Arkham Horror Stat Topic- Great Old Ones
Welcome to Arkham.
This topic details the performance of the various great old ones. Please not that these are relative approximations, given that the course of the game can greatly modify the difficulty of the battle against the Great Old One. I’ve had games where the party absolutely crushes the GOO beneath the weight of superior equipment and lucky rolls, and games where the party is absolutely blown away because they had bad luck during the game or just didn’t get the chance to enact any sort of plan.
Due to the nature of the final battles (and due to wanting to save time currently), general stat averages will be the median between the lowest possible result and the highest possible result from the use of a weapon and base stats (discounting immunities/resistances, since those speak for themselves in the DL). This likely skews things in favor of the GOO, but hey, that’s the nature of the game.
This currently only takes into account the base game and ignores expansions.
All numbers assume only one PC fighting, as the GOO’s scale up to account for additional combatants.
THE STATS
Attack Penalty: The penalty to the number of dice rolled against the Great Old One when attacking.
Doom Track: The length of the Great Old One’s Doom Track. This represents the number of successful hits the GOO can take against one PC.
Investigator Attack: The relevant values for an average investigator attacking with either a physical or a magical attack. Base Fight will be used if the GOO has an immunity.
GOO Attack: The Great Old One’s Attack.
Damage to Investigator: A turn by turn breakdown of the damage an investigator takes.
Physical/Magical Resistance: Bonuses from those sources only count for half as many dice.
Physical/Magical Immunity: Bonuses from those sources aren’t counted.
GENERAL NOTES
Stat checks and combat are resolved by rolling d6s. You roll a number of dice equal to your base stat plus all relevant modifiers minus all relevant penalties. A roll of 5 or 6 is a success, and all other rolls are failures. Any single roll has about a 34% chance of success, thus three dice are essentially equal to one success.
INTERPRETATION ISSUES
Health/Sanity: If either stat is reduced to 0 during a battle with a GOO, the investigator is immediately devoured. While health speaks for itself, Sanity is a little tougher. For general purposes, Sanity simply serves as a secondary sort of health. Additionally, many spells require you to spend Sanity to cast them, making it into a pseudo-MP as well. Take this as you will.
Physical/Magical Resistance/Immunity: Given that these reduce the number of dice rolled against the GOO, it is possible to consider this a sort of evasion instead of defense/damage reduction. Generally speaking though, the latter more accurately conveys the abilities better. It is also worth noting that basic Fight value is not reduced by Resistance/Immunity. Of course, attack penalties will further negate that (possibly making it impossible to damage the GOO), but it is worth noting.
Doom Track/Speed: Outside of the Epic Battles variant (which will be covered in another post), the GOO’s go after the investigators. For those who want a little more accuracy for speed guessing, the Doom Track best serves the purpose. Smaller Doom Track lets the GOO wake up sooner, giving the party less time to prepare. Larger Doom Track delays the awakening, giving the party more time to prepare.
Upkeep: Before each round of attacking, investigators are given the opportunity to ready used equipment, adjust their stats, etc. Take this as you will.
Item Based Damage: Several GOO deal damage to consumables that the investigators acquire during the game. I have listed the assumed average number that an investigator will have. Take this as you will.
INVESTIGATOR AVERAGES (Rounded Down)
Stamina: 5
Sanity: 5
Move: 3
Sneak: 3
Physical Fight: 6
Magical Fight: 8
Base Fight: 3
Will: 3
Lore: 3
Luck: 3
Azathoth
Attack Penalty: Infinite
Resistances: None
Doom Track: 14
Investigator Attack-
Physical: No damage.
Magical: No damage.
GOO Attack: The end is here! Azathoth destroys the world (all investigators are immediately devoured and the game ends).
Damage to Investigator-
Turn 0: All investigators are devoured.
Ranking: Unquestionable Bluelike and then some. As soon as the combat against him starts, it is an instant game over for the players. There is no chance to beat him, at all. In standard RPG terms, he essentially has initiative Game Over.
Yig
Attack Penalty: -3
Resistances: None
Doom Track: 10
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 3 Dice (1 damage) per turn.
Magical: 5 Dice (~1.66 damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: Each investigator must pass a Speed (+1) check or lose 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 1 Sanity and 1 Stamina
Ranking: Ranking
Yog-Sothoth
Attack Penalty: -5
Resistances: Magical Immunity
Doom Track: 12
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 1 Die (~0.34 damage) per turn.
Base Fight: 0 Dice (0 Damage) per turn.
Attack: Each investigator must pass a Will (+1) check or lose 1 gate trophy. An investigator with no gate trophies left is devoured. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
An investigator will have approximately 1.8 gate trophies at this point.
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 1 Gate Trophy
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 1 Gate Trophy
Ranking: Ranking
Hastur
Attack Penalty: -X where X is equal to the current Terror Level. Median Terror Level is 5.
Resistances: Physical Resistance
Doom Track: 13
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 0 Dice (0 Damage) per turn.
Magical: 3 Dice (1 Damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: Each investigator must pass a Luck (+1) check or lose 2 Sanity. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 2 Sanity
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 2 Sanity
Ranking: Ranking
Shub-Niggurath
Attack Penalty: -5
Resistances: Physical Immunity
Doom Track: 12
Investigator Attack-
Magical: 3 Dice (1 Damage) per turn.
Base Fight: 0 Dice (0 Damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: Each investigator must pass a Sneak (+1) check or lose 1 monster trophy. Any investigator with no monster trophies left is devoured. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
Each investigator will approximately 3.6 monster trophies at this point.
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 1 Monster Trophy
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 1 Monster Trophy
Ranking: Ranking
Ithaqua
Attack Penalty: -3
Resistances: None
Doom Track: 11
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 3 Dice (1 damage) per turn.
Magical: 5 Dice (~1.66 damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: At the start of battle, investigators must roll a die for every item they have, discarding the item on a failure. Each investigator must pass a Fight (+1) check or lose 2 Stamina. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
Turn 0: ~66% chance for each piece of equipment that it will be destroyed.
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 2 Stamina
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 2 Stamina
Ranking: Ranking
Cthulu
Attack Penalty: -6
Resistances: None
Doom Track: 13
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 0 Dice (0 Damage) per turn.
Magical: 2 Dice (~0.66 Damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: Every investigator has their max Sanity and max Stamina reduced by 1 at the start of the battle. At the start of their turn, each investigator lowers his max Sanity or max Stamina by 1 (their choice). After Cthulu attacks, if his Doom Track is not full, he restores one doom token.
Damage to Investigator-
Turn 0: -1 to max Sanity and Stamina
Turn 1+: -1 to max Sanity or Stamina
Ranking: Ranking
Nyarlothotep
Attack Penalty: -4
Resistances: Magical Resistance
Doom Track: 11
Investigator Attack-
Physical: 2 Dice (~0.66 damage) per turn.
Magical: 1 Die (~0.34 damage) per turn.
GOO Attack: Each investigator must pass a Lore (+1) check or lose 1 Clue token. An investigator with no Clue tokens left is devoured. This check’s modifier decreases by 1 each turn (+0 the 2nd turn, -1 the 3rd turn, etc)
Damage to Investigator-
Each investigator will have approximately 11 clue tokes at this point.
Turn 1: (4 Dice) 0
Turn 2: (3 Dice) 0
Turn 3: (2 Dice) 1 Clue Token
Turn 4: (1 Dice) 0
Turn 5+: (0 Dice) 1 Clue Token
Ranking: Ranking
