I think you have to stay in Hell Time at least 1 round, taking 1 round of attacks.

Also, when you exit Hell Time, you can only go to the start area.

Besides, you pop the Invasion Token when you enter Hell Time, so you have the Demon on the board in the farthest area.

The crux of the “Broken” seems to be that the movement you gain from exiting Hell Time is too overpowered. But is it?

Let’s assume that Lord Asmod is the Lord for all of these maps. He’s the only Lord that provides a benefit to players, a random player gains 1 Luck. Which, by the way, isn’t that good. (And if player’s tie the d12 roll, won’t even happen.)

There are only three benefits for teleporting I can think of. 1) You could go to the start space and recruit, 2) You could move to an area that’s overrun with demons, and 3) On a map with different sections, you could move to a different action.

Let’s assume the best possible scenario. The player right before you is the one to start Hell Time, so your turn stats after the teleport. You gained the Luck from Asmod’s Menace/Reward. There are only 4 Despair Dice, and Invasion Token on the Lord’s Space results in 1 Gryllus and 1 Larvae.

I’m also going to consolidate the rounds in order to spin out the scenarios and keep examples simple.

First Scenario: You go to the start space and recruit. If you are Penrod Wallenstein, you could potentially grab the highest cost (and theoretically the best) Trooper without spending Courage.
Benefits: You gain 1 Luck and 1-4 Troopers, and if there are demon’s about to exit, you can fight them.
Downsides: Two more demons on the board, and you’d have to be Penrod for best results. Probably not easier than just moving back there normally.

Second Scenario: You go to an Area with demons you need to kill now. In our best case scenario there can at max be 2 Demons and 2 Larvae, and there cannot be a 4th Circle Demon. Let’s assume that there is 2 Grylluses and 2 Larvae. It’s pretty much impossible for any character to have more than 2 dice this early in the game. So you can only kill 2 demons.
Benefits: Gain 1 Luck, and you kill 2 demons, so you gain 2 Courage as well. If another player is there, you could kill all four.
Downsides: Two more demons on the board, and you’ll probably take damage on the Demon’s turn. If another player is there, the Courage bonus potentially lessened. (Since it’s likely you spend a Courage or two to help another character.)

Third Scenario: You jump to another section of the map. In maps like the Space Station or St. Petersburg, there are different tracks you need to keep track of. You could potentially jump into a different track and deal with the demons there.
Benefits: Pretty much the same and Scenario 2, with the addition that you are in a different part of the map.
Downsides: Same as Scenario 2, but you’re potentially facing down a huge line of demons. If another player doesn’t follow you, you’re by yourself and can’t be helped easily.

Let’s combine all the Scenarios together. You jump to a Starting Area in a different part of the Map, where demons are about to exit. Let’s make it even easier, there is a Gryllus and Larvae there only, and an ally follows you to an adjacent space.
Benefits: 1 Luck, potentially 4 dead demons (With 4 Courage gained). Now you’re on the other part of the map with a friend. Oh, and 1-4 Troopers.
Downsides: Two more demons on the board. Probably not easier than just moving there on your turn.

So let’s recap. At best, you get 1 Luck, 2 Courage, 2 Courage for your ally, and 1 to 4 Troopers, plus a net gain of 2 dead demons. This is assuming that all dice rolls go your way. (I know nothing about statistics, but it’s got to be less than 25% all together.)

I’d argue that is not overpowered. And even if you were to, say, go back an forth into Hell Time to gain Luck, 1) You’d be wasting a bunch of Actions for at most 5 luck, and 2) Luck’s not actually that great. At least, it’s not overpowered.

Luck is basically Courage except it can power 10 different gifts. Let’s go through them as see how “overpowered” they are. (All of these gifts need the player to spend 1 Luck to activate.)

Arcane Attack: Perform an additional attack. Pretty good, but potentially not as useful if you kill all the demons with a single attack. Also, probably not as useful as the initial attack as the lower toughness enemies are probably dead. But potentially could kill a 4th Circle demon in one turn.

Brevet Rank: Let’s everyone Recruit, no matter where they are. Really good, except you still need to roll a die to see what you get. Is a Volunteer on the fly really worth a Luck?

Brigadier: Gives you 4 points of Troopers in any Ambushes. That’s really good.

Fire Team: Let’s your Patrol Trooper attack during the Ambush Segment. Really good, if you have Troopers with you.

Frag Grenade: Adds a d6 to your combat per Luck spent, and you can spend up to 3 Luck. Really good.

Incantation of Raaaee: Instead of a normal help, you can increase all on an ally’s dice by 1. Pretty good, it increases you chance of killing a Gryllus from a two-thirds chance to one-half. (16.67% chance increase, if I’m not mistaken.)

Pray for a Miracle: If you die, you gain 1 Health. Seems really, really powerful, but the Doom still goes up. Still really good.

Saaamaaa Ritual (Seriously, what is with these names?): Reduces a double toughness demon to a single toughness. This is super useful, but really situational. Only the Cacodemons and 5 4th Circle Demons have double toughness.

Seal of Solomon: Let’s you move to another hero. I guess if you need to get somewhere fast, but it isn’t too hard to get where you need to. Obviously, it’s better on certain maps.

Sergeant: Increases an Ambush’s attack. Useful, if you’re in an Area with a big Ambush.

Wizard Eye: You can attack in any Area. Very Useful.

See, the most useful of these Gifts require Hero Actions to use. If you waste your Hero Actions going in Hell Time and taunting the Demon Lord, you’re not going to be using them too often.

Plus, it may not work all the time! Asmod’s Menace is that all players in the fight roll a d12. The highest roll falls under Asmod’s Control, and per his/its reward, they gain a Luck. No one falls under Asmod’s Control (and gains the Luck) if two rolls tie.

If you go in by yourself, you are guaranteed the Luck, but 1) you wouldn’t be “exploiting” the teleport, 2) you’d have to be close to the Demon Lord, which isn’t always the case, and 3) you’d waste your Hero Action. Entering and Exit Hell Time ends your Hero Action, so you’d have to wait until all the Demons move and attack before you can even do anything else.

So yes, you could get a bunch of Luck. If you don’t want to do anything else.

The best exploit I can think of is if you have the Incantation of Raaeee, you could jump into Hell Time, gain the Luck, and then jump to an area with an ally who’s going to attack and boost them. However, this tactic is 1) pretty situational, as the ally would have to be right next to the Demon Lord in order to use it every round, 2) the attack isn’t that more powerful, and 3) you’d have to hang out by the Demon Lord, which not only means you can’t Recruit, but also means the demons are their strongest. (Because when they march down the map, multiple attacks will lessen their numbers.)

Not really that powerful.

Interestingly, in my research I found 2 other Demon Lords could be “exploited’ in a similar way to Asmod.

Lord Humbaba gives a Courage for each Pestilence you exit Hell Time with, and his Menace assigns Pestilence equal to the number of players. In, say, a 5 player game, going in by yourself means you get 5 Courage! But also you’re poisoned 5 times over and will probably die.

The Spider Mastermind lets a player Recruit in any Area they exit to. Of course, every time you enter Hell Time, the SM gains an additional attack every round you fight it. Obviously, you do not want to enter and exit Hell Time over and over, or the SM will gain like 10 attacks a round.

I hope this clears everything up!

So I was wrong about most of my points in my first post, BUT…

Looking at the Lords, all of them do Bad Stuff immediately when you enter Hell Time. The only three Exceptions are Asmod (Who gives a player a Luck.), Cthulhu (Who gives player’s Sanity Token, so if you take none you have to retreat immediately.), and Scylla (Who grows two heads. Potentially, if she has all her heads, nothing happens. Otherwise you’re are undoing previous progress) All other Demon Lords attack, or give you conditions, or summon more demons. Spider Mastermind INCREASES the number of times it attacks, and you cannot retreat from Stroma.

Not to mention, the Invasion Token still pops when you enter, so you have a new contingent of demons to deal with and/or more doom.

I don’t think all that is worth a free teleport.

If you find it to much power gaming and it works, then add a house rule to avoid it.

I have 1 rule for myself so far, I made Dorothy only able to help as max as 4 times at a time right now, hoping Sandy to lower her power a bit for PA2, I will try to power game your strategy to see how it goes, maybe is to OP, maybe not I don’t know.

So far I see it as an easy fix, If you leave the lord without fighting, you can only retreat to the Start Area.

arubbo said
Currently there is way too much utility out of just jumping in and out of Hell, using it as a massive teleporter. For some Lords there is virtually no downside due to lack of substantive Menace effects (e.g Cthulhu, Scylla), and for at least one (Asmod), you actually gain an additional benefit from jumping in and out on top of teleportation, and should do so on almost every player’s turn.

There are any number of ways of addressing this (a forced round of attacks, a doom increase if everyone retreats without attacking, etc.), but perhaps it can be rolled into the next official rule patch along with fix to Lord’s Movement. Could be a good combination adjustment, as one may make things slightly tougher and the other slightly easier.  

Mmmm, now that I have my copy on hand and give it a full check and 2 games, let me see your stance:

Teleporting, not really.

Let’s see your examples:

1. Chthulhu, Menace: You MUST assign at least 0-6 insanity tokens to each hero, if choose 0 for all yes, you can retreat, but WHY, you can’t hurt him, if you don’t attack him, if at least 1 hero gets 1 sanity token, all other leaves and he remains to receive a full attack from him, he rolled a 4 on his D4? that’s 4 attacks, he is dead, you have 2 more doom and Chthulu full health. The point stated makes no sense.

2. Scylla: Menace grows 2 heads, starts at full, so first time its no use, she is a 1 crown lord, anyways not super hard, but once again, enter to leave?? WHY?? you gain no benefit, she gives nothing if you leave, you still have a full Lord full of health, makes no sense to leave just to move somewhere else, to what spawn deamons???? if you spawn all well may be a little less dangerous, but means as well less courage for your team, less gifts, less everything on a time base game where you will eventually lose doing so.

3. Asmod: Menace. the controlled hero gets 1 luck, well still entering to leave for only 1 luck???? why???, same thing as with Scylla bro.

so strategy, entering to teleport to anywhere, let’s say its the first player in 3 player game, first player enters and brings everyone, he leaves, where there might be deamons, where that hero can’t act any longer, other heroes instead of fighting as well leaves and attack somehwere, and enters again, to again all players leaving, so final player can attack and move again to again leave??.

I may see this to thin ranks in the way you are pointing it out, but I see a flaw here, 1. to enter the lords area (unless a gift) you need to spawn all invasion tokens, probably gaining 1 or 2 doom in the process, you will have less deamons to kill at the very moment, BUT at what price??? probably you will continue doing this every round?? maybe will be useful, maybe not, what if you can’t kill cacodemons cause you have not enough dice initially, or fiends and start leaving the board scoring Doom, Legions play a good role to, that will be as well you will be facing the lord in the very very late game (increasing play time) but how many lord cycles you got??? a 4th circle demon can as well fuck up the team.

I would love to see a game you using that strategy and how you play it, to see at what extend it may be “broken”