Playing a game the other day, we came across a rule question that I couldn't find an answer to. Searching here I couldn't find a solution either, so apologies if this has been asked before:

During battle with an Ancient One, do End of Combat effects expire prior to the unkeep phase? (so the combat can be seen as multiple single round combats alternating with unkeep rounds)

The question came up as one player had a one-use unique item that gave +9 fight until end-of-combat (I forget the name). I felt this was possible broken, if it continued after upkeep. (Also it raised a strange complication about end-of-combat items that exhaust would un-exhaust before their effects would expire - so would you be able to use them again and stack the effects)

Your one-time use weapons are only good for one round against the ancient one.

Exactly. It is much like combat with a regular monster:

• Dynamite, Holy Water, and Powder of Ibn-Ghazi are one-time hits, and then are lost.
• Exhaust-to-use weapons like the Carbine Rifle or Golden Sword oh Y-ha T'alla are exhausted after you hit the AO—but they'll just get refreshed again next Upkeep, making them essentially the same as ordinary-type weapons (like the Rifle or Enchanted Blade)

The one notable exception is that spells have to be re-cast to be used every round. Against ordinary monsters, spells lend their combat bonuses as long as you devote hands to them, until combat with the monster is over, one way or another (or if you swap the spell out for something else within the same combat). Against Hastur, you'll need to roll for the Shrivelling spell check at the start of every combat round!

Thanks for the responses - this matches what I feel was correct, even if it wasn't explicit in the rules (i.e. end-of-combat only last until upkeep against AO).

Unfortunately the question came up in a game were people were interpreting non-explict rules as " what gives me the greatest advantage right now in the this one example" , rather than " what appears the most balanced way, in line with other elements of the game".

Fabs said:

That's sad. I mean it's just common sense: you light the dynamite and toss it—it explodes. It's not going to continue to explode round after round, where you can trade it to someone else while it is still exploding.

Tibs said:

To be fair, it wasn't the dynamite that caused the issue ... now I remember it was a spell that caused the issue (that lasted till end-of-combat) and when people are trying to work out how the 'Greater Sigil of Shob-****'uluth'fa' (or something similar)works, there are not quite so many real-life examples to help us*

*unless you're related to Alistair Crowley obviously.

Oh, I think you might have meant Red Sign of Shudde M'ell . Well I've got some bad news for you: you can't use that spell against the Ancient Ones. The spell only works on monsters , and Ancient Ones are definitively not monsters.