Good morning everyone,

I'll open this topic for my questions about Arkham Horror, a game I love but rarely can play (time, space, players), so everytime I have a question I will update this topic, for not opening a new one is better I think. Please excuse me first for my questions may be easy, since I am a rookie, and second if my questions have already found detailed explanations somewhere else, though I usually look in the FAQs first, and the 10 first pages of these forums to find answers. If the answers are in the rules booklets, don't bother yourself to give an answer, just give me the page so you won't have to lose time to answer to me, no problems for that. Oh, and please excuse my... english, for I am french !

1) When an investigator comes back from an other world, then he places his marker, and then, during the encounter phase only, he can try to close the gate, right ? so my question is : if he manages to do so, can he encounter the location's encounter there after that ? or does the gate closing count as his one and only encounter for this turn ?

2) There was an encounter in another world, I can't recall the card and precise words (I'm at the office, sorry...), but it was something like "creatures do experiments on you, you come back to arkham and forget everything about the experiments'". Does that only have to do with the narrative immersion stuff, or does that really mean that the investigator doesn't earn an exploration marker ?

3a) My fiancee makes me wonder like crazy for asking me questions on stuff I thought I had no problems understanding it... for instance, she wanted to leave a location, cross a street where there is a monster, fight it, kill it (she did so) and then go to another location with her remaining movements points. She didn't do so, because I thought she couldnt, right ?...right ?

3b) Then, later, she wanted to leave a street where she began her movement phase and where there already was a monster, so she wanted to fight it, kill it (she did so again... she's great) and then make her move to whatever-where. She did so, because I thought she could, right ? ... right ?

3c) Then, later again, she wanted (she's not the only one playing, be reassured) she wanted to go to a location where there was a gate and a monster, but she just wanted to kill the monster and do the encounter stuff, not go into the gate (a gate to an other world where I was already travelling). I think she could stay here to kill the monster without being swallowed by the gate, as I kind of recall it was mentionned somewhere in the author's own rules or something, right ? but she really couldn't do the encounter since there was a gate, or could she ?

4) When they say "trade", about investigators trading stuff when they are situated in the same location or street, does that actually mean trade ? or can we, as I think, just give an object to someone else who needs it, no matter what he gives you (or not) in exchange ?

That's all for now. I might ask questions later when I'll remember any, or when we try one of the expansions I (fanatically) bought but still didn't dare use... I must admit we are scared of the Dunwhich one, for instance, for the "bursting gate" new addition... what a crazy idea, we have already so much trouble to have a nice game for hours without being too much hurt (we never, ever actually won, Azatoth always appeared in the end...).

Thanks to everybody and thank you to FFG if they ever read that, you're great creators (I mean, come on, they even sent me my missing Talisman's Druid... best huge company ever). Excuse my poor english, bye bye.

Hem

Some answers:

1) His encounter phase is spend with closing the gate... so, no location encounter after that.

2) Don't know that card for sure, but usually it's stated in the text if your return is modified, so i suppose you could still close the gate after leaving through it.

3a) & b) Movement ends as soon as you face a Monster (to be precise, after the horror check). Therefore no walking after a combat.

3c) During the encounter phase, she encounters the gate and therefore enters the other world. There are some houserules that you don't have to walk through the gate and still might have location encounters as you wish, but if you follow the game rules you'll have to enter.

4) Give and take as you like. Would seem odd if you could only trade one item for another, additionally some items wouldn't make sense if you'd be limited to that kind of trade.

Vitus seems to have it. But one things seems strange.

Vitus_Prem said:

I don't think the Horror Check is the signal that your movement is over; I think just entering combat is the signal. That is, as soon as you voluntarily enter combat or fail to evade a monster, your movement points are all gone at that moment. But I don't know when that difference would be significant.

Also, if you're finding it too hard with two players one investigator each, try two investigator each, or houserule drawing one mythos card once every two turns. It'll slow down the pace of the game..

I recommend that if you're already comfortable with the rules and turn phases, play 2 investigators each.

Four-investigator games may be less difficult than two-investigator, but they do provide a lot more opportunities to get town encounters, including those at stable locations (which is almost unheard of in two-investigator games).

Also it's nice having a second character when one of your characters is blocked in to a location (by say a tough monster who refuses to leave) so that you can still be productive and make strategic decisions.

Just to provide you with a slightly different view: Even after playing hundreds of games, I still find running two investigators at the same time quite stressful. While having four investigators really does add a lot to the game, don't feel you have to right away. Playing a couple of games with two investigators (and maybe not drawing a mythos card every round, as has been suggested) might be just as much fun and less demanding.

Tibs said:

I just mentioned the Horror Check because it usually marks the moment when an investigator enters combat ;D

Don't think there's a significant difference... but propably it will be, with the new Innsmouth cards....

By the way, even though I got used to play two investigators at a time, I still prefere a two player game with one investigator each ^^

Hi there everybody,

We just had a new game, this afternoon, for four hours (that's why we played this "afternoon"). And... we had our first finished game ! Hurray !

... okay, we failed, though, since the battle against Ithaqua crushed us in, what, 6 turns. He came down to something like his level 7 or 8 on his doom track, not under. And we died like ants.

1) So my question was : is it actually possible to defeat an Ancien One ? or is just epic for the "narrative show" of it ? And we had a question during the fight, whose answer could lesser the difficulty level or not : if we are four players, do 8 success for combat checks count as 2 discarded doom tokens ? or not at all ? I wish so...

2) And an Investigator in an other world drawn through a gate by a failed combat check against a Nightgaunt, does he go back to Arkham ? with an exploration token ?

3) When they talk about "item" in the cards or wherever, what do they mean ? for instance, half of your items, does that count clues, or money ? or even allies ? I'm pretty sure it doesn't but...

4) Is it me or Drake the magician sucks ? Everytime a player took him, he failed pathetically and spent all his time in asylum or hospital... I had the bad luck to have him today, and it happened the same ! And I couldn't even have any spell ! He seems to have the evil eye on him !

5) no other idea for now, i may edit that ! i'll just say a big thank to FFG for entertaining our afternoon !

x) The feeling I have the most in this game is to be extremely often low on stamina or especially sanity points... and to spend one whole turn and 2 dollars to replenish... it seems hard. I must admit it was much more harder some times ago, when we still thought the bold words on the Skill cards was a summing up of the sentence just under. Now that we know it isn't, it became a bit less hard. And yet... when we face a chtonian, or a whatever-spooky-monster, we (ok, especially I) often loose our whole sanity before engaging any fight...

Bah anyway. Next time, we'll try an expansion ! I want to add the Curse to our game ! ... as if the basic game wasn't hard enough already (1 environment, 1 rumour, 7 monsters on the board, 3 gates, doom track 3 quarters full... yike ! what about nuking arkham !?)

Bye bye !

Ok, no Edit mode allowed on these forums, it seems, so I'll just post a new message to thank vitus prem for his clear answers, and thank you to Tibs, hulahoop and crimson for their help on the game.

Hem said:

#1: It's doable, depending on the GOO of course. Cthulhu requires the best of everything, Yig less so.

#2: Yes

#3: Common, Unique, Spells, Exhibit Items, Deputy's Revolver and Patrol Wagon

#4: Absolutely . That is, he SUCKS!

Dam said:

Addition to 1): You actually can defeat an Ancient One, if you are well equipted at the time he wakes up, that is. Some of the guys here actually play the game to get ready to beat the hell out of the Ancient One instead of sealing the gates...
And, yes, 8 successes for combat equal 2 doom tokens. If your team scores 6 successes in round 1, you remove 1 doom token. score 3 successes in round 2 (9 in total) and another doom token goes down the tubes. In other words: every 4 successes that occur during the final battle do kill one doom token.

2) He's send back and gets the marker. The explication is that some Nightgaunts do serve Nodens, and he's one of the few friends you got as a human...

4) When you play the base game, most of the spell casters do suck. But if you add an expansion, like "The King in Yellow", for instance, spell casters suddenly get a lot stronger and so does Dexter. I actually love playing him from time to time. If you got bad luck, he won't get anything out of the game, but if you spend some money on spells or gain them somewhere, you browse through the spell deck in an enormous speed and soon have an great combinition of spells. Get him "Storm of Spirits" and the Stamina / Sanity problem disappears magically...

Hi everybody, and thanks for the replies.

Vitus : during the combat against the Ancient One, I thought after 4 successes, you had to "reset" the successes track ? But you seem to tell me that, for instance, if you players roll 6 successes in the first round, take off a doom token, get attacked by the ancient one, then roll only two successes during the next round, you take off an other doom token thanks to the 2 leftovers from the round before ? seems much much easier that way !

That's why I mentioned it.... the part in the rule book that covers this part is written pretty poorly. You don't reset the success counter.

In fact, to defeat an Ancient one you normally need a total of (Investigators x Doom Tokens) successes by combat rolls. The doom tokens that you remove during the combat are merly a way to see how far you got the Ancient One down by now... and needed for a few specials, like Cthulhus regeneration power.

Hem said:

Yep, the AO basically has one long continuous string of hitpoints. You just knock off as many per round as you can. Excess successes on a combat roll are, in effect, carried over on to the 'next doom token'.

My group always tracks AO hitpoints with a D100, rather than faffing about with actual tokens.

It IS much easier than the way you suggested! The way you suggested surely just means a load of successes are wasted. I was confused about the exact same thing back when I started playing. Of course, even doing it the right way, it's hardly a sure win.

Thank you, Vitus & Corinthian, for the explanations. You're right : it is then possible to kill a god like an ANcient One ! Who would have thought, poor H.P.

I just had a tiny question for tonight, which is not about rules, but I'm not gonna open a new topic just for such minor matter. Here it is :

As I said above, I often go low with vital points, stamina or sanity ; actually, more sanity. I'm often insane, no matter where on the board (Arkham or Other world). Other players don't have this problem, especially my fiancee, but I suspect it is because she always picks up women investigators ; does that make sense ? More maximum sanity, less problem...

I mean, I often finish my course in the asylum, and have to spend a whole turn and my money to replenish. Then what ? The next few turns, I got back insane, in the asylum, but no more money ? Is there a little trick I didn't get ? in the rules, or in the strategy ? Cards I let go ?

It is not a bad point, in the end, and that definitely reminds me I always felt that game was half a board game, half a role playing game, since you really have to think twice your upkeep. Hard level is ok, it gives challenge. But for a game is often tough for me, may I have some advices or game experiences from you ? I'd be glad to read all of you.

Thank you, and have a nice week, wherever you are ! (since I'm in France, tomorrow is a national-holy-non-working-whatever-you-call-it-day).

Bee bye !

Hem said:

I know that feeling well. With the time, I figured for me it's best to keep the skill slider at maximum Will. Get some good items that boost your horror checks. Have a clue token there in case you blast a horrible horror check. Only set the skill slider to a higher fight level if you know you're about to stomp something that doesn't have any horror damage anyway or you really need more dices to finish him off. Or the Ancient One awakes, of course.

For still being able to kill off the monsters even without that much "fight", be sure to have one investigator well equipped with weapons, so he can handle the streets and safe other investigators while they do the sealing. Change the cleaning investigator once another is low on clue tokens and he's high enough to seal a gate himself.

If your team needs money, don't always just go to the newspaper. Check out the Administration Building as well. They got retainers and skills there. And some of the latter really help you with your horror checks.

Hi there, and thank you again, Vitus.

Let us get back to more precise questions !

1) I always wondered if there was a rule about looking at monsters square-tokens ? I mean, when we draw it from the monster cup, we never look at it, except the drawing and its name (so it is immersive : "oooh, a Gug appeared in that place !" then everyone yells "uuuh" or "aaah", anyway, you can picture it). But then ? We obviously can look at the evade modifier, I guess ? But then, can we turn it around to check if it is a **** strong monster ? like "hmmm, its evade modifier is -2, it is a bit strong, what if I fail my evade check ? let us see the sanity damage it would cost to me" and so on ; can we do that ? we never did, actually. I always thought it was kind of "cheating", childish way of thinking apart, and decided we could only turn it to look at its back only if we engaged a fight against it. How do YOU do all ?

2) I never saw anywhere if there was a limit for objects, spells, and so on ? Is there any ? Or can we carry ten guns, know ten spells and walk around with ten allies ? sounds extreme.

3) I read somewhere someone saying that being delayed because of a gate opening on your investigator puts you in the other world, where you have to get three encounters for the next turns. But I don't understand why ? If a gate opens on you, you are put in the other world, but delayed (on your side), so during the movement phase you stand up, then you have your encounter, then eventually the other one ; which makes two, not three. Being delayed because of a gate opening on you doesn't mean you put your investigator back to its feet during the encounter phase, right ?

That's all, have a nice week.

1. Yes, you can flip the monsters.

2. No limit.

3. You have an other world encounter in the turn you were sucked through the gate. Remember the phase order is Upkeep>Movement>Arkham Encounters>Other World Encounters>Mythos.

1) You're free to look at the monster tiles at any time and plan accordingly. For a harder, but maybe more thematic game you can house-rule otherwise, but eventually you'll remember the stats for a lot of the monsters anyway.

2) There is no limit on the number of cards an investigator may have. The only limitation is that you are not allowed to have more than one of each type of special card (Retainer, Blessing, etc). Duplicates of items, spells, and skills, however, are no problem.

3) Always follow the phases: Upkeep - Movement - Arkham encounter - OW encounter. If an Arkham encounter opens a gate on you, you are delayed. Since OW encounters comes after Arkham encounters, that means you immediately get an extra encounter in the OW you are sent to. In the next turn, you would stand up in the movement phase and have another encounter in the first area. In the subsequent turn you would move to the second area for your third encounter.

If a gate open on you during the Mythos phase, you would stand up on your first turn in the OW, giving you the regular 2 encounters (barring any additional delays from encounters).

Hem said:

Ten guns is a bit of a stretch, but ten spells just amounts to ten pieces of parchment (or even better, just ten things you remember), while the ten allies will walk around by themselves (and maybe carry some of your ten guns for you, I guess). In most games, you'll be **** lucky to get so many guns that it's unrealistic for your investigator to be carrying them! Most of the commom and unique items are small objects: trinkets and lucky charms and small statues and so on.

I never understood why you're delayed when you're sucked through a gate in the Arkham encounter phase. When you're delayed by it in the Mythos phase, it makes sense, because it's needed in order to make sure you still have two OW encounters before coming back. But if you're sucked though in the Arkham phase, you'd have the two anyway, just as if the location had already had an open gate on it when you got there. Is the third turn supposed to be a sort of punishment? That's mixed up, because surely it's more irreponsible to be standing on an unstable location during the Mythos phase than it is to be having random encounters at an unstable location? Oh well, not that it matters much.

Thanks to everybody for replying. Makes things always clearer after reading you !

But no, Corinthian, I think you're pertinently right, and it definitely _does_ matter : why would you spend three encounters in other worlds and only two for the same event happening ? just because a phase is after the other ? I think that doesn't make much sense, or at least, less than it could actually do. A delayed guy is a guy whose turn is over. So he shouldn't have any encounter anymore, and especially less "because phase Y is after phase X". If he is delayed, he is delayed, and he will stand up and actually play for good during the next turn. I don't know about rules, but I'll say from now on this ll be my house rule ! And I'll justify it even more with saying that I never understood why the encounters in other worlds should happen after the Arkham ones ? I apply my games to this rule even if I don't understand the justification concerning the inner reasons of such a way of functionning. I remember the first games we had, before, we would make the encounters according to the players order, clockwise from the first one, and that was fine that way too.

Bah, anyway ! Cheers, people, nice evening !

In a different thread, someone stated a decent reason for having an Other World Encounter when a Gate opens on you in the Arkham Encounters Phase.

The Other World Encounter is more like a replacement to your Arkham Encounter that was a Gate Opening. It is so that you don't feel like you have wasted a turn with a "non-encounter," as a way to maintain 1 Encounter per turn feeling. Would you like to have pretty much "skipped" your Encounter Phase in exchange for a Doom Token added to the Doom Track?

Hem said:

There are a lot of reasons to stay with phases, but most of them will only become clear if you spend enough time playing the game. Some important tactics, for example, only work out if you don't move the investigators directly to the other world as soon as they end their movement on a gate.

In normal, it's mostly because of the investigator abillitys that may effect any member of the group. Take Leo Anderson or Mandy Thompson.
If you play according to the phases, first are the arkham encounters. When something bad happens to an investigator here, Leo (or Mandy) might think twice before they use their abillity if someone else is still in another world; even though he/she could really help the investigator, there's still another one in another world trying to survive long enough to seal an important gate if something would happen to him, things might really get ugly. Thus, as the other world encounter phase is the "hotter" one, it should be played after the normal encounters.

Next, to the three encounters in other worlds . Some places in Arkham are dangerous. If an investigator visits one of these places and screws up, he might find himself in an unknown world all of a sudden, disorientated and all alone. And even worse: it's his fault, since nothing would have happend if he wound't have gone there. For me, that's the reason he has to survive three encounters there. If things go wrong in a dangerous location, they really get bad .

Hello everybody,

I'm not gonna spoil the threads first page with such a tiny question as follows, so Im just using back my Good-Old-Answers-Thread ! (nor black, nor from the woods...).

We won our last game, yesterday : hurray, feels great. Actually, no, feels awkward, like an anti-climax ending, but anyway. It is the first time we win by clearing Arkham from gates ; thing is I sealed it at the same time, so we had no gates anymore, and 6 sealings. Double victory, I'd say !

My first question is we had a really weird Mythos card, but sorry, I'm at work, so I don't know the title of it : it said there was a big auction in Arkham, for everybody was suddenly into Art, and any player could spend 2$ for each unique item and buy one he likes. The number of unique items drawn (that is, the number of total amount of money) depended on the number of allies still in Arkham (in the allies bank). We took something like ten minutes, a big break to discuss how we were supposed to play that one, because I'm sorry, I think it was really unclearly explained on the card ! Could someone take two minutes to tell me the right procedure ?

My second question is quick : I was standing in a location, with a gate on it, from which I had came back earlier. The first player then drew a Mythos card, saying a clue was supposed to appear on my location. I said I couldn't get it, since there was a gate, but the guys were saying I could, since I was there. In the end, I really insisted that I couldn't, as the rules say there won't be any appearing clue on a location where a gate is. Was I right ?

Thank you all, have a nice week !

Hem said:

Fund Drive for the Arts?

"Mythos Ability: The performance of the controversial "The King in Yellow" have increased local enthusiasm for the arts, and the Historical Society is taking advantage of it with a fundraising auction.

Investigators in Arkham may immediately spend up to $1 for every Ally left in the Ally deck. For every $2 an investigator spends, he may draw one card from the Unique Item deck. He then takes one card from among those he has drawn and shuffles the rest back into the deck. "

Let's say Terror is at 0, so there are most likely 11 Allies left. 11 Allies = $11 you can spend, but since every $2 actually counts, $10 is the sane limit. You spend $10, draw 5 Unique Items, keep 1, shuffle rest back.

Hem said:

I don't think it matter if investigator is there or not, no Clue on open gates.