We're playing a session of road to legend, and is quite new to this game
I'm managing the overlord, and we have played for about 6-7 rounds.

The players have entered some dungeons, but have left after the first level. It means that I had about 10 CT total, while the players had more.
They decided to enter the legendary dungeon: Caverns of Thuul
They killed the one crystal dragon, then entered room 2, grabbed the treasure and just fled. Which means they got 2000 gold in total.
I got 63 CT total. I got alot of lucky rolls, and they died alot. I had the evil genious in play from the first level, so I got alot of extra cards that could be discarded for threat.

error 1: We have calculated the surges wrong. We thought that the OL got a threat token for all 2 surges he rolled that did'nt missed. The OL have to give damage in order to gain threat from the surges.

Error 2: The players made one of their heroes run into a large group of monsters, and then they shot her themself. When she died she took alot of unnamed monsters with her. Some rules says that that cannot be done.

My main questions is:
1) As we have calculated the surges wrong, and the error 2. will it be fair to remove some of my XP, and how much?

2) Can the players just grap the gold and leave without killing the dragon?

* removed since statement was incorrect *

DaveHorn said:

You don't have to kill the dragon to exit. You just need to kill the dragon before you can pick up the next pile of gems. The starting position of the dragon makes it difficult for the hero(es) to exit, but if the OL moves the dragon and makes a path for them, they could get out. Also, ins't there a glyph or two in one of the rooms that could be used? (Don't have the map with me.)

Ah yes. That is correct. However, any OL worth his salt, makes sure at least the one picking up the gems doesn't get away. With proper hero placement, I suppose the others could run away. Simple correct placement of the dragon would block the path for just about anyone. The glyphs are behind the dragon on at least two of the gem piles, can't remember for sure on the center hallway.

Nygg said:

Error 1: Huh? If you rolled for the attack, and hit a legitimate target (ie a Hero or even a monster) and didn't miss due to an X or range, then you caused damage . So you would get the threat. You didn't make a mistake. Remember that wounds and damage are two entirely different things. So you didn't calculate anything wrong as far as I can tell, keep the CT/XP so that answers question 1.

Error 2: Yes you played that wrong. The killing blow for DR has to be done by an enemy figure.

Question 2) They can grab the coin piles if they want. In order to grab the gem caches they would have to kill the dragon each time in each room. But yes they can grab anything legal and flee if they want. Though IMO they completely blew a golden chance to get some serious gold. Sounds like they were ill prepared for the Caverns.

Nygg said:

There is a third error that wasn't mentioned yet:

The heroes can't enter a legendery area if they have more conquest than the OL. In your example, it sounds like exactly that had happened.

But don't mind, NOW the OL has definitely more conquest...

Graf said:

Good catch, I missed that.

Recommendation for fixing the campaign: Start over

Big Remy said:

Unless there's some errata that I'm missing, they can grab a gem cache without killing the dragon, they just can't pick up any more gem caches until they kill the last dragon. Although with so much gold available on that level, and after coming so far both on the world map and through 3 dungeon levels for it, I would highly suggest killing the first two dragons at least so you can snag all the treasure, then either grab the the last gemstone cache with your lowest conquest hero and running with the rest, or if the dragon doesn't cause you too much trouble, take him down as well for some conquest. In my last run of the Caverns I just let Zyla die for the last gemstone cache, although if I wasn't starting to get hounded by spawns from behind I might've stuck around to finish it off. I managed to get over there before the OL upgraded beasts though, so that helps A LOT. A viable strategy for the early game I think, but it cost me Frostgate

Also, I might not necessarily recommend starting the campaign all over already, as if it's your first one, you probably will make more significant game changing mistakes, and you might just prefer to get all those silly mistakes out of your system on the first run through, then get a fresh start with more experience. There's a lot of places where misunderstanding or not finding the relevent rule for something can really break the game in either direction.

Big Remy said:

Regarding error 1, it is possible to hit, but cause 0 damage, such as a copper hellhound rolling a blue and yellow die. In this case effects that only activate on damage would not be applied.

Hammerdal said:

Right, I misspoke. And the condition for picking up the next gemstone cache is that you kill the dragon that appeared when you picked up the previous one.

Thanks for the answers, it really helped.

Anyone else that can confirm this:

"If you rolled for the attack, and hit a legitimate target (ie a Hero or even a monster) and didn't miss due to an X or range, then you caused damage. So you would get the threat. You didn't make a mistake. Remember that wounds and damage are two entirely different things. So you didn't calculate anything wrong as far as I can tell, keep the CT/XP so that answers question 1."

Nygg said:

Per the discussion, damage happens before armor, wounds happen after armor. There are very few instances where a monster can "hit" (no X on dice and also has range) and not do DAMAGE. There are many instances where you can hit and do damage, but give no wounds, because armor can soak damage. The rare instance of doing no damage without a miss result requires a) A ranged attack. One of the 5 non-missing sides of the die gives 4 range and a surge. b)no green dice (the worst side of the green die has one heart on it), and c)no hearts on any other dice (surges/blanks on power dice). So...hellhounds that roll blue yellow and black (if a master) have the potential to have only surges and no damage. You can do damage without dealing wounds and still spend surges for threat.

Examples:

I am basing this on the belief that a master hellhound has pierce 3....

Master Hellhound rolls blue yellow black, attacking opponent with 4 armor: 4r 1 surge on the blue, 3 range, 0 wounds yellow, 1 surge on black. no damage done, the 2 surges cannot be spent:

Result 2: 3 range, 1 surge, 1 heart on blue, 2 range 1 surge on yellow, blank on black. even with pierce, no wounds suffered but damage was done so the two surges gain 1 threat.

result 3. 1 range, 2 hearts on blue, 2 range 1 surge on yellow,surge on black:2 damage with pierce 3 gets through the armor for one wound (pierce 3 reduces armor from 4 to 1), surges spent for 1 threat.

I don't know if that helps.