Admiral142 said:

It's pretty nasty ;') I'd definitely preselect investigators against it.

Veet said:

Veet, you got the point :-) Aerial locations are *nasty* places but you can exploit them for keeping flying gates into unstable locations and thus seal them. Clearly, this is easier in case you play with many expansion boards, otherwise the combo Black Cave + Unvisited Isle, once seales, is not any longer exploited. And thank you for clarifying the Lurker thing (it's an expansion I love but for many and different reasons - hint: Avi's league and other ten leagues I'm playing - I still use old gates, and I usually do some confusion with the rules). And yes again, my hope was also to promote a little the White Ship

And yeah! If you playtest it, it'd be lovable to have a feedback :-)

Admiral142 said:

Hi Admiral!

Thank you for the feedback :-) I usually prefer nasty Heralds to nasty AOs, they allow you more combinations :-) (and it's part of a series of Heralds I'm planning to create since I do-not-remember-when transponing monster movements to gate movements... at the moment I've created a Herald forcing gates to move via aquatic movement, this Herald here with flying gates, and in my mind I have some ideas to trasform "green border monsters special movements" to gates. It's kinda difficult, but before summer finishes - yeah, I'm quite slow - I hope to have a first draft of it)

And yes, you're right, it's rather though. I'm planning a curious game with this dude here + Shub + Black goat of the Woods (all the Shubby family gathered at once)

Avi_dreader said:

;')

I didn't get a chance to play-test this last night, I ended up staying up late roasting marshmallows with my boy in the back yard. He's 3 and likes to grab at tokens saying "Whats this?" which once ended with me sticking my arm down a vent searching for clues for a half hour, so often my arkham window is small and tenuous. I'll try again tonight.

Veet said:

;-) I'd rather prefer having a kid to roast marshmellows with rather than playing with any of my Heralds :-) No rush, but thanks for posting

Julia said:

Yeah, I would agree that roasting marshmellows with your kid in a wonderful family moment is probably quite a bit nicer and more heartwarming than the potential End of the World and Doom of All Mankind.

Julia said:

Very original ideas! Is the aquatic movement herald posted in this forum? I really liked the idea of moving gates when I read about them in the Lurker. They seem similar to rifts, but easier to deal with. I'd really like to see something done with rifts, but it seems like people tend to shy away from them. One thing I did with my custom expansion (that I am currently sloooooowly reworking), is add rift counters for Arkham locations, so that a rift could open in an Arkham location. I was originally thinking of making Cerberus deal with rifts, but went with moving gates instead.

Sure! It's called "R'lyeh awakens", but you can check it directly here if you prefer!

Enchancing rift mechanic can be good, I'm still thinking about this, but it's rather difficult to implement. Can't wait to see your results (I really enjoyed some of your creations used by Avi in his custom league :-))

So if a guy makes a Batman Investigator, something like this is the inevitable follow up.

He requires the Blight cards because A) I just got the King in Yellow expansion and B) It very much fits his theme.

Veet said:

Tell him to get a clue, not take a clue ;') (wit and sarcasm are wasted on the young though).

Master Ffiffo, while you were able to make me edge around my normal rule against printing custom investigators, this goes too far! I will not print a custom monster, my fingers need the feel of cardboard or throat ;') besides, I think the idea could use a bit of work. You could use a unique monster as a joker proxy. Perhaps the Dhole :'D (and make it a stalker, flying, or fast). My preference would be a twice moving stalker :'D

Even if you don't do this, I run this madhouse now is likely to accelerate the terror track too fast. The game will be over in a matter of turns. You'd need to make it either die roll dependent, or make it so that the Joker doesn't respawn as often. Of course, if you slowed down the terror increases, you could just make it so a blight comes into play whenever the terror increases. Simpler mechanic.

Also, you might want to give cultists Nightmarish 1 or possibly even Nightmarish 2. Clowns are scary! Making them not count against the monster limit would also be a good idea. Also, allow investigators to be devoured without penalty is potentially game breakingly easy (players can exploit this for about $15 worth of items and cash per turn per investigator). I'd also raise the terror level whenever an investigator was devoured or draw a blight (or both if you tie the two together).

Avi_dreader said:

Zombieland docet!

Avi_dreader said:

RE: Terror - The idea was that he was supposed to be on a Street area , not anywhere on the board. So for it to go up, he'd have to spawn, get a movement, and then survive a turn (as he's on the streets at the BEGINNING of the Mythos phase for it to go into effect) a minimum of 3 turns, which is long time for the monster to be on the board. He's not a terribly tough monster to kill, so that should work.

RE: Cultists - Good call on Nightmarish! Not against the Monster Limit is probably a bit much though.

RE: Devoured - People keep telling me this, but I'm not sure I believe it. Being Devoured IS the penalty. Your character is gone (tragic if it's a good character) and you lose all your stuff - everything you had, correct? Sure you might not have madness or injury anymore, but you're well behind anybody who hadn't died thusfar (unless they've had exceptionally bad luck). Is there anything I'm missing on being devoured?

Julia said:

That part freaked me out. Don't throw a god **** clown in a zombie movie!

Master Fwiffo said:

This is only a penalty if you're a roleplayer who identifies with your characters rather than an all controlling force from beyond the stars willing to crush the puny human things into pulp if that is what is necessary to defeat your Ancient One enemy. Or something ;'D

But seriously, if you play this like a strategy game, tactical devouring can be a *very* good tactic. You get brand new investigator equipment and cash to trade away before killing off your investigator again.

Yes if you have an easy way to devour investigators you can just have them all meet at one location offload all their cash and items to one then devour the rest and you get more cash and items. Also I think that making a spawn monster endless is redundant.

I like the Batman/Bruce Wayne investigator(s?), but I think I prefer this version of the Joker that was posted on BGG a while back...

Veet said:

But isn't that true of any way to get Devoured? I mean, this guy: javascript:void(0);/*1302740698144*/ is an easy to get devoured. The Innsmouth Look is an easy way to get Devoured. And heck, Azatoth will munch up anybody who gets Lost and Time and Space. Couldn't you unload your stuff and throw yourself at a Dimensional Shambler?

The idea is that I want going Insane when the Joker's about to have a risk much greater than just losing half your items. Yeah, it could possibly be abused, but what happens when you've got your clues, your heading toward the gate, and sudden you're surprised by the Hounds of Tinadlos or something?

What would you guys do?

Master Fwiffo said:

(I think you meant that Yog-Sothoth provides an easy devour for LiTaS. Azathoth doesn't do much to the game.)

Have a notable negative effect for being devoured in that manner...that's probably the best way to prevent it from being used tactically.

I think the reason it stands out particularly well with monsters as a way to use tactical devouring is that you can generally avoid monsters pretty well until the time comes that you want to do it, and when you do want to, you can pretty easily ensure it happens by pushing your relevant stat down horrendously and just choosing not to use weapons or other stuff to aid you. With more random effects like Yog-S's LiTaS effect, it has a larger chance of being randomly sprung on you when you've got good items, and a lesser chance of being able to be used intentionally (certain monsters like the shambler aside).

So, yeah, having a notable penalty for being devoured is pretty necessary if you want to oppose that tactic. It surprised me too. :-P The cultist thing might work if cultists are Very Bad to get with this herald, but if it's not too much worse than your normal cultist that won't be enough. Like Avi said, if you want to oppose that tactic, do something horrible when the investigators get devoured: raise the terror level, add a doom token, draw a blight, or something like that.

P.S.: Isn't Joker normally called the C l own Prince of Crime, not the C r own Prince of Crime?

Also there is only 1 moon beast and 1 dimensional shambler out of 134 monsters. You stand a less than 1% chance of running into those guys in a given draw. They way you have it set up there is a 100% chance of running into the Joker.......and I challenge you to get devoured by the innsmouth look deck by trying.

(edit) excuse me there are 2 of each but the point still holds at less than 2%

Sdrolion said:

A blight would be a good call, but I still think you guys are overblowing how 'good' getting Devoured can be.

And you are right, it is indeed the Clown Prince of Crime, easily fixable.

Master Fwiffo said:

When a Moonbeast or a Shan randomly appears, they are often a blessing in disguise (unless time is short and they disrupt your movement) or if they appear on a character by surprise. When they are on the board, they can be used in the investigators favor. Especially if they're there for a long time. Shan's a bit harder to exploit since it will move back into the sky, and you might end up waiting for it to come down again. Innsmouth looks are even more random in their occurance, it takes far too long to get one usually, for it to be a method for tactical devouring (unless you're extremely desperate you're much better off just taking two injuries and retiring the investigator). Err, Yog Sothoth, not Azathoth. The point is all the examples you gave are of events that are rare in their occurrence, and a tactical gamer will use them to their advantage when they occur. By placing a method that consistantly can devour investigators for most of the game, you're leaving open a massive loophole for exploitation unless you add some sort of penalty for devourings.

Random devouring is a penalty. Controlled devouring is a reward.

@ Julia: I had a chance to play with The Gate to the Void yesterday. The moving gates worked pretty good but the monsters seemed a bit overdone for my taste, the way you have it set up the Dark Young and the "Dark Young" can reach any investigator almost anywhere each time they move and they move 2 out of 3 turns. You're going to end up with lots of investigators getting beat down on the first turn then keep getting beat down, add any ancient one that can boost them and things get hairy quick. I think at the very least you need to exclude the Asylum and the Hospital from the locations they can follow investigators into.