Having problems with Quachil Uttaus

By woodsdarkman, in Arkham Horror Second Edition

Posted at

Fake Ghost Pirate said:

See why Q's my fav Ancient One? The 'final battle' is a mere formality where he kills you one at a time instead of all at once like Azathoth. He's supposed to be a 'problem'- the idea is to avoid facing him at all costs.

Maybe if Norman passes his Story and someone casts "Call Ancient One" spell and Joe Diamond has Fight skill and 20 Clues...MAYBE then you have a chance of one person surviving. I did the math a while back- if you have fewer than 30 Clues there's basically no chance- has anyone ever saved up 30 clues?

Has anyone ever beaten Q in Final Battle without getting the rules wrong?

I've run out all the clue tokens before.

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Well now we have a fun exercise: who would be the best 8? Most of them have been named in the thread already.

avec said:

The more I integrate with humans, the more socially aware I become. I've recently noticed that telling someone that two plus two equals four is often one of the most aggressive things you can do. This conversation may be a case in point.

Recently I got in a math argument (not so out-of-place considering my major) where someone tried (and failed) to counter a point by stating that 2+2=4. I was more enraged by the fallacy.

BTW, the argument was over whether 6.999... was equal to 7. I eventually had to say, "you don't have to take my word for it: see these websites for the proofs." The nice thing about math is that when something is proven, it is proven , period . Doesn't get any better than that!

Posted at

thecorinthian said:

Tibs said:

The formula does absolutely consider all things to be equal. Thus it's more of a guideline than a rule.

Oh yeah, no disrespec' meant to the formula. I was just pondering whether a decent team of 8 was possible. Dunno why it took me like 800 words to come to no particular conclusion. Didn't have time to write a short letter so I wrote a long one, etc, etc.

Joe Diamond isn't the only useful thing: 'Fight' skill does the same job.

Or shotgun.

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thecorinthian said:

In a way, the real sweet spot is 'zero' investigators because then QU has no hit points and you sort of win without ever actually playing AH at all. :)

;'D That was too perfect a sentence for me to not stop and grin at it.

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avec said:

The more I integrate with humans, the more socially aware I become. I've recently noticed that telling someone that two plus two equals four is often one of the most aggressive things you can do. This conversation may be a case in point.

"Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! The humanoid must not escape!"

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A "Berzerk" video game reference from the '80s jgt7771 ~ wow, that definitely puts us in the same age bracket...I guess gran_risa.gif

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I think when you have a quantitative statement like Tibs' formula, or even the archetypal "2+2=4," it's often interpreted as objective, undeniable fact that must be passively accepted. Of course, math *is* objective and undeniable. But there's always a social context to applied math. It's often reasonable to ask why we would want to add two and two in any particular situation, or to wonder how much the knowledge that 2+2=4 really helps us in solving the problem at hand. To take it back to Tibs' formula, the limitations of his statement seemed like they were pretty clear. Folks like Avi and Corinthian are totally right, but (and I don't mean to be mean) I didn't think those statements needed to be made because it was obvious that the formula didn't tell us the whole story. Anyway, I've noticed that conversations (both here and where I work) can get a certain charge to them when someone starts using math and logic. I love logic and probability, but I'm looking for ways to use them while making it clear that I'm not rejecting other points of view.

Anyway, I don't mean to preach. This is just something I've been thinking about in my own life and it seemed like it was relevant here.

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I didn't set out to "invalidate" the formula (and indeed we haven't, because it will still hold true for larger pools of investigators, including wacky custom ones plus any from later expansions in future). But I didn't think it *was* completely obvious that the available standards of investigator mean that the optimum course of action implied by the formula will usually not be the best course with the stuff we have now... it wasn't even obvious to me until I started typing out a long post about it.

In any case it's not a thread about the power of positive thinking, it's a thread about how to beat Quachil Uttaus... if I hear the music, I'm gonna dance...

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Avi_dreader said:

I suppose that's an interesting exercise in Advanced Theoretical Arkham Mathematics ;') however, eight investigators caught with their pants down are still going to get eaten even if they, theoretically, have a significantly larger infinitesimally small chance of survival than a small group of random unprepared investigators ;'D

Advanced Theoretical Arkham Mathematics Experience = ATAME (the most skilled know how to use this properly)