Allies deck

The ally deck has 11 random cards dealt for it, which was fine back when it was just one expansion but with four, the chances of getting any specific ally from an encounter is very thin.

Possible fix: when using 2 board expansions, the ally deck is 22 cards, whenever an ally would be discard, instead discard 2 allies.

Any thoughts on this possible house rule?

It was actually the official rule while Curse of the Dark Pharaoh was out (though CotDP didn't get you up to 22 Allies). This wasn't changed until DH came out and told you to keep the 11-Ally deck.

You could certainly play this way. One thing to keep in mind is that it "cheapens" Kane's ability.

In behind ColtsFan76! Oh well, there's no shame in being beaten by the best.

I was going to say that CotDP instructed you to maintain separate piles of base and CotDP allies, discarding one from each pile every time the terror level rose. This is an extensible rule which has the nice property that at the beginning of the game every ally's available, just like in the base game. DH officially frowned upon it, though. I don't know why.

The reason why is that with Dunwich Horror and CotDP you have some extremely powerful allies and it becomes fairly easy to make superpowerful characters if you don't randomly discard stuff.

Plus if you're good at controlling terror levels, you could then recruit 20 or so allies ;'D

old_school_overlord wrote:Possible fix: when using 2 board expansions, the ally deck is 22 cards, whenever an ally would be discard, instead discard 2 allies.

Isn't the ally deck more like 33 cards with all the expansions?

Just remember to always discard your multiple when discarding. I think there's a rumor that discards one ally per turn. Be sure an discard the multiple then, for example or you've made the rumor too easy and no one wants to that.

As for Kane's ability, isn't there some debate on just where the box is for him? Maybe not.

Glaaki is very interested in this variant.

mageith wrote:

old_school_overlord wrote:Possible fix: when using 2 board expansions, the ally deck is 22 cards, whenever an ally would be discard, instead discard 2 allies.

Isn't the ally deck more like 33 cards with all the expansions?

34 (Arkham and Kingsport 11 each, 7 in CotDP, and 5 in Dunwich)

As for Kane's ability, isn't there some debate on just where the box is for him? Maybe not.

Well, teh one thing we are certain of is that if he encounters an ally that has been discarded, he can still grab him from the box. So the main thing that prevents someone from grabbing an Ally (they weren't part of the starting ally deck or have been discarded due to a game circumstance) he negates. The question is on Ma's bording house and drawing from the deck when a specific ally is not mentioned.

I think a good house rule is to make two ally decks - one consisting of 11 allies (the normal deck), placed next to Ma's, and one consisting of all remaining allies, from which investigators can only draw if an encounter names a certain ally.

When removing allies, remove an ally from the normal deck, and an appropriate number of allies from the other deck, depending on the size. E.g. when playing with DH and CotDP, there are 11 + 12 allies, and one could remove an ally from both decks if an ally should be removed, maybe an additional ally from the 2nd deck if the terror track hits 3, 6 or 9, or even always 2 allies from the 2nd deck.

I've always hated limiting the Allies too. Here are some variants we've tossed around :

- Discard only 1 Ally each time you are instructed to. Once you've discarded 11 Allies, discard the rest.
- Discard a multiple of 11 (i.e. if around 22 Allies, discard two, if around 30 Allies, discard 3, etc)
- Start with a random set of 11, but if you have an Encounter with an ally that hasn't been discarded into the box (i.e. was not part of the original 11), said Ally is still 'available' and can be earned in the encounter.
- Same as above, excecpt after earning said Ally from the encounter, discard into the box one of the original 11 Allies.

We seem to be gravitating towards the latter in the list. Only 11 Allies for 'random' purposes, and for purchasing in Ma's Boarding House. But it really blows when you have an Encounter and the Ally just was never in the deck, so we alter it so that the Ally is still winnable.

-shnar

- Same as above, excecpt after earning said Ally from the encounter, discard into the box one of the original 11 Allies.

I like this solution, although in my opinion you should be able to gain allies from the original 11 who were discarded due to an "house rule way" (that is, the allies who are discarded because you picked a specific ally from an encounter and not because the official rules told you to do so).

I'm thinking of another solution, which is quite close to yours except that it takes into account my last point. You have three decks of ally to consider :

- the "random ones deck", for random purposes, for purchasing in Ma's Boarding House and possibly for specific pick up in encounters. There are 11 cards in this deck at the beginning of the game (randomly chosen of course).

- the "other ones deck", for specific pick up in encounters only. All the allies - except the 11 chosen before - are located in this deck at the beginning of the game.

- the "lost ones deck", meaning the box. You cannot pick these ones, except with Kane's Special Ability.

Here are the additional rules you need to consider :

- if the game asks you to put an ally in the box (through the terror level, for example), pick instead an ally from the "random ones deck" and one or two allies - depending on the number of extensions you are playing with - from the "other ones deck" and put them into the "lost ones deck".

- if you gain a specific ally from the "other ones deck" through an encounter, pick also an ally from the "random ones deck" and put it into the "other ones deck".

Hence, the number of available allies in Ma's boarding house will decrease whenever a player will gain an ally (except using Kane's Special Abilty), even if it is through a special encounter, and in this way we are pretty close to the official rules' spirit. But it also prevents us from the frustration of an unavailable ally because of an house rule...

Another idea: Only 11 allies, but as long as the Terror Track is below 3, allies in encounters are always available.

@shnar: I like your suggestion that one of the original allies is removed if an ally is drawn from the box through an encounter.

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:@shnar: I like your suggestion that one of the original allies is removed if an ally is drawn from the box through an encounter.

It sort of waters down the only scary part of the Terror track--potential allies leaving town. Maybe if you had three locations for allies:

Beginning of the game:
11 in the game
23 in the box
0: Long gone out of town (I use the space next to the terror track)

Each time allies leave due to terror, draw one from the game and two from the box and these are now long gone out of town and not retrievable (except maybe by the politician).

You could slap it into a Guardian. Any Mythos entities or even people who'd fit the role? (And any suitable images, while we're at it?)

aka. Washu! ^O^

My group actually uses all of the allies, because its simply more fun that way.

Tusk wrote:My group actually uses all of the allies, because its simply more fun that way.

Then what do you do if the Terror Track Goes up (other than close the stores at designated moments)?

mageith wrote:

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:@shnar: I like your suggestion that one of the original allies is removed if an ally is drawn from the box through an encounter.

It sort of waters down the only scary part of the Terror track--potential allies leaving town.

Not at all, it's only considered to be an addition to ally related house rules, and then it has the opposite effect (-> more allies leave town). When using no ally related house rules, this addition has no effect at all (in the case of the politician, removing one ally is redundant, since it's not an extra ally which is removed).

HÃ«llRÃ†ZÃ˜R wrote:Not at all

One of apparently doesn't understand what schnar said (It might be me.):

- Discard only 1 Ally each time you are instructed to. Once you've discarded 11 Allies, discard the rest.
- Discard a multiple of 11 (i.e. if around 22 Allies, discard two, if around 30 Allies, discard 3, etc)
- Start with a random set of 11, but if you have an Encounter with an ally that hasn't been discarded into the box (i.e. was not part of the original 11), said Ally is still 'available' and can be earned in the encounter.
- Same as above, excecpt after earning said Ally from the encounter, discard into the box one of the original 11 Allies.

In a normal game, an ally encounter, if all the expansions are being used, there's only a 1/3rd chance of having the ally in the Ally deck anyway, less the 3x Terror level. Now there is a 100% chance on the first turn and that is only diminished by about 9% per terror level, even at terror level 10 theres a 9% chance of meeting that last ally.

I'm not really against this variant, just that it does water down the scariest part of the terror level rising, the boxing of allies. In our games, though, that's not really very scary because allies are such a small part of the game. We are always happy to get one, but usually don't go out of our way or spend blood on them.

I'll probably use a less complicated version and keep all the allies in the game and always multiplying any ally effect by three--even choosing an ally from Ma's will include boxing two random allies.

Also the non-house rule ally rule is to randomly select 11 and that's all there is. As I said earlier, its still debatable if even the politician has more to choose from than those 11.

The rule on Ma's is that the buyer of an ally has Choice of what's there. That's one of the reasons I went from using all the allies to the proscribed 11. Giving someone a choice of 33 cards, all good takes a lot of time.

This is my house rule:
All Allies are used: 34 (Arkham and Kingsport 11 each, 7 in CotDP, and 5 in Dunwich)

Setup:
1) Randomly select 11 Allies and put them on Ma's (call this Ma's Deck)
2) Set the remaining 23 aside (call this the Ally Deck)

Terror Track:
If Terror Track increases remove 1 Ally from Ma's Deck and 2 Allies from the Ally Deck.

Gaining Allies:
If an Encounter allows for you to gain a specific Ally, search Ma's Deck and the Ally Deck. If the Ally is located in the Ally Deck, randomly select an Ally from Ma's Deck and place it into the Ally Deck.

If an Encounter allows you to gain an Ally, but does not specify which Ally or you purchase an Ally from Ma's Boarding House then only use Ma's Deck.

With these rules the 11 card Ally deck initially intended in AH is kept diminished when acquiring Allies and when the Terror Track increases, while at the same time giving investigators the ability to acquire an Ally for encounters.

Glamdryn wrote:This is my house rule:

Isn't this the same as schnar's?

Not quite, since our house rules were /not/ discarding the non-original allies if the terror track goes up. In his variant, you discard from both sets of allies, which does make better sense, since it adds to the idea that Allies do disappear, but does allow an early game to still have all allies available.

-shnar

This is my house rule:
All Allies are used: 34 (Arkham and Kingsport 11 each, 7 in CotDP, and 5 in Dunwich)

Setup:
1) Randomly select 11 Allies and put them on Ma's (call this Ma's Deck)
2) Set the remaining 23 aside (call this the Ally Deck)

Terror Track:
If Terror Track increases remove 1 Ally from Ma's Deck and 2 Allies from the Ally Deck.

Gaining Allies:
If an Encounter allows for you to gain a specific Ally, search Ma's Deck and the Ally Deck. If the Ally is located in the Ally Deck, randomly select an Ally from Ma's Deck and place it into the Ally Deck.

If an Encounter allows you to gain an Ally, but does not specify which Ally or you purchase an Ally from Ma's Boarding House then only use Ma's Deck.

With these rules the 11 card Ally deck initially intended in AH is kept diminished when acquiring Allies and when the Terror Track increases, while at the same time giving investigators the ability to acquire an Ally for encounters.

This is exactly the solution I proposed before, but unlike me you exposed it in a very clear and concise way. Congratulations, Glamdryn !

EDIT: Bah! Came up with something simpler.

Guardian: Charlie Kane: Mayor of Arkham

During upkeep, randomly add two Ally cards from the box to the Ally deck. If Charlie Kane is an investigator, his player may instead select which cards. Players may examine these allies before the Ally deck is reshuffled.

Comments:
* You want a better selection of allies *later* in the game, not earlier.
* No "how many allies to return to the box" blah blah blah when the Terror level goes up.
* Doesn't dilute Charlie Kane's ability much.
* Guardian is better than the game rules.
* New toys every turn!
* Simple.

aka. Washu! ^O^

Just as a point of clarification for this post, "discarded" allies are returned to the bottom of the ally deck. The terror level rising or the Southside Strangler cause allies to be returned to the box. There is a difference...

I like Glamdryn's / Arch Stanton's idea, except that I would remove more allies from the secundary deck (maybe 3 if it includes 23 allies), but that's just personal taste.

@Mageith: I just refered to a part of Shnar's idea, not to the whole point - maybe I should have written that more explicitely.

Last night after shuffling and keeping 11 allies, and once again never coming across an ally that a card said I could take, I devised the following house rule that works regardless of the number of increasing allies with each additional AH supplement.

Step 1: Roll 9 dice
Step 2: Check terror track
Step 3: The terror level is the number of successes required to take the ally.

This means you automatically find your ally when terror=0, and as the terror track progresses you're less and less likely to find him or her. (And you have zero chance when terror=10)

Lastly, If you're cursed or blessed, you have a worse or better chance to get the ally, which also fits the theme.

I haven't tried this yet, but I'll give it a shot my next game.