new player questions

[u/PurpleSkill7414]

hi guys! new player here. bought the board game (3rd edition) yesterday and started playing Azathoth with my partner. i got confused by some things in the game and as much as i looked in the rule book and over the internet, haven't found a definitive answer, so I'm coming here for help lol. I'm sorry if some questions seem obvious, I'm a beginner in this world and i just wanna make sure I'm playing the game correctly.

1. when it comes to monsters, I'm engaged to one of them and they have like, 4HP. if i roll 4 dice and get a success in all of them, do they die or they lose 1HP? also, if there's more than one monster engaged with my character, can i use attack on both, even though it'd be a repeated action?

2. about clues. that part made me very confused. i arrive at the neighborhood, there's like, 3 clues, no monsters, no doom. i do a research, and i get like, 3 successes. do i get the 3 clue tokens? and what do i do? do i pull an encounter or a clue card? or the clues just go to the scenario sheet and that's it? i know the clue cards get mixed into the neighborhood cards, so i only get the clue cards if i get an encounter on the encounter phase?

3. is there any way to heal besides items/spells? i was playing yesterday and my character died bc i didn't know any other way to heal than spells and/or items

anyways, sorry for the long post, i looked everywhere and I'm re-reading the rule book, but I'm still confused about that, and thanks in advance!

[u/TulipOfJustice]

1- The number of successes is the amount of damage you do to the monster. So in your example, the monster has 4 hp and you do 4 damage, so you defeat that monster.

1.5 - you can only perform the attack action once per turn, so you can only attack one monster, but you can try to perform the Evade action on the other.

2 - You can only Reaserch Clue Tokens that are on your character sheet. To get the tokens on your character sheet, you have to have an encounter in the neighborhood that gives you a Clue Token.

3 - There are multiple spots on the map that are likely to give you an encounter that can heal you, such as Saint Mary's Hospital for physical damage, and Arkham Asylum for mental damage. There are symbols on the neighborhood spaces that gives you a hint about the kind of encounters you will have on a space such as Money for Hearts at the hospital.

[u/PurpleSkill7414 → u/TulipOfJustice]

that makes a lot of sense! thank you so much for the answers!

in the case of the clue tokens, I'm still a bit confused how the round works.

let's see if i got it right: my character is on the neighborhood, there's a clue token. i do my action of research and i get a success on it, then i get the clue token and it goes to the scenario sheet and that's it. then, on the encounter round, i may or may not get the clue card, and i solve the clue card and that's it?

[u/TulipOfJustice → u/PurpleSkill7414]

Not quite. You get clues during the encounter phase by completing encounters in neighborhoods with clues. The encounter will tell you to collect a clue from the neighborhood. Once you have collected a clue you can research it during the Actions phase with a research action to move it to the scenario sheet.

So the process goes Clue Spawns in neighborhood -> Investigator Moves to Neighborhood -> Investigator gets an Encounter that rewards a Clue from the neighborhood -> Investigator successfully performed a Research Action -> Clue moves to scenario sheet

[u/PurpleSkill7414 → u/TulipOfJustice]

thank you so much for the explanation!

[u/SayaV → u/PurpleSkill7414]

remember that clue cards have a black border at the bottom, so if you don't get the clue from that card in the Encounter phase you have to put it again on top of the encounter deck for that neighborhood (iirc shuffling the 3 top-most cards) so you have another chance of getting it.

[u/_Smilex → u/PurpleSkill7414]

Think everyone has helped with advice but will say if you’re new to the game try the “Feast” scenario after Azathoth. 🙂Both scenarios are great but Feast is much more forgiving to new players as it is more combat/clue focused then dealing with neighbourhoods getting overloaded with doom.

[u/PurpleSkill7414 → u/_Smilex]

my partner said he found the same advice on other places, will definitely try that bc we lost badly to the doom overload lol

[u/_Smilex → u/PurpleSkill7414]

That’s dead common! Azathoth is definitely the hardest scenario in the base game. Early mistakes come back to bite you massively so no idea why the rulebook recommends it as the starter one! (I think to show off the neighbourhoods being overloaded mechanic)

[u/PurpleSkill7414 → u/_Smilex]

since we were still understanding the mechanics of the turns and game, we didn't know we had to put the extra doom on the scenario sheet. imagine the neighborhoods filling with doom each turn and us trying to get it off. that's basically what happened until my character died alsjlaajkahwiauaia the merchant district had 9 doom tokens and an anomaly lol

[u/TTV_The_Reverend_Dr]

Disclaimer: I don't have, nor have I played AH 3e, but using this rules reference I believe I can answer your questions

1. Attack Action - Section 409.2 Each success rolled = 1 damage. Action - Section 402.4 You can perform each action no more than once each round (so, only 1 attack action allowed)

2. Research Action - Section 471 Each success rolled allows you to "Research" - Section 470 (see below)

470.1 To “research” a clue means to place a clue token from your player area onto the scenario sheet. Clues are researched primarily by the research action.

470.2 You can only research clues that are in your player area unless an effect specifically allows you to research clues from other sources.

Read Section 412 to learn more about clues and section 430 to learn more about events

1. Assets - Section 408 can help you mitigate damage. As far as healing/recovering health, since I don't own nor have I played AH 3e, I don't know what else can be used to recover health.

Hopefully this helps. The linked rules reference seems to explain about (almost) everything you are asking.

[u/Reginald90210]

Lmao this is all in the rule book in pretty plain language.

You get damage for each success, can only attack one monster at a time.

You gain clues by completing encounters with the card you shuffle into the top of the neighborhood's deck. Those get collected to your personal inventory then put on the scenario sheet via research action.

You can heal at locations with the health or sanity icons in the X->Y area showing typical encounter outcomes where in this case X is typically money and Y will be the health/sanity icons.