If you have to fight an Anicent One from drawing a dual color gate card, so you fight the Ancient One as if it has a full doom track or as if it has only one doom token?

full doom track... if it would only one doom token that killing it would be easier than "a monster appears"...

the only exception is if you're fighting the AO that's in play, in which case you only have to remove the existing doom tokens (someone corrects me if I'm wrong)

I believe thet you just flip the doom tokens over, so that you don't loose count of where the ancient one is up to with his slumbering. after the battle, win or loose, the ancient one in play is still... well... in play. conceptually you have a run in with the half slumbering ancient one and temporarily defeat him or prevent him form devouring you.

in the same subject- in you fight Cthulhu as a result of one of these encounters, do his attacks stay on you after the fight? (if you win ofcours). because if so it's not fair- having permanent reduction of maximum stamina and/or sanity would cause almost any player to retire (unless he has insane equipment).

kroen said:

Yes, the losses are permanent. Yes, it is fair-- against Cthulhu, your other option could have been death . You should be so lucky.

What about his healing ability? Does that cross over?

Gatha said:

If you mean "how does his healing ability work if he's the AO in play," then Cthulhu simply cannot have more doom tokens than he did when you entered battle. If the doom track was at 7, for example, he won't heal to past 7, because that would require that you put more doom tokens onto his sheet, which would defeat the purpose of keeping track of the AO's current level by flipping the doom tokens.

Tibs said:

I meant gameplay wise, not flaborwise. gameplaywise, the card that let's you fight cthulhu is actually "be devoured and start and stat a new character, or retire and start a new character". does that seem fair to you?

Those 3 cards are among my favourite bits in the CotDP expansion. Only faced Shub-Niggurath thus far myself through them, once missed Cthulhu by 1 card . My Shub-Niggurath meeting came in my only loss to Tsathoggua, as a fully-loaded Monterey Jack (Elder Sign, 3+ Clues, decent weapons) jumped into a Yuggoth (IIRC) gate on turn 3, drew Shub, devoured since he had 0 monster trophies. Needless to say MJ getting devoured, when he was in a realistic position to seal 2 gates pretty easily messed things up for me. But I love the 3 OW GOO fight cards. If nothing else, you always have to worry about them in those 3 OWs (Leng, R'lyeh, Yuggoth IIRC). They are awesome.

Also, too lazy to check, but if you beat the GOO, doesn't the card say you seal the gate?

kroen said:

Oh. If you beat the AO, you automatically escape and seal the gate to that OW (if there is one. Otherwise, I guess you're Lost in Time and Space). If you lose, your character is devoured, and you start a new one, as though you had been devoured some other way. There's no sense in allowing a house-rule where the character may be retired--s/he was killed by Cthulhu. R'lyeh is the toughest Other World, and the character knew that when s/he entered.

I meant that even if you managed to kill Cthulhu, your character would suffer permanent loss for sanity and/or stamina for the rest of the game. most players would rather retire and start a new character rather then play the rest of the game with a severely damaged character. So the way I see it, the fighting against Cthulhu card has 2 outcomes:

1. You lose the battle and you're devoured. Start a new character.

2. You win the battle, the gate behind you is sealed, but you decide to retire because your character is severely wekened and couldn't possibly play the game without dying every 2 seconds. Start a new character.

Again, does that seem fair to you? They should've made a rule that any permanent damage caused to you by the fight with the AO is removed if you manage to defeat him.

kroen said:

When was Arkham Horror about being fair?

kroen said:

Or, you have Shotgun + Clues (+possible Mandy in-game) and you laugh as poor little Cthulhu dies without ever getting to attack you.

kroen said:

In my experience, players tend to stick with their investigator no matter what, even if they've accumulated several injuries and/or madnesses.

IIRC, so far Cthulhu was encountered twice and Ithaqua and Shub-Niggurath once in the other world in our games. Cthulhu hasn't been defeated so far. I think we've only had a single victory yet.

Even if a player was trying to get his investigator retired after defeating Cthulhu he'd still have to get two injury/madness cards first. I think it's perfectly in theme with the game that an investigator is severely crippled after encountering Cthulhu. And I don't think any player enjoying the game would mind after managing to defeat Cthulhu single-handedly - that's the stuff of legends - absolutely epic!

Oops, I forgot the rule were you can only retire if you have 2 injury/madness! ignore everything I said, I thought you could retire whenever you want.