Hello!

Pretty new to this game, playing through the dunwich campaign at the moment. Just curious if we are doing something wrong, this is a spoiler for the blood on the altar scenario.

When you enter the hidden chamber all clue tokens in play, 10 from investigator cards and 2 from the last location, are added to the hidden chamber. How is this even possible for 2 players is my question. I'm not asking in anger or anything, just having trouble understanding how this could even remotely be possible. If the two of you stay there and absorb 2 damage/2 madness a round each, you still need TWELVE successful investigations to complete this while handling the encounter deck every round. I am at a loss at this, is it possible?

Without a seeker, yeah, that's hard. On the other hand, a Seeker can often pick up anywhere from 2-4 clues on a single action.

Basically, your decks need cards to deal with situations like this. Both cards that allow you to pick up multiple clues per action and cards that allow you to tank damage. For the first, it's mostly Seeker cards, but there's also Rite of Seeking for Mystic. If you have no Seeker in your group, that becomes almost mandatory. Or if you have anyone who can take Seeker cards as a secondary, like Roland, Deduction level 2, for three clues in one action.

For the second, with something like Dodge, I've had worse, True Grit, you can survive tough situations a lot longer. Or just keep throwing allies at the problem, most classes can do that to some extent.

It sounds like you have done everything correctly.

We managed with a combination of Daisy and Zoey our first time through the campaign, although the exact details are now quite hazy! Looking back at our decks (thanks, arkhamdb!) Daisy had Encyclopaedia + Dr. Milan + Higher Education + Flashlight/Magnifying Glass to maximise chances of success while investigating along with Deduction and Working a Hunch to speed up progress. Zoey was protecting Daisy with a Shotgun but also had Evidence! and Rite of Seeking to help out with clue gathering. I can't remember if we tried evading at all, but Daisy had Mind Over Matter and Blinding Light. For damage/horror mitigation Zoey had Dodge and Daisy had Hypnotic Gaze, although again I can't remember if we used them.

And of course, there are other ways to end the scenario if you are not set up to gather clues...

3 hours ago, Assussanni said:

And of course, there are other ways to end the scenario if you are not set up to gather clues...

And that's what makes the game so replayable. You can find a way to get all the clues, or you can finish the scenario another way (there are at least two). Then when your campaign is done, try again with a team that will be able to get the clues. Of course, that team might have to find new ways through the other scenarios along the way....

Depending how your group is constructed and what shape they are in when you get to the hidden chamber it can either be really hard to get all the clues or very easy.

Also evading the enemy, which isn't easy, is a huge plus for completing the. If 2 investigators move in and one one evades, you have the potential to perform 10 investigate actions before the enemy gets a hit in on you. After that there are 6 more actions before he attacks a second time. Now the encounter deck may mess that up, but assuming you can take one hit from the enemy, you should be able to manage any enemies that pop up and get the clues in the 16 potential actions that you get during a single attack from the enemy. That's not counting if you can evade again.

Cards like dodge also help a lot. As others have said some clue accelerating cards can help a lot as well.

To be clear, there have been times where we figured it was a lost cause to get all the clues and took the other route.

If you're set up for clue gathering, either with a dedicated seeker or a mystic with rite of seeking and willpower boosts, it's pretty trivial to get it done in about 4 rounds, assuming the clue gatherer has action compression available like Deduction or Working a Hunch, and the other player has some way to contribute (Flashlight, Look What I Found!, Drawn to the Flame, Scene of the Crime, etc.). You'll have to deal with the boss in the room, but he doesn't attack of opportunity so you can move out as your last action if you're too injured to weather its attacks in the enemy phase. With Shortcut and/or Pathfinder, you can dance in and out more easily. If you don't have strong clue-gathering potential (e.g. Zoey+Wendy) you'll have a hard time for sure, but then you should just kill the boss and be done with it.

Really, it's just a matter of keeping tools available for gathering clues, and not just relying on your clue gatherer's intellect score.

Typically my group deals with this by spending 2-3 rounds diving into the chamber and out again, picking up all the clues we can (The boss doesn't do attacks of opportunity so this is safe). Then blow out the location by diving in a last time, finishing the location in one or two rounds, somebody evading the boss or even just taking the hits.

Mechanics that grab clues in multiples should be in somebody's deck, Rite of Seeking, Deduction, Scene of the Crime, Look What I found, Double or nothing ETC. The first half of thos scenario is so easy that this difficult latter half should be doable.

Played this last night and wasn’t fully certain on the massive rule, but now wish we’d just evaded our way out!

We’re playing with decks we just liked the look of (survivor and mystic, Ashcan Pete & Jim Culver, thought they could go busking together!), so weren’t geared up for a challenge like this one. I was one bad encounter card away from being able to grab the last clues, then was taken out by horror. My partner tried to run away, but much the same happened to her as well!

Was actually our first loss of the campaign, which is quite nice as we feel like we needed a bit more of the Horror end of Arkham