Making Arkham Horror Easier

I realise this is the exact opposite of what most people want from AH, but bear with me. My request is for solo games where I absolutely refuse to play more than two investigators and in the past I've found that that alone leads to a satisfactory difficulty level - I've won about 25% of my solo games.

However I've just acquired Dunwich Horror which is obviously going to make the game more difficult, if I play with all the expansion rules in place - gate bursts and such are going to hurt badly, and trying to manage that extra board space with just two investigators is going to be a tough ask.

So does anyone have any suggestions to incorporate Dunwich and keep the difficulty ratio at a level two investigators can handle? My first thought was to tweak the game settings a bit - five gate seals for victory, perhaps, or adding one or two to the monster limit, or maybe even starting the terror level at a negative number. But it'd be hard to gauge the overall effect on the game.

As an aside, if you're playing with the expansion mythos cards and gates shuffled into the deck, but not the Dunwich board do you simply ignore draws that indicate locations that aren't in play? Or do you bother taking the extra cards/gates out first, or use some sort of cunning house rule to keep the mythos card effects but switch the gate location?

How about rolling a die before each Mythos phase, and only drawing one when you get 1-3?

Skip upkeep though on that "free turn".

Only draw a Mythos card during the Mythos phase of the second investigator's turn when he has the 'first player' token. kookoobah's idea should give you the same average number of draws, but you'll get huge variances in results through normal statistical results (i.e. several turns in a row where you draw no Mythos cards, and vice versa) which makes for an uneven game experience. I'd allow upkeep every turn.

If you're not going to play with the Dunwich board, then I'd get rid of the cards that open gates or create effects unique to Dunwich.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Only draw a Mythos card during the Mythos phase of the second investigator's turn when he has the 'first player' token. kookoobah's idea should give you the same average number of draws, but you'll get huge variances in results through normal statistical results (i.e. several turns in a row where you draw no Mythos cards, and vice versa) which makes for an uneven game experience. I'd allow upkeep every turn.

Problem with this is, you wouldn't be afraid to go into hot areas during the Mythos phase of the player that doesn't have the token, and then you'd just duck out and stay somewhere safe when there's a chance of getting blindsided.

Still, what works for me might not work for you.

When I play solo, I do the dice thing and draw Mythos on 1-2 and play with 3 player win conditions, etcetera. Only way I can actually have fun when soloing. Controlling 3-4 characters is a headache for me, and it feels weird. Doing solo as the game says so is not only hard, it's boring -- an exercise in running around desperately trying not to lose.

Sure it sounds exciting, but it's not. I like to explore a bit.

kookoobah wrote:

When I play solo, I do the dice thing and draw Mythos on 1-2 and play with 3 player win conditions, etcetera. Only way I can actually have fun when soloing. Controlling 3-4 characters is a headache for me, and it feels weird. Doing solo as the game says so is not only hard, it's boring -- an exercise in running around desperately trying not to lose.

Sure it sounds exciting, but it's not. I like to explore a bit.

I've found the official solo rules, to play with one character to be really short and really easy. There's no way to keep the gates under check so you quickly move to the final battle. Since you only need one success to land a hit, you can land a lot of hits.

Or am I not playing that right?

metalface13 wrote:

I've found the official solo rules, to play with one character to be really short and really easy. There's no way to keep the gates under check so you quickly move to the final battle. Since you only need one success to land a hit, you can land a lot of hits.

Or am I not playing that right?

Yeah, that's how it works. But that's kind of unsatisfying, since there really isn't much to the game any more except a) getting money to buy items and b) getting whatever you need to survive the GOO's attack. No point in doing anything else.

When I play solo, I always play with three or four investigators. I prefer three, but if I'm playing with two expansion boards, you really need four to have a chance of winning.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Yeah, that's how it works. But that's kind of unsatisfying, since there really isn't much to the game any more except a) getting money to buy items and b) getting whatever you need to survive the GOO's attack. No point in doing anything else.

When I play solo, I always play with three or four investigators. I prefer three, but if I'm playing with two expansion boards, you really need four to have a chance of winning.

It's totally unsatisfying. I usually play with two investigators.

metalface13 wrote:

I've found the official solo rules, to play with one character to be really short and really easy. There's no way to keep the gates under check so you quickly move to the final battle. Since you only need one success to land a hit, you can land a lot of hits.

Or am I not playing that right?

Yep. Like I said, I like to explore, so if I play with the solo rules in the game, it basically has me just buying items, waiting for the end to come. I'd like a chance to seal the gates so that each game doesn't feel the same.

I finally finished my first game of AH last night... very very cool. I'm wondering why you guys keep mentioning using two investigators for playing solo. I played with three and that seemed to work fine. IMO, the more different roles there are, the more of a sense that it's really a team of people fighting off the horror... it gives solo play more of the intended co-op feel with some interaction and collaboration between the roles. Playing with just one or two doesn't seem very exciting to me. But I'm wondering if there's a particular reason why you're using two investigators, specifically? Is it just so there are less things to keep track of? That would make sense, but being new to the game I'm not sure if there might be some other reason...

Grudunza wrote:

I finally finished my first game of AH last night... very very cool. I'm wondering why you guys keep mentioning using two investigators for playing solo. I played with three and that seemed to work fine. IMO, the more different roles there are, the more of a sense that it's really a team of people fighting off the horror... it gives solo play more of the intended co-op feel with some interaction and collaboration between the roles. Playing with just one or two doesn't seem very exciting to me. But I'm wondering if there's a particular reason why you're using two investigators, specifically? Is it just so there are less things to keep track of? That would make sense, but being new to the game I'm not sure if there might be some other reason...

I usually just play with two because there's less stuff to keep track of. Less sliders to move around during the upkeep phase, fewer retainers/blessings to keep track of, trying ot figure out which character is the "first player." So I just stick with two. You could play with 3. Hell you could play with 8 if you want.

Grudunza wrote:

I'm wondering why you guys keep mentioning using two investigators for playing solo. I played with three and that seemed to work fine. IMO, the more different roles there are, the more of a sense that it's really a team of people fighting off the horror... it gives solo play more of the intended co-op feel with some interaction and collaboration between the roles.

I agree. I've found three investigators to be my sweet spot for solo play: few enough that I get a feel for the individual characters, but enough to allow for collaboration, and to be able to win the game. I only go to four with multiple expansion boards, and only reluctantly.

Well, I gave this a try over the weekend and played AH + DH with two investigators, turning over a mythos card every other turn. Really enjoyed it actually - it did seem to give me the time to just about stay on top of things. I didn't win, but that was sheer bad luck: both my investigators drew "amnesia" cards, limiting them to 4 clue tokens each and making it nigh-on impossible to seal gates!

One thing that really surprised me was what I liked most about the expansion. It wasn't the extra cards to add to the base-game decks. It wasn't the injury and madness cards. It was the simple fact of another board with more gate locations. That means less monster surges, and more chance of the GOO waking up from the doom track filling up which to me, makes for a more interesting game. The fact the GOO never, ever seemed to wake up from the doom track in the base game I always thought was a flaw.

I came across one rules issue I was unsure on. Some of the new weapons get "exhausted" when used at the start of combat. If you're at a location with more than one monster, can you use these weapons once per monster, or only once for the whole movement phase? (On reflection I think I've answered my own question, since most exhausted things only un-exhaust during upkeep).