Ok, so I've played about 4 or 5 games, each one better than the last mostly because each time we got a little closer to figuring out how everything works properly. So, that being said, I still have a few questions that I'd like to get answered before the next play session this afternoon.

1: If a monster is magic resistant and you try to cast bind monster on it, is the bonus to cast only +2? Or does magic resistance only apply to combat bonuses?

2: If there are say, four monsters in a location and you evade the first two but fail to evade the third, can you still try to evade the fourth? (That is assuming you've obviously killed the third one).

3: Does Kate Winthrops ability COMPLETELY stop a monster surge, or only prevent a monster from coming out of that one spot that she's in?

4: Are you delayed when you loose all stamina or sanity, or do you just go to Hospital / asylum for that round?

5: Do you come back from Lost in Time and space during movement, or upkeep?

6: The newspaper location has an encounter that says you can move and draw a new encounter, can you just choose to stay in newspaper and try another encounter there, or do you actually have to move first? (I hope so, otherwise seems pretty easy to exploit).

7: If Amanda Sharpe uses the Administration area, she looks at 3 cards, but does she keep 2, or just 1?

8: Blood drops on a monster token equal its toughness, which therefore equals the value of the monster when it becomes a trophy, but what if there's a card that states monster is X tougher? Does that mean it's worth more as a trophy too?

9: If an encounter says a gate and a monster appears, do both the gate and the monster stay on board? Also, does that gate cause a doom token to be placed on the big bad?

10: Why does Cthulu eat my face all the time, it's rude.

Hi,

I've only recently started playing too and I found this file on BGG most helpful in clarifying some of the rules you are unsure about above

http://files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/4b8dy3id2q/ArkhamHorrorRulesReference.pdf

hope it helps

Welcome to the game both of you!

1) I always played that you must halve the bonus. If it has magical immunity, spell does not work at all.

2) Ive always played this way yes.

3) Only the place she is in is protected, monsters appear everywhere else. But if she is on the surge location, none of them can appear there, even though this breaks the rule about allocation.

4) You just go to the location, and have nothing else that turn.. However, from time to time, I delay them by house rule. Just because it makes sense.

5) Upkeep

6) You must move. Instructions must be carried out where possible, not ignored as it pleases.

7) Just 1.

8) Yes, all modifiers in play count.

9) yes - and yes and yes!! Those encounters can screw you baad! I had 4 in one turn once, and a double doomer in the mythos phase. Result: Yig awakens on turn 3

10) Tastes like chicken.

1) Magical resistance (or indeed immunity) doesn't affect this check.

2) Yes, you can try to evade the fourth.

3) Not sure. We play it as complete prevention (it's rare enough, anyway, that Kate's on a gate that she hasn't closed first time and then has a monster surge - might as well have a bit of a break)

4) Go to the hospital/asylum and lose the rest of your turn.

5) Upkeep. Often you'll want to stay where you've returned to fight monsters/pick up clues/go back through the gate/have an encounter, of course.

6) If it says "move to another location" you have to move. If it says "move to any location" you can stay there and try again. It's not *that* exploitable - sooner or later you'll spill some ink or have something else bad happen to you.

7) Still only keeps 1!

8) If there's an environment/Ancient One power/etc in play that makes monsters tougher, then the trophies are tougher too. Spend those cultists while the Festival is out!

9) Yes, they stay, and yes, it's a doom token.

10) He does that.

Am I using house rules when I count magical immunity as immunity to spells, and halve bonuses from resistance? Frak! Ill have to change that!

Hmm, some disagreement between us there (3 or 4 out of 10's not that bad for the obscure stuff!):

1 ... it *might* not work on Magically Immune monsters, but I believe it does (Red Sign does, after all, you just can't cancel the Magical Immunity property with it). Magical Resistance certainly doesn't affect the casting check (do you also halve the Dread Curse of Azathoth casting modifier versus magically resistance creatures?). It's a cast and discard spell. If it's no better than Shrivelling or Dread Curse then what's the point.
(conversely, because it's a casting check, Agnes wouldn't get a +2 bonus to the check for the hands, either)
It's the difference between the Spell Check (not affected by Resistances) and the Combat Check (definitely affected by Resistances)

3 is one of those unanswered questions, I believe. Play it either way as you prefer, until FFG clarifies it. dj2.0 is probably going to be right on this one eventually.

5 See page 17 of the AH rulebook.

yep already corrected 5) I dont think Ive ever moved after being LiTaS. Its usually straight to the loony bin, intensive care or another gate.

3) Maybe. Its also possible that FFG will see the simplest and most game balancing solution is to nullify the entire surge, giving Kate a boost of her ability.

So, there has been an offical ruling on magical immunity vs non combat spells? But not any word on resistances?

Thanks guys for the responses it's very helpful and very appreciated. I look forward to playing more of this game, and will have to pick up an expansion soon. Thanks again.

Youre welcome. AH is very simple once you have played a few times, but even after years of play you will find cases where two or more cards or instructions and cards will conflict or be ambiguous. Arkham has lots of little nuances that can take time to iron out. And in many of these cases we await an official word, other than "choose the option that screws the investigators the most". Id argue this is one of its great strenghts as it is extremely customisable.

IWith bind monster I've assumed that you get the full bonus since magical resistance and immunity halves or removes bonuses granted to combat checks from spells and weapons. Bind monster is a spell check taken to see if you can bind the fiend not fight it as such.

And if I remember correctly it's also a discard spell to balance out its potency. I may be totally worng though, it's just how I have interpreted it.

The rulebook is clear, yes, but many things in the rulebook have been clarified and added to here online, I am still wondering if anything was said about this.

Yep, Bind Monster works on Colour Out of Space normally and as mentioned is balanced by being a "cast and discard" spell. Now, if they'd just rule the Immunity vs Shotgun/Magical Shotgun text nullified as well...

Dam said:

I've seen a few other posts mention this, but what exactly is the confusion over the shotgun?

Is it clarification over whether the 6 counts as 2 successess is still valid with a creature with physical resistance/immunity?

Also, I don't want to hijack this thread (but I think I am about to), but Cursed Relics (from CotDP) appeared last night. The way that card reads (raise terror level each time a doom is moved from CR to the terror track, then the failure condition is raise terror level by 1 for each doom on the terror track) does that mean that if none of the dooms are prevented from being moved onto the terror track (and so terror level is 5, assuming initial terror level of 0), then when the failure condition kicks in, the terror level raises to 10?

basically does each doom moved from the CR card to the terror track actually result in the Terror track being raised by 2?

That's how we played it, but its a pretty harsh card if someone doesn't have an exhibit items to burn and so the investigators end up having to dump unique items to prevent the terror track rising too high (that's what happened to us as our investigators were desperately trying to find encounters that would award some unique items, cause we couldn't simply pop to the shop as it was blocked by numerous scary monsters!)

I don't think there's any confusion about the shotgun. A lot of people think it's lame that the shotgun has any effect at all on creatures with physical immunity.

avec said:

"Physically immune" probably means that the creature is only harmed negligibly by a few bullets or fire or what have you. But nothing's completely immune to a facefull of buckshot!

Including Wraiths and Colors Out of Space, which strikes me as silly.

pumpkin said:

Yes, that's what Cursed Relics does. Yes, it can be incredibly nasty. (Conversely, if you have any non-Mask exhibit items, you can just exhaust them to pass the rumour trivially, and it's five turns guaranteed not to get a nasty rumour starting.)

cim said:

When you mention that the rumour can be passed using NON-MASK items, is that a rule clarification somewhere that mask items can't be exhausted to pass this rumour because exhausting them has a specific effect within game (i.e. their actual effect?) or is that a house rule?

The CR card itself doesn't say mask cards can't be used.

No its fine but there are problems which are evident when you look at the mask cards. When a mask exhausts, you cannot refresh it in upkeep so its not there for you next turn to use. Also, if you exhaust the mask and use its written effect, you have used that card and it cannot be used again to pay the cost of Curse Relics. In other words its pay the cost of CR, or put on the mask, but not both. They are basically not good items for dealing with this rumour. I think this is what cim meant.

pumpkin said:

This has been ruled, I think on the old forums. I don't like it (nor does ColtsFan), but them's the breaks. Mainly I don't like it because it cheapens to Rumor.

So they totally banned the use of masks for CR? why?

dj2.0 said:

No, I meant that allowing the exhaust of any Exhibit Item cheapens the Rumor, it's just flip-flop it 5 times, done. Hardest part is getting an EI with everything in the mix, but I'll happily chuck Unique Items against that Rumor, Tomes and Missions are especially nice.

Ah understood, yeah I dont ilike it either, the mechanic is clunky and the cost to pass too low.

avec said:

Hey, if you can wrestle one to death, then it's not so silly to think that they might cave to a shotgun blast to the face (or whatever the color has).

Tibs said:

Touché