It's no secret that Dark Pharao isn't the best designed of expansions. In our game today, that point was driven home yet again.

We had the following encounter at the newspaper:

"Discard any number of monster trophies to gain $1 or 2 Clue tokens (in any combination) for each point of toughness worth of monsters discarded."

Hmmm. One dollar or two clues per toughness. Which oh which shall we choose?

As my friend had 9 thoughness worth (thanks to a Spirit Vessel), he got 18 clues out of that single encounter. Needless to say, the game wasn't exactly much of a challenge after that.

But seriously now; can that be anything other than a typo? Considering that the normal going rate for money and clues from trophies is $5 or 2 clues for 5 toughness?

Sounds like an encounter my gaming crew would LOVE to get. We love clues to kill the Ancient One with, We love final combat.

I've always thought it was supposed to be $2 or 1 clue, as those are how much clues are worth for starting equipment on a character sheet.

There's also a Curiositie Shoppe encounter where you can take as many common items from the deck whose total value is up to how many clues you discard. That encounter was made quite well, but with Dunwich's $0 Task cards, you can just take all of them.

Tibs said:

I've not seen that one yet. Do you get to choose which items? If so, taking both old journals gives you 6 clues for spending 2.

OP is of course referring to the time you draw that encounter AND have monster trophies. How many other times do you draw it when you have none, or the "Coded Messages" encounter when you can't fulfill the requirements? Then again, I don't generally have that many monster trophies as is and after adding IH, Train Station has been getting a lot more Encounter draws than Newspaper. As for C. Shoppe, I think there has been one instance that I recall with certainty that someone has taken an Encounter there, instead of shopping. If the total number of Encounters there is more than 3 in 96 games, I'm flabbergasted.

Yes, Cim: you actually get to choose to discard an item to get clues equal to its value (I think), or you can discard any amount of clues and search the CI deck and take any number of cards whose total value is up to the number of clues you discarded. So you could discard 0 clues and take all the tasks.

I'll need to house-rule this one.

Dam said:

That goes for pretty any stable location.outside of Kingsport. I feel bad for the guy who had to do all that work coming up with as many encounters for stable locations as there are for red. I think the only times we've ever taken stable location encounters was when there was a powerful flying monster in the sky and someone ducked into a location to avoid being on the street during monster movement.

GrooveChamp said:

I often stop at the train station hoping for a free ride to anywhere I want if my normal movement won't take me to where I want to go anyway.

I also frequently interview at the Newspaper too looking for a retainer. I've interviewed at the Administration building but without luck.

I've also been known to stop by the Library in hopes of finding a good book to fulfill certain personal stories.

You haven't really been Blessed until you've been Blessed at the Bank of Arkham.

Getting blessed at the Bank is exactly how Tony managed to pass the World Torn Asunder rumor yesterday. I love the Bank.

If you have enough investigators, having encounters at stable locations becomes more regular. I've even tried River Docks encounters here and there when short on cash.

Tibs said:

I pop in there when I'm on that one Task/Mission that has RD as one of the stops. Man, those dock hands just love to beat you up. For a stable location, encounters there are pretty bad, at least in my experience.

Tasks or not, I've probably been at the River Docks a total of 10 times in all my games, ever. Yes, they really really like to fight there. A good portion of those visits were with Wendy, so it's extra funny when she has to try and break up a fight.

Yesterday, I played my first game against Ybb-Tstll with Hypnos as a Guardian. I think I've never visited so many stable locations in any game due to all the bonus clues which I really didn't want to have lying around. I've also seen lots of encounters I hadn't seen before, since Hypnos allows you to draw two for the most recently drawn location. Very cool indeed!

It was also a very close thing: One round before I would have sealed the last gate, I drew a gate burst which also caused a rift to open that moved and added a second doom marker to Ybb leaving only one before Ybb would have awakened. I really consider myself lucky I was able to seal two gates before that.

jhaelen said:

Are you adding doomers for gate bursts ? Also, reading the KH rules, a rift that opens doesn't do anything until the following turn.

"Open rifts activate during the Mythos Phase starting on the turn after they open." (p. 8)

emphasis mine

Dam said:

And, yes, it seems rifts don't do anything in the phase they appear, either.

Ah, well, so it looks as if I've been playing with a few house rules to make the game more challenging...

Great title for a topic, considering that I yesterday bought an expansion for AH for the very first time, and figured I'd go with CotDP, since it seemed the easiest rulewise

Dark Pharaoh is a great expansion. Its cards are extremely thematic. Unfortunately, there are confusing or baffling sets of text here and there, and it doesn't up the difficulty too much. But it was my first expansion, too, and I don't regret it!

Tibs said:

Best small-box, no doubt for me. Actually, while KH isn't worth the money it costs, I'd buy CotDP just for the 3 OW GOO fight cards !

You're an odd one, Dam.

Oh, and J.R. just confirmed this:

Q: A newspaper encounter offers you to gain monster trophies and gain $1 or two clues for each toughness. Is it supposed to say $2 or 1 clue?
A: Yes.

I stop at the Train Station, like Mageith, to try to get a free ride. I stop at the Church, hoping for a free blessing. Administration or Newspaper, if I'm around and wanting for money. I like having River Dock encounters, personally. They are very dangerous, but give great rewards. I don't have them often, but it's a good diversion.