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Page 4 on Arkham Horror FAQ from the Fantasy Flight website:
Q: Does the Strong Mind ability (reduce all Sanity loss
by 1) of the professor, Harvey Walters, apply to the casting of spells?
A: No. The professor’s ability works on losses, not costs.
The same distinction applies to the gangster, Michael
McGlen, and his ability to reduce Stamina ...
21
3-4 hours is good. 8 is way too long!
Without seeing you play it's hard to say with precision where your time is being spent inefficiently, I do have a couple suggestions though.
Setup efficiently
Setup can be done in 5-10 minutes but can easily drag on for half an hour.
Setting up is a job for several people. The most experienced person should be ...
18
Mansions of Madness, Elder Sign, and Arkham Horror are all games whose themes pull from the Cthulhu Mythos.
In Elder Sign and Arkham Horror you play as investigators cooperating in an attmpt to prevent/drive away an Ancient One entering this world, but the mechanics of both games are very different. I'll describe the games generally.
Arkham Horror has you ...
15
You always gain bonus dice from clue tokens spent, regardless of how negative your actual ability check is.
So in your example you do not have to spend one to overcome the negative, then another to gain a dice, you would be able to spend one (or more) clue(s) to gain one (or more) dice.
From the rulebook (page 13 under Spending Clue Tokens on Skill Checks):...
14
2-4 hours is definitely the standard length for a game. That said, sometimes games run for 6+ hours just due to luck of the draw. The "Big 4" locations in the base set are the Woods, the Unvisited Isle, the Witch House, and Independence Square. Each of these locations has 10 cards in the Mythos deck which open a gate in their location. Concievably, you could ...
14
Roll as many dice as you need to (nine, in your case). The relevant bit in the rules, I suppose, is:
When making a skill check, a player always rolls a number of dice equal to his investigator’s value in the appropriate skill.
There's also an example, under Weapon and Skill Limits, saying:
... He then accounts for the Star Spawn’s combat rating (–3), ...
14
No, you can't do that. Short version: the Ancient One devours you as soon as you're reduced to 0, so by the time the Injury/Madness tries to change how you recover after your're reduced to 0, you're already gone.
In combat with the Ancient One, you're devoured if you're reduced to zero Stamina/Sanity:
Any investigator reduced to 0 Sanity or Stamina by ...
13
If the gate the second investigator came through (or another gate to the same world) is open when they try to return, then they would return as normal to whichever gate they choose.
However, if there are no open gates to that Other World, then the investigator would be lost in time and space. For reference, this is on page 8 of the Arkham Horror rulebook, ...
12
Basically, if you pass through the same location as someone else, you can give up or receive items from them. As long as it's not combat, there are no timing requirements. This is described on page 23 of the rulebook. The rules for trading items are quite generous:
Investigators have the ability to trade Common Items, Unique Items,
Spells, and Money, as ...
11
Unlike the other phases, only the first player acts in the Mythos Phase (check the first sentence about the Mythos phase in the rulebook page 9)
In your example you'd have 10 turns each before the GOO (Great Old One) awakens. Some caveats:
10 is just a sample number, various GOO's have between 7 and 14 tokens allowed.
Not all Mythos cards open a gate (...
10
They're just markers; effectively you have to draw three unique items to pass her story.
Rules-wise, there's nothing that explicitly says this, it's just that the tokens are on the card, not in your possession, and there's nothing that says you can ever gain them or use them. I wouldn't say they're "lost" when passed/failed; you never actually had them as ...
9
Spells (and other items) will usually have some casting phase or timing defined on the card that states when they're allowed to be used.
http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Find_Gate
Find Gate has Movement: on it, so you can only cast Find Gate during the Movement phase. So if you were drawn through a gate due to an Arkham Encounter that said some thing like '...
9
This is clarified/fixed in the FAQ in the Dunwich Horror rules:
Battling the Ancient One
Q: In combat with Ancient Ones, do investigators get a full Upkeep Phase, or is the Upkeep Phase limited in some way during the final battle?
A: Investigators get a full Upkeep phase.
So yes, you roll for blessings and curses.
I can only assume they wrote the original ...
9
If a mythos card with no gate is drawn during step 14 of
Game Setup, discard it and draw again until you draw a
mythos card that depicts a gate.
Source: Arkham Horror Core FAQ or Complete Arkham Horror FAQ, "Rule Changes and Clarifications" (page 2 in both sources)
8
You always apply whatever toughness modifiers are in effect when you exchange the trophy, the trophy's worth when you gained it is irrelevant.
To refer to your examples, a Fire Vampire killed before a Heat Wave, and exchanged during a Heat Wave is worth +1 toughness, while a Fire Vampire killed during a Heat Wave and exchanged after the Heat Wave has ended ...
8
I think the "Gate and a monster" effect still needs to follow the basic rules on placing a gate. This means if you are at a location with an Elder Sign, the gate doesn't open, and if you are at a location with an open gate, then a monster surge happens.
So, you are on a location with an open gate, and you have explored it. A gate opens in your location. ...
8
I own both AH and EH. I have the Kingsport, Innsmouth and Black Goat of the Woods expansions for AH. Only have the base game for EH right now but those four expansions call me pretty loudly. I really couldn't say that either is better than the other because I really love both a lot but for different reasons.
One thing that I can say I really miss from ...
8
During the final battle, the only thing that matters is the Ancient One and any Investigators who were not lost in time and space. Everything associated with the old board is irrelevant.
Take a look at the description of the turn structure on page 22 of the rules:
Combat with the Ancient One is divided into rounds. During a round, players first have an ...
7
The FAQ on Fantasy Flights website covers this question.
Q: Characters in Other Worlds receive no movement points. But if a character in an Other World has an item that gives them movement points, such as the Motorcycle or Ruby of R' lyeh, can the character use an item that requires the character to spend movement points, such as the Necronomicon?
A: No. ...
7
Diana Stanley's Dark Insight ability does not override the effects of the Mythos environment in play. If it would override the Mythos card, it would state so.
For example, Akachi's ability states:
Secret Rites - Any Phase: Akachi gains +1 bonus to all skill checks to close or seal a gate. In addition, Akachi may always seal gates, regardless of other ...
7
Aside from the shared Cthulhu mythos, there are some shared characters and concepts - but mechanically, they function completely differently.
About the only thing I think you could use across the games would be the character and monster miniatures.
7
The main board is 2'x3' and each expansion board is 2'x1' (1/3 the size of the main board), which lends itself to two different configurations if you want to use all the boards.
2'x6' and 3'x4'
Also, as the second picture demonstrates, you can make clever use of business card holders to hold the cards using less space. Make sure too keep in mind that you'...
7
It's worth adding that there are two versions of Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. The original release was an excellent addition, as it added the highly thematic exhibit card class. However it suffers from dilution in an all-in game, as the chances to draw encounter which refer to the Exhibit items severely diminish.
The revised version of Curse of the Dark ...
7
There are two different forms of movement in Arkham Horror. These are described on page 6 of the rulebook.
They are:
Arkham Movement
Other World Movement
Each investigator must choose which they will use based on where they are located at the beginning of their movement.
If you are using Arkham Movement, use your speed points to move as you will. Of ...
7
Yes, you get only once chance.
The key phrase is "cast and exhaust". An exhausted card can't be used again until it's un-exhausted during the next turn's upkeep. And the spell is exhausted whether or not you succeed at casting it.
The rules are a little bit fuzzy on this, but this official FAQ has a pretty clear answer:
Does an unsuccessful ...
7
Yes, this is an official rule. From the rulebook, p.9/10:
3) A Monster Appears
The first player draws a monster marker from the cup at random and places it on the location. If this would bring the number of monsters over the monster limit, the first player places the monster in the Outskirts instead...
Exception: If there are five or more ...
7
It has been a while since I played Arkham Horror, but I own Eldritch Horror myself. There are a few very obvious differences.
The gate encounters in Arkham take multiple turns to complete. In Eldritch, you resolve a card and that's it. You know at the end of the encounters phase if you've closed the gate or not.
In Arkham, the characters have three sliding ...
7
Each of the investigators has some flavour on the back of their investigator card. I've found using that gives the player some insight in to the strange going ons in Arkham, but leaves them just enough in the dark for it to remain mysterious.
Make sure you read out all the encounter cards and not just get to the business end of things in order to roll dice....
7
Tasks and missions are considered "items" as per the Dunwich rulebook (Page 5):
Tasks are a type of item found in the Common Item deck, while Missions are items found in the Unique Item deck.
If you receive an effect that requires you to discard items you can discard a task or mission as part of that, noting in the base rules (page 16):
Important: ...
6
I know of this one from boardgamegeek which was tallied up from a community vote:
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
