The Marks: benefit (initially good, becomes bad), relationship (god of pleasure and excess), corruption (plague based and horrifying change in appearance...gotta read up on how these cards work again), injury (bloodthirsty berserker...should be a madness but they're green and khorne's color is red).

Large swarm of nurglings. Hard to evade, lots of toughness but minimal damage. Will have to check the availability/probability of the moon icon for both these and the Mark of Nurgle.

Two things, if you're going to force double rollings for curse, you might as well not bother rolling for curse at all (since it's only 1 in 36 odds that you'll get rid of it, and it's a pain to have to roll an extra die then again, I suppose it wouldn't be too bad if players rolled two dice simultaneously). The other thing is that sneak checks are almost never made against cultists (unless you're playing Tzulscha), so you should probably tie those effects to a different kind of check or occasion.

Khorne: This guy actually makes the game easier. The cultist abilities give the investigators an easy way to be devoured (devouring isn't as big a setback as you might think and sometimes helpful since you end up with a fresh investigator) and the second part of his power gives the players an incredibly easy route to a sealing victory. His monster power is interesting making you close gates to get allies blessings and clues. His attack has no countdown so final combat could literally go on forever.

Nurgle: This guy is interesting, once you get his corruption the average investigator would last about 10 turns if they are lucky. The nurglings will probably fill up the board quickly but you need to clarify their placement by stating the first player rolls die and you place them closest to the first player. His start of combat ability is kind of cool but I think a little clarification on who fights them in what order might be needed, and the luck check in his attack needs to get harder as combat progresses (you need final combat to be an inevitable countdown so it doesn't drag). His curse ability is unclear on what you want it to do.

Slaanesh: The doom track is pretty short which means sealing victories might not be an option for this AO, on the other hand cheaper items means an easy route to shoping for elder seals so there may be some balance there but I'm unsure how that would play out. The cultist ability (which should read Evade instead of Sneak) is easily avoidable and gives investigators a quick route to devouring (mentioned above). You are not clear as to how you target another player with a new relationship and the relationship card itself is unclear as the term "region" has no meaning in this game. Again no countdown in final combat.

Tzeentch: Again a pretty short doom track will equal a short game. The cultist abilities are pretty good, endless makes them annoying since you don't get an easy monster trophy from them and lost in time and space is much better as a punitive measure than devouring. The rest of his powers combine into what could be a very different game, no sealing gates basically means that this whole game is a gear up to final combat. I personally would spend the game getting up to 8 spells then spending my clue tokens to 0 after which I would just shop. If everyone did this he would be a pushover in final combat as again there is no countdown mechanic.

Yeah, once I posted Khorne and was reading it he's incredibly easy. Will be playing again this week so I'll rework them some more. Khorne is going to have to be more about one on one combat somehow (he loves challenges) and Slaanesh might need something along the lines of double successes to remove a counter (putting him at 16, and still in sacred number multiple).

Since I don't actually own the games (we play with 2 different peoples' mass collections) I missed things like the importance of combat countdowns, and balancing AO's benefits, doom token number and clarifying targets.

Excellent feedback...much thanks.

superczhunk said:

::Laughter:: that's a new one.

Anyway, don't let not owning the game stop you from learning about the components, and of course (as witnessed above), you'll get game balance critiques of what you make here.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Main_Page

By the way, if you inverted the colors on Mark of Tzeentsh, it'd probably look a lot nicer (with a black background).

I wanted each horsemen to be represented by 3 doom tokens (Conquest 12-10, War 9-7, etc.) but it got way too complicated and stuffed with text. So each one is represented by one of the 4 aspects of the AO's card. Mainly for fun (and I found an awesome picture for them).

The picture is gorgeous! Could you kindly point me out to the author?

I like the overall idea of this AO; just a question: what do you intend exactly with "Holy" items?

It was on the first page of google images for "Four Horsemen" and I believe it belongs to some group. Maybe you can contact them to find out...I don't see a signature on it.

I was planning on doing a list of items deemed "Holy" so that they could be present during the Last Judgment...if our group wants to play it that is.

Ok, I'll try to search for some more info then! Thx a lot anyway :-)

Only one in one of my other 'pet' franchises could be truly classified as a Great Old One. Naturally, I had to make him.

Strange Eons is officially Too Much Fun.

I was searching back through this thread,noticed a disappointing lack of more 'out there' Great Old ones - non Lovecraftian horrors who would still fit the theme. So, I glanced over to my DVD shelffound the perfect fits.

Behold your Great Kaiju Ones!

Now, I actually put quite a bit of thought into these ones, because I wanted them to be fully playable, as well as adding something unique. For Godzilla, I had to have a City Stomping mechanic. Rather than just have the him fight the Investigators, he destroys the city while the Investigators try desperately to stop him. If the city is fully destroyed, they lose. I did this through use of the 'Close' mechanic, which earlier in the game represents people closing up shopfleeing town, while later in the game representing him stomping all over the city. Hopefully this will work well in playtesting!

I can't decide if King Ghidorah will be ridiculously easy,ridiculously hard. He's got a lot of changing factors in there,he'd probably play best with a lot of Investigators.

Rodan was an attempt to make the GOO interact more with the board. He will attack you if you're on the streets, so be careful,hope you have lots of life. His attacks will continue right till the final battle.

A few issues... King Ghidorah will wake up in no time at all from open gates. Godzilla isn't bad, generally speaking, but it's extremely rare that anyone ever fails a combat check against a Cultist, so that doesn't seem as threatening as it should be. And his Attack in Final Battle doesn't scale well... if it's a 7-8 investigator game, they'll have 1-2 turns, if that, whereas 1-2 investigators will have several, potentially. For Rodan, flying monsters move at the end of every Mythos Phase... move where, though, if there are no investigators in street locations? It would be simple to just add that, as in "Flying monsters are Endlessmove from the Sky at the end of every Mythos Phase if any investigators are in street locations."

Grudunza said:

You'll get 9 turns for King Ghidorah, as he states only 1 Doom Token will be added to the track for each Mythos phase - plus with that many draws, a number of them are garuanteed to be monster surges.

Godzilla's Worshipers ability is supposed to be very rare - humiliating too! Especially since anyone who does so dies immediately. You are correct about the scaling issue though - what might be a good way to fix that?

And I can clarify Rodan with that. Thanks! I just realized he will be really hard though with his ability, due the fact that if you do find a monster in the street, you'll have to stop your movement in the streetbe vulnerable to his assault.

While I work on cleaning up those 3, here's another two.

The only thing I'm not really happy about is his picture there. Otherwise, Baragon is straightforward, with a couple interesting twists. Boy, R'Ylehthe Abyss will be REALLY dangerous against him!

But I'm far more proudinterested to play with Mothra.

Mothra's particularly interesting because of how she changes up the game. Once someone gets her Twins, it's a desperate race to keep alive lest they depart. Otherwise, Mothra will appear,unless you've managed to stock up on items, you're going to get in trouble very fast.

Master Fwiffo said:

Actually no, you would get between 2 and 4 turns for King Ghidorah since quite quickly too many gates would be open at once awakening the ancient one.

As for Godlzillas worshipers I would worry it gives a player an easy way to recycle out a gimped investigator. Remember that while devouring sounds kind of harsh and can be if done in a somewhat random way when they aren't ready, give an investigator with a few injuries or madness cards and a curse half a chance and devouring means a fresh character.

I said I'd update this thing eventually. I'm looking forward to the next person complaining that they dislike the picture ;'D

mmmmmmmmmmm

mmmmmmmmmmmm

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

For King Ghidorah, it's not the doom tokens, but the number of open gates . With 3 gates opening every turn, even with some monster surges, you will almost certainly hit that number in a few turns, possibly even on the 2nd turn for a 5-8 player game. No fun setting everything up to play a 2 turn game of AH. But also, with only 9 turns max. and a doom token added every turn, there's no chance really of sealing 6 gates in that time, especially with a number of monster surges clogging the board up. Even if everyone drew Elder Signs it would be highly unlikely.

Back to the drawing board on that one, I'm afraid.

So, on King Ghidorah, instead of opening 3 Gates, would it be better as 3 monsters per gate? The Terror Limit would still rise fast, but it wouldn't be an absurdly fast arrival like the current problem.

On Godzilla, I think I'll make the Cultist attack at -1 and do 3 damage instead of outright Killing them. It's still unlikely to happen, but it's not so drastic. I'm not sure if I should change his attack though - it doesn't scale well, but he would probably work best against 4 Investigators.

I'll get those changes in tonight and repost them. What do people think of Mothra and her twist on the game?

For Godzilla: You might want to set it up so that the train station closes last, could lead to issues with expansion boards otherwise. I suggest starting at the bank and moving clockwise. Also you don't need to mention streets in his powers as in the language of the game a street is not a location.

On the main board there are 26 locations. With a doom track of 12 you can reasonably expect a game length of around 18-20 turns and with one location closing every 6 turns that's 3 or 4 locations closed during the game if the terror does not rise in any other way (4 or 5 if you include the general store closing from the rise in the terror track). Its harder to predict how many locations will close due to the start of battle power, at least 1 but likely upwards of 3 to 6. So with an assumed 7 to 11 closed locations at the start of game that leaves you with between 15 and 19 locations. The scaling issue here really isn't from large games, 1 or 2 turns to defeat an ancient one isn't unusual, it's from the smaller games, a single investigator gets something like 15 whacks at him, only a very unprepared investigator would lose. This is increased by an order of magnitude if you add expansion boards, 29 locations only 9 of which can close by the start of combat power, your single player now has 35 whacks at him, even a poorly prepared investigator could win.

Veet said:

For the locations, is there a wording that would keep Expansion boards from being considered? The intent was to only deal with Arkham locations. The direction I will change.

As for difficulty, one thing I didn't implement in the original that I had thought to was a healing Mechanic for Godzilla not entirely unlike Cthulhu's. Would that scale him a bit better?

The term "in Arkham" means any place that isn't in another world. I don't think there is an actual key phrase meant to single out the base game board but there is nothing saying that you cant just clarify that it's supposed to be on the base game board. So perhaps something like....

"Close one location on the base game board for each investigator, when there are no open locations on the base game board all investigators are devoured"

As for the healing thing it would add a little more difficulty to a single player game but since they are only needing one success per doom token it wouldn't be adding a whole lot. It's a tough mechanic to scale.

Though if you want to see a herald that would be a nightmare when pared up with your Godzilla check out the link in my signature and look at Dr Herbert West, their powers would feed off one another in a frightening way.

Avi_dreader said:

Blah. It seems like a manga character trying to scary Arkham people. The previous one was far more sinister ::laughter::

(c'me on Avi, you know, none will really be satisfied with *any* Dracula picture you might be able to find. Please, draw a couple of Madness and try again. Obviously anyone having a Madness cannot retire. Uhm... lemme think about this... I've just heard similar words... ::laughter.

Julia said:

::Rips out hair, rips out eyes, rips out brain and throws everything in the cuisinart::