So after playing several campaigns I have started to notice something, in every campaign where the heroes have played either the thief or treasure hunter the overlord gets utterly smashed.

Campaigns where thief/treasure hunter was not played have been alot more balanced or maybe slightly in favor for the overlord.

The issue has of course been that when using thief/treasure hunter the heroes has gotten alot of gold and quickly become so powerful that monsters pose no threat to them.

It has almost gotten to the point where I would like to houserule a ban of both classes.

What do you guys think about these classes?

Edit: Just to clarify, I think that their skills that allow them to manipulate the search deck is what makes them overpowered.

The treasure hunter is certainly a powerful class, and allows you to really dig through the search deck, but that's why he's a treasure hunter- that's his thing. The treasure hunter, however, relies on treasure to be useful- if you can keep pressure on the heroes such that they don't have time to search, you can very effectively counter that class- or use basic 2, and keep hitting the hunter with mimic.

Perhaps I haven't played enough with the thief, but I find it to be a rather underwhelming class. It certainly has its moments, but overall I think there are much better scout classes available.

The treasure hunter is certainly a powerful class, and allows you to really dig through the search deck, but that's why he's a treasure hunter- that's his thing.

That's my whole point though, that his thing (which he shares with the thief) is to powerful to a point where it seems to break the game.

Also, I wouldnt say that the treasure hunter relies on treasure to be useful, the other skills that dont revolve around treasure cards to boost damage etc is really powerful as well.

Last campaign we had a treasure hunter that ignored those skills all together because in his mind he thought that those skills were the weaker ones in the deck.

Mimic is only 1 card so its not really possible to keep hitting the hunter with it unfortunately, although I do love that card!

The thief I would say is a bit weaker than the hunter but its still really powerful IMO, search deck manipulation skills aside.

Being able to do perform an extra attack each turn being one the things that is really useful.

The thief is generally considered to be the weakest scout class by far. I would consider the wildlander to be the best, but the treasure hunter is certainly good.

If I had to put them in order: Wildlander, Treasure Hunter, Stalker, Shadow Walker, Thief.

Wildlander? Weird. From my point of view Wildlander has one top-level skills, two average ones, and a bunch of junk.I would never in a million years put him over the treasure hunter. But, I think it says a lot about how weak Scouts are in general that a class like Wildlander could even be in the top two on someone's list. What do you like about Wildlander?

Sixko - I think it's an interesting question. I'm playing in a campaign right now where I've got a treasure hunter AND Aurim, and so far I've lost the intro, a rumor quest, and the first quest. Now, admittedly, at this point my characters have pretty strong gear, and I think I'll win the last two Act I adventures and the Interlude - but gold certainly doesn't make you invulnerable. To me, the strength of a Treasure Hunter is that he gets two 1-cost extra action abilities; THAT seems ridiculous to me, not the base searching abilities.

In the end I don't think better searching unbalances the game. But I do think it's a question worth considering.

The thief is generally considered to be the weakest scout class by far. I would consider the wildlander to be the best, but the treasure hunter is certainly good.

If I had to put them in order: Wildlander, Treasure Hunter, Stalker, Shadow Walker, Thief.

I dont agree with that at all, their ability to ramp up gold for the team alone puts them ahead of the other classes.

If they had no other skills but they ones manipulating the search deck they would probably still be worth picking in every campaign.

Last campaign we had 3/4 heroes one shotting act 2 monster while the treasure hunter could even one shot weaker LTs.

My list would probably look like this: Treasure hunter, Thief, WIldlander, Stalker/Shadow Walker (not sure about these two yet).

Hehe, we had a game a few days ago and everybody found the tresure hunter way too OP.

With 3 XP he, before rolling dice rolls +1 damage and pierce 2, adding into this he manipulates the search deck and ramps up gold, and combined thats just stupid add to this he basically seaches for free (gaining an attack wehn he searches) it just rediculous.

He have Sleight of hand and dungeoneer. Comparing to the other characters, he still just have his skills and starting gear, the rest have gotten tons of gear, thanks to him, yet he still deals just as much damage as the rest. If he just only dealt damage or made everybody have crazy gear then fine, but he does both.

We are discussing how to nerf him, but unsure what to hit, as we havent hit end game yet, but after this campaing he will be nerfed.

I have only played thief once, and found it rather underwhealming.

Just wait until your treasure hunters gets his hands on one of the awsome act 2 bows

Yearh, bows are really bad in act 2. I remember last time i played a wildlander, i was using the crossbow into the final. I still dished out decent damage, but really, it was sad knowing i wouldent find a better bow

I wasnt beeing sarcastic, there are some really good bows in act 2, if you think your treasure hunter is doing alot of damage now it will only get worse

We had a treasure hunter that one shotted a LT in the LoR finale

What, which bows are you talking about? I really havent seen anyone i though was really better then the crossbow. Trueshot yearh, but thats a relic

But yearh, thats what i fear might be true

Thief isn't a bad class at all, it's just that it's so totally eclipsed by the Treasure Hunter it's ridiculous. There isn't a single thing that the Thief does that the Treasure Hunter doesn't do better, cheaper, and usually for less XP.

Well, no. The Treasure Hunter doesn't have a high-cost ability that lets him open doors for free. Aside from THAT, anything the Thief can do, the Treasure Hunter does better.

Wildlander has the best ability in the game, hands down, and for 1 xp. No other scout class can force the overlord to discard cards. When properly used, it can completely eliminate the overlord's ability to forfeit encounter 1 of a 2 part encounter to save up extra cards for an overwhelming advantage on part 2. If the overlord isn't rushing for a win in part 1, you just take your time and keep forcing him to discard cards.

Wildlander can consistently put out good damage more reliably than other classes, and has more good abilities. Yes, the permanent 2 piercing ability for the treasure hunter is very strong (yes, I think the treasure hunter is the second best scout class, but not at all overpowered), but the Wildlander gets a wider array of useful abilities. Further, the overlord's job is to counter the player's choices. If a player picks up treasure hunter, I usually just grab Raythen's plot deck and laugh my ass off. Even if I don't, you can usually stop the treasure hunter from getting to pick up a lot of treasure by targeting him, blocking him off, or simply forcing the heroes to rush and skip treasure or lose.

NImble is a fantastic starting ability as it drastically improves the survivability and mobility of the wildlander. Properly used it can get you into position quite a bit quicker, or force the overlord to waste actions trying to reach you. Accurate reliably improves your damage output each round, and also for 1 xp. Bow Mastery guarantees you a surge, First Strike can get you a free attack, Fleet of Foot is a huge movement boost, Running Shot is spectacular. The only Wildlander ability that isn't outrageously good is Black Arrow, and that's quite decent still for the range boost and guaranteed minimum damage.

In comparison, the Treasure Hunter has fewer abilities that are particularly good. Dungeoneer is very situational, but potentially good. Gold Rush is okay, too situational, and it gets worse when you actually hand those potions you pick up to your teammates, limiting the heroes options. The problem with these two abilities is that a lot of the time, the treasure isn't where the action is. Survey is okay, improves your odds of getting something good and the bonus stamina is nice. Guard the spoils sounds cool, but does nothing when you draw the best card (treasure chest) or the secret room. Further, it gets worse when you hand the search cards to your teammates, often preventing them from being used by the person who would most benefit. Lure of Fortune is mediocre, especially for 2xp. Sleight of hand is spectacular, and along with delver are the two reasons to play this class.

As for the thief, he's not particularly good at anything. He's worse at dealing damage AND getting treasure than the treasure hunter. His abilities are more situational than any other scout, and frankly the conditions he applies aren't all that useful. Sure, he can stun or immobilize, but to do that he's gotta be in melee, and scouts and melee don't mix all that well. Thief is just plain worse than the treasure hunter is basically every way.

I play as overlord 9/10 times, so can sypathize with feeling overwhelmed by heroes, but as I've always thought heroes gathering money was good- never felt overwhelmed by it, and even allowed heroes extra money in some campaigns we felt had stagnated.

I recently played against heroes that included a treasure hunter, Silhouette, and search card generating Aurim, and while the heroes were swimming in money, I never felt it was unbalanced. Sure, more money means they catch up in power faster, but they would have done that eventually anyway. (That particular game ended in a narrow victory for the heroes after some extremely frustrating misses during the finale, but was still great fun!)

I do think the thief is outshined by the treasure hunter, though. Thief is too "jack of all trades" while treasure hunter goes all in on search cards, and this usually pays off more. I think the search deck might need a revamp, or more cards added to it, but even when the heroes intentionally exploit the search deck it does not guarantee a victory- in fact it makes them waste time and movement to get to those search tokens in the first place.

If it becomes a big issue, however, the Raythen plot deck might be fun to use- and the mimic overlord card is always a great tactic. Maybe I've just been fortunate enough to not see any game-changing search card exploits, but gathering and spending loot is one of the most fun parts of any dungeon crawler!

Wildlander has the best ability in the game, hands down, and for 1 xp. No other scout class can force the overlord to discard cards. When properly used, it can completely eliminate the overlord's ability to forfeit encounter 1 of a 2 part encounter to save up extra cards for an overwhelming advantage on part 2. If the overlord isn't rushing for a win in part 1, you just take your time and keep forcing him to discard cards.

Wildlander can consistently put out good damage more reliably than other classes, and has more good abilities. Yes, the permanent 2 piercing ability for the treasure hunter is very strong (yes, I think the treasure hunter is the second best scout class, but not at all overpowered), but the Wildlander gets a wider array of useful abilities. Further, the overlord's job is to counter the player's choices. If a player picks up treasure hunter, I usually just grab Raythen's plot deck and laugh my ass off. Even if I don't, you can usually stop the treasure hunter from getting to pick up a lot of treasure by targeting him, blocking him off, or simply forcing the heroes to rush and skip treasure or lose.

NImble is a fantastic starting ability as it drastically improves the survivability and mobility of the wildlander. Properly used it can get you into position quite a bit quicker, or force the overlord to waste actions trying to reach you. Accurate reliably improves your damage output each round, and also for 1 xp. Bow Mastery guarantees you a surge, First Strike can get you a free attack, Fleet of Foot is a huge movement boost, Running Shot is spectacular. The only Wildlander ability that isn't outrageously good is Black Arrow, and that's quite decent still for the range boost and guaranteed minimum damage.

In comparison, the Treasure Hunter has fewer abilities that are particularly good. Dungeoneer is very situational, but potentially good. Gold Rush is okay, too situational, and it gets worse when you actually hand those potions you pick up to your teammates, limiting the heroes options. The problem with these two abilities is that a lot of the time, the treasure isn't where the action is. Survey is okay, improves your odds of getting something good and the bonus stamina is nice. Guard the spoils sounds cool, but does nothing when you draw the best card (treasure chest) or the secret room. Further, it gets worse when you hand the search cards to your teammates, often preventing them from being used by the person who would most benefit. Lure of Fortune is mediocre, especially for 2xp. Sleight of hand is spectacular, and along with delver are the two reasons to play this class.

As for the thief, he's not particularly good at anything. He's worse at dealing damage AND getting treasure than the treasure hunter. His abilities are more situational than any other scout, and frankly the conditions he applies aren't all that useful. Sure, he can stun or immobilize, but to do that he's gotta be in melee, and scouts and melee don't mix all that well. Thief is just plain worse than the treasure hunter is basically every way.

I agree that the wildlander skills are really powerful, but the treasure hunter has the abitlity to make the entire party really powerful and that is what makes it outshine the wildlander IMO.

A treasure hunter or thief that really focuses on getting those search tokens will almost guarantee a treasure chest each quest as well as alot of gold.

A revamp of the search deck might lessen the impact though as The Sorcerer King mentioned, with more cards in the deck atleast they wouldnt get the treasure chest every time.

We have several plot decks but sadly Raythen isnt one of them, could you give me a rundown on what it is capable of and if its any good, to me it seems like there is a pretty big difference in how powerful the plot decks are.

Currently we are running a SoN campaign that Im overlording and Im using the tristayne olliven deck which seems quite powerful, especially when combined with basic deck 1 and the warlord cards, lots of synergy between the cards!

Raythen deck basically turns any creature into a mimic- for 1 threat creatures can pick up search tokens that turn, and the rest of the cards mostly deal with the search deck and enhance the monsters carrying search tokens- increased defense, move cards to the bottom of the search deck, and so forth. Valyndra's plot deck touches on this as well, but focuses more on enhancing large monsters instead of pure search tokens/cards. It always seemed rather spiteful of me to mess with the search cards, and so I generally avoided using these plot decks- but if searching heroes are harassing you, it might be just what you're looking for.

Raythen has a number of 0 cost plot cards- one lets him put one of the top 2 search cards on the bottom of the deck, while another grants monsters carrying search tokens +1def and gains you threat if the heroes leave a monster with a token behind- another does the reverse, and nets you threat when the heroes search within 3 spaces of a monster. Remaining cards include a bait and switch that let's you exchange a search token with a nearby monster and make a free attack, while another outright forces a hero to redraw a search card and place the old card back on top (where you can bury it with another plot card, if need be).

On a side note, while I rarely use overlord 1 cards (befuddle and mimic are just too fun to give up!), Tristayne Olliven is my favorite plot deck primarily because he is a Lich and a necromancer- I'm a sucker for necromancy- and it's quite good at what it does- namely deal damage to both friend and foe and enhance master monsters- my style entirely. Who needs to steal from he heroes when you can just murder them? There are more powerful plot decks, to be sure (baron Zacaranth is deadly in the hands of a clever overlord), but I say go with what you love- you often do best with the style of play that suits you. Hope some of this helped!

Wildlander has the best ability in the game, hands down, and for 1 xp. No other scout class can force the overlord to discard cards. When properly used, it can completely eliminate the overlord's ability to forfeit encounter 1 of a 2 part encounter to save up extra cards for an overwhelming advantage on part 2. If the overlord isn't rushing for a win in part 1, you just take your time and keep forcing him to discard cards.

I feel like we might have had this conversation in different threads, Whitewing, but... you have a really, REALLY weird grasp of strategy and tactics :-) I respectfully disagree that's the best ability in the game, along with just about everything else you say in this post :-) You vastly underrate the treasure hunter, and seem to misunderstand the usage of most of his skills. If you "just grab raythen and laugh" against a treasure hunter I think you don't spend much time playing against particularly good players.

The last campaign undertaken by our group had me as a Treasure Hunter. Singlehandedly, I kept the team well supplied in both gold and treasure, leaving our OL Kunzite rather miffed. With the Bow of the Eclipse and the Treasure Hunter's Slight of Hand skill, I was rolling Blue/Red/Green with an automatic Pierce 4. Everyone was rolling Grey/Black or Grey/Grey defense toward the middle of Act 2, we had a Dragontooth Hammer, the Lightning Strike rune and we had secured the Shield of the Dark God and the Dawnblade in our travels. We had some of the best weapons and armor pre-Nerekhall in the game.

We still lost in the Shadow Rune finale. We lost terribly.

Why? How? How could all this gold, all this treasure result in such a terrifying and upsetting loss?

The Infector OL Class.

I once said Warlord made the other OL classes look like chumps. Infector basically dumps all over that by the use of Infection Tokens. They never go away, and they do all sorts of ludicrous effects. The Infector deck punished us as heroes, for doing extremely well with gold and treasure.

How? Simple. With the Airborne and Contaminated cards in play, the OL stacked infection tokens like crazy thanks to weak monsters. Kobolds -- an OL favorite by far -- were a terrifying horde of Infection against well-armored heroes, as Blue or Blue/Yellow defense dice were easily nulled by Grey/Black defense dice. Our healer had EIGHT infection tokens on him at one point, and the Mending Talisman we had won during a rumor couldn't combat the amount of infection spreading around. With two less cards to cycle through, Kunzite was able to get what she needed to win, despite a very short Finale Encounter 1.

At Encounter 2, we walked into Zombies. After tagging a few infection tokens, Kunzite played Dark Host. Given that I had around five or six infection tokens, she made me shoot (with Pierce 4!) our mage. I did ten damage and the mage died on the spot. She then moved me into the path of a bunch of nasty monsters, who then promptly killed me. In one turn. WITH ONE CARD. With half the table removed from play, we could only watch the OL overwhelm the remaining two heroes. Nobody felt good about that outcome.

I keep hearing other OLs whining that heroes get too much gold and too much loot, and it's not fair. To all of you who complain that your heroes are swimming in gold and treasure, I say this:

Play Infector.

The mechanic is just incredible, and as a hero there isn't anything I can do to prevent the effects from triggering. There's barely any attribute tests, no dice rolls and no need for the OL to worry about what equipment the heroes have. I can't for the life of me figure out how to get around the strategy.

The "Infector" class is pretty nasty. It's a certainty that there are particular combinations of heroes/classes and particular combinations of OL cards/monsters that can make certain scenarios very unbalanced for one side or the other. However, this is unavoidable in an inherently asymmetrical game. What's important is that the situations where the OL has the edge balance with those where the heroes have the edge overall, and I think that this game does this well within reason, while admittedly not perfectly.

I'm not sure answering the critique of, "You can 1-shot a monster" with, "I was forced to 1-shot a fellow hero" is a satisfying outcome. Everyone wants to feel like there's some push and pull and places that things could have gone right for them. Flipping a coin to see who controls the rocket launcher isn't it. It's anti-climactic and unsatisfying no matter what the outcome.

Zaltyre, I can agree with the sentiment that as long as the unbalanced parts between hero and OL even out to 1:1, it's all good.

Our hero party got pretty mad that despite gearing up as best we could in preparation for the final battle, none of it mattered . What stung the most was that it actually counted against us, and that doing well with treasure cost us the entire campaign . It stifles play because if the heroes do well, the OL has a handy method to shut them down. If they do poorly, heroes are squishy, weak and susceptible to the conventional method.

I'm looking forward to Nerekhall, but given the general consensus that it favors the OL, I don't think we're going to walk away from that one either.

Wildlander has the best ability in the game, hands down, and for 1 xp. No other scout class can force the overlord to discard cards. When properly used, it can completely eliminate the overlord's ability to forfeit encounter 1 of a 2 part encounter to save up extra cards for an overwhelming advantage on part 2. If the overlord isn't rushing for a win in part 1, you just take your time and keep forcing him to discard cards.

I feel like we might have had this conversation in different threads, Whitewing, but... you have a really, REALLY weird grasp of strategy and tactics :-) I respectfully disagree that's the best ability in the game, along with just about everything else you say in this post :-) You vastly underrate the treasure hunter, and seem to misunderstand the usage of most of his skills. If you "just grab raythen and laugh" against a treasure hunter I think you don't spend much time playing against particularly good players.

If you're going to insult the people I play with without any idea of who they are or how they play, I can equally say you suck at overlord and that's why the strategies seem weird to you. This is kind of pointless for both of us, so I'll suggest that you refrain from insulting people you've never met. It doesn't help your argument any, neither does suggesting that my grasp of strategy and tactics is strange. My grasp of strategy and tactics is very strong, if you believe I'm wrong say why, don't just say I am weird or wrong and then leave it at that.

As for Raythen's plot deck, it screws with the search deck. Treasure hunter's specialty is re-arranging the search deck to get better search cards. Raythen's plot deck re-arranges them to make them worse. Every time the treasure hunter re-arranges them to get better cards, you can counter that. All sorts of tricks the deck has to heavily limit the treasure hunter's abilities.

Zaltyre, I can agree with the sentiment that as long as the unbalanced parts between hero and OL even out to 1:1, it's all good.

Our hero party got pretty mad that despite gearing up as best we could in preparation for the final battle, none of it mattered . What stung the most was that it actually counted against us, and that doing well with treasure cost us the entire campaign . It stifles play because if the heroes do well, the OL has a handy method to shut them down. If they do poorly, heroes are squishy, weak and susceptible to the conventional method.

I'm looking forward to Nerekhall, but given the general consensus that it favors the OL, I don't think we're going to walk away from that one either.

On the other hand, I recently finished a shadow rune campaign as OL. The heroes won every Act 1 quest, including the introduction, a rumor, and the interlude. I then proceeded to win the first Act 2 quest with a lot of luck, and was able to choose favorable quests and win the rest of Act 2. The finale came down to the wire, but the heroes secured the win during encounter 2.

And I wouldn't get discouraged about Nerekhall- while the OL does have a lot of tools at his disposal in that campaign, it looks like the new heroes also bring very interesting skills to the table. The bard is one heck of a healer, and the skirmisher is (in my opinion) the most interesting warrior class. Several of his skills are actually focused on him getting knocked out to give him mobility- a really neat twist.

I couldn't agree more with the OP. The Treasure Hunter definitely creates a balance problem, it would be one thing if all he did was collect treasure and gold for the party but he also ends up being one of the best DPS classes in the game as well. By ACT II the heroes are swimming with treasure and are steamrolling thru everything.

You can defend this class all you want but the fact remains this class creates issues in terms of balance and for those that say use the infector deck to counter it, that just goes to show how much of an imbalance this class creates. It's ludicrous to suggest that the only way to counter 1 class from making it a runaway victory for the heroes is to use the Infector deck and not choose from any of the other OL decks that are available. I as an OL should have an equal chance of winning no matter what deck I pick, at that point it should come down to how you play not "**** he picked the treasure hunter I guess I need to play infector".

After seeing Burrowell played as a Treasure Hunter I threw the class cards away. I'd suggest you do the same OP.

It's ludicrous to suggest that the only way to counter 1 class from making it a runaway victory for the heroes is to use the Infector deck and not choose from any of the other OL decks that are available. I as an OL should have an equal chance of winning no matter what deck I pick, at that point it should come down to how you play not "**** he picked the treasure hunter I guess I need to play infector".

I strongly disagree with this statement. There seems to be a general theme on this forum, as well as the X-Wing forum, that something is automatically broken or over powered because it is not perfectly balanced against every other choice in the game.

As I stated on the X-Wing forum, these games would be immeasurably boring if every skill, class, OL deck, etc. all played exactly the same way, with the exact same chance of winning or losing.

The beauty of FFG's games is that it presents you as a player with a multitude of choices ... and those choices subsequently can affect how an encounter/quest/campaign progresses.

Some skills, classes, OL decks, abilities, heroic feats, etc. SHOULD ABSOLUTELY be stronger in certain circumstances. Some SHOULD ABSOLUTELY be weaker in certain circumstances. It is that nature which leads to learning new approaches of how best to use and deploy a specific item. It is exactly this which leads to interesting battles, situations, races, etc. It forces you as a hero or OL to learn how to deal with different strengths and weaknesses.

In my opinion, this is one of the strengths of this game - i.e. that not everything works as well or as poorly in all situations; it is good that A is strong against B, but perhaps weak against C. And maybe C is strong against B, etc.

I truly struggle to understand why true gamers would want anything else ...