I will only put the strong monsters for debate. No point of putting cultsits, etc. No spawns/masks would be included, either. Also I'm aware the title says "strongest" but you should really choose the monster that has the largest impact.

vs.

vs.

Yithians and Cthonians are nasty little buggers, but Shan takes takes the cake and hands down. I would not want to meet him in an other world without a few clues or a will of 5. Thoughts?

Previous Great Debates

The Shan is always scary to encounter, and a really bad roll can spell death—but it's otherwise not hard to kill. The Chthonian however, is tough AND an obstacle that never moves AND will mess with everybody across the board if not dealt with. The other triangles can't claim that.

I always like to look at the worse case scenarios. WCS with Cthonian=knocked uncounscios. WCS with Shan=devoured.

I will vote for Cthonian on this issue. Whenever it appears everyone in my gaming group ends up losing 2-3 stamina, as we can never seem to get around to dealing with it. The Shan is pretty nasty, but generally easy to take out.

I'm with Tibs too. In my little experience I saw cthonians unbalancing the game a lot, when not eliminated quickly. And often you're too near the edge to let this happen!

I vote Chtonian simply because they are tough to kill have the most potential impact, but I don't really have issues with any triangle monsters. Chthonians normally only do 1 point of damage to a handful of investigators before we get rid of them.

The Shan is a total non-factor. Unless you happen to run into it from a 'monster appears!' type encounter (Which the chances of that are extremely low) it's easy enough to lock it in the sky with the other flying monsters. Definantly not a bit threat.

Chthonian under most circumstance. If Yog is the GOO, Yithians win. But for the most part, I'd agree with Chthonian, for all the aforementioned reasons.

Cthonian

Affects on everyone in the Arkham making their lives miserable.

Yithian. It's the most difficult to sneak of the three and tends to move into the way.

kroen said:

If you're talking Worst Case Scenarios, then every monster's equally awful because getting a duplicate Injury or Madness card will devour you.

Tibs said:

Booyah! Way to break through some flimsy logic there, Tibs.

The Cthonian is the worst. Obviously there's a limit to how bad something can be just based on high stats, but the Cthonian has very high stats.

Being devoured isn't all that bad. Neither is being LiTaS. In many cases, either of those things can really save your bacon.

I don't know about you, but I get attached to my investigators. Even if they have crappy stuff and are severely crippled. I once had an investigator with 7 corruptions, 2 injuries and 2 madnesses who got devoured and I was really sad about it. He didn't have great stuff, either.

Also drawing a duplicate of an injury/madness is way too rare, whereas failing a horror check against a shan can be pretty common.

kroen said:

I sometimes do, but somethings I get so heartily sick of them that I just want to get them eaten alive as soon as possible! So in those situations, a Shan can come in very handy.

Never happened to me.

Sadly we're not all blessed with your sunny outlook on life.

Since Glaaki haunts my dreams, I'm in a constant state of Glaaki-fear mode. That is, I try my best not to allow an investigator to be devoured for fear of what bad things will come, even if that investigator is hobbling around with only one arm, no items, and an outstanding loan. Clue tokens are still very precious, and I have a hard time parting with someone who has them.

Come to think of it—I haven't retired anyone in a long time. I need to remember all my options.

Tibs said:

I've never retired anyone. One game I was playing Mark Harrigan. I had three madnesses and an injury. The Madnesses and Injury kept me from picking up clue tokens and I couldn't hold more than four, so I just roamed the streets of Arkham with only my flamethrower (all my other items had been lost or sacraficed when I was unconcious/insane). Eventually I became deputy and I wondered why the Sheriff would give a very insane, near-sighted, emotionally scarred war veteran, with a flamethrower the keys to a Patrol Wagon.

Because that insane veteran is just as qualified to be Deputy as the little girl is. So of COURSE Engle's giving up the car. He knows best!

Tibs said:

Hehe, Tibs, your hate of Engle is reaching me vs Avi or me vs KH kinda levels .

Dude, he doesn't have a very good track record. Just look who else he hired. In my experience, Dingby is only capable of locking me up or shooting me by mistake.

He sure cleans that gun a lot.