Hello,

There is a Location card which concerns the Graveyard in the King in Yellow expansion. It says that all undead monsters are gathering into the Graveyard and have to be dealt with, either by fighting or evading.
The card says that they are comming from everywhere on the board : other locations, the sky, and even the Outskirts.

What's happening when the monster limit has been reached ?
I know cards always have precedence over standard rules, but this one doesn't explicitly say that this rule must not be taken into account...

Solution A : The limit is still there, and therefore the undead in the Outskirts remain there. (The card may say that the undead from the Outskirts come back in case there is now enough place in town, monsters having been killed since the ones in the Outskirts came into play...)

Solution B : Don't care the monster limit. The card says they come back here, they do come back. Deal with them !

Solution C (a mix) : They're all coming back to the Cemetery to be dealt with, and only after the resolution of all these fights and evasions, if the monster limit is still exceeded, monsters go back to the Outskirts. Although this one would seem odd to me : some monsters going back while the others remain here instead of returning on the Arkham location they were before being summoned...

What is the right way to do it ?

Thanx,

I'd probably go with A. You can have monsters in Outskirts but not be at monster limit (they went there when you were an monster limit, but have later removed some monsters).

www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Image:Rivertown26.png

Monsters that appear from encounters, "a monster appears" don't care about monster limit, since they don't stick around (unless you got "a gate and a monster appears"). In this encounter however, they aren't appearing, they are moving.

That's the one, thanks.

Here is the text :

An old-fashioned horse-drawn hearse creaks past on the road, and you just know that something wicked is coming. All Undead monsters in Arkham, the Outskirts, and the Sky move to this location. You must immediately evade or fight them.

Yes, these are not monsters which will only appear for the event and be discarded afterwards...

For one they have to be undead. Then it says "You must immediately evade or fight them. " I would then say you must and if you lose or evade them all, and then there are more than the limit allows then they would go to outskirts.

What about when monsters move to the Graveyard from other boards? I assume that you ignore the monster and outskirts limit, then deal with all the monsters, and afterward, you fill the outskirts and trip the terror level as necessary?

Seems easy, now that I put it out like that.

I agree with Tibs and Option C: deal with them all, and then whatever is left over is sent to the Outskirts (if the limit s are reached). Luckily the Undead are small in numbers in this game....

I would love to subject Jim Culver to that encounter. He'd just laugh and crack his knuckles.

Option C seems to gather the most votes, but it still doesn't satisfy me.

It appears to me to be the easy way out of this question, since it obeys both the card and the rule. But I'm not happy with it for two reasons :

1. Both are obeyed, but not at the same time. It feels like we agree temporarily to overrule the monster limit, and then we remember it exists and we send back the exceding monsters in the Outskirts. I would be more comfortable with a definite choice instead of what appears to me as a trick...

2. Theme. I can understand why when the town is already crowding with monsters and more are coming they choose to go to the Outskirts to find their preys, and don't care to come back afterwards, even after room has been made in town by killing some of the monsters there. I can understand an event which attracts monsters for a specific reason, such as what's happening in the Cemetary. But I dont feel right with them choosing to go back in the Outskirts afterwards if the limit is still exceeded, and choosing to stay there if it isn't. Furthermore how to choose which ones are going back and which ones are staying if only some of them are to go back ?

I would have accepted an idea that monsters not defeated go back to where they came from, without considering the limit, but not this dancing idea "forget the rule for a while, and then bring it back in line"...
And I definitely can accept the idea that the card takes precedence over the rule, but then I simply ignore it with this card, and I do not bring it back at the end of the combat.

So for me, either the bringing back monsters in town overrules the monsters limit, or it doesn't, and that's it. The midterm option would have been "for monsters from the Outskirts, just bring them to evade them or to fight them, and afterwards they go back to the Outskirts". I'm not comfortable with options with "ifs", which feels like scotch tape on a broken vase, if you know what I mean...

Would it be possible to have an official answer ?
I'm afraid I don't know the people in this forum, and maybe one has already been given ?

Well, the card says that the monsters move to the Graveyard, even those in the Outskirts, which means the monster limit rule is ignored.

But afterwards, you have to "re-obey" the monster limit, because if you don't, the monsters in the Graveyard eventually will begin to move away from the Graveyard and it might become complicated trying to remember which monsters are exempt from the normal monster limit.

I think that the designers of that card probably assumed that we would figure out the consequences on our own. I still vote "C."

Also, deciding which monsters go back to the Outskirts and such is ultimately at the discretion of the 1st player.

Tibs said:

Actually situations where there just isn't a correct answer, this is the answer.

But if you just take things in order...

If you follow the card, you move the undead to the Graveyard and " You must immediately evade or fight them."

When that immediacy ends, then below triggers immediately in my opinion (though it doesn't actually use the word "immediately" )

MONSTERS IN THE OUTSKIRTS
If adding a monster to the board would bring the total number of
monsters in Arkham above the monster limit, then the monster
is placed in the Outskirts instead. Monsters in the Outskirts remain
there until the Outskirts becomes too full, as shown below:

So I'd go through with the first immediately and immediately follow the rule above. I suppose if you think the 2 immediates contradict, the decision is referred to the first player (in our games usually that's a dice roll.).

Looking for something else in the unpublished FAQ, I stumbled across this.

Q: A Graveyard encounter summons “all Undead monsters in Arkham, the Outskirts, and the Sky” to the Graveyard. If these monsters are evaded, what happens? Do they return to their old locations or stay in the Graveyard?
A: Stay in the Graveyard

Q: Same encounter: If the Arkham Monster Limit is not at its maximum, do the Undead formerly in the Outskirts remain in Arkham?
A: Remain in Arkham

Q: Same encounter: What happens if Kate Winthrop (Investigator) [AH] gets this encounter?
A: Kate prevents “appearing,” not “moving.”

Not sure it answers it exactly, but it sheds a little light on it.

ColtsFan76 said:

Ehm, Brian, sorry, are these questions somewhere on the forum? In case, could you gently point me to the specific thread? I remember Avi_dreader was collecting FAQs to send them to FFG, but then? Are these from that thread?

ColtsFan76 said:

It does shed some light. Too bad it only asks "if monster limit is not at its maximum". My question then remains...

The precision for Kate Winthrop is useful though, I haven't thought about it.

Julia said:

It is the "unpublished" FAQ that Avi, Tibbs, and myself got to look at and comment on. I reformatted it for them because it was just a collection of threads with no organization. I sent it back but then they were silent the past 3 months. I just got word this week we may get the next revision to review next week or the week after.

ColtsFan76 said:

Yep, I remember Avi asking other players to highlight doubts, questions and obscure stuff in order to have a complete FAQ. I was wondering what could have happened since that time. Thanks for clearing my ideas!