Hey all,

My friends (4 heroes and an OL) and I have been playing RtL for a bit. We played halfway through one campaign, until we gave up and started over now that we understood a lot more of the mechanics of the game. We've recently begun a new campaign and I have a question about hero tactics.

Our Overlord is ruthless. He doesn't hold back, goes after the weak with everything available. I don't mind this style of play at all. To me, it seems like this is the OL's job. As i understand it, Descent: RtL is still a competitive game (heroes vs OL) and not a cooperative story telling game such as D&D.

The problem that I have is that we keeping getting trashed. Just slaughtered. Over and over. The OL just keeps gaining XP from killing us and is quickly far beyond our capabilities. Which then makes it very, very frusterating. I'm 99% sure that we aren't making a rules error. We worked all of those out in our fist go at the campaign. So, that leads me to believe we must be doing something tactically wrong.

So, I ask you this: What should heroes do in the first few turns of the game? What should we spend money on early on? What should we concentrate on achieving quickly?

At first, we would dive into dungeons. But it sucks when the first dungeon you jump into is a level 42 dungeon full of wraiths that half the party cant even attack. We've also tried sticking to overland encounters, but the yield on XP and gold on those seem really small.

Any suggestions?

-Dash

Go over to Boardgamegeek, there are several strategy articles there. See http://www.boardgamegeek.com/forum/67/thing/29298 for a list of articles. In particular, check out the The Art of Blitz article.

First, there's nothing wrong with quitting a dungeon. Go in, do your best, grab some loot if you can, and then take off if things are going badly. I haven't read into the Blitz strategy, but I imagine it's similar--save for the "if things are going badly" part, maybe. You can gain a lot from simply peeking into dungeons and figuring out if there's a quick way to get loot and get out.

On the other hand, there's something to be said for sticking with the dungeons, too. The heroes in my group (this is still our first campaign) tend to finish dungeons, and they do quite well--gaining lots of CP, gold, and treasure. Sure, they die a lot, but that's the way the game works. The only real consistent way for the OL to rack up CP throughout the campaign is to kill heroes, and the game is designed to facilitate that. I think (with the limited experience with the game that I have) that lots of heroes get hung up on that. I know we have at least one player who thought it just "felt wrong" for heroes to repeatedly fail throughout the dungeon levels. However, if heroes just keep the intended game flow in mind, it's not as bad as it seems:

When heroes die, they don't really suffer much of a setback except in the rarest circumstances. The OL gains some CP and the heroes jump back into the fray on the very next turn. Due to the small size of the dungeon levels, they are often able to get back into the main battle on this same turn--between fatigue potions and run actions, there's really not that much ground to cover. Look at it more as a war of attrition, where hero deaths are just destined to happen from time to time, rather than a test of the players' ability to avoid death.

Look at the dungeon as a mathematics proposition rather than an RPG quest: In three levels, how much CP are you going to get? How much is the OL going to get? For my group, a TPK nets me 14 CP (due to two heroes repeatedly using cursed items). The heroes, meanwhile, can earn 8 CP, minimum, by completing the dungeon. Assuming there are levels with multiple named leaders (which hasn't seemed uncommon to us, yet), then the heroes' bounty can go even higher. Plus, you need to add in treasure and gold earned in the dungeon. Have the heroes focus on these numbers and then just do the math: Is it worth it to stick it out for another level? Are we really as far behind the OL as it feels? The popular consensus seems to be that the heroes are doing well when they are at a ratio of 2:1 CP with the OL (in other words, the OL has twice as many as they do). If the heroes are somewhere around that number, then pat them on the back and let them know it's not that bad.

Once you get over the psychological stigma against dying in this type of game, I think it won't seem as bleak as it might right now.

Caveat: We have yet to cross over to Silver in our first RtL campaign (we're about three points away after five sessions). So, I'm not a strong voice of authority on this. My hero players have been beaten up considerably during the Copper level (though I've had my own heartaches, too), but I'm counting on the popular wisdom out there that says they'll start getting a lot stronger really quickly once the Silver and Gold campaign levels hit.

Things to note before starting.

1. The 'heroes' don't start as heroes. They start as nobs with only one skill. Most of them will lose going toe-to-toe with any dungeon boss. Their job is not to clear dungeons of bad guys, it is to build their strength, experience, equipment and capabilities so that they can become Heroes, capable of saving the world from the evil Overlord.

2. Treasures and Potions are limited resources. The more weeks you play, the more of these limited resources will be available to you. Going hard through dungeons all the way greatly limits the number of weeks you will spend in each level and therefore greatly limits the resources you can accumulate.

3. Inside each dungeon, each turn the OL has increases his resources. Speed is life. The less time you spend in a dungeon the less resources the OL can throw at you , the less kills you will suffer.
3a. Configure your party appropriately. A party without a runner of any kind is generally dead in the water. Faster tanks are better than slower tanks (generally). Movement and Fatigue are as important (or more) as(than) Wounds and Armour. But CT cost also needs to be factored in. A fast, weak, high CT value is not good, no matter how cool the special ability (yes Laurel, I'm talking about you!)

4. The OL has only one minion upgrade available in bronze. Delay his ability to buy it as long as possible. It is a massive increase in difficulty to face, usually more than twice as hard to kill as well as outputting considerable more damage.

5. The CT score is not an indication of the balance of the game . The heroes frequently do not want to be ahead (they then lose the ability to eneter Legendary dungeons which have great rewards), at least not by much. The faster the 'score' rises, the less weeks you spend in a 'campaign level' and the less resources the heroes are able to amass at that level. While it is better to get CT than let the OL have it, earning CT is not a priority for the heroes generally. If you don't need to kill a boss or activate a glyph to get through a level, then it may in fact be better not to.
However, letting the OL increase his CT score is always bad as it increases the resources he can throw at you.

6. Points 5 and 2 have to be balanced against the OL's progress in buying Lts, seiging cities and advancing his plot.

7. Secret Master upgrades are critical. Generally, but not always, the first should be fatigue. 2 extra fatigue for a hero creates massive extra possibilities. Always plan for being able to do a secret master training in each level, usually as early as possible in that level.

Corbon said:

That is all very enlightening. Thanks!

Has anybody ever tried to play the game with four 2-conquest-worth-heroes? I think the Blitz-strategy would work very well with that.

(I didn't try that, not even in vanilla descent, but I think it would be worth more than a look. Maybe only 2-conquest-heroes would be too rigid as you will need a tank, but maybe it would work with three 2-conquest heroes and one 3- or 4-conquest tank, maybe Steelhorn who gets a lot of hitpoints for few conquest-worth.)

Graf said:

Steelhorns, Validor and Okaluk are the only melee characters with at least 2 dice and only 3 CT (although you could almost count Ronan). There are enogh Melee treasures that you really need to have at least one melee hero. The only treasure type you have any hope of avoiding and still getting a competent party is Ranged, and then you still leave a dangerous gap.

However 2 of Astarra, Carthos, Thorn and Landrec would be very useful, especially if either Astarra or Thorn are present and can be designated as runner. Add in Okaluk/Steelhorns as melee specialist (preferably Okaluk, both for speed and stealth/survivability) and Bogran as the Ranged attacker and you have a party worth only 9 CT. Zyla could easily swap in for one of the mages as well, making it 8 CT. Sahla and Mok are acceptable Mages substitutes as well, if not quite first rate.

Say, Bogran, Okaluk, Zyla/Astarra/Thorn, Landrec/Carfthos.

That could be a killer party later on, but might struggle for pure damage output early on (and consequently suffer the exponential effect of falling behind. Also extremely vulnerable to TPKs in certain outdoor adventures.

Personally I have played Vanilla Descent 1 - 2 times and hosted 1 RTL with a group of non-hardcore Tabletop RPG Board game.

We had a great time together. I guess in whatever way, there will be no prefect balance. OL, which the rules reccommended one who is more experience with the game can act like the DM in AD & D. In AD&D, the more experienced players will high likely be the DM, thus I believe same goes with RTL. The role of Overlord can be one of mentoring or guiding and monitoring the pace of the game. If it is in favor of the heroes, be more ruthless and go for kills. If the OL is leading, perhaps try to sit back a bit or take this opportunity to try new tricks that require planning or time or CT.

In simple, I believe tactics for Heroes is protect the heroes with lower HP as much as one can without jeopardising in speed.

1. Turns spent in the dungeons is resource cards to the OL.

2. Give buffer for clearing obstacles (i.e. Monsters)

3. Never feel bad / ashamed to retreat if the situation is overwhelming. Free Frags / kills is not the way of the heroes. Unless one wants to go to those special places.

Hello all!

Excellent points so far, and the Blitz article has pretty good info as well. My group played our first real intense game of RtL last night starting a new campaign. In hindsight the heroes made some critical errors in the first dungeon, mainly because we weren't exactly sure what could and could not be done in the heroes' movement step.

As the Blitz strategy suggests, use that first dungeon level to buy out Tamalir. Tamalir is the ONLY town you can access during a dungeon, its resources replenish at the beginning of the week, and exploring the dungeon is part of the move. Therefore the party can buy one or two copper treasures on the first level an two more potions. The temple can also provide emergency healing, and at less than the cost of a potion. Tamalir's temple heals 5 wounds for 25gp during a hero visit, 7 wounds if upgraded to the temple.

Another must for the hero players is to know your enemies. Descent is not an RPG, the OL is not the GM, and the only thing that should be secret is what's in the OL's hand. Know what the monster abilities are on the board. My group last night ran into a master and normal dark priest in the first level. While the priests themselves didn't cause alot of damage, the OL generates 1 threat for EVERY surge that the priests get on a successful attack. That's twice as fast as normal, and the master dark priest rolls alot of power dice. At the end of the first level, the OL had a full hand and nearly 60 threat tokens. The heroes, including me, chose to flee the dungeon.

Next week's game may go a little differently....

Enjoy those journeys in the dark!!!!

Do your best to cover LOS to prevent spawning. My last game, I had every spot except one covered by LOS after the first turn. We took nearly 5-10 turns finishing the level and by the time we got to the second level, the OL had ALL the threat from his bin in his recourse pile and could not use it for much. He was discarding cards and not collecting threat for them just because he had more than 8 cards in his hand!

Obviously, we fled the dungeon next level as that much threat would have surely destroyed us all.

Also, dont be afraid to scacrifice a low CT hero for treasure or glyph activation. a fast 2 CT hero can possibly activate a glyph and open a chest in one turn. If he dies, you are still up 1 CT at least.