Behind You!

One thing I noticed:

Closing and Sealing Gates
Occasionally, a game effect (Moving Gates, for instance) may make it possible to close a Gate either in a stable location or in the streets. A Gate may only be sealed when it is located on an unstable location. Gates in a stable location or in the streets can be closed, but cannot be sealed.

I take it this is a universal rule, rather than one specific to the expansion. Does this then mean that the Naacal Key is a little less useful?

"A gate may only be sealed when it is located on an unstable location"

Ouch.

Joseph_Lavode said:

At least they answered that. But they didn't mention what happens if a gate were to move onto a vortex. The way I can best infer from the rules given is that the gate cannot leave the street to enter the rift at all. Mostly because they mention that a gate cannot be sealed in a street or stable location, kind of telling you where the gate CAN move to.

Also, you can kind of assume that they wouldn't have an investigator move onto illegal spaces to get to something like a gate that is a direct cause of victory conditions. If there was to be some major detrimental effect when a gate enters a vortex, you would hope they would have made mention of it. It's different with rifts because they aren't directly dealt with, in fact, they are transparent when it comes to investigator movement. Besides, as I've heard from those that play Innsmouth, a gate next to a vortex is already kind of a danger in itself.

Maybe we will hear more about it if there is enough concern, but that's how I see it at the moment.

Joseph_Lavode said:

Exxxxxxxxxxxcellent. The problematic Naacal Key has been fixed, and Atlach-Nacha remains unhindered.

I am pleased.

jgt, please explain to me how Naacal Key has been fixed.

And yes, I'd like to know what happens when a gate moves either into a vortex, or (somehow) onto a seal.

Tibs said:

I think he means use NK to open a gate at a stable location, then seal, leave Atlach weeping as the seal can't burst.

Tibs said:

Can a gate even move into a location? If they move like monsters then they aren't going to be able to move into a location in Arkham or Dunwich, right? It is possible in Innsmouth? (I've only played once, and don't remember the board well.)

Tibs said:

Gates can obviously be opened in the streets now, but there will be no free and safe seals (as Dam said). I never really had a problem with opening a gate on a stable or Street location; I just hated burst-free seals. Problem solved.

Hopefully, this rule also defeats any chance of a Moving Gate hitting a seal (Stalker Gates???). Can't help you with the Vortex thing. (Really, FFG? After weeks of Rift-Vortex whining, you couldn't have dealt with this one ahead of time?)

johnwatersfan said:

I didn't think so either, until the Naacal Key was brought up. With the Naacal Key, you could open a gate at the Strange High House, which could move through the Wireless Station and Causeway before hitting the streets. Otherwise, I don't think there is any other spot where a gate could move into a location, either stable or unstable.

I assumed there were new cards that caused gates to move to such locations.

Question: Carolyn and Vincent "restore" San/Stam. Is that the same as "gain" in regards to a Blood or Soul Pact? In other words, when they try to heal themselves, can they take a Power Token instead?

Only 12 Relationship cards. Still excited, but maybe not quite as much now. I got tired of the same 8 Benefits and Detriments REALLY fast, and some Personal Stories are more like shackles now.

Has anyone with statistician skills done any "odds" work on the differences between 24 and 18 Gate Markers? How about the differences between 18, 24, and 42 Gate Markers?

I haven't done odds, but I'd be happy to try to work something out for you, since that's my hobby.

When you say "42 gates" I assume you mean mixing them all together. Well, beware, because the new gate trophies have different backs! It will make shuffling them together a bit of a pain.

As for the "gate moves onto a seal" thing, I'm not sure if it's possible given the current locations and movement possibilities, but it would have been nice to get a clarification, just in case someone finds a loophole or a future expansion opens up that possibility.

But also think about this: if a gate and an elder sign exist on the same space, what happens when a new gate tries to open there? Monster surge or nothing? What about a gate burst? Monster surge or the seal is removed? Come to think of it, the purpose of elder signs is to prevent gates from existing in places, so either gates can never be moved onto elder signs, or if they do they're automatically closed. Considering the rarity of this scenario, letting the gate get closed will not be overpowered at all.

jgt7771 said:

I'll certainly look at it once I get a copy. I've not bothered in the past since everything was evenly balanced; depending on how they assign the "dual" gates things could get interesting. Other than "gate to X" has a "y%" chance of randomly appearing, are there any stats you are interested in?

Off thought: it will be interesting to see how they pair up the difficulty of the OW with the type of gate. Imagine R'lyeh being a Stamina loss gate - hard enough to close, now you lose more as well.

Tibs said:

That's exactly what I mean. How much am I going to screw up any given Other World's draw frequency if I dump every Gate Marker I got into the Cup? (Oh, and that's how I solve the "different backs" issue: I use a Gate Cup.)

@ Ricedwlit: Ooo, anything you think might be interesting beyond the above will be fascinating. (I'm an engineer, which means I only know just enough about higher math to severely injure myself.) My forward concern is how much the Split Gates might skew the numbers, being two conceptual results on one physical object.

To be honest, it looks to me as though each Other World will be represented once on its own, and then once on a double-gate. That would work out to 18 gates.

jgt7771 said:

Off hand, the frequency is pretty much the only thing I can think of. Should be easy enough to add a column to the "Other Worlds" table in my stats sheet (see http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/43768/). This could give the chance of a gate to a given world appearing. I'd need to add another modifier (Lurker Gates) to enable this but all in all shouldn't be hard to do.

Tibs said:

Well in that case the stats are simple

That's the only arrangement that would make sense to me, after seeing the Dunwich dual-gate, and the Dreamlands/Leng dual-gate. This way all worlds would be equally represented.

If expansion gates were under-represented, that would just suck. They'd be too rare.

If expansion gates were over-represented, then the game would be too hard when not using those board expansions because it would be too easy to run out of gates.

It also makes sense with the part in the rules where they say "If you are not using the THE DUNWICH HORROR expansion, do not add the three Gate markers from THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD that connect to Another Time or Lost Carcosa. If you are not using the THE KINGSPORT HORROR expansion, do not add the three Gate markers from THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD that connect to Unknown Kadath or Underworld." (my bold emphasis)

I assumed it was 1½ each, so I completely glossed over that part of the rules. Good catch!

Tibs said:

I'd be interested in a clarification on this. I think though that the only way for this to happen is with a couple encounters that allow you to move a gate that already exist (Silver Twilight Lodge and Science Building come to mind) it would appear that the moving gates themselves are not stalkers and therefore would not enter a location. So could you even move an existing gate to a location with a seal on it?

Currently, no I don't think there's a way to trick an unstable gate into a space with an elder sign. But who knows? Someone might turn up a loophole. I'd be more comfortable knowing what actually happened. But more importantly I want to know what happens when a gate enters a vortex...

This science building encounter would do it.

Oh wow, and that doesn't even require Lurker. Well I'm going to say that locations with elder signs are off limits to gates, for the reasons I think I mentioned earlier.

::Facepalm:: I knew they wouldn't address the moving gate with Vortex issue, and I wasn't disappointed... :'/