Hello folks. First post here in this forum (second post here overall)

I finally found a couple of hours to play a solo game of Arkham Horror and began to delve into the game pretty heavily. I have never really played it before today, but I have had a couple of false starts before the 4 year old walked into the room and promptly forced me into other endeavors.

So, I began with Doctor Harvey Walters. as he had a pretty good set of skills, plus a high sanity which is always good in this game. His Strong Mind bonus helped as well. I was a little worried about the low stamina, but I didn't plan to get into combat if I could help it. I made my initial draws, and I ended up with the Voice of Ra (+1 skill checks if a lore -1 check is passed, -1 sanity), and Heal (Heal stamina equal to successes, Lore +1, Sanity -1) Since his Strong Mind bonus lets him ignore 1 point of Sanity anytime, I figured these were great little spells to have.

Now, the Old One I settled on was Yig. It doesn't have any major penalties while asleep, and doesn't really do much against the investigator when first awakened (unless you have a curse already on you, then your character is devoured).

Well, onto the question.

When Yig awakened (Doom Markers), I still had both of my spells. Both are upkeep spells, so they can be cast at the beginning of each round. Neither had a 'hand' marker on them, and from what I can read in the rules, you can use up to two spells as long as one is not marked with two hands. Well, that's what I did, and with a Lore of 6, I was able to delay being devoured by casting Voice of Ra and then Healing through probably 30 rounds (yeah.. took that long). Each spell cost 1 sanity, but his bonus ignores 1 sanity penalty per action. Also, Yig's damage was 1 stamina and 1 sanity. Since I ignored 1 sanity because of the Strong Mind, I just had to keep my health up.

Is this correct?

1) Can I use both spells in the same round?

2) Do I ignore all sanity penalties as they were all under 1 sanity?

3) Does Yig's -3 penalty apply to all skill rolls, or only combat rolls (I just thought about this one. Probably would have made a big difference. I read it as only applying to combat).

I hope I played this right, but trying to push through my first game alone is always difficult, but it lets you work through the lumps without slowing down a full player game.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

Erich

Hello Erich,

the main point is that Harvey reduces Sanity losses by one, not the Sanity costs of spells. So, every time you cast a spell, you pay a cost, and thus you have to reduce your actual Sanity regardless of Harvey special ability. Harvey's strong mind is very useful under other circumstances, like the Sanity damage of monsters in case you fail the Horror check, or the special attack by Yig (pass a Speed check or lose 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina in the case of Harvey Walters would become "lose 1 Stamina"). Hope this could be of some help!

Thank you, Julia. That does help. I thought that was too powerful a combination to play. Glad to know I wasn't crazy (no pun intended). However, I suppose I'll have to play again. Not that it is a bad thing to have to do.

1) yes

2) no (costs vs. losses)

3) it only modifies your combat rolls

Belirahc said:

Actually, as I understand it (included for purposes of covering my butt if I'm wrong ), you can use as many spells as you want in a round if they have no hand markers. The restriction isn't two spells, but two hands. If the spells don't use hands you can cast as many as you're comfortable throwing sanity at. Generally speaking (but not always, I think) the spells that require hands are more directly combat oriented.

I made the same mistake with Harvey in terms of sanity losses vs sanity costs. Shot down a lot of wonderful strategies with him

Joseph_Lavode said:

I suspect almost everyone's made the Harvey mistake, since the manual wasn't clear about the difference between costs and losses. Nice buttcover btw ;') but it wasn't necessary.

Avi_dreader said:

Some of us actually read the rules and FAQ before playing our first game .

Ahh, I remember the good old days without a FAQ or expansions. Harvey was cruising along, casting spells at -1 sanity cost; The Terrible Experiment was the most deadly thing out; Elder Signs did not require a trip through the Other World (my own stupid mistake); StormKnight's variant was both relevant and necessary.

Dam said:

Hey you Dam kid, get off my lawn!

Some of us have been playing long enough that our manuals didn't come with FAQs ;'D

Tibs said:

::laughter:: I'm proud to say I never used StormKnight's variant ;') I was a stickler even back then. I have no idea why you did that thing with Elder Signs though, kindof amusing. One of my major mistakes (that I kept doing for a couple years until the first league tournament) was thinking that combat didn't end movement if you began your turn with a monster on your space— don't ask why I thought that, I'm not even sure.

Haha, I did read the FAQs first! I still can't claim to have all that information memorized