mageith
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Posts posted by mageith
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Negalith said:
Though I’ve become very good at the basic set, the group I occasionally play with still gets easily bogged down with rules and recordkeeping. One simple change we have made that speeds things up is keeping a steady, unchanging party turn order. We make one person the full time party leader / scapegoat / hero / first player. Keeping the same order throughout really helps newer people focus on other aspects of the game.We also do Arkham encounters and Other World encounters at the same time. We do them in party order. We go around the investigators in order. If they are in an Arkham location they get an Arkham encounter, if in the streets, no encounter and if in another world, an otherworld encounter.
So far I have found no real problem with the way they work out in games. I’m sure there may be some specific circumstances where they may mess things up, but we have not encountered it.
We have melded the entire turn for several months now and only occassionally run into a problem. We think its saved nearly an hour per game.
Unchanging turn order we never tried. Sometimes its better if one player goes before another player, but even with changing turn order, it seems like its always the wrong one up anyway.
People still get confused with the changing turn order. It seems like its a long time between turns after you pass the First Player token. We had a player last week who ALWAYS wanted to read another Mythos phase when she was pass the First Player token was passed to her, even though one had just been read. Unfortuneately the game has lots of fidgety rules. So what you are doing probably won't have an effect in the long run and well, that's Lovecraftian anyway. Nothing we do will really have an effect in the longrun.
Any other noobile adjustments?
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dj2.0 said:
Ive enjoyed single investigator victories by closing a few times. My key strategy is to jump in the deep end immediately, and then again, and then head off to get deputised. If I can survive the 4 otherworld encounters, close both gates, and make it to the Eastown district by half time on the Doom clock, I can usually pull it off, especially with a blessing.And you don't lose your patrol wagon the first time you go through a gate, like I always do.
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oldthrashbarg said:
Ah, I see. For some reason I thought that surplus successes from a round were lost.It's part of one of the house rules suggested by the author. I've run into several players who also think that's the rule.
http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Arkham_Horror/House%20Rules%20RL.pdf
Rule 11 - Great Old Ones Really Great: For players that would liked a tougher end game,
I recommend the following House Rules:
1. Sanity Rolls for the Great Old One using their Combat Modifier as the Sanity
Modifier. If failed Discard half your Items, half your Spells, and Half of your Allies
(rounding up). Then the Start of Battle begins combat with the Great Old One per
normal Rules.
2. If less than 4 investigators in the game – treat 4 as the “to hit” number each round
of combat. This means it takes 4 hits to remove one token from the Great Old One’s
Doom Track. And no – hits are not banked from round to round if less than 4, they
are lost after the Investigators complete their attacks and the Great Old One
attacks.
3. Special non-combat abilities may not be used unless no attack is taken and may only
be used once the entire battle. In other words using a some skill or item to restore
Health or Sanity may only be used once in combat with the Great Old One.
Reason for the House Rule: All these rules significantly make it tougher for any size
group to successfully defeat the Great Old One. The final battle is intended to be a last
ditch effort to save Arkham – not the primary plan of any team for Victory. These House
Rules assure veteran players cannot just stock up weapons and wait for the big guy to
arrive. -
kookoobah said:
Has anybody tried to play this with only one investigator and won? That would probably be truly epic.According to the recorded stats only one person has done it: tathui with Mandy vs Shub with the Deputy. Pretty impressive to me since Shub is my nemesis.
I tried it with the Wendy, then Daisy. Wendy got 4 seals and Daisy with Shantak almost go 2 (both have abilities almost as good as the patrol wagon) before the terror level got them. I was playing with only the basic game and didn't realize how many cards add 2 monsters as part of the headlines. Wendy last 19 turns and Daisy lasted 24 turns. Poor Daisy started with the "Good Works undone" rumor which didn't go away for too long a time. Both were cursed at some time during the game. Daisy for a long time.
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I was interested in the chances of each type of victory, so I extrapolated the following data. I assumed all loses were from the final battle.
So if you go in to seal Cthulhu you have about 51%, but if you don't you still have about 8% of defeating him in battle.
- Name Win Seals /close Win Battle % Lose %
- Azathoth 63.8% 0.0% 36.2%
- Tsa 60.5% 2.2% 37.3%
- Cthulhu 50.8% 8.2% 41.0%
- Yog 55.0% 8.3% 36.7%
- Yibb 56.7% 10.0% 33.3%
- Atlach 29.7% 10.8% 59.5%
- Eihort 59.3% 11.1% 29.6%
- Y'golnac 34.9% 13.9% 51.2%
- Shub 43.1% 20.0% 36.9%
- Glaaki 23.5% 23.2% 53.3%
- Ith 51.8% 24.9% 23.3%
- Abhoth 28.1% 29.6% 42.3%
- Shudde 26.7% 30.7% 42.6%
- Hastur 35.2% 39.8% 25.0%
- Narly 35.7% 40.9% 23.4%
- Yig 16.3% 62.2% 21.5%
- Average 41.9% 21.0% 37.1%
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Tibs said:
A lot of people play that you just draw a Mythos card every other turn. You could do that instead of counting how many upkeeps you've had, etc.
That would increase your chances of winning by closing, if a major gate opened on the first turn to: 14% due to a monster surge on your next turn (9/66) if the investigator went into that gate right away. If the investigator has the Find Gate spell it goes to nearly 100%.
I'd adjust all the rules to play like a 2 Investigator game (ie like playing with 2 investigators with the same stats: (Darrell and my brother Darrell)): 1 more monster or board, 1 less monster in outskirts and close 2 gates to win.
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Tibs said:
Entering the first open gate, and then getting monster surges on that gate until you come back out and close it seems like it would be more common than actually achieving six seals while solo.
Less than 2% (1.67 %) chance of happening if the first gate is a major gate and you are only playing the basic game. About once every 60 games. (Probably about the same as rift coming out without a Mythos card or more often than the Necronomicon being turned in at the Library to turn up the benefit card and definitely more often than becoming Beloved of Bast.)
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MechSpike said:
Alright so I haven't played Arkham Horror in a while but me and a small group of friends used to play quite often. We are busting it back out tonight for a session and I'm bringing a noob friend. My problem is, I own all 5 expansions and I need to figure out a perfect combination of which ones to play. My friends and I haven't played KIY or BG yet and hardly have played Pharoah. So what is a good combination of expansions where things won't get too hectic for a noob but also add some spice to the game for us vets. Also, once the expansions are chosen what cards can I take out/leave in. For instance, if I run KH but not DH, do I leave in the Arkham encounters for DH? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
What did you use? How did it go? How did you do?
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jhaelen said:
Has anyone tried to get rid of the different frequencies for gates by trimming the deck?
I've been thinking of doing this because it seems to me that once we figured out which gate locations were the high-frequency ones, our strategy is pretty much the same in every game, especially since we always try to win by sealing/closing gates.
I think, if every location had the same chance of a gate showing up, the game would become more frantic because you'd want to try and seal every gate. On the other hand it might greatly reduce the chance for monster floods. Thoughts?
I considered it early one, but decided not to do it for a number of reasons:
Working from memory here, so feel free to check me out: Actually some of the expansions do this subtlely already. CotDP with 18 cards adds 1 gate to each location and two to the major gates. So increases chances of a minor gate (From 3% to 4%) per gate location. OTOH, KIY only adds to the 7 major gates and so decreases the changes of the 4 minor gates. DH adds 1 gate burst to each of the medium gates and 2 gate bursts to each of the major gates. Mixing all expansions probably brings it back to a more predictable distribution.
If each gate is equal, then this would indeed make a more frantic game. Sealing six gates would be less effective as the chance of a gate bump would be about half (9% per gate) of what is was before (about 16%). So I'd say it might add three gates to a normal game. Can you handle three more gates? And it would, as you point out, reduce the number of surges and monsters to deal with. Personally, I think there are too few monsters now. Of course, you could fix this by having more monsters come out with each gate and/or surge.
Gate Bursts would become less effective, since there are none for the minor gates, so they'd be the tactical choices for sealing.
Kate would be less effective since she'd be less likely to stop a gate from coming (though her encounter chances would be the same).
Other subtle or unintended changes: The Science building would more likely have a gate so less trading in for clue tokens. I think the historical society and science building have a few more clues than normal (not sure here) and so there'd be less clues on the board for them. Would you keep the clue distribution the same?
The major and medium gate locations are also more dangerous to have encounters in. Since they'd be open more often than before and might have clues on them, investigators would be having more dangerous encounters.
Now if you really want to have a frantic time, let every LOCATION have a chance for a gate?
Including Kingsport!!! -
Rex the Reporter, Luke the Dreamer, Mark the Soldier and Bob the Salesman. We were playing Kingsport and the Black Goat . Abhoth was the Ancient One.
The first two gates were Historical Society and Science Building. I hate when minor gates open early. That means that there are still seven common gates to open that are beyond our control.
Luke promised Rex that he'd come through one of the gates and Bless him. Third card was a Kingsport rumor that dropped two more doom tokens that would cost a skill and Blessing to remove, so Rex's blessing went to Bob who bravely gave up his Bravery (everyone had great skills) for the cause.
Rex had an Elder sign from the beginning but because of his Curse could never get close enough the a gate to go in. Mark was forever up in the Other Worlds as Gates opened on him everytime, so he was never around to clear.
Still we seemed to be getting the game under control.
Toward the end Rex was was Lost in Time and Space and decided to come back to Kingsport, which were had been ignoring until then to gather the clues that hand landed there and slow down a rift that was about the pop. He obtained the only Ally of the game Asenath Waite. At that point we had two gates sealed, Mark and Luke were in the Other Worlds with enough clue tokens to seal and two doom tokens left on the Abhoth.
Luke was first player and drew a Kingsport Mythos that brought on the 10th gate. But worse yet was the Headline. If Asenath Waite is in play, discard and add a doom token! I now better understand the meaning of Sudden Death!
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Criswell said:
He's basically a cash factory. Critique appreciated.
I wouldn't be much interested in playing an old bald banker, because that's almost what I am.
However, your backstory is really well-written and is very enticing.
Maybe you know this already: the bank is the best place to get blessed (believe it or not) which will really help Randolph's stock market investments!
On the other hand, in six turns Randolph will ordinarily have 2 successes for a $4 gain *and 1 failure for $1 loss. I don't think he's making as much money as you think he does. He's making half of what Jenny makes at $1 per turn.
*I may be reading the gain wrong, its hard to read on my computer. If it's $3, then his net gain for six turns is $5, still less than Jenny's. Needless to say, he'll probably take out an immediate bank loan and should easily be able to make his payments.
It would really be nice of Randolph to spend 2 clue tokens to save someone else's retainer and really unbanker like.
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spirit said:
Not so. As already stated. If you're playing with more than one expansion board i.e Dunwich & Kingsport then you play as if you have one less character. That would mean that a 9 player game is in fact counted as an 8 player game.
Oh yeah. That was kind of the point of the thread in the first place. Sorry. However there is a card in the Blight deck that lowers the Outskirts level by 1. Chances are that will never happen.
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XV8Crisis said:
Hunch: Less experienced players allow the terror track to go up by avoiding monsters. They avoid confrontation, not knowing that well... AH is really ALL about getting dirty. Very, very dirty, and take lots and lot of risks. Lots.
Theory: Less players = slower/lower terror track.
My experience has been just the opposite. Newer players spend too much time fighting monsters. It seems like the obvious thing to do and they are right there in front of you too. Then, oops, there's too many gates on the board and the Old One comes out!
In addition, the calculations involved in determining whether a monster is tough or not is fairly complicated and newer players can't intuitvely figure that out. So they're more apt to go fight a monster and use up their clue tokens doing so.
In addition, it depends on the investigators new players have. Now in my games, the players generally get a choice of two investigators. Their choices may influence my experience. Most often they choose either high magic or high fighting, rather than the more subtle investigators. Most of the folks I have taught choose fighters. Well, the fighters want to fight so they do which tends to keep the monster population down.
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If the maximum monsters in the outskirts for 8 investigators is zero, then the maximum for 9 players is -1.
Some new rule will need to be made there. Of course, maybe it breaks down altogether. "When the number of monsters in the Outskirts exceeds the limit, return all the monsters in the Outskirts to the monster cup and increase the terror level by 1."So from the beginning, you'll be exceeding the limit, but there will be no monsters to return, but the terror level will rise quite rapidly--like all at once.
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Hand of Osiris said: hmmm... depends on how you play might be the right answer:
Our general game style: Ignore every possible thing except gaining clue tokens.
Whomever has 'The Toughest' character (we choose randomly to begin with) is given all the weapons. That character is our street sweeper and within a couple of turns is usually indestructable. He gives his money and other resources to the others."
So which is true. Do you ignore everything but close or fight monsters?
Hand of Osiris said: "We are on turn 4 of our current game. basic set + Kingsport. Me and my wife are playing The Urchin, The Dreamer, and the Martial Artist all drawn randomly."
Mageith: I hope the Urchin didn't randomly get chosen as your street sweeper. She should never have to fight a monster! She is one of uber characters. The martial artist is good too. -
Hand of Osiris said:
Most of the games I have played are 3 players and we never have more than 4. I would guess that I have played 7 - 10 times and have played the Dark Pharoh and Dunwich Horror expansions. (I am currently playing Kingsport right now for the first time).
I feel that I am doing something wrong. We only increase the terror level when the outskirts fills up and when the occasional card tells us to.
I would think that the terror level should be in the 6 - 9 range every game which would add to the growing suspense.
Anyone have any ideas for a good system to increase the terror level, in a linear way? Their was a mention on boardgamegeeks about just starting at 6 and closing all stores if it hits 9 or something but that doesn't 'grow the terror'.
Perhaps something like everytime a gate opens roll a die and on a 5 or 6 increase the terror level by one.
Are you winning most of your games? How many players in your games? When you lose, what causes you to lose? There are several timing mechanisms in Arkham horror that bring the main board game to a close. Terror is just one of them. The other main ones are too many gates (a rule many players often miss) and, of course, the doom track filling up. There are several others such as running out of gate and monster markers.
As another poster pointed out, you appear to be dealing the the monsters pretty well. You can win the game without ever defeating a monster.
Even if the Ancient One comes out, it is not necessarily a loss.
Personally, I've only had the terror level raise to 10 one time in my memory and I've played over 200 games. But we keep score and every terror level raise is a ding on the score, so we try to watch it pretty closely, however. It's gotten high before but usually we end up in the same range as you, even with the King in Yellow.
If you really want to lose and in a myriad of ways, get the Black Goat of the woods and play the herald. That will give you all the suspense you need and more so. It may not raise the terror level as you would like, but soon you'll not be thinking of the terror level at all.
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Tibs said:
Tibs said: Yes exactly: not only does a rift have the same odds as adding a doom token as the Dunwich Horror, but also rifts add monsters, while the Horror does not. Also, there can be up to 3 rifts in play at once! Imagine three Dunwich Horrors lending their abilities to the game, and their chances to appear are NEVER reduced, no matter how many expansions you add?
Rifts are a daunting risk. Certainly more so than the Dunwich Horror.
I wouldn't call Kingsport a daunting risk. Generally we completely ignore the rifts until one is actually out and maybe even then if it's late enough in the game. I never ignore Dunwich if the Dunwich Mythos is at its proper ratio. Even then, it's rare to get the Horror out. If it does come out, we ignore it's presence unless someone is powerful enough to have a very good chance of taking it out in the first go.
Other factors. What brings the Dunwich Horror out is Dunwich Horror tokens which also cause the Terror Level to be raised. Ordinarily not a big deal, but we keep score. Another factor is monster surges. I've had up to a dozen monsters in Dunwich. So even the most minor gate should be closed/sealed if playing Dunwich.
I've had three rifts out before, when I incorrectly read one of the Kingsport Mythos cards. In this case, we went to close them. In the time it took to close them only one doom token was added.
We don't play the Kingsport board and Mythos cards much anymore, but not because it's difficult but because its boring and doesn't add much.
The secret danger of Kingsport: Kingsport adds a lot of monsters. Most of them are two blood tokens, so Kingsport increases the overall monster level.
In short, to answer the original posters observation, I'd recommend an artificial way to boost Dunwich's Mythos cards to appearing about 1/3rd of the time if you want Dunwich and/or the Horror to be a real factor. Also, there's the Whateley Prophecy but that still really only makes a difference if Dunwich's ratio is kept intact.
A follow up question: When you add the beginning Dunwich Horror token to the Dunwich track, do you raise the terror level also?
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Elric91 said:
What we do is we make 2 different Mythos decks. We leave all the Mythos cards from Dunwich in one pile, and all the other Mythos cards in another pile. Then alternate between decks during the mythos phase, so that every other turn you will have effectively drawn one from each. This is not a home brewed method of doing the Mythos cards, it is one of the official ways they do it from Curse of the Dark Pharoh expansion, and it guarentees one card out of every two drawn will be an expansion portal( in this case, Dunwich), and trust me at this point priorities will start getting re-arranged rather quickly. You will no longer see Dunwich as useless, and odds are you will have several investigators scrambling to Dunwich in order to do monster control, since there is no limit to the number of monsters that can be on the Dunwich board.This will make the game much much harder though, so alternately you could create a separate Mythos deck for each expansion used, and alternate between the 3 or 4 mythos decks as you draw. This would add the Dunwich cards every 3 of 4 turns, and would give Dunwich an uneasy "feeling", rather than saturating investigators with fear of the Dunwich board, and either way should add at least some interaction with the Dunwich components.
Actually only 25 or the 36 Dunwich cards are expansion (Dunwich) portals. The other 11 are Arkham gate bursts! You're way will definitely bring Dunwich into play and create a harder game. If you want to keep the ratio more like the original Dunwich and base game only, every third card s/b Dunwich. (36 Dunwich and 67 Arkaham).
To Halo: If you have a rift out and the Dunwich Horror, the odds are exactly the same that a doom token will be generated by either force. It is much easier and productive to remove a rift however. Also the rift will also generate a monster.
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The only really bad green corruption card IMO, is Nightmarish Visions: lose 2 sanity and gain 2 clue tokens, and even it might be good in some situations. The others tend to restrict cooperation but give good abilities and benefits in exchange. Most of the penalties are drawing more corruption or discarding corruption which bring you closer to drawing Red Corruption cards. Now if you get to the Red corruption cards, the are almost universally bad. I think the set is quite well designed.
The cult encounters, however, are quite dangerous. But you don't have to go into the woods, etc so those are easily avoided. I've always joined the cult when I have an opportunity (3 times) and its mostly benefitted me and the group.
However, the herald is very tough, IMO. Especially with monster surges bring on doom tokens and the extra tougher than average monsters. I haven't yet beaten it when I follow all the rules. But I haven't lost because of the Green corruption cards.
The last time we played, we didn't use the Pagan Rites, ie doom tokens on monster surges and we won. In a normal game, we usually have 3 or 4 surges and adding that many doom tokens alone would probably cause us to be unable to seal most of the GOOs.
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This is an estimate.
I joined the former forum on Mar 12, 2008 about a month after I got the game. Until this holiday season I never played less than 4 games a weekend and sometimes up to 8. So that's 10 months about 18 games a month for 180 plus the great weekends when I could play more. I am around 200 games, probably more. This is not counting solo games, which I rarely play. (Maybe 10)
I've played with at least 50 different people (about 30 or 35 I've taught). I know there was more than 25 different players in my first convention and have been to another convention since then. It had new and different players but not as many as the first.. I have about 10 different people come to my house from time to time, though many of them are from players I've meant at different conventions. I've taughty my whole family (6) in addition. I belong to another group where I taught four players one night, none of whom had played with me at a convention.
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Dam said:
Half indeed! GAAAAH
! *runs off to calm himself downI was being conservative. Sorry.
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1) Characters who have healing powers (the psychiatrist and the doctor): I know the power only works if a character is in the same space as those characters, but do those powers still take effect if I am simply passing through their location (ie: during movement)? or do I simply have to end my movement in their location for those powers to happen?
Mageith: I think the effect takes place in Upkeep, so no
2) When I draw a skill card that reads (ie: +1 fight. Text: skill allows you one extra die when using clue tokens for fight checks), does it mean that I get a +1 to my fight always, and whenever I decide to use a clue token for a fight check, I get to have an extra die as well?
Mageith: Good news. There's two separate abilities there. So, yes, always +1 Fight and extra dice for fights
3) This is just a general question, and I was wondering how everyone plays this ability: When I am playing Harvey the Prof, his special power is that he can reduce all sanity losses he suffers by one, but I associate spell sanity costs with sanity losses as well. Is that how you guys play?
Mageith: Bad news. If that were so, he'd be almost half as powerful as Daisy the Librarian.
That just wouldn't be right! Actually there is a FAQ that spells out the difference between costs and losses. -
The danger in the corruption deck is that the green cards are used up and you get into the red cards which are more dangerous. In other words, you are supposed to have lots of draws.
I've had six corruption cards and the first thing you look for during the mythos for is the symbol and color. Even with six cards I can go several turns without having any corruption effects.
Now I agree there are other effects than can occur in other than the mythos phase and that can be confusing and difficult to track, but I wouldn't cut it off at six or any number.
Also, the rule I forgot the first time I played was that corruption cards are discarded when the gate with their symbol is closed. You may not have closed enough gates to rid yourself of your cards.
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Nice picture. I'm always interested in reading scenarios. However, the words aren't coming out out clearly and in addition, are cut off at the edge of my computer. Another poster, copied the text of the scenario. I think that's a good idea.
House Rules for Noobs
in Arkham Horror Second Edition
Posted
Negalith said:
After doing some thinking, this change can probably make the game much easier. In fact, this change is almost good enought enough to be an investigator special skill.
One of the things the movement order does is allow earlier moving characters to help or clear the way of monsters for others. If we always know who the first player is, and that player has the capability of killing monsters, then this can potentially result is much easier movement for the rest of the team.
Point Man (or person): This investigator may always choose to Move first. In fact, it is a skill we made up when we first started playing the game and we thought the game was too tough.
(Of course, this will be even more confusing that your house rule, since this player will often be moving out of order.)
So part of it depends on how you choose your permanent first player and what type investigator s/he is playing or the type s/he usually plays (if you have choices).