I just got Forgotten Souls a couple of days ago and had a chance to try it out on my own this morning. I picked Avric and Ashrian (both of the Healers from the 2nd Edition core box).

I thought Defenders of the Realm was unforgiving....

I'm pretty sure I'm misinterpreting the rules (it wouldn't be the first time with a Fantasy Flight game). Here's what kept happening pretty much every room: the timer for the room would run out, Doom would advance by 1, and the Encounter card would be discarded. Since the Encounter card is no longer in play, Fate would also advance by 1 and I would have to draw a Peril card.

On the one or two rooms where I managed to complete the objective before the timer ran out, it was with my second to last action which left me with either ending my turn and drawing a Peril card since the Encounter card was no longer in play or opening the door and moving on to the next room.

Choosing to move to the next room resulted in what amounted to the Overlord phase happening twice in row. Opening the door would result in the next Encounter card being turned over and the room set up. Each time, the monsters got a "free" turn with a "After setup, activate monsters (usually Flesh Molders). Since I was using my last action with my second hero to open the door, my turn ended at that point. This caused the Encounter card text to activate, the timer to advance by 1, and the monsters to act again and all I've done at this point is open the door.

Normally, I might be able to handle this but I usually didn't make it out of any room with more than half health and a point or two of fatigue (no time to Rest since all my actions went into meeting the objective and moving to the next room before I had to draw a Peril card).

If I'm doing something wrong, please let me know for my next attempt.

If everything there was correct, I'm going to let Forgotten Souls Overlord for me next time because it was doing a way better job than I ever have (which is embarrassing to admit).

Thanks for reading this and for any help you can give.

There aren't many rooms where you have to advance doom (which is the big screwski). It sounds like you got it right, meaning that's how I play it too. I'm new to Descent so I'm having a hard time beating it too. I'm OK with that. ;-)

Winning forgotten souls is mostly about moving as quickly as you can and killing things as quickly as you can. That means a high mobility high damage team: 2 healers is pretty much the worst combination I can think of for actually completing it unfortunately. You don't do enough damage and you don't move quickly enough.

It sounds like Scouts might be the way to go. Any suggestions?

Well, no, I'd recommend playing a mixture. Runemaster is high damage, and Widow Tarha makes it reliable with her re-rolls. Jain Fairwood as the wildlander or Syn'Drael as the Knight is a good compatriot as well.

It's tough with just 2 heroes though. 3 Heroes (and the corresponding monster upgrades) should be a lot easier, and 4 heroes should be challenging but more doable.

JSM,

You said "doom would advance by one". That should hardly ever happen from an exploration card....maybe once, and maybe another time as the penalty for failing it. I'm just going from memory on that as I have a session ongoing right now. So maybe you're playing that part wrong.

I would recommend playing with four heroes. I never play it any other way. Playing with two seems way too difficult. I've learned that it's usually a bad idea to open a door as the group's last action (to avoid the "Fate" step of the Overlord phase). I think it's generally better to bite the bullet and advance fate and deal with the fate card in a situation like that. Sometimes that can sting but it can be very useful to start a new "room" with a fully prepared party, as far as completing the objective.

I would use a hero from each archetype, as well.

I would be glad if somebody can tell if, so far, Some clarifications have been provided about the use of geomancer’s stones in the forgotten souls cooperative quest.

I would like to use the Geomancer but it seems that if the stones are not targetable (since they are “obstacle”) by the monsters there are many cases (i.e. in the last room) in which they can create an indestructible barrier preventing the monsters from attacking the heroes.

Has somebody created some house rules or received an official answer from FFG for it ?? This topic is also being discussed at bgg.

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1232425/geomancers-stones-heroes

thank you for your help !!

The stones absolutely can be attacked. The purpose of the obstacle descriptor on the stones is so that neither enemy nor ally can move through their spaces.

If you meant that the card AI so to speak won't target them because the stones aren't a hero, remember that Forgotten Souls was made as a demo for the base game (no expansions), not as a full co-op experience for a fleshed out game. The geomancer was never considered for usage. A houserule defining them as heroes for the purposes of the monster activation cards seems reasonable.

I agree with Whitewing. The game is easily exploitable if the monsters ignore the Geomancer stones, as it allows the Geomancer to fence monsters in and prevent them from attacking when they could easily destroy the stones to free themselves if they weren't bound to the limitations of the activation cards.

However, I've found in my Forgotten Souls games that even if they can attack these things, it makes classes like the Conjurer and the Geomancer almost 'too good' at reducing party damage.

While a class like the Necromancer can use his reanimate to draw heat off of his party for an attack or two, the Conjurer and Geomancer can fill the area with targets to ensure they aren't subject to many attacks when the monsters activate. For example, the Trash Heap is trivialized if the Geomancer plunks a stone or two in front of the dragons every turn and keeps 4 squares away from the master while all the tokens are searched. This is a very scary room otherwise, as the dragon's damage boost from the unsearched tokens is deadly.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how FFG could deal with this. A human player would rarely ever attack the stones unless they actually were completely blocking off his path. Then again, a human player wouldn't attack with flesh moulders from 9 squares away with no range bonuses either

Personally I'm thinking of just not playing Forgotten Souls solo with classes that have familiars, just to make it slightly more challenging for myself.

While a class like the Necromancer can use his reanimate to draw heat off of his party for an attack or two, the Conjurer and Geomancer can fill the area with targets to ensure they aren't subject to many attacks when the monsters activate. For example, the Trash Heap is trivialized if the Geomancer plunks a stone or two in front of the dragons every turn and keeps 4 squares away from the master while all the tokens are searched. This is a very scary room otherwise, as the dragon's damage boost from the unsearched tokens is deadly.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how FFG could deal with this. A human player would rarely ever attack the stones unless they actually were completely blocking off his path. Then again, a human player wouldn't attack with flesh moulders from 9 squares away with no range bonuses either

I agree with your considerations, and I have suggested a way to deal with the summoned stones in bgg. I would be glad if you can give me your opinion about it.

For me it would be really a pity to renounce on using the Geomancer...

I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling with this.

I got Descent knowing and planning on using the co-op expansion(s) to play with my wife. I'm pretty familiar with the rules of the base game, and I feel like I understand Forgotten Souls pretty well, so I'm getting pretty frustrated at how quickly we lose. We've attempted this campaign 4 times now, and lost steam each time.

The first couple of times we played, we didn't get the cauldron thrown away fast enough, because we didn't perform PERFECTLY. We foolishly thought we would fight/defeat the moulders in front of it, instead of ignoring them and picking it up, and hoping that they don't all attack you the next round.

Then, we would run into OP's problem, with doom/fate advancing almost every round because we either (1) choose to heal/rest/search (heaven forbid) or, (2) had used up all of our actions fighting/fulfilling objectives.

I feel like in Forgotten Souls, you can either

(A) Sprint through the campaign, making sure you make every action/fatigue/movement point count while ignoring thematic events ("Hey! Go search that trash! Never mind the DRAGON that's about to eat you.") and fighting an uphill "man vs. cardboard/dice luck" battle. Memorize the ONE way to succeed in each room, while performing your actions accordly.

Or

(B) Lose.

Don't get me wrong. I WANT to love this expansion. I've had really good times playing Descent before.

But if I have exploit the game in order to win, I have no desire to play it. I'll go back to a fan-made co-op varient.

I'm not expecting it to be super easy, or to heal after every monster, or to get great stuff every time, or to roll perfect rolls.

But I did buy this Forgotten Souls to have a fun time playing a co-op fantasy board game, not to lose every time because I choose theme over manipulation.

Forgotten Souls was intended to be difficult to win, and was meant as a demo to whet people's appetites. It's not what I would call an expansion.