Based on David Sutton's "Demoniacal" and Brian Lumley's sequel to it, "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash".



Worshippers: I figured that while Bugg-Shash is worshipped by zombie-like creatures that there just weren't enough zombies in Arkham Horror to make a valid threat, so Cultists now become tougher, and undead.


Power/Start of Battle: I figured that Bugg-Shash would become more desperate and dangerous the more of his pawns you killed, thus defeating Cultists aggravates the terror track, and Bugg-Shash's combat modifier is then derived from the terror track. I chose not to make Cultists endless, as 6 (or 7 with Dunwich Horror) Cultists is a -6 (or -7) modifier if all of the cultists come out during the course of the game, and the terror track will go up otherwise. The bit about tomes taking an extra success to use comes directly from "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash", whereby the characters have extreme difficulty finding information about Bugg-Shash, in-game making it a little more difficult to gather clues and spells to use against him.


Attack: This is from my interpretation of what Bugg-Shash does in the story: a drowning engulf. The investigators are fighting desperately to hold their breath, thus the Will check or they lose stamina.

I'd say Bugg-Shash is pretty easy to beat. It's easy to keep the terror level down even if cultists cause it to go up. Our group rarely reads Tomes. His main danger is in the final battle. Will will usually be set low in order to have a high fight, so you'd probably have less turns to fight him. But with 12 doom tokens sealing or closing him shouldn't be a problem and be able to avoid the fight all together.

Based on David Sutton's "Demoniacal" and Brian Lumley's sequel to it, "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash".
Worshippers: I figured that while Bugg-Shash is worshipped by zombie-like creatures that there just weren't enough zombies in Arkham Horror to make a valid threat, so Cultists now become tougher, and undead.
Power/Start of Battle: I figured that Bugg-Shash would become more desperate and dangerous the more of his pawns you killed, thus defeating Cultists aggravates the terror track, and Bugg-Shash's combat modifier is then derived from the terror track. I chose not to make Cultists endless, as 6 (or 7 with Dunwich Horror) Cultists is a -6 (or -7) modifier if all of the cultists come out during the course of the game, and the terror track will go up otherwise. The bit about tomes taking an extra success to use comes directly from "The Kiss of Bugg-Shash", whereby the characters have extreme difficulty finding information about Bugg-Shash, in-game making it a little more difficult to gather clues and spells to use against him.
Attack: This is from my interpretation of what Bugg-Shash does in the story: a drowning engulf. The investigators are fighting desperately to hold their breath, thus the Will check or they lose stamina.

Your background story is very helpful and I wish all the Old Ones had one similar to the investigators. Based on your story I'd suggest that the cultists be treated like the Hex monsters in Black Goat and Bring one out to new gates in addition to the normal monster. Or since Bugg-Shash is uncharacterisically concerned about his cultists, also add to the doom track for defeated cultists or just simply shorten his doom track.

The one playtest I tried against him I did end up with the terror track at 10, and that had nothing to do with Cultists (only saw 1 all game), as monster surges were happening constantly. I was a turn away from a seal win when an encounter popped out a new gate that sent the doom track to 12. Suffice to say I got severely trounced, since only one of my investigators had enough gear/allies to have more than a single combat die against a -10 modifier.

My group read tomes as often as possible, and considering that I was also playtesting an investigator made for reading tomes, this made gathering clues and spells somewhat more difficult.

The Fight vs. Will thing for attack/defense in the final battle was done purposefully to make Bugg-Shash that bit more difficult. It's harder to fight when you are desperately trying to not drown.

I don't have Black Goat yet, but looking at the pdf rules, that does sound like a decent idea. A seperate Cultist Cup to also draw from when a gate appears would make sure the Cultists are coming out to get in the investigators way, making it more likely the terror track will rise because of them.

Thanks for the feedback.

mageith said:

Do you only ever play with the base game? Only play with 4 heroes?

Playing with all expansions (CotDP, DH, KiY, KH, BGotW), it's rare for a game to end (either with a win or GOO awaking) with the terror level below 6. Perhaps our game group is doing something wrong, let us in on some of your monster smiting secrets.

Do you only ever play with the base game? Only play with 4 heroes?

Usually four investigators but I have all the expansions, but usually play with just one plus a herald. I think that's the hardest mode.

Playing with all expansions (CotDP, DH, KiY, KH, BGotW), it's rare for a game to end (either with a win or GOO awaking) with the terror level below 6. Perhaps our game group is doing something wrong, let us in on some of your monster smiting secrets.

We rarely see the terror level rise due to monsters. It will raise due to Mythos cards but usually not very high. Generally I don't pay a lot of attention to monsters. We seal the four main gates as soon as possible and then go for a close. Closing gates removes monsters.

mageith said:

I will definitely have to disagree, every expansion but 1 adds gate bursts, adding all the expansions in significantly increases chances of a gate burst, and increases ways in which the terror level can rise (e.g., Dunwich Horror tokens), furthermore investigators have to spread out much more, so it's tougher to keep the monsters in arkham in check. Plus with just one and a herald (mind you we haven't tried all combinations of one and a herald) our win percentage is significantly higher than with all the expansions in. There was one game where the terror level rose to 9, and only once did the outskirts pop. There have also been many games where we have been close to winning (usual by sealing, though at least once by closing) when a gate burst would come along and foil our plans. We've even lost a four player game in four turns, so adding in all the encounters from all the expansions does significantly (enough) lessen the chance of getting "a gate and a monster appear" encounters. Also, playing with 4 investigators is, in no way, "the hardest mode", it's optimal (unless of course you are playing with both DH and KH, then 5 is). Just as a point of reference, we play anywhere from 3 to 7 investigators.

mageith said:

As I said before, we've had the terror level rise to 9 with it only increasing one time due to monsters in the outskirts. Four investigators would mean only 1 monster per gate, which makes it much easier to keep monsters in check (3 investigators still means only 1 monster per gate, but playing with DH and KH means 1 investigator will at some point need to head up to Kinsport, which leaves only 2 investigators to contain monsters in Dunwich and Arkham and close/seal gates), while 6-7 investigators with all the expansions, means two monsters per gate, someone eventually needing to head up Kingsport, and needing to do a lot more monster killing (with no guarantee that any investigator will be adequately equipped to kill the tougher monsters). In one game (which was actually one of the rare times we did end up winning), my investigator - who was one of the better monster fighters - had accumulated 6 injury cards, and two other investigators had been devoured due to duplicate injury or madness cards. Generally whenever we close/seal, we're lucky if we can remove 3 monsters (including Dunwich and Outskirts), most of the time it's 1, or 0 (stupid cross symbol - though occasionally the only gates investigators can get into are ones with duplicate symbols).

Do you only ever play with the base game? Only play with 4 heroes? Usually four investigators but I have all the expansions, but usually play with just one plus a herald. I think that's the hardest mode.

"I will definitely have to disagree, every expansion but 1 adds gate bursts, adding all the expansions in significantly increases chances of a gate burst, and increases ways in which the terror level can rise..."

I'd agree that 4 players isn't the hardest mode over all. But we only count sealings and closings for victory. I think 4 players is a reasonable level for that goal. As you drop to fewer players, it becomes harder to next to impossible to seal. We don't find fighting the Old One to be as fun. So I guess that's a house rule. So we've restricted the victory conditions.

However limiting the game to one expansion and herald gives you the full flavor of that expansion. When we play with the small box expansions we don't play the tournament mode. KiY is really tough when played that way with its herald. Black Goat Herald is tough for us right now. CotDP is so, so even with its herald. Ghroth adds two doom tokens right from the top, but of course he'd do that with playing all the expansions too. Tulzscha is highly variable. So we increased the ferocity of the small box expansions.

As to your above comments, terror level doesn't really add to difficulty does it? Gate bursts have now become a generic element of the game as have cards that raise terror. They are fixes in the earlier designs. Gate bursts do make the game harder (and longer) and I had two of them in my last game with AH and DH. That's plenty! A quicker rising terror level only makes point scoring lower. At least I never had a game where the Old One came out because the Terror Level reached 11. Is that common or even happened in your games?

"(e.g., Dunwich Horror tokens), furthermore investigators have to spread out much more, so it's tougher to keep the monsters in arkham in check."

?? Half the time we play with one big expansion board. I do agree that Dunwich requires a constable or two depending on the number of players, but try ignoring Kingsport and see how much harm it does. It's next to nothing. It will probably be 10 or 12 or more turns before a rift even comes out and then only 1/6th of the time after that will it add a doom token and a game only lasts about 20 turns so with really bad dice you might get two doom tokens and a 4 extra monsters. You can get that with Ghroth right from the getgo.

Its really the heralds that make the game harder, IMO. Black Goat expansion does little by itself. Without the heralds the expansions are pretty much the same game over and over. When we play the small box expansions, we play the touring version, so that we really get the flavor of the expansion. With a Third Act coming every 5th or 6th card, that alone will add 2 doom tokens or else the game will end early. Even with Black Goat, half the cards are from the Black Goat deck and half from AH.

Plus with just one and a herald (mind you we haven't tried all combinations of one and a herald) our win percentage is significantly higher than with all the expansions in. There was one game where the terror level rose to 9, and only once did the outskirts pop. There have also been many games where we have been close to winning (usual by sealing, though at least once by closing) when a gate burst would come along and foil our plans. We've even lost a four player game in four turns, so adding in all the encounters from all the expansions does significantly (enough) lessen the chance of getting "a gate and a monster appear" encounters. Also, playing with 4 investigators is, in no way, "the hardest mode", it's optimal (unless of course you are playing with both DH and KH, then 5 is). Just as a point of reference, we play anywhere from 3 to 7 investigators.

As I said before, we've had the terror level rise to 9 with it only increasing one time due to monsters in the outskirts. Four investigators would mean only 1 monster per gate, which makes it much easier to keep monsters in check (3 investigators still means only 1 monster per gate, but playing with DH and KH means 1 investigator will at some point need to head up to Kinsport, which leaves only 2 investigators to contain monsters in Dunwich and Arkham and close/seal gates), while 6-7 investigators with all the expansions, means two monsters per gate, someone eventually needing to head up Kingsport, and needing to do a lot more monster killing (with no guarantee that any investigator will be adequately equipped to kill the tougher monsters). In one game (which was actually one of the rare times we did end up winning), my investigator - who was one of the better monster fighters - had accumulated 6 injury cards, and two other investigators had been devoured due to duplicate injury or madness cards. Generally whenever we close/seal, we're lucky if we can remove 3 monsters (including Dunwich and Outskirts), most of the time it's 1, or 0 (stupid cross symbol - though occasionally the only gates investigators can get into are ones with duplicate symbols).

Based on the above, I'd spend less time dealing with monsters and with Kingsport. Kingsport is so boring, we've mostly quit playing with it. However I have developed and played with a herald/scenario that makes it signficant:

1: Treat each pair of rift tracks as a rift track so there are no bumps. This brings out the rifts twice as fast.

2: Each time a rift track moves it brings forth a doom token. The brings out the doom tokens twice as fast.

3: Treat the monsters in Kingsport as part of the monster limit. This means that we can't just ignore them like we've done in the past.

4: Use the alternative Rift tokens found on Boardgame geek. This puts rift markers into all the expansions and into the Kingsport head.

In short, we played many, many games with all the expansions and we found we were pretty much playing the same game over and over again. I don't think our winning percentage changed much, but when went to an expansion and herald my other regulars perceivec the game as more difficult as do I? Maybe its only more difficult in that the same strategies don't work game after game. OTOH, I suppose we might develop a strategy for each expansion/herald, but with 5 expansions times 5 heralds that will be 25 strategies and that might be fun.

Also, all games include all monsters and investigator cards. I think the monsters have gotten tougher as time goes on and there's a lot more barely usable investigator cards. (There's more really great ones too.)

Sorry about the size. Tried to just get the front side from strange eons but it would export it as solid black. Would be nice to find a better picture to but this one is cool.

Went the generic cultist route. After all they’re the most common monsters in the cup.

Tried make this guy a little different in the final combat. Basically it seems that high will characters will give this AO some trouble. Seeing that combat modifier could be as high @ -12 (playing DH, KH, BGotW).

Also tried to make it hard just to ignore cultist as they will try and find you.

Hooping that it's clear enough that their stalkers and punt the part in there about moving on black if there is no investigator for them to reach and yes they can move twice a Mythos phase. Considering the Environment or Rumor also has crescents move.

Further more tried to stop people from killing them and keeping them as permanent trophies to negate their annoyingness.

MrsGamura said:

It's too easy to beat... On the one hand, I thought it was nearly impossible due to the -12 or whatever modifier, but I sat and thought about how to break this card for a couple minutes, it's really fairly simple. Just stock up a high willed investigator with Will allies. Let the other investigators be devoured. He can sit through the green epic battle cards and possibly a few red cards and take off maybe 8 of this GOO's doom tokens with minimal risk. I guess the only real problem would be getting rid of the last few tokens... Probably stockpiling all the clue tokens on that investigator would be the best method. ::Shrug:: unless you're intending for it to be impossible to fight in combat, it might be a little too tough. Regardless, it's fairly interesting as a pre-combat GOO too. I like the terrifying stalker (essentially endless) cultists. Okay, I take it back, it's not too easy to beat :') it's an interesting challenge.

Alternatively, if you wanted to make combat a little easier, and midgame a little harder. You could make cultists do two sanity damage, but you could also use some kind of token tallying method for number of cultists killed, and either have that subtract from the GOO's combat modifier, or have that halved and subtracted, if you still want a crushingly painfully high modifier.

Here is an ancient one that people may recognize from Silent Hill.

I really like how he turned out.

Thoughts and comments are always welcome.

There we go got a better picture and changed the name to go in more theme with the picture.

Was also thinking about making another rule where you can't use Tulzscha as the Herald due to conflicting interest.

diablo666 I like the death swarm ability but maybe try using less works for the combat abilities because it's a little cluttered.

A couple of things with the Family:

Why would you set your Fight high to make a combat check with a potential -7 penalty, to try and get 1 success for each investigator to remove a Doom Token, when you can instead put your Will high to make a Will check with no penalty and only ever need 2 successes to remove a Doom Token, considering you are going to have to make the check each round anyway? Having a Doom Token removed by succeeding this check is far too powerful, a 6 investigator team can potentially beat The Family in 2 turns of combat.

Maybe if they succeed the Will check they could gain a clue, this would then give them an extra chance to have a success in either a combat check or later Will check to avoid being devoured, and would stop the investigators from just pumping their Will to maximum and ignoring Fight completely.

Random can be an annoying thing to determine when you have 5 or 7 players; you can't just roll a die (for those that even have a d4 or d8). How about this instead "Starting from the first player and moving clockwise around the table, the first investigator with a Cultist trophy must return it to the monster cup and lose 1 Sanity."

And can a mod reply to this post with an italics-off code in their post or something, this is really bloody annoying reading everything on a slant.

thorgrim said:

It's only the first player who has to make the check. So they could have their will up and everyone else have their fight up but keep in mind the highest fight investigators usually have low focus. I don't know about you but their has been more then one time where I roll 10+dice and get not one success so you safety in numbers will drastically go down for each devoured investigator.

I'll leave the random to the player discretion if I tried to place how to exactly do it the text would be itty-bitty.

I'm assuming you guys don't have Epic Battle cards from Kingsport... In the red cards, one of the encounters devours all the investigators, if I remember correctly.

Tell me if you think this Ancient One is too easy. I recommend a 4 player party in order to defeat it.

http://s548.photobucket.com/albums/ii325/Mykayel_2009/?action=view&current=Azrathan-Front-Side.png

[Just in case you can't tell what it sayis on the sheet]

Worshippers

The cultists that worship Azrathan are turned into creatures. Whenever an investigator must battle a cultist, remove the cultist from the game and replace him with a random monster from the cup.

Life Absorption

During the Arkham Encounter Phase, if there is a gate open, all investigators in Arkham lose 1 Stamina. When this happens, put 1 Doom Token on the Doom Track.

Start Of Battle

Place a Doom Token from this sheet on every investigator sheet.

Attack

Investigators with a Doom Token on them lose 1 Sanity.
Every investigator with a Doom Token on him/her, rolls a die and consults the following chart:

1-3: Lose 1 Stamina.
4-5: Skip your next turn.
6: Remove the Doom Token from your investigator sheet.

You cannot use Clue Tokens to roll any extra dice.

Every investigator that does not have a Doom Token on them must draw 3 random monsters from the cup and battle them.

Mykayel said:

Too easy? Honestly, this guy seems extremely difficult.

There is almost always going to be a gate open, so the investigators are essentially going to spend most of the game in the hospital unless they are all high stamina/low sanity types. This will also hasten the Doom track, but with 15 that shouldn't be the main concern.

Once you finally get to the battle (Which you probably will, with an average of two Doom tokens a turn being added), everyone takes Sanity damage until they can manage to roll a six, so the high stamina guys that slogged through the first half of the game now get the shaft. This can optionally be accompanied with more stamina damage or skipping a turn, depending on how the die favors you. Once you finally get rid of the Doom Token, things actually get worse with having to fight 5 random monsters per turn. And to top it all off he has a -5 combat rating with 15 tokens (minus the number of investigators. Still 11 in a team of 4).

Beastly. Don't get me wrong though, AH needs more 'nigh impossible' challenges. Futility is what drove me here in the first place, hehe.

What's he from? Just curious.

Ok, first an easy one.

The mid-length track should give you plenty of time and his abilities aren't too difficult to handle. Even his attack in the final battle should be fine with good draws and he is easy to hit.

His doom track is essentially eight... It's absurdly difficult unless you only have the base set, in which case it's doable. Maybe.

Mykayel: [Just in case you can't tell what it sayis on the sheet]

Mageith: Thanks for writing out the words. My computer takes forever to load those images.

Mykayel: Worshippers The cultists that worship Azrathan are turned into creatures. Whenever an investigator must battle a cultist, remove the cultist from the game and replace him with a random monster from the cup.

Mageith: This is interesting and new.

Mykayel: Life Absorption During the Arkham Encounter Phase, if there is a gate open, all investigators in Arkham lose 1 Stamina. When this happens, put 1 Doom Token on the Doom Track.

Mageith: This is beyond difficult. Either one of these rules will make the game extremely difficult or impossible and frustrating. There will almost always be an open gate and the Doom tokens will be coming at almost 2 a turn.

Mykayel: Start Of Battle: Place a Doom Token from this sheet on every investigator sheet.

Mykayel: Attack Investigators with a Doom Token on them lose 1 Sanity.
Every investigator with a Doom Token on him/her, rolls a die and consults the following chart: 1-3: Lose 1 Stamina.
4-5: Skip your next turn. 6: Remove the Doom Token from your investigator sheet.

Mageith: So the insanity will continue! I can't see that you playtested this much. I think you would have seen the impossibility and futility of the Ancient Ones. Hey! Maybe you are puling our legs?

Mykayel: You cannot use Clue Tokens to roll any extra dice. Every investigator that does not have a Doom Token on them must draw 3 random monsters from the cup and battle them.

Mageith: Aaaaaaargh!

Mageith: I think you have enough destruction, insanity and futility for three maybe four Ancient Ones. Of course, I'm speaking in game turns only.

The Message : The boss isn't from another game or anything, I just made him up.

mageith : I'm sick of seeing people that say Cthulhu can easily be beaten in a 2 player game. :| So I gave them an Ancient One that would suit thier "skill". I know my Ancient One is almost impossible to beat. Also, as for the parts you think are new, you didn't see anything yet. I'm currently working on new card and sheets that will make the game more intresting and fun. Don't worry, the Ancient Ones will not be impossible to beat, but they will have some pretty original abilities and attacks. I will post them when they are ready. I design Board Games just for fun (even made a Resident Evil game that like arkham horror can be plaied solo, but with completely different rules) so I'm good at coming up with ideeas. The only problem is that usualy it takes me a lot of time to come up with something since I don't want to make something that everyone has seen before.

I hope I can bring some new elements to the game to make it more fun. Like it when people enjoy games or game elements that I make, and that's more than enough for me. (That's why all the board games/card games I made are free)

Mageith: This is beyond difficult. Either one of these rules will make the game extremely difficult or impossible and frustrating. There will almost always be an open gate and the Doom tokens will be coming at almost 2 a turn.

I agree with Mageith completely here. Basically your generating ~2 Doom a turn as chances are if you've closed all the Gates you've probably won the game by gate closures. Consequently, the Ancient One's Doom Track is essentially eight turns long, plus maybe a couple more if you seal a vital location early or get a monster Surge. That just isn't long enough. Throw in the loss of Stamina practically every turn and you can pretty count out any Stamina 3 Investigators. The game is meant to be a challenge, but if it's too hard it just becomes frustrating - as a player, would you really want to miss every other turn because your Investigator was forever being sent to the hospital? The trick is to make the game tight - if the Investigators lose they should be thinking "if only...", if they win they should be thinking "Sheesh that was close!"

My suggestion is to remove the extra doom Tokens completely and drop your GOO to 12 or 13 Doom. Life Drain can operate in the Movement Phase - Any Investigator who begins their Movement Phase in a neighbourhood with one or more open gates lose one Stamina. This puts extra pressure on Outer World Explorers to close/seal their Gates straight away, but leaves the players more in control of their actions and consequenelty ultimately more responsible for any disaster that befalls them.

As for the attack, why not have each player draw and defeat a monster. This seems to fit your theme and is a lot simpler than rolling a dice to see what happens each time.

Ok, here's a new one. Haven't got a chance to try this one out yet, so If you do, please tell me what adjustments need to be made.

Here is what is sayis on the Sheet:

Worshipers:

Cthylla is worshipped by the criminally insane. All Cultist, Warlocks, Witches, Maniacs and High Priests have -2 Horror Rating and a Sanity Damage of 2.

Secret Daughter Of Cthulhu:

Whenever an investigator defeats a Cultist, that investigator receives an Elder Sign token. When an investigator is in an Other World, he can use an Elder Sign token to communicate with Cthylla. That investigator loses 3 Sanity but gains a Clue Token and a Doom Token is removed from the Doom Track.

Attack:

Every investigator must pass a Speed (-3) check or lose X Stamina.

Start Of Battle:

X is changed to the number of gates currently open in Arkham.

Mykayel said:

I like this, a lot. Short track, but with a mechanism for slowing it, so it at least encourages players to try for sealing/closing. The final battle looks fun too, 'easy' to kill (relatively) but capable of dealing a ton of damage. I might actually print this one out when I get a chance, even though I hate that whole 'family of old ones' theme that popped up in... Derlethe's(?) writings.