Playing through RttPtC once more, I was reminded that this is my favorite of the replacements for Ancient Evils. It offers a meaningful deal -- lose a turn or spend a period of time carefully calculating margins and praying that you don't draw the . Now, failing a test isn't that big a deal most of the time, but it can badly disrupt a turn, unless you have a card in play that has a test you can afford to fail and overcommit to make sure that happens (Track Shoes, Parallel Skid's special ability?), and then you are thowing good cards at a test that you are trying to fail. Resurgent Evils is just nasty, as two encounter cards might cost you more than 3 actions, and Impending Evils is pretty easy to handle.

The world building in Arkham is always very good, but you need to use some imagination to understand why some cards say what they do. In this case, jumping from the balcony directly to the ground floor would definitely hurt, so you need to take 2 damage. It's those little things behind the card text that make them so great.

An important question that came up while playing. If Roland takes 5 mental trauma while playing this directive, does he go insane? Or does this functionally give him health and San of 9/8? If he breaks this directive with 5+ horror on him, is he immediately defeated due to horror?

This was a pretty useful addition to my Dark Horse Patrice deck. It let her stash resources "off the books" and use them to pay for the relatively limited number of items in the deck that she absolutely had to be able to play when they came up (Moonstone and Patrice's Violin are very timing dependent), plus the odd extra. It's more or less an Emergency Cache where the action to play is divorced from the time you use the resources. I suspect the "stashing" effect is a benefit in most Dark Horse decks, but I've only played the one.

I also love that it uses secrets; I am sure Schoffner's motto is "The Secrets are the Savings!"

"I've got a plan!" is the obvious comparison and unlike what I first thought when looking at it, I think it actually compares fairly well.

I've got a Plan has a slightly higher cost and does not give any bonus intellect. In many cases, you'd probably want to commit a card or two to your I've Got a Plan anyways to ensure you land the hit (missing a 3 cost event really hurts your tempo), so the cost of discarding cards for occult invocation isn't actually as bad it first seems.

This card actually gives you some flexibility to deal 1-3 damage, and choose how much you want to commit. The tradeoff is slightly lower max power (3 vs 4 damage, and commiting 2 cards to I've got a plan might give you up to +4 skill instead of 2 on occult invocation).

The other downside of I've got a Plan is you need a bunch of clues to even use it. Of course, holding even 3 clues isn't hard for a seeker, it's their primary role after all but sometimes the timing is just not right (e.g. right after advancing agenda), or you're playing solo and there are less clues in play, and specific scenarios don't have a lot of clues. Cards in your hand in contrast are always available and relevant for every scenario. In fact, drawing cards are seekers specialty.

I think you'll take this over I've got a Plan if...
-you're playing solo
-your deck has a decent draw engine
-you need to run a lower cost curve

You might lean more towards I've got a Plan if...
-you have high intellect / plan to stack intellect stats and don't need any other boosts
-your fighter might need a bit more help dealing damage vs bosses
-the cards in your deck are valuable in setting up a combo of sorts
-you can grab clues instantly at any time (e.g. working a hunch)