Now we're back with strongest, and no longer favorite. What is the most powerful mask?

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If we're speaking raw power, so I believe The Beast is the most difficult to kill. If this about the Mask that affects the game most, it's obviously Shadowy Figure, although if he's drawn in late game he's not so threatning. If we're talking about the one Mask I wouldn't want to appear on me in an encounter, it will have to be Skinless One. But again, this is about the most powerful mask, and no doubt The Beast takes the cake. What do you think?

Previous Great Debates

I'd say the Skinless One. It's much harder to avoid than the Beast and moves faster, making you more likely to try and avoid its street. And instead of failing both to be devoured you only have to fail one, so in the Beast's case if you pass the horror and fail combat the worst thing to happen while be going to the hospital. Plus if you try to run from them the Beast will hurt you, not devour you. I'm not sure but I think the star icon comes up less often than the circle too.

I'd have to agree about the Skinless One being a terrible obstacle. However, the Shadowy Figure is the only mask that will actively mess with you.

An excellent question! To answer it, we must first define what we mean by "most powerful". Kroen, you stated that the Beast is the most powerful Mask because he is the hardest to kill. That certainly makes him the toughest Mask, but is he really the most powerful one? Is the power of a Mask solely determined by how difficult he is to kill? I say that it is not.

How would I define "most powerful Mask"? I would say the most powerful Mask is the one which tends to have the largest negative effect on the Investigators. By that standard, the Beast fails completely in my experience. He virtually always shows up when we face Nyarlathotep and often sticks around until the end of the game, but he isn't that much of a problem. With his non-existent awareness our Investigators simply sneak past him. Also, as a previous poster pointed out, he can only devour you if you're foolish enough to try to kill him rather than run from him.

Moving on to the other Masks, we can eliminate the God of the Bloody Tongue for the same reason. The Haunter of the Dark and Dark Pharoah aren't even in the running. The Bloated Woman is a tough monster, but can't claim to have the largest negative effect on the Investigators. The Black Man can devour you, but if you make the luck check you get rid of him AND you are rewarded with two Clue tokens.

So in the end, we are left with just two contenders for the title of most powerful Mask: The Skinless One and the Shadowy Figure. The Skinless One is far and away the Mask most likely to devour you. That makes him, not the Beast or the God of the Bloody Tongue, the most fearsome Mask in combat. It hardly needs to be said that devouring an Investigator, especially one carrying an Elder Sign, has a huge negative effect on the players.

But wait! Let's not hand over that crown just yet. Nyarlathotep loses more often than any other AO, and why? In part because he preys on Clue tokens, which are relatively easy to stock up on. The Shadowy Figure makes that much more difficult, annihilating the nearest stock of Clue tokens every time he moves. Nor is he easy to catch and stop, being an Elusive -3 monster.

So which of the two wins? Which has the greater negative effect on the Investigators? It's almost too close to call, but if I had to pick one I would go for the Shadowy Figure.

Solan said:

Wait a minute... I don't have philosophy on tuesdays! In all seriousness, I agree with pretty much every single thing said in this post.

I hope Innsmouth have new masks Wait, what am I saying, I still don't have KiY and KH

Nothing is quite as fun as getting the "Cultist thrusts you forward..." surprised by God of the Bloody Tongue encounter (is that from CotDP?) in the OW (IIRC, it's a Yellow Other encounter). Having to fight 1 combat round without the possibility of Evade/Flee just rocks. Not as much as drawing an OW GOO fight, but almost.

Dam said:

Go get Kingsport so that you can get surprised by the Skinless One. You'll wet your pants.

Tibs said:

Would need to get back to AH period first. Maybe IH will re-ignite the flame.

How could anyone actually stop playing this game?

Vitus_Prem said:

I'm sorry, I don't follow.

If dam needs KH to re-ignite the eternal flame of arkham, then something must have gone terribly wrong ;D

Vitus_Prem said:

Probably just me, but once I complete a game, the interest to play it again isn't really high. In the case of AH, I played all the GOOs from AH + DH 6 times each, with various Heralds for a total of 72 games. Each GOO has been closed/sealed at least once (so I've won against each GOO as final combat win = draw for me), so there is less incentive to play any of the GOOs as they feel "been there, done that", or "there were no worlds left to conquer". As for KH, €50 is too high for basically 4 new GOOs.

Similar thing happened with LotR recently. Crammed in 29 games in a space of 2 weeks, first beating base game on all 3 suggested difficulties, then Friends & Foes expansion, then Battlefields expansion and finally base + F&F + Battlefields combo.

The old AOs will be a new experience with Ghroth, Tulzscha, the Kingsport rifts, and the Guardians :3

But no—wait for an opportunity to buy it when the pricetag is more convenient. I, personally, have no self-control and will buy every expansion for Arkham the moment it is announced.

Unless, of course, it's Arkham Horror: the Catapult or Arkham Horror: Princess and the Dragon, or Arkham Horror: Unglued.

Ick.

Could be, though I doubt I'd ever use Guardians. Game is pretty optimal difficulty for me atm, seeing around 1 Elder Sign per game, having to collect Clues to seal gates. Of course, you'd get those Abhoth + Tulzscha funky combos of no Cultists vs 1 Cultist hunting seals. KH board would most likely languish in the box, never used, garbage-duty just doesn't appeal to me. I will probably wait until I know what IH adds before deciding if I'll buy that.

Dam said:

I use guardians to offer different combos to my games (AO/Herald/Guardian) but if you would rather have an element of challenge, Bast would be good, as you have to pay for her services

With Abhoth/Tulzscha we just put all the cultists in the cup. Just because Abhoth doesn't have any cultists doesn't mean Tulzscha can't!

Kingsport is still fun. Even if you don't want to stop by all the time to clean up rifts, you can leave it until it gets critical, or leave it altogether, and feel the pain of rifts tearing up the other boards.

But Innsmouth is probably going to be the better buy. I can say that with full confidence having never seen any of the components or characters :-X

The most powerful Mask is the Mask of the Three Fates:

-Frank

Well judging from personal experience, I'd say it's The Black Man. At -3 he's difficult to evade and it's the only monster that ever devoured one of my investigators.

Frank said:

Is this serious? if so, then reading ftw

edit: I've just noticed- The Beast doesn't have endless

kroen said:

I'm pretty sure that they just forgot to write it on it's back. Or simply went out of space.

There's only on Sphinx, of course the Beast isn't Endless.

-Frank

Frank said:

But as an aspect of Nyarlathotep, merely defeating it won't get rid of it for ever, or even for more than a few moments as the situation may be.

Frank said:

Still, the Beast is a Mask and therefore one of Nyarlathoteps forms of appearance. And since you don't kill off Nyarlathotep or block one of his manifestations completely by defeating a mask monster, all masks should be endless...

The Beast is Endless. It was a confirmed misprint. All Masks are supposed to be Endless.

I even made a sticker that says "Endless" to stick on the back of the token :-D