I'm playing as the overlord against 3 heroes and we've just cleared the Shadow Vault quest of the Shadow Rune campaign, which is the interlude for that campaign. Heroes won it quite easily. There were some good fights, but my monsters respawn too far from the battlefield so the heroes are able to advance faster than my monsters. Since they rest/heal themselves a lot, I cannot keep them under pressure during the campaign.

My question is if you think I should plan for anything in particulater in order to keep up with my heroes in terms of challenge? I am not unlucky with my dice rolls at all, as I happen dish tons of damage and get to kill at least each hero once every encounter (that means a lot of threat tokens), but my monsters are getting slaughtered by Logan Lashley along with the team's huge healing capacity.

Their team:

- Logan Lashley - Thief

Greedy/Appraisal/Sneaky/Unseen

Lucky charm/Bow of Bone/Immunity Elixir

He gets three dices if he doesn't move and a +3 surge as well. I normally Dark Charm him to get him in the middle of my monsters but I start to believe making him shoot instead would be a better option given the damage output. One huge issue is the fact I cannot immobilize him and he can re-roll skill checks.

- Grisban the Thirsty - Berserker

Rage/Brute/Whirlwind

Chipped Greataxe/Fortuna's dice/Phoenix Pendant

Nothing to complain about, really. He makes very poor rolls BUT he is a big tank so my attacks often need to focus on him in order to get my monsters into position.

- Augur Grisom - Disciple

Prayer of healing/Blessed Strike/Radiant Light

Iron mace/Elm Greatbow/Iron shield/Leather armor/Ring of power

Quite weak, but his abilities are insane. Every turn he would always Rest + Radiant Light. Monsters have no defense against it, it is pure life loss.

Overlord

Basic I

Warlord I: Dark Fortitude, Blood rage

Punisher I Trading Pains (since they rely heavily on the healing)

Relic: Staff of Shadows

Plot cards Seeds of Betrayal: Sole purpose, Two pronged gambit Rush of power

I have no traps as their stats are just too good for them to be of good use. I was hoping to purchase the Zachareth agent as the ability to inflict any condition has revealed to be great in order to make the heroes waste their actions or skip them.

I run a 13 cards OL deck and it's flowing very well. As said my monsters deal tons of damage. But the heroes just heal as much through Augur, and Logan kills everything. Grisban misses most of his attack due to bad dice rolls but that makes him a good tank as well.

As you can see, my heroes are well prepared/equiped. Any tips as for giving them a better challenge?

Honestly the balance in this game is far out of wack. You are NEVER going to be able to beat heroes in a straight fight and typically the reinforcements are too few to combat their ability to one shot monsters. The best you can really hope for is to bring one down, but then he or she is just revived and then get their full turn. If the heroes seperate themselves you can get them in a loop where they are constantly having the revive each other but if they stick together that's almost impossible. When I was overlord basically the winning strategy for me was to ignore traps and stuff like that (which you are doing) since they are useless and go all in on the warlord deck until I could get the reinforcement card. I was able to bog down the heroes in pivotal turns and then win quests.

The problem is that they have nerfed the reinforcement card in the last errata so that strategy isn't as good... You should look at what creatures you are able to get through reinforcements. If you get a single monster from an open group, always take a big tough monster with a lot of wounds. You will get the most value from that since you will be bringing one back a turn regardless if it's a red dragon or a white kobold. However make sure it still has one white and one red since the heroes can game you if they decide to just ignore the monster and reduce your ability to reinforce; with two on the table and being big and hard to get around they will have to kill at least one a turn. If the open group is not reinforced you have some more leeway and can choose some other stuff. If you have the Descent 1 compatibility pack hellhounds are very good as they have high pierce and flaming breath. Anything with sorcery is solid since you can run up and shotgun heroes. Undying is also a great ability since you can park monsters in chokepoints and they have to kill them twice to get through letting you perform quest duties unmolested.

The conversation kit really helps the overlord with getting more options to deal with the heroes.

If their thief is killing everything with that bow then maybe a monster with stealth would be a good idea to make him miss those shots so you can get close and take him out?

http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Stealthy

Curse is going to stop the Disciple getting off Radiant Light. Barghasts will sap his fatigue. Once Act 2 hits, Radiant Light won't one-shot small monsters any more, which makes them a lot appealing, because Logan isn't going to be able to take down more than two in a turn, and no mage/blast makes them pretty handy.

Stealth isn't super great since the thief can just walk up and kill them at point blank range. Basically you have to assume all of your single space monsters will be killed in one attack and go from there. If they take more than one hit consider it a bonus.

Radiant Light means 2HP monsters is a no-no, otherwise they just pop as soon as the Disciple has line of sight. They have fortune tokens to support their dice rolls as well. That's a severe restriction for me as a OL considering the fact every quest is a race which is where small monsters tend to excel.

I had good impression of the Arachyura with its double attack and triple dices which brought the heroes very low before going down itself. The only problem with that monster and large monsters in general is that I get only one of them since we have three heroes. I picked Bargeists, Harpies and a master Merriod for the Shadow Vault. Controlling their fatigue and surrounding them seems to be more effective. Zachareth is quite good too, I have been inflicting bleeding status a lot due to the fact it makes them spend more fatigue.

I would ultimately need a better OL card dealing with the lifegain. I mean, regardless of how good my monsters are and how geared my opposition is, if they just regain all their HP/fatigue instantly then it's pointless Any idea of some OL cards I could invest in?

Stealth isn't super great since the thief can just walk up and kill them at point blank range. Basically you have to assume all of your single space monsters will be killed in one attack and go from there. If they take more than one hit consider it a bonus.

Well that would make him loose the extra attack die as well as a move action or fatigue, all in all less damage to your monsters.

Stealth isn't super great since the thief can just walk up and kill them at point blank range. Basically you have to assume all of your single space monsters will be killed in one attack and go from there. If they take more than one hit consider it a bonus.

Well that would make him loose the extra attack die as well as a move action or fatigue, all in all less damage to your monsters.

That's a very good point. I don't know off hand how survivable stealth monsters are outside of that ability but if the thief is the one doing the big damage that might be a good idea to try.

Radiant Light means 2HP monsters is a no-no, otherwise they just pop as soon as the Disciple has line of sight. They have fortune tokens to support their dice rolls as well. That's a severe restriction for me as a OL considering the fact every quest is a race which is where small monsters tend to excel.

I had good impression of the Arachyura with its double attack and triple dices which brought the heroes very low before going down itself. The only problem with that monster and large monsters in general is that I get only one of them since we have three heroes. I picked Bargeists, Harpies and a master Merriod for the Shadow Vault. Controlling their fatigue and surrounding them seems to be more effective. Zachareth is quite good too, I have been inflicting bleeding status a lot due to the fact it makes them spend more fatigue.

I would ultimately need a better OL card dealing with the lifegain. I mean, regardless of how good my monsters are and how geared my opposition is, if they just regain all their HP/fatigue instantly then it's pointless Any idea of some OL cards I could invest in?

Is Dark Fortitude that one that gives you 2 shields? I find that one kind of a waste since heroes start going through armor like butter. Blood Rage which you have is good especially on maps where you reinforce at the end since your monsters are going to die anyway. The card that gives you +2 damage and on a surge you return to your hand is great. Reinforcement is still good even after the nerf. If you have access to the Trollfens the level 1 infector card that lets you use surges for basically +1 damage for the rest of the encounter is solid.

I think one way to get around extreme life gain is to just not damage the heroes until you need to go all in. While overall underpowered, with a huge hand of cards the Overlord can do a lot of burst damage with blood rage, the basic card that lets you get extra attacks, the free surge card, and the +2 damage card I mentioned earlier. During the first quest don't spend many cards (if the heroes win, that sucks but whatever) and then in the second half go crazy in that one pivotal turn that decides the match. If you can get two heroes down in one turn that's a big deal. The problem is that the healer can pick up everyone at once so really killing the healer and one other person is about the most you can hope to do as long as they aren't spread out. Killing a hero really doesn't matter that much since it's really just making someone sacrifice an action so think of it as a stun card that also nets you an overlord card. Would you waste three monsters and two cards for a stun and one card? No. However if sacrificing five and all of your cards wins you the map it was of course the correct thing.

Radiant Light means 2HP monsters is a no-no, otherwise they just pop as soon as the Disciple has line of sight. They have fortune tokens to support their dice rolls as well. That's a severe restriction for me as a OL considering the fact every quest is a race which is where small monsters tend to excel.

I don't think there are any 2HP monsters in Act II.

Hybrid Sentinels are good with three players as you get two of them, and they have good defense and HP. And the masters have fire breath. With an automatic +1 to everyone if you start it at a hero with low strength.

My advice: play 4 heroes.

Trust me it makes it WAY more balanced.

The same advice I give in virtually every Overlord-related situation - Get the conversion kit, use Kobolds every chance they get. They are the most powerful monster in the game. If they're really good at killing your guys, and you're bad at killing them, stop trying! Start focusing on winning quests - which means controlling the board, which Kobolds excel at. Slow them down, soak up their actions, everyone once in a while mob them and kill one of their guys. (Augur Grissom for preference.) But those are targets of opportunity, not your main goal.

Kobolds, man. They are insane. You won't believe it unti you try them, but once you do you'll never use any other monster. (I'm serious about that. Once I started using Kobolds I was never able to make the case to choose any other open group... and I never lost an encounter in which I was able to choose them.)

I have no traps as their stats are just too good for them to be of good use.

... what?

I'm sorry if I sounded rude, but two out of thee of these heroes have both poor awareness (2 and 1) and movement (3) and you don't use cards like Tripwire, Pit Trap to slow them down? Really, most of the quests are pretty much a race, and yes, while KOing them is a very effective way of preventing them from reaching their objective, there are other, more subtle ways as well.

But a bit back on topic, let's see what are their 'weak' sides:

- 2 out of 3 heroes have low awareness (1 and 2 respectively)

- low lore (all of them have only 2 lore)

- relatively slow - no hero with 5 speed, and two out of three have only 3 - I guess they rely heavily on spending fatigue on moving, and I don't see any sort of movement ability on Grisban just yet.

And their strengths:

- high hp pool (their lowest is 12)

- high AoE damage (Radiant light and Whirlwind mainly)

- high Strength score

Ok. So let's think what those mean to us:

- high level (2 and 3 that is) saboteur class overlord cards would be extremly potent, sadly there would be very little use in lvl 1 in the tree - with 4 and 5 strength dwarves would laught at web trap and Logan is immune to it's effect; as for explosive runes, while it would fry the dwarves nicely (direct damage so no helping it), most likely our thief would search/open while not being adjecent to the dwarves. besides, it's a little bit too late to change class this much, you're warlord/punisher and invest just in that I'd say

- low knowledge tempts to use things that can Curse them, however once you start doing it Grimsom would most likely buy cleansing touch and rather easily take care of it. Still, if you can curse them do it as much as you can. It will limit Grimsom's ability to spam radiant light

- consider getting No rest for the wicked from punisher class. It's just a guess, but I do belive the dwarves (especially Grimsom) use fatigue to move heavily, and since usually objectives are a race - it will help you a LOT.

- as for the target of your attacks: Grimson->Logan->Grisban, that is if they are all equally 'exposed', but I guess Grisban is the only one who exposes himself

Two questions: what does your plot deck do (I don't have that one), and what is Phoenix Pendant? I recall the name but I can't find it anywhere. And again, my apologizes if I soudned rude, that wasn't the intention.

No worries man.

You can find the plot deck and all the cards by following this link: http://d2edb.zbmott.net/browse/plotdeck/seeds_of_betrayal/detail

basically it allows me to play with a 13 cards OL deck (instead of 15), allows for cycling my cards and also getting more threat tokens.

Phoenix Pendant allows Grisban to recover 3 extra life upon standing up or when a hero revives him.

I had good use of Trip wire but the hero I want to stop in essence is Logan so he doesn't run around to snipe and search for tokens remotely. I agree traps are not completely irrelevant given the stats of the dwarves, but the dwarves don't search or open doors so that restricts the amount of good cards I can get. Plus trap cards are really situational. Sounds like I think they're bad but I don't, but again my experience with this game is rather limited so I might be missing things.

Curse condition is good. I got it on Grisban once and it did a good job on him.

I do not have the CK as I haven't got any D1E stuff but technically speaking I could get it and get the minis from plenty of other games I own anyway just to give me that extra choice of monsters.

I had No Rest for the Wicked under my radar but I see now how it could be useful.

Nice database, wasn't aware of it's existance before, thanks for the link.

As for the traps: the ones that cost XP aren't worth getting because of Logan, this is true. However, base Tripwire and Pit trap are activated on movement, something everyone does. As such, it works wonders on those slow dwarves with low awareness. I'd definatelly keep them in. What to get rid of however? Posion Dart is underwhelming in this hero setup so no point in it indeed. Since you're moving into Act II you'll be getting more dice on your monsters so you might consider dropping Dark Might as well.

As for other cards not to include in OL deck, it would be more quest specific. thought I wonder if maybe it's time to stop using Sole Purpose and invest in some of the more expensive threat cards. Trouble on the Road and making them roll on knowledge would be most optimal I think, stun right at the start is a very nasty thing, and you can count on 2 out of 3 of them failing that test. Since you might be getting in a bit of a deck bloat if you add trip wires and pitfall again, Always prepared might be a better way of countering it then Sole purpose and with it and Rush of Power your cycling power will be ridicullous. However, once need to be careful as to how much threat he/she actually spends during a single quest (or prior to it considering this plot deck) - you don't want to give heroes too much fortune tokens.

I don't think you should be investing in ability to summon Zachereth before those two earlier mentioned unless you have ridicullous ammount of threat. Anytime OL places an agent you can be sure heroes will make it their priority target as to make you 'burn' the threat to regain the card to summon him again. He's a good debuffer, but once Grimson gets cleansing touch (which he'll likely pick soon), that utility will be gone in large part.

go for zachareth, he is nuts. high defense, high damage, ranged/melee. direction is also good + he can give a free condition of your choice (subdu).

as said above, look at their strengths/weaknesses.

from my experience i know that logan lashley is hardly stoppable and his overall kit is really good.

personally, i would have skilled other cards, but that doesnt halp you at all.

from your perspevtive id look onto the following:

- go for expert blow, combined with a critical blow you can crit for 5 (on surge obv.) and bring havoc with attacks. when a 3 dice monster rolls an attack and brings down 3-6 damage itself you could easily one hit logan (keep in mind to gaet a good look of his face the moment you ppull this off)

- keep up cards for the moment when you relly need them. word of misery is insanely strong - but only when you are able to net 3-4 attacks with it. every fatigue is a fatigue the heroes miss the next turn. dont underestimate how often it takes another step to get to that next attack.

- keep that dark might up your hand until you get the critical blow. you dont want to miss a surge on your roll!

- mind your spawning and monster movement

- spawn monsters smart, to not let all fall the first round

- play more like a hit-and-run style, maybe perform 2 move actions instead of 1 attack, to get a monster out of line of sight, await your reinforcement, then heavy hit them

- pick goblin archers as often as you can. big, strong monsters are dead likewise, but 5 goblins take 5 actions to kill (misses not included). they crit insanely and are highly mobile

- look for quests with reinforcement at the strat of your turn

- flesh moulders are also quite strong, they crit hard + heal themselves

- mind cave spiders. EVERY SPIDER rolls 3 dice + they crit for 2

- also hybrid sentinels are above average!

GET THE CNVERSION KIT =D

you could easily handle this situation by facerolling medusae all over them ;D

Just doing my heroic duty, but I was under the impression that Zachareth could not be summoned as an agent at any time during the Shadow Rune campaign, because he's off doing a bunch of other things and having the Farrows/Belthir/Splig running distraction for him.

right - upps...

too bad =D