One or two investigators out of 48 who have devouring as a prerogative is not enough to make him okay.

Eh, I just decided to leave in the original ones. Allies are pretty rare in our games, so I figure it will be a nice reward for getting one.

Tibs said:

... W... T... F... ? Banned. Banned from all my games. This is incredibly broken. Not just if you get a Shan or a Moonbeast out (in which case you can easily keep the doom at zero almost endlessly by rererecruiting The Messenger from Ma's and discarding him to the bottom of the deck), but even without that it would be very effective sending him to near certain death in the jail cell at Innsmouth. Two doom tokens? Seriously? Yeesh... I can't wait to see what other game breaking cards belong to this set...

Uck, that isn't game-breaking. Not by a longshot. It's not easy to get devoured, and it's not easy to obtain The Messenger. Shan on the board? Not in everyone's set. Plus recruiting costs a lot of trophies.

I'm worried that Messenger is kind of lame now.

Tibs said:

It's not that hard to obtain the messenger... Or any ally for that matter. And it is fairly easy to get devoured in Innsmouth. If you go for the Shan/Moonbeast devouring combo, you can deliberately leave high frequency gates open so that they'll surge and put out the monsters you're looking for faster and go monster hunting. That'll give you plenty of trophies to trade and retrade for the Messenger. Technically you could combine the two combos for something really nasty... Just stalling for time by going for devourings in Innsmouth until a Shan or a Moonbeast appears.

So you've got Innsmouth in play? The Messenger won't do anything about the Deep One track.

Avi_dreader said:

Sorry, that's my bad. If you get devoured with the Messenger, you return him to the box. I was posting at work and I didn't have the card with me. Here's the full text: "-1 All Skill Checks. After being devoured, return this card to the box and remove two doom tokens from the doom track."

It sounds like most people don't have the expansion yet, so here's a few more cards. They're all spells.

Denying the Ancient One

Casting Modifier: -1, Sanity Cost: 2. Upkeep: Cast and exhaust. If you are driven insane or knocked unconscious during this turn, keep all of your items and clues.

[i guess that means you wouldn't take an Injury or a Madness card either.]

Plague of Locusts

Casting Modifier: +0, Sanity Cost: 2. Movement: Cast and exhaust to choose 1 monster in a street area. Return it to the cup and remove all clue tokens in the same neighborhood.

[This sounds like Curse of Darkness, except it's actually useful. Of course, a lot of the worst monsters don't normally enter the streets. On the other hand, the card doesn't say "non-spawn monster," which is intriguing. I'm guessing Abhoth and Glaaki hate this spell. It would also be a great way to get rid of Riots. Maybe "return it to the cup" implies that it must be a non-spawn monster, since spawn monsters never go in the cup?]

Shroud of Shadow

Casting Modifier: -2, Sanity Cost: 1. Upkeep: Cast and exhaust to reduce the toughness of every monster you combat during this turn by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

[This one seems a little too similar to Red Sign of Shudde M'ell. I guess it's a little different. It doesn't require any hands, for one thing. And yeah, that's not a typo; the card uses "combat" as a verb.]

Interesting info, avec.

Denying the Ancient One

Wut
The prior one made thematic sense. I mean, it wasn't the most useful, but this new one... is odd.

Plague of Locusts

Like it. Less confusing and more to the point than the original.

Shroud of Shadow

Casting Modifier: -2, Sanity Cost: 1. Upkeep: Cast and exhaust to reduce the toughness of every monster you combat during this turn by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

This... seems very strong. And it's kind of similar to the old Plague of Locusts. I guess I don't get it.

By the looks of it, I think I'm going to split the spells between their older and newer versions. Though I have a custom character whose starting Tome gives her Denying so I may not be able to do it with that one...

Tibs said:

I think technically it would work even if you go insane casting it. Which would essentially make it a teleport to the Asylum. Of course, since you didn't take a Madness card, you'd be at only 1 Sanity. (I was wrong about it being equivalent to not getting an Injury/Madness card.)

avec said:

;'D Well... At least they had enough sense to box The Messenger after use. Unbanned!

Just house rule that Allies die when a charcter is devoured. If a character retires, they stick around town, but if an investigator snuffs it, the ally is collaterla damage.

Personally I'm going to keep the old style Messenger in. Yes, he was also hurrendously broken, but I can't see any of my cultists being happy with the new version.

avec said:

WHAT?! WHY?! THAT WAS THE WHOLE FRAKKIN' POINT!!!

Now it's just another King in Yellow that's going to dilute whatever mix of expansions one has, including itself.

I wouldn't worry, jgt. Dark Pharaoh offers the smallest number of Mythos cards.

avec said:

It has been stated that spells take effect even if you go insane casting them.

Tibs said:

Exactly. So if you have only 1-2 Sanity, and you want to go to the Asylum, just cast Denying the Ancient One. The spell is successfully cast, your Sanity drops to zero, you go insane, you opt to lose half your clues and items, except you don't lose them because of the spell. Then you go to the Asylum with 1 Sanity, which is what you had anyway. Neato.

jgt7771 said:

Happy Birthday, JGT

Tibs said:

Then it should have had the highest percentage of Gate Bursts.

I don't play how all you guys do. One-big, one-small. Minor dilution, big theme. So let's play an Innsmouth-Dark Pharaoh game. Hmm, I wonder how safe it would be to Seal the Witch House...oh, 100%? Neato-keen.

This is just going to force me to keep sticking the Lurker Mythos into all games. Which means one-big, TWO-small. What's that? DP has the smallest number of Mythos cards, you say? Well, then, what's going to stop it from disappearing entirely? AGAIN?

This was SUPPOSED to get me back to the same level of excitement YOU have for Dark Pharaoh (without relying on one **** Herald to secure that excitement). In one "nope", I am deflated back to "Am I going to have TWO Dark Pharaohs buried in the back of my closet?"

(Thanks, Julia.)

Well... Dark Pharaoh revised + orange highlighter = gate bursts.

Happy Birthday!

I'm not sure small expansions are best served by gate bursts anyway. They - unless they push you over the gate limit - can't directly wake up the ancient one. They just mean that the game has longer to find another way to do it.

In Dunwich the gate limit threat is very real. Innsmouth likewise, plus all the other ways Innsmouth has to win. The idea that it might take you another three or four turns to get that extra seal - or a burst on Devil Reef that threatens to dump several monsters straight down the vortex - is potentially enough to make the difference between victory and defeat. Kingsport much less so, because there's no new unstable locations and the rifts are usually easily managed.

Without those extra gate locations, though, what can get you?

With King in Yellow, yes, Gate Bursts since they give you more time for Next Act Begins. But the other three small box expansions don't really add any new "clocks" to the game (okay, technically there's Black Goat's corruption deck, but it's so rare even in a BG-only game that anyone gets corrupted without the herald)

Old DP did have three double-doom cards in its small mythos deck, though - and significantly raised the activity of the four minor unstable locations too - rather than spinning the game out with gate bursts until something else got you, it relentlessly piled on the doom tokens. (Shuffled in with everything else, this isn't particularly noticeable, but a DP-only game tended to be fairly quick - and of course shuffled in with everything else there are plenty of gate bursts anyway). If new DP still has those I won't worry about it not being a challenge.

jgt7771 said:

Well you have to understand that the "problem" is not with the Dark Pharaoh expansion, it's with Innsmouth. Innsmouth was the first expansion to break the trend of gate bursts in Arkham, but it also did it for a reason: you may have a "neato-keen" 100% but Innsmouth was designed in a way that what would have been a gate burst is instead a Deep One token. Is that just as dangerous? That's for you to decide, but it was deliberate so that Innsmouth never waned in activity.

I know that you condemned Dark Pharaoh to the closet, but I didn't think that gate bursts was one of the main reasons. King in Yellow doesn't have gate bursts either but I don't think you've shelved that one.

The best thing about Dark Pharaoh then is truly that it has the fewest Mythos. Don't worry about dilution because the Ancient Whispers doesn't dilute and Dark Pharaoh has the most location encounters of any small box. It seems like you're complaining about properties that are on two ends of a tug-of-war.

Of course, if you have two copies, you can always take Avec's advice with the highlighter.

jgt7771 said:

avec said:

::Laughter::

Tibs said:

Well, that's true. It was in there because:

Too many cards were a mess of language - I can't tell if that's fixed or not: people are only screaming about the ones that weren't fixed, very little about properly corrected ones;

the Benefits and Detriments got tired - some repairs, but I don't know if that fixes the actual problem of too few of either (might need Miskatonic?);

Barred from Neighborhood SUCKED - Fixed, although to what degree still needs investigation;

Exhibit deck wore out - Hmmm. Some got better, some got worse...but I don't think I agree with the latter, yet. So far, the only complaints seem to target "game-breakers", and that only matters to those who desire PAIN, and who cannot suffer "exploitables" to exist. I'm not either of those, so I can't say, yet.

Regarding the King in Yellow: Hmmm. Actually, yeah, it sorta has been shelved. The only reason I don't "announce" it is because KY Investigator cards are still interesting, and integrated into every game, and it never had nearly the grammar issues. But KY was detached rapidly once BG was found to integrate so much better with Innsmouth (and later Lurker).

Look, there was a convention adapted later on: a small pocket of Arkham-Location Gate Bursts, and Rumors got the double doom tokens. DP Rev COULD have done that. But apparently when FFG said that "DP needed to be updated to fit with the current AH modeling standards", that wasn't part of what they meant.

Tibs said:

...but okay, I will give you that I have missed the DP Encounters, and I remain excited that most of those may have been refined. Your tug-of-war is an apt metaphor, however; almost every AH box has a split of loved and rejected parts. So I suppose I should be happy to get a higher percentage of the former out of the new DP.

Avec's highlighter can join the Barred from Neighborhoods in the back of the closet. Pffft!

(Thanks, everyone!)

avec said:

avec said:

What do we want? More Mosquitoes. When do we want them? NOW!!!

Thanks for the intel.

jgt7771 said:

Sorry, I didn't realize that people were waiting to hear screaming about properly corrected cards. I'll do my best.

"Escape from Arkham Aslyum" is PROBABLY TOO EASY NOW, but it's VERY CLEARLY WORDED! When the INMATES escape from the ASYLUM, every investigator in a STREET AREA has to make a FIGHT -1 CHECK! If you FAIL, you lose 1 STAMINA! If you PASS WITH 2 OR MORE SUCCESSES, you gain an EXHIBIT ITEM. You also have to place a PATROL MARKER on every investigator in a STREET AREA!!!

THEMATICALLY, I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW EVERY LUNATIC HAS MANAGED TO ACQUIRE AN EXHIBIT ITEM, OR WHY THEY WOULD FEEL COMPELLED TO HUNT DOWN INVESTIGATORS IN STREET AREAS!!! ALSO, IT SEEMS LIKE THE CARD OFFERS MORE BENEFITS THAN RISKS. NEVERTHELESS, THE CARD SEEMS TO WORK PRETTY WELL, OR AT LEAST WELL ENOUGH!!!!!

ALSO, the spell FEEDING THE MIND has been CHANGED so that you can spend up to THREE STAMINA, REGARDLESS of the number of successes on your SPELL CHECK. This strikes me as SENSIBLE, since it makes the card both more POWERFUL and less susceptible to EXPLOITS.

Whew! I need a glass of water after typing all those uppercase words.

avec said:

FANTASTIC!!! WHAT ABOUT THE ONE THAT HAS EXHIBITS WASHING ASHORE ALONG THE RIVER?!?!?!