sry for double post but there s no way to edit the posts here...

another question is re the sequence of actions u perform if u meet a monster:

if I want to evade it:

1. start with monster's special abilities (for example overwhelming or nightmarish) and take damage

2. horror check

3. evade check

4. if evade checks fails - monsters deals damage + I enter combat

If I want to fight a monster:

1. start with monster's special abilities (for example overwhelming or nightmarish) and take damage

2. horror check

3. combat check

is the above sequence right?

another question is re the sequence of actions u perform if u meet a monster:

if I want to evade it:

1. start with monster's special abilities (for example overwhelming or nightmarish) and take damage

2. horror check

3. evade check

4. if evade checks fails - monsters deals damage + I enter combat

Nope, if you want to evade it you miss your steps 1 & 2 above, and just start at 3.

If I want to fight a monster:

1. start with monster's special abilities (for example overwhelming or nightmarish) and take damage

2. horror check

3. combat check

is the above sequence right?

Sorry, again not quiite right. If you want to fight it the sequence is:

1. Horror check. Lose sanity if you fail or monster is nightmarish.

2. Choose to fight (go to 3) or flee (go to 4)

3. Combat check. Lose stamina if you fail or if monster is overwhelming. If you passed, combat is over; if you failed go back to 2.

4. Evade check. Lose stamina if you fail or if monster is overwhelming. If you passed, combat is over; if you failed go back to 2.

New question, why does the quote function on this board not work like the quote function of every other internet forum in existence?

ETA: You can edit your posts, it is just that the edit function is at the top of the post, rather than beside the reply and quote functions where it should be.

I take it this forum was designed by one of the Old Ones to drive forum users mad?

so an investigator looses sanity form the monster's nightmarish ability during a horror check and looses stamina for overwhelming ability regardless if he wants to evade or fight it?

Hugues said:

This is not absolutely true, but if there is a reason you have more hearts or brains than your maximum, you will have a card in front of you that specifically says, "above your maximum". If you don't have that phrase, NOTHING can routinely get you more hearts or brains than your Maximum.

Nightmarish and Overwhelming activate ONLY after you have passed a Horror or Combat Check, respectively. If you attempt an Evade Check and pass, nothing happens to you and the encounter ends; if you attempt an Evade Check and fail, the monster deals its Combat Damage, and Overwhelming doesn't activate anyway. Only once you have actually rolled and passed a Horror/Combat Check do you take any damage from Nightmarish/Overwhelming.

jgt7771 said:

right, it may seem like a minor details but in arkham every little stamina / sanity point matters...

in evading:

1. horror check

2a. if success - take damage from nightmarish ability

2b if failure - take horror damage and... ? do u take extra damage from nightmarish ability as well?

3. Evade

4a if success - nothing else happens

4b if a failure - combat damage and damage from the overwhelming ability

If combat:

1 + 2 as above

3. combat check

4a if success - take damage from overwhelming ability

4b if failed - combat damage and damage from the overwhelming ability?

zubu said:

Almost. Everything is right except the end of the (b)s: you only take the appropriate monster damage, and ignore the Nightmarish/Overwhelming.

Consider the thematic idea, if that makes it a little easier to visualize. Horror Check: your strength of Will was enough to stare down that thing that couldn't possibly exist in reality (passed check, no horror damage), but OH GOOD LORD, it's just so **** NASTY! (Nightmarish sting to Sanity). Combat Check: You took your sword to task against the giant thrashing wall of flesh called the Shoggoth (passed check, no combat damage), but ****, did it take forever to put that pusbag down! And it sure got a few licks in too! (Overwhelming sting to Stamina).

Also, just in case I'm not following your mind exactly...when you first encounter a monster, you have a chance to evade it ENTIRELY before you even have to make a Horror Check. If an Initial Evade Check is passed, you don't have to do anything else with the monster: no Horror Check, no Monster Abilities, you can even keep moving. But if you pass an Evade Check after the Horror Check, the Encounter is over, but you're still stuck there. It's the difference between leaving the area and merely hiding in the danger zone.

More theme: You know there's something out there, you just hope it doesn't know where YOU are. If you can just get across the room without being spotted.......made it! Time to get the heck out of this blasted house/neighborhood! (passed check, moved out of Location/Street) .........crap! It saw you and a claw raked across your back! (failed check, take combat damage) Now, assuming you passed the Horror Check.......Good thing the lumbering hulk is so slow. If you can keep quiet, maybe it won't realize you're only hiding behind the couch a few feet away (passed check). It might move off searching for you and give you another chance to make it outside and away from here (no movement until next turn).

zubu said:

Same as above on the (b)s: only monster combat damage, no Overwhelming.

In case you need, you can cross-check all what Jgt said by looking at page 14 of the rulebook. You'll notice, the "evade" procedure is described before "combat", and they specify that if your first attempt of evading the monster fails, then you're dealt the monster's stamina damage and you enter combat. So, no way you have to worry about Nightmarish and / or Overwhelming unless your combat has begun

my mind is boggling lol...

ok, lets see if i get it right...

i get the nightmarish damage if I succeede at a horror check (if the monster has nightmarish ability ofc)

I get the horror damage without nightmarish damage if I fail at horror check

If I succeede at combat check I get the overwhelming damage

If I fail at combat check I get the combat damage without overwhelming damage

The last thing that aint clear is this: Do I have to make a horror check before I make an evade check or do I make an evade check without a horror check? Common sense tells me I should always make a horror check... I see the monster and regardless if I wanna flee or fight it makes me insane... so how is it oh clever Ones?

zubu said:

Ok, the first four (nightmarish yes or no, overwhelming yes or no) you got them right

As per your second question:

there is a monster in your space. You want to Evade it. You must not roll the Horror check, but you roll an Evade check. Two cases

a) you pass the Evade check. Monster ignored for this movement phase AND, if you wish and have some spare movement points, you can move further

b) you fail the Horror check. You suffer the combat damage of the monster AND you enter combat. Hence: Horror check and then Fight or Flee

Hope this solves your doubts

Well, at least you've grasped Nightmarish and Overwhelming now.

The FIRST Evade Check is done (or ignored) before EVERYTHING. You aren't even "in combat" yet. If you pass, it's like the monster encounter never happened at all, and you're free to leave the boardspace. (You never really saw the monster. Either you knew something was there by sound or smell or maybe even a vague shadow, but nothing substantial enough to rattle your mind, and you chose to get the hell out of there before it figured out YOU were there.)

If you fail the FIRST Evade Check, you suffer the monster's combat damage, and officially "enter combat". (You may also choose to "enter combat" voluntarily, and ignore the FIRST Evade Check, and take no damage.) Movement ends; Horror Check and Combat or Evade (fight or flee) Checks to follow. (Too late. The monster lunged at you and smacked you one. Now you see exactly what it is and your mind stalls...)

good all clear now thanx

Ignore this post, it's done only to turn the green light off

1. When a Rumor card dictates to be returned to the box, then I remove it from the game and do not place it at the bottom of the Mythos deck, right?

2. Unconscious in Arkham: The rules refer to discarded items. Are these only the Common and the Unique ones or are other cards included as well, such as Allies, Spells, Bank Loans, Skills etc.? These are not items per se.

3. Devoured Investigators: I suppose only unspent gate and monster trophies are left as a legacy for the new investigator. Everything else –money, clue tokens, etc. – is discarded, right?

4. In the above case, the rules state shuffling the old investigator sheet with the unused ones and drawing a new one at random. What if I draw the same investigator? Is he returned from the dead ready to challenge the AO once more?

5. Continuing with the devoured investigator instance, does the game resume from where the previous one left it? i.e., if the old one got devoured during the Other Worlds encounter phase, then the new one appears in his starting location, I still have to draw a mythos card, however, since this phase is the one that follows the OW encounter one, right?

Serazu said:

1. Right.

2. Common Items, Unique Items and Spells.

3. Right.

4. Uhh, remove the old one from play. Or choose whoever you like. You're not forced to make it random.

5. I'm not sure I get it. When an investigator is devoured, a new one enters play but he loses the rest of the turn. Basically, you wait until the Upkeep of the next turn to start playing with the new one.

p.s. Oh, maybe you're playing with only 1 investigator. In that case, everything I said above applies and of course there is a Mythos phase. It's the investigator losing his turn, not the turn that gets lost

Tox said:

Plus Patrol Wagon and Deputy's revolver (cfr core rules, pag 16)

Devoured investigators: yeah, technically you should shuffle the dead one with the unused ones (as per pag. 17, core rules). I've always found this really senseless, so I generally return the dead one to the box and I draw another investigator at random from the unused investigators pool (yeah, I use a cup for investigators markers as well)

Can monsters appear at locations where an Elder Sign is located? A friend of mine, veteran in the game, insists that monsters cannot appear. Even if an encounter card states that a monster appears, its text should be ignored. Is he right?

Serazu said:

Yes.

In the final battle against the ancient one, is it correct that each investigator can only remove a mximum of one doom token each?

Wolfgar said:

No, that is not correct, but it's easy to misinterpret the rulebook.

What the rulebook is trying to do is to use the doom tokens as a counting mechanism. In a 5-investigator game, every 5 successes removes one doom token. If a single investigator scored 13 successes, then two doom tokens would be removed in the attack, there would be three "left over" successes that count towards the removal of the next one.

More simply: Ancient One HP = [investigator count] × [AO doom track spaces]

If each investigator was limited to one token per round, then a single investigator could never defeat Cthulhu in combat because Cthulhu heals back an entire doom token every round.

We fought Rhan-Tegoth in a three player game on Sunday, and the way we were playing was that any extra successes beyond what was needed to remove a doom token were ignored. I was sure it was wrong, but no one would listen to me. So Jenny would roll two successes, and then I would roll two and one doom token would be removed and the other success was lost.

I'm a little sore about it now since I was sitting on 12 Clue tokens that I couldn't spend since it wouldn't matter if I got one success or seventeen under the way it was being read.

Well consider that the designer proposed a house-rule where each investigator cannot spend more than X clues per round of final combat, where X is the number of seals on the board. It's possible you wouldn't even be able to get through all 12 that way with that rule! So you could retroactively consider that the rule was in play

Thanks for the reply. One more question: Is there a rule somewhere saying that monster do not move the turn they hit the board, even if the Mythos card dictates that they should do so? That same friend claimed that they can move the following turns, but not in the one they first entered the board. He owns the previous publication (not the revised one) and I guess something like this may have been the rule back them. The revised rules are silent on the matter and I 've always assumed the monsters move normally even at the time they enter the board if something causes them to move (most probably the Mythos card).

Serazu said:

Your friend is wrong. Monsters CAN move the turn they appear on the board.

I believe they can appear and move, but they can't eat your face until your movement, right?