Shellhead wrote:
I haven't played the original FoD, but I've played the new FoD a lot. In the new FoD, most encounters are resolved immediately. And even the ones that have lasting effects are still finished by the end of that player's next turn, like Fog. More importantly, the new FoD has a clever trail mechanic that makes it difficult for the Dracula player to cheat without getting caught, and imposes a brutal penalty for cheating. The game now allows for up to five players by making Mina Harker a playable character.
You missed the most important change - Dracula is much more trackable with the new mechanic. In the old game it was way to easy (IMO) for dracula to remain hidden and all the hunters could really do for much of the game was attempt to stumble into him blindly. In the new version hunters will often know the general area drac is in as he leaves a trail of 6 locations (in the old one the trail was only his current location and the last one he was at.) This means there is a lot more trying to out think your opponent in there (ie "we know he was in amsterdam 3 turns ago, would he risk trying to sneak passed us or has he fled in the obvious direction away from us?")
Also, the combat system may be different. In the new FoD, each player secretly selects a combat maneuver or weapon card, and then a quick roll-off determines which card will strike. You can't play the same card in two consecutive rounds of combat. In effect, the combat plays out like a light version of the Jyhad CCG combat.
Combat system is pretty much the same, the old one had chits and lookup tables as opposed to cards, but the end result is pretty much the same. Biggest difference is in the old one you roll to see if its day or night at the start of battle (1-3 day, 4-6 night) but the new one its pre-determined by the sun track. So the old system was way more thematic (theme wise the new system doesn't make any sense - hunters are covering far too much of euorpe in a day!) but the new system is much more strategic and allows you to plan your attacks better.