Have a look for yourselves:

Mysterious Artifacts

This is great! But... why a Sneak check to avoid patrols instead of an Evade check?

Also the Herald seems to have just the abilities the "original" DP Herald had, or at least only those are listed in the rules.

Here are the rules changes I spotted:

• When an investigator is instructed to take a Benefit or Detriment card, but it's already held by another investigator, it is not taken from the other investigator (it used to be).
• The ally deck is trimmed down to 11 allies, instead of using all of them and discarding two each terror-up. This is now in agreement with the other expansions.
• (Removed) no rules for "visiting exhibit" style, but this is not hard to make up on your own.
• (Removed) no surprise rules for monsters anymore. Bummer.
• (Removed) no Barred from Neighborhood effects. Relief!
• (Removed?) there are no rules for dual-color gate cards, but the components lists 27 gate cards, which means they're probably still in (24 of each color and then the 3 dual-colors). Of course, there now is no rule indicating that you follow the instructions on the card if either color matches your current world.
• (Added) rules for Ancient Whispers, Patrolled Neighborhoods, and the Herald.

The rules specify that you should not use both versions of the expansion together, which I understand, but I will also be looking through the cards to find the ones that are unique to 1st edition that would be worth keeping. For example, there are many surprise cards that I'd like to have, and I may even hold on to the Barred cards, depending on if I'm desperate for nostalgia.

Dam said:

Were you expecting a new herald? Or was there a subtle change?

Sneak rather than Evade makes more thematic sense with Yibb T'stll, or Bokrug's Being of Ib, since there's no reason that they'd help the townsfolk find the investigators. (Which justifies Innsmouth martial law remaining as Evade, too)

They seem to have done a fair job of anticipating unusual situations in the rules sheet, especially with multiple expansion interaction (what happens if a gate and the Ancient Whispers are in the same place, for instance). I suppose, given the purpose of the expansion, they might well have given it more than the usual amount of thought there.

surprise is a little superfluous as a keyword - you can always say "a monster appears, and you cannot evade it on the first round of combat" - so it's possible the mechanic is still there. But yes, a nice mechanic to stop people getting overconfident.

Most of the dual colour rules are on the card itself, so they could certainly still be about. "Use as either colour", hopefully, would be obvious enough anyway - or there's probably space on the card itself to mention it.

I bet they only said "don't merge the two versions" to avoid having to answer questions about which Triune Mask you should take... (it would be even funnier if this expansion includes a Triune Mask)

I'd quite like a preview of some of the revised items, given just how many of the investigator cards they said they were modifying, but that looks unlikely now. It looks from the tiny picture at the bottom of the first column like the Summoning Glass will survive in some form.

Well, the Innsmouth book mentions that the Martial Law check is Sneak but it's supposed to be Evade. This is probably a similar check.

And it is thematically in line because now you can use things like the Dark Cloak, Stealth, and can't use the Telescope to move past the police.

I almost guarantee that there will be errata on the matter.

I'm very excited to see how the Mask items have been revised.

cim said:

Is anyone else just a tiny bit worried that they'll drop the dual colored cards?

cim said:

Not that the questions won't be asked anyway.

I am not worried about the dual-colored cards.

As I indicated, there are 27 gate cards listed. Not only is this the same as the first edition of Dark Pharaoh, but note that every expansion has contained a number of gate cards that was divisible by four (to represent each color equally). This would indicate that there would be 6 in each color and 3 leftovers... the dual-colors!

The only concern is that there is no indication in the rules that the card will be resolved when either color is present on your other world.

Tibs said:

::Facepalm::

After doing a little read through I'm a bit worried that the patrol mechanic might be just as susceptible to dilution as the old barred mechanic. They say they are triggered by arkham encounters which is pretty much the same mechanic for triggering. Now if they were at least partially triggered by exhibit encounters that would be resistant to dilution.

Tibs said:

Only that since they are apparently giving DH Herald a facelift in MH, maybe it wasn't too out there to think DP Herald might get some modification or something.

Veet said:

That was the first thing I thought too. Their removal from the board by the tiniest nudge to the Terror Track doesn't help much either. The Barred cards tended to disappear long before their detrimental effects could become an issue.

Maybe the Miskatonic expansion will be geared for this.

Tibs said:

Except it's a flat check, like Curfew but with Sneak instead of Will. (In fact, that's exactly what it is.)

So how easy would it be to pass a +0 Check if you were loaded with Evade Items, or Mists of Releh? Frankly, isn't it harder to boost a flat Sneak check? In Innsmouth, it's a little harder sometimes, so a little boost balances.

That said, you're still probably right.

The curfew is you trying to stand up to the police. It makes sense that you're doing Will instead of Horror. But with patrols, you're just trying to avoid the police altogether.

That said, I'm interested to see.