Played a 5 investigator game last night and ended up being able to defeat Cthulu after he awoke, but the way we won just felt off.

One investigator managed to secure both the Grotesque Statue and The Siler Key artifacts

Quote:

Grotesque Statue

When you gain this card from the deck, gain 5 Clues.

Once per round, you may spend 1 Clue to prevent all Sanity loss from a single effect.

Quote:

The Silver Key

Once per round, you may spend 1 less Clue to pay for an effect.

You may reroll 1 die when resolving a test during an Other World Encounter.

The doom track slipped below zero just as we were ready to complete the second mystery card. The awakened Cthulu Reckoning effect reads as follows:

Quote:

Each investigator loses 1 Sanity for each Sanity token on this sheet. Then, if all investigators have been eliminated, investigators lose the game.

Each time the Reckoning effect went off, we allowed the investigator with the Grotesque Statue and The Silver Key to cancel the Sanity damage for all investigators (without even having to spend a Clue token) that would have quickly driven us all insane. At this point we no longer cared how much Sanity was placed onto the Cthulu card as the damage would be prevented, so we were able to finish off Cthulu's daughter (the 3rd mystery card) and then finally off the big guy with one Mythos card remaining.

Reading how the cards are worded we agreed to play it as described above, but the victory just feels anticlimactic.

Did we rule this correctly?

Hello,

First off: In all honesty don't feel bad - first rule encounters and as a group you decided on the way to play it. That is fine, it happens and is great - shows you have a fun group to play with.

Now on to the second part, I believe you feel bad because if you go by the rules - it was played wrong. I do not have the rules right next to me at the moment, so I can't quote pages and exact words. I am pretty sure a round consists of three parts - Hero Action Phase, Encounter Phase and Mythos Phase. So technically the effect on the Grotesque Statue and Silver Key may only be used one time per round or amongst those three phases.

As I said, I can't quote it - but I am sure someone here can - but I am pretty confident that is the rules. Hence how I like to take a dark pact when I got the Lucky CIgar Case - until that darn Mythos card comes up to resolve all conditions as if a 1 was rolled - CURSE IT!

Either way, don't sweat it. Astrix it if you want, explain it to your group for next time and have fun!

Thank you very much for your answer. The group had to make a decision, because otherwise, the game couldn't be finished.

I'm still trying to understand, though. Those phases aren't present in the final showdown, are they? The final showdown after Cthulhu woke up was just combat, right? This may seem really obvious to others, so I apologize for sounding dense, but I guess what I'm asking is, can the items be used each round of combat, or only once in the final showdown.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer!

I am by far no expert - as my own group has had their fair shares of rule head scratches, but I can try and give my two cents for ya and glad to help.

Maybe I am too tired, or just reading things wrong but I am a little confused on what you mean with Final Showdown. I would think you mean moving to face Cthulhu after solving the first 3 mysteries and trying to solve the 4th - ie. battle him? Perhaps you guys just went straight to the final mystery?

However, I can say (pretty confidently) with the cards in question once per round is the three "turns" Hero Action, Encounter, Mythos.

As for rounds of combat, perhaps we are playing differently? But as we play combat is handled with 1 round of combat during the encounter (or ambushes, mythos, etc.) and then done -per monster. So cards that give +stat for encounter would last that entire Encounter phase in case you were encountering multiple monsters. Subsequently, those that give +stats for a combat round, would only apply to the monster being fought when used - ie. Kerosine.

The final showdown is nothing but a series of "normal" game rounds: in each round you receive an Action Phase, then you proceed to the Encounter Phase and finally you have a Mythos Phase (otherwise you wouldn't be allowed to travel from location to location, or you wouldn't be allowed to fight or no effects from Reckonings would be triggered after the awakening).

So, you're allowed to use the Grotesque Statue and the Silver Key during each round of FB. But still, allow me to further disgress: Grotesque Statue reads "you may spend 1 Clue to prevent all Sanity loss from a single effect", and not "you may prevent an effect triggering a Sanity loss". Hence, I'd read the card as follows: you can indeed use the Grotesque Statue to ignore the Sanity loss, but not for all members of your party, but just for the owner of the Statue. Wording on Cthulhu's sheet reads: "each investigator loses", so that you have N losses / reckoning, where N is the number of investigators in play, and with the Grotesque Statue you may prevent ONE of these.

This said, the combo is powerful enough that one investigator should be able to finish off the poor squid without too much trouble; still remember that you have a limited number of rounds for doing so: if Cthulhu is still alive when you are to draw one more card from the deck, then it's game over.

The above answers help a lot with the statue. Thank you so much everyone!

Now can anyone tell us if we are allowed to pay zero clues when using the silver key? Or is there always a minimum of one clue?

I think you read correctly the interaction between the two artifacts: silver key is -1, the statue requires one, hence you can use the key to use the statue for 0 clues.

I think you read correctly the interaction between the two artifacts: silver key is -1, the statue requires one, hence you can use the key to use the statue for 0 clues.

Yes reading is correct but is sounds very powerful. You sont need to fear CHtulhu at all if you have a Statue and the key…. He cannot do nothing to you by his ability….still mythos deck ca finish…….

Prevent all sanity loss from one source…..since chuthu is a source you prevent all damage to everyone? Wording is looks correct but is extremely powerful no?

Yes, you can run out of Mythos cards and still you receive Health damage during combat, so that this could mean you have to move, rest, return the following round and so on and even if the Sanity damaging attack can deal no damage to your investigator, winning the Epic Cthulhu could require you a lot of time. Maybe we'll have an errata in the future saying you cannot prevent Cthulhu's Sanity damage, but for now, I believe it's a legitimate reading saying you're safe

They are both artifacts, and both game changers. By my interpretation there is nothing wrong with using the Silver Key to prevent Sanity loss for free with the Grotesque Statue, although I feel it would only apply for the owner of the statue (or one investigator at most).

They are both artifacts, and both game changers. By my interpretation there is nothing wrong with using the Silver Key to prevent Sanity loss for free with the Grotesque Statue, although I feel it would only apply for the owner of the statue (or one investigator at most).

According by words: prevent from one source... so is mean prevent for every one.....

They are both artifacts, and both game changers. By my interpretation there is nothing wrong with using the Silver Key to prevent Sanity loss for free with the Grotesque Statue, although I feel it would only apply for the owner of the statue (or one investigator at most).

According by words: prevent from one source... so is mean prevent for every one.....

Sorry my friend, I'll remain with my original reading of Cthulhu's ability: as said, it states "each investigator loses", so that every investigator has to deal with a San loss; with the Grotesque Statue you may prevent only one of these, not all of them (otherwise Grotesque Statue with Norman in play would be a game breaker every time you fight against Cthulhu)

As it's a new game for us all, we've all been making mistakes with the rules, so don't beat yourself up if you get odds & bods wrong.

Having had a look at these cards, I would agree that only ONE investigator would benefit from the sanity loss protection. Cards which effect groups of investigators have this written on them, e.g. "you and another", "investigators on the same space", etc.

As mentioned, you can do this action only once per round , so by the time you get to the fourth mystery to defeat the GOO, it's possible you would lose sanity from failed encounters, poor combat or jinxed mythos cards, so it's a great combo of cards, but limited to one ( effect ) use per round,

Walts

It's fun (if frustrating) to see the FFG forum bogged down in the same mire as the BGG forum with the same lack of resolution and the same repeated restatements of positions that cannot be resolved

• The Silver Key issue is resolved as allowing a reduction of the Clue cost to zero
• The Grotesque Statue is hangs on whether "all Sanity loss" is all for the owner or all for the game. This is where the argument has degenerated into "is"... "isn't" status (I'm in the "all losses for the owner of the Statue" camp FWiW)

I'm pretty sure we're stuck in this loop until FFG bail us out (I think I've used up my banked goodwill trying to resolve a different issue)

Got an answer today from Nikki on the Grotesque Statue. Here we go:

Hope this helps