I've posted this as a reply to a topic on BGG: for those who feel that the Ancient Ones from the base game are not challenging enough, and don't want to use/don't have the epic battle variant from the Kingsport expansion, here are a couple of suggestions to make the game more challenging.

1. Remove all skill checks from the Ancient One's attacks in final battle. The investigators' losses become unconditioned.

2. Always strive for a sealing/closing victory during the game.

3. For each sealed gate you're short of to score a sealing victory, the Ancient One's combat rating is increased by (-1).

So if you're playing against Yig, and there are only three sealed gates on the board when he awakens, his combat rating improves to (-6).

zealot12 said:

You should repost this in the Ancient Ones section on the fan creation board so it doesn't get lost.

Done.

I added another suggestion made by someone else to promote the sealing victory further:

4. Any missing seals from the board are instead added as extra doom tokens during final battle with the Ancient One.

I only like 3 and 4.

1 is no good because then you know exactly what order your team is going to die. There's no strategy left in determining who may be most likely to survive, causing you to equip accordingly. Some investigators, aside from their sanity, stamina, or possessions, should be predisposed to surviving longer by merit of their stats. Skill checks do this nicely.

2 isn't really a rule so much as it is a general playstyle.

Your rules 3 and 4 handle the sealing mantra and the difficulty nicely, so 1 and 2 aren't even needed.

I'm still using Kevin's rule that can be used with any final combat: each round, each investigator cannot spend more clues than there are seals on the board. This works particularly well with skill-check (base-game) AOs.

zealot12 said:

Someone like me ?

www.boardgamegeek.com/article/5803495#5803495

Helps to have a similar nick around the boards.

Tibs said:

This and the Epic Battle Cards are enough for me - together they make sealing at least some gates a priority even if you're playing against something as weak as Yig or Nyarlathotep.

-Villain

Dam, you're right about that.

Tibs, I have also backed down now on the first suggestion. Originally, I wanted to make the AOs more or less equal to their peers in other expansions.

I realized though that each AO requires a different skill check, so there's definitely some strategy involved as it emphasizes the difference between the investigators and makes their chances for survival vary.

When the Dunwich AOs were first released, I appreciated that there were new attack mechanics that weren't based on skill checks. But then, of course, the other AOs released followed suit, making the skill-check attacks seem nostalgic.

I like the Epic Battle deck and Kevin's rule, but they don't do quite enough to encourage sealing. That's why I make the epic battle deck more risky when there are fewer seals.

It seems that only the Arkham-Nights-exclusive Daoloth, and paradoxically, Atlach-Nacha (thanks to one of his Sinister Plot cards) actually penalize players for having fewer seals in final combat. But these penalties are very slight. There doesn't seem to be much stopping players from coaxing Hastur into an early awakening and slamming him when he's at his most vulnerable.

Hastur may prove quite a challenge if you play against him using this difficulty variant.(specifically, item 3 on the list). I think it interacts nicely with his slumber ability.

I've only proposed this variant to tweak the weakest, most exploitable GOOs, but feel free to use it for the whole bunch.

Atlach-Nacha- after beating him once with no difficulty(having amassed enough allies), I cannot for the life of me deffeat him a second time.

I still think that Zhar is the single hardest AO- not only is final battle with him difficult(I've only managed to kill his first body so far), but his slumber ability rushes the doom track, which is too short anyway for someone so nasty.

Dam said:

Stop robbing yourself for credit ;')

zealot12 said:

I think it's a good variant for the base game AOs (well, it doesn't fix Azathoth). And a couple of the weak AOs from the expansions (cough cough Abhoth). 3 and 4 are probably enough to fix everything. It's a nice simple tweak.

I'd also add that losses are unpreventable against them.

I'm glad there's support for it. Keep on gaming, guys.(:

In the fans creation subforum I've also posted a very rough draft of a variant that may potentially make the Kingsport board more trafficked, as in, actually worth visiting aside from keeping rifts under control.