Yes, Elder Sign was too easy for me to ... Couldn't loose actually ... The thing I really love about Arkham Horror is the constant sense of dread, racing against time to seal away the Ancient One ...

I really like some of the suggestions on how to make it harder, but most of them change the game too much (removing cards for example) ...

For me, adding a doom token every midnight, moving the clock by 4 instead of 3 hours, no buying of Elder Signs at the entrance and having to put monsters on cards that don't already have other monsters was just enough ...

BTW, anyone who says they played 30 games of Arkham Horror and NEVER lost is either:

a) Unbelievably lucky

b) Not playing by the rules

c) Lying through his teeth

 We played a couple more game at my bi-weekly gaming group today.  One way to make it harder that one of the other guys came up with was to resolve a Mythos card at both 12 and 6.  Made it quite a bit harder - Ithaqua woke up quickly, but we still managed to beat him back into submission.

Yeah, that's basically like turning the clock 6 instead of 3 hours ... As we added the Doom Token at every midnight, that would be too much ...

Another way to up the difficulty would be to take all invesitgator/ally abilities that say 'once per turn' and make them 'once per day'.....

Otherwise, abilities like Mandy Thompson's '....once per turn...may re-roll 2 dice before determining if....active player was able to complete a task..' seem too powerful to me...this is almost like a free clue token 4 times a day.......

Unless I am misreading the cards...or the rules.....

I have played 4 solo games so far and have only lost 1 through some incredibly bad rolling...on the others the Doom track did get past about 4......

spooky86668 said:

Once you get some experience, the base game of AH (no expansion boards) isn't that hard to beat. My wife and I can consistently beat it by permanently sealing 6 locations. We know which locations are the worst/most frequent, and seal those as quickly as possible. Barring some bad luck, we can win at least 9/10, so I can see someone winning 30 times without losing, especially with larger groups that are experienced.

dvang said:

Someone needs to go buy Black Goat of the Woods or King in Yellow!  :p

wewingtonheetanicus said:

I've just played my first two games...  The first game I beat the hell out of Yig.  His track was half full when I won.  The second game I crushed Shub with only three doom tokens on his track (and also not allowing myself to buy elder signs).  I think this game is going to require tweaking to be any sort of challenge...

dvang said:

Agreed...  The base game once understood is a bad joke.  Even with only two investigators.  With expansions, an experienced player (or team) of 6 or more can win fairly consistently.

 I think I'm going to double all the costs at the entrance and have a doom added every midnight.  That might be good for starters...

Edit: Hooo...  I have just had a hell of a game, not really sure if I'd lose it (the doom is only at zero after all, but it's going very badly for me, just got my first investigator devoured.  Game started off with Hedge Maze, Public Lavatory, and Curator and two of the early monsters I drew were die locking monsters.  They're both still on the cards ;'D  I'm sure I could turn this around without the doom track added by time rule...  Buuuut...  With it?  Not so sure.  The sad thing though was I still might've made it (despite the start from Hell) if not for unlucky dice ;'D

Master Fwiffo said:

We have and try to use one of the 'big box' expansions when we play (Dunwich, Innsmouth, or Kingsport).  We prefer those expansions b/c of the extra PCs and stuff.  However, when we want a quick game, or are teaching new players how to play, or lack table space, we just play the base game.  It's still fun for us to play.

This lovely game felt too easy for our gaming group too, so we houseruled it in order to make it more challenging (without changing much of the original design):

1) You cannot purchase elder signs

2) If all monster slots are filled, you have to place new monster tokens on adventure cards without monster tokens on them

3) All Hero/item abilities can only be used in their own turn and only for themselves (except the case where it says other on the card)

4) Whenever you fail a task roll you suffer one damage/icon from the adventure cards penalty list (your choice) in addition to any posible terror effect. If you fail to resolve the adventure you suffer all penalties of the adventure card as normal.

Especially #4 made the game much more challenging and is our prime rule modification, as you'll suffer some damage even you resolve the adventure. It gives the game a special twist as there are several adventure cards that only have a doom token penalty on them, so feeble attempts to tackle those may lead to a quick game end...

Avi_dreader said:

same opinion as you guys. with base game, you can't really loose often if you know what you are doing. ;) MoM is more challenging, but you cannot play by yourself :-))

Shelfwear said:

Ooo.  I really like this idea (and haven't heard it before).