Hello, relatively new Descent player here. I've seen people remarking that Grisban is one of the least powerful Warrior heroes, but I don't see what makes this the case. He can use Rest to escape Immobilize or other conditions before using Charge or Oath of Honor to engage and attack a monster in the same turn, and he's the most durable hero in the base game. Is his 3 Speed and 1 Awareness such a crippling drawback that he is worse than all the other Warriors?

He is weak because most of the warrior heroes of all expansions have better things.

He cannot escape Stun, he has 3 speed and he has nothing really of valuable facing other possibilities.

His heroic ability is situational: it doesn't work on stun, takes an action (wheras healers can cure conditions generally without an action), and frankly most of the conditions he'd cure with it are easily removable without that ability. Add on the fact that multiple conditions on him aren't really worthwhile, and that there aren't that many conditions worth targeting him with anyway, and you see why it doesn't come into play often. His heroic feat is pretty much the worst one amongst all heroes. He's slow as well, which hinders him quite a bit.

I find it really hard brining along characters with only 3 movement points into campaigns now-a-days its a bit of a deal breaker for me having made this mistake in my earlier days. Movement in this game is huge! The amount of fatigue they have needs to be factored into this however as its possible to fatigue move then rest, however with Grisbane with an awareness of 1 this technique opens you up to being pit-trapped: test awareness, if failed your stunned if you have no movement points to spend.

I find it really hard brining along characters with only 3 movement points into campaigns now-a-days its a bit of a deal breaker for me having made this mistake in my earlier days. Movement in this game is huge! The amount of fatigue they have needs to be factored into this however as its possible to fatigue move then rest, however with Grisbane with an awareness of 1 this technique opens you up to being pit-trapped: test awareness, if failed your stunned if you have no movement points to spend.

Heroes with 3 movement points can be fine as long as they have abilities and skills that can correct for that problem. For example, Grisban as a Knight is a cool combination because he has several skills that let him move up to his speed and perform an attack in one action, proceed from a defeated monster to another for an attack, and also placing his figure in his range regardless of movement points.

That being said, among 3 movement point heroes, Grisban is no longer the best choice. It's not so much that Grisban is a bad hero- there are just significantly more powerful options.

Ok, thanks for the advice. I don't plan to buy any expansions soon because the base game has a lot of content, so Grisban is a fine choice for me.

Our group had our first Descent session yesterday, and we found Grisban to be quite solid. His extra 2 hp over syndrael saved him from defeat at least twice, and his ability let him break out of a merriod's immobilize and murder it in one turn. The Warrior player is not regretting his choice in the slightest. Of course, it helps that the overlord insists on using every single trap card on my Thief, Jain -- in his words, "it feels so much more rewarding when it works!"

Ok, thanks for the advice. I don't plan to buy any expansions soon because the base game has a lot of content, so Grisban is a fine choice for me.

Our group had our first Descent session yesterday, and we found Grisban to be quite solid. His extra 2 hp over syndrael saved him from defeat at least twice, and his ability let him break out of a merriod's immobilize and murder it in one turn. The Warrior player is not regretting his choice in the slightest. Of course, it helps that the overlord insists on using every single trap card on my Thief, Jain -- in his words, "it feels so much more rewarding when it works!"

Well, okay, if you have an overlord who's targeting the hero most immune to the effects he's targeting them with, heroes will naturally do well with almost any choices.

Indeed. As long as your OL is sufficiently underpowered as yours is. Feel free to get heroes underpowered to help even things out.

Our OL is an experienced gamer who's ran more than one D&D campaign before, but I think he's taking a couple games to get accustomed to Descent. It's very different than most rpgs because the OL can't win by eliminating the heroes. I believe he'll be more tactically intelligent in our next session, and if he is Grisban will be falling down a whole lot of pits in the near future.

Well, okay, if you have an overlord who's targeting the hero most immune to the effects he's targeting them with, heroes will naturally do well with almost any choices.

OL needs to be utterly ruthless, setting up then taking advantage of every situation given to him in order to win. I feel this game shines when everyone is going at it their absolute hardest.

Well, okay, if you have an overlord who's targeting the hero most immune to the effects he's targeting them with, heroes will naturally do well with almost any choices.

OL needs to be utterly ruthless, setting up then taking advantage of every situation given to him in order to win. I feel this game shines when everyone is going at it their absolute hardest.

Heavily agreed. I have a few players I have to pull back on due to my gaming experience vs theirs(not a brag, just I play a lot of games) and we have a good time but it's not as fulfilling as a really solid game with my standard group.

Off that though, Grisban is still ok, especially in the core game. He makes a solid knight.

Playing Grisban as a Knight helps eliminate some of his deficiencies, true, but he's still a subpar hero. I would ask the question - why would you ever play Grisban as a knight over, let's say, Syndarel - who has better stats (I consider trading 1 move for 2 hp a HUGE upgrade, especially on a tank) a good hero ability, and perhaps the best heroic feat in the game. Or let's say you're really desperate for that 14 health, for some reason. Tahlia has a hero ability that actually synergizes, and allows you to play her as a class OTHER than Knight. Her stats are slightly worse, but she's going to spend less stamina on movement, so that more than pays off. And her hero ability - while being more limited - essentially produces the same effect.

The question isn't whether you can make Grisban a good hero by making him a Knight. It's whether other characters, which are better to start with, wouldn't get as big or bigger a boost by playing a Knight.

The Knight is just a good class. Advance is up there for best ability in the game.

Strongly agree. Knight, to me, is about as powerful as a class should get. (And the few classes that are stronger feel really cheesy to me.) So, if you say "Well, making Grisban a Knight helps him"... yes, it does, it helps everyone because knights are really strong.

You got it all wrong.

Grisban can't get rid of immobilize or stun with his hero ability and it's imo the weakest hero-ability in the whole game, as you recover your fatigue at the end of your turn, not immidiatly when taking a rest action.

If you are stunned, t he first thing in your turn you have to do is to get rid of stun with an action . You can't rest first.

Note that Grisban can only get rid of a condition when recovering fatigue from a rest action, which will be on the end of a turn. He doesn't get rid of conditions when taking the rest action, but only when it's resolved, at the end of your turn. By that time wether stun nor immobilize has an effect on you.

So in my games Grisban basically has no hero ability which is extremely weak AND he has only 3 movement points (that is admittetly not so much of a problem in act II). I think only one of these drawbacks would suffice to balance out his 14HP but apperently not.

You got it all wrong.

Grisban can't get rid of immobilize or stun with his hero ability and it's imo the weakest hero-ability in the whole game, as you recover your fatigue at the end of your turn, not immidiatly when taking a rest action.

If you are stunned, t he first thing in your turn you have to do is to get rid of stun with an action . You can't rest first.

Note that Grisban can only get rid of a condition when recovering fatigue from a rest action, which will be on the end of a turn. He doesn't get rid of conditions when taking the rest action, but only when it's resolved, at the end of your turn. By that time wether stun nor immobilize has an effect on you.

So in my games Grisban basically has no hero ability which is extremely weak AND he has only 3 movement points (that is admittetly not so much of a problem in act II). I think only one of these drawbacks would suffice to balance out his 14HP but apperently not.

The FAQ errata'd his ability so that he removes 1 condition as soon as he declares the rest action, it doesn't have to wait until he recovers the fatigue now. Still kinda weak and can't stop stun, but at least immobilize is fair game.

Since Grisban’s ability only activates at the end of his turn, it is useless against Immobilize, and is technically useless against Poison because of his Strength. 　Weakened is removed by resting, so the ability won’t affect it.

Stun, Burning and Bleeding take an action to discard, so using a rest action to lose them is a bit pointless unless you needed to rest anyways and stun forces you to use your first action anyways.

It would still be good against Cursed, Diseased and Doomed.

Since Grisban’s ability only activates at the end of his turn, it is useless against Immobilize, and is technically useless against Poison because of his Strength. 　Weakened is removed by resting, so the ability won’t affect it.

Stun, Burning and Bleeding take an action to discard, so using a rest action to lose them is a bit pointless unless you needed to rest anyways and stun forces you to use your first action anyways.

It would still be good against Cursed, Diseased and Doomed.

It's in the errata. His ability activates as soon as you declare a rest action: you have to wait until the end of your turn to get the fatigue back, but the condition is gone immediately.

Yup. His ability isn't that bad since he can negate immobilize for an action, and since he is performing rest actions fairly regularly it makes sense to spend a few fatigue to increase his move actions. Combined with his heartiness, he is not a bad knight- and restricting ourselves to base game, let's not forget that the knight skills pair badly with Syndrael's hero ability.

You got it all wrong.

Grisban can't get rid of immobilize or stun with his hero ability and it's imo the weakest hero-ability in the whole game, as you recover your fatigue at the end of your turn, not immidiatly when taking a rest action.

If you are stunned, t he first thing in your turn you have to do is to get rid of stun with an action . You can't rest first.

Note that Grisban can only get rid of a condition when recovering fatigue from a rest action, which will be on the end of a turn. He doesn't get rid of conditions when taking the rest action, but only when it's resolved, at the end of your turn. By that time wether stun nor immobilize has an effect on you.

So in my games Grisban basically has no hero ability which is extremely weak AND he has only 3 movement points (that is admittetly not so much of a problem in act II). I think only one of these drawbacks would suffice to balance out his 14HP but apperently not.

The FAQ errata'd his ability so that he removes 1 condition as soon as he declares the rest action, it doesn't have to wait until he recovers the fatigue now. Still kinda weak and can't stop stun, but at least immobilize is fair game.

Wow you are totally right, I never catched that.

This makes his hero-ability in fact situational, as he can get rid of immobilize now (although it remains pretty useless against most other conditions) by spending an action. Compared to Logan, who can't get immobilized at all, it still seems pretty subpar, although Grisban at least has a somehow functional hero-ability now.

Since Grisban’s ability only activates at the end of his turn, it is useless against Immobilize, and is technically useless against Poison because of his Strength. 　Weakened is removed by resting, so the ability won’t affect it.

Stun, Burning and Bleeding take an action to discard, so using a rest action to lose them is a bit pointless unless you needed to rest anyways and stun forces you to use your first action anyways.

It would still be good against Cursed, Diseased and Doomed.

It's in the errata. His ability activates as soon as you declare a rest action: you have to wait until the end of your turn to get the fatigue back, but the condition is gone immediately.

I missed that one. But at least, the more expansions we get, the more conditiones there are that he can use his ability against.

Still not as good an ability as most other characters, though.

Yup. His ability isn't that bad since he can negate immobilize for an action, and since he is performing rest actions fairly regularly it makes sense to spend a few fatigue to increase his move actions. Combined with his heartiness, he is not a bad knight- and restricting ourselves to base game, let's not forget that the knight skills pair badly with Syndrael's hero ability.

Knight skills don't pair any worse than any other skills. Remember, the Knight doesn't have to move to use Advance, and isn't going to move if everything he needs to attack is right next to him. Knights don't MOVE more than anyone else, they just spend fewer actions doing it. Skirmisher is the class that NEEDS to move to activate its most powerful ability.

The knight base skill is move and attack for one action. You do not need to move, sure, but then what is the point? And what OL is going to leave all of his monsters adjacent to the party heavy hitter?

Movement is not necessary for knights, but if you are not moving, you sacrifice one of the class's greatest strengths. The same is true of skirmishers. Syndrael would also be an odd choice for skirmisher.

Grisban is not a fabulous hero- I'm not claiming otherwise, only that being classed as a knight supports his character as the class skills help him move. Skirmisher would help him move as well, but he is unlikely to be defeated often enough to benefit from some of those skills.

Syndrael's ability does work with Oath of Honor. Since the figure is placed instead of moved, she would still get to recover some more fatigue at the end of her turn even if she used Oath. IMO that makes her a solid Knight. Am I misunderstanding this, or is that correct?

No. It has been ruled that "moved" basically just means you changed spaces at any point during your turn. They don't work together. In my opinion, that is a big negative to using her as a knight.