I am starting a project, in which I am going to design a PvP arena, and custom rules (related to Descent), to form a Player vs Player variant, rather than simply Player's vs Overlord.

So far these are the ideas that I have:

1) A map that is more or less symmetrical for both sides, so that there is no, 'unfair' advantage.

2) Complete rule changes (such as to what certain icons represent on characters, or abilities which aren't functional unless I change them).

3) Changes in statistics in some characters (possibly).

4) Different game modes: Elimination, Domination (hold certain points), or Solo.

5) Maybe a custom jungle with pve creatures.

6) Leveling will be more dynamic (you level up much faster in-game) or start with a ready build instead.

Now I was wondering if anyone else has more ideas, if so, please post them below!!!

Note that I will be posting the rules and map details, on the Descent Quest Vault (OPEN BETA), as well as my own website!

I really hope this will work!

I'd recommend (regarding point 6) no leveling in-game. Pick a power level to start at (a certain number of XP/gold) and stick with that. You will need to design some sort of lottery (Who gets to choose hero/class first? What about equipment? What is the turn order?) There could very well be search tokens on the map that players can loot, and/or potentially draw a search card when you defeat another player (taking all the equipment off their corpse might be a bit too large of a reward, but maybe not.)

Ok that's good, so no leveling, but the character should start at a pretty high level at first.

1) Search tokens could be there I think 2x per player.

2) No leveling (a set exp amount).

3) When picking characters, each side may ban one character (to fix strong comps)!

4) Depending on who got first ban, the team which didn't gets to pick first which character they want.

5) Each character gets 25 gold per xp point.

6) When a character defeats an enemy character he can randomly pick on item of that character (this random item can never be the starting item) and assign it to his own character. You also get 50 gold I would say...

Another thing, due to gold being more dynamic, we may need to use a certain token for representing gold, rather than simply writing it down each time?

I am always hesitant to introduce new pieces, I try to use what is there. Why not make objective tokens represent gold based on color? (red is 25, blue is 50, green is 100, white is 200?)

This is your variant, but I don't approve of outright banning characters. Perhaps, instead you could offer benefits to the heroes that DON'T pick heroes first. Perhaps the map is not symmetrical, and the starting position is chosen in reverse order? You could also have the class selection in reverse order. Perhaps someone can pick Jaes, but it is unlikely they will get both Jaes AND the runemaster class, which makes him much more powerful.

1) Gold will possibly be represented by red, blue, green and white tokens.

2) Banning will be an optional add-on, that you may keep or get rid of.

3) Players who pick the map first get to pick their characters secondly.

Hey, I have still been working on the variant, you still helping me?

Hey, I have still been working on the variant, you still helping me?

I've thought about this a little bit, and here goes:

-PvP will likely need a set number of players to work effectively- let's go with 4 as a starting point, and we can worry about changing things to fit more or less heroes as necessary.

-As an alternative to banning hero/class combinations, how about steal a page out of the "Runewars" playbook and do it this way:

1) Each player rolls defense dice (gray black, maybe, or gray gray black?) and number of shields determines priority.

2) In order of priority, starting from highest shields rolled, players select a hero.

3) In reverse order of priority, players select a class.

4) Players roll again to determine choice of starting location on the map.

This way, it is ensured that the players who have the "least favorable" heroes have access to the "most favorable" classes, and it is less likely that anyone will be able to routinely get very good heroes paired with very good classes.

Also, I think it would be interesting to have map objectives that go beyond knocking out other heroes- searching, getting tokens off the map (capture the flag) or perhaps attribute tests of some kind. Here's the catch, though- players do not learn the map objective until after heroes and classes are selected. This way, it will be difficult to select heroes that are tailor made to easily win.

Wonderful idea, thanks, I am busy right now, with a lot of work (exams and stuff), but I am slowly chopping my way through all the items, making them work with PvP, but in about a month I'll be ready to get this working!

Thanks for your help!

You could also with the choosing of characters or archetypes use the mechanic in small world. You randomly line them up to be chosen, each person gets a limited amount of gold. They then select one of the heroes/archetypes but if they want to choose any other hero that's not the first one they put a small amount of gold on each hero card that they skip over to get. If you chose one with gold on it from someone else's selection you keep the gold. This way the less desirable characters have a little more incentive to be played.

You could also with the choosing of characters or archetypes use the mechanic in small world. You randomly line them up to be chosen, each person gets a limited amount of gold. They then select one of the heroes/archetypes but if they want to choose any other hero that's not the first one they put a small amount of gold on each hero card that they skip over to get. If you chose one with gold on it from someone else's selection you keep the gold. This way the less desirable characters have a little more incentive to be played.

Thanks for the feedback but I don't think it would work in a PvP variant.

I myself made a PvP variant,

http://tools.fantasyflightgames.com/descent/htmlpreview/3811/

Please read it an use any ideas you might find interesting in your PvP variant.

Thank You eljolly, but I have put a halt to the development of my PvP variant. I will continue soon again (: