Salute,

Adventure: Arkham Horror + Dunwich Expansion

A couple of questions came up last night which I winged but thought I'd ask just for clarity.

A) I pulled a Mythos card that stated investigators could exchange items during Upkeep even if they were not in the same location. At the time I had two investigators in different OW locations. I desperately needed to exchange weapons with them with investigators still in Arkham. It felt wrong to exchange across dimensional boundaries even if the cards text if taken literally seemed to allow this exchange. I chose not to allow it in this case but of course allowed exchange in Arkham to take place as per the card. Was I right? Or could I exchange items no matter where investigators were located.

B) Can Investigator's choose their Ally card or is it always random (other than fixed pos'). I notice it states Investigators can look through Ally deck prior to start of game. Even if the Ally card was there it's still slim odds you will get it by random acquisition.

Sorry if these have already been answered a thousand times before. Your input will be gratefully appreciated.

Be furtive, watch the shadows...

J

1) From the pure rules text I would say that the "Couriers in Town!" card works even through boundaries. But as I ama setting player i would say that you are right, especially since in King in Yellow there's a mythos card called "Bizarre Couriers" which has the same properties save for one, the couriers aren't human and you pay with sanity for the service.

3) Yes, you can take an ally of your choice from the deck if you use the Ma's Boarding House. Just don't forget that the ally deck can't have more than 11 cards at the start of the game.

Bizarre Couriers also has the "in Arkham" phrase in the text as limiting it to non-OWs.

At the beginning of the game, you randomly draw the 11 allies. Then you look at who the 11 allies are. Once they are looked at, you reshuffle this as the allies deck for the game.

You can search through the remaining allies from the initial 11 when you use Ma's Boarding House. (Which I'm just reiterating for no reason that I know of).

Dam said:

Yes. Other Worlds do not count as "in Arkham."

Carcosan Page on the other hand...

Arag said:

Normally I wouldn't point out an exception that is in an expanion, but since you already have Dunwich...

The Dark Pharoh comes with new allies. The rules for this expansion are that you keep the Dark Pharoh allies separate from the 11 arkham ones and discard an ally from each pile when the terror level goes up.

I've read several House Rules to keep the chances of gaining an ally as high as possible (the major complaint being that on the rare occasion you encounter an ally, that character is not one of the 11 in play). The more allies you add to your base game, the smaller the chances are of gaining one through an encounter.

Dam said:

Right, forgot about that part. So in effect we are coming to a collective "No, you can't exchange items with those two cards if you are in an OW".

The Carcosan Page is evil.

I've read several House Rules to keep the chances of gaining an ally as high as possible (the major complaint being that on the rare occasion you encounter an ally, that character is not one of the 11 in play). The more allies you add to your base game, the smaller the chances are of gaining one through an encounter.

A good way to make Ally encounters work is to keep the allies deck separated into two decks:

-The Boarding House deck with 11 cards

-The Citizens of Arkham deck with the rest.

The second one is simply not accessible to the players save through an encounter in Arkham.

Arag said:

Wouldn't this require you to reduce the boarding house deck whenever you obtained an ally through the arkham encounter you mention in your last sentence?

I thought that the goal was that only 11 allies would be available for all purposes during the game.

It does make the Arkham encounters more rewarding though and allows for some greater likelihood of allies earlier in the game. Nothing is quite so annoying as drawing an encounter for an ally that is not in the ally deck. Then again, you takes your chances.

Lucky_Strike said:

yes. if you take an ally from the "encounter deck", move a random card from the boarding deck to the encounter ally card deck. this allow you, as mentioned above, to be more likely to get/pay for an ally by an encounter, but still not making every ally available for those trading trophies at ma's.

we recently started doing this in my group and it does make the encounter cards where allies are involved more fun, as increasing total ally cards made alot of those encounters result in ".. get comfort price instead for the same payment".

Arag said:

I don't think we're reaching that collective at all :-) Though we DID settle that for Bizarre Couriers! Not sure where the problem is, though, for people that don't like trading across Other Worlds to/from Arkham and such. Because if it's simply a thematic one, just lemme know, 'cause I think I can help fix that for you real quick!

And I do a sorta citizen deck. I have 23 Allies, so I make one of 11 (accessible for Ma's and "draw random ally" things), and 12 that you can only get in encounters. But! 1 ally (or 2 on the first instance) are discarded each time an ally is sent to the box. That way you can still "miss" allies because they've left town. Once I get the full cadre (34 allies) I'll do the same thing, except increasing the amount I get rid of from the "other" deck (2 at a time, or 3 at the first return to box). I'll figure out what to do with Charlie Kaine once I get him, though...

EcnoTheNeato said:

An easy fix for this is to allow him to recruit allies returned from the box only from the normal "Ma's deck".

I figure that's what I'll do, but I'll see just how much I'll be taking "returned" allies to see if taking from both decks is too often, or if it's not nearly not enough!

in last nights game there was someone in my group who had fallen through a gate without enough clue tokens and in one of their OW encounters it allowed them to trade clue tokens with any other investigators... so we had enough to give her to seal when she came out... i think if it says In Arkham it should just be between those in the city...same thing goes with the Cthonian or Colour Out of Space chits....they only damage investigators In Arkham