Hey, all...apologies for the delay in releasing Barganon. I know I said I'd have him Saturday, but I remembered an assignment I had to complete and decided I should probably do that first. :-P

Going to go with the "gate-shift on black only" fix for now, and we'll see how that plays. If playtests find that it still turns up too frequently and makes it impossible to get seal victories (or just makes the game too dang long), I'll come up with a different effect. I want this to be a strange experience, not a completely unconquerable one.

As a general rule, remember that the gate-shift happens before any other part of the Mythos card is resolved (this is so you don't have to draw a gate and possibly immediately shift it, which would be annoying). Also remember that it does not count as closing a gate, or as opening a gate, for any purpose.

Addressing the special gate types from Lurker (I'll include this as a notes page since there's no way it'll fit on the card):

• Split Gate: Shifts only if both of its symbols appear on black. Thus, shifts less often than other gates.
• Devouring: A gate-shift does not count as opening a gate, so if a gate shifts on an investigator he is not devoured.
• Doom: A gate-shift does not count as opening a gate, so if a gate shifts on an investigator nothing is added to the doom track.
• Endless: Have their normal effect. If a gate is currently Endless it cannot be taken as a trophy.
• Monstrous/Blood/Madness: Have their normal effect when investigators fail to close them.
• Moving: Interact interestingly. Remember that gates shift before anything else on the Mythos card happens. Therefore, a moving gate whose symbol appears on black will shift before it is able to move. However, a gate may shift and become a moving gate during the gate shiftin this case, if the symbol of the new appears, it then moves along with the monsters as normal that round. Obey the rules for sealing as stated in the moving gate rules (gates can only be sealed on an unstable location) regardless of whether the gate is currently a moving gate or not.

Feel free to house-rule any of those if you don't agree with them, of course.

I'll see if I can have a version of him up tonight (depends how long I have to search for decent artwork).

Just to clarify...

Sdrolion said:

This will result in 4 out of 6 of those gates being impossible to shift since both symbols don't ever appear on black at the same time. Was this the intention?

Veet said:

Hm. Well, it'll be better than all 6 of the gates constantly shifting all over the place because one or the other of the symbols shows up.

Let me see...Lurker has 18 gate markers, correct? I believe that is what was stated earlier. Am I correct in assuming these replace the original gate markers rather than being added together with them, so you only have 18 gates total? Or are they added to the existing set of 16 to create a total of 34?

Even if they replace the originals, that still means only 4 out of 18 gates are shift-immune, which to me is honestly pretty much fine. That would probably actually help a bit with enabling a seal victory to still be possible. If you happen to get one of those gates, you can just count yourself lucky because they won't shift. Barganon's probably easier in a Lurker game because of it, but I think I still prefer that solution.

Well, here we are, as promised.

Large version image here .

You can get the Eon file here .

This version is close to the earlier one, just with some of the extraneous text removed, hopefully while keeping things clear, to save a little space. There's still a lot of text, but I'm not sure there's any way around that with as complex as this guy is. I'll probably eventually do a Herald version too since those cards have a little more room for text.

And, of course, the suggested adjustments have been made. The doom track is now 12 rather than 10, and only gates with symbols on black shift.

As suggested by many, I went digging on Deviant Art to find a suitably chaotic image, which turned out to be a nice one called "The Revenge of Chaos Unleashed" by AngelofAmarth.

Full text of the card, for those who don't wish to pull up the big image:

Combat modifier: -3

Doom track: 12

Worshippers: Whenever a Mythos card is drawn, the monster symbols shown on that card have an additional -1 to their combat rating and +1 toughness until the next Mythos card is drawn. This applies to trophies as well.

Power: Chaos Theory.

• Mythos: Before the Gate step, all gates with symbols on black are discarded and new gates are drawn for those locations. Any explored markers for those gates are discarded unless the new gate has the same destination as the old. This does not count as opening or closing a gate.
• Any Phase: If any card names a specific other card for a player to draw, ignore that and use a standard draw from that deck instead.

Start of Battle:

• Count each investigator's items, by type. Return all items to the decks, and draw an equal number (by type) of new items.
• Roll a die for Barganon's resistance for the first round: 1-2 Physical, 3-4 Magical, 5-6 Both.

Attack:

• Each investigator rolls a die to determine what damage is taken. 1: 1 Stamina. 2: 1 Sanity. 3: 1 Clue Token. 4: 1 Monster Trophy. 5: 1 Gate Trophy. 6: Nothing. An investigator reaching 0 Sanity or Stamina, or unable to give up a token/trophy, is devoured.
• After resolving damage, roll a die for Barganon's resistance next round, as during Start of Battle.

If you don't want to make them shift immune you could have only the top or only the bottom symbol count.

Veet said:

I actually kind of like the idea of those ones being immune, since it gives a weak point for Barganon's power (for those of you that own that expansion, anyway). But if you would like to rule otherwise, feel free to house-rule it.

The real problem with this Ancient One (irregardless of minor tweaks), is there's way too much going on here. You should decide on some essential points, then break off the other parts and add it onto a herald with a bit of flavor text and possibly another ability or two. But, while the idea is interesting, I don't want to print out a jumbo sized Ancient One.

I like the new picture by the way.

Avi_dreader said:

Glad you like the picture. It looked appropriately chaotic to me.

I suppose if it's really necessary I could probably pull off one of the two "Chaos Theory" powers, since most AOs actually do seem to only have one power. I'm not honestly sure about splitting him into a Herald and an AO meant to be used together, though. Owing to the character, the Herald would probably have even more random stuff going on, and I think this AO is pretty much at the limit for that. I do intend to eventually build a Barganon Herald, but the intent was that it would let you have Barganon effects with another AO (basically duplicating what's on the AO card with maybe one more effect), not that it would add even more craziness to the existing Barganon craziness.

I don't believe I can pull off anything except one of the two Chaos Theory powers, since the randomization of the basic AO elements (worshippers, defenses, attack) is pretty essential to the character, and I like the whole "replace items at the beginning of AO battle" thing too much to get rid of it.

I guess if I were going to go the Herald + AO route, which I'm not really keen on, I'd probably do so by splitting off the gate-switch and maybe the start of battle item switch, and then trying to think of one more effect that wouldn't make the Barganon + Barganon thing overcomplicated, but would be interesting. (Maybe some random monster thing.) I don't really like the idea of Barganon Herald + Barganon AO, partially because it feels strange splitting one character that I've always written as one into two, and also because I have another Herald in mind for him (that may or may not ever see release here) already for my personal games (an ancient corrupted knight).

If you guys feel there's just too much text on there to work with, though, and don't want to just print out my forum post that shows what's on the card and reference that ( ), then I guess I can do it. It'll bug me a little bit knowing there might be some people out there not getting the full Barganon effect, but such is life. Better some people end up using an inferior version than no one use it at all, I guess.

By the way...is there any reason why the "Custom Heralds" and "Custom Investigators" topics aren't sticky like this one? :-P

Okay, so here's an idea if I do the split.

Barganon (AO): As shown, but removing the "gate shifts" and the defense shifting (I like the card redraw too much to pull it to a heraldplus, removing the defense shift will clear up a little more text, I think). Instead of defense shifting, Barganon has by default no defenses.

Barganon (Herald): Takes the gate shifts. Adds the defense shifting if Barganon is the AO. Has one or more of the following:

• Monsters are actually living chaos, and take many forms. If an investigator is driven insane by a monster or knocked unconscious by it, trade that monster with one from the cup.
• A surge of chaos causes widespread changes. If a monster surge occurs, in addition to the usual effects, trade each monster already on the board (but not in the outskirts or sky) with a new one from the cup.
• Monsters are living chaos, and take many forms (alternate version). If a monster does not move , trade it with a new one from the cup.
• Chaos changes people. If ever driven insane or knocked unconscious, trade your investigator card for a random new one. Keep all your current cards (including your Personal Story, even if the effects are no longer useful) instead of drawing items for a new character. If your Maximum Sanity/Stamina have been raised or reduced, your new character's are by the same amount. You may place your skill sliders wherever you wish. If your investigator has effects that happen when they are knocked unconscious or driven insane, those happen first.

I'm leaning towards the "Surge of chaos" monster surge effect, and the Chaos changes people effect (because I think it'd be funny). Admittedly, the "chaos changes" effect might not play nice with a few personal stories, though I think the effects may still carry over fine (ex: Lily Chen gets her Max Sanity reduced by 1 if she is KOed or driven insane. She'd also then change into another investigator, but that investigator still has 1 less Max Sanity).

Sdrolion said:

Because these forums are very loosely moderated?

I'm not so crazy about the monster shifting btw... The problem with that ability is any experienced player will just avoid combat with difficult monsters and wait for them to disappear while picking off the easy ones. A randomizer after engagement is something quite different since it leaves the player in uncertainty until after they're stuck, but if they're expecting change, it becomes a very exploitable ability. More like a guardian effect really.

Avi_dreader said:

At the same time, if triggered infrequently enough, it becomes difficult to wait it out. A monster surge may not be the right trigger, though, since in my experience those are pretty frequent. Additionally, keep in mind that the random trigger could easily result in lower-level monsters turning into higher-level ones instead.

An alternative might be one that triggers a shift as soon as the monster is actually confronted (after the Evade chance but before the first round of combat). This would actually make it pretty likely that monsters that appeared tough on the board would end up being easier when fought, but also possible that monsters that appeared easy on the board would end up tough once fought. The thing I don't really like about that idea is that I think it makes things too hard to plan for. You have zero idea at all what you're going to fight, which strikes me as a little much.

I think I prefer something that does a periodic random change to everything on the board, or a periodic change to particular monsters. I just need a better trigger that will happen infrequently enough to be hard to plan for. Hm...an interesting idea might be "anytime a gate is prevented from opening by a seal," with the idea being that the energies that would have opened the gate are then distributed throughout the town and change the monsters. That would make monster shifts happen not at all at the beginning, but in increasing amounts the closer you got to a seal victory (depending on where the seals were set). The inclusion of gate bursts would make the shifts less frequent as well.

Another potential alternative would be one that isn't quite "on engagement" but isn't as easy to plan for. Maybe monsters change if they move on to an investigator's space during the Mythos phase, but not at any other time (like when investigators move onto their space).

As far as this effect sometimes aiding you, that's kind of the idea with almost all of Barganon's stuff. He's utilizing chaos, and no one can truly control it. He's managed to bend it to his favor to an extent, but when you play with strange, random things, sometimes they work for you and sometimes against you. But yeah. It shouldn't happen so frequently that you're able to say, "well, I'm sure that if I just wait one turn that big Shoggoth will go away." That should be able to happen, and when it does you should feel lucky, but it shouldn't be something you intentionally wait for in general.

To make the effect a little nastier, I could have you include the Mask monsters in the cup (or in a side cup accessed by a dice roll on shifts only), and say that Mask monsters never shift away.

Well, you were the one who wanted the theme of this to be randomness ;'D

However, you could control the chaos of transformations a bit by making them dependent on a die roll. I.e. don't just make the trigger something like a gate surge, make it a gate surge *and* a die roll of 1-2 or something.

Or you can have monster transformations (personally I'd do it before an evade check or combat attempt was made, clearer, and fewer potential rules problems) based on a 33% chance or 50% chance.

If you want to control the exploitability of a monster shift you could have it only trigger on certain weak monsters like cultists and maniacs. They are prety much guaranteed to get stronger that way. Also I would avoid shifting investigators mid game baring some incredibly rare event. It's a lot of work to swap an investigator sheet out and doing it ever 5th turn would end up being really annoying. If you want to emulate an investigator changing you might want to consider corruption or another similar mechanic.

Veet said:

Considering that in Barganon's power, when you shift the sheet you keep your existing cards instead of drawing new ones, avoiding the bulk of setup, I'm not sure I see where all the work is. You have to switch out a stamina/sanity point or two for new maxes and put your skill sliders down again, but you keep everything else the same.

I agree that the normal way that works (such as after being devoured or in that one event at the Science Building) it could be irritating since you have to start like you're starting a new game, by discarding your current items and then drawing the new fixed and random stuff, which would require shuffling. That's exactly why I said that in this case you don't do all that. You even keep the same personal story cards if you use those.

To be clear, this is what I'm saying would happen when you switch out. Anything other than these items should not occur:

1. Replace old investigator sheet with new one.
2. Adjust stamina and sanity values to fall within the new limits.
3. Put down your skill sliders wherever you want them on the new sheet.

That is it . Everything else...money, clue tokens, items, spells, skills, allies, corruptions, madnesses, injuries, blessings, curses, deputy, current location, etc, etc, etc...remains the same as it was before the switch. As far as I'm concerned, you could even keep cards that character wouldn't have been able to obtain (like a Bank Loan if you draw the kid)--you just can't get them again in the future.

The reason for this is that you weren't eaten by a monster, lost forever in another universe, or anything like that, and you didn't have your soul ripped out of your body and flung across the city. You were transformed by chaotic energies right where you were . Everything you had with you stayed with you. Even your personal story remains the same, because on some level you are still you.

The out-of-theme reason for this, of course, is that replacing everything and totally building a new character would be annoying as all get-out and I didn't want to make people do it.

Okay, so here we go.

Large version here .

Eon file here .

This is a new version of Barganon that should be easier to read. As suggested, I've pulled off a few things and created a Herald to keep them. I'll post that in "Custom Heralds," but here's a link to its image and Eon file as well.

The herald has received the gate-shift power and the defenses shifting power (the latter with Barganon only, since with many AOs it would actually make the battle easier). Barganon's remaiing powers are exactly as they were before.

His final combat attack is very weak. All the penalties should be doubled or tripled (except the gate trophy one). Then again, with the random item redraw, maybe it works out ::shrug:: those are hard odds to calculate. But I guess an easy way of thinking about it is trying to imagine if a three investigator team with average fight... Eep... That'd be really hard to calculate... Consider raising his combat modifier to -4. It'll make a big difference with his randomizer effect.

Sdrolion said:

Good work! Like the new pic, and the sheet's a lot less cluttered. I think maybe you could squeeze the shifting immunities somewhere in there though, but it looks fantastic!

I think I will try to fight against this guy sometime or later! I'll let you know what I think of him.

Avi_dreader said:

Keep in mind that he's intended to work with the Herald. Using him without will unquestionably be easier, because the Herald has some of the things I was fully intending to put on the AO except that they crowded the card too much. Do you still feel that he's too weak if he has Physical/Magical/Both Resistance? I don't want to make him just right when the Herald isn't used, and too difficult when the Herald is used.

I did consider taking it to -4, though. If people try him out and find him too easy, that's probably the first step I'd take to make things harder.

The other thing I might consider later is that a roll of 6 does no damage to investigators, but adds a token back to his doom track.

mi-go hunter said:

The defense shifting still exists, but is now on the Herald, along with the gate-shift. In my opinion, you'll probably get the most entertainment out of Barganon if you use both. He will probably be a bit easy (and not nearly so crazy) without the Herald.

If you don't want to use the Herald, feel free to house-rule the defense shifting from it on to the main AO. I considered leaving it on there, but decided it was a good "Herald's Associated AO" effect.

If you want to take the defense shifting from just resistances to immunities as well, just do the following for rolls:

1. Physical Resistance
2. Magical Resistance
3. Both Resistances
4. Physical Immunity
5. Magical Immunity
6. Both Immunities

Consider that, along with maybe the -4 combat rating, to be "Hard Mode" like the ones Avi built for the original AOs.

Sdrolion said:

Oh yes. I definitely prefer this. Could you maybe post an alternate version of the cards with this (after I get an hour to sit down and help you edit, i.e. abridge and clarify language on your AO/herald) since it's a relatively minor tweak (and I'd love to print out these guys someday)?

For your normal one, I think a regeneration turn is better than a nothing turn. Several of the other options already provide relief for investigators (especially given certain random combinations), do you really want to give them more? ;')

Avi_dreader said:

I will put up a "Hard Mode" version eventually. I'm not sure I'll put regen on the normal mode one. I put the "nothing" chance in there because there's no other chance to dodge. I am aware that some investigators have the ability to avoid the Stamina/Sanity damage...that's intentional too. But yeah, the regen will almost certainly show up on the "Hard Mode" one.

The idea behind this one wasn't to make a hugely lethal AO...it was to make one that is strange and a little hard to plan for (or a lot hard if you're using the Herald and get transformed). I'm okay with releasing an increased-difficulty card, and will certainly do so, but the normal difficulty is really intended just to be weird to play against.

Sdrolion said:

That's fine ;') but I hope you release a harder variant for people who want more of a challenge.

Avi_dreader said:

Absolutely. Though the central idea of this AO/Herald was just to give players a very strange Arkham Horror experience that messed with their heads a bit, I in fact always planned to release a more challenging version, largely because I've seen your posts around the board and knew base Barganon (the way I would need it to survive the game) would not satisfy the Avi . I've in fact got some interesting ideas for a very hard variant, possibly, that incorporates a random chance of gate bursts as well as some other stuff blowing around in my mind, but I'll release the Hard variant first since the Very Hard will need some major work to not go overboard and make things impossible.

(And sorry..."eventually" was a poor choice of words. I'm pretty much going to do that one as soon as I'm sure base Barganon is finalized.)

Once I've done that, I will probably start work on the big bad of the RPG campaign I created, who I will try to do more of a "crush your souls" type of difficulty with. :-P

I also have an idea for a single character that has Herald, Guardian, and AO options that can all be used together or separately (he's basically a force of time that has positive and negative effects)...will probably try that strange balancing act sometime, as well as possibly a Guardian version of Barganon specifically meant to be used against that guy. (There's a few odd rivalries in that campaign.)

Sdrolion said:

Heh, that's what I should call him:

THE Avi.

mi-go hunter said:

I will also respond to The Bandersnatch ;')