To save a couple of great debates then we now say our favorite: 1. unique, 2. spell and 3. other world.

My favorite unique Item:

Cliche, I know, but I have a weak spot for the most powerful weapon in the game.

Favorite spell:

If I'm a spellcaster, this is the number one spell that I want if I already have a combat spell. It allows me to set my fight to highest as long as I don't fight more than one monster per turn, which as a spellcaster I usually don't. I love it.

My favorite other world :

I just love the the encounters of it. Every single one of them. Especially this:

Amazing.

What about you?

Previous Great Debates

My favorite common item is definitely the Press Pass. Huzzah! It's practically the only reason to go shopping at the General Store

My favorite unique items are the Healing Stone, Gladius of Carcosa, Silver Key. I would actually claim the Gladius is the "strongest weapon in the game." And free evades are super. Ruby of R'lyeh is hot too.

My favorite spells are Revelation of Script, Mists of Releh, and Third Eye/Call the Beast. Spells with a casting cost of 0 are my friend.

My favorite Other World? Hmm. Probably Lost Carcosa. I've got a soft spot for Hastur. And astronomy (Aldebaran). And I used to love Carcassonne. And The King in Yellow is a wild wacky book, though I have not finished it yet.

I can definitely say my least favorites are:

Common item: Most tasks. And I'm never too happy to see the Knife, but at least it could get used.

Unique item: Cultes Des Goules, or any other crap tome. They're only good in a SEVERE bind. And in 200+ games I have not had to resort to using them. Oh, and those King in Yellow thrones where you can trade sanity for stamina? Never been useful.

Spell: It used to be Denying the Ancient One. YAWN. Does nothing against Abhoth. But now my least favorite, hands-down, is Call Ancient One, for both its mechanical and thematic shortcomings. At least the Kingsport AOs make Denying the Ancient One more useful. Ironically, it's Kingsport cards that make Call Ancient One most exploitable.

Other World: Uh. Another Dimension is just the "Other" encounters, and with all the expansions we usually get that anyway. Abyss and Yuggoth love to delay you. R'lyeh is hard to close.

Favorite Unique item is probably... Healing Stone. I know, I know, it's kind of obvious, but I just get so excited whenever I draw that. It's unbelievably useful.

Favorite Spell is Mists of Releh, hands down. I kept drawing it in my first few games and it just struck me as really useful, especially since you can dump sneak. I don't even mind multiple copies, as there are many times when you need to evade more than one monster.

Favorite Other World is tough... I love both Another Time and Another Dimension thematically (Yes, I'm aware that dimension is all other encounters). I don't think I've ever hesitated to head to the City of the Great Race, as it's always been good to me. So maybe that.

Eh. Another Dimension is my least favorite Other World. I always get excited when I draw a gate card that matches my Other World and not just in color. With Another Dimension you never get that.

These might not be the tops of their lists, but I sure do like them...

Unique Item: Migo Brain Case is great! It lets you zap around the board doing everything, particularly if you're set up for combat. On the weapon side of things, I really enjoy Cursed Sphere and Alien Device. I like missions, despite how hard they are to complete. My favorite, for awesome flavorful image, is probably the Lightning Gun. Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan once turned Monterey Jack into a spellcasting badass, which was fun.

Spell: This is a lot harder. Summon the Inner Beast gets high marks, for the Hulk imagery. Summon Shantak is functionally amazing and awesome for the Nazgul imagery. Red Sign of Shudde M'ell is one of the best combat spells, sometimes even better than Shrivelling. Call the Azure Flame, because I'm good with Shotgun Dice.

Other World: I guess I never thought about favorites here... Great Hall of Celeano seems to me the most consistently merciful, in addition to having many lore encounters. Good for spellcasters. Another Time has always been good to me as well. Lost Carcosa always seems so harsh, which I like, because it always feels appropriate.

Unique Item? Besides the elder sign? I like the Seven Cryptical books of Hsan if I am a spell caster, which I frequently am. Weapon, probably the Gladius of Carcosa.

Spell? easy! Storm of Spirits. A +8 or +9 or more with full Will is fun. However a combo of the Seven Criptical books and Summon Shantak is better.

Other World: Dreamlands I guess. I haven't really had good times in the Other Worlds. Nothing to write home about.

kroen said:

Yeah, I know. But with all the name dropping in AH, it can be nice to go to 'some random extradimensional place #324'. But that's probably just me.

Another Dimension was neat in its own right with the base game, but all the expansions mixed together kind of make all of the Other Worlds seem like flavored water. EVERY other world is Another Dimension, with a twist of character here and there.

Hrm, There are so many good uniques... Warding of the Yellow Sign is durned useful, I find the Book of Dyzan to be really good, 2 spells for $4. Gate box is great... But probably my single most favorite, my *omg, am I glad to see that* (besides Elder Sign) is the Blue Watcher of the Pyramid. Inevitably you run up against a monster you just cant beat... Star Vampires, Dunwich Horrors, Color Out of Space, Dhole, etc, etc.... having the Ace in the Hole is hard to beat.

Favorite Spell.. Ugh, another one that is so tough! Especially since so many of the spells are so good *in combination* with each other. While due props go out to Arcane Insight, Azure Flame, Alchemical Process... those aren't the finalists. I can't decide, I have two: For basic single-spell utility, I'd say Summon Shantak. My second choice is another fantastic stand-alone utility spell, and also has been one of the "most fun" spells in the game, Lure Monster.

Favorite OW... Yikes, I don't like any of them. I have bad luck in OW. I usually live through City, so I guess I'll pick that.

In the base game, every outer world location shows up by n oame half the time. And if you add any number of pure card expansions, that ratio does not change. Playing with only Dunwich or Kingsport, the chances of pulling a named encouter are 40%. Playing with multiple expansions biases it away from the expansion locations.

Each expansion otherworld gets 8 cards per color it appears on, and parity is maintained with the places in the basic box by giving them each 2 more appearances per color (bringing the original 6 per color up to 8). But if you use Kingsport nd Dunwich together you find that Lost Carcosa or the Underworld still only appear on 8 per color and Yuggoth appears on 10 per color. This dilutes The Plateau of Leng down to 35% and Another Time down to 28%.

The card expansions ech bring 6 cards of each color that have a 50% chance of coming up with any particular basic set other world and a 0% chance of coming up with any expansion other world. Needless to say, this makes drawing an encounter for Another Time fairly unlikely. If you add all the expansions together, your chances of pulling an encountr for Another Time are only 17%. While your chances of pulling an encounter for R'lyeh are 41.5%

Another thing that the card expansions do is completely screw Jim Culver. Seriously, his entire power in Dunwich is that when he goes to The Abyss, Yuggoth, R'lyeh or Lost Carcosa he gets a 1 in 3 chace of getting a Green "Other" encounter. Which are in the original sets quite nice. The very worst one is to make a check where a failure causes him to lose 2 Stamina and a success returns him to Arkham. Adding Kingsort into the mix keeps that dynamic and also adds Unknown Kaddath to the list of other worlds his power works in. But if you throw in Dark Pharoah, King in Yellow, or Black Goat, that no longer holds true. All of those expansions add in a bunch of Green "Other" encounters that are really bad. I mean seriously, if you draw an encounter that gets you cursed or attacked by 2 monsters, how are you supposed to feel good about that?

-Frank

Tnx for the statistics. I currently own AH, CotDP and DH. What are my chances of drawing an encounter of Another Time?

Another question, how do your math feels about my suggested house rule to keep drawing cards until you draw the exact other worlds you're in? (two exceptions: another dimension, where you keep the first card, and jim culver, where you draw cards until you draw your specific other world or a green card, whichever comes first)

kroen said:

Edit: I HATE THIS BOARD CODE!

Wait, Sunken City, what? There's no such other world (at least not yet).

kroen said:

"The Suken City" is R'lyeh's name. It's R'lyeh The Sunken City. It's shortened to "R'lyeh" on the cards for space.

-Frank

This is about 'favorite', not 'best', right?

If it was about the best, I'd say Elder Sign, Find Gate, and ...hmm... I think Caelano.

Favorites would be the Mi-Go Brain Case, Summon the Beast Within, and Carcosa.

Favorite: Gladius of Carcosa, Open the Third Eye, Carcosa.

Best spell is Arcane Insight, definitly. Its the turning point in every game, when randomness becomes strategy.

If every things down the tubes, Crystal of the Elder Thing combined with Call the Ancient One. Talking of which, was there ever an limit declared on how many sanity you can avoid by using the Crystals? If it takes all of the cost as it says on the card, it's kind of over-powered...