Dear AH Players,

I tried to search the forums for this but nothing turned up so I apologize if this question has been posed already. Some of the great old ones increase the toughness of certain (or all) monsters (e.g. Ithaqua). What about those Monster's trophies? Do the trophies count the toughness printed on the token or the value altered by the old one, e.g. when playing with Ithaqua do Cultist tokens count as three toughness tokens or just one toughness tokens?

Thank you very much for your help!

Trophies are worth the exact number of toughness points they have at the moment you spend them.

Ok, that's horribly worded. Let's go with order. The Worshipper ability of an AO lasts for the entire game. Thus, yeah, all monsters in a Shub game are worth one toughness more while spending them. And Ithaqua's cultists are always worth 2 toughness more, thus 3. But it's not that simple

Let's say you have an Undead monster trophy worth 1 toughness. You may normally spend it as a 1-toughness trophy. BUT if at the moment you spend it, there is an Environment (or something else) saying that all the Undead have their toughness increased by one, you may spend it as a 2-toughness trophy.

It's true even the other way round: you kill a 1-toughness undead while the aformentioned Environment is in play. Then, basically you have a 2-toughness worth monster trophy. BUT before you go spending the trophy at the River Docks (or wherever you want) the Environment changes, and the new one is not affecting any longer undead monsters toughness: you can spend the trophy anyway, but now it's worth back the original 1 toughness.

So, whenever you spend trophies you should take in consideration all possible modifications to their toughness value in effect during the turn you're spending them (and this means: Worshipper abilities of the AOs, Environment, special effects deriving from cards - other Mythos cards, or whatelse): this is the actual toughness of your trophy

Hope this helps!

This helps indeed, very much so! Thank you so much for your very detailed and easy-to understand explanation.

I apologize for the strange names in my post, I live in Switzerland and we play the German version of this game so I didn't know the correct English terminology ;-)

I do have some follow-up questions, though, as we are, indeed, in the middle of a nice round of AH at the very moment (it's Pizza break right now though).

1) There are some items in the game, like dynamite or holy water, that say: Discard after use. The description (in the German version) is somewhat misleading as it is unclear whether the bonus granted by this item counts for the whole combat or just one combat round. Do I get the bonus for such items for just one attack, the whole combat against the same foe or even for the rest of the round (e.g. when fighting several monsters in the same turn). My hunch is that it is for one combat against the same one foe?

2) If by an encounter card or a spell an investigator leaves the other world prematurely and returns to Arkham, does he still get the explored token and can attempt to close the gate next turn? Or is it necessary to fully explore the other world in order to attempt to close the gate? If so, how does the spell make sense that allows me to leave an other world instantly?

3) Some encounter cards offer the choice to immediately move to another location and have an encounter there. What happens if I chose to move, but there are monsters at this location? What happens if there is a gate? Do I still get to draw an encounter card before entering the gate? And what happens if there is a gate AND one or more monsters?

I would really appreciate if someone more experience would quickly help me clarify these questions! I assume that these questions have been answered before, given the basic nature, but I didn't find any useful information when using the search function. (it is somewhat difficult to search for this kind of stuff?!)

Thank you very much!!

::laughter:: I love pizza breaks :-) a friend of mine has an interesting theories about how we should take breaks from pizzas in order to play, but that's another story.

As for your questions:

1) there is an exhaustive explanation to this question in the "Official Answers from Kevin Wilson" sticky thread on the main page of this very forum; maybe you would like to give them a read (scroll down until you find the answer), since probably no one can answer better than the designer of the game. As for me, I can give a short explanation (a similar issue happened also with the french version of the game, IIRC):

Items "discard after use" are items giving you a bonus only to a single combat check : this is the case of the Holy Water, the Dynimite, and so on (you can cross-check all Arkham items in their original wording at www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com). If you look at the item, it's kinda logic: after you use the Dynamite, you don't have any left. Same as per splashing water over some monster. Then we have items giving you a bonus until the end of the combat : this is the case of some spells such as Wither. The bonus lasts as long as you devote hands to them, or until the monster you're fighting with is dead (or your investigator is knowcked unconscious). Please, note that in this case combat means "a combat with one monster": you may not cast Wither, use it to kill a first monster, then start fighting a second one and still using the same spell. Finally there are other items (generally speaking, most of the weapons) which offer you a combat bonus without "specifications": you can use them, as long as you wish, with as many monsters as you wish, as long as you have enough hands to use them (which means you cannot use a shotgun and a revolver at the same time, since you don't have three hands)

2) everytime you are "returned to Arkham" (by effects of an OW encounter, a Mythos card - these are very rare - or simply by moving there from the 2nd OW area) you receive an explorer marker (this was clarified in the FAQ published with Dunwich Horror; if you don't have the box and want to cross-check my post, you can download the pdf from FFG website). Please note (this is fundamental) that whenever you return (or are returned) to Arkham, you receive a free pass against monsters on that gate; this free pass lasts only for the turn you return to Arkham. Let's make an example: you are journeying through the Abyss and there is a Dark Young sitting on the gate. If you return there by normal movement, you don't have to deal with the Dark Young in the turn you return to Arkham (monsters are dealt with during the Movement Phase, you return in the Movement Phase and have the free pass, so, unless you want to enter fight with it, you can simply avoid it). But if an encounter send you back to Arkham, the pass lasts for that turn only; you return during the OW encounters phase, the Mythos phase and the pass is gone, so at the beginning of the new turn, during Movement, you have to fight or evade the ark Young (Movement Phase) before attempting to close / seal the gate (which happens during the Arkham Encounters Phase)

3) I can only answer partially to the your last question because we are still waiting for an official answer on part of it. Let's go with order. If you cross-check the core rules, in the Arkham Encounter section is defined what to do with a gate or without a gate on a location. So: the card instructs you to move to a new location AND have an encounter there. The new location has no gate? Well, you draw an encounter card and resolve it normally. The location has a gate? The encounter IS entering the gate, no choice. The problem is the monster(s) on the location: this was discussed several times, and the designer of the game changed his mind on what to do and what not. I play that whenever you move to a location (regardless of the phase when this happens) you have to deal with monsters on that location (just as if you entered that location during the movement phase) and you pick up clues from that location as well; others play that dealing with monsters on locations is something related to the movement phase only, so if you enter a location with monsters during the Arkham Encounters phase, you can ignore them. At the moment, play it the way you feel more comfortable with; whenever we will see the FAQ published, a final word will be said on this.

Happy gaming! And if you have any questions... the Carnival is always open, and there will always be somebody ready to solve your doubts! Welcome home!

Julia said:

and we play this differently. you get the free ride to a location, you do not get the free clues. and as a consequence, you don't need (or are allowed) to deal with the monsters on the location. but, as previously stated - this is just how we do it..

@Julia:

First of all, thank you so much for your very detailed explanations and help! lol, I can imagine the problem with pizza and game time, that's why we usually start in the afternoon to finish our 6 player sessions around 10pm

ok, here's my comments:

1) Thanks for the clarification, actually we had a small argument over this. My friends argument, that if you splash holy water on a monster, it is affected for longe than just one fist punch, won the night. But we'll play with the correct rules from now on! I almost thought that we're only allowed to use these items for once check!

2) Ok, this is actually great news. We were running into these cards that "made" us return to Arkham ahead of time and kept going into the OWs to finally explore them properly. When somebody turned up a spell that had the same effect we were somewhat dumbstruck.

3) Actually it does make a lot of sense the way you put it and this is also how we played it: Since you enter the location, we just treated it the same way we would treat it during the movement phase: Pick up tokens / fight /evade monsters and/or move through the gate. I am a bit surprised that this is not covered by an FAQ, but I wonder how this will turn out.

@Taurmindo

I can see how different people interprete the game differently. For me and how I imagine these events play out, entering the location would actually trigger the same responses as during the movement phase. Maybe the FAQ will clarify some stuff!