Very true. I have not actually played this quest- if never gets chosen.

Very true. I have not actually played this quest- if never gets chosen.

I know we didn't choose it, because we didn't have the cash to buy the items we wanted, unless we got enough search token during a quest.

So the first part of the quest would have made it impossible for us to purchase the item we 'won", resulting in a non-victory for the heroes.

Wait... are you sure heroes have to pay for that Shop Item? For me, with the Spanish translation it is not clear... Can someone post the reward text in English, please?

".. and during the next Shopping step, may purchase the Shop Item card chosen if they won Encounter 1."

Wow, that was fast. And is very clear, yep. Thanks, I'll comment on those forums, to see if it was just me, or if it actually isn't clear.

Thanks a lot.

No problem I just happened to have the SoN rulebook right next to me.

*sigh* I need Shadows of Nerkenhall.

*sigh* I need Shadows of Nerkenhall.

It's really a very, very good expansion. I only recommend Labyrinth of Ruin over it because Ruin has Basic 2.

As you know, I have Labyrinth. Though maybe a second campaign going the Raythen route would be nice. Regardless, Nerkenhall is on my X-mas list. My only concern is since I mainly solo play, is if I'll be able to go through it objectively since I'll know all the secrets.

That is a legitmimate concern- part of the fun of Nerekhall is the influence mechanic, and that really can make a difference. Knowing the influence as the heroes is not ideal, not knowing it as the OL is a terrible idea.

Well I'm good at pretending not to know. That is if the heroes didn't know would they logically choose to do something that in secret the OL does know about. Of course I've never READ the Nerkenhall quests of the Influence mechanics.

I think my next real purchase might be Heirs of Blood anyway.

Does anybody know why XP is so scarce in the Shadow of Nerekhall campaign? Only Lost and Nightmares grant the heroes additional XP, and because of the rules, only one of them can be played, and only before the Finale. The OL fares a bit better, winning Rat-Thing King, Respected Citizen, the Interlude, Arise my Friends, and Into the Dark will get them 4 extra XPs.

In contrast, in the Shadow Rune campaign, the heroes can accumulate up to 3 extra XPs ( compared to 1 in SoN)by winning The Frozen Spire, Blood of Heroes/Twin Idols and The Wyrm turns. Likewise, the OL can gather 6 extra XPs by winning just these 3 quests (as opposed to getting 4 XPs for winning 5 quests in SoN)

I rather think of "The Shadow Rune" of having an unusually LARGE amount of XP, not Nerekhall being scarce. Plan your hero builds on 8XP- Any extra is just a bonus. On the other side, Labyrinth of Ruin is absolutely rich with OL XP. I think the last time we played that, the OL ended up with 6 or 7 bonus XP.

I rather think of "The Shadow Rune" of having an unusually LARGE amount of XP, not Nerekhall being scarce. Plan your hero builds on 8XP- Any extra is just a bonus. On the other side, Labyrinth of Ruin is absolutely rich with OL XP. I think the last time we played that, the OL ended up with 6 or 7 bonus XP.

Fortunately for the heroes, overlord XP is significantly less valuable than hero XP.

The design team toned down the XP earnings from the base game to the expansion, and I was wondering why they did that. Was it because of feedback that found the extra XP a bit OP (for the heroes it can truly bring a huge momentum swing), or was it for thematic reasons? Or maybe something else?

The design team toned down the XP earnings from the base game to the expansion, and I was wondering why they did that. Was it because of feedback that found the extra XP a bit OP (for the heroes it can truly bring a huge momentum swing), or was it for thematic reasons? Or maybe something else?

Balance concerns. Hero XP is obscenely powerful and the most important thing, even more vital than gold and items. On the other hand, Overlord XP is fairly weak.

Consider: abilities like Danger Sense, Explosive Rune, Advance, etc. are all a mere 1 xp. All of these are game changing abilities for the heroes. What does the overlord do with 1 extra XP? Well, they might buy a web trap, which then gets mixed into a deck of at least 14 other cards (12 others if you're playing Baron Zachareth and spend threat on it), and is a random draw.

Generally speaking, bonus overlord xp is comparable to gold, and there's nothing the overlord can really gain typically that matches in value to hero xp.

I happen to think it's okay for certain quests to have imbalanced rewards, so long as they aren't mandatory quests and require players to choose it (thus rewarding players for winning the previous quest and forcing it), or as a reward for a quest that's very difficult, but hero XP is pretty high up there in the overpowered rewards.

hero XP is pretty high up there in the overpowered rewards.

I think we can all agree on this.

The design team toned down the XP earnings from the base game to the expansion, and I was wondering why they did that. Was it because of feedback that found the extra XP a bit OP (for the heroes it can truly bring a huge momentum swing), or was it for thematic reasons? Or maybe something else?

Balance concerns. Hero XP is obscenely powerful and the most important thing, even more vital than gold and items. On the other hand, Overlord XP is fairly weak.

Consider: abilities like Danger Sense, Explosive Rune, Advance, etc. are all a mere 1 xp. All of these are game changing abilities for the heroes. What does the overlord do with 1 extra XP? Well, they might buy a web trap, which then gets mixed into a deck of at least 14 other cards (12 others if you're playing Baron Zachareth and spend threat on it), and is a random draw.

I think it's fair to say that a few extra XP for the heroes change their capabilities by a great amount, to the point where it gets extremely difficult to balance quests and keep them interesting for heroes with and without the extra XP alike.

However let's not downplay the impact of OL XP.

You have to keep in mind that the OL will have less weak and more powerfull cards in his deck, the more OL cards he purchases. While the OL will begin with 1 powerfull card and 14 standard cards, once he has around 6 cards, he will have only 9 standardcards left, of which 3 to 4 are very powerfull to begin with, which means only 1/3 of his cards (or 1 card in his starting hand) is relativly weak.

So with each card the OL buys, his chance of drawing powerfull cards increases, so the powergrowth of OL XP is in some way exponential, whereas the hero XP powergrowth is more linear, because they are restricted by fatigue and can't use all their skills all the time.

The design team toned down the XP earnings from the base game to the expansion, and I was wondering why they did that. Was it because of feedback that found the extra XP a bit OP (for the heroes it can truly bring a huge momentum swing), or was it for thematic reasons? Or maybe something else?

Balance concerns. Hero XP is obscenely powerful and the most important thing, even more vital than gold and items. On the other hand, Overlord XP is fairly weak.

Consider: abilities like Danger Sense, Explosive Rune, Advance, etc. are all a mere 1 xp. All of these are game changing abilities for the heroes. What does the overlord do with 1 extra XP? Well, they might buy a web trap, which then gets mixed into a deck of at least 14 other cards (12 others if you're playing Baron Zachareth and spend threat on it), and is a random draw.

I think it's fair to say that a few extra XP for the heroes change their capabilities by a great amount, to the point where it gets extremely difficult to balance quests and keep them interesting for heroes with and without the extra XP alike.

However let's not downplay the impact of OL XP.

You have to keep in mind that the OL will have less weak and more powerfull cards in his deck, the more OL cards he purchases. While the OL will begin with 1 powerfull card and 14 standard cards, once he has around 6 cards, he will have only 9 standardcards left, of which 3 to 4 are very powerfull to begin with, which means only 1/3 of his cards (or 1 card in his starting hand) is relativly weak.

So with each card the OL buys, his chance of drawing powerfull cards increases, so the powergrowth of OL XP is in some way exponential, whereas the hero XP powergrowth is more linear, because they are restricted by fatigue and can't use all their skills all the time.

Every overlord card is powerful, even the weak ones. Experience is useful to the OL certainly, but it's not particularly impactful. Consider: I buy a really good card. I either replace an inferior card with it (in which case my experience is spent on exchanging one card of 15 for a better one) or I simply throw another one in my deck, which reduces the odds of getting any given card. Either way, it might be an improvement in quality of the overlord deck, but it's not a particularly large one. In Basic Deck 2, for example, I find myself wanting to keep the majority of the base cards. In Basic 1, the only ones I really want to get rid of are the poison darts (and maybe the pit trap) the rest are useful. Spending XP is therefore nothing more than small, incremental improvements on the deck, especially since you can't buy a level 3 without a level 2, and a level 2 without two level 1's.

I typically find that 1 XP is around the value of 3-4 threat, to give you a general estimate of it's value. To estimate vs. gold, I'd say it's around 75 gold worth of value, on average.

1 Hero XP I'd say is around the value of a really good relic, like the bones of woe.

As for your linear/exponential argument, I can't agree at all. Each purchase is a minor to moderate improvement because optimally, you replace an inferior card. Each point of XP is a pretty linear increase, and a small one. Hero XP can't be modeled in this way at all, because skill variety is vast. Many skills are passive and have no cost associated with their use. Others cost a lot of fatigue but are extremely powerful (Danger Sense, Army of Death, etc.) and can change the course of the game with a single use. Still, others change the way the game is played merely by having been purchased (Exploding Rune, Blessed Strike, Cripple), and others don't change much other than being a straight power boost (Sleight of Hand, Vampiric Blood). It's almost impossible to judge the power curve on those skills, other than being impressive. Add in the fact that each experience goes to all heroes, and you quickly find yourself facing a cohesive group with a much wider array of options and significantly more power every time the points go out.

Baron Zachareth is the best plot deck by far primarily because it significantly increases the value of overlord XP, by allowing you to easily draw additional overlord cards.

Imperial Assault did overlord XP much better IMO.

I would also point out that the progression curve between heroes and OL is very asymetric. While both sides can save up XP to get better cards later in the campaign, it is very rare in my experience that not a single hero chooses to spend XP between two quests. As Whitewing pointed out, there are so many excellent 1XP skill cards for all classes, so my hero players tend to farm those early in the campaign to speed up their progression and chance of success. The 2/3XP skills are generally obtained once these key 1XP skills have been cashed in. Furthermore, heroes get gold and again it is quite uncommon that no purchase is made between two quests. My point being that the heroes can consistentlty advance on their progression curve quest after quest, they get stronger, while the OL, well, is stuck with low tier 1XP cards and needs to invest in these before he/she can unlock higher tier ones. In my personal experience I tend to go for the highest impact 1XP card first (web trap normally even if I hate having to do this campaign after campaign) just to give him/herself the slighest chance to keep up. Otherwise you save up, which means your deck hasn't been improved at all.

Plot cards can also be purchased but they need tons of threats, and even then you need even more threat to fuel them (normally), which further helps the heroes (!), so yeah as I pointed out in one of my very long posts regarding these and rumor quests, they are more than often dead cards if any good at all.

I don't know what the conclusion of all that is, I think it entirely comes down to how the heroes pick their skills and then trying to pick open groups to exploit their weaknesses and hope to draw these better OL cards, which happen to be Basic cards during the whole campaign. I cannot speak for all overlords here, but I never get to purchase these 3XP cards because it would expose me too much, flexibility has always been the better choice rather than specializing, assuming you are facing a rather balanced group of heroes. So the conclusion is that if you set aside luck in the game (yeah that's a stretch), your overall chances of success for playing the overlord heavily depend on your heroes taking their opportunities and making good choices. If they do that (like my heroes do now that they know the game well), the odds are in fact very much against you. That's where you need to make effective purchases just to try to keep up, select your quests and open groups very carefully, and hope luck will kick in in your favor. That's my perception of playing the Overlord in this game currently.

Spending XP is therefore nothing more than small, incremental improvements on the deck, especially since you can't buy a level 3 without a level 2, and a level 2 without two level 1's.

Just want to correct you here by saying that the rules for buying a lvl 3 card state:

"He must have three cards of a class in his deck (which can be any combination of Level 1 and Level 2 cards) before purchasing a level 3 card of that class."

So you could buy a lvl 3 card after buying three lvl 1 cards for 3xp, instead of buying two lvl 1 and a lvl 2 for 4xp.

I typically find that 1 XP is around the value of 3-4 threat, to give you a general estimate of it's value.

It's exactly 3xp, as the rules allow the overlord to trade 1xp for 3 threat tokens

Spending XP is therefore nothing more than small, incremental improvements on the deck, especially since you can't buy a level 3 without a level 2, and a level 2 without two level 1's.

Just want to correct you here by saying that the rules for buying a lvl 3 card state:

"He must have three cards of a class in his deck (which can be any combination of Level 1 and Level 2 cards) before purchasing a level 3 card of that class."

So you could buy a lvl 3 card after buying three lvl 1 cards for 3xp, instead of buying two lvl 1 and a lvl 2 for 4xp.

I typically find that 1 XP is around the value of 3-4 threat, to give you a general estimate of it's value.

It's exactly 3xp, as the rules allow the overlord to trade 1xp for 3 threat tokens

Not quite right. I didn't mean the trade-in, as yes you can do that. I meant that the overall strategic and tactical impact of 1 experience point seems to be somewhere between 3 and 4 threat. I would rarely, if ever, do the trade-in because it feels like a loss of value, the experience point seems to be worth a little more than 3 threat, but also experience is harder to come by. You got me on the level 3 card though, I don't know why I thought I had to have a level 2 card first.

I am currently playing as an Overlord in our SoN camping. We are at the third mission of Act 1 (i have won the interlude and second mission of act 1).

I want to play "Respected Citizen" mission to gain the extra exp point on victory. I do not find the corrupt citizen cards all that useful, since you lose them upon the death of master changeling.

However, from what I read and checked on Descent camping tracker, this is the most difficult mission for Overlord in Act 1 SoN.

Could you please advise any viable strategy? Since this is the last act 1 mission, the heroes are geared up nicely, each one having armor.

In first part of the mission, I wanted to use golems, to block the way for the heroes. Heroes have Andira Runehand, so kobolds are not so useful.

Any advice on second encounter open group? I was thinking on Arachyura or Bandits.