Hi everyone,

I'm having a friend come over to play Descent. It's his first time playing Descent so we don't wanna disencourage him.

What hero do you think he should pick? In other words, which hero/class do you consider "easy to manage" for someone new to the game.

As far as heroes, we've got all expansions so there is a lot of choice, maybe too much choice for him.

For the game itself, we're gonna stick to the Shadow Rune and probably choose Legendary so we can seperate encounters.

The berserker is one of the most straightforward classes. Most of his skills boil down to "hit more things" or "hit things harder." I would avoid a class like Runemaster, which is constantly exhausting cards and spending/recovering fatigue.

That being said, see what his interests are- if he'd like to be playing a mage, he's not going to be happy being stuck as a berserker. What i've tried to do in the past is to give a summary of what each class is about, and let a new player pick with that information. For example:

Wildlander: Archer class- focuses on combat with bows, and moving quickly.

Treasure hunter: gains benefits from searching for treasure, can get you better treasure.

Thief: Stealth class, gets advantages from sneaking up on monsters.

Stalker: Lays traps that damage monsters and give benefits to the heroes.

The berserker is one of the most straightforward classes. Most of his skills boil down to "hit more things" or "hit things harder." I would avoid a class like Runemaster, which is constantly exhausting cards and spending/recovering fatigue.

That being said, see what his interests are- if he'd like to be playing a mage, he's not going to be happy being stuck as a berserker. What i've tried to do in the past is to give a summary of what each class is about, and let a new player pick with that information. For example:

Wildlander: Archer class- focuses on combat with bows, and moving quickly.

Treasure hunter: gains benefits from searching for treasure, can get you better treasure.

Thief: Stealth class, gets advantages from sneaking up on monsters.

Stalker: Lays traps that damage monsters and give benefits to the heroes.

Thanks for the advice! Yes I was thinking on leaning more towards a berserker for him as well. But it's like you said, it will depend on it's taste.

I'm a more "seasoned" player and i still find mages the hardest archetype to manage. Normally I tend to Healers or Warriors. I feel like playing a mage the first time is gonna be a real challenge. I mean, a runemaster is constaly exhausting cards, a necromancer means certain complications will arise when activating the Skeleton, a Geomancer is only gonna require more management to play your stone perfectly, a hexer could be ok although the hex tokens might frighten new players, a conjurer is a possible idea although I personally feel nothing for the class.

The other 3 players he is gonna team up with are people like me who are patient and don't mind teaching a new player the rules and stuff. Even as I'll be the Overlord I still tend to moderate the rules and help out the newbies

That said; what class/hero would you guys recommend? Maybe more simple: who was you first character that you felt "Ok this is easy to manage, i'm into it!" For me it was Jain the Wildlander, although now i mostly play as Trenloe the Knight or Trenloe the Berserker

Syndariel (Sp i know) as a knight is awesome straight out of the box. Feat is arguably one of THE best in the game and with the knight class she gains additional mobility.

Knight is also simple to play which is a bonus,

Any other suggestions regarding healers, mages and scouts? Knight and Berserker are good starting warrior classes. They can match nicely with almost every hero warrior.

Like you mentioned yourself, Jain as a wildlander is pretty easy to understand. Also, Avric as a Disciple.

They are in the basic set, because they are... basic (but effective).

I first played Jain the Thief, and then Avric the Disciple- both were fairly easy to manage. The skirmisher is an awful lot of fun if you have Nerekhall.

In terms of the most "complicated" (lots of things to manage) classes that I've seen played: Bard, Geomancer, Runemaster, Champion, Hexer.

The runemaster isn't at all that complicated. It's far more simple to play well than the necromancer, conjurer, geomancer or hexer. I suppose it's more complex than the berserker, but that's not saying much.