Hey everyone,

I've run the campaign solo with Agnes, done the Rougarou and Carnevale (last night!) side quests. I was appreciating how different the deck had become vs how it started out and was wondering if anyone had any similar stories. Warning, gratuitous use of spoiler boxes ahead.

So Agnes starts out with 6 health and 8 sanity. However, after the resolution of the main campaign I now have 3 mental trauma which puts her at a starting 6 health and 5 sanity. That's been a challenge, particularly since Agnes is a sanity damage magnet.

It's actually motivating me to put back in a card I took out: fearless. Since mental trauma causes you to start with horror, theoretically you could heal that horror over the course of a game. I got the idea from something in the carnevale, it made me realize that I could salvage her sanity that way and still use Agnes' special ability. So besides the mental Trauma I've been lucky in that I gained no new weaknesses, or at least none that stuck with me.

I haven't even spent the experience from the Carnevale because, you know, why would I? There's nothing else to play currently and little else to buy. When Dunwich comes out I may do so and play through that campaign just to see what it's like taking a veteran character through multiple campaigns. It really changes some of the outlooks on what cards are useful vs what isn't. On the flip side of that, the deck is now stacked with experience heavy cards that I can rely on to do some heavy lifting for me. For instance, having two Grotesque statues in the deck makes me a little less concerned about random bad token draws if I'm leaning on good stats to begin with.

Here's the deck I'm using: http://arkhamdb.com/decklist/view/210/solo-baker-2.0

Here are the cards I got from campaigns/sidequests:

Here's the cards I've purchased vs what I took out:

Two Grotesque Statue replaced two Unexpected Courage

Two Book of Shadows replaced Fearless and Arcane Initiate

Elder Sign replaced one Rosary Beads

Upgraded two Blinding Light and Lucky!

Two Mind Wipe replaced a Leather Jacket and one Emergency Cache

Anyone else have any horror-hardened veteran characters yet?

Actually that brings up a good question. You start off each new scenario with Horror or Damage equal to your physical or mental Trauma. CAN you heal those or are they permanent? I think the effect of trauma is obviously permanent for starting each scenario, but it isn't clear as to whether you can heal that starting damage within each scenario.

Actually that brings up a good question. You start off each new scenario with Horror or Damage equal to your physical or mental Trauma. CAN you heal those or are they permanent? I think the effect of trauma is obviously permanent for starting each scenario, but it isn't clear as to whether you can heal that starting damage within each scenario.

See that's a great question. I was thinking about it and here's the letter of the law on mental trauma: For each mental trauma an investigator has, that investigator begins each subsequent scenario in the campaign with 1 horror.

So we see mental trauma and horror as two distinct entities. Mental trauma causes horror at the start of each campaign, then has no further effect. Other cards in turn reference horror, but not mental trauma. It's my belief that you can heal the horror caused by the mental trauma, but you can't do anything about the Trauma itself. It makes it an uphill battle, but not an unmanageable one. You know, depending on how much trauma you have.

Based purely on wording and the letter of the law, I would have to say that healing horror or damage within the scenario is viable. Nothing in the wording indicates they permanently reduce your maximum, only that you start each new scenario with X damage/horror. But it would still be nice to hear back an official response.

You're absolutely right, bigmac, which is why you don't need any official response. The official response is woven throughout the book. Trauma makes you start the scenario with damage/horror. (Step 2, in Appendix III: Setting Up The Game) Healing removes damage/horror, based on the card effect. The only other thing Trauma does is permanently kill you (or make you insane) if your Trauma level matches your Health/Sanity, again, based on which type of Trauma you have. You absolutely can remove those starting horrors or damage tokens. It works with every rule in the book.

Yes, that's very true. I'm kinda hoping the letter of the law is the correct answer since I'm actually enjoying having to build a deck around trying to find ways to heal horror faster with Agnes. But I can totally see why they'd go the other direction as well. Maybe I'll ping them and ask for clarification, just to rule out any confusion.

I assumed you could heal it. I've not seen anything in the rules that says some types of damage can't be healed.

Yes, that's very true. I'm kinda hoping the letter of the law is the correct answer since I'm actually enjoying having to build a deck around trying to find ways to heal horror faster with Agnes. But I can totally see why they'd go the other direction as well. Maybe I'll ping them and ask for clarification, just to rule out any confusion.

What confusion? Just read the Rules Reference. That IS why they printed it, you know.

Trauma is damage that you start the game with. Like any damage, it can be healed by an appropriate effect.

Don't get me wrong, that's how I read it as well. But it's nice to have it clarified regardless.

I wonder if we'll see a side quest with the possibility of healing trauma somehow. It'd be nice if at some point we saw them encouraging longer play from investigators. Right now they don't really have the card or plot pool for that, but I like it in concept. It seems like the characters drift over time and become more unique. I like that aspect of it.

Was anyone else peeved that completing the best possible outcome for the final scenario in the core campaign still resulted in 2 mental trauma for each investigator?

I get it was scary thematically, but to burden your character with that much of a disadvantage for future scenarios and campaigns, while attaining the best result, seems really harsh.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

Was anyone else peeved that completing the best possible outcome for the final scenario in the core campaign still resulted in 2 mental trauma for each investigator?

I get it was scary thematically, but to burden your character with that much of a disadvantage for future scenarios and campaigns, while attaining the best result, seems really harsh.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

They suggest starting each campaign with fresh characters, but both options are viable. Taking a low sanity character like Roland through multiple campaigns is tricky, but as others have pointed out, it is a very fun challenge as well. Thinking of ways to heal and boost your sanity, just so that he can hang in there...

They suggest starting each campaign with fresh characters, but both options are viable. Taking a low sanity character like Roland through multiple campaigns is tricky, but as others have pointed out, it is a very fun challenge as well. Thinking of ways to heal and boost your sanity, just so that he can hang in there...

Agreed. Just take a look at the dunwich spoiler for Liquid Courage. After seeing the elder thing at the end of the first campaign I think the characters officially count as having "Seem some stuff" At that point you have some great specialized cards you've gained from your experience dealing with outer things and you're that much more effective for it, but it also left its mark in return. Your character now has to find ways to deal with the mental and physical trauma they've already gotten (and are likely to get again).

I'm actually enjoying it, it's like adding a whole new element for gameplay. If I was playing Agnes at my current level, and another person brought in an Agnes at starting level (not that I'm advocating it) we would be playing two very different characters. I can't be as liberal with Agnes' damage from sanity loss but I definitely have the raw power to get through some obstacles that starting Agnes would not. As the story progresses further into Dunwich then who knows how much more difficult the situation would get.

Was anyone else peeved that completing the best possible outcome for the final scenario in the core campaign still resulted in 2 mental trauma for each investigator?

I get it was scary thematically, but to burden your character with that much of a disadvantage for future scenarios and campaigns, while attaining the best result, seems really harsh.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

They suggest starting each campaign with fresh characters, but both options are viable. Taking a low sanity character like Roland through multiple campaigns is tricky, but as others have pointed out, it is a very fun challenge as well. Thinking of ways to heal and boost your sanity, just so that he can hang in there...

If they encourage you to use new characters for every campaign, I suppose it makes more sense. And I can see that having great new cards added to your deck needs to be balanced somehow, thus the permanent damage, but that only works if each new campaign is essentially introductory in nature. In other words, able to be completed by characters with all zero level cards. I realize you adjust the difficulty of any campaign. But if you are encouraged to use new characters for each new campaign, it just seems like you don't get to fully experience using any new cards you have purchased with your experience. Thanks for the response. Vermillion's point is well made as well - it just makes it more challenging. Agreed, but it also makes it SUPER hard. Great for some, but not for others.

Was anyone else peeved that completing the best possible outcome for the final scenario in the core campaign still resulted in 2 mental trauma for each investigator?

I get it was scary thematically, but to burden your character with that much of a disadvantage for future scenarios and campaigns, while attaining the best result, seems really harsh.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

They suggest starting each campaign with fresh characters, but both options are viable. Taking a low sanity character like Roland through multiple campaigns is tricky, but as others have pointed out, it is a very fun challenge as well. Thinking of ways to heal and boost your sanity, just so that he can hang in there...

If they encourage you to use new characters for every campaign, I suppose it makes more sense. And I can see that having great new cards added to your deck needs to be balanced somehow, thus the permanent damage, but that only works if each new campaign is essentially introductory in nature. In other words, able to be completed by characters with all zero level cards. I realize you adjust the difficulty of any campaign. But if you are encouraged to use new characters for each new campaign, it just seems like you don't get to fully experience using any new cards you have purchased with your experience. Thanks for the response. Vermillion's point is well made as well - it just makes it more challenging. Agreed, but it also makes it SUPER hard. Great for some, but not for others.

They will balance each new campaign so you can start them with fresh characters (or battered veterans!), so yeah, they are all 'introductory' in nature in that they start off easy and then ramp up in difficulty as you progress through the scenarios.

Also note that future campaigns will all be longer than the one in Core (usually 8 scenarios or so), and are further extended by any side-stories you might choose to play in-between (like Curse of the Rougarou). So you'll have more time to benefit from new cards, even if you choose to start each campaign fresh.

Was anyone else peeved that completing the best possible outcome for the final scenario in the core campaign still resulted in 2 mental trauma for each investigator?

I get it was scary thematically, but to burden your character with that much of a disadvantage for future scenarios and campaigns, while attaining the best result, seems really harsh.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

They suggest starting each campaign with fresh characters, but both options are viable. Taking a low sanity character like Roland through multiple campaigns is tricky, but as others have pointed out, it is a very fun challenge as well. Thinking of ways to heal and boost your sanity, just so that he can hang in there...

If they encourage you to use new characters for every campaign, I suppose it makes more sense. And I can see that having great new cards added to your deck needs to be balanced somehow, thus the permanent damage, but that only works if each new campaign is essentially introductory in nature. In other words, able to be completed by characters with all zero level cards. I realize you adjust the difficulty of any campaign. But if you are encouraged to use new characters for each new campaign, it just seems like you don't get to fully experience using any new cards you have purchased with your experience. Thanks for the response. Vermillion's point is well made as well - it just makes it more challenging. Agreed, but it also makes it SUPER hard. Great for some, but not for others.

They will balance each new campaign so you can start them with fresh characters (or battered veterans!), so yeah, they are all 'introductory' in nature in that they start off easy and then ramp up in difficulty as you progress through the scenarios.

Also note that future campaigns will all be longer than the one in Core (usually 8 scenarios or so), and are further extended by any side-stories you might choose to play in-between (like Curse of the Rougarou). So you'll have more time to benefit from new cards, even if you choose to start each campaign fresh.

Oh nice. I had not heard that future campaigns would be longer. That is great news.

Are we supposed to use the same characters in future campaigns or not? Seems like it will be awfully difficult to do so for long.

As others have said the intention is to restart investigators for a campaign, but actually give investigators trauma at the end of a campaign suggests they have considered the possibility of continuing with characters after a campaign has finished. Doesn't seem a point otherwise (ok, I guess you can see if your characters have gone mad/died).

Something to remember when taking your veteran Investigators to a new campaign is that all Weaknesses added to your hand or deck during play (and scenario resolutions) only stay in your deck until the end of the campaign. Your Investigator isn't saddled with them for the rest of his life. The same goes for story assets earned during side-stories (you lose them at the end of the campaign as well).

Night of the Zealot ending spoiler:

Something to remember when taking your veteran Investigators to a new campaign is that all Weaknesses added to your hand or deck during play (and scenario resolutions) only stay in your deck until the end of the campaign. Your Investigator isn't saddled with them for the rest of his life. The same goes for story assets earned during side-stories (you lose them at the end of the campaign as well).

Night of the Zealot ending spoiler:

This means that the Weakness you get when you sacrifice Lita in the third scenario is meaningless, even if you take the Investigator on a new campaign. Still a pretty bad ending though, earning you no bonus experience yet maximum trauma.

The entire rules reference is written with a campaign being the fullest extent of the game. If you're "embracing the chaos" it tells you to bring your deck, trauma, and experience. If you followed the rules as written in the rules reference you wouldn't be able to bring your experience. You also could bring dead Investigators back to life. The intent, if you will, for moving from campaign to campaign is to treat it as a single extended campaign. So you wil not clear weaknesses or story assets. Of course, all of this is unofficial, as they didn't formalize any rules for this.

The entire rules reference is written with a campaign being the fullest extent of the game. If you're "embracing the chaos" it tells you to bring your deck, trauma, and experience. If you followed the rules as written in the rules reference you wouldn't be able to bring your experience. You also could bring dead Investigators back to life. The intent, if you will, for moving from campaign to campaign is to treat it as a single extended campaign. So you wil not clear weaknesses or story assets. Of course, all of this is unofficial, as they didn't formalize any rules for this.

I'm guessing we'll hear more clarification on this as more campaigns become available. More people will probably want to try the Marathon Run with their favorite builds and characters so they'll talk about it again, I'm sure.

Something to remember when taking your veteran Investigators to a new campaign is that all Weaknesses added to your hand or deck during play (and scenario resolutions) only stay in your deck until the end of the campaign. Your Investigator isn't saddled with them for the rest of his life. The same goes for story assets earned during side-stories (you lose them at the end of the campaign as well).

Night of the Zealot ending spoiler:

This means that the Weakness you get when you sacrifice Lita in the third scenario is meaningless, even if you take the Investigator on a new campaign. Still a pretty bad ending though, earning you no bonus experience yet maximum trauma.

The entire rules reference is written with a campaign being the fullest extent of the game. If you're "embracing the chaos" it tells you to bring your deck, trauma, and experience. If you followed the rules as written in the rules reference you wouldn't be able to bring your experience. You also could bring dead Investigators back to life. The intent, if you will, for moving from campaign to campaign is to treat it as a single extended campaign. So you wil not clear weaknesses or story assets. Of course, all of this is unofficial, as they didn't formalize any rules for this.

I'm not so sure that's the intent though. I mean, it could be, but if weaknesses stay then shouldn't story-assets as well? And that quickly starts giving problems. If you choose to read the "until the end of the campaign" as written (ignoring possible intent), it actually works pretty well.

What problems would it cause? You can already take story assets from the PODs into the campaign proper.

I'm not so sure that's the intent though. I mean, it could be, but if weaknesses stay then shouldn't story-assets as well? And that quickly starts giving problems. If you choose to read the "until the end of the campaign" as written (ignoring possible intent), it actually works pretty well.

Weaknesses aren't THAT prevalent, even if they were that's part of the experience of it. Won or gifted story assets and weaknesses stay unless there's a reason to get rid of them, I don't see any reason why not. In my book it's the same as Trauma. Your character has more battle scars from the things they've been through but they also have more people they can call on, more skills or oddities they can swing in their favor. That's part of what makes going forward fun. It's a different experience than just trying to run the same characters. Your strategy has to evolve over time, incorporate new tactics, account for new problems. To me it adds a dimension to the gameplay.

What problems would it cause? You can already take story assets from the PODs into the campaign proper.

If you take an investigator on multiple campaigns, you can run the same side-story several times, resulting in having certain story-assets in your deck while you should be setting them apart, or earning certain story-assets double, etc. This is all prevented if you limit story-assets to be with your deck until the end of a campaign (as written).

I'm not so sure that's the intent though. I mean, it could be, but if weaknesses stay then shouldn't story-assets as well? And that quickly starts giving problems. If you choose to read the "until the end of the campaign" as written (ignoring possible intent), it actually works pretty well.

Weaknesses aren't THAT prevalent, even if they were that's part of the experience of it. Won or gifted story assets and weaknesses stay unless there's a reason to get rid of them, I don't see any reason why not. In my book it's the same as Trauma. Your character has more battle scars from the things they've been through but they also have more people they can call on, more skills or oddities they can swing in their favor. That's part of what makes going forward fun. It's a different experience than just trying to run the same characters. Your strategy has to evolve over time, incorporate new tactics, account for new problems. To me it adds a dimension to the gameplay.

This is a matter of taste, of course. I find taking veteran investigators to a new campaign hard enough as is with just the trauma. You can get two Weaknesses added to your deck in the starting campaign. If you look at the stand-alone rules, that's worth up to 29 xp! No way you're getting that, and on top of it you also have the trauma.

If you do limit Weaknesses and Story Assets to just the campaign you're running, it balances out better and you don't run into weird conflicts (like setting aside a story asset that's in your deck). These are also the rules as written, and while I agree they may not be the rules as intended, the fact that they work/balance out better means I prefer them. To each their own, of course, I definitely see your point of view as well.

Not sure why keeping story assets would cause any issues. Clearing weaknesses, to me, makes your leveled up deck too powerful at the start of a new campaign. I truly believe the intent is it all carries over, and if you look at how the rules are written, here are two reasons why:

From the rules reference:

If an investigator is defeated by taking damage equal to his or her health, he or she suffers 1 physical trauma (recorded in the campaign log). For each physical trauma an investigator has, that investigator begins each subsequent scenario in the campaign with 1 damage. If an investigator has physical trauma equal to his or her printed health, the investigator is killed.

That says in the campaign, so if you are being literal, even though your trauma transfers over if you "embrace the chaos", you won't suffer any penalties for having it.

Also from the rules reference:

Each investigator records any unspent experience on the campaign log. This experience may be spent at a later time during this campaign.

This also states your experience expires at the end of a campaign. So I know the intent is both trauma and experience carry over, because the embrace the chaos statement says they do. It also says your deck carries over, which includes weaknesses and story assets. I see no reason they should vanish.

I didn't see page 2 when I responded last, so I'll just add here, you are not supposed to play any scenario more than once. I realize we are limited in scenarios, but that doesn't mean that the game is designed where you run through curse of the rougarou four times while idling. That should be done as a pure standalone or as part of a different campaign.