At the beginning of a round of combat with the AO are players aloud to take any of the three Pact cards from the Lurker or are you SOL at this point if you hadn't received one before the AO awoke?

The Lurker herald should leave play once the AO awakens, since there are not going to be Reckoning cards anymore to add the risk element. Likewise, investigators should not be able to receive Power tokens in final combat (because this makes some AOs impossible to lose to under the right situations, so it cannot be allowed), so good luck using your blood and soul pacts. And your bound ally cards are going to make the battle harder, of course.

As per the rules (unless they've been updated since more heralds have come out), the Heralds are essentially discarded after the Ancient One wakes up. Some have effects that last in the final battle, but these are specifically noted (once made a HUGE mistake when fighting Yig and kept the Dark Pharaoh in play during the final battle...curses killed me before Yig could!)

Tibs said:

Oh, and to add what Tibs said, I always implement the house rule that all dark pacts are discarded when the AO awakens (with the exception of Bound Ally). That way, not only can you not gain power, you can't spend them either! So you can't try to stock up on power before the battle and flatten the AO when he/she/it comes out.

Since I employ Kevin's clues-per-seal limiting rule, stocking up on Power for the final combat won't help us too much.

I also play that blood and soul pacts come into play exhausted, (so you can't voluntarily take one out and use its exhaust-relevant abilities on the same Upkeep).

Thanks guys for the quick answers. I felt we had beaten Yibb-Tstll way to easily. So just to clarify, once an AO wakes up Lurker goes away as well as the Blood and Soul pacts? (I guess they really wouldn't matter since there is no Upkeep Phase in the Final Battle) Is this a general rules change? Cause I couldn't find this anywhere. Another question popped up, can you trade items during the Final Battle?

Sorry I am sure to have a lot of questions soon. Me and my playgroup have played a bunch of times but rules keep on slipping out of our heads. Eventually I hope for us to get it right haha.

Yibb Tstll is one of those AOs where if you enter final combat with few clues on the board, and you get pretty lucky with the defense rolls, you can take her down. I hope you remembered that it requires twice as many successes to remove a doom token from Yibb?

I don't know what the official rule is on heralds in final combat. King in Yellow was the first herald to exist, and in the rules it says that the herald is removed from play if the AO awakens, "because it has no more effect on the game." This wasn't exactly true, because in a final combat with Glaaki, the terror level will continue to rise.

None of the other expansions mention removing a herald from play when the AO awakens. Some heralds have effects that bolster final combat. So far, there's no general answer.

But to make Lurker less of a joke: Blood and Soul pacts are discarded when the AO awakens (B.A. cards go to the Lurker). So power tokens now have no more use. That's really all the Lurker can possibly do to final combat. Or at the very least, you can leave Blood and Soul pacts in the investigators' posession, but they cannot gain Power tokens during final combat.

yeah we are pretty much just trying to stick with all the written rules and updates. And yes we were doubling the about of successes needed. We had one Bound Ally card so if I am correct (with 6 players we needed 12(players)+1( 1 Bound Ally)= 13? Or do we double what the Bound Ally adds as well? Oh and can we trade Items during the Final Battle at the beginning of a new round?

I am going to have to make a comprehensive list of questions after the next time we play...sigh lol

The normal number of successes is 1 extra from the Bound Ally, so it would be 2 extra for Yibb. 14 successes each doom token.

And yes, sorry: during Upkeep of final battle, investigators may trade items freely.

And to add to that, there is also Upkeep during Final Combat. After the AO attacks it goes back to upkeep and you start the process all over again :-D

Speaking of heralds and final combat.. When using The King in Yellow herald, should blight cards be kept in play or discarded along the herald when final combat starts? We've always played to keep them, counting them as the mirror of investigators ally cards - the herald/ancient ones ally cards. And if we get to keep ours, then the ancient one should get to keep theirs. I mean, just think of Joey "The Rat"..

All Blight cards remain in play. The herald sheet, however, leaves play and has no further effect.

Tibs said:

You sure, Tibs? I would think the Bound Ally stuff would apply sort of like Rhan-Tegoth's Cultists, although instead of +1 success per Cultist once all the doom tokens are removed, it's +1 success before any doom token is removed. 2x + 1, if you will. Maybe that's just the Excel in me, but multiplication comes before addition.

Multiplication does come before addition. But Yibb says she requires twice as many successes to remove a doom token. 13 isn't twice of 7. The addition part is in parentheses, and parentheses come before multiplication!

Another way to look at it is that, for any other Ancient One, Joey "the Rat" will make the AO 7/6ths as hard to defeat. What's so special about Yibb that makes her receive less of an overall boost (6.5/6ths)?

Tibs said:

I'm with Tibbs on this one. I can't make any good case for the other side and I think it just makes more sense for the 14 way, not the 13 way...