Bhu said:

There is no way to achieve a sealing victory against this Herald (there are only 5 Elder Signs in the whole game, IIRC), maybe it's a little brutal. I mean, playing with all expansion boards at once, it's very difficult to obtain a closing victory, and some AOs are almost impossible to beat during final battle. Was this intentional?

I really like the picture (looks like a Cap America Red Skull image) :-)

Anyway, for a greater feedback, you should probably post this in the Custom Heralds thread too!

Great picture. But the ability is overpowered. You don't want to make it so all games go to final combat. A compromise on this would be that the first gate sealed and the third gate sealed must be sealed with an Elder Sign. Or possibly just the first two gates, if you want to make it less complex (and a lot harder).

He was intended to making winning much tougher.

I'm thinking of Avi's option or one of these:

Limiting the Gate effect to when Yog or Cthulhu are the Ancient one.

Scrapping the Gate ability for another one enhancing monsters.

Scrapping the Gate ability for something that makes it easier for the AO to wake up.

Bhu said:

I'd probably go with the first two sealings must be done by Elder Signs. Should be an interesting game (force the investigators to take bank loans, and possibly even hit the river docks for cash).

Adding something that makes it easier for the AO to wake up would be fun. Perhaps if two undead monsters are on the board in the same location (except for the sky? It's a bit tough, but then again, undead fliers are rare, just the two wraiths, and one of the fun things about Arkham is deliberately programming slight possibilities of catastrophe, so I wouldn't remove it as a possibility) at the end of the Arkham Encounters phase, the Ancient One immediately awakens?

Or you could make it so something triggers monsters converging towards a location (that if enough monsters reached the Ancient One would immediately awaken).

Julia said:

Technically, if this Herald isn't in play from the beginning and is only spawned by the professor's "Fail" personal story condition, it might be possible to get a Seal victory as it is presently worded. Gates may only be sealed by Elder Signs once the Herald is in play, but if you've already sealed 2 or more gates by Clue Tokens before then (obviously impossible if the professor is your only character, but if you have other investigators in play it might work) you could potentially reach the full 6 gates even with this Herald. Incredibly difficult and reliant on lucky ES draws, but hey.

Thats true. You could simply not get the required Clue Tokens to set it off if the wrong Ancient Ones were in play.

Still I should probably change that a little so they cant simply avoid the bad efects. Along with making some minor tweaks so the Herald can be used in situations other then the Fail condition of a story card.

So according to Professor Abid's personal story, once he gets 5 clue tokens, there is no option for him except to die? He won't last very long. Is this intentional, or is there any option not to turn him into a guardian?

It's intentional (there's precedent for it among the other story cards of official investigators). He's meant to be used to get a Guardian, or if not you just dont get clue tokens and use your ability to get spells to run around blasting monsters or doing maintenance while the other shut Gates and such.

Hows this look:

Hi guys. The ice storms are causing problems with intermittent power outages. As soon as I can get things to stay on longer than an hour I'll be posting stuff. I'm gonna head back off now before the electricity crashes again.

lets try this again:

Monster surge=doom token is Black Goat. Why bother to replicate him? I thought your original idea (forcing hunting for Elder Signs) was more interesting.

Crap I'd forgotten about that. how about something like this then:

Anytime an Investigator is driven insane, search the Magic Item deck for an Elder Sign, and remove it from the game.

Bhu said:

That's quite nasty.

Add in another couple abilities and you have a herald. Currently it's too bare.

Consider some sort of Cultist alteration.

Something else involving gates? Undead? Some other change that's semi-thematic?

Possibility:

If the Terror Level reaches 10 the Ancient One awakens (maybe limit to Cthulhu and Yog).

Bhu said:

Well... The terror track basically works like that already. Plus it almost never gets that high.

Next try: Any turn a Gate with the Circle, Moon, or Plus symbol is open, place one additional monster on the board at the Location of each of these Gates when a Mythos Card is drawn.

Bhu said:

Interesting. Sounds good to me. One potential problem with this though. It could make it too easy for invesitgators to get into undefended gates. So you might want to also want to raise the monster limit by 2-4.

Bhu said:

Are there any gates with the Moon symbol? I didn't think there were.

Sdrolion said:

There aren't.

I'd just reword it to Circle or Plus then.

Also a possibility: When exiting a Gate, if there are Monsters present at that location the Investigator must defeat those monsters before he can close the Gate.

Bhu said:

Sounds good.

Or perhaps roll a die when exiting a gate, on a failure, a monster appears and must be fought or evaded.

Okay hows this then?

Yikes, but sure ;'D

Well then lets give the Guardian version a try.