Back into the Depths

This is probably the most annoying error to date, they printed and had to errata. We have played the scenario more than 3 months ago, not aware of the bug, and it still bothers me a lot. So I thought, it might be a good idea, to give people extra attention to this errata.

It was our second run of Innsmouth and first ever campaign on hard, and up until then, we aced it, unlocked all the Flashbacks I to XIII. As a result, we got all 4 required keys to advance during setup, and because everybody starts at Gateway to Y'ha-nthlei and there is no "may" printed on the card, we had to immediately advance and started the game in Act 2. But by doing so, we didn't have the opportunity to grab some additional keys, we would have needed to unlock:

  • Flashback XIV in the game
  • an alternative, optional objective to fulfill
  • Flashback XV in the Epilogue

We had achieved the second bullet point on our Innsmouth blind run, and found it a rather easy campaign final on standard, but playing the scenario without the optional objective was a completely anticlimactic and lame affair, and loosing out on the Flashbacks double stings.

Susumu · 381
Considering that's based on an obscure and unintuitive ruling and they immediately errata'd it, I'd say the fact that, in the same level, Dagon and Hydra have useless actions printed on them is a much more annoying error. — SSW · 217
Why ist the action useless? There might be doom placed on them. — PowLee · 15
I also don't get, what you mean, SSW. How is the action on them an error? If you want to stay on the location, it is better to try to evade them that way. Of course, you need a character to likely pass the willpower (4) test, but it is a legit action. The forced advance on the other hand is an annoying bug. Yeah, they errata'd it. But we don't doublecheck every card during play, if there might be a missprint. At that moment, we were not aware, that this would cost us Flashback XIV and the rest. We were playing it for the second time, and the first was more than half a year earlier. It was a critical mistake, we now know. But it is likely to not notice it during play. — Susumu · 381
Dagon and Hydra untap then check to see if they are untapped.... — Zerogrim · 295
Gotcha! I indeed missed the "At the end of the round". Yeah, you could still remove the doom placed in the previouse round. But obviously, exhausting them is pointless. — Susumu · 381
I think the important part about the action would be to remove the doom, not to exhaust the ancient one. So I wouldn't call it pointless at all. I guess the default is supposed to be that you place doom on them while you're in their lair. Given that there are edge cases where you can exhaust them during upkeep after they readied, I still think that checking whether they are ready at the end of the round still makes sense.nk it's still appropriate that the game checks whether the ancient one is ready or not for the case that you trigger an edge case where you exhaust them during upkeep. Example for such an obscure edge case: Draw Overzealous, get an encounter card with a skill test, commit quick thinking, succeed by 2, use the extra action to evade them. — PowLee · 15
Lockpicks

I have found a "sour spot" (the opposite of sweet spot) while using this powerful card. It is on investigator with 3 (Skids), with no other gentle boosts available in the deck, and having to work on 2 shroud location with something like 3 clues. Basic investigation with 3 struggles against 2 shroud especially you want to repeatedly succeed, and also using Lockpicks is slow to drain the location since it exhausts. It is like you are given a bazooka but was tasked to kill some birds.

You will have to intentionally find a more difficult location with 1 to make the best use of your action. And therefore replacing starting 2x Flashlight into 2x Lockpicks may not always be a good idea, regarding of flexibility even in Normal difficulty.

5argon · 11177
I think, Lockpicks has two applications. In solo, one clue per round is a good rate. You have to spend actions to move around anyway, so the exhaustion does matter less. In multiplayer, I agree the clueing potential is rather slow. But you get value out of an action per round, where you over succeed by a lot to dig out cards with LCC (3) and potentially trigger other effects. — Susumu · 381
"Hit me!"

For Rogues that don't have access to Lucky!, this feels like an off-brand version. But note that the condition for playing this card is different: you don't have to fail a skill test in order to play it. That allows the card to fulfill some other roles, too:

  • Succeed-by-X: Just like this is a less-good Lucky!, this is also a less-good Daring Maneuver. Sure, for investigators who truly need the effect, just pick up the other card, but deck space is tight in Arkham Horror, or this is just copies 3 and 4 of it. For Survivors, there aren't too many succeed-by cards, but I'd use this for Sharp Vision and Brute Force, two cards which are a real bummer if they don't fire off.

  • Token manipulation: You get to reveal an extra token, which you really might want for its own effect; like an or a for the Mystic curse spells -- note that the will be a +2, and it will reveal another token, too (but a won't autofail this time). You could even use Olive McBride to reveal 3 more tokens and resolve 2 of them; both of which will now have positive modifiers! This could also be an interesting way to dig for extra tokens to make Blessing of Isis work. As has already been commented, the taboo'd .35 Winchester will much more reliably get the extra damage now.

In all of these cases, the more tokens you reveal, the more likely to reveal a , so there is some obvious synergy with cards that Seal tokens, but revealing a 0 is also often a waste of time, so you may consider Shards of the Void specifically.

dscarpac · 1217
Leg Injury

A pretty low potency weakness.

Low movement classes that aren't going to be jumping around the map much anyway like Guardians and Mystics won't really care this is there. Your evasion based rogues or seekers with movement bonuses are going to notice this, but usually just making a simple deck swap (throwing in a painkiller) is enough to get rid of this.

Given that most weaknesses on average make you lose two actions to resolve, this one is pretty weak and is almost trivial.

drjones87 · 201
Most seeker movement bonuses aren't move actions, so aren't even affected by this ^_^ — NarkasisBroon · 11
And then you might as well stay in the Asylum... I agree, though, that some classes have pretty good mitigations. A Guardian with upgraded Safeguard might as well ignore it most of the time. (But an Arm Injury is quite a pain for that gator!) On the other hand, an evasion based character will be more disturbed by that. Evading and Moving are commonly used both in a turn in this case. — Susumu · 381