Can the OL use treachery for Dark Glyphs in RTL?

I see no rule stating otherwise, but it seems like he could really screw the heros this way as RTL level typically only have one glyph other than the starting one. A sundered Glyph could realy make life tough for the heros.

Bravo McWilley said:

You most certainly can. Most don't because you end up spending 2 Treachery on a one time thing. If you buy a glyph, its replaces one of the glyphs in the entire dungeon , not every dungeon level. So its spending 2 Treachery to replace one of 3 glyphs (the unactivated ones) or 2 Treachery on probably a really good card or two that you might get to use multiple times.

Thanks for the insight.

So you think it is typically better to spend treachery on cards rather than a glyph? I can see the benefit of that in most cases but there are some levels that would be really hard with say a sundered glyph, as the heros wont be able to use it to go to town or back they would have to start from the start glyph each death. And since a sundered glyph is green treachery, I dont realy know what green cards would typically be better to buy as I am still new to treachery.

Typically its better to buy Treachery cards, but don't let that viewpoint prevent you from doing so. I think its fun to do it myself, especailly either Sundered or Summoning. Especially Summoning, when playing the Sorcerer King with the Snipers and Eldritch monster upgrades can be fun. Kill a Hero, comes back...oh here's two more Skeletons with insane amounts of range and pierce bonuses!

On topic side question. Do dark glyphs give feat cards? If not, that would seem to make them slightly more useful/fun to use in the game. Just wondering if there was an official ruling in them since feat cards came later.

DaveHorn said:

Yeah, it buried in the FAQ

Q: Does the activation of a Dark Glyph (especially the green Sundered glyphs, which negate most glyph benefits) trigger the drawing of a Feat card?
A: Yes.

Big Remy said:

Thank you! I thought I read it once but couldn't find it when it came up. What I need to do is take all these PDFs put them together in one large PDF and then have it handy on the laptop so I can search everything at the same time.

Bravo McWilley said:

Green has some cool powers that can really annoy your heroes, like giving you threat any time they place orders.

One of the sad things about Dark Glyphs in RtL is that the OL cannot fully plan when to use one he bought, since he doesn´t get to see all three Levels before the heros enter them. I would use them more often, if I could plan ahead.

But still, they can be extremely useful in a Rumor or Legendary Level (probably even the Keep), which the OL can study in advance.

Remy´s remark about the one time use compared to the treachery cards made me think - probably the OL should be allowed to use another glyph after cycling his deck (when the treachery cards come into play again)?

Parathion said:

He isn't allowed to re-use them when he cycles his deck in a vanilla game. I haven't played with them yet, because I didn't get AoD until I was already playtesting the Enduring Evil, but from reading the rules they still look eminently worth it to me, at least in vanilla.

Green treachery cards I'm fond of include Crushing Blow, Ambush, and Danger. I think green is quite possibly the most valuable color of treachery. But I don't play RtL.

I didn't realize it was a house rule, but I let my son use his dark glyphs on each level of the dungeon in RTL. Otherwise they become fairly inneffective comparaed to treachery in RTL. We love RTL, we want more parts of ALL expansions in RTL, not less. Our wishlist for the Quest Compendium would be for it to come with some dungeon/rumour cards and suggestions/rules on how we could use the new quests as dungeon levels in RTL. I know it won't happen, but if I had any complaint with FFG is they don't use enough of every thing in each new expansion that comes out. It was stil worth every penny, but I was pretty bummed when I realize Tomb of Ice only came with 1 new rumour and 4 dungeons.. come on! Give us more!

DaveHorn said:

+1

Dark Glyphs are a risk to take for the OL, but just like a treachery card, they can be utterly useless, or voided, under the wrong circumstances. OTOH...

I gave up using Ambush because it kept getting Wind Pact-ed - my 2 green treachery gone like that! Dark glyphs cannot be prevented by the heroes in any way.

A sundered glyph on the right level can be worth multiple, multiple, multiple (yes, 3x for emphasis) kills if the heroes 'must' stay in this dungeon - and boot them out prematurely, after they'd already made the decision to continue this level. Not to mention that a Sundered glyph, denying the heroes 2CT automatically, is worth a kill on its own just for that!

On the Secret Garden level, with only one glyph, very difficult to get to, and a looong way from the starting spot, a Sundered glyph there gave me at least 14CT. Two CT that the heroes didn't get, + a lot of extra kills, as the heroes were isolated, seperated from each other, and each time one died it took 2 full turns to get back to the action. The heroes already deep in the level couldn't even flee (can't go through the glyph, can't run away through the maze, have to get to and kill the Boss (Stealth, Ghost) before they can go through the portal. Luckily for the heroes there were no Gold minions in the level, only Bronze. They still got pasted.
Without the Sundered Glyph the Ranger would have (immediately) come back from town next to the Boss and probably killed it (one shot kills, Rapid fire, only Stealth to save it), while the wounded 'runner' would have escaped back to town next turn for healing or passed through the portal.
That particular Sundered glyph is the single most devastating play I have done (or seen anyone else do) in Descent. TPK (over time) ++.

It is definitely swings and roundabouts. Ambush, Crushing Blow, Danger, Poltergeist (if not RtL) are all incredibly good cards. So is a Sundered glyph.
Other Glyphs I am a bit more dubious about, but that's me. I don;t see them stopping, or much slowing, the sprint through a dungeon level that a good hero party should be trying. But if your heroes are the slow, methodical (not very efficient players) types, then the other glyphs might be more useful.

Wow, Great replies everyone. Thanks. I did not realize Crushing blow was a green treachery card. Definately something to consider.

Funny you bring up Secret Garden. Last night, my wife and I had our collective butts handed to us in Secret Garden. It came up as the 2nd level of our dngeon, we are in copper campaign, OL (my son) has upgraded his eldritch to silver. When we started and saw all the eldritch we knew is was going to be tough. We were doing ok, although was slow going actually getting to the garden.

We get to the garden,still doing ok, although we did lose at least one or two heros making it there (shades and he spawned dark priests). Not too bad yet though. A couple guys head to the treasure on the left, one hero jumps into the trees (taking the 2 wounds) and is planning on heading around to the right to get the glyph and try to cover our bases more and cover more space in the garden. The level leader (master shade) is jumping in and out of trees and picking us off and we can't get to him.

OL, leaves an opening for archer to get to level leader through whole on the left side. Archer moves.... CRUSHING BLOCK. OL (my 9yr old son!) drop blocks on one of only two holes through the trees on the outer edge od garden. Moves archer outside of course and still no attack on level leader.

Now we are bit separated, stuck to either going all the way back around to the right, or trying to force our way through the trees in strategic places. So we chug along trying to position ourselves to at least make an attack on level leader. We get around to glyph, sundered glyph, no ticket to town for you! BAM! Here comes the master skeleton treachery card. 2 silver master skellies, 4 silver white skellies against our copper level heros (we do have decent upgrades though).

Anyway, we started the dungeon more or less tied in conquest (+/- 5 or so). We finished dungeon and did make it to the third level, but had to run from the skelies because they were obliterating us, so couldn't even loot the bodies.

End of dungeon. OL 96, Heros 69! Ouch! Love this game.