Step One: Set up a two investigator game with Patrice and Silas.

Step Two: Have Silas be devoured on first turn when a gate to Ry'leh opens on him.

Step Three: Draw Tommy Muldoon as replacement.

Step Four: Have Patrice gain a silly amount of clue tokens from encounters, gates opening, finding them on the board and reading the King in Yellow.

Step Five: Pass Patrice's personal story, gaining even more clue tokens.

Step Six: Tommy Muldoon should then draw an innsmouth look card, the only one drawn in the game, and succumb. Passing personal story, and gaining Patrice five more clue tokens.

Step Seven: Draw Agnes to replace him. Make sure to draw Grapple (or whatever the +1 to all dice roll with fight check) skill is called, along with dread curse of Azathoth (My god what a powerful combination Agnes + Dread Curse is).

Step Eight: Have lucky encounter where Agnes is blessed.

Step Nine: Have encounter from CotDP where you have memories with a sacrificial knife, doubling clue tokens and getting cursed if more than three are gained. Patrice, at the time, had a whopping 21 clue tokens. 42 it is, gents. We only had enough to give her 38.

Step Ten: With Zhar at 5 doom tokens, five gates sealed and Deep one track at only 3 with five tokens on fed raid track, pat self on back for a handy win.

Step Eleven: Realize you just jinxed yourself as Zhar pulls one of his double gate things twice, which moves enough monsters into portals to fill the deep one track.

Step Twelve: Curse loudly.

Step Thirteen: Realize that one character hits on threes, and the other one has 42 sharable clue tokens.

Step Fourteen: Beat the stuffing out of Zhar. (To his credit, at the end only Patricia was left and managed to take the last doom token off right before she was grabbed).

Still, I don't think Zhar can be beaten in final combat without an extremely rediculous combination like that. Also, Patricia is definitely the most powerful.

Rules Question: Should Patricia gain five doom tokens when Zhar's doom track is filling to full as the ninth one is placed? We ruled no, because honestly she already had too many as it was and we didn't have any more to spare.

Graksnor said:

Patricia is a one-time thing, the first time it hits 9. I guess you didn't use KW's suggested Clue Variant for final combat? Can only use X Clues per turn in final combat, X = # of elder signs on the board?

I did eek a final combat draw against Zhar myself, Patricia and Roland were among the 4 investigators. Mythos Blessed all 4 the turn before Zhar woke up. Of course, I was 1 turn away from sealing his ass, so I was not exactly happy. Also, in 3 games so far, that's 30+ gate openings, 0 doubles for Zhar's slumber party have been rolled .

No, that is a good rule, but we haven't implemented it yet. We were spending somewhere around 12-16 clues / round, and only had five on the board.

Also, the question referred to this situation: Zhar was only at doom track 5, and woke up. So I filled the track as normal, placing one at nine on the way to placing all eleven. Does Patricia gain those five clue tokens?

I'd say she doesn't gain those tokens, no. I'm not going to make logical arguement 'cos even if logic and official ruling suggest otherwise , I'd be platying it as "no"

- Mariana the (completely objective and non-biased) ex-nun cultist

Mariana the Ex-Nun Cultist said:

What, if the GOO wakes up from other than doom track filling up, you don't fill up the doom track ? When you fill the doom track, 9th space will also get filled I would think.

I play that Patrice would get her clues. Final combat operates differently than the rest of the game, but doesn't implicitly override any rules. In addition to granting Patrice's clues, I would also:

• Heal Diana Stanley from the added doom tokens when filling up the doom track
• Give Diana clue tokens when the terror level went up (Glaaki, usually)
• Allow personal stories still to be passed/failed during final combat, if at all possible
• Fail any personal stories that were dependent on the doom or terror track getting too high
• Remove a doom token if Tommy fails his personal story

On the other hand, I would not allow Roland's special ability to work in final combat. If it works in final combat with Nyarlathotep, Roland becomes immune. For consistency's sake, it should not work during any final combat. Officially, he doesn't receive money anyway; it's the clues that are the problem.

It's probably time to start blocking Investigator Upkeep Abilities completely. Or maybe you can use them ONCE in the "upkeep" before the Final Battle Begins, and then any ability dependent on it being an Upkeep Phase are negated. Any "upkeep phase" after the first one is for Refreshing, Casting Spells, and moving sliders. Any Investigator with a passive ability (Joe, Daisy, Harvey, etc.), or ones that work with sliders (Trish, Lily, Wilson), operate as normal. Thematically, there's just no TIME to do some of those Upkeep Abilities anyway.

jgt7771 said:

Maybe Carolyn is repeating some mantra to soothe the mind, Vinny is laying on hands or whatever.

jgt7771 said:

I know where you're going with this but there probably isn't even enough time to reload the flamethrower or even the shotgun (let alone wonder where the endless shotgun shells come from). And how many times can one really swing the Sword of Glory hacking at the foot of a cyclopean alien? I only go through the final battle if I'm playing with others. If I can't seal or close IT off, I and all my friends are just goners.

At this point Im considering ruling that use of Upkeep abilities on investigator sheets in final combat forfeits the next attack they make. Adding this to the elder signs=clue cap and the Great Old Ones Really Great variants and using Epic Battle will make it considerably tougher.