KoalaOfDoom said:

You must be playing something wrong!

Have you maybe traded clue markers or moved on after fighting monsters? Those two are among the most typical errors that make the game considerably easier.

Or in other words: Do you have an idea why the game seems to be so easy for you?

Tibs said:

Ha, yeah maybe it would be a bit to cruel if normal AO required 10 (double "normal") and Hastur then would require 16...

1. I like that one. Fits the problem: it seems too easy to seal the gates.

2. I've only been in combat with the AO once so I don't really know how difficult it is really. The games always end before that.

Dam said:

Actually it was only me, my girlfriend went to bed when I sealed the gate. So one success/token. I had an enchanted blade (+4) and a firearm for another +4, and a fight of 5 (last gate I sealed was at -3). Also, an item that could didn't let the AO attack for one round of combat. And +1 max sanity and stamina from allies I think. Is that a lot of items? I had but didn't use a spell that would have given me +9 dice at no cost, too...

Did some math now and if I remember things correctly and haven't totally forgotten statistics I should have done exactly 13 "hits" before being devoured. And then two die in my favor (I think I ended with 1 sanity and 3 stamina).

jhaelen said:

Indeed we were. Moving after fighting monsters. Will report back after we play again to see if it helps (well... hurts is maybe more accurate).

And the first game probably shouldn't count. We didn't know all the rules yet and just went along with it (really straightforward rules though, 24 pages looked scary but after the first play felt pretty easy hopefully there are no more things like the above that we have missed).

Could be luck, I guess. I mean, we can't have seen more than a quarter of the cards in the game. Maybe there's that stack of really devasting mythos cards just waiting. I think sealing gates early on robs the mythos face of the "Oh crap" factor I was expecting. I will try the tip posted above to decrease the effect of the elder signs.

We'll play some more and see if it normalizes, but even then I would rather have a hard game where the players win maybe one out of four games or something like that. The investigators are only puny humans, after all.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

KoalaOfDoom said:

The base game is too easy if you have any idea what you're doing. Period. If you want a real challenge you're going to need to get Dunwich or Innsmouth (I would recommend Dunwich first). If you can't afford to buy an expansion, try some of my custom creations. I posted a link to them as the third post in this thread (along with a naming of the ones that can be used effectively even if you only own the base game).

KoalaOfDoom said:

Hmmm the gf and I are finding the standard game hard also were having to constantly check the book while playing. I think the most gates we get open are two before the old one awakens maybe were playing it wrong ? any tips to get more gates open with two players ?

Thanks.

s1mon said:

I think, and hope, you mean you seal two gates before the GOO wakes. If you only open two before the GOO wakes up, definately something wrong . You could try playing 2-investigators each.

s1mon said:

Umm, closed you mean, not open? The Ancient One awakens because the gates open, your investigators are trying to close them.

Anyways, the simple math of the base game is this:

- There are 11 unstable locations where a gate can open.

- Only new gates opening add Doom tokens (apart from a few Mythos cards).

= If you always seal the gates you are closing, no Ancient One with a Doom track higher than 11 should ever wake up due to the Doom tokens. In a two investigator game it takes 8 gates open on the board at the same time for the Ancient One to awaken due to the gate limit.

Thus, you must be playing it wrong.

-Villain

I meant close

Closing them is ok, it's sealing them you need 5 clue tokens as well.

s1mon said:

Yeah, I suspected as much.

As I said, never just go into a gate to close it, always have an Elder Sign or the required Clues to seal it with you.

Pick up as many of the initial 11 Clues placed on the unstable locations, then kill monsters and trade the tokens for Clues at the Science Building. If you still haven't got enough, you may try to visit some of the stable locations with the Clue symbol (Police Station, Newspaper, Asylum, Hospital).

Also, remember to shop for Elder Signs and other useful Unique items at the Curiositie Shoppe.

Once you've beaten the game a couple of times, it becomes very easy, trust me. Thus, you'll soon need to get the expansions.

-Villain

I've got the base game with the Dunwich and Innsmouth expansions and still the random elements can keep things easy.

I'd been really busy with wok for the past few months and really looking forward to a post-New Year's game with myself, the missus, the next door neighbours and another mate who'd never played before...

Playing with Dunwich board, Dunwich herald, Personal Stories, 5 randomly drawn investigators and a randomly drawn Ancient One. Wouldn't you know it: Azathoth is the AO and Patrice and Akechi (clearly a killer combo) are amongst the random draws. Also, the player who drew Zoey got an Elder Sign in the beginning random possessions.

The game ultimately ended with an all-gates-closed victory with the Black Cave and Woods sealed and also...

1. noone ever having gone insane or unconscious
2. no monsters appearing in or investigators going to Dunwich,
3. No rise in Terror level
4. Four doom tokens on the doom track at the end

The game only took two hours! Normally it takes four! I was gutted!

Edit: I still think we did something wrong but I can't for the life of me think what...

Mylo said:

What you did wrong was not mulliganing after drawing Patrice and Akechi. C'mon. Seriously ;') and against Azathoth? That's just indulgent. If I draw Azathoth I normally insist on adding a herald, and I wouldn't want people using something like Patrice— I would force a discussion on why the game would be too easy and why we need to something non-randomly or redraw.

Villain said:

Snak said:

Actually, no. To be specific, Terror level rising when it's already at 10 is when you add the Doom token (because there's no Terror level 11). Which I don't recall ever happening to us, so...

-Villain

Villain said:

Naturally, I lost the nightmare pool rumor which caused three monster surges in a row without any chance of doing anything against it. Since I was playing with the Dunwich expansion it also caused four monsters to enter a rift and awaken the Dunwich monster.

Two turns later Cthulhu awakened because there were too many monsters in Arkham... which I think didn't happen to me after my very first game (in which I had used only a single investigator).

This game was cursed from the very beginning, I think I achieved a new record by rolling 22 dice without achieving a single success in this game...horrible!

So which are the best investigators to use for an easy game ?

Any other tips to make it easy

Mandy Thompson and Joe Diamond are good choices. Mandy's ability is awesome and she starts with 4 clues. Joe's ability is very good and he starts with a good weapon and 3 clues. Both characters start with a decent chunk of change, and Joe's Speed and Focus are both very good.

There are numerous house rules we have played from time to time to beef up the game. And many of them are included in the post by the designer that touchs on the question of difficulty. And the designer also almost says that the basic rules tend to be the way they are to make the game a bit more kinder to first time players. And playing with the Heralds in general raises the ante of the game by a good sum. The game is very modular and easy to adapt to your group's experience level.

But, the best thing we ever started doing to make the game more interesting is randomizing the characters. We never characters. You draw one by random and that is the one you got to work with regardless of your feelings about the character. It does lead to some creativity and general calamity from time to time.

fauxcrye said:

Yay, another sees the light !

Dam said:

So glad to see others preaching this way of playing.

For a little while we also tried playing Innsmouth with the rule that any gate closure raised the Deep Ones Rising counter by one token. It really added some tension of Innsmouth.