Arkham Horror: Great Old One? Eh, just shoot it.

[Bethesda]

@jalepeno, I guess whoever starts out with the most clues should go looking first. As for gates, closing takes no clue tokens, so in a game with Hastur, it might be wise to consider trying to close all gates as our victory condition.

[jalapeno_dude]

@jalepeno, I guess whoever starts out with the most clues should go looking first. As for gates, closing takes no clue tokens, so in a game with Hastur, it might be wise to consider trying to close all gates as our victory condition.

But you need at least as many gate trophies as there are players in the game, and you can only get gate trophies from sealing gates, right? So this just means spending 8*(5-#of elder sign cards in the game) clue tokens, only 8 fewer than we'd need to in order to seal 6 gates anyway.

I am increasingly getting confused by the game's math. Looking at the rules, it seems that a gate does indeed open every turn (or, more precisely, a mythos card is drawn every turn and this always opens a gate unless the gate referred to on the card is *already* open). That means we're guaranteed no more than 13 turns, and in practice probably have less than 20, before Hastur awakens. So we have to seal a gate every 2-3 turns. We do have 9 clues already. But it seems like the very best we can do is have Tamien seal 1 gate in ~6 turns and me and pistachi0n 2 turns after that. That's 3 gates closed 8+ turns into the game. In the best case scenario, if we have *literally* everyone spend all their time collecting clues and exploring/sealing gates, then we could get 5 gates sealed maybe 10 turns into the game, and the 6th Tamien could do 10ish turns after sealing the 1st, so turn 18 or so? That seems way too late.

Oh, I forgot that spending clues to seal a gate decreases the doom counter by 1 each time. But it still seems like even in the most optimistic scenario there's no time for anyone to do anything other than collecting clue tokens, which doesn't seem sustainable. Now I understand why we'd want try to close all the gate after sealing 5--it takes a *long* time to seal the 6th gate after the first 5. But it still does seem like we want everyone to try to seal a gate, no?

[Tamien]

If I remember the rules correctly, we can't trade clues, and the person who explored the gate has to be the one to close it. However, closing a gate just takes a Fight or Lore check; it's permanently sealing it that requires clue tokens. Hastur is sucky because gates are much harder to seal.

Bethesda, with high speed, high fight, and starting weapons, I would nominate for ferrying items to people who need them and killing monsters along the way. Especially if we can get him a motorcycle (or just make him the Deputy of Arkham - though Aestrix is another good candidate for this, since a roving healer is helpful). I have pretty balanced stats and start with hella clues - usually getting just one more is enough to seal a gate and so I'm the first into the breach. In this case, I'll need to do a bit more clue collection before I jump right in, but I still expect to be on gate closing/sealing duty. jalapeno_dude is probably our other candidate for jumping in gates, considering Gloria's ability applies to Other World Encounters. Sadly, we're not playing the expansion with the Redeemed Cultist PC, or we could have started the game with a Silver Twilight Lodge membership. Aestrix and pistachi0n, one of you might consider hanging out there til you're offered entry into the Inner Sanctum (about 1/3 chance; IIRC the encounters there are usually very beneficial). The other of you should probably go around casting spells at monsters? (That person may want to consider heading to Ye Olde Magick Shoppe and trying to beef up their spell selection.)

I don't know how many Elder Signs are in a game, but they are Unique Items which means that you can get them from the Curiositie Shoppe or any other event that confers Unique Items.

Something I would like to point out to people is that being Blessed is awesome and everyone should try to do it if possible. The easiest way is to take 5 toughness points worth of monster trophies or 1 gate token to South Church.

On my turn I plan to use two of my speed points to use the Cabala of Saboth. The other three I will spend moving to the Silver Twilight Lodge to get the clue there (unless something happens to that clue first, in which case I'll go to The Witch House and get the clue there). If one of our high-Sanity monster hunters would like to meet up with me, I'd be happy to give them my Ancient Tome.

Status Report

---

Mandy Thompson: 5/5 Sanity, 5/5 Stamina, 2 Focus, $6, 4 Clues

Code: Select all

Speed 1 2 3 [4] | Fight 0 [1] 2 3 | Lore 1 2 [3] 4
Sneak 5 4 3 [2] | Will  5 [4] 3 2 | Luck 3 2 [1] 0


Research (Innate): Any Phase: Once per turn, Mandy can activate this ability after any investigator (including herself) makes a skill check. That investigator then re-rolls all of the dice rolled for that check that did not result in successes.
Speed (Skill): +1 Speed. When you spend a Clue token to add to any Speed check, add one extra bonus die.
Ancient Tome (Tome, $4 Common Item): Movement: Exhaust and spend 2 movement points to make a Lore (-1) check. If you pass, draw 1 Spell and discard Ancient Tome. If you fail, nothing happens.
Tommy Gun (Physical Weapon, 2 Hands, $7 Common Item): +6 Combat check.
Cabala of Saboth (Tome, $5 Unique Item): Movement: Exhaust and spend 2 movement points to make a Lore (-2) check. If you pass, draw 1 Skill and discard Cabala of Saboth. If you fail, nothing happens.

[Thatwasademo]

Also, relevant question for demo: If there's a monster surge when there are 8 monsters on the board (which I think is our monster limit), that gives at least 5 more monsters. The rulebook says their placement should be chosen. My question is, how does the limit for the Outskirts (3 in this case) interact with these surges? Do surges not count to the limits?

Surges definitely count towards limits. If a monster surge occurs and more monsters would be placed than the monster limit, the excess will be placed in the outskirts, possibly causing it to overflow and increase Terror, possibly multiple times.

1. Closing a gate requires making a Lore or Fight check, "using the number printed on the gate marker as the modifier". What's that modifier for the currently open gate (in the Woods)?
2. I have 2 .38 revolvers. Do they stack to give me a +6 combat modifier, or can I only use one at a time?
3. How many Elder Sign cards are there in the game? (I'm reading the rules correctly that you can only use a given Elder Sign card once per game, right?) Are they all at the Curiositie Shoppe?

1. The Woods gate (and all gates to the City of the Great Race) is +0. In the future I will add this information to the monster list, thanks.
2. You can dual wield them for a physical +6 Combat, but this occupies both of your hands.
3. All of the Elder Sign cards are in the Unique Items deck, which all effects that give you Unique Items draw from, so you could obtain all of the Elder Sign cards from the Curiositie Shoppe. I count four. Yes, successfully using an Elder Sign will remove it from the game.

Also, if you can't trade clues, does that mean everyone other than the people on gate duty should be intentionally refraining from picking up clues? I have no idea how scare a resource clues are in this game.

Generally, one clue appears on the ground every mythos phase after a gate opens, but it cannot if a gate is in that location, and gates opening on top of clues will destroy them, so while it is generally a good idea to have particular people focusing on clues, it's not really a good idea to refrain from picking a clue up if it's within your reach and nobody else's, since it might disappear. Clues can also be obtained from encounters and defeating certain monsters (such as the Warlock).

{confusion}

You get a gate as a trophy any time you close it, whether or not you seal it.

A gate opens (and the Doom Track increments) every turn unless the mythos card picks a location where a gate or seal, or Kate Winthrop is already present.

Thus, winning by closing all gates requires that you have gate seals and/or Kate in the locations where gates would appear in the two to three turns it takes to travel through and close the final gate, which may occur by luck with fewer than 6 sealed gates. In practice most games I've seen won were won by sealing 6 gates, but Kate does make victory by closing all gates more plausible.

The Doom Track does not decrease when clues are spent to seal a gate, only via the text on the Elder Sign card.

[jalapeno_dude]

You get a gate as a trophy any time you close it, whether or not you seal it.

As you intuited, this was the major source of my confusion. Thanks!

[Thatwasademo]

I should add that yes, you are somewhat pressed for time. Ways to make more time (in decreasing order of effectiveness) include using Elder Signs (outright decreases the Doom Track), simply sealing Gates (makes it less likely for the Doom Track to increase), and leaving Gates open instead of sealing them and dealing with the monster surges that result (makes it less likely for the Doom Track to increase, but also puts you at risk of the Terror Track increasing or hitting the Gate limit). (And, of course, Kate can always get lucky and intercept a Gate with SCIENCE!)

[Aestrix]

Hee.

Right then. Is there any issue with me using my move to grab the clue in independence square and read about nameless cults?

[Thatwasademo]

Not at all. Does that mean you're doing that?

[Aestrix]

I am actually asking my fellow players first! Teamwork!

[PlainDealingVillain]

Not in this game, but in all the games I've played of Arkham Horror, the Terror Track never went high enough to close the Curiosity Shoppe (7, I think?). Of course, we usually played with several expansions, and some of them make some aspects of the game easier, so I don't know how much that matters for this game.