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The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?

Golden Bee posted:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1769254/arkham-horror-common-mistakes Hopefully this helps as well, there are a lot of such lists.

Well poo poo, the lead investigator doesn’t have to be the one that goes first during the investigation phase is something I definitely missed. That will make things quite a bit easier.

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oXDemosthenesXo
May 9, 2005
Grimey Drawer

The Black Stones posted:

Well poo poo, the lead investigator doesn’t have to be the one that goes first during the investigation phase is something I definitely missed. That will make things quite a bit easier.

I've been playing this game with the same group since it was first released and we make rules mistakes every single game still, so don't feel too bad.

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

The Black Stones posted:

Really? Like, you saw how I was just confused just by the wording on that investigator card, right? The rules state: only evade enemy that is engaged. Card simply says “you can evade an enemy at your location” I’m going to assume that means I can do that at the cost of an attack of opportunity. Dropping a “cards or abilities at some times can let you evade enemies you are not even engaged with” is helpful to a new audience and leaves little ambiguity about how evade works.

The distinction in this case is that the Evade action (whether the basic rule action or bold-faced on a card) can only be taken if you're engaged with the enemy, but 'evade' is a game effect which means 'exhaust and disengage this enemy from all investigators' and it can be applied to an enemy regardless of their status by card effects which 'automatically evade' something. It's kind of an overloaded term.

Here's the relevant rules reference for it :

https://arkhamdb.com/rules#Evade_Action

Now, if you want to go on a rules adventure, step this way...



Rita Young has an ability which triggers after she evades an enemy. Naturally, this ability can be used when she uses the rulebook Evade action, but it also works if she uses an effect like that on Stray Cat, which automatically evades an enemy at her location.



However, as per the rules reference, if you 'automatically evade' an enemy no test takes place, and so no effects which depend upon a test 'succeeding' can be triggered. This means you wouldn't be able to use Pickpocketing to both draw one card and gain one resource as per its 'succeed by 2 or more' clause.



And now if you're still with me it's time to blow your mind. This is Patrice Hathaway's weakness :



The Watcher can only be discarded if you successfully fight or evade it. This means that, unfortunately, the Stray Cat won't be able to help you because, as above, its 'automatically evade' effect means that no test is made and therefore it is not considered a successful evade attempt. However, there is another cat which can come to your rescue...



Hope uses the rulebook Evade action, which begins a test, and if you discarded him then that test is 'automatically successful.' An Evade test which is 'automatically successful' however, is distinct from an 'automatically evade' card effect, so in this case the Watcher can be discarded.

oXDemosthenesXo posted:

I've been playing this game with the same group since it was first released and we make rules mistakes every single game still, so don't feel too bad.

Absolutely this. I know the rules pretty well but every time I play a campaign in this game I have to consult the rules reference multiple times to make sure I'm doing something properly.

I actually kind of enjoy this aspect of the game, but I really want to stress that games of AH don't need to be highly scrutinized like this as you play. They even came up with a rule called the Grim Rule which is designed to get you past any rules deadlocks by simply choosing the least beneficial option for the investigators in any situation where some ambiguity is present.

Note that the Grim Rule only applies to breaking rules deadlocks, though. You're not supposed to always just choose the worst option whenever you have to make a choice, but honestly one of the best things about this game is that sometimes every option seems like the worst one.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
Well, the last scenario just poo poo all over me. Roland got Frozen in fear almost right away and then a bunch of enemies hit the board and the doom put on them just zapped the agenda’s like crazy. I should have discarded Roland’s hand as he didn’t have a weapon right away, but the fact I couldn’t get rid of Frozen just screwed me as only able to do 2 actions a turn wasn’t helping.

I ended up resigning and just letting it go to poo poo which ended my campaign. The chaos bag just screwed me every pull. I ordered an expansion with some more characters and some of those starter character packs so maybe that helps me out a bit more. I had 9 cards in hand at one point with Roland and nothing I could do. Just getting smashed that hard and fast was just demoralizing.

KongGeorgeVII
Feb 17, 2009

Flow like a
harpoon
daily and nightly.

The Black Stones posted:

Well, the last scenario just poo poo all over me. Roland got Frozen in fear almost right away and then a bunch of enemies hit the board and the doom put on them just zapped the agenda’s like crazy. I should have discarded Roland’s hand as he didn’t have a weapon right away, but the fact I couldn’t get rid of Frozen just screwed me as only able to do 2 actions a turn wasn’t helping.

I ended up resigning and just letting it go to poo poo which ended my campaign. The chaos bag just screwed me every pull. I ordered an expansion with some more characters and some of those starter character packs so maybe that helps me out a bit more. I had 9 cards in hand at one point with Roland and nothing I could do. Just getting smashed that hard and fast was just demoralizing.

Don't stress about the last scenario just destroying you. For better or worse this was basically the intended experience. In the core set the first scenario is there to teach you the ropes. The second teaches you that you cant always do everything and that's okay. The third scenario teaches you that you are going to lose. A lot.

It's amazing the game has done so well considering how bad the core set experience was. That final scenario is rough with just the core set cards. Even with a full collection, unless you cheese the whole thing, it's still a very hard scenario to win.

The experience you will have with basically any full campaign is leaps and bounds ahead of what the core provided. The only good scenario from the core imo is the midnight masks. If the core gameplay loop and mechanisms are something you are enjoying then you will love the campaigns.

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


The Black Stones posted:

Well, the last scenario just poo poo all over me. Roland got Frozen in fear almost right away and then a bunch of enemies hit the board and the doom put on them just zapped the agenda’s like crazy. I should have discarded Roland’s hand as he didn’t have a weapon right away, but the fact I couldn’t get rid of Frozen just screwed me as only able to do 2 actions a turn wasn’t helping.

I ended up resigning and just letting it go to poo poo which ended my campaign. The chaos bag just screwed me every pull. I ordered an expansion with some more characters and some of those starter character packs so maybe that helps me out a bit more. I had 9 cards in hand at one point with Roland and nothing I could do. Just getting smashed that hard and fast was just demoralizing.

Devourer Below is legitimately one of the worst scenarios in the entire library of the game. Losing it says nothing about the power of your deck and is wholly unrepresentative to future final scenarios.

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

Frozen in Fear is a nasty one, for sure. I have every card in the game and when it shows up in later campaigns it still often takes a toll. I don't think there's much in the core set you can commit to really help you pass that except Guts or Unexpected Courage.

The Carcosa pack A Phantom of Truth had this silver bullet which saw play when it was new :



Expanding your card pool in general will definitely help, but The Devourer Below is a bit of a meme on the Mythos Busters Discord for being one of the most difficult scenarios in the game even today.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
drat, it’s just the scenario is that lovely, huh? What campaign should I look into? I do like the core gameplay mechanic and story ideas, but man that third scenario was rough.

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

I'd go with Carcosa or Innsmouth if you can get your hands on them. The Forgotten Age and The Circle Undone are more difficult and/or complex, and Dunwich is fine but doesn't really showcase the best stuff the game has to offer. Dream-Eaters is good too but it's two mostly separate 4-part campaigns instead of a single 8-part one like all the others.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

The Black Stones posted:

Really? Like, you saw how I was just confused just by the wording on that investigator card, right? The rules state: only evade enemy that is engaged. Card simply says “you can evade an enemy at your location” I’m going to assume that means I can do that at the cost of an attack of opportunity. Dropping a “cards or abilities at some times can let you evade enemies you are not even engaged with” is helpful to a new audience and leaves little ambiguity about how evade works.

Yes cards can take precedence, but if I’m unsure of how the thing works to begin with how do I even begin applying it? I literally just started playing the game.

Look my dude I've been playing card games for decades and there is no way to write rules for a card game that isn't going to leave some people confused some of the time. Sometimes rules are written shittily, but frankly a lot of the time people have worse reading comprehension than they think they do. Or get really hung up on insisting that "natural language" (for lack of a better term) or "what is logical" (sometimes even referring to theme) applies, rather than rigorously and at times mechanically applying the rules. Which is how rules in these kinds of games work.

Again to be completely frank, the specific example you bring up is not at all unclear in my view. There are other things in the rules in Arkham Horror LCG which are much more edge case and unclear where I would agree that the developers could have done a better job. But this just isn't one of them.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
Did you write the rule book? Why are you so defensive? I literally am just saying “oh they had a chance to add some clarification but didn’t.”

I didn’t say they wrote it like poo poo. I didn’t say the rule book was lovely. I just said it was unclear how evade works and could have used an extra bullet point. Calm down.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?

Kalko posted:

I'd go with Carcosa or Innsmouth if you can get your hands on them. The Forgotten Age and The Circle Undone are more difficult and/or complex, and Dunwich is fine but doesn't really showcase the best stuff the game has to offer. Dream-Eaters is good too but it's two mostly separate 4-part campaigns instead of a single 8-part one like all the others.

Thanks for the suggestions. I went a tracked down all of the Innsmouth cycle. These things are hard to find. Is it because FFG is stopping printing to focus on the new release method, or is it always this way? Local store couldn’t order any so I ended up getting Innsmouth mythos stuff almost from one site, with final pack coming from Amazon (in Canada).

Would my best from this point on just be to keep up with new releases and then pick up the re-releases as they come out? (Those mythos packs are also pretty expensive I gotta say).

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
They are doing their new method because it’s super hard to keep seven SKUs per line in multiple languages. Especially when you’re FFG.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
Oh yeah, the new method is definitely a lot better. I’m just seeing that a ton of packs are hard to find right now and was wondering if they’re actually killing the individual packs right now or that’s just the way it’s always been.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Their schedule for re-releasing thing is going to take a while but they do intend to re-release everything, I think.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
I think what I’m probably gonna do since I’m heavy into Marvel Champions as well is pick up the new release stuff when it comes out and anything else from now on will be the redone boxes. Excited to try Innsmouth when it comes in.

jeeves
May 27, 2001

Deranged Psychopathic
Butler Extraordinaire
The new releases will have spiral-bound campaign manuals, allegedly.

It still doesn't integrate completely with their Return To sets, so I use fan-made campaign guides printed via Lulu.

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

They've always printed the packs in cycles and they do tend to go out of stock all the time. It'll probably take them years to release all of the older campaigns in the new format and I wouldn't be surprised if they do the odd reprint of the current packs here and there while we wait, at least for the more recent ones.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?

jeeves posted:

The new releases will have spiral-bound campaign manuals, allegedly.

It still doesn't integrate completely with their Return To sets, so I use fan-made campaign guides printed via Lulu.

I assume the return to stuff makes the original campaigns that much harder and should probably be looked at when I have a better card pool?

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


The Black Stones posted:

I assume the return to stuff makes the original campaigns that much harder and should probably be looked at when I have a better card pool?

Sometimes. It's definitely true for Night Of the Zealot and Path to Carcosa, so so for The Dunwich Legacy, but my experience is that Return to the Forgotten Age is actually easier and arguably better than the original (revised exploration deck, the possibility of getting a complete kit, giving you more options and a couple of the trickier scenarios.) Like, even if you don't have the Return to box for The Forgotten Age, I think I'd still recommend looking up and applying the changes they made to exploration to the regular version of those scenarios. It is amazing how much better it feels to play.

Can't speak to Return to the Circle Undone because I haven't played it, but at a glance just from the cards it seems like it might be a little bit easier just because there's a couple of ways you can pull additional rewards or circumvent particularly painful scenarios, and the revised encounter sets actually seem a little bit weaker in most cases and way less over focused on Will saves. And there's also the fact that accepting your fate is much less obnoxious in Return to.

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

The purpose of the Return boxes isn't to increase difficulty, though that does happen sometimes. It's more about addressing particular pain points, fixing things which didn't quite work, or adding variety. I don't think I'd want to play any of the original campaigns over their Return versions, but then to appreciate what the Returns do you'd have to have played the originals anyway so I wouldn't skip straight to them.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk

The Black Stones posted:

I assume the return to stuff makes the original campaigns that much harder and should probably be looked at when I have a better card pool?

Returned to Circle Undone is slightly easier but also much better balanced. New treacheries make it so instead of only ever testing will you also have a nice mix in of agility icons. It also replaces ancient evils with something less bullshit. I swear some of the scenarios in Circle are nearly impossible at 4 players due to that card.

I wouldn't want to play Forgotten Age without Returned. It went from my least favorite campaign to one of the best.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

The Black Stones posted:

I think what I’m probably gonna do since I’m heavy into Marvel Champions as well is pick up the new release stuff when it comes out and anything else from now on will be the redone boxes. Excited to try Innsmouth when it comes in.

I expect the boxes will have the entire campaign guide in a single book also. Which is a lot easier and neater than having 1 small book and 6 foldable booklets. So if you are good with waiting a good while before your collection is complete I'd already recommend doing it this way for that reason alone.



Also so far every campaign is markedly improved due to the Return To boxes. Probably the campaign with the smallest improvement is Carcosa, because that one is real strong right out of the box. Just getting rid of Ancient Evils is generally already a huge improvement. Though I think Forgotten Age is the one campaign where the Return To box doesn't replace Ancient Evils right?

Ancient Evils is very interesting because just like the auto fail icon it is a crucial gameplay element to introduce some uncertainty and ensure the game does not become fully solvable (and thus keep things exciting). Yet at the same time it might be the biggest design failure in Arkham Horror LCG for all the problems it introduces. Every iteration they've done on it in the Return To boxes is vastly superior to the original. I think they really need to stop using this set completely and just print alternative cards in the regular campaign box instead.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Oct 22, 2021

Baron Fuzzlewhack
Sep 22, 2010

ALIVE ENOUGH TO DIE
Ancient Evils is good and fun when it forces you to choose between being greedy for XP or finishing the scenario with a decent resolution because of time constraints. Most of the time it just kicks you when you're down. It's also one of the few cards that negatively affects an entire group in one fell swoop, rather than complicating matters for one person that maybe the group has to react to.

It's such a simple card at first glance, "oh ok, we all lose a turn." But losing a whole turn suddenly forces you to recalculate everything going on and is way harder for inexperienced players/blind playthroughs to actually grapple with, especially when one Ancient Evils can cause a cascade effect of failure by advancing the agenda a turn too early.

It's not bad design per se, but it's definitely not fun (for me) because it removes too much agency from the players.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Baron Fuzzlewhack posted:

Ancient Evils is good and fun when it forces you to choose between being greedy for XP or finishing the scenario with a decent resolution because of time constraints. Most of the time it just kicks you when you're down. It's also one of the few cards that negatively affects an entire group in one fell swoop, rather than complicating matters for one person that maybe the group has to react to.

It's such a simple card at first glance, "oh ok, we all lose a turn." But losing a whole turn suddenly forces you to recalculate everything going on and is way harder for inexperienced players/blind playthroughs to actually grapple with, especially when one Ancient Evils can cause a cascade effect of failure by advancing the agenda a turn too early.

It's not bad design per se, but it's definitely not fun (for me) because it removes too much agency from the players.

I'd be fine with it if the card was victory 0, even if there was an additional copy in the set. Not knowing exactly how much time you have is good. As is, I've had too many scenarios derailed by drawing 7 or 8 ancient evils over the course of a single game. We always dread reshuffling the discard pile back into the mythos deck if ancient evils is involved.

After playing through every campaign with four players I think I prefer the game with only two if only because you have less ancient evils ruining everything for everyone.

KongGeorgeVII
Feb 17, 2009

Flow like a
harpoon
daily and nightly.
It's also way more punishing in certain scenarios where there is either a relatively low doom threshold like in The Essex County Express. It's an even bigger problem in scenarios that have you shuffle the discard pile often because while scenarios are designed around ancient evils losing you some turns if you get some bad draws you can hit those Ancient Evils way more often than the expected average.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
It’s also one of the cards in the encounter deck that you need to explicitly build around.

I’m playing counterespionage in Winnifred (underworld connections) and it’s a interesting variant on ward of protection(2). You’re going to see it more but it’s going to cost ya.

Orange Devil
Oct 1, 2010

Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!
Ancient Evils just sucks real bad with instructions to reshuffle the discard pile (compound variance) and also turns the variance dial up to 11 when playing at a player count where you don't expect to see most of the encounter deck. Most notably solo.

Go play a scenario with multiple shuffle instructions and Ancient Evils solo and get unlucky enough to keep drawing them before every shuffle. Basically the game telling you you don't get to play and never even had even a theoretical chance to win. Not fun. Not even a fun way to lose.

Conversely in a 4 player game being guaranteed to draw them it puts pressure on the decks to perform very well because it just straight reduces the amount of turns all but guaranteed. This is theoretically good design except the pressure comes from the players being allowed to play less game, while presumably they enjoy playing the game. Also it is all but guaranteed but not actually guaranteed. Meaning if you pack enough counters you gain so much value that often the scenario suddenly becomes easy mode and so those counters are actually mandatory to bring.

Like in 4 player if your deck manages to counter 4 or 5 Ancient Evils and does literally nothing else. No clues, no damage or evasion on monsters no bad token sealing literally nothing. You probably carried your weight.

Orange Devil fucked around with this message at 13:51 on Oct 23, 2021

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
I tried the camping again and went with Skids who was way better than I thought, and Daisy. Daisy really held me back. That tome ability is good but I need tomes to use it and the tomes she comes with aren’t super great. I did a tiny bit better this time where I was able to not totally lose and chucked Lita at the monster.

I’m excited to try some scenarios that aren’t as brutal, and to get some more heroes and cards to build decks a bit more to how I want.

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


The Black Stones posted:

I tried the camping again and went with Skids who was way better than I thought, and Daisy. Daisy really held me back. That tome ability is good but I need tomes to use it and the tomes she comes with aren’t super great. I did a tiny bit better this time where I was able to not totally lose and chucked Lita at the monster.

I’m excited to try some scenarios that aren’t as brutal, and to get some more heroes and cards to build decks a bit more to how I want.

Don't forget if you're playing as Daisy to include some Research Librarians, they can act as your third and fourth copy of whatever books you use with her. And don't forget about him in general, Research Librarian actually has a lot of value in a variety of Seekers, I can point to three different characters in that class who get a lot of use out of them.

At the same time, of the base set five I think Daisy may have been the character who most appreciates new cards, especially more recent releases. Skids is also up there for a couple of reasons, but it took quite a while for them to print a decent number of tomes that could actually really benefit Daisy. In the game's nascency your only options for good tomes were Old Book of Lore (0) and Encyclopedia (2) that was it. And, while Book of Lore was and is a really good card for Daisy, nowadays you also have tomes that let you attack, tomes that let you draw cards in bulk, tomes that let you teleport, tomes that can potentially counterspell difficult mythos cards or delete enemies, and tomes that let you in theory gain clues or move damage onto monsters. They also added a level 0 version of Encyclopedia which may actually be better than the level 2 version in some respects just because it doesn't cost you experience.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
I have the revised core which only comes with one research librarian.

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


The Black Stones posted:

I have the revised core which only comes with one research librarian.

No, it should have two. One of them in the Daisy prebuilt and the other in the Roland. The Revised core comes with 2 copies of all the class specific cards and most neutral cards, 4 copies of the basic skills, and 10 knives and flashlights.

KPC_Mammon
Jan 23, 2004

Ready for the fashy circle jerk

Omnicrom posted:

No, it should have two. One of them in the Daisy prebuilt and the other in the Roland. The Revised core comes with 2 copies of all the class specific cards and most neutral cards, 4 copies of the basic skills, and 10 knives and flashlights.

And Roland's deck should be rebuilt to not have any, they aren't good for him. Unless they massively changed the starting decks they should all be changed if you want a better time. They are doing the same thing as marvel champions where the initial deck is so bad you can't help but make a better one with adjustments, even with just the core.

Getting the standalone starter investigators for each class would be my second priority after Insmouth or Carcosa. They come with wonderful cards that really help each class work.

The Black Stones
May 7, 2007

I POSTED WHAT NOW!?
I forgot about Roland. I have all the investigator starter decks ordered along with the entire the Innsmouth cycle, and my FLGS has the brand new investigator set for me this Wednesday. So I’ll be able to build the decks soon. I definitely don’t like how they’re built and want to do some changes ASAP.

Edit: I was also surprised to see the Mythos packs come with a small bit of player cards. I thought they were strictly scenario stuff.

The Black Stones fucked around with this message at 03:58 on Oct 24, 2021

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


The Black Stones posted:

Edit: I was also surprised to see the Mythos packs come with a small bit of player cards. I thought they were strictly scenario stuff.

Nope! This is the reason why the new reprint boxes have so many player cards promised in them.

LifeLynx
Feb 27, 2001

Dang so this is like looking over his shoulder in real-time
Grimey Drawer
I've got a full collection (except for some of the Return-to's and of course Edge of the Earth because I live in the US) and have completed every campaign two-handed. I was theory-crafting some decks to teach my fiance, and don't get me wrong, the core investigators are fine, but I think there are better alternatives:

Guardian - Roland is okay, but his weakness sucks, and I've found that trying to be good at both fighting + clueing is a bad mix unless your cards are purple. I think Zoey or Nathaniel are better for new players, leaning towards Zoey because she's got fewer money problems than most Guardians. I'm trying to think of five decks I could conceivably build with no overlap, but there are so many Mystic assets that she can easily splash for one of the investigate ones and pick up clues with her 4 brain.

Seeker - I built a Daisy deck. My fiance loves books, so I figured it'd be a natural fit... but Old Book of Lore (Daisy's real signature card) isn't newbie-friendly. Asking someone new to dig three cards deep, find a good card, and shuffle every turn is asking a lot. I'm sure she's smart enough to find the best of three cards, but that's a lot of brain power devoted to tutoring and shuffling when she could be, you know, playing the game. I thought about mono-yellow Mandy sans-Rook, but that makes Practice Makes Perfect and Eureka failures hurt even more. I think the best Seeker for new players is Ursula. I've played her twice, and her weakness is a non-issue. Do the thing you were going to do anyway that turn. I only died to it once, and it was because my choices were die to AoOs from a swarm of snakes or die to the 2 horror from the weakness. Ursula also has 4 evade, unlike Daisy who has no enemy management skills at all.

Survivor - I think Wendy is a good choice actually, but she doesn't actually do much. And that's the problem with most Survivors - they're good at surviving, but not really contributing without some higher level cards. I wouldn't give a new player Stella, unless that new player get discouraged by any difficulty. Ashcan is my pick here, because he's a good all-arounder. He's got a dog, and you can give him some talking cats, so that's fun (as long as they avoid an untimely Crypt Chill).

Rogue - Finn is the best; why couldn't Skids have been Finn instead? None of the lower complexity Rogues are very forgiving with their 1 or 2 brain scores, but Finn is a good intro to the "succeed by X" archetype as well as being good at investigating and evading.

Mystic - Jaqueline is like Wendy but more fair, and probably more capable because one stat can do everything. Her ability lets her pass on the really important tests, but it's not so busted as to take all the risk out of the game. And her signature weakness "just" makes her a generic purple investigator for a round or two. (By the way did anyone else notice how much more annoying the Innsmouth cycle made her weakness?)

Kalko
Oct 9, 2004

I asked this a while ago, but what does everything think about making a new thread? We've had a couple of new players pop in here recently, which is fine because it generates discussion, but a new OP with lots of FAQ stuff and updated info on the new packaging and everything might be a good idea, along with the sorts of stuff LifeLynx just posted. I could put something together and post a draft here first for feedback, but it'll likely take me weeks.

I won't do it if our regulars here aren't on board, though. What do you think?

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.

Kalko posted:

I asked this a while ago, but what does everything think about making a new thread? We've had a couple of new players pop in here recently, which is fine because it generates discussion, but a new OP with lots of FAQ stuff and updated info on the new packaging and everything might be a good idea, along with the sorts of stuff LifeLynx just posted. I could put something together and post a draft here first for feedback, but it'll likely take me weeks.

I won't do it if our regulars here aren't on board, though. What do you think?

Feel free.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.

LifeLynx posted:

I've got a full collection (except for some of the Return-to's and of course Edge of the Earth because I live in the US) and have completed every campaign two-handed. I was theory-crafting some decks to teach my fiance, and don't get me wrong, the core investigators are fine, but I think there are better alternatives:


I think you make some good points, but the core box was designed to include five people who you can make a bunch of decks for.

If the goal is to have five investigators who are emblematic of their class but have dual colors, you could argue:
Roland, Minh, Preston, Diana, Patrice. Preston could be Sefina, Patrice could be Wendy. Shows that there are five completely different ways to play the game: Monster hunting, skill cards/recursion, events, big money, cancellation, committing everything….


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Ripley
Jan 21, 2007

Golden Bee posted:

If the goal is to have five investigators who are emblematic of their class but have dual colors, you could argue:
Roland, Minh, Preston, Diana, Patrice. Preston could be Sefina, Patrice could be Wendy. Shows that there are five completely different ways to play the game: Monster hunting, skill cards/recursion, events, big money, cancellation, committing everything….

Different lists for different purposes, I think? That's an interesting list for card game veterans you want to show Arkham to, but a bit much for brand new players who aren't huge dorks like us.

LifeLynx's list seems like more of a set of introductory investigators that are good at their role, somewhat self sufficient, and don't require learning unusual mechanics or even lots of shuffling or scrying or other faffing around.

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