Picked Arkham Horror, Kingsport Horror expansion, and the Lurker at the Threshhold expansion up at GenCon; I love this so much (small wonder, it's a FFG boardgame!) that I picked up the Innsmouth Horror and Dunwich Horror expansions yesterday.

Teaching this to my boardgame group on Friday afternoon, and I have some questions that may very well come up. I'd prefer to have the proper answers the first time.

1) When a player finishes his move at a location where they are able to turn in Gate/Monster Toughness tokens (such as South Church), can they turn in multiples at one time? Example: Lily Chen (Martial Artist) has three gate tokens and 5 toughness of monsters. Can she "Bless" four characters during a single Arkham Encounter step, or does this require four Arkham Encounter steps?

2) Mi-Go monster reads, "If you pass a Combat check against Migo, return it to the box and draw 1 Unique item". Is Migo effectively removed from the game if Mi-Go is successfully battled?

2a) Warlock monster reads, "If you pass a Combat check against Warlock, return it to the box and gain 2 Clue tokens." -- same question as #2.

3) Is Lily Chen's Martial Arts skill considered a "typeless" combat bonus? (IE: Not affected by Physical Resistance/Immunity or Magical Resistance/Immunity).

4) Are spells considered "Magical", and the bonuses affected by Magical Resistance / Magical Immunity? (IE: Dread Curse of Azathoth; Casting Modifier -2, Sanity Cost 2, 2 Hands, Any Phase: Cast and exhaust to gain +9 to Combat checks until the end of this combat.)

5) Patrice Hathaway gains 1 Clue token each time a gate opens. She also gains 5 Clue tokens when the 9th space on the Ancient One's doom track is filled. Will this result in a total of 6 Clue tokens when the 9th space is filled?

5a) The use of Marie Lambeau's Witch Blood special ability (Once per game, at the start of your turn, remove 1 doom token from the Ancient One's doom track), or the use of an Elder Gate, brings the doom track down to 8. Will Patrice Hathaway receive another 5 (or 6) Clue tokens when the 9th space on the Ancient One's doom track is filled again?

6) Charlie Kane's 'Connections' ability allows his to gain Allies that have been returned to the box. At current, is that the 27 total Allies that I have possession of, or only the 11 that started the game?

7) Physical Resistance / Magical Resistance: Round up, or round down? Example: Would a .38 Revolver (Physical Weapon; 1 Hand, +3 to Combat checks) result in a +1 or +2 modifier against a Physically Resistant creature?

-- S.

SMulhern said:

Found this on the back of the rulebook: In case of Resistance, you round up; the .38 Revolver would add +2 against a Physically Resistant player.

S.

1) No. First off, you don't do this during the movement phase: you have to wait until the encounter phase. Second, you perform exactly what is written in the text: ONE gate gives ONE blessing. If you want to do more, you have to wait more rounds. Otherwise the text at the hospital would make no sense: you could heal 1 stamina for free but then do it as many times as you want all at once, healing completely for free. There would be no reason then to spend the $2. Also note that if you shop at the General Store or Curiositie Shoppe, you are required to buy one item if you can afford one. You cannot choose not to buy if can afford something and you cannot buy more than one item even if you can afford it.

2) If a Mi-Go or similarly functioning monster is defeated via a combat check, it is out of the game. It gives you one reward and is gone forever. Note that if you get an encounter that says "draw a monster at random and keep it as a trophy" you would keep these monsters as trophies and would not get the reward, since you did not pass a combat check against them.

3) Physical Resistance/Immunity only affects combat bonuses by Physical Weapons. Magical Resistance/Immunity only affects combat bonuses by Magical Weapons, Attack Spells, and Magical Effects (KiY expansion). Anything that is not a combat bonus is not affected (shotgun's double-sixes, for example) and Martial Arts is not a physical or magical weapon or attack spell to begin with. Note that base Fight is not affected by resistances/immunities for this reason.

Besides, what are you doing using Lily Chen? I hope you're not introducing new players to any expansions at all—this is a bad idea. Show them the absolute basics, and work them up to expansions. Plus, Lily Chen is the worst investigator to allow for a newbie to use, because she has the most complicated special abilities. I highly recommend taking her out of the investigator pool. In fact, reference this thread I made to set up a game for brand-new players.

Lastly, about Lily: she cannot toggle her sliders back and forth during one upkeep and heal both sanity and stamina. In fact, she may not heal more than one point total during any slider movement, no matter how many spaces she moves it!

4) As stated above, combat checks are the only things ever affected by resistance/immunity. Dread Curse is affected by magical immunity: Bind Monster and Red Sign of Shudde M'ell are not.

5) Usually, yes. Doom tokens are usually added by opening gates. Note that she only gains this 5-clue bonus once, even if the 9th space is vacated and re-filled. Patrice Hathaway should also be house-ruled because she's blindingly unfair. I only allow others to spend her clues for skill checks only, not for sealing or for anything else that requires clues (Quachil-Uttaus's deck, for example). I also dropped her focus to 1.

6) Only the 11 that are included in the game. The rest have not been returned to the box: they simply weren't included in the game. Allies that do get returned to the box can be re-claimed by Kane via location encounters or Ma's ability, or any other way another investigator could possibly obtain an ally. His ability does not allow him to gain allies via some new mechanic (for example, he does not instantly obtain investigators who are returned to the box).

7) In this case, favor the investigators. A +3 weapon, when halved, becomes a +2 weapon.

Enjoy your game! Good luck.

Tibs already answered all your questions, but I'm going to second the statement that you really shouldn't use any of the expansions when teaching new players. This game is complicated enough with just the base game, and with expansions you'll have too much confusion and run the risk of frustrating and driving away a new player.

I do plan on using the "base" set only; the other questions were for my own knowledge.

S.

This does not answer the original question regarding the Martial Arts skill:

Tibs said:

Martial Arts is a skill that adds to Combat Checks. This response is almost verbatim from the rules and has the same ambiguous wording. In particular, it omits skills as a possible source of combat bonuses. Martial Arts is the only skill that explicitly adds a bonus to Combat Checks, and as such, operates just like a weapon. If this skill is without a type (i.e. Magical or Physical), then adding its bonus to Fight yields a very versatile and unbalancing character. Excluding martial arts by saying "anything that is not a combat bonus is not affected" is not helpful, as the skill explicitly adds to combat checks. This skill needs further clarification on how it is affected by Physical and Magical Resistance/Immunity.

bdm said:

No it doesn't. It's not magical, it's not physical. It adds a bonus that gets past resistances and immunities. Just like allies' bonuses do. I don't see what you're finding so hard to believe about the reading of the card? Martial Arts isn't that strong anyway, personally I prefer getting a +1 skill usually.

I'm with Avi on this one (and by extension, Tibs). This skill simply adds to the Combat checks for the Investigator ~ the rolls are absolutely unaffected by Resistances or Immunities.