Hello,

Thanks again to those that answered my flying question last night. It was quite timely, as we played a 5 player game, and it came up more than once.

A couple of things came up, though, that we weren't sure on. Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

Upkeep:

• Blessings--Player rolled a 1. Insisted he could use a clue to re-roll. I'm thinking it's not a skill check, so no.
• Healing Stone -- Card says player gains 1 Sanity or 1 Stamina, but doesn't limit it to max. Should it be capped? I think there was something in the FAQ that he claimed he found, but I didn't see it.

Movement:

• Evade monster -- Can an investigator continue to move if he evades?
• Player comes back through gate, and a monster is there. Player successfully evades monster, and stay in location. Can the player still close the gate, even with the monster in the location?

Encounter:

• Similar to the Healing Stone thing--player was at max sanity, and had an other world encounter that said "Gain 1 Sanity." Can he exceed his max?

General:

• Skill checks -- If an encounter indicates a skill check like "Fight -1", does investigator get to use weapons, etc? My thought is NO, as it is not a combat check. But, the game seems impossibly hard if you play it that way.
• If your lore, for instance, is 1, and you need to make a Lore -2 check, you fail the roll. But, if you spend 1 clue token, do you get to roll 1 die? I'd say yes, since you accepted the initial result as a failed check.
• Just to clarify, Doom Markers ONLY come off the AO card if an Elder Sign card is used, correct? Using clues to seal a gate just gets the elder sign marker from the pile.

Thanks so much for assistance! As a group, we're really enjoying this one, but want to play it right! Incidentally, we won last night, though based on the questions above, you may agree that we may have gotten some unintended assistance...

trianglemoon said:

Indeed not a skill check.

For Healing Stone:

"While an investigator may gain and lose Sanity or
Stamina over the course of the game, the investigator’s
current Sanity or Stamina may never exceed the investigator’s
maximum Sanity or Stamina." (p. 16)

There is an encounter at Gardner's Place that specifically mentions you go above your maximum.

trianglemoon said:

Yes

If you return in the movement phase, you get a free pass from all the monsters at the gate, but if you want, you can fight them. Monsters at a gate never prevent closing the gate, they just force the investigator to deal with them in the movement phase (except on the movement phase the investigator returns).

trianglemoon said:

Fight is Fight, combat is combat. So gate closing, which is a pure Fight or Lore check, can't use weapons.

Yes, a Clue always buys you a die.

Certain encounters can remove doomers as well, but Elder Sign is the most common way.

Thanks so much!

One clarificationfor that Fight -1 check (or the gate closing example)

If I have a spell or item that increases Fight or Lore (or whatever skill I'm needing to use for the situation), I can use those items at that time, assuming they are usable in that phase, correct?

Thanks again. I thought we accidentally cheated a little. I think we did it a lot, though. I thought gate closings were combat checks...

Mostly you'll find Skills and Allies that boost your raw stats like Fight and Lore, items boosting those are a lot harder to come by (too lazy to check exactly what items are available). Items tend to focus on special skill checks (combat, spell, horror, evade).

Thanks again.

I think we're playing wrong. Based on our game last night, and the fact that we all were nearly "clue"less the whole time, I don't see how passing both surprise will checks and fight checks regularly can be feasible, especially since they're almost always at -1 or more. I believe I would almost always be rolling on clues.

That will make our first honest victory that much more sweet!

EDIT: Oh, just remembered one other question that came up. It involves "hands." If a player is using a 2 handed weapon, can they exhaust the whip to get 1 reroll? I really couldn't decide on this. We went ahead and played it as though it was a special item that could be exhausted for a reroll, but didn't have to be "in hand" for that.

One other one--players can switch what's in their hands each round? I figured yes, since many spells only last 1 combat round (if I read it right).

End EDIT.

If there are any suggestions as to how groups usually remain competitive, I'm happy to entertain them!

Regards!

You can't expect to pass everything. It all comes down to balancing. If you are fighting monsters, or plan on fighting monsters this turn, check their Horror and combat ratings and see if you can absorb the sanity loss in exchange for a better fight value, or fight if you have enough weapons to help you pass the Horror check.

When in Other Worlds, we tend to even out all our stats as much as possible, because you have no idea what you will be facing. Normal encounters don't seem to be as random as OW encounters, but it's the same thing. If you don't plan on fighting that turn, try to even out your stats.

Sometimes there's just nothing you can do. That's the beauty of the game.

>>>EDIT: Oh, just remembered one other question that came up. It involves "hands." If a player is using a 2 handed weapon, can they exhaust the whip to get 1 reroll? I really couldn't decide on this. We went ahead and played it as though it was a special item that could be exhausted for a reroll, but didn't have to be "in hand" for that.

Yes. From the FAQ:

Q: Do I have to be using the Bullwhip or Cross in combat to gain their special abilities?
A: No, in the case of these two cards, you do not have to use them in combat to make use of their secondary abilities.

>>>One other one--players can switch what's in their hands each round? I figured yes, since many spells only last 1 combat round (if I read it right).

You aren't so much assigning hands as just using up two of them. But yes, you can change it around every turn, or even different combats in the same turn. With spells, ff you use a spell that requires a hand, then decide to use a two-handed weapon for the combat check instead, the effect of the spell simply goes away.

Edit - Quoting function gets all messed up when editing.

Keep Fight and Will at 3, duh. It's simple ! Okay, so it's harder than that of course. Personally, stat of 3 is what I'd like across the board for random skills checks, but most of the time you have to compromise, need more Speed to reach your destination, less Sneak, boosting Will for those checks, counting on your weapons to carry you through combats, which leaves you vulnerable for pure Fight checks, or bane of Dexter Drake, the need for high Lore, leaving him utterly useless come Luck tests. Usually I want as much Luck as I can in OWs (but still need to balance if you're counting on Spells for combat and what not), some Lore is nice in Celeano and Great City. Arkham is a balancing act. Once you get more experience under your belt, you'll start to feel what stats you'll need in particular locations/OWs. Won't be accurate all the time of course, thank goodness for randomness, but every time you do get it right, things are easier. Unless a skill check is of critical importance, I very rarely bother with Clues, so you fail a skill check, meh. If the failure causes a fully-laden investigator to be devoured or something, then Clues come into play, otherwise, I'll save mine for sealing gates.

For hands, Bullwhip and Cross are the only two items you can get the special ability to kick in even when not allocating a hand to them (so exhaust to reroll 1 die and +1 to Horror checks). FAQ clarifies this.

trianglemoon said:

Well... Certain investigators can soak up failed horror checks (Carolyn and Harvey for instance), another way of dealing with horror checks is having your will at 3-5 and a couple strong weapons. Or an ally ::shrug:: Obviously, not all your characters are going to be immune ;') insanity is an integral part of this game.