Hi folks!

I'm new to the forum, nice to meet everyone!

I've a couple of questions reguarding the rules... hope someone would be so kind to help me

1. An investigator goes to the Other Worlds. After exploring the second half of the Other World, he's supposed to return to Arkham. So the sequence should be: Movement - returning to Arkham, getting the explorer marker / Encounters - closing / sealing the Gate, if the required roll is succesfull. In case there are monsters on the gate, during this round the investigator can avoid fighting them, right? (and if the roll for closing is unsuccessfull, he can remain over the open gate, but during the following round must fight / evade the monsters sharing the same location)

But what if he is sent back to Arkham by effects of a Mythos card? I think he receives the explorer marker during this Mythos Phase, and so the following round he must fight / evade monsters on the location before he attempts to close / seal the gate for the first time. Am I right?

And second point: is it compulsory trying to close / seal the gate? I mean, in case you are drawn though a major gate (like witch house) without having enough clues to seal it, when you return to Arkham could be wiser not closing it (trying to close a major gate is like giving a free doom token to the Ancient One) and simply leave the location in the round after the returning home

2. The other question regards the red sign of Shuddle Mell spell: must I share the same location of the monster hitten by my spell? I mean, I've always played this way, but was wandering to use it to help friends fighting with monsters somewhere else

thanks to everyone!

Julia said:

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

1. During the turn that you return from the OW, you can choose to ignore the monsters. I'm not 100% sure if you can choose to fight them—or even then if you can choose which ones you can fight and ignore the others, but I play that way. If an OW encounter or Mythos effect sends you back early, you would not get the free chance to ignore the monsters, because a new turn will start before you naturally have to deal with them (Movement phase).

1b. If an investigator is on a gate and has an Explored token, s/he only has two choices during the Arkham Encounters phase: attempt to close the gate, or do nothing. You can't have a random encounter, and you can't have a special encounter (e.g. dissection at the Science Building). But this means that if you have a plan that requires you must wait to close the gate, you can wait as many times as you like, or until you screw up against any monsters that are on your space and get rushed off to the hospital.

1c. Closing a gate for compulsion depends on what happens. If another investigator can scrounge up an Elder Sign or an item that can be read for clues, s/he can drop those items off to help the sealing cause. Yes, closing the gate may invite another gate and another doom tokens, but it also prevents potential monster surges and sometimes the intensity of each surge. Plus, you may wish to eliminate monsters with a matching dimensional symbol on the gate. Furthermore, if you close the gate you get the trophy—you can spend it to gain crucial benefits (clues, money—yeah right, allies, deputy, blessing, rumor). Again, this depends on the AO and on the current situation.

2. Red Sign is a piece of hand-held equipment, like any other weapon or attack spell. You cast the spell when you enter combat with a monster, and if it succeeds, that monster requires one fewer success to defeat. To my knowledge, there are no spells that attack monsters at long range. Dunwich has a Greater Banishment that removes all monsters of one symbol, and Dark Pharaoh has Plague of Locusts that affects all monsters in a neighborhood, but you don't keep them as trophies if they're removed. Unless an item specifically says you don't have to be in the same space, you must assume you do.

Tibs said:

Hi Tibs!

1. All right! I wasn't sure you could choose to fight the monsters over the gate in the round you arrive from an OW, but I remembered I had read it somewhere... well, glad to hear you do the same!

1b + c. You're right, there are many reasons for closing a gate even if you don't have enough clues or an elder sign to seal it (even for getting rid of a particular corruption), and it's striclty depending on the situations you're in. But I'm really really glad to hear you're not obliged to close it, which can be very useful in certain situations (i.e. one seal missing for a sealing victory, next round another investigator is returning to Arkham with an elder sign, and only one doom token is missing on the doom track. If I close the gate I'm on, on the Mythos phase before my mate could make the party win, a gate could re-open at my feet, and so the AO receives the missing doom token and instead of winning the game, there is the final battle to fight). So thanks a lot for the vital precisation!

2. And thanks even for the precisation on the way spells work. It's quite a pity there aren't spell hitting monster at a long range, isn't it? Could be useful for more complex strategies in cases of particularly difficult games

Thank you for helping me!

Cheers

Julia

It is my understanding that combat spells are cast before the horror check. That way you can decide to attempt to flee instead of make a combat check if the spell fails (since your hand(s) are tied up for one round of combat with the gear you assign).

You still have to make the horror check first, though. There is a particularly useful spell from CotDP where you can pass the horror check if you pass the spell. But it costs one hand, so presumably you have to equip it before the horror check is even made, and you can't trade it out right before the first combat check.

That's odd. I've never noticed Markings of Isis requires a hand until you mentioned it. How does that work, exactly? If you stop devoting hands for spells, they lose their effect, but you've already passed the horror check with the spell... so what, if you stop devoting a hand for it you lose sanity? that doesn't see right.

Tibs said:

I've always played this way too (not that I have such a long experience in playing )! And it's even logical, considering tha fact that many spells may be cast in any phase (and so even during the upkeep, I think... which is great! You can prepare the spell, make the lore ckeck, if you pass it, go for the monsters, if you fail it, go for something else)

Tibs said:

Yes, I stumbled in it once. Have a good memory of it!

But... may I ask you another couple of question, Tibs?

The first one relates to the Flute of the Outer Gods. The card states you have to pass a Combat check to defeat all monsters in your current area. But what values have I to use for the Combat check? I mean, it's a Combat check, not a Fight check. So should I sum up all the bonus I can have? i.e: 4 fight + 2 alien device + 2 derringer + 2 hand axe = +10 and thus roll 10 dice hoping in just one success to eliminate the monsters in the area where I am? ignoring all their immunities / resistences and their combat ratings? this is the way we always played, but it seems to me definitely powerful? the initial horror check for all the monsters is required?

And last thing (really! I swear!): in Kingsport horror, it's said it's a long way to reach the strange high house in the mist. But what about leaving the Strange high house in the mist? Same stuff, thus a stop in every location until you reach the streets of Kingsport?

Thank you for your patience

Julia

You don't get to add in all your weapons.

This question is similar to the Graveyard/Bank Encounter question from the "Official Answers from Kevin" thread at the top of this page.

You treat it like a normal Combat, and only need 1 Success, unless the card says otherwise. If something doesn't specify how many Successes you need to get, always assume it is 1.
In short, you make a Combat check, and get your 2 Hands as normal.

You may want to read that thread, as it has lots of official answers that can be applied to many different situations.

kroen--

The idea is that you equip the Isis before the horror check. Since it has one hand, that means you can't trade it out to free your hand up unless you've done at least one combat check. So you couldn't use Markings of Isis to pass the horror check, and then drop it and immediately equip a Tommygun to do the combat check.

Julia said:

No problemo. My "patience" in this case was how long it took for me to eat dinner and watch a movie before wandering back here.

The Flute of the Outer Gods works before making a combat check. You can enter battle with any one monster, do the horror check, and then if you're still sane, you use the Flute and nuke everything in your space. Of course, you could end up dead in the process (0 sanity and stamina simultaneously). When using the flute, you don't have to make any combat checks at all.

Also remember that an investigator who is retired or devoured passes his/her monster and gate trophies to the next investigator. Your character might have died from using the flute, but his/her monster trophies will be passed on to the replacement character. This is principally so that if a character dies right before Shub or Yog awakens, s/he won't be stuck with 0 trophies and be out instantly.

Yep--every space in the Kingsport Head makes you stop immediately when you move into it. That's both up and down. Clearly, climbing the Head is quite a task to undertake. I usually don't commit more than one investigator to Kingsport, so sending the one guy up there really leaves the rifts to fill. Plus, there are all sorts of encounters along the way that either put you a space up or a space down the Head--usually the wrong one when you least need it :-X

kroen said:

The spell is most likley a typo (or it has the "CotDP curse"). It is the only non-combat spell to have a Hand requirement and was most likely copied from an existing template of Bind Monster without anyone realizing you don't use hands during the horror check.

About leaving the High House: the rules only state that you can't move into the Kingsport Head locations using special means. They say nothing about leaving them. Thus, the White Ship or the Patrol Wagon, for example, should allow you to leave instantly. Barring that, you can always hope for an encounter that drains your last sanity or stamina, sending you back to the respective treatment facitlities in Arkham.

Tibs said:

well, anyway, it's very kind of yours helping all of us "new comers"

Tibs said:

I'm afraid I still missing the point. So you enter the area, hope passing all the horror checks without being driven insane, then use the Flute and that's it? I mean, on the card is written "before making a Combat check", so I thought I had to pass a Combat check. And even the DKW answer to the same question seems to suggest this. But maybe I'm missed something in between...

And thanks for carifying my doubts reguarding the Kingsport Head!

Bexarath said:

Yep, I see what you mean... being driven insane isn't that bad, sometimes Anyway, it's really risky you have to spend so many turns in this quest, especially if your party isn't that big. We usually play with 3 o 4 investigators, and there are too many things to care around the main board to allow an investigator to leave the game for 4 or 5 turns to complete this quest. Maybe we'll try it with a larger party

dkw said:

Thank you for the suggestion! I'll read them all tonight

Julia said:

Darrell Simmons, the Photographer, is pretty handy for this if anyone, since he has a much better chance of avoiding the bad encounters on the way up.

Whoops! I forgot about leaving Kingsport Head, as in Patrol Wagon or something else like it. I always imagined "leaving" as "on foot." But yes, you could patrol wagon right out of there if you wanted.

Julia said:

No, you'd just pass one horror check, against whichever monster you like. Then, before making the combat check against that monster, you use the Flute and kill all the monsters—even the ones you didn't face. That is how I understand it anyway.

I have literally only ever seen people take High House encounters by using the Summoning Glass. There is no other way to have those encounters that are worth the turn expenditure.

-Frank

Tibs said:

I see... the one horror check is logical indeed. After all, when you have to face more than one monster, you don't fight all monsters together. You just start with the one you prefer, and then move to the second one, and so on. So you initiate the combat against the horde by rolling a horror check against a monster, as if you had to start fighting normally and then, instead of any normal action, you use the Flute.

Very clever observation, Tibs! Thanks a lot

dkw said:

I've found the graveyard / bank encounter issue and read it! thanks for spotting this for me