Hey everyone!

I recently started an Arkham gaming group, which has been absolutely amazing! I actually managed to teach seven of my friends how to play and they absolutely love it!

Over the past few weeks, I decided that it would be a good idea to keep track of any rules we had questions on so that I could ask the forum for clarification. We've only come up with a few so far, so I hope that some of you can offer your help!

1. Finn Edwards starts the game with a Bank Loan and $8. The Arkham Wiki states that the $8 is left over from his Bank Loan, so you don't start the game with any more than the initial amount. So, my question is: what's the point of Finn having the Bank Loan? His effects make it so he suffers no loss of money or items, so the Bank Loan can literally do nothing to harm him if he fails his checks. Why have him start with the card if it's effectively useless? Is it purely thematic? Is there something I'm missing?

2. Can you purposefully fail a skill check by simply not rolling any dice? This is primarily in regards to the Nightgaunt's effect, which states that you are sucked through the closest gate if you fail a combat check against it.

3. The skill Mental Fortitude states "After making any Horror check , exhaust to add 1 success to the result." What if your character's Will is set to "0" for the turn? If you can't roll any dice for your horror check, can you still exhaust Mental Fortitude to add a success? Or would you have to spend a clue token to make the check and if failed, then you could exhaust Mental Fortitude?

4. How do you pronounce "Dunwich?" Haha. Do you accentuate the "W" or is it pronounced "Dun-itch?" My friend and I were discussing this. I personally refuse NOT to pronounce the "W," but I'd love to know the truth, haha.

Thanks in advance! I can't wait to hear back from you guys!

Hi Ben! Welcome to the Carnival An congrats for getting such a great game as Arkahm is!

Now to your questions:

1. There's a balance in each investigator starting possessions: each item, skill, extra point of sanity / stamina and so on have a specific value, and the sum for all these values is constant for every character. For example, each random Common Item is worth 3 dollars (while balancing the characters), each Skill 10 dollars and so on. Specific Items cost exactly their written cost (lower right corner of the card). The sum of all of this stuff is 35 for each character. And so on. Finn's Bank Loan is needed to justify the greater need of stuff he starts with, and they decided to give him the possibility not to be worried about that. So, that's it. He can anyhoo choose to pay for it (and gain another one later during the game - no need for this, honestly); if you don't pay for that (never met anyone wanting to pay for it, anyhoo), and you fail the check, you'll score 1 less point at the end of the game.

2. Nope, rolling is compulsory. You can decide not to add items to boost your checks, tho (hence, for instance, you fight the Nightgaunt keeping the Sword of Glory in your backpack). Additionally, if you're interested in failing the Nightgaunt combat check, the easiest way to go is trying to fail the Evade check: in case you fail an Evade check, the monster damages you, so that you get the advantage without need to roll for Sanity

3. If you don't have any dice to roll, you fail the check and you can certainly trigger Mental Fortitude. It's 0 success +1, check (probably) passed. No need to spend clues.

4. I certainly pronounce the /u/ sound in lieu of the /a/ sound on the first syllabe. The /w/ is not so marked, too

Hope this helps

JULIA

I have a doubt. Let's suppose i have 3 of health at the moment and my max health is 5. If i lose one of max health my max will drop to 4. But my actual health continues to be 3 or it drops to 2? (there's almost an year i don't play AH so i 4got entirely about this rule)

If the card / effect states "reduce your max Stamina / Sanity" and your current value is lower, you have the max reduced accordingly, but the current value unchanged.