jgsugden wrote:
Other things you can do to make the game harder and balance it for your skill level:
1. Make a skull token. It starts on the final insanity spot for investigators you play. When you win a game, it starts that next game one space to the left on the insanity track of where it was during that prior game. If you lose, the token gets to move one to the right for the next game. If you would advance to the skull token, your investigator dies.
2. Similarly: Increase the hp total of the Elder one stages when you win and decrease them when you lose. If you win 5 games in a row, the elder one stages are each +5 (17, generally).
3. Add more wandering monster cards to the Mythos deck. You get 4 with Season 3 and 4 with Season 4. Use them all. Also, when the monster is not on the board when you draw one: summon 1 to a random gate.
4. Have you ever tried 2 Elder Ones at once? Some of these combos are better than others.
5. When an investigator dies, all other investigators advance to the next stage of insanity immediately. When an investigator reaches a new plateau of insanity, all investigators within 1 take stress.
6. All monsters (but not cultists) reduce damage taken by 1. Elder Ones reduce damage taken by their stage number.
7. Hidden Psychosis. Each player plays with their insanity card face down until they reach the first level of insanity.
8. Draw one additional wandering monster card for each monster in the game (Elder one Minion, Episode, and normal Wandering monsters). As you do, add that wandering monster ability to the corresponding "in game" monster. This gives each monster two abilities.
9. Resting cures 2 instead of 3.
10. You must perform a roll to discover rather than it being automatic when not threatened. You need a number of successes equal to your current insanity level to find something. Instead of advancing your insanity, the insanity symbol counts as -1 successes for these rolls. (Hey, losing your mind makes it harder to focus).
11. Add an additional player. This player runs the monsters, cultists and Elder One. They alone read the Mythos cards and track the effects for many Mythos cards. They do this because a lot of information becomes hidden information because the investigators have to worry about being able to see the threats. The additional player uses pen and paper to track where monsters are on the board as the monsters are not put on the board unless an investigator is in the room, or there is a light in the room. Fire creates light and characters can use an action to add light to a space they are in. However, cultists extinguish lights (but not fires) within 1 space of their location when the Elder One advances. The players do not know how many Elder Signs have been found until the Elder One advances. They do not know what monsters have come on the board unless their was light where they appeared. When you get one of those "if X then advance the Elder one as if three Mythos had been drawn" the investigators do not know the criteria - or necessarily why the Elder Sign advanced.
1. Make a skull token. It starts on the final insanity spot for investigators you play. When you win a game, it starts that next game one space to the left on the insanity track of where it was during that prior game. If you lose, the token gets to move one to the right for the next game. If you would advance to the skull token, your investigator dies.
2. Similarly: Increase the hp total of the Elder one stages when you win and decrease them when you lose. If you win 5 games in a row, the elder one stages are each +5 (17, generally).
3. Add more wandering monster cards to the Mythos deck. You get 4 with Season 3 and 4 with Season 4. Use them all. Also, when the monster is not on the board when you draw one: summon 1 to a random gate.
4. Have you ever tried 2 Elder Ones at once? Some of these combos are better than others.
5. When an investigator dies, all other investigators advance to the next stage of insanity immediately. When an investigator reaches a new plateau of insanity, all investigators within 1 take stress.
6. All monsters (but not cultists) reduce damage taken by 1. Elder Ones reduce damage taken by their stage number.
7. Hidden Psychosis. Each player plays with their insanity card face down until they reach the first level of insanity.
8. Draw one additional wandering monster card for each monster in the game (Elder one Minion, Episode, and normal Wandering monsters). As you do, add that wandering monster ability to the corresponding "in game" monster. This gives each monster two abilities.
9. Resting cures 2 instead of 3.
10. You must perform a roll to discover rather than it being automatic when not threatened. You need a number of successes equal to your current insanity level to find something. Instead of advancing your insanity, the insanity symbol counts as -1 successes for these rolls. (Hey, losing your mind makes it harder to focus).
11. Add an additional player. This player runs the monsters, cultists and Elder One. They alone read the Mythos cards and track the effects for many Mythos cards. They do this because a lot of information becomes hidden information because the investigators have to worry about being able to see the threats. The additional player uses pen and paper to track where monsters are on the board as the monsters are not put on the board unless an investigator is in the room, or there is a light in the room. Fire creates light and characters can use an action to add light to a space they are in. However, cultists extinguish lights (but not fires) within 1 space of their location when the Elder One advances. The players do not know how many Elder Signs have been found until the Elder One advances. They do not know what monsters have come on the board unless their was light where they appeared. When you get one of those "if X then advance the Elder one as if three Mythos had been drawn" the investigators do not know the criteria - or necessarily why the Elder Sign advanced.
Thanks for sharing all your ideas John. This is what I was asking for since my first post!
(I numbered them for practical reasons.)
1 & 2. I don't like the idea of changing difficulty based on previous plays.
3. This is something I've been considering. The summoning part becomes crucial for this variant imo. This I'll try for sure!
4. I see the Elder One as the protagonist of each game, so I wouldn't enjoy having two.
5. Pretty nice improvement. I mean, how on earth wouldn't you lose sanity seeing your teammates being devoured or something. Same for stressing by proximity of someone going crazy. I surely will try this one!
6. Too much "bookkeeping" to my taste.
7. Pretty fun. I'll try this in multiplayer. I play this solo 50% of the times, which makes me wonder: how it would feel to not know your insanity until you've reached the first sanity threshold? Could be great!
8. Too much bookkeeping. Imo this becomes unnecessary when using #3
9. Too punishing and restrictive.
10. Making the "Investigate" action harder sounds interesting to me, as I've been feeling that it's very easy to do, but using #3 could make it difficult enough to find "safe spaces" anyway, so maybe this becomes too much.
11. It may work for large playing groups. Not my case.