Skills in Arkham Horror

When playing the board game Arkham Horror, understanding the different skills available to your investigators is key to survival. Each skill provides unique abilities and advantages that can greatly influence your gameplay experience. Let’s take a closer look at some of the essential skills you’ll encounter during your investigation.

Investigation

The investigation skill represents your ability to gather clues, analyze evidence, and uncover hidden truths. With this skill, I can search locations more efficiently, increasing my chances of finding vital information.

Combat

When faced with dangerous creatures or otherworldly terrors, the combat skill becomes crucial. It empowers me to engage in battle, defend myself, and eliminate menacing foes that threaten my progress.

Willpower

Willpower is the ultimate mental fortitude that allows me to resist the dark influences of the supernatural world I’m exploring. By harnessing this skill, I can shrug off the effects of supernatural beings, maintain my sanity, and stay focused on my mission.

Agility

Agility is a skill that grants me the ability to move quickly, dodge attacks, and maneuver through treacherous situations skillfully. It proves invaluable when I need to escape danger swiftly or navigate challenging terrain.

Lore

The lore skill delves into my understanding of arcane knowledge and ancient secrets. It helps me decipher mystical symbols, cast spells, and comprehend the ancient texts that hold the key to unraveling the mysteries of Arkham.

In conclusion, the skills in Arkham Horror play a vital role in shaping your strategy and determining the outcome of your investigations. By harnessing each skill effectively, you’ll increase your chances of success and survive the nightmarish horrors that await.

When you’re playing the game, there are a few key skills that investigators rely on to get things done. Each investigator has six skills that they can use, and they each have a value assigned to them based on where they’ve set their skill sliders. This value tells you how many dice the investigator gets to roll when using that skill.

Fight: This skill is all about physical strength and endurance. It’s used for things like combat and other physical challenges.

Lore: The lore skill is all about mystical knowledge and abilities. It’s used for casting spells and testing your knowledge of the occult.

Luck: Luck is all about chance and randomness. This skill comes into play a lot during encounters and can have a big impact on your success.

Sneak: This skill is all about being sneaky and agile. It’s used for things like stealth and thievery, as well as evading monsters.

Speed: Speed is all about quickness and agility. It determines how far an investigator can move and is also used for tests of reflexes.

Will: I’m going to put your personality and determination to the test. Brace yourself for scary situations.

Skill Checks

As an investigator, you’ll often need to prove your skills in order to stay safe or achieve certain goals in the game. When a skill check arises, it’ll appear in a consistent format, providing you with the following details:

• The skill you’ll need to use for the check
• The bonus or penalty that affects the check, if any
• The difficulty level of the check (not mentioned if it’s 1)

For instance, you might encounter a challenge that requires a Sneak (-1) check. In this case, the specific skill you need to use is Sneak, and you’ll face a penalty of -1. If the difficulty is not clearly stated, it means it’s set at 1.

When you’re trying to measure your skills, you always roll a certain number of dice based on how good you are in that particular skill.

Modifiers

This number gets added or subtracted from your skill value before you roll the dice. This modified number determines how many dice you roll to make the skill check. Remember, the modifiers only affect the number of dice you roll, not the actual results of the dice.

For example: Let’s say my character, Michael McGlen, needs to make two skill checks. His Sneak skill is currently at 3, and his Luck is at 2. In the first check, he subtracts 1 from his Sneak skill (because of a -1 modifier), so he rolls 2 dice. In the second check, he adds 2 to his Luck skill (because of a +2 modifier), so he rolls 4 dice.

Hey there! Just a heads up, if something happens and I end up with no dice left during a check, I automatically fail. But don’t worry, I can still use Clue tokens to give it another shot.

Difficulty

When we talk about difficulty, we’re referring to how many successful rolls I need to pass a skill check. Rolling a 5 or 6 on a die counts as a success. And if a skill check doesn’t mention a difficulty, it’s assumed to be 1.

Let me give you an example to make it clearer. Let’s say I’m playing as Michael McGlen, and I need to roll for a Sneak check. I grab two dice and roll them. One die shows a 2, and the other shows a 5. The 5 is a success! So, in total, I have one success. Since the Sneak check didn’t mention a difficulty, we assume it’s 1. Thankfully, I got enough successes to pass the check.

Hey there! Let’s talk about the different types of special skill checks in a board game. We’ve got four of them: Evade checks, Horror checks, Combat checks, and Spell checks. Each one is based on one of the six skills listed above. I’ll explain them all in a bit, so don’t worry.

If you get a bonus to a skill, that bonus applies to any special checks based on that skill. But here’s the catch: if you only get a bonus to a special check, that bonus only helps with that specific check. It doesn’t apply to any other checks based on the same skill. Keep that in mind!

Let’s take a look at an example to make things clearer. Evade checks are a special type of Sneak check. If you have a Skill card that gives you +1 Sneak, that’s great for both Sneak and Evade checks. But let’s say you have an item that gives you +2 to Evade checks. That bonus only works when making Evade checks and can’t be used for a regular Sneak check. See the difference?

Using Clue Tokens for Skill Checks

Hey there! Let’s talk about clue tokens. These cool little tokens hold important information about the Mythos threat that you, as an investigator, can collect. They’re pretty handy!

So here’s the deal: you can spend clue tokens, one at a time, after any skill check, whether you passed it or not. And what happens when you spend a clue token? Well, you get to roll an extra die! If that extra die rolls a success, you add it to the total from your original roll. Pretty neat, right?

Let me give you an example to make things clearer. Imagine our friend Joe Diamond failing a Lore (-1) [3] check, but managing to get two successes. Joe really wants to pass this check, so he decides to discard one of his clue tokens and roll another die. Guess what? He rolls a 3, but it’s still not enough to succeed. Not giving up, Joe spends another clue token and rolls a second die. This time, luck is on his side, as he gets a 6, which adds an extra success to his total. Now he’s got three successes in total, enough to pass the check!

See how useful clue tokens can be? They sure come in handy when you need that extra boost to overcome a challenge. So, grab those clue tokens and make the most of them!