Tibs said: Two investigators is probably not enough. This rule of thumb works out very well: To even stand a chance at winning, use 2 investigators, plus 1 for every board expansion. Add another 1 if you want a more reasonable chance. In a full-expansion game, for example, I recommend 5 as a bare minimum, 6 as a comfortable minimum. I routinely play with 6. I think three or four investigators for a fully expanded game is certainly viable, though it's obviously harder than with more. We generally use 4 for all expansions (except when we have either three or more than four players). I'll admit that one or two gets very difficult, though, at least against any of the tougher Ancient Ones. As for Atlach-Nacha, we've found it's doable with two investigators, if very hard. Closing the gates won't work, but with a little luck and a lot of coordination, sealing becomes viable. (Your odds also improve a bit if you have access to For the Greater Good and Walking the Ley Lines from Dunwich. In fact, the additional gates that Innsmouth and Dunwich provide make Atlach-Nacha one of the rare Ancient Ones that might get a bit easier for a small group with more expansions.)

Dam said: GrooveChamp said: Yeah, it was the "may" that confused me. You pick one and can decide if you WANT to include the other too? Good lord isn't Dagon enough by himself. Dagon is a bad-ass no doubt, but Hydra, though I've seen it only once, looks very mild. Just +1 monster to Outskirts here and there. Of course, I'm still doing my IH GOO rotations, so no Cthulhu games yet. Hydra's not very problematic alone, but in my experience her abilities combine with Dagon's in a way that really ramps up his difficulty. The increased number of monsters in the Outskirts, both from the improved surges and the direct additions (and the relative unpredictability of when they'll be added--with Hydra, it's not only during the Mythos phase) means that a lot more doom is added and a lot more clues are lost with the pair than with Dagon alone. And of course the shortened Deep One Rising track means that more precious clues will likely need to be spent there, too. Add a few Personal Stories that fail to increase Terror or drain an investigator's clues and things can go south against the two of them very, very quickly.

... Oh, and a big thank you to Kevin for taking a continued interest in the gameplay and balance in your designs. I'm a big fan of your work, and know I'm not the only one in the community who appreciates your hands-on approach. Thanks for the hard work!

I almost never post here, but I'm breaking my silence to mention that I'm a huge fan of this idea, and hope it becomes official along with the Epic Battle variant that Tibs mentions. Anything that makes the final battle more difficult and thus more legitimate is in my opinion a terrific plus for the game. We never play with the cheesiness of saving up clues to defeat the Ancient One--I'm convinced that it's against the spirit of the game--but adding these rules makes the game more about strategic decisions than forcing the players to arbitrarily decide where the balance between spirit and losing outright begins. I'm equally convinced that the Epic Battle adjustment is necessary to make some Ancient Ones, particularly Hastur and Nyarlathotep, legitimate threats in combat, especially since spending clues outside of the final battle now makes strategic sense against them in conjunction with Kevin's suggestion in the OP. I love that the combination of these rules along with the threat of The End of Everything (and Nyarlathotep's Sinister Plots) means that they're not essentially auto-wins if the players gear up that way. I think this is particularly relevant as these two weakest-in-combat Ancient Ones benefit especially from forcing the players to spend clues or risk automatically losing on a bad Epic draw. If it looks like Nyarlathotep is about to awaken with the rules as currently written, it's hard to justify spending those five clues on the third gate to work towards a proper victory, but equally hard to justify saving them for a cheesy combat win. With the combination of these rules, though, it becomes more of a legitimate strategic choice as opposed to forcing the player to choose between spirit and mechanics. I can't see how this isn't beneficial to the game as a whole. In a more general sense, removing a few green Epic Battle cards simply adds variety, unpredictability, and thus fun and choices to the endgame for veterans. And really, isn't this what Epic combat was supposed to do in the first place? It would be nice not to know which cards are coming every time, and the red cards are too seldom seen to begin with (as I think FFG tacitly acknowledges with the Sinister Plots for Quachil Uttaus and Nyogtha).