My friend and I ended up having to fight Yog-Sothoth, and we've reached a bit of a disagreement on how its attack works.

In this particular situation, say an investigator has one gate token left and fails the Will check. Of course, he must discard his gate token. My friend says that, because the loss of the gate happened for failing the Will check, he won't get devoured this turn and is given one more chance to not fail the Will check. But, it sure reads like once an investigator runs out of gate tokens, they're devoured. Obviously, one extra investigator attack could make or break the combat, so some clarification in this instance would be appreciated.

"Each investigator must pass a Will (+1) check or lose 1 gate trophy. Any investigator with no gate trophies left is devoured."

You have to have a gate trophy on you to stay in the fight. If you fail the check and have to lose your final gate trophy, you have no gate trophies left. Which is what qualifies you for being devoured.

Once you're out, you're devoured, even if you passed the Will check (is there anybody that can spend a gate trophy during final combat?). If you fail, you forfeit one gate trophy, then you check to see if you have more. If not, buh-bye. The Will check is just to keep hold of your current trophies, so that you don't lose any.

Every time this comes up, I hear the same two arguments: (A) At any time an Investigator is without Gate Trophies, devoured. (B) If an Investigator is unable to discard a Gate Trophy (because he doesn't have any left) after a failed Yog attack (Will Check), devoured. I hear the same thing when Nyarlathotep comes up, I hear the same thing when Shub comes up.

But we never hear it about any Expansion Ancient One with a "sacrifice" attack, because they are all written with clearer language, and most don't have a "Defense Skill Check". Which has always indicated to me that FFG is fully aware how confusingly Yog, Nyarl, and Shub are written, and never made that goof again.

The fact that we are still having these conversations about the same three AOs means that NO ONE has a solid answer, and FFG has never FAQed it. I personally agree with your friend, CDBlackmage, and that is how I have always played it. If you can't give up a Gate Trophy after failing the Will Check, you're doomed, but as long as you keep passing those Will Checks, you can continue to have no Gate Trophies safely.

Huh? I've never had the slightest doubt how this is supposed to work: You are devoured if you don't make the check and don't have any trophies left.

I.e. theoretically you can participate in combat for several rounds without having a trophy, as long as you pass your checks.

Anything else would be madness

I was always under the impression that if you didn't have the trophy in question you didn't get to make the check and were devoured.

Joseph_Lavode said:

Me too. I read the AO's attack as two distinct sentences.

1. Make check. This determines whether or not you lose X.
2. After the check, if you have no X you're devoured.

If nothing else, the poor base-game AOs do need any boost they can get to keep up with their powerful expansion cousins. Plus, these AOs devour you immediately if you have no X when they awaken, signifying that they take your lack of X more seriously than having to make a check to get devoured.

The only thing in the proto-FAQ I found on the issue was in regards to losing The Messenger ally in lieu of being devoured:

Can The Messenger (Ally Card) be discarded to prevent you from being devoured when You reach 0 trophies / Clues when Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth, or Shub-Niggurath attacks during the Final Battle?
A: Yes

This wording seems to imply that you're devoured if you ever have none of X when the AO attacks, and that the skill check is just meant to whittle you down.

I also go with "survive as long as you make the Will check, Gate trophy or no". If it was the other way (which is actually a better way to play it I think) they should have had a line space between the two sentences and no "if" qualifier.

Tibs said:

Yeah. Great. Could FFG maybe just SPELL IT OUT instead of forcing us to pickax every vaguely-related notion and implication out of the literature?

Magic Pink said:

Actually I would think if it were the other way they should have reversed the two sentences requiring the devouring check first then requiring the check to see if you lose your buffer.

Looking at the "Start of Battle" section, it makes more sense to me that as soon as you loose your trophy, you are devoured.

You could view the Start of Battle condition as a pre-requisite for entering combat.

I've always played it as: "keep playing until you fail the Will check with no gate trophies remaining.

I'm a newbie but the text written is very clear. Once you run out of Gate Trophies you're dead, end of story. Which means at any INSTANCE of you having no gate trophies you're devoured. You will never be allowed to last a split of a second without a gate trophy let alone another combat turn.

yewsef said:

...to you. I love your enthusiasm, but there are several people above you (and a few dozen from previous threads on two or three defunct forums) that think the text is very clear to the other side of the debate...which, by definition, means that the text is not all that clear at all.

Actually, now glancing over the cards of the Ancient Ones from the base game, I think have been playing it wrong.

Consider all the AOs whose penalty for losing the skill check is stamina or sanity loss: investigators who are reduced to zero stamina or sanity are immediately devoured.This makes perfect sense: either their mind or body is destroyed by the Ancient One.

From this follows that if you run out of X during the AO's attack sequence (where X is the resource you need to have in order to continue combat), you're devoured.

jgt7771 said:

I'll give you that, I'm always in doubt when it comes to Arkham Rules. That's true.. but God, now I'm questioning my reading comprehension skills.... Screw you Arkham!!! *shakes fist*

But seriously if it doesn't work like I think it does then whoever wrote the rule needs to fix it...