players, so there's always someone else who wants to fight monsters.
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jhaelen: "Actually, I have a hard time believing you can play a standard game (i.e. one that doesn't end prematurely because of extremely bad luck, too many gates, etc.) with 4+ investigators in two hours, unless you play the different phases not as written. I've heard from several players that they prefer to play the first four phases with a single investigator, then phase 1-4* with the second investigator, etc. and/or all players resolve their phases in parallel, rather than consecutively.
I'm wary of an changes to how the phases work since I believe they will always result in side-effects that weren't intended."
I've played my last 150 games or so blending phases and a question only comes up once in a while. Since I played many, many games by the book, we can resolve those questions very quickly and so the effect of blending turns is nil. When we we first started doing it it dropped our 3 or 4 investigator games by an hour. Probably we know play most games in 3 to 3:15 minutes. Two and a half hours maximum is a long way off.
*Phase 1 Upkeep is generally played as written.
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When I first started playing the game, I thought the sanity cost of spells was ridiculous. Now spell casting has become too easy, especially for the likes of Daisy and with the abilities given by several unique items. Last night I had Arcane knowledge and the Seven Criptical books of Hsan in the hands of an average spell caster, Marie. In addition, she did have a Lore +1 Skill. I was able to cast it every turn but two (with two dice). It was one of the easiest games I ever played. It was fun while doing it. I think it it would be disappointing if it continued.
Combat spells are a little crazy, but just a little. The only change I'd make is that the sanity cost of spells only be paid upon success. After all, the sanity costs represents the danger of contacting the mythos. If you didn't cast the spell, then you didn't contact the mythos (at least not correctly). I suppose FFG could have a miscast table. On the other hand, perhaps that's what the sanity cost of miscasting represents in a simplified method.
What I've seen as I've acquired the expansions is a ramp up in difficulty in monsters and Old Ones but a corresponding ramp up in power and number of powerful weaponry, both magical and physical.
What soured my group on magic was Dexter. He looks like a spell user, talks like spell user, gets a pretty powerful spell to begin with (Shriveling), but he's not really a spell user. In the basic set, Carolyn is the best spell user but begins with no spells. Now I think these are hilarious and very thematic.
Now we have a librarian who because she can read can also cast spells safely and gets the spell she wants to boot. In addition, she's one of the biggest game slowers ever. In the hands of a novice, either the choice of picking a spell is too daunting or takes too long. In my convention games, I've seen players never ever even take the time to use the 'liver of iron'.
But in the hands of a veteran there's numerous combos that can be used. Daisy is the only component I've taken out of the game.
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StarBurn said:
...a game of AH never lasted more than 2 and a half hours for me... even the long and agonizing ones where I know I'm loosing...even though it seemed to be forever, it was still 2 and a half hours. (I play arkham horror way more since I relised that).
How many players/investigators? Solo?
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I think its just an oversight. I don't play that way. On the other hand, we do place the deceased's monsters and gate trophies aside to keep score, whether it's the intention or not.
DEVOURED INVESTIGATORS
In rare cases, investigators may be devoured. The player
immediately discards all of his cards (except unspent
trophies) and shuffles his investigator sheet in with the
unused investigator sheets. The player then draws a new
investigator at random and sets up the investigator as if
he were starting a new game (as described in “Game
Setup” earlier in these rules).I don't see that the investigator actually gets to keep trophies. The new investigator is "sets up the investigator as if he were strating a new game". Investigators don't start with trophies. I think in this real, the authors were aware of the difference between an investigator and a player.
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avec said:
Fair enough. For the record, I realize that this is all outside the official rules (I probably should have said that from the beginning). I'm one of those players that greatly enjoys both the theme and the mechanics of the game. I don't mind introducing a house rule here and there to enhance the theme, as long as it doesn't seriously hurt the game mechanics. I respect the people who work hard to play the game the way it was "meant" to be played, but I'm mostly interested in getting feedback from people like myself who enjoy tinkering with the rules. Peace.The theme is supreme! At least for me. Doyle clearly incites to riot from abusing his power as editor. On the other hand, Doyle's blight is among the most fearsome of the lot. So it would feel a bit like gaming the game to put his blight back and draw another.
Tinkering: I've actually turned the blight cards into spawn monsters. So the investigators can get even!
As to the bank loan, don't worry someone will be out trying to collect it. The collector will even find the deadbeat in the Other Worlds if necessary. Talk about needing a theme adjustment.
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Maybe I should come play with you guys sometime up in Fremont...I'm in Santa Cruz, CA.
Come on up! Fremont, Saturday at 11 am is the first game. mageith@comcast.net
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Fremont, California between San Francisco and San Jose. We play nearly every weekend.
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awp832 said:
2. reference please? Where does it say that you alternate?"When a gate opens, draw a monster from the cup as normal, then draw a second monster from the hexagon cup and place both monsters on the gate's location." This is only for the open gate and the rules don't really say they are placed in the order of drawing. For a surge "draw half the monsters from the hexagon cup (round down)." It's just assumed the other half are drawn from the normal cup. Where else?
I always do placement of monsters randomly so I never really paid much attention to the rules in that detail and it doesn't seem to me that they are written to really mean alternatively. On the other hand, its as good a method as any as long as its done consistently.
I suppose literally, when an open gate is under question, the normal monster is first. When a surge is in question, the hex monsters are first.
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Thanks again then!
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Tibs wrote: "• Stats report for 03/16/2009:
• Special events
At least one rift opened 28 (35.4% of all games using the Kingsport board)"
Thanks again for the report.All games? or is this the percent of games since you started recording it?
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The Thing In The Attic said:
what happens when ... the opposite happens; a player leaves early to go home and his investigator is taken out of the game?I've always used the ability of players to move in and out of the game as a selling point when I teach the game at conventions. As suggested above, we just alter the victory parameters.The rules state that the game can allow the introduction of new players and investigators, or the departure of said players and investigators at any time. The rules don't really state, (at least i cant find anything), on how this impacts the games mechanics derrived from the number of players / investigators.
Never had anyone quit just before the final battle (or the whole group but one). That would be a cheap way to game the game.
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cim said:
I think the Horror/Combat aspect of the slider is explained by either being able to look at the monster closely enough to strike its weak spots, or avert your gaze enough not to have to think about it too much, but not both.
Best justification I've heard. Thanks
The Great Debate #9: Healing Stone vs. Mythos Lore
in Arkham Horror Second Edition
Posted
I really like the healing stone and never have had Granny Orne but the possibility of clue every turn goes toward our real goal. What's our measley life in comparison to sealing a gate! On the other hand, $8 is easier to come by than 10 bloods and you can use bloods to buy clues. The situation in the game would make the difference.