Hem said:

Are you thinking of Umaro? That's FFIII/VI.

One problem with Wendigo is the one focus/low speed characters are basically only going to be using their focus to keep their speed intact. It seems almost a bit too crippling since they'll never be able to do anything involving closing gates or killing monsters.

johnwatersfan said:

Actually, that's not a problem, that's a design feature :') if they want to seal a gate they're going to have to carry an elder sign, extra clues, or they're going to have to let their speed drop. They're either going to have to trade for focus boosting allies, or speed boosts or they're going to have quite a bit of trouble. Strategy will need to be adjusted quite a bit to cope with winter :') As for killing monsters, that will need to be more of a specialized function (for high focus investigators— keep in mind, the wind doesn't blow in stable locations, so you can go back to one of those for a turn and bring your sliders back to normal). And of course, you will still have the rare three or infinite focus investigator capable of thriving despite the weather. And on the other hand, if you *really* think an investigator you draw can't deal with this herald, you can have them deliberately retired or devoured by spending a few turns deliberately losing in the streets. Personally, I'd just stick with whoever I drew, but I tend to be stubborn about these sorts of things :') I like to push against the wind.

Avi_dreader said:

lol

Im being half a kid While I personally would never be so hung up on the rules as worded, Im old and grizzled enough to know some people would be...

Avi_dreader said:

Their speed is ALREADY dropped. Speed three and one focus characters are going to get what, ONE movement per turn if they use their focus to increase it. It's practically a dead character. Imagine playing Ashcan Pete. "Okay, I'm using my one focus to move my movement slider to one, so I get one movement. Oh, now I'm in the streets and I lose one maximum stamina. I need to move my speed up to ONE and get to a stable location in order to wait there two turns in order to move my movement up to THREE so I can move somewhere and get a clue. Whew. Now i have one more clue. Oh, now I will use my ONE focus to raise my speed to ONE. I'm in the streets. I lose one maximum stamina. I'd better get to a stable location in order to wait there two turns in order to move my movement up to THREE so I can get a clue. Oh wait, the game is over because it's already bee like 8 turns?"

I mean I understand amping up the difficulty, but honestly, I think it's a bit ridiculous.

Try playing a four player game with Ashcan, Diana Stanley, Jenny Barnes, and William Yorick and see how far you make it. ;-)

Try playing a four player game with Ashcan, Diana Stanley, Jenny Barnes, and William Yorick and see how far you make it. ;-)

You forgot Luke. Since those are the only 5 Investigators out of 48 that qualify under the terms of your position, I hardly think that's breaking the game. And "silly" is in the eye of the beholder, of course. I think it's neat. But then, I think Trish is neat too, and she does a similar action every turn.

Yes, but Trish isn't limited to one focus, and her skills are set up in a way that makes sense for something like that to happen.

I mean yes, it's unlikely to happen, but really, any game where you have any one of those investigators with that Herald you might as well be playing with -1 investigators.

And even focus two/speed three characters are going to be forced into the streets any time they want to visit an unstable location, unless they just hang out in the same neighborhood for awhile, which is again crippling for time issues.

jgt7771 said:

Hey, if you want to actually four characters out of forty eight to hamper yourself, more power to you ;') I suggest you go to the bank and then the common item shop immediately and start trying to shop for motorcycles and maps. Also, get the patrol wagon ASAP. And of course, trade for those speed or focus allies :'D

Btw, if I remember my statistics correctly, the odds of drawing one of those in a four player game (even if you added in Luke) would be about 1 in 10, two would be 1 in 100, three would be 1 in 1,000 and four would be 1 in 10,000. I admire your determination to play my herald up to ten thousand times so that you may combat him with this team ;'D My suggestion? If you draw *only* three speed one focus investigators, mulligan. Although, honestly, from a purely theoretical point of view I don't think it's *that* much of an issue, still. You can keep their speeds up to max for your first gate sealing. Also, you can stock them with a few extra clues so they won't have to their speeds for sealing (i.e. use the clue tokens to make the rolls against the gate) or an elder sign. Sure, it'd be hard, but it wouldn't be impossible. Y'know, back in the day, we had to get three extra clues for Hastur too ;')

johnwatersfan said:

I very much disagree with this. Any game where your team draws a 3 speed investigator, it will be like they are playing with an extra handicap. Not a missing player. If they try to play the character like they normally would, then maybe. However, they're just going to have to alter their playing style for the 3 movement character if they want to adjust. One strategy would invove becoming the street sweeper and letting the winds give you two detriment cards, after which you could transfer all your items to another investigator, retire, and start anew with a fresh investigators (*with all your monster trophies* and new items), because trophies transfer.

In my opinion you need to adjust to fight my heralds well, play the game normally, and you will lose. Of course, I think you also need to adjust to fight the normal game well, but it allows for a greater degree of rigidity (you can play a suboptimal strategy and often not be effected, partially due to the safety net of final battle).

johnwatersfan said:

The winds only affect you if you end your turn in the streets. Why would you do that unless there was a monster you urgently needed to kill?

It's either end your turn in the streets, or hang out in a neighborhood for awhile. When you're have a speed of 2 your options aren't very high.

I disagree with you as well. I understand about changing your style of play, but a 3 speed/1 focus character really can't move anywhere to collect enough clues to seal a gate without pretty much being screwed. And yes, it may not happen, who knows? But I see it a lot like the BGotW herald, there's making the game harder, and then there's just silly.

I know I'm not forced to play with the herald, and since I don't own the game myself, I probably won't, but I guess the mechanics just seem a bit off to me.

johnwatersfan said:

You woudln't have a speed of two, you would just have to keep using your focus point to keep your speed at three while all your other sliders dropped to the far left. You would have to mainly rely on speed and luck (and will with combat weapons if you have any). That's how I would deal with a 3 movement 1 focus investigator if I drew one against this guy. If I were playing with a newbie I would allow them to redraw. If I really felt it would be to my advantage to keep that investigator for a while then get a new one (like Jenny), I would use her as a street sweeper then retire her. Btw, I don't know if you've noticed this, but most encounters involve luck, not lore, so the winds abilities will not remove investigators capacity for just picking up clue tokens (provided someone else is keeping the streets a bit unblocked.

Black Goat of the Woods is annoying for a number of reasons, first because it requires you to make a second monster cup which adds quite a bit of time to setup, second, it almost never lets you go to final battle, so one wonders what the point of even trying is-- at the same time, it does nothing to provide disincentives for just gearing up . It makes you spend more time on set-up, and less time actually playing the game. Or it forces you to play speed horror in which case the game feels more like solitaire (where whether you win or lose is determined entirely from the beginning based on your luck of deck set up).

I don't think you'd feel the same way about the mechanics if you owned the game and had played all the Ancient Ones countless times, (and loathe playing the base game AOs since they are so laughable in terms of difficulty level at this point). Also, I wouldn't want to play against Wendigo too often. That's the point of making her a herald, so *you don't have to* I do think she will modify the game enough to make the variant exciting. And really, if you think the game is too hard with entirely random investigators against her, no one is stopping you from not playing anyone with speed less than four and focus less than two. It's *your* choice. Of course, from my perspective that would be like redrawing sanity two investigators while playing Cthulhu, it takes out half the fun-- if anything, I would want to play Cthulhu with a team of *only* sanity 3 investigators... Oooo... Now there's an idea :'D

My bad. I shouldn't read and/or post while I'm on cold medication.

I thought the sliders moved ALL the way to the left. One space, okay, I don't have a problem with that. ;-)

Sorry!

johnwatersfan said:

::Laughter:: that's okay (it's not that I was upset or anything, I just thought you were insane, which is fine in Arkham), you're just going to have to apologize by playing the herald now ;')

Harold Square said:

Put the Mask monsters on his sheet. Each time the Terror Track goes up, an Investigator is Lost In Time And Space, or an Investigator spends any Trophies, place a Mask Monster at a random unstable location.

Stenun said:

Try Tiborvadovan's Nyarlathotep herald, it's top notch (and it also fixes final battle issues). It came out a few days ago, I thought it was an excellent and elegant solution.

direct link: http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/1717/thecrawlingchaosfrontfa.jpg

I think Nyaralthotep's power should lie in his Mask monsters. It's all very well making Nyaralthotep himself harder in the Final Fight or have more impact during the game, but this misses his point and turns him into just another Ancient One. Very few Ancient Ones stand out from the crowd - they are all much of a muchness with one or two exceptions. Nyaralthotep's Mask monsters make him an exception. I think any effort to make Nyaralthotep meaner should concentrate there, otherwise you might as well just put him back in the box and play against Cthugha instead ...

Stenun said:

::Shrug:: this herald does make his masks appear more frequently. As for leaving Nyarlathotep's final battle alone. No. ::Laughter:: seriously. Do you like winning all the time? He's still beatable in final battle like this, but it's not a sure thing. It won't just happen that you beat him *by accident* almost every time he wakes up.

Avi_dreader said:

Well once again we are getting in to an argument about different ways of playing. I could point to a game that I played tonight when four Investigators went into the Final Fight with just 5 Clue Tokens between them - three on one character, two on another. It wasn't against Nyaralathotep but even if it was I don't think it would have been much different.

Yes, there are players who spend the entire game gearing up for the Final Fight. But so what? There will always be players who do that, regardless of how hard you make the game or certain Ancient Ones. And if Nyaralthotep's Mask Monsters are given more power to make them nastier, well I for one would like to leave Nyaralthotep with a weak spot. No, I don't like winning all the time but I don't like never winning at all ...

avi-dreader, I finally found it :
images.google.fr/imgres

I knew it ! FFX !