Why would you struggle to understand? So let me get this straight you would rather have counters to other classes and decks instead of balance? Normally I'm all for counters like you are speaking of in certain games, however in a game like this where a campaign can take quite a few sessions of friends sitting down in lengthy periods it is paramount that those players enjoy themselves. That being said nothing says fun like being forced to take a class and having to play it during the course of a campaign only because you need to counter what the OL has or as an OL take a deck (infector) because it's the only deck that can counter a treasure hunter.

I'm sorry I'd rather there be balance in a game like this so that everyone playing can have fun and have a chance to win instead of being forced to use something you won't have fun doing just to achieve the same result.

First of all, no one forces you to do anything in this game. You make choices. Some good, perhaps some not so good.

More importantly, if you follow the rules as written (see page 5 base rules), there is no way possible that the heroes can be forced to take any class based on what the Overlord chooses, as the heroes must first complete their entire setup without knowing what the Overlord will do.

Hero setup in its entirety occurs first. Then the Overlord setup occurs.

As for the Overlord reacting to what the Heroes do, I can tell you this ... I have won at least 3 campaigns as Overlord where the Heroes had selected Treasure Hunter, and I have never used the Infector deck. So, from first hand knowledge, I can tell you that it is not insurmountable.

As I said in my previous post, challenges such as those that you have brought up is exactly what makes this game fun. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I always ban the treasure hunter class just as I ban the kobolds. This never opposed a problem for any of us although I don't understand the problem with kobolds so well, but I mainly play OL and you tend to feel weaker in your own eyes.

But the treasure hunter is just ridicoulus and I would love if he is getting fixed, because I really like the thematic idea behind the class.

The main problem is that search cards provide extremely well pay offs on their own. Of course they are often hard to reach and cost some time, but I feel like nearly every scout-class minimizes this penalty well enough (draw a second search card instead, picking it up from some distance, gaining MPs to reach a treasure), so that picking up one random search card for one action is always extremely viable.

However the treasure hunter not only gets the cards, but they boost himself very hard in and outside of combat. Searching thus becomes not only a viable option among others, but is THE thing to do with the treasure hunter. Not because he only minimizes the drawbacks of searching, but because he even gets stat bonuses, or movementbonuses in addition to their normal effects, which imo is problematic in concept, but maybe can work if extremely well balanced.

Then again I always felt the theme behind these abilities is kind of strange. How does the possesion of an unused stamina potion make this class hit harder and move faster? Maybe he is hooked on treasures and their possesion brings him back to normal, while he acts cold turky without them? Does Indiana Jones get buffed when he gets some loot? Do we feel like that's strange or do we see a reason why he should? I guess not.

I don't really have these problems with the thief, because all his other abilities tend to be too valuable in the quests (just like Bilbo ) to make him run for every treasure. So at least to search or not remains a hard decision for the thief and they don't buff him up besides their main effect.

I understand the points that you make. I guess my whole issue with the idea of "banning" something, because it is perceived to be over powerful, or under powered, or whatever, is that doing so actually detracts from the game. I simply don't want perfect balance among all choices ... to me that just makes for a boring, uneventful, challenge-less game.

But, its just my opinion. My position is no more or less valid than the opposing view points expressed.

As my mom use to say ... To each their own.

I understand the points that you make. I guess my whole issue with the idea of "banning" something, because it is perceived to be over powerful, or under powered, or whatever, is that doing so actually detracts from the game. I simply don't want perfect balance among all choices ... to me that just makes for a boring, uneventful, challenge-less game.

But, its just my opinion. My position is no more or less valid than the opposing view points expressed.

As my mom use to say ... To each their own.

I totally get what you are saying and usually I'm against this kind of measurement as well. However I ban them because other way my gaming group tends to take the game less serious and feel like winning/losing is just because of one overpowerd element. I feel the trade-off of less whining and feeling betrayed against taking out only 2 things is a good one.

People often incorrectly view balance as all units of set X being balanced against all other units of set X, without context to the rest of the components. The treasure hunter is, in many situations, better than some of the other scouts. The treasure hunter is the best treasure gatherer out of all of them, but lacks a few key abilities present in some of the other decks, like the support potential of the Shadow Walker, or the space control of the Stalker, or the raw damage of the Bounty Hunter, or the mobility of the Wildlander (and overlord card attack ability of the Danger Sense card). The Thief is flat out underpowered, so we'll disregard him. The Treasure Hunter is a very powerful class, but he doesn't shine in any of these roles: instead he's basically a second warrior with fewer combat skills and really strong treasure hunting abilities.

Now, part of what makes the Treasure Hunter seem so overwhelming is that he peaks very early in the game. You save your first XP and buy Sleight of Hand at 2 XP, and suddenly very early you are doing very well. Then, from there, the treasure hunter tries to snowball the game out of hand. What people don't realize is that the longer the game goes, the worse the treasure hunter becomes relative to other scout classes. He's a weak backup warrior in act 2 without enough combat abilities to shine. His useful abilities prevent you from sharing search cards with teammates, which limits the teams overall effectiveness. In short, he can do a lot of things well, but nothing other than getting treasure exceptionally. He can't even grab search tokens from range, making his actions less efficient than other scouts.

The Treasure Hunter is very strong early on and in Act 1, but once you get into Act 2 he falls off hard. The best weapon for him in Act 2 (The Bow of the Eclipse) is merely a mediocre weapon at best. He has no carry potential the way a Runemaster with a good Act 2 weapon has, or the way a geared out Skirmisher or Knight has. He can't harass as well as a Wildlander can and can't dominate the map, and he doesn't have the mobility to always be in the optimal place like other scouts can.

The Treasure Hunter is all about getting a dominating position early and brutalizing the overlord to snowball early, so the heroes can get super far ahead for the start of Act 2 to compensate for his weaker Act 2. This can be frustrating as an Overlord because it feels like you're getting your ass kicked, but the reality is that all you have to do is win some key objectives, and even if you're losing Act 1, as long as you don't lose Act 1 too badly it's okay, you'll win in the end.

More importantly, the Treasure Hunter lacks effective synergy with other heroes: he's only good for slightly more optimal loot. Seriously, the Treasure Hunter, on average, only slightly improves the efficiency of loot gaining. Doing some napkin math, having him around averages out to around 25 extra gold every 2-3 search tokens picked up. That's nice, but an extra 50-100 gold per quest (if they pick up EVERY search token in both encounters, to which I say you are failing as an overlord if they accomplish that) isn't game breaking at all.

I'm planning on writing an overlord guide soon, I guess I'll make dealing with specific classes that are seen as troubling like the Treasure Hunter a big part of it.

I'm not sure what your Idea of falling off in ACT II is, but from what I witnessed he was **** good at dishing out damage using the Winged Blade as he was one shooting just about everything. He was clearly the best in the DPS department and the sad thing is the player using him in ACT II brought up a good point, he laughed and said I screwed up, I should have used Burrowell instead of Logan. Adding the defense pool of another hero to his own would have made his treasure hunter a deity on the game board instead of a demigod.

If all he did well was gather loot and earn the group gold I would be absolutely fine with the class. The fact that he does the aforementioned and is a tremendous DPS class is just too much.

? You're doing something horribly wrong if the treasure hunter is one shotting everything in act 2.

ok....well here it goes

1.Winged Blade (attack dice Blue/Red/Yellow attack dice and can change the result of one defense die to his choice per attack). You mentioned the best weapon for him in Act II was the Bow of the Eclipse. That weapon is the worst weapon for him. Winged Blade, Iron Claws and Glaive are way better for the TH.

2. Finder's Keepers (1 additional green die to use for an attack also adds 1 damage per search card you have up to +4)

3. Sleight of Hand (pierce2)

4. Delver +1 damage

Right there alone you have a Treasure Hunter that has an attack pool consisting of a Blue/Red/Yellow/Green

so black defense die gets cancelled because of Winged Blade and grey defense die because of Delver will usually net you nothing as the OL because of delver piercing 2......so defense = 0

By encounter 2 the Treasure Hunter has at the very minimum 3 search cards so add +3 to damage right off the bat and delver adds another +1 to damage for a total of +4 damage before the dice are even rolled.

ok now you get to roll the dice.....wait is the TH playing alone? No? Your right he has help. The disciple could have used Divine Fury to buff him before the attack to give him an extra yellow attack die. I won't even bother to add the extra green die he could get if somebody else is playing the Beastmaster to get savagery (which my group does).

Ok so lets see we have a Creature now with no defense thanks to the reasons listed above and has already received +4 damage before any dice are rolled......lets roll the dice............which are now Blue/Red/2 Yellow/Green

Rolling the dice pool 10 times I averaged +8 damage with a surge from Winged Blade it goes to +10 damage, now add the +4 from above we have +14 damage on 1 attack. That is assuming he didn't have 4 search cards which would have added another +1 damage and he didn't roll higher than what the average die roll is.

So he just did +14 damage to an elite monster which just about 1 shots any of them and if he didn't kill the elite giant he most certainly does on the second attack or he could let the weaker heroes finish him off as he dances to the objective. Had that been a Lt. in Act II most of them would be barely standing and would most certainly be dead on his second attack.

The last time we played my gaming group joked they were going to use the TH again but this time use Burrowell for the role. Why? Because Burrowell gets to add all the defense dice from an adjacent hero to his own making him a virtual Descent god when played as the TH.

You asked how is the TH 1 shotting everything? That is how. Also your napkin math is off for how much gold the TH generates for the group, as nice as the extra gold that the group gets the real caveat is how easily the TH gets to dig thru the search pile to find the treasure card and get a free shop item that he can sell or keep. If he sells it the gold generated becomes a lil higher than what you stated.

The last time we played my gaming group joked they were going to use the TH again but this time use Burrowell for the role. Why? Because Burrowell gets to add all the defense dice from an adjacent hero to his own making him a virtual Descent god when played as the TH.

You asked how is the TH 1 shotting everything? That is how. Also your napkin math is off for how much gold the TH generates for the group, as nice as the extra gold that the group gets the real caveat is how easily the TH gets to dig thru the search pile to find the treasure card and get a free shop item that he can sell or keep. If he sells it the gold generated becomes a lil higher than what you stated.

A player in my group went with Roganna- so the hero ability granted another +1 to most monsters. For most of act 1, all of the TH's attacks were an automatic +2/ pierce 2.

Additionally, you're right about digging through the deck. When the TH utilizes all of its search deck manipulating skills, it can see every card in the search deck over the course of 2 encounters. Assuming they're even just able to search 5 times, that's 200 gold and the treasure chest every quest.

It's an incredibly useful class, but there are ways to counteract it. The basic 2 deck is very nice for the Mimic card, (and also for Uncontrollable Power, to keep the TH attacks from getting any stronger) Any monster with "Ironskin" gets to negate the automatic pierce. Additionally, trap cards that trigger when a hero enters a space are great. If you're using basic 2 you won't have tripwire or pit trap, but you can definitely purchase cards like web trap or explosive runes- imploding rift is nice, too if the TH isn't off on his own.

I'm always disappointed as Overlord if the players choose a Treasure Hunter. I pretty much feel pushed to take Baron Zachareth's deck to counter, which is not as fun as the other Plot Decks. I prefer keeping the game competitive above all else however.

I'm still debating a nerf that would be appropriate for the TH to keep it from being out-and-out the best Scout pick in the game in any campaign. One idea I've had, other than my previously proposed idea of only one Treasure Chest per act (not counting Rumors), was having the Delver ability cost 2 stamina to use.

Still an amazing ability, but at least the TH may be forced to sacrifice some actions to rest if they abuse it, which could be critical in helping an Overlord at least earn more quest wins to combat a souped up hero team.

I still don't think the TH is the best scout for every situation, and I wouldn't nerf him. Another key point for any OL facing off against a TH- choose as many single-encounter quests as possible. This limits the number of search tokens the TH has access to, and thus neutralizes a few of his skills. It also decreases the overall gold a party receives- always a good choice.

Its telling that most proposed TH counters require major strategic changes on the part of the Overlord, e.g.:

- Basic II over Basic I

- Specific plot decks

- Picking single encounters with fewer search opportunities

- Avoiding rumors like the plague (although with RAW an OL probably should anyway <.<)

etc.

There are no other classes which require such drastic adjustments in the way the OL plays or else risk being blown out of the water. A single party member exerting this much control over how the game is played is a bad sign and a big red flag to me.

The Thief is a nice example of a class that does have some ability to improve the party's treasure gain, without forcing the Overlord to bend over backwards to keep loot at sane levels. Unfortunately the Thief's other skills are kinda lackluster making it somewhat poor overall.. I wouldn't be adverse to it getting some love.

ok....well here it goes

1.Winged Blade (attack dice Blue/Red/Yellow attack dice and can change the result of one defense die to his choice per attack). You mentioned the best weapon for him in Act II was the Bow of the Eclipse. That weapon is the worst weapon for him. Winged Blade, Iron Claws and Glaive are way better for the TH.

2. Finder's Keepers (1 additional green die to use for an attack also adds 1 damage per search card you have up to +4)

3. Sleight of Hand (pierce2)

4. Delver +1 damage

Right there alone you have a Treasure Hunter that has an attack pool consisting of a Blue/Red/Yellow/Green

so black defense die gets cancelled because of Winged Blade and grey defense die because of Delver will usually net you nothing as the OL because of delver piercing 2......so defense = 0

By encounter 2 the Treasure Hunter has at the very minimum 3 search cards so add +3 to damage right off the bat and delver adds another +1 to damage for a total of +4 damage before the dice are even rolled.

ok now you get to roll the dice.....wait is the TH playing alone? No? Your right he has help. The disciple could have used Divine Fury to buff him before the attack to give him an extra yellow attack die. I won't even bother to add the extra green die he could get if somebody else is playing the Beastmaster to get savagery (which my group does).

Ok so lets see we have a Creature now with no defense thanks to the reasons listed above and has already received +4 damage before any dice are rolled......lets roll the dice............which are now Blue/Red/2 Yellow/Green

Rolling the dice pool 10 times I averaged +8 damage with a surge from Winged Blade it goes to +10 damage, now add the +4 from above we have +14 damage on 1 attack. That is assuming he didn't have 4 search cards which would have added another +1 damage and he didn't roll higher than what the average die roll is.

So he just did +14 damage to an elite monster which just about 1 shots any of them and if he didn't kill the elite giant he most certainly does on the second attack or he could let the weaker heroes finish him off as he dances to the objective. Had that been a Lt. in Act II most of them would be barely standing and would most certainly be dead on his second attack.

The last time we played my gaming group joked they were going to use the TH again but this time use Burrowell for the role. Why? Because Burrowell gets to add all the defense dice from an adjacent hero to his own making him a virtual Descent god when played as the TH.

You asked how is the TH 1 shotting everything? That is how. Also your napkin math is off for how much gold the TH generates for the group, as nice as the extra gold that the group gets the real caveat is how easily the TH gets to dig thru the search pile to find the treasure card and get a free shop item that he can sell or keep. If he sells it the gold generated becomes a lil higher than what you stated.

The treasure hunter is a slightly weaker warrior with better treasure gathering abiltiies. I wager any warrior with that weapon would be slaughtering your monsters just as well, that's the power of the weapon, not the class. The Knight would even be getting bonus movement and attacks from doing it too. Hell, the Act 2 Wildlander with a decent bow tears through enemies. The Treasure Hunter has no defensive abilities whatsoever, and if he's keeping close to his party members, he is being slowed down by the slowest and most immobile member of his group, and you can punish that. The math doesn't lie.

And no, my napkin math is correct, as that is accounted for, as long as he isn't getting every search token consistently in both encounters. See, many quests are 1 encounter quests, which have only 4 search tokens, which means he's anything but guaranteed to get it. If you pressure the heroes correctly, he's heavily limited in it. The Treasure chest is only worth around 75 gold on average in act 1 (since the item received can only be sold for half value), and 125 in act 2 (approximations). That's one card in the deck, so it's not a significant increase in averages.

If your treasure hunter is able to be a front line fighter and slaughter your monsters AND take the time to move away and grab search tokens, you haven't been splitting your monsters enough and are making some major tactical and strategic errors, in which case, of course the heroes are going to win. It's not a slug fest.

Burrowell is significantly worse as a TH. He's a better fighter, but his other limitations (like being susceptible to immobilize and poision, just hit him with a master bandit and laugh) make him way easier to shut down in act 1.

That 3 xp ability that deals bonus damage based on treasure cards is partially a weakness. If the Treasure Hunter isn't holding on to all of the search cards (usually you want to spread the potions out), he doesn't benefit from it, and if he is, then the other heroes gain less benefit from the search cards. It's also on the weak side for a 3 xp ability, it's just a couple bonus points of damage with no real special to it, and it requires fatigue, it's not free.

In short, as I said before, he's just like having another, weaker warrior in act 2 with some treasure hunting abilities. I'm much more worried about a wildlander because of their ability to destroy overlord cards.

Also, you should always tailor your strategy to deal with the hero composition, not just against Treasure Hunter. Treasure Hunter is countered by proper monster group manipulation and quest selection. Other heroes have different counters.

There are no other classes which require such drastic adjustments in the way the OL plays or else risk being blown out of the water. A single party member exerting this much control over how the game is played is a bad sign and a big red flag to me.

That's not exactly true. My strategy as an OL varies hugely depending on the heroes I'm up against. Things as simple as the heroes attribute values affect my monster choices/ card purchases- every hero's might is greater than 3? Hybrid sentinels are getting benched, as is web trap, and any effect that relies on poison. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses, and many result in quite substantial alterations in strategy (at least for me.)

Knight: Oath/Advance makes immobilization useless, as well as most blocking tactics. It also means I'm using ranged monsters so he can't "Guard."

Wildlander: Danger sense is a big deterrent to stocking up OL cards, and black arrow means I need to have action cannon fodder available- pit trap is also a big help with "nimble."

Bard: Focused damage is what it's all about- spreading it around is ill-advised with his constant, creeping healing.

Necromancer/Beastmaster: Fatigue dealing effects and attribute tests are a must as they'll damage the familiars, and drain the summoners. Army of Death means minimizing LOS exposure, probably with large monsters.

Runemaster: He blasts- monster choice is heavily impacted, as well as monster spacing. I'm almost certainly going to use Basic 2 just to get "Uncontrolled Power" and "Grease Trap" when a runemaster is involved.

The list goes on. Choosing 1 encounter quests is something I'd do anyway- it limits treasure availability no matter who is playing.

In my eyes, the spirit speaker, the thief, and the berzerker were some of the least powerful classes included in the base game (that's not to say that they don't have their advantages.) The bard, the treasure hunter, and the skirmisher are expansion classes that seem to fill those roles (limited area healing/fatigue regen, loot gathering, and forsaking defense in favor of offense), only stronger.

Agree Charmy....it is telling and you are 100% correct.

Whitewing it's not just that weapon (still not sure why you said earlier that the Bow of the Eclipse is the best weapon for the TH), is Winged Blade nice.....yes. However if you put the other weapons I listed above in the hands of the TH he still is steamrolling over monsters and Lts. It's the class, in the example I give you he pierces 2 and does +4 damage before even rolling the dice and +5 total if you include Delver (those are from class cards, that's a +6 or +7 sway right off the bat and you forgot to mention the 3xp card gives a green die to add to your attack pool, that's a 33% chance to add another +1 damage and a surge to your result ).I wouldn't call a 3xp card which costs only 1 fatigue to use and that gives a hero +4 damage and 1 green attack die a weak 3xp card. Regardless if that's all he brought to the table and was a fighter I wouldn't have an issue with the TH, but he's bringing that and a lot more.

Not sure what you mean by the TH has no defensive capabilities? Warding Talisman, Health potion, Stamina potion, Curse Doll. Those are some pretty good defensive abilities and he is usually holding them considering he as a TH gets them pretty easily. By the middle of Act II due to his flawless loot gaining abilities he is usually equipped with enough gear that combined with his search cards (when he has them, which is always) makes his defensive abilities great. Again if all he did was get loot and gold easily it wouldn't be an issue, but he does that and nukes monsters just as well.

One more thing.....you mentioned the treasure chest in your napkin math isn't a significant increase in averages? I fail to see how that isn't so. That 75 gold adds up by the end of Act I and in Act II 125 gold is quite a bit more gold per quest. That's implying too that in Act I and even more so in Act II the item drawn from the deck is something the group doesn't want and sells. It very easily could be an item that normally sells for 250 gold and in that case the TH just saved the group a lot of gold from purchasing it from the store if it were to become available.

Charmy hit the nail right on the head.

I am running into a similar challenge as OL. We have a Thief who is making it her business to get search tokens and the Disciple is Aurim who gets a free search card draw with his feat. This has given the heroes a pretty substantial amount of money to play with since they are always getting one extra possible chance at gold. I have been fortunate that the shop draws have been usually pretty bad for them. They are lacking a Mage class and there are always a couple of runes and staves that no one wants in the shop draws. They have requested those items be taken out, but I have refused because I feel like its "rigging" the shop deck to always give them what they want which can be a slippery slope.

They have requested those items be taken out, but I have refused because I feel like its "rigging" the shop deck to always give them what they want which can be a slippery slope.

Obviously each group can make their own decisions, but as an OL you should not cave to those kinds of requests. The heroes chose their party with the full knowledge of what was available in the shop, and to increase the chances of particular items coming up based on what they want only spells trouble.

For starters, they're just being picky. Any of the heroes could wield a staff, or a rune- they would just have to be mindful of the skills and armor they were using with it. Secondly, the randomness of the shopping step is one of those things that keeps the campaign phase interesting, and can really swing a campaign. I recently played as a hero in a party that had 2 warriors (no healer.) Act 2 was perilous because we didn't draw a single (Act 2) melee weapon until just before the finale, but both the knight and my skirmisher needed melee weapons to be effective. Our wildlander finished the campaign with her base gear bow, as well.

Bow of the Eclipse is the best weapon because it's actually ranged, and the Treasure Hunter is very NOT durable. Further, having to engage in melee and run all over the place to gather treasure is a lot of wasted movement actions.

If you want to suggest that the Treasure Hunter's defense is from search cards, all I can do is laugh. He gains that by taking it away from his teammates, but you're looking at that as a plus? You also seem to think that his 3 xp ability is a flat +4 damage, but it isn't: he has to get 4 search tokens first, not something that happens immediately or even often if the overlord plays correctly.

Delver is conditional. His loot gaining abilities are hardly :flawless". He gets the better item out of the top 2 cards, and can, if he wants to and buys the ability, re-arrange the top 3 cards on his turn. That's not what I call "flawless". You act as though his ability is "Search the supply deck, and choose the card of your choice". It is not.

Bringing the Treasure Hunter with no countermeasures nets the heroes an extra 4-5 items per campaign, on average. That's good, no doubt, but they don't get optimal picks through the item decks, and you as the overlord can screw with that and limit it. Using Baron Zachareth's plot deck or Raythen's plot deck can limit that heavily, and there are a variety of other counters. Use bandits: if you take him out with plunder you get to destroy a search card and take loot AWAY from the treasure hunter.

He's not overpowered, and you should start considering ways to deal with him and win the campaign rather than screaming nerf. There are a huge variety of tactics and options available to you. If you could win with the same strategy no matter what composition the heroes chose or what their strategy is, then that would be imbalanced. The fact that you have to adjust is what makes this a good game.

I ban the treasure hunter not because I can't deal with him, but because I think he makes the game uninteresting at least for non-experts of the game.

The thing is the heroes have to rely on getting the treasure hunter search cards, if they succeed they have a ridiculously powerfull hero, if they fail they have a really weak hero. Regardless of the outcome, in every round getting search tokens is the priority, no hard decisions there. The OL practically has to build his deck to counter searching, which extremely narrows his choices down on which basic deck and OL classes he has to pick, especially if you don't own everything for Descent. I'm not arguing that you have to adjust your deck, but about how few options you have in adjusting your deck to meet your needs.

Imo it's wrong to say the treasure hunter's only interaction with search cards consists in buffing his damage output. His basic item grants him 1 MP whenever he is within 3 spaces of a treasure and he can pick skills that boost his defense (giving him an additional brown, grey or black die) or get up to 5 MPs for free as long as he has enough search cards.

And again this is my biggest problem with the hero. I can't think of any valid strategy or circumstances, where it would make sense for the heroes to not get the TH as much search cards as soon as possible and imo that limits the variety of the quests tromendously and I think neither an unsuspecting hero party nor the OL likes that to happen hence why I ban the TH.

Of course expert players could anticipate what their antagonist is doing and start to play mindgames to build the treasure hunter in a way that the specialisation of the OL gets worthless, but more intermediate players will probably just get as many tokens as quickly as possible. If they fail they throw the game, if they succeed they are so powerfull that they probably won't learn the more integral details of this game and most likely lose interest in this game altogether due to it's percieved shallownes.

This is a debate in futility which I don't understand why I'm doing it. You are seeing something completely different from what I'm seeing. You made an earlier comment that I must be doing something horribly wrong, which I find kind of presumptuous but whatever. I can easily say that you or your gaming group must be doing something horribly wrong to not see and utilize the full potential that the TH has. For starters ditch the whole mentality that he must be a ranged attacker, it's nonsense, get rid of the bow.

I've read now numerous ways for OL's to negate, mitigate, rein in, and whatever else you want to call it, to use against the TH. Everything from using particular plot decks, OL decks, deploying certain minions and etc. You do understand the TH is not doing this alone, there are 3 other heroes the OL must also contend with. However it seems that your focus is so on him that all those things you mentioned are with the TH in mind and not anyone else. As somebody else has stated in this thread if all of this is needed for 1 hero there is an imbalance. Other classes get certain things used against them for a particular reason but no class needs that amount of attention to negate such as the TH.

That's not exactly true. My strategy as an OL varies hugely depending on the heroes I'm up against. Things as simple as the heroes attribute values affect my monster choices/ card purchases- every hero's might is greater than 3? Hybrid sentinels are getting benched, as is web trap, and any effect that relies on poison. Every class has its strengths and weaknesses, and many result in quite substantial alterations in strategy (at least for me.)

Knight: Oath/Advance makes immobilization useless, as well as most blocking tactics. It also means I'm using ranged monsters so he can't "Guard."

Wildlander: Danger sense is a big deterrent to stocking up OL cards, and black arrow means I need to have action cannon fodder available- pit trap is also a big help with "nimble."

Bard: Focused damage is what it's all about- spreading it around is ill-advised with his constant, creeping healing.

Necromancer/Beastmaster: Fatigue dealing effects and attribute tests are a must as they'll damage the familiars, and drain the summoners. Army of Death means minimizing LOS exposure, probably with large monsters.

Runemaster: He blasts- monster choice is heavily impacted, as well as monster spacing. I'm almost certainly going to use Basic 2 just to get "Uncontrolled Power" and "Grease Trap" when a runemaster is involved.

Adjusting monster selection, eliminating non-viable monster groups, spread damage vs. focus fire, fatigue draining effects, monster spacing: These are all valid countermeasures and things that any OL should have in his/her toolkit. I fully agree.

However, I think you fail to notice that these kinds of things are fun and interesting because that are not campaign-long and have do not have implications beyond a quest-by-quest basis. All of these sorts of decisions are to be weighed based on the type of quest, the state of the hero party, etc.

What if the only hero with Blast is knocked out and isolated from the party? Suddenly monster spacing can be ignored for a turn or two and the OL can press their advantage by clumping. What if the map has lots of cover and bendy corridors? Suddenly Army of Death is a little less scary and I can field more smaller monster groups. etc.

I would still take Hybrid Sentinels in certain quests despite not being able to use Prey on the Weak, especially with Bel'thir's Hazard Pay, as they are still a beefy, small, flying monster with Fire Breath.

Now, consider the TH countermeasures. These are game-long d ecisions that cut out entire swathes of content just to stop this one party member. Many quests in the book become unattractive. An entire Basic deck loses its lustre. Most of the lieutenant packs become a poor proposition. The Overlord is in constant fear that that one additional Treasure Chest, or extra hundred gold could cost them the campaign.

Any Overlord who has played more than a few games of Descent knows that even a *single* good item drop can turn the entire game on its head. Things like the crazy Winged Blade can do this by cutting a key lieutenant's life span to a single hero turn.

Agree Charmy....it is telling and you are 100% correct.

Thanks. I don't know if I'd say I'm 100% correct, but I'm glad you agree. These are subjective matters, and I know folks like Whitewing are firmly in the other camp and have brought up good points.

Sadly, while this is a competitive game, it is not one which is tweaked regularly by the developers in the way video games and CCGs are. In other mediums, patches and card obsolescence can eliminate overly strong game elements and enhance weak ones. That is why I take it upon myself to apply my own modifications to the game and suggest them to others. Some seem to be adverse to any modifications to the game's balance. While I understand that point of view, I think it makes the game less interesting as a whole.

It is not healthy when many classes, monsters, items and skills are ignored because they are so grossly overshadowed by a superior choice. Every time you gently tap down one of those superior choices, the other choices start to shine a little brighter. This means they might have a chance to be taken out of that cobweb-infested corner and given a chance, and that always makes my day. Its a very delicate process though, hence my continued interest in putting out a community patch tossed that is vetted and tested by those of us who aren't adverse to re-balancing the game. It is heartening to know there may be at least some support for this!

So there are a few things to respond to from two different people, so I'll just tackle them in whatever order I think is most important.

First, I want to correct a false notion of what imbalance is.

I've read now numerous ways for OL's to negate, mitigate, rein in, and whatever else you want to call it, to use against the TH. Everything from using particular plot decks, OL decks, deploying certain minions and etc. You do understand the TH is not doing this alone, there are 3 other heroes the OL must also contend with. However it seems that your focus is so on him that all those things you mentioned are with the TH in mind and not anyone else. As somebody else has stated in this thread if all of this is needed for 1 hero there is an imbalance. Other classes get certain things used against them for a particular reason but no class needs that amount of attention to negate such as the TH.

That is not what imbalance is. You are arguing that because a unit of set X (one class out of the set of all classes) is better than the others in that set, that it must therefore be imbalanced. This is wrong. This is a game of 4 classes working together in order to defeat the overlord, so the overlord needs to address all 4 classes at once and the totality of what the heroes can do, and he has the totality of options at his fingertips to deal with it. In this context, the Treasure Hunter is not hard to deal with. The responses to the other heroes is not neglected, but it's not referenced because the response to other heroes is baked into the response to the Treasure Hunter (in part) and is separate. For example, to counter the Runemaster, you mostly need to make good monster selection and have good movement and positioning on the map. That's useful against the Treasure Hunter as well, but isn't an outright direct or hard counter the same way the right Overlord cards are. I also can't just tell you "control your monsters better" very effectively, or choose better monster groups, although you probably need to, if the treasure hunter employing melee weapons is killing all of your stuff and finding time to grab search tokens.

You counter specific healers by choosing how your attacks are applied, or by targeting fatigue generation (targeting fatigue generation is specifically good in general, but better or worse against certain hero compositions). For example, the bard is countered with focus fire, whereas the disciple is better dealt with by spreading the damage out. They can also be neutralized by forcing the party to split up (unless it's the phophet). The warrior is a class that you counter directly with good monster selection and movement.

The reason you want to specifically target the treasure hunter with these cards is that the heroes are making a very specific strategical statement when they choose a composition which includes the treasure hunter. They are saying that they are going to attempt to early snowball as hard as possible because the Treasure Hunter is at his highest overall power compared to the overlord rather early in Act 1, something that is not true for any other class in the game. They want to leverage that advantage early for some easy wins fast (in which case all you have to do is harass and focus on denying treasure), or to just improve efficiency of their losses (which is still a loss in the long run in the making).

You target the treasure hunter with these counters (overlord cards, plot deck, etc.) because it is the most important part of their strategic choice when he's on the field. You also, coincidentally, often target the scout with these choices when it's not the treasure hunter anyway.

So, let's step back and talk strategy for a moment: The Heroes have a few resources available to them every round: health, stamina, and actions. Their tools (skills, hero abilities and heroic feats) provide options for the expenditure of these, but the reality is that it comes down to having a finite amount of stamina and actions for actually doing things. This game, for the heroes, is primarily about action economy. You want to get as much done as possible for the fewest amount of actions. The Treasure Hunter is worse at this than most other scouts, because the class offers pretty much nothing for doing that, other than the starting accessory (dead man's compass IIRC, which gets replaced reasonably quick because you can only have 2 accessories). The Thief, for example, can search from 3 spaces away, which means they can more efficiently get there to do the search: they save 4 movement points (2 to move in, 2 to move back out). The reason the treasure hunter is better as a ranged character is that they need the extra action economy offered by being ranged: Having to move into melee to attack and back out costs a lot of movement points. Logan Lashley in particular is a spectacular treasure hunter because his hero ability is pretty much the only way to help out with that, as is his heroic feat, but even he still suffers from it.

As the overlord, your job is to screw with the efficiency of hero actions. You can do this in a variety of ways: knocking them down, making monsters survive additional attacks, wasting hero movement, conditions, etc. Proper use of overlord cards, monster movement and positioning is key to accomplish this, and the treasure hunter, even as Logan Lashley, is pretty much the worst scout at maximizing action efficiency on the map. This makes him more susceptible to specific counters than other heroes, which is another reason to target him. A well timed Imploding Rift can flat out ruin his entire day, as can a well timed mimic card (I've lost track of the amount of times the extra volucrux reaver out of nowhere got a knockdown or just plain ran away with their treasure to the corner of the map).

The Treasure Hunter isn't really any different from other scouts in the way you deal with him. You want to use your overlord cards to deny treasure anyway, it's just that the Treasure Hunter is less efficient in his actions, but more rewarding when they are accomplished, so you have to punish the less efficient part. Logan Lashley can be annoying because he's immune to immobilize and gets bonus movement, but that's not the Treasure Hunter: that's Logan Lashley, and I don't think it's broken.

I find the Wildlander to be much more difficult to compensate for over the course of a campaign than the Treasure Hunter. The same is true for the Marshall class: the two directly attack your overlord cards and force a complete rework of strategy. The Treasure Hunter just requires that you double down on something you were going to do anyway.

I write strategy articles on another website for a different game (Starcraft 2), and there are certain trends that are common. One of them is players who are facing a challenge they aren't sure how to deal with that requires a significnat adjustment from what they feel comfortable doing. This isn't an indicator of balance, but they don't know what to do about it, so they lose. A lot. And that's frustrating, I completely understand, but the problem isn't in the class, it's in the way you approach dealing with it. It's often much easier to blame the balance of something than it is to step back and completely change how you look at the game to find an answer.

If what determines if a character is OP is how often the OL wins, then in our group should be banning most of the characters and class because as it stands now, the cumulative OL wins (more than one OL player) are less than 50% of the played quests.

So the Bard, the Shadow walker, the Treasure Hunter, the Knight, The Apothecary, the Rune Master, the Geomancer should all be banned, because the OL was unable to generate 50% wins against them...

When I played in a party with a Treasure Hunter (I remember it well), the healer had to work harder because no one else was getting potions. The other players had to rest more often, because they had no potions and I remember at least one time where the treasure hunter raced off to get treasure and the two cards he could draw were the treasure room and the blank. When he stepped itno the treasure room, he got trounced because he was alone (in Mid act 1).

So, for myself, I don't see the TH as overpowered. It's situational.

And as far as banning cards go, have you asked your hero players what cards they want to ban? They may feel some of the OL cards are OP and need banning too.

Alarmed.......

You realize that if you are using secret rooms the blank card comes out of the search deck. You should never draw a blank card from the search deck if secret rooms are incorporated into your campaign.

(pg.4 Expansion Setup, The Trollfens Rules and Quest Guide)

Whitewing......

"I don't think it's broken".

Well you didn't say "it's not broken" and inferred at least that it's just your opinion just as I politely disagree with you and infer that the TH is overpowered. If I was the lone voice of dissent on this topic I could maybe see your line of thought, but others have expressed the same opinion as me on this subject so some validity to it is there. Hell this isn't even my thread, I just shared my sentiment with the original poster and now I'm finding myself in a debate.

I was about to go step by step on why you are wrong about the TH not being an effective melee class and stopped myself, for the same reason that I know even after I do this you will say otherwise which would make me question my sanity for entering such a circular non-ending argument.