Hi guys,

I've noticed a lot of folks talking about clue shotgunning Ancient Ones in Final Battle, and I wanted to see what folks thought of the following rule:

An investigator can spend no more clues each round of combat during the Final Battle than there are elder sign tokens (i.e. sealed gates) on the board.

It rewards progress made before the Ancient One awakens, which I feel is important, and forces investigators to survive longer in order to defeat the Ancient One. I'd like it if folks would try it out as a house rule for now. It may see life as an official rule or variant later on if y'all like it.

I'm all for that. Those times I've had multiple Clues, I've also tended to have 4+ seals on the board.

OT: How's about ruling no-no on the Shotgun vs Phys. Immunity (as far as the 6 = 2 success) go ? Ditto for the magical Shotgun spell from KiY (?) .

Sounds good to me, especially as my focus is on sealing gates rather than girding for battle.

i am against, in my play group we need all the help we can get, plus it is wrong to have a limit on clue using in just the final battle. If you put all that work into getting clues, lets be able to use them! Plus any word on new expansions Kevin? Just thought it wouldnt hurt to ask!

pittplayer said:

Thing is (from my POV), if you've done the work as you put it in collecting them, why wouldn't you go the extra mile and seal gates ? I've lost to Nyarly because I don't stock up on Clues. There have been a couple of exceptions of late, namely a game with Patrice (even then had 5 seals down when Zhar woke) and today with Gloria, who incidentally never made it through an OW jaunt with 8 Clues because the Mythos + Rhan-Tegoth were an avalanche of doom tokens.

Um. I like it. You know how I am for rules that emphasize sealing and discourage early gearing up.

I still play a version of that rule you invented, where six green Epic Battle cards are removed, then one added back in for each seal. That should be considered as official. Keeps the investigators guessing as to which green card(s) won't be seen, if they know the deck well enough.

ok what we dont need is new rules that dont need to be! do you know how many people dont buy Arkham Horror because it is so much work with all the bits and pieces and all the things going on at once! if something is not broke it doesnt need a new rule! how about reducing the rules with more elegant rules to make the game not a big chore of bookkeeping? I love arkham horror but i dont need more stuff to remember! i know the diehards disagree but i am diehard to i just want to be having more fun then i am having with all the rules that are confusing.

Interesting idea. In our games, the situation rarely comes up -- usually people keep what clues they might have to pass the AO's attack, if applicable. There have been a few egregrious assaults involving people like Skids or Mandy with a boatload of clues, though.

Somewhat off-topic, but somewhat on. Assuming he can hit and Epic Battle isn't in play, doesn't the Fed always defeat Nyarlatothep due to his clue generation ability?

mattherobot said:

No, he only gains 1 during Upkeep. Any time you're at 0 Clues when Nyarly attacks, you're devoured. That is, Nyarly attacks, you lose your last Clue (or were at 0 even if you passed the Lore check), poof you go.

Dam said:

Well, okay, assume he passes the first check or has a clue to start with, then, and doesn't do anything stupid. Go from 1 to 2 in Upkeep, 2 to 1 in AO attack, repeat. Against any other AO it's not a big deal (might get one extra turn vs Abhoth, if you pass the story and are careful with the order of discards) and no more or less powerful than Mythos Lore (which is a strong skill, I admit) against most other AOs.

On the original topic, I like the idea. Any team that's at least trying for seals should barely notice. I can't think of any game that we'd have lost with this rule that we otherwise won (I can think of plenty where we'd have won the fight anyway, as even on those AOs where you don't want to save clues for their attack, it only means surviving the first round or so, and plenty where everything went wrong really fast and we woke up the AO with only a single seal down and then got eaten). If you just go for clue+weapon collection to get an easy combat win, though, being restricted to 1 or 2 clues a turn would really hurt, which is presumably the idea.

It might even be enough to make the restriction only apply to the combat checks - using lots of clues to pass spell checks to get Shrivelling working at all, or to save your final monster trophy, seems to fit the "desperate attempt to stay alive" that final battle should be.

It's a tricky one to test, though - teams like mine that like trying for sealing victories won't notice it much, whereas teams that like collecting stuff for a fight aren't likely to want to try the rule out...

cim said:

Whoops, you're right. Guess that just shows how much I've ever really thought about final combats .

A nice idea, has theme (weakening the AO with seal thus allowing the use of more clue tokens) but not something I would use at the mo. Maybe turn it into a difficulty card?

I like themed ideas that make a final battle more credible. Lets face it, if any of the AO woke that would be the end so it makes sense that the AO has been weakened somehow to make fighting it a possibility. Also, there is the fact that sometimes it can feel a little anti-climatic when the last gate is closed or the final seal is down and the game ends. So I was thinking, how about if when the AO wakes due to gate limit, etc the players lose (as if Azathoth was in play). But, if they meet the gate closure/sealing requirements the investigators have weakened the AO to the point where a confrontation is possible and they can fight the AO (In the case of Azathoth gate closure/seals would keep him away so normal vanilla win, he is the trainer AO still after all). I don't think it really breaks anything in the game, but of course it does take away that last chance of a victory in the vanilla final battle.

Erm, I guess this has gone off topic, sorry.

Hi

I don't usually play through the final battle. Could someone explain what exactly "clue shotgunning Ancient Ones in Final Battle" is?

Thanks

Collct Clues + Shotgun, use all the Clues on the first attack. Often combined with Blessing + Mandy Thompson. That 32 Clues + Shotgun to kill Cthulhu in 1-shot will never leave my brain .

Basic setup is not to use Clues for anything, just gather (doesn't work against Yibb-Tsll or Azathoth) them, ignore gates, etc. If not fully ignore gates, then start hoarding them when final combat starts looking likely.

As a variant or House Rule, I think it's nifty. But I don't think it's necessary for me. I don't "shotgun Clues", and I think that people who do are fully aware of what they're doing; no late-addition nerf is going to stop them.

On the Nyarlathotep v Roland in final battle ussue, I repeat my one man ..., er <cough> I mean woman , campaign:

No Investigator Special Ability Shall Apply in the Final Battle

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist

That's a nice rule.

We don't usually fight Ancient Ones since we consider that kind of victory a "draw", but i remember seeing a Blessed Joe Diamond with a Fight Skill Card and a Shotgun removing about half the AO's Doom Track.

At first, I would have thought of such a rule to work according to and Investigator's Focus, but I prefer Kevin's way- so that investigators are somehow rewarded by their almost vain efforts.

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).

...

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 think that there should be a minimum of 1 or 2 that seals add to. Every so often, Yigg will just wake up in four turns or something stupid and it would be nice to be allowed to use one's clues at all in such an instance.

Of course, this rule will basically make the Dust Man unbeatable in final battle (rather than merely very difficult as he currently stands). Which for an Ancient One who is supposed to be on hard mode is I suppose fine.

-Frank

Hi all! I like the rule. I think that investigators should try to avoid the final battle by all means and I like the way Kevin's idea encourages players to seal gates. However, I'm sure Kevin (and his team) can develope further that "seal gates or face a stronger AO" mechanism. For example, a new deck meaning the efforts of the cultists to awake the ancient one. If final battle starts, draw inmediately 6 - (number of seals) cards from that deck and put them in play. They can improve AO, force investigators to discard items or clues, and so.

Cheers

Good idea Kevin!

Leon said:

You could always add extra doom tokens to the track depending on how many seals are placed e.g. add (5-seals).

I'd sure this has been suggested before (Tibbs? perhaps)

- Mariana the ex-nun Cultist

Yeah I used to play that way (before the new Epic Battle version I mentioned), but it is StormKnight's rule: add 7 doom tokens, and subtract 2 for each seal on the board. I don't play that way anymore because it's messy, and the EB variant gets the job done.

That rule sure sounds good to me. I'm with the group of players that focus on sealing and winning the game by any means necessary to avoid final combat. I personally find it extremely boring to just collect clues and weapons and gearing up to the final struggle. Epic Battle cards make it a bit more passable, but it still does not make it something I would be looking forward to.

BTW, I've never gotten the idea behind the Shotgun vs. Physical Immunity...How does the rolling of sixes nullify the immunity? What's the difference, it's still immune to it...What have I missed

pahapasi said:

I think the idea is that the shotgun still makes 6s count as double ene though you get no actual dice from the gun. So you "use" the shotgun (+0 dice) and any dice from your fight and clues count as doubles.

It never occured to me to do this. I first saw it mentioned on the old boards as a way of taking down ghosts.

Not sure I like it much though.

- Mariana the ex-nun cultist