Avi_dreader said:

I originally had that but kind of thought it was obvious. :-P And it took up space (though that's less of a problem with Rex than with Barganon). Do you really feel people couldn't just understand that? If so, I'll re-add, but probably not for a week or two as I'm going to be quite busy with other stuff for a bit.

Here, this compresses the power text a bit, "If anything names a specific card for a player to draw, ignore it, and draw the top card from that card’s deck instead (even during Investigator Setup)."

Sdrolion said:

In my experience, if you don't specify, things will be misplayed even if many people will grasp the intent.

trdl23 said:

I fully expect that the Blessed One will end up having some revisions done once I get to actually test him. I haven't been able to get my usual group together for a little while, and don't expect to for another couple weeks. I'll see how it ends up working, and then make adjustments to rebalance as I feel is necessary. But yeah...the idea with him was to make a shorter-doom Azathoth with an unusual game effect.

If you want the ultimate in crazy, I highly advise using Barganon / B-Rex with one of the Barganon heralds I designed (available from the links in my signature). Power of Barganon is the easier version, and Fury of Barganon is the harder. Both add even more random strangeness to the game, including changing gates, sudden changes of investigators, possibility of swapping monsters and spawning masks, and random defenses for the AO. The latest Barganon / B-Rex revision was intended largely to make it less necessary to have the heralds to have a sense that things got strange, but I think that combining the AO and Herald is still the way to go to make for the weirdest possible game. If you just want to add a little randomness to some other AO, using Power of / Fury of with it could work, or Avi designed a pretty nice herald based on a combination of the Barganon AO / Herald powers. That's also available from my links.

Elesh looks interesting. I don't think the attack sounds too powerful, but I do think you might have the wrong use of brackets? I think the brackets are used to show number of successes...difficulty is just in parentheses. Right? But especially since you can use your trophies and clues to lower damage, it actually seems to me that it might be low in power. I might suggest making it just trophies, not clues...it's pretty easy to stockpile clues if you know the final combat is coming.

Might also make the attack do damage equal to the P-counters on the investigator as well, just to keep the theme going--though maybe add a minimum 1 damage note, to prevent people who avoided any corruption from getting off scot-free.

Alternately, maybe the attack somehow just hands out P-counters. "Each player rolls a die. On a failure, get a P-counter," or some such (maybe it's just the first player, maybe it's a skill check...anyway, that makes it tie in to the 3-and-you're-dead idea).

The stamina drain is interesting but may prove a little hard to keep track of. It is very neat, though, as an idea for making monster hunting a little more hazardous.

Not sure that spawning a cultist is really a terrible result for being devoured. Cultists aren't any tougher with him (and are highly unlikely to nick you for stamina damage), so I imagine some will use the 3-P-counter rule to get themselves "tactically devoured" sometimes. You might want to go for a tougher monster or some other nasty effect. Also, if the board is at the monster limit and an investigator is devoured, what happens?

trdl23 said:

My only concern on Elesh Norn is the ease of being Devoured - as I've found out, most people don't regard being Devoured as a Bad Enough thing to make it easy to do. If you did something more drastic (a Doom Token added or the Terror Level increasing) in addition to the Cultist, that might balance. I do like the 'poison' mechanic, though it might be hard to keep track of in-game.

As for Knog, you are right about the difficulty of acquiring her. Maybe I should make it so you discard 5 Clue Tokens to take her from the card? That should make it a bit easier to get her and get that mechanic working. As for his final battle mechanic, I absolutely intended for that effect to randomly come into play. You've got a 1/6 chance of rolling a 1, and with 8 hits he can take, that means you're likely to get it - *Not* getting it should be the rare one. Since it only happens once, that pumps Kong up to his true difficulty - that mechanic is intended.

Would Gigan suddenly become more difficult if I gave him Magical Resistance as well? His Devouring mechanic is a looming threat, but not one I intended to come into effect that often. Do you have any other suggestions?

Thanks for your feedback!

Avi_dreader said:

I actually was considering a statement like that, but worried that there might be some unforeseen thing I'd break or make confusing by doing it...for instance, the Strange High House on the Kingsport board tells you to take the "Changed" card. The "Changed" card tells you to also take the Great Seal. I keep both atop each other for storage, so technically they could be seen as a "deck," and it's possible someone could read that version of the effect as just drawing one of the cards. If they drew "the Great Seal," they wouldn't end up taking the Changed card.

Similar problem exists with the Deputy.

I admit those are stretches, though. Are there any situations you can see where it'd be more of a clear problem to state it that way? Obviously it doesn't interfere with things like the Sheldon membership, or blessings/curses, because those are their own deck so "drawing at random" just gets you the same card.

It does certainly trim down the text, so if not, I probably will state it that way.

Sdrolion said:

I think Deputy and Changed would probably be the only potential issues. Changed is a bit of a stretch since no one ever gets it ;') but Deputy... Ehhh. You could add "except Deputy or Changed." Is Captain of the White Ship a similar issue? I don't remember.

Avi_dreader said:

Yeah, same thing: if you took that to mean a random draw, and ended up drawing just "The White Ship," you wouldn't then take "Captain of the White Ship." So that's three spaces I'd have to mention to avoid confusion (don't know if there's any on Dunwich or Innsmouth).

Hm...what about "If a card or investigator sheet names a specific card for a player to draw, ignore it, and draw the top card from that card's deck instead (even during Investigator Setup.)"

That eliminates all board space special abilities from consideration, preventing me from having to specifically exclude Changed, Deputy, and Captain of the White Ship (and anything else that might end up being a concern), but I think it uses up a little less space (since with this I'm replacing the word "anything," where if I specified the exclusion of those three cards "anything" would remain). It also eliminates AO, Herald, and Guardian abilities from being affected ("Beloved of Bast" would have been another problem--if you random-drew "Nine Lives" you wouldn't take "Beloved.").

Master Fwiffo said:

Seems like the best way to make him more difficult would be just to make people defend with a Fight check rather than a Combat check. That prevents weapon/spell use on defense and makes the 2-success requirement rather nasty. If that feels too bad you could always make it a Fight check but only require one success. (It's possible for someone to have 10 or more combat, but Fight for most characters probably won't be going above 5 or 6, tops.)

Magical resistance would make him harder, since simply loading up on spells wouldn't give a massive advantage. Up to you if you want to make him harder, of course...nothing says you have to, of course! (Except Avi. )

Sdrolion said:

True. That should work. Although Bast might still be ambiguous depending on whether someone viewed heralds as "cards." I'd just go with that, it's broad enough that it should basically capture all circumstances.

Here's Zoth-Ommog. Thinking that his attack is too clunky right now, and his Dreams of Marble ability probably a little too narrow in focus. Any advice welcome.

In case the text is unreadable for some:

Worshippers: Zoth-Ommog is worshipped by deep ones. If a Cultist is drawn from the cup, replace it with a Deep One.

Start of the Battle: Each investigator with a statue item must discard it.

Dreams of Marble: While Zoth-Ommog stirs in his slumber, whenever an investigator acquires an item that is a statue, add 2 doom tokens to the doom track.

Attack: Each investigator must pass a Fight(+1) check or be grappled by one of Zoth-Ommog's pseudopods. (The modifier of this check decreases by 1 each round). Grappled investigators get no combat round and lose an amount of Stamina each round equal to the number of rounds they have been grappled. Grappled investigators roll 1 die each round, on a success they break free.

And now Arwassa and Baoht Zuqqa-Mogg.

Also, is there a go-to size for posting the GOOs? I'm just sort of guessing right now.

doubleatotheron said:

What is an item that is a statue? Literally items that are statues?

I'd be more concerned with the Deep One ability... It's going to be a pain in the ass to interrupt the game to search for Deep Ones. An alternate less annoying way of doing this is removing the Deep Ones at the beginning of the game game, counting them as Spawn monsters and having them appear whenever a cultist is placed on the board (and in the outskirts if you want to make them show up more frequently). You could also modify their stats. Have one or two appear simultaneously. Or have one land on each investigator (and permanently flood the spot they moved into). If there aren't enough, have them go for investigators with the lowest sanity.

And now Bugg-Shash

doubleatotheron said:

For Arwassa, you should probably make it so that his slumbering ability doesn't apply to locations with open gates (otherwise winning will become purely a matter of luck for teams that don't have 5/6 sanity investigators). That might be okay with a 13 doom track, but 11, not so much. Also, there needs to be some sort of kill switch. Theoretically it's possible to stalemate him to victory by drawing no duplicate madnesses. Perhaps investigators who can not draw a madness lose 2 sanity.

Baoht has similar problem (actually, I think he'd be a complete pushover in final combat). If you're going to give him such a low combat modifier, you should give him weapons immunity, at least (possibly physical/magical immunity). A unique effect would be having him randomly distribute the *entire* injury deck at the start of combat, then having a standard stamina decreasing effect afterwards either one two or three unpreventable damage depending on how tough you'd want to make him in final combat. Making a short doom track AO that is easy to beat in final combat defeats the point of the game ;') unless the point is an easy win.

doubleatotheron said:

If you're going to make Cultists Undead, you should probably modify Undead as a class, otherwise spacewise it's basically wasted text (there's a reason theme text is usually saved for heralds, there's not much space on AO cards). You could make them move like Hounds of Tindalos instead of their normal movement for instance (and make them endless). Also, devouring investigators isn't a penalty, it's a reward if you have control of it. You're giving players easy access to new investigators with full health, cash, and items. You can fix this by having it reduce their maximum sanity and stamina by one instead. The zombie replacement could be for devourings in general (but I'd have it go to the graveyard in case they're devoured in Another World).

For Zoth-Ommog, yes literally items that are statues. I meant basically any item that has "Statue" in the name. An underwhelming ability but in trying to keep true to Zoth-Ommog as far as the fiction goes I couldn't think of anything better.

Arwassa: I thought that gates blanked the text box and I assumed that meant it was really an "unstable location" while the gate was present. If I'm wrong about that, then I'll add the subtext that it doesn't apply at a location with an open gate. Also, I hadn't considered that it would be feasible to stalemate him by drawing out the Madness deck. Maybe an investigator who can't draw a Madness card is devoured? Or is that too brutal?

Baoht: I love the idea of dealing out the entire Injury deck and then having the standard Stamina loss for his attack, going to edit it up in the near future.

Bugg-Shash: I can see the point on the Undead factor, I was, again, trying to keep it true to the fiction. I think I might do something like have Cultists move to the investigator with the highest Lore. Is lowering both their maximum sanity and stamina not too powerful? I mean the check is a +0 so it should be easy enough to pass. I take it back, that seems rather balanced to me. I like the idea of the Zombies spawning at their location, maybe I could just specify that if devoured in an Other World that the zombies are placed on an open gate?

Also here's Cyaegha.

I just had a thought on Baoht while I was outside smoking, what if I make him Physically Immune, and give him a -X modifier where X=the number of madness cards that investigator has. And add the kicker that if you're unable to draw an Injury card you lose 2 stamina instead?

Here's the rework of Zoth-Ommog and Bugg-Shash.

Presenting the just finished Byatis.

Oh sweet insomnia..you give me so much time to play around with Strange Eons. Here's Ubbo-Sathla.

doubleatotheron said:

I kind of assume that gate replaces location means that it doesn't count as an unstable location... But... Then again, maybe not. FFG is sloppy about how it uses its location terminology. So... Best to clarify it.

Heh... Initially I thought of making running out of madnesses=instant devouring ;'D however, the problem with that is with a large number of investigators you'd devour most of your team instantaneously. The only way that would work (I didn't think of this last night) is if you have the players go through this one at a time (if you do it that way, the one who gets devoured will replenish the madness deck a bit so it won't be an instant team wipeout).

re: Bugg Shath It's really annoying having to search the cup for specific monsters midgame. You're better off making the zombies into spawn monsters, pulling them out of the bag, and then having them appear during certain occasions (possibly with altered stats or effects).

re: Starro, ::cough:: I mean Cyaegha, initially I thought giving Cultists ambush was pointless, then I saw how you joined that with his power. I'd probably clump his slumbering power in with his worshipper abilities, and give him a different power though. (Since its manifestation will be entirely dependent on whether or not Cultists appear). As for his final battle... He'll be an easier version of Abhoth (no epic battles, and if the investigators are blessed they'll only be losing 1.5 items a round). At the least, I'd bump his attack up to 2 items on a success and 3 on a failure (although 4 would be more to my taste-- I like final battles being very difficult, especially when epic battle cards aren't used).

doubleatotheron said:

Hmmm... I didn't realize how problematic Bugg-Shash's final battle is before. There's one minor bit, -4 physical immunity with no epic battle deck's not that difficult (I mean, people beat Shub Niggurath fairly regularly, and there's a -5 combat modifier there). So yeah, that. But here's the *major* issue. The light source is tremendously ambiguous. A statue is a statue, but good luck getting people to agree about what is a light source. Magical weapons that glow? Various spells? Anything that has glowing fists or glowing eyes? No. Don't go there ;') Or, if you want to go there, bump up his combat rating to -7 and have possession of one of those reduce his combat rating for that investigator to -5

Another way of constraining this effect so that final combat doesn't become absurdly easy, is specifically naming all the items (i.e. Flamethrower, Lantern, Flare Gun, Kerosene). There're two of each of those in the common deck, so that would make them available, but still somewhat scarce.

Anyway, however you decide to go about it, light source is just waaaaay too potentially ambiguous and all encompassing and it will turn him into a pushover.

doubleatotheron said:

I'm a bit confused. Did you mean to say where X=the number of injury cards? Because otherwise he's going to have a -0 modifier if the team is at all sensible, and no way of forcing madness on players during final combat.

Assuming that's what you mean, that's a good idea too ;'D although I'm going to have to recycle my idea about distributing huge amounts of injuries as a start of battle ability somewhere else (it's not one I'd like to see lost in the abyss).

"Hello everyone, it's time for final battle, I am the crab monster, pleased to make your acquaintance. Let's shake hands before we fight. Oh wait, did I just break two of your arms? Oh. I'm sorry. Heh heh heh..."