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.

I was going to reply to @Reno Shiv and others that continue to feel so strongly about the TH, and what they perceive as "balance". Now I don't have to. Very well stated Whitewing.

I have the feeling that some of us are simply going to have to agree to disagree, as I believe that no amount of cogent arguments and/or strategic tips are going to make a difference.

I have to agree with Whitewing on this overall and any2cards on this.

Personally i feel that the treasure hunter is very powerful as a class, arguably the best scout class as many agree, but there are appropriate counters and picks available to the overlord to counter it.

If people feel that these choices are not comfortable for them or make it to much rock-paper-scissors then i think that you need to slightly reevaluate how strategies and counters work and what 'balance' is.

Which is what i had to do in my early descent days when in response to my ever trusty web trap my hero players promptly picked much stronger (might) heroes for the next campaign, suddenly i couldn't reliably stop key moves and couldn't punish huddling moves with anything like the impunity of the previous campaign.

I got spectacularly trounced for 2 quests until i got my self to start picking new monster options and overlord cards to compensate for the other failings that the heroes had. (still got soundly beaten by the end of the campaign though)

Arguable balance issues are there for every class. I still feel that on overall examination Rune master and Knight are still top of the pile in their respective classes by some distance but calls for nerfs or adjustments to some of (to me eye) the most simple but bonkers skills never crop up.

Exploding rune for 1 xp? Sure why not. Oath of honor is a bonkers starting skill with some prior planning.

In almost every game there are combinations of characters/powers/abilities that are very hard to deal with as an opponent unless you adapt. I see it as a challenge and I still get fun out of it, especially when it rewards my choices.

I play against a TH currently in a campaign. I tailored my choices given that fact, but so do I against any class or hero present. I still feel like there is room left for other cards, monsters or choices in general. Any class or hero can be uber if properly geared up so I´m trying not to focus on one hero at a time.

The Thief I played against last time was really annoying in comparison.

For the record, I don't really like heroes/monsters ranking in general, and how certain classes are automatically dismissed for some very subjective skill comparisons. I find that every class and hero in the game are worth playing, and as the OL I never let a monster card in the box when picking my options as every monster in the game fills its little role. As far as monsters go, there will always be some that I really enjoy and that my heroes will see in many encounters, but surprising them with something new can turn something in my favor from a psychological perspective. You would be amazed how this can freeze players' actions just by fear of the unknown (I chose that monster for a reason, we need to find why, maybe it's a trap - kind of reason).

As far as classes go, effectiveness can not be measured unless you take the whole game into account with all of its possibilities, so aside comparing odds at rolling dices I don't really see how people can compare these, like at all. Or yeah, you´ve played twice against a Thief and the dude wasn't even remotely a threat, therefore the class sucks balls. I would assume that's not the kind of reason people draw their conclusions from though, but you never know.

TH in particular can draw a ton of useful gear, or it can draw nothing. So you have that factor in the equation which you can't really qualify. That extra move point upon being 3 spaces from a search token is a huge deal, but the Thief's ability to crack one up 3 spaces away is another, so yeah you can compare all you want but each situation is unique and there is no straight answer to which one of the two is best. It's different.

Some classes maybe have skills that are generically good, eg they work in all situations. The Disciple comes to mind as a good generic healer class. As opposed to some other hero classes which offer a more specialized approach and are therefore less relevant generally speaking in a subset of the game situations. Still, they shine at what they do so it's just a matter of playing the class to trigger these situations. It's a bit like if you give the Disciple to a total newbie to the game, it will probably still perform reasonably well. Give a specialized class like the Spiritspeaker instead and the outcome is probably less predictable. It needs to be played the way the class is supposed to be played, and considering its potential synergies with other hero settings.

TH in particular can draw a ton of useful gear, or it can draw nothing. So you have that factor in the equation which you can't really qualify. That extra move point upon being 3 spaces from a search token is a huge deal, but the Thief's ability to crack one up 3 spaces away is another, so yeah you can compare all you want but each situation is unique and there is no straight answer to which one of the two is best. It's different.

For comparison, for one action and two 1 XP skills, (faithful friend, dark servant) the shadow walker can search a token up to 6 squares away, even behind a portcullis or elevation or "foliage" (I forget what it's called). For added fun, use a bow with lots of range and use the same skill in combination with the shadow walker's starting skill (soul bound, dark servant) to make an attack, place a shadow soul and search a token within 3 of the shadow soul at whatever range your attack resolved.

Edit to add:

For even more fun, consider these scenarios:

-Use Tinashi or Tomble's heroic feat to "teleport" before making your attack.

-Use Jain Fairwood's heroic feat to move double her speed, then make your attack for a search at 14 (double move+3 from Shadow sould placed adajacent to your target) squares+ attack range

-Use Lindel's Heroic feat to gain max range/never miss your attack to place your shadow soul, then search.

-Use Tetherys' heroic feat to attack 3 targets, and place your shadow soul next to any one of them

Since it's a tread about thief I have a question about his basic skill "Greedy". It says "Search a search token within 3 spaces from you". So what is this 3 spaces anyway? Can you count through blocked terrain? Pits? Elevation? Gates? Same question about changelingers/bagrest abilities.

Since it's a tread about thief I have a question about his basic skill "Greedy". It says "Search a search token within 3 spaces from you". So what is this 3 spaces anyway? Can you count through blocked terrain? Pits? Elevation? Gates? Same question about changelingers/bagrest abilities.

Counting spaces.

You can "count spaces" any time you have a chain of uninterrupted adjacent spaces. It does not matter whether those spaces are occupied by figures or other things. Also, any non-obstacle terrain does not matter, either.

-You cannot count through obstacle terrain (blocked spaces.)

-You cannot count through closed doors (because the spaces on the other side are not adjacent.)

-You cannot count through the black edges of map tiles (obviously, those edges are always impassible.)

So, you start with your space, and count spaces toward where you are going, including the space you are counting to. Any space adjacent to you is "1 space away." A space next to that is "2 spaces away."

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.

For the record, your argument boils down to a common logical fallacy: the bandwagon fallacy, or argumentum ad populum. Simply because a lot of people agree with you does not make your opinion more valid in any way.

The Treasure Hunter can be effective in melee, but to do so makes his searching less efficient because it forces more movement points out of him. It's a trade off: other scouts can do a variety of things better than the Treasure Hunter, and pretty much every warrior class is a more effective melee combatant. It's a trade off, and one that works fairly well, but not overpowered or game breaking.

At any rate, the only reason I continue to bring it up despite the fact that you've bowed out (and feel free to not respond) is that it's something a lot of other people think, and I bring up the arguments for their benefit, not specifically yours. It's a board game and you can houserule it any way you and the other people you play with agree to houserule it, and do whatever is most fun for you.

@ Whitewing

In regards to making a argument more valid,it does if those people are making logical arguments either in favor for or against what it is being argued/debated about. Just someone saying "I agree" or "disagree" doesn't make it more valid, but when other people weigh in and express their own logical argument that coincides or even adds to what you have already said, it does.

I would say that some of the arguments others have shared in this thread vocalizing their concern that the TH is indeed unbalanced or overpowered fits that criteria and it goes for those that share your opinion as well.

I can't speak for the posters on this thread that share the same consensus that I do on this topic, but I haven't been won over by the arguments on this thread. Just as you and I'm sure others like you haven't been either.

You can disagree all you want but in this instance you are no more right on the subject than I am. The only way for that to happen is to show some irrefutable evidence and I haven't seen anything in this thread but conjecture.

@ all those keeping TH in the game.

Is there any other valid strategy when playing with the TH than getting as many search tokens as quickly as possible? Because for me this seems to be a must and I expect that to get boring pretty fast.

@ all those keeping TH in the game.

Is there any other valid strategy when playing with the TH than getting as many search tokens as quickly as possible? Because for me this seems to be a must and I expect that to get boring pretty fast.

Absolutely there is, but it won't make use of most of the TH's skills. Almost every one of his skill cards revolve around performing search actions, or receiving benefits for having had performed search actions. If you're not interested in focusing on treasure , it doesn't really make sense to play as the treasure hunter .

@ all those keeping TH in the game.

Is there any other valid strategy when playing with the TH than getting as many search tokens as quickly as possible? Because for me this seems to be a must and I expect that to get boring pretty fast.

Absolutely there is, but it won't make use of most of the TH's skills. Almost every one of his skill cards revolve around performing search actions, or receiving benefits for having had performed search actions. If you're not interested in focusing on treasure , it doesn't really make sense to play as the treasure hunter .

Okay I'm just asking, because the reason I'm banning the TH is exactly that. Quests become meaningless hunts for treasures EVERYTIME. Not going for treasures basically eliminates one of your heroes, so not concentrating on treasures seems a no go. There is no even remotly hard decision about going for treasures or not. Instead of one of my favorite parts about this game "The high variety of every encounter" I get the same old "get treasures or lose". I'm expecting heroes to rush treasures and if they don't succeed they will throw the game leaving everyone with a boring and unfun expirience.

I don't see why this should turn out differently and therefore think banning the TH enhances the game for everyone.

Okay I'm just asking, because the reason I'm banning the TH is exactly that. Quests become meaningless hunts for treasures EVERYTIME. Not going for treasures basically eliminates one of your heroes, so not concentrating on treasures seems a no go. There is no even remotly hard decision about going for treasures or not. Instead of one of my favorite parts about this game "The high variety of every encounter" I get the same old "get treasures or lose". I'm expecting heroes to rush treasures and if they don't succeed they will throw the game leaving everyone with a boring and unfun expirience.

I don't see why this should turn out differently and therefore think banning the TH enhances the game for everyone.

Whenever I play against the TH, I do see the party put the burden of dealing with search tokens on their shoulders. This makes sense because they make treasures far more valuable than they were before by swinging the cost/benefit of search tokens dramatically in the party's favor. This is my beef with the class, as this is too powerful at the moment.

However, there isn't always an opportunity to search for tokens, so it is not like the TH is doing nothing else. As Whitewing has pointed out, they are a competent Warrior even without Search Tokens due to Delver and Sleight of Hand. Also note that the Compass is also useful for general movement within the proximity of a Search Token, not just to get closer to the search token, so I disagree that it is a trinket that will get tossed out of use quickly. I find it helpful throughout the campaign.

Have you considered the '2 stamina per Delver search' idea that I put out there instead of banning the class? I think that might be enough to fix it. If the Overlord is putting on enough pressure, there will be times when the party simply can't afford to let the TH rest and will just search the normal way or skip tokens entirely.

@ Whitewing

In regards to making a argument more valid,it does if those people are making logical arguments either in favor for or against what it is being argued/debated about. Just someone saying "I agree" or "disagree" doesn't make it more valid, but when other people weigh in and express their own logical argument that coincides or even adds to what you have already said, it does.

I would say that some of the arguments others have shared in this thread vocalizing their concern that the TH is indeed unbalanced or overpowered fits that criteria and it goes for those that share your opinion as well.

I can't speak for the posters on this thread that share the same consensus that I do on this topic, but I haven't been won over by the arguments on this thread. Just as you and I'm sure others like you haven't been either.

You can disagree all you want but in this instance you are no more right on the subject than I am. The only way for that to happen is to show some irrefutable evidence and I haven't seen anything in this thread but conjecture.

That bit about irrefutable evidence is also a fallacy. Just because one cannot conclusively prove 100% that something is true does not make all opinions about it equally valid.

Gravity is a theory for a reason: nothing in science is 100% proven and guaranteed. That doesn't mean we must accept that there is an equal chance that we're all held down to the ground by magic.

Claiming you need irrefutable evidence is another way of saying "my mind is made up and will never change" because it is logically impossible to prove a negative. You made a positive claim: "The Treasure Hunter is Overpowered". It is, by definition, impossible to prove the negative of that statement: you can always add additional conditionals or statements, and it's an exercise in futility. That's why the concept of burden of proof exists: the burden of proof is always on the positive claimant.

That is what we call close-mindedness. You are free to have the opinion that the Treasure Hunter is overpowered, but to claim that your opinion is equally valid simply because I can't absolutely prove it false is nonsensical. Much like you can't prove there aren't flying invisible unicorns stalking you or a magic teapot halfway between the Earth and Mars. Opinions are not equally valid simply by virtue of being opinions. Nobody is forcing your opinion to change, but what you are arguing is a fallacy known as false equivalency.

Yeah- I do not support class banning, and definitely not because the TH hunts treasure. You might as well ban the disciple because "the only viable strategy is to invest in prayer of healing."

@Whitewing

LOL....seriously? Your example using gravity is a joke and you really need to quit trying so hard to one up me. Gravity is a theory you are correct, but I think you need to brush up on what you think the definition of theory is before applying it to a sentence much like your misunderstanding of validity.

At the risk of sounding pompous a lot of people such as yourself fail to realize that "Theory" has more than one meaning and because of my passion in evolutionary science I've had to defend what the word theory actually means.

A scientific theory (such as gravity or evolution) summarizes a hypothesis which has been supported by repeated testing by the scientific community. If after repeated testing enough evidence is gathered to support that hypothesis it becomes known as a "THEORY" and thus becomes accepted as a valid explanation. This doesn't mean it's the end result, theories can become improved or even rejected if after time science can prove that theory wrong. There are even times when a theory can become a scientific law, which takes on a whole new embodiment. FYI gravity encompasses both.

When "theory" is used in a nonscientific context the word theory implies that something is unproven or speculative. Your above statement is implying that "gravity" is unproven and to that you are wrong. Careful and rational scientific examination of the facts has indeed determined otherwise.

Your debate on this matter is pure speculation and the fact that you just drew a comparison to gravity being a theory is extremely laughable.

Maybe the word I used "irrefutable" was misplaced and shouldn't have been used but everything you have used in your argument regarding the original topic has been nothing but conjecture. Thus is the reason why I said your opinion is no more valid than mine, because you have offered no evidence that can support it. You say it's impossible to prove that negative statement I'd argue otherwise.

Math could easily support both sides of this debate but it would take a ton of number crunching and statistical data that I'm sure nobody here is willing to endure. Until you produce something more than a biased opinion of what in your mind is right this debate will continue to be akin to two people arguing who has the better sports team. You don't like my opinion on it? Oh well I don't like yours neither.

If this sounds nasty sorry, but you are dangerously flirting in the realm of being insulting and I take offense to that. Your constant and often wrong dissection of vocabulary and my need to explain things to you that are off topic is both irksome and tiresome. I forget sometimes this a forum and that people don't usually have decorum.

Here it comes.................

I'm very well aware of the scientific definition of a theory. It's called a theory, rather than a fact, specifically because it's been confirmed through testing, and can occasionally be overturned. For example, Newton's theory of gravity was overturned by Einstein's relativity. Don't waive your education in my face as if I don't know, I have a degree in astrophysics. A theory is the highest status any hypothesis can attain, but we acknowledge that although it can be treated as though fact until we do better, we cannot 100% guarantee that it is completely true. And plenty of other examples abound: we know Einstein's theory of relativity cannot be completely correct because it fails to account for quantum mechanics. It works exceptionally well, but it's imcomplete.

My example was exactly to demonstrate that there are things that are accepted as fact because of testable evidence that still have no 100% irrefutable evidence. We use the word theory exactly for that reason in science. I was using it exactly in the scientific manner, and your kneejerk reaction to seeing the word rather than comprehending the message caused you to miss the point: there is no such thing as irrefutable evidence.

As for proving a negative: that's why we have a burden of proof as a concept. Proving a negative is impossible, every time you try, there's another condition or explanation that can be offered to excuse it. We have a burden of proof on the claimant for a reason.

And again, your argument is based on false equivalency. I never said your opinion was necessarily wrong: I said that claiming that it must be equally valid just because it's your opinion is bollocks. My opinion as someone who has studied game theory, who has played this game extensively, and who writes strategy articles for major gaming websites is that it is not overpowered, and I've attempted to explain why. You may be correct, although I find it unlikely, but the notion that our opinions are equally valid by virtue of being only opinion is wrong. They may be equal for other reasons, but your arguments about balance have been poor at best.

My responses are not 'pure speculation', nor does it matter even if they were. You have the burden of proof as the claimant. I'm done with this conversation, you're clearly hostile and I'm not going to continue feeding into this further. I've responded to all of your claims with reasoned responses for why the class is fair and not imbalanced, what its weaknesses and inefficiencies are and how to punish and deal with it. If you would like to continue disagreeing, feel free to do so, but you may have the last word, I will not respond to this discussion further. Best of luck in your games, and feel free to employ whatever houserules you and your players agree to.

@ Whitewing

In regards to making a argument more valid,it does if those people are making logical arguments either in favor for or against what it is being argued/debated about. Just someone saying "I agree" or "disagree" doesn't make it more valid, but when other people weigh in and express their own logical argument that coincides or even adds to what you have already said, it does.

I would say that some of the arguments others have shared in this thread vocalizing their concern that the TH is indeed unbalanced or overpowered fits that criteria and it goes for those that share your opinion as well.

I can't speak for the posters on this thread that share the same consensus that I do on this topic, but I haven't been won over by the arguments on this thread. Just as you and I'm sure others like you haven't been either.

You can disagree all you want but in this instance you are no more right on the subject than I am. The only way for that to happen is to show some irrefutable evidence and I haven't seen anything in this thread but conjecture.

That bit about irrefutable evidence is also a fallacy. Just because one cannot conclusively prove 100% that something is true does not make all opinions about it equally valid.

Gravity is a theory for a reason: nothing in science is 100% proven and guaranteed. That doesn't mean we must accept that there is an equal chance that we're all held down to the ground by magic.

Claiming you need irrefutable evidence is another way of saying "my mind is made up and will never change" because it is logically impossible to prove a negative. You made a positive claim: "The Treasure Hunter is Overpowered". It is, by definition, impossible to prove the negative of that statement: you can always add additional conditionals or statements, and it's an exercise in futility. That's why the concept of burden of proof exists: the burden of proof is always on the positive claimant.

That is what we call close-mindedness. You are free to have the opinion that the Treasure Hunter is overpowered, but to claim that your opinion is equally valid simply because I can't absolutely prove it false is nonsensical. Much like you can't prove there aren't flying invisible unicorns stalking you or a magic teapot halfway between the Earth and Mars. Opinions are not equally valid simply by virtue of being opinions. Nobody is forcing your opinion to change, but what you are arguing is a fallacy known as false equivalency.

@ all those keeping TH in the game.

Is there any other valid strategy when playing with the TH than getting as many search tokens as quickly as possible? Because for me this seems to be a must and I expect that to get boring pretty fast.

As was already answered by Zaltyre, yes, but there's really no point to it. If you don't want to be doing that, play a different scout class. Every class in the game has a playstyle in mind when it's created and skills that aim to accomplish that. Doing something the class isn't suited to with it is rather silly when you could just play a different class.

I would never ban a class because of the playstyle, the heroes should be allowed to play the way they want to, and if they want to hunt all the treasure, fine, I'll play for the win and to delay them, and we'll see who performs better in the long run. They'll get treasure, and I'll get relics. They'll have to try for a win sometime, or else I'll keep picking quests with low amounts of treasure that are hard to get.

I find it fairly common that I can deny treasure as they hunt it by careful use of monsters and overlord cards. If you're up against a Treasure Hunter, use basic deck 2: the mimic card is hilariously useful against them. It's great fun to turn a search token into a volucrux reaver and then have the reaver run away from the treasure hunter, forcing them to chase it all the way around the map or abandon it.

As it stands, I think focusing exclusively on treasure with a treasure hunter is one of the weaker ways to play the game overall, as the act of hunting tokens to all else forfeits too much of an advantage to the overlord in exchange for little gain. By the time you have access to all the cards you want from act 1, those cards are already obsolete. I get a lot of bonus threat from winning quests and getting some good relics for my lieutenants can make winning the important quests exceedingly difficult, and hunting treasure to the exclusion of all else is a good way to be in a lousy situation. It works better in Shadow Rune when the rewards system isn't set up well, but in other campaigns, rewards often provide bonus gold to the heroes for winning.

The Treasure Hunter is best used, in my opinion, to improve the efficiency of strategies which don't pursue all treasures on the field. Because treasure grabbing is more efficient with them (you get more optimal results), you can spend fewer actions and less time going out of your way to get similar monetary rewards while using the Treasure Hunter as a backup fighter.

Remember: the biggest weakness of the Treasure Hunter is it's lack of action efficiency compared to other scouts. It therefore wants to spend the least amount of time moving as possible to maximize the efficiency of its abilities. Chasing treasure around every corner of the map is not a good plan, but grabbing the two easy to get ones and mauling enemies through the shortest completion route is a great plan.

I said before that a TH could make for an interesting game if the hero party are experts in this game. If they are not, they probably won't know right away the impact the TH has on the quest-structure (meaning it gets extremely hard to not focus on treasures in the beginning of each quest). When I ban heroes I don't hide them from daylight and don't mention them ever again, I approach my gaming group and tell them why I don't like playing with this class and how it imo makes the quests very stale, as every quest basically turns into a monotonous treasure hunt that has a very big effect on the outcome. If my fellow gamers don't agree with me on the subject of course I won't deny them the class, but most of the time they see my point and agree not to choose him.

Yeah- I do not support class banning, and definitely not because the TH hunts treasure. You might as well ban the disciple because "the only viable strategy is to invest in prayer of healing."

I really don't try to promote class banning as a thing and I don't promote banning every class that isn't perfectly balanced. Furthermore I don't ban the TH, because I think he is too strong. I ban the TH class, because imo it undermines one of the core principles of the game that is one of my favourite things about it: Every quest feels and plays different and has a very personal touch expressed within its special rules.

No other class does this and certainly not the Disciple. No matter which classes you pick, you always try to further your objective and respond to the characteristics of each quest. The TH, the other heroes and the OL doesn't even have to look at the name of the quest to know the strategy of the heroes: Grab as many search tokens as quickly as possible.

Prayer of healing doesn't interfere with the uniqueness and variety of the quests, the TH does.

Maybe it's interesting to play a campaign with the TH once everyone has at least played 3 or more campaigns, but I really mind seeing him as a sort of standard pick in most campaigns (something I don't mind with any other class).

on the whole theory topic:

I know this is kind of an emotional topic with creationsim still being a thing and I hope you guys don't get emotionally invested in this discussion, because of all the political implications the meaning of this term seems to have.

From a philosophical perspective a theory is a reasoned explaination of the causality of phenomena that claims correspondence with the real world. It is structured by logical conclusions which rightness can be retraced by everyone who understands logical reasoning. It consists of symbols that stand for phenomena which claim to grasp the real world accuratly.

If you try to get to a theory through induction and I guess this applies in this case, you are challanged by the task to pick empirical data that is representative of the real world. Therefore profound theories often describe very simple causalities consisting of an easily and clearly reproducable causation. From this point on you can theorize about more complex causalities by combining these basic theories in a way that is logically feasable and empirically sound.

So in this case it is very reasonable to doubt the representative qualities of your data and seeing how this game is a highly social phenomena claiming his own expiriences as representative to even use them in something they want to treat as a theory is kind of ridicolous. Sorry.

Even if you try to extrapolate your theory from the sole mechanics of this game, the quite apparant luck factor won't allow you to have representative data that would be usefull to form a theory. Of course you could start with probabilities, but even then a series of lucky events could always appear and totally change how the whole campaign plays out.

But in any case I think no-one in this thread really uses this meaning of theory and if they do, well they should care about those nearly impossible things I discribed above and argue the representative qualities of their data.

I think we all more or less present hypotheses in this thread and discuss them, because we seem to have an urge to form a theory and well, you can't be sure about this without discussion about the representive qualities of your data and the rightness of your logical conclusions.

no hard feelings

have fun!

DAMaz, I understand your decision, but I disagree with your assessment- it may just be the dynamics of my group. Securing search tokens above all else is the primary goal of the hero parties i face, TH or not. The only times that strategy changes is if a big quest reward (usually gear) is on the line. It is not the fault of the class that it plays off a core mechanic of the game.

I have no problem with the fact some people somewhere would want to keep some abilities or characters out of the game as it destroys their experience of the game. I think that's a shame, because I don't feel like it would be required, but if it helps them solving a problem then why the hell not.

Game groups are different, and what I find strategically interesting, including how I see abilities and mechanisms in this game is probably just one man's opinion about the thing. I can think of some friends feeling the same way as the OP about certain combinations of cards and powers in various games and the fact I don't feel stressed by the challenge (increased difficulty) doesn't mean they don't. I personally like to play games in the hardest difficulty settings and I don't mind losing as long as I was able to take some risks and get some choices. I don't think it makes me a better OL in any way, but my tolerance level is quite high towards these so-called overpowered abilities. Especially when these things heavily depend on playgroup mind set, and so many in-game factors. My point being that I´m sure there are playgroups around here that have exactly zero issue with the TH as a class.

This said, as long as the players know what they´re dealing with, why not letting them play what they want. I´m the first one to pick a MTG deck winning on turn 2 if I previously told my group this is the kind of game we´d have this time. If they declined, I´d take another deck. Tell the TH player that if he picks the class again then you´ll play the Raythen deck. Better than picking a randomly bad plot deck if you ask me. To each measure its counter measure. You can still pick pink unicorns as your open groups and play any OL-class you want. You can't sit reactively, just looking at what gear the TH managed to gather, you just need to think "ah well" and run for your own objectives as your primary task.

My best advice against the TH is to simply interact with him with OL cards only. Keep monsters out of his sight, until he's alone somewhere on the map. Then strike hard. It doesn't matter how much damage he can output if he's dead. To do that, pick shooters and hide them in the corridors leading to these search tokens. He has the choice between keeping up with the group and not search, or taking the risk and get exposed to your monsters.

Everything in this game is a trade-off. Heroes need the full team to achieve their goals. They are vulnerable if they split up in an uncontrolled way. If they want to dedicate somebody to do the treasure hunting (whether it's the TH or not) then let them. In some cases it will add great value to the team, sometimes it won't.

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.

<<How? Simple. With the Airborne and Contaminated cards in play,>> And what happens when both of these caeds are in the bottom half of your deck.?

In that case, the OL is out of luck. Just because it's not a 100% guaranteed, doesn't make it a poor counter strategy. The OL also has options for digging through his deck- primarily, the Universal cards such as Schemes and Refresh.

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.

I just started a new campaign as the overlord with the trollfens expansion and I'm trying out the infector class so I'm excited to hear this we've only done the intro, which I won mainly because the heroes rolled 5 misses in a row (!) when my goblin was 1 turn away from the exit, and Oath of the Outcast which I also won albeit narrowly. I've only bought the Contaminated card so I haven't gotten rolling with the class yet but reading what you had to say about it has me looking forward to getting into the meat of this campaign. One of our players is playing Tarha as a hexer so it'll be extra nice to be be able to compete token for token with her

for the sake of variety in the campaigns we play, i've decided to make a rule that no class can be used two campaigns in a row. i haven't decided whether that should apply to heroes or not (i'm leaning toward not) but that's how i've attempted to mitigate the ultra powerful treasure hunter. i'm hoping it allows my hero players the chance to try out stuff that they might not normally pick up.

Many things have been said, all true.

Treasure hunter is not unbeatable neither autowin. Any overlord have many ways to counter him.

But anyway a class that can get +3dmg to all atacks for free plus playing with search deck with only 2xp is a little OP