Hello guys, after playing two campaigns I have few questions:

1) Let's say I have been to a Dungeon between Tamalir and Riverwatch and fled to Tamalir. Next week I wanna go to Riverwatch. Can I go directly to it (similiar to staff of the wild party upgrade) or must do this in Two weeks movement. If first possibility is correct do I have to roll twice for encounters, or choose one?

2) FAQ states that third level dungeon rewards (250 gold and 4XP for killing monsters) should refer to last level. And two questions here: if there are multiple leaders on the last level do I also get reward for all of them (I assume yes, FAQ says something about that), and second: what with Caverns of Thull: that Dragon spawns three times and rulebook says I get 2 XP for each time I kill him. Do I get those 'last level reward' for him too (once or three times) or in this case I should get reward for third level one?

3) How fast do you go to the legendary areas/secret trainers?

4) Let's say I'm already on silver level and haven't been to secret trainer yet. Can I go there and buy both upgrades for silver and copper level or only silver one?

5) What are you must have/favourite ablilities (I have only WoD expansion, no AoD nor ToI) you buy during campaign.

6) What is better - skill or dice upgrade?

7) Am I wrong or heroes in single, typical dungeon level can only get 5 (7 if last) XP - boss and one glyph, maybe one udditional if (un)lucky rolls for chest occurs? I have strange feeling, that Overlord is much easier to get XP...

8) What do you typically do first few weeks, when you start copper level?

Thanks for any clues and advices

1 . You must travel both paths again. Without the upgrade that give the ability to travel two trails per week you will spend two weeks on this (The upgrade is 'Staff of the Wild' which costs 1500 gold).

3. As fast as you can. I'm OL in our campaign and my party just missed the first legendary/secret trainer as they were determined to finish a rumour dungeon at all costs (which became an expensive experience for them).

4. Only the silver upgrade at silver level.

From RTL rulebook p.23

This may be done only once at each campaign level, and each hero may increase either his wounds or his fatigue – but not both – at each campaign level.

5. Leadership is always nice. Wind Pact nice against Lieutenants when the OL has treachery, away with that Crushing Blow. Spiritwalker is also good, even after the new range of 5.

6. I would say at least one skill first, but you need those dices also.

7. And 1 per dungeon you haven't been to yet, and 2 per encounter with a named leader. In total a normal week could yield 1 + 2 + 5 + 5 + 7 + 3 = 23 ct at most. OTOH, gold is more important early on.

8. My party raced into the first dungeon. Some think that you should stay one week in town and try to get 1 decent copper item.

angel1977 said:

7. I don't think it's good idea to have an encounter at the beginning. You can lost much more, then you gain, and start dungeon with few wound already taken.

8. This reminedes my another question. When I prepare campaign I shuffle Copper Items deck and draw first two cards, because rulebook says something of preparing 'shop deck' or something similiar. I count it as a week spent in market in Tamalir. Am I correct?

7. You cannot choose to not have an encounter, but you may of course flee from it. I was merely stating how much CT you could get in a single week if you wanted to.

8. You need not draw these two cards unless the party stay in Tamalir for the first week and visit the marked.

Under step 3. on page 8 of the RTL rulebook:

The party treasury begins with 1,200 coins, with which the heroes buy their starting equipment. When beginning an Advanced Campaign, heroes may only purchase items available in the city store, and potions. However, Invulnerability potions (introduced in The Altar of Despair) are not used in the Advanced campaign. They should be set aside for its duration.

Any unspent money remains in the party treasury

And what is city store? I couldn't find any explenation, what it exactly means. Is is only 'shop items' or party upgrades too, or maybe something different?

City store: Just town weapons, no copper items.

Ok, but where do you get it from? Is there official rule I am missing or is it just your opinion?

From the rule book RTL p.22

The Market
Treasure and shop items are bought and sold at the Market

Step 3 under Beginning an Advanced Campaign (page 8 as mentioned) specifies that the party may buy items available at the city store and not treasure. It may not be as accurate as it could be, but it is clearly the intention that to purchase treasure you need to go to the marked, and you need to spend either a restock or visit or train action to do this as stated on page 22.

Khornel said:

The Town Store refers to all of the basic market items. That is to say, all of the cards which are double-sided (no backs) and have a gold value at the bottom. This also includes the party upgrades, AFAIK.

Steve-O said:

Yes. Which I always found it funny that you could buy the Magic Boat and the Secret Trails map at any town. Its not that much of a special map if every shop has one

Khornel said:

Dice unless you have all your dice upgrades

granor said:

Do you really mean it? I should first make all my dice the best it's possible on current level and then go fo skills? That's (for copper level) at least 90xp and 3250 gold for each hero -> a lot...

Re dice or skills: Entirely depends on the Hero. Some Heroes you might want to get a skill for before getting dice, some dice before skills. Take two, somewhat obvious examples

Nanok: Dice first, and always adding a black and upgrading one first thing. Not only do his attacks get better, but his armor just improved by one.

Tahlia: Leadership, leadership, leadership right off the bat. Or Unmovable. I tend to try and get one of those before dice, or another fun option is Shadow Soul.

Ok, but what with my second question about rewards for last levels? Any ideas?

And what do you do with LT? Do you fight them, when how many of them usualy your OL have?

Khornel said:

Grapple, TK, born to the bow, and rapid fire are really the only skills that are worth 2 dice upgrades. Considering 2 are no longer options and I would not recommend getting both bow skills on one hero then yes dice. I can see the leadership argument given above and would yield to it with that hero. The big thing to remember is you are giving up 2 dice upgrades for every skill (gold wise). That is one damage and 0.6 surges on every roll. I also recomend not filling all five dice "slots" as adding dice with fatigue is a good idea when you konw you have hit and are just short or something like that.

Add black die 500 15
Upgrade to silver 750 20
Upgrade to gold 1000 25

New skill "slot"
Skills Known
1 1000 20
2 1500 30
3 2000 40
4 2500 50

granor said:

The only other things I would say are pay attention to where your campaign level is. Don't leave the copper level of the campaign without getting your secret training. There are few substitutes for increased fatigue (or wounds if you have like Corbin or Glyr). Save a little XP for that.

Also, in my campaign our OL is using Obsidian shackles. If I recall correctly, he can "raze" Olmric's hut once we hit silver. Since you need a map for shika and only a boat for Olmric, I recommend you get down there for secret training and rapid fire. Cleaving and quick casting aren't too shabby either, and your other guys can pickup dice (if you can afford all of it) on your second turn of training there.

We bought dice first as well, but are saving some money for those secrets/skills.

angel1977 said:

From where do the last 3 Conquest come? and is the 2 from the encounter you happen to find on the way to the dungeon?

The three would be if you didn't get any treasure from the chest rolls. So 1CT each x 3 chest in a 3 level dungeon.

Yes

1 (for discovering new dungeon)

+ 2 (for getting an event with a named monster which you beat)

+ 5 (for the first level)

+ 5 (for the second level)

+ 7 (for the third level)

+ 3 (if you get no treasure)

I have another question: there is an encounter, where all ranged attacks have -3 range. Does it mean, that when I make ranged attack from adjecent space and I roll less then four range, I miss? How do you play this?

that sounds about right...yeah...

Also my question, can heroes still buy from normal shop or only treasures once they start the campaing?

Normal shop deck items are always available in each city.

granor said:

This makes no sense. The statistical odds of getting any given result on a single power die are the same whether you roll the die with all the others or by itself later. If your attack would've been "just short" with 4 power dice, then the 5th die will have an equally good chance of saving the attack no matter when it gets rolled. The only thing that not upgrading your attack to 5 dice will do is occasionally require you to spend fatigue that could otherwise be saved for something else. The only reason not to upgrade your attack to 5 dice is if you have something more important to spend your resources on, and since this whole discussion is focused on what one should buy provided he has the resources, the answer is dice. Always dice.

Having said that, there are definitely some skills that combine very nicely with certain hero abilities. Depending on how your game is going, it might be wise to consider those on a case-by-case basis. But in general, dice, dice, dice.

As Granor said; not having the fifth dice is smart since you then add fatigue for the last die AFTER you know whether you hit of miss; then you won't waste fatigue on a attack that misses.

Steve-O said:

But if your attack is 'just short' by 2-3 wounds... then if you already added the fifth dice (and are therefore just short by 1 wound) you are screwed. If you have that 5th dice in reserve 'just short' can be 1-3 wounds and still get the kill. Having dice 'slots' left over to use is very important because each 'slot' is 1-3 damage worth (possibly more with advanced weaonry using surges), whereas if it is an already upgraded dice it is locked in, almost always at the lower level. Besides which, most of the time you have either one shot kills or nowhere-near-one-shot kills so the extra dice doesn;t save you much in the way of fatigue anyway.
What is important, is 'getting the job done', not increasing your average number of damage per attack. Having at least one dice 'slot' open, increases your odds of 'getting the job done'. End of story.

As far as skills vs dice go I tend to prefer skills (assuming you pick the right skills). By the time you get to mid silver, most attacks are already one-shot kills, or nowhere near one-shot kills so that a few extra damage from upgraded dice make little difference. Skills that give extra capabilities (Acrobat is very very valuable, Spiritwalker is awesome, there are a few others), extra stats (Swift, Tiger Tattoo, Cautious, Tough) are all far better than an extra dice or two in general) or extra attacks (Rapid fire, Quick Casting, Knight, Unmoveable, Cleaving etc) are all signoificantly more valuable IMO than a little extra damage on each attack.