Just wanted to hear from the people who like Forgotten Souls/Nature's Ire how the game possibly compares to Castle Ravenloft or Legend of Drizzt. I was thinking of trying the D&D games as a 100% co-op game with programmed monsters and then realized the game might be exactly what FS/NI tries to replicate.

I know the attack system is more interesting in D2E, and character setup might be richer in D2E, still the D&D version seemed a bit cool (different) despite it's an older game.

Has anybody here played both and is able to give a rough comparison? I´m guessing D2E is just more modern and probably richer, but since I already play "normal Descent" I was leaning towards playing something else.

What I prefer in D2 co-op with respect to D&D is the fact that when you enter a new room you have a "plot": the room tells you what you have to do (the "objective" for the room) and this is different for any new room. In D&D you enter and you have monster(s) to kill. That's it and, to me, this is a missed opportunity.

This to me is the most important part in a dungeon crawl.

What I prefer in D2 co-op with respect to D&D is the fact that when you enter a new room you have a "plot": the room tells you what you have to do (the "objective" for the room) and this is different for any new room. In D&D you enter and you have monster(s) to kill. That's it and, to me, this is a missed opportunity.

This to me is the most important part in a dungeon crawl.

Hmm but you do have encounter cards in D&D which you draw as you progress in your exploration?

Encounter cards in D&D are just events (wandering monsters one shot attacks, other kind of damages, traps, ...). Nothing to do with plots. They are just reducing your health (friction).

There are homemade decks that try to add something else to a room, but I definitely prefer Descent2 "plots". In any room it changes what your mission is (apart from killing monster, if they are there). This to me is the intriguing part. Unfortunately there is not a great variety for the time being, but maybe a big box expansion can add more :-) Furthermore it would be nice to have a way to integrate monsters from all expansions and lieutenants. With Descent2 there are a lot of nice resources, but no easy way to "use" them, expecially in co-op way of playing.

Yeah that's exactly what I thought. Thanks for sharing. D&D allows you to mix everything so variety is tremendous, even though you don't have tile-related "plots". It's a more classical approach to dungeon crawl with pre-programmed monsters instead of a OL.

EDIT: Note that I´m not trying to pick one instead of the other, this is just a question I had about how both compare in general.

Personally I like the D&D as very light dungeon crawler but I wouldn’t propose it again to my group since there are not so many tactical choices you can make in comparison to Descent. It seems to me that the game dynamics are quite the same until you reach the last tile. Nevertheless the short playing time of the D&D game is still appealing to me.

That’s why we have stopped soon to play Forgotten Souls and Nature’s Ire with the official rules and we always play Descent with a variant which reduce the playing time and increase the replayability.

In case you are interested please have a look at it in the BGG website:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/115267/descent-journeys-dark-sudden-death-cursed-mountain

I wouldn't personally call the D&D games "very light", it's a heavy game to most players on the planet

I wouldn't personally call the D&D games "very light", it's a heavy game to most players on the planet

Well, in case I have been disrespectful to an horde of gamers, I would like to apologize. It wasn't my intention (I hope they are not already hunting me...).

When I wrote "very light" I was thinking more about the streamlined mechanics which, for example, condensate all the combat phase in a single dice roll. For a former warhammer player this is really advanced magic !!

I bought temple of elemental evils whilst i was waiting for forgotten souls to be posted from the US to Europe.

I was underwhelmed opening the ToEE box to start with, very bland cheap looking characters and horrid/no artwork compared to Descent.

Although they 2 games are essentially the same, I found ToEE just OK and Descent exciting and fun. I cannot fathom why really as they are pretty much the same mechanics. I just find i am more engaged in descent.

After one play through of FS i said to a friend its the game ToEE wishes it was.

i may go back to ToEE evils if i ever complete FS and NI just to get another comparison and reflect more.

Well, never played co-ops, but I had the first D&D game, castle ravenloft. Sold it two years ago, I guess. I kept the miniatures and the coffins for my own borad game, and sold everything else. The game mechanics are not the best, in my opinion. And considering I was used to the AD&D 2nd edition, seems so poor. I undertand what Gendalm means. Descent game mechanics seem much more atractive to me