The game has X number of players.

To make the ancient one loose 1 doom token you need X successful attacks.

The Cthulhu card says:

"After Cthulhu attacks, 1 doom token is placed back on Cthulhu's doom track..."

In one round of combat the players do X attacks, if all are successful (best case) they will remove 1 doom token.

In one round of combat Cthulhu does X attacks, each attack restoring 1 doom token.

What am I not getting? From what I can see it should be impossible to remove any doom tokens from Cthulhu without them popping right back at a much greater rate than at which they can be removed.

Cthulhu attacks only once. Although Cthulhu's attack affects all players, it always restores one doom token, regardless of how many players there are.

Walk said:

So he attacks once per round?

Still that means the players all need to make an successful attack during one round to remove one doom token, and cthulhu each round will restore 1 doom token?

Wow. YOu'd better ask "How to defeat Cuachill Uttaus?".

Unless I am mistaken, you get to add successes for more doom tokens to be removed.

If you have 4 players, it takes 4 successes to remove one token. If the first person gets 11 successes, there goes 2 doom tokens. There are also 3 successes carried over to the next person, so if they get 1 success, that is another doom token gone.

Like I said, I could be reading it wrong, but I thought that was how it worked.

Longshot said:

Really???

So when we're 2 people fighting Yig, who has -3 to attack. If I then have 10 in Fight and throw 7 dice, and there are 4 fives and 3 twos. Does that mean I should have removed 2 doom tokens instead of just a half????

That's correct. Four successes on a roll for two players removes two doom tokens.

Yig is even the example used in the FAQ potion of the Dunwich Horror expansion (page 11) which says pretty much the same thing - just in case you need a rules page to take back to your other players.

Walk said:

The rules says the ancient one will attack each player in turn. Why should not that count as X attacks?

klogd said:

Just to sum up things: every round of the Final Battle, you have:

1. A complete Upkeep Phase (you can trade items, refresh cards and so on. Please, note that you stop generating clues or gaining money from retainer)
2. Each investigator attacks the AO
3. The AO attacks. According to Cthulhu's sheet, all investigators have to lower either their max Stamina or their max Sanity by one. This is HIS attack. One attack that interests all investigators. Then, once the attack is over, Cthulhu regenerates 1 doom token

Hope this clarifies your doubts!

Longshot said:

So the game is not ridiculously hard after all?

Strange it did not say this in the rulebook. It just says to count "successes". And in all other combat and skill checks (toughness 1 implied) you just need one dice to make the entire roll a success..

If anyone knows of clarifications, faq or errata for the base game that says this, that would be awesome

Julia said:

It did, thanks

The end of the various rule books for the big box expansions (Dunwich Horror, Kinsport Horror, and Innsmouth Horror) have errata and FAQs that are very helpful, and can be downloaded from the game support page:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=6&esem=4

Also, the Official Answers from Kevin Wilson thread at the top of the forum is a good resource.

Longshot said:

Thanks, I had a look at it and it seemed to be general and not related to that particular expansion.

I also found the same clarification under "Latest FAQ" for the game, which has "frequently asked questions, errata, and clarifications".

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/Arkham_Horror/AHfaq.pdf

This is awesome, maybe next time we wont just get owned hard by Yig

klogd said:

Steady! These asylum walls have ears (and eyes, so many eyes!)

- while you were indeed severely handicapping yourself with your misunderstanding, you will sometimes or even often find it difficult to accumulate enough successes to return the AO to slumber, unless you are well prepared. And here is the crux of the issue with Final Battle - if the experience in game is brutal (many gates open quickly, seal attempts are mercilessly quashed, clues dry up fast, etc), then the temptation is to get everyone blessed in church and shop for lethal weapons (it doesnt matter who goes to the church because they can bless anyone, and it doesnt matter who shops because investigators can trade items every Upkeep of the FB). Some people actually think they can win the game that way I call it a desperate draw.

A common house rule is to limit the number of clues that can be spent on skill checks by each Investigator to the number of seals on the board. This way, even if players gear up for the final battle, they should still want to seal gates.

The final combat vastly improves with the Final Battle cards found in Kingsport.