Hi,

i want to play this with my wife! but she is no gamer, so at least the game has to be coop.

my question is how much fun/challenge do i loose when i play the OL AND the heroes.

is the OL doing really unexpecting things to the heroes ?

i know that there is a d6 mod to auto AI the OL, but i think it woulb be easier if i play it with the goal to make it as hard for the heroes as possible...

so is there any hidden action that would make it impossible to play both? (i mean like poker, where it is not possible to play against yourself )

I'd say that you might want to check out the Coop version which lets everyone play as heroes. Playing both sides of the table might be a bit rough due to knowing what overlord cards are in the hand. You'll also have to try to beat yourself on both sides of the table, tricky but totally doable. The challenge is the hidden information in the OL cards.

Thinking about it tho, you could possibly get around that by simply drawing and using a card at the start of each OL turn.

so, moving the minions and spwaning them is a no brainer? only the OL cards are what makes the overlord unpredictable?

Saying its a no brainer is tricky as usually the OL player has to try to figure out what the players want to do next turn, then activate their monsters to stop the heroes from doing that.

Playing both sides may lead to overthinking(if I do this as OL, then I'll this as hero so instead I'll OL do this but then I'll do hero this so because of that I'll do this...**head explode**) or accidentally favoring oneside or the other. If you keep it quick and simple you should be okay, or simply alternate who takes the OL turn!

A human OL player is what makes the OL unpredictable and the cards help. Descent 2e is designed with all information public besides the OL cards so its the cards that allow the OL to perform actions that help them out.

You've stated that you might focus on making the quest as hard as possible when making OL decisions, so you may be okay. If you are going to play this way, I would say that before the start of each quest you set a prime goal for yourself. Anytime something happens that will let you get closer to that goal you take it!

I don't think it's possible to really effectively play this game as a hero and an overlord simultaneously. Some overlord cards (like Dash, Frenzy, or Dark Fortune) help out the OL. However, there are trap cards (like Poison Dart, Tripwire, Pit Trap) which are really only effective if the heroes don't know you have them. If a hero knows you have Pit Trap, that affects how he moves. If he knows you have Poison Dart, that affects who opens a door or searches.

With regard to setting prime objectives, that also doesn't work. There are several quests where the actions of one party force the other to change its objective, in order to make the most of a bad situation. For example, there are encounters where the OL may have made victory very improbable for the heroes, so they abandon the quest objective and search for treasure. There are others where the heroes are likely to win, so the OL decides to go for knockouts for extra threat, or defend treasure spots to prevent them from searching. This is even more complicated when there are multiple win conditions ("If A or B, then the OL wins.")

Spawning the minions is a no-brainer. Moving them around and acting with them is not.

thx for your answers.

seems like no descent for me :-/

I've "play tested" a few missions where I'm the overlord and 4 heroes. I play the heroes as if I have no idea what OL cards I have. It can get tough and I feel myself leaning towards the heroes and I forget some things (abilities or cards). It's still entertaining but not as fun as playing as just the overlord.

I think the game "Myth" is more of what you are looking for, though I've heard some sub-par reviews on it... It's a co-op dungeon crawler game though, it might fit you well.

I think the game "Myth" is more of what you are looking for, though I've heard some sub-par reviews on it... It's a co-op dungeon crawler game though, it might fit you well.

Most people who have the game recommend people to wait for a revised edition of it before purchasing the game as the rules are a mess even after intensive rules research to fill in the blanks the rule book does not cover.

I think the game "Myth" is more of what you are looking for, though I've heard some sub-par reviews on it... It's a co-op dungeon crawler game though, it might fit you well.

Most people who have the game recommend people to wait for a revised edition of it before purchasing the game as the rules are a mess even after intensive rules research to fill in the blanks the rule book does not cover.

Indeed. I've even heard that some "quests" are unplayable out of the retail box, unless you have the Kickstarter edition with all the extras thrown in. These extras have been promised to hit retail as expansions, but there's no release dates as yet.

It looked like a pretty good game while the KS campaign was running, but it would appear they bunged up on a few pretty important points with the transfer to retail.