OK it was actually the second time but the first time I used Nyarly with The Dark Pharaoh herald and I realized that the herald completely shuts down the whispers aspect so I replayed without him and ended up with one of the most awesome games I've ever played. Since I was only playing Miskatonic with the New Pharaoh stuff the game was incredibly thematic, the way they tied the patrol markers to the whispers deck abated my worries that they might get diluted out of the game like the barred mechanic did, but at one point I had 3 patrol markers on the board.

The most awesome thing though came in the form of Mark Harrigan. When he lost his personal story he drew the "Hearing voices" madness which if you read his personal story is actually really appropriate. Then he ended up with both the Visions and Psychic cards. Finally despite seeming to be at the brink of a total psychotic break he jumps into a gate to Ryleh with one seal needed he then draws the Ryleh specific double color card and has to go toe to toe with Cthulhu, he limps out of the gate with only 2 left on both his maximum sanity and stamina laying down the final seal of the game.

Niiice

How does the herald shut down whispers? Just by making the exhibit items less desirable?

Awesome!!! Mark's gettin' too old for this malarky.

I too am getting back that feeling that I wish I could have kept when I had the original Dark Pharaoh, and I'm thrilled. (I think I might FINALLY be able to stop giving Tibs a hard time about it.)

subochre said:

The Dark Pharaoh herald has a very high chance of cursing you whenever you obtain an Exhibit Item, and while cursed, you lose stamina. So with the DP herald, Exhibit Items are not very desirable at all.

jgt7771 said:

I understand why you lost that feeling. I am pretty excited by the clever updates to almost all of the annoyances the original had. I will probably use the new versions of most of them (save the "search for specific" monster ones that I don't mind).

Specifically I'd like to mention that I'll probably be using the new allies. I was afraid that all of them had their unique "special" bonuses removed, but that turned out not to be true. Three of them now have +2 Horror, +2 Evade, and +2 Spell (rather than the generous +2/+2 the originals had). Two others now add to base stats—but those fans who are as psychotic as I am will notice that there was a slight imbalance in the stats that all official allies provided: William Bain tipped the scales by adding one extra Luck and Speed to the mix. The revised DP allies? Sneak, Fight, Will, and Lore. There is balance again!

You'll note that after the smoke clears, there is still no ally that offers bonuses to Combat. I can live with this, because there are already loads of things that add to combat (weapons, attack spells, etc) but very few that add to horror, spell, and evade. And for those players who absolutely must have a combat-bonus ally, and don't mind the fact that there are two that add to Horror, they could just use the old version of The Messenger. The new one almost seems like more of a burden than a blessing, but considering how easily it is to get devoured nowadays, he can still come in handy. Don't forget final combats.

Oh, and Sarah Danforth is unchanged.

Veet said:

Ahhh... Glorious victory.

Tibs said:

And since the only reason to have a whispers encounter is to try to find an exhibit item then the herald prety much shuts down that part of the game.

Veet said:

Second to that - my first game with both MH and new CoTDP had the Dark Pharaoh as herald and I avoided trying to get whisper encounters unless the investigator was already blessed.

Course, this way if you use the Dark Pharaoh and aren't using CoTDP, you won't regret the lack of exhibit items!

That is very specifically why I do not include the Dark Pharaoh herald in my "intro to Arkham" scenarios, and also why I will not use him when I play DPII for the first time.

Veet said:

::Eyeroll:: Guh...

So. What custom rule can we make to incentivize the drawing of exhibit items when The Dark Pharoah is herald? Perhaps investigators must discard a total of four exhibit items between them when the doom track is at nine or all investigators are devoured?

Avi_dreader said:

Sealing requires the discard of an exhibit item?

Avi_dreader said:

Insert Cursed Relics into the deck somewhere between the 5th and 8th cards, and disallow Unique Items for paying it off?

The Dark Pharaoh: These things are mine!

Avec: Fine with me. Keep 'em

I never liked the Dark Pharaoh because I don't find him interesting. All he does is hurt, and in a pretty basic way. But he only hurts when the Investigators go for exotic equipment, which makes him reeeeeally easy to avoid. And when a card comes out that will hurt you less for not having an Exhibit, you just take it and keep ignoring the Herald. YAWN.

So, again, I find the Dark Pharaoh is only for masochists who welcome the pain, rationalizing that they "really need Exhibits" in order to attract Nephren-Ka's attention. And now that it's easier to ignore him, they're trying to find ways to prevent that. (I would have preferred an updated Herald that did something to make Masks Spawns. Oh wait...pretty sure I found a custom one that does just that...)

I'm pleased that I have a professional-looking copy of this Herald (thank you, FFG). But now I'm going to stuff him under the Black Goat Herald, and thoroughly enjoy everything else in this pretty, pretty box.

Veet said:

Ooo :'D I think I like your rule better. I think I'll officially unofficially implement this.

cim said:

I was thinking about doing something like that, but I actually prefer Veet's idea than either of ours. Plus it doesn't require looking for the card every game (a definite plus). I'd probably accompany it with giving Nyarlathotep weapon immunity and reducing all investigators to one clue.

Also, does "trading" count as "gaining" for the purpose of activating Dark Pharoah abilities? I'm not really sure (I never use that herald, although I'll start to no). I'm pretty sure the answer is no though (based on personal stories).

Might be kind of fun to also make it so that whenever you draw an exhibit item, roll a die and put a mask into play at Misk U. Streets on a one (or a 1-2 if you're playing a large team 4+ investigators). You'd probably have to make masks not count against the monster limit if they're in play (not outskirts) with that variant though. Would make Nyarlathotep a fairly nasty and colorful challenge.

jgt7771 said:

Well, what about with the above variant?

I basically agree with you with the plain Dark Pharoah. And it's even worse unmodified, because if you're playing Nyarlatotep with it, it's likely to just incentivize players to go straight to final combat and beat the hell out of him.

I played my first game with revised Dark Pharaoh recently, with Nyarlathotep as the AO and the DP herald. I really wanted to go for Exhibit items, curses be damned. I got cursed a lot. Most of the game saw at least 2 of my 4 investigators cursed. At least once I got cursed, I could go for Exhibit items without being cursed again (but harder to obtain the items). Of course I usually had more pressing matters to attend to. The worst part is two of my investigators only had 3 stamina, so once they got cursed, they could not go through gates, because they would go unconscious before they got a chance to exit the Other World. I have to agree that the DP herald is pretty harsh when it comes to Exhibit items.

I don't think most of the players here would deliberately play to wake Nyarlathoptep early to avoid heavier penalties. To me, why bother playing if you are going to do that? I had 3 Masks on the board that I couldn't do anything about, and lost spectacularly when he woke up.

I figured trading counted as gaining so I never traded, to avoid even more curses.

Brine said:

::Laughter:: that's the hit yourself in the face with a wall spirit of Arkham Horror playing I love to see ;'D (I'm only being half facetious, I delighted in this masochistic tale).

The revised CoTDP looks really neat, haven't played with it yet.

But I was hoping the herald would not have that "stay away from exhibit items" effect, at least not so vigorously, as it does seem to make you want to avoid them and thus diminishes the thematic element. Some other approach to "These Things Are Mine" would be nice, one that is thematic without nerfing other thematic things - like perhaps you have to roll for all your exhibit items whenever a Mask monster is triggered to move and you lose each for which you do not roll a success (i.e., typically you lose 2/3 of them, as they are "called" to their owner, bwah hah hah).

Avi,

You're just a bad, bad man! I can't even begin to think about making this game purposefully harder.

Joe

The Professor said:

Well, if you think it'd be too hard, think of it as an excuse to finally put together that dream team of your three favorite investigators that you never would before because it'd make the game too easy.

Avi,

While I don't have a dream team of Investigators, it would be interesting to watch a game in which the players were you, Tibs, and Dam. This proposal is based solely on the the forum entries I've read for the pasty 2+ years.

Avi and I have played a Skype game before. That took a long time because of logistics. But wrangling in Dam would be problems, for a few reasons:

• He plays his AOs/heralds/whatever else in a very strict order, and so may not be up for playing anything out of order.
• I don't think he'd try Kingsport, even if it was our copies.
• Our takes on house rules and custom components vary greatly.
• He's in Finland. Even considering the current US daylight savings time when it's in our favor, he's six hours ahead of me, and I'm three ahead of Avi. If Dam didn't mind wrapping up at midnight then Avi would need to get in the game at 11am.

Though you're right. Our three playstyles will vary by a lot and would be an event worth watching in and of itself. It's a shame/relief that we wouldn't be able to go at each others' throats.

The Professor said:

Hah. We'd probably lose. Unless I went along with Dam's strategy. Which I could ;'D I'm willing to play with more than one strategy (although I prefer my own).

That actually would kind of be a fun thing to try someday... If Dam's interested. Maybe Julia too. I have no idea how to set it up so the game could be watched though.