These are all good tips. Thanks.

On the balance issue:

Would giving an extra XP point to the OL notwithstanding the Rumor card quest result resolved the unbalance issue or would it unbalance things furthermore?

I am a little wary about giving the Overlord too much XP, as that can result in the OL being able to achieve card combinations which might be too strong. This is similar to why the heroes aren't given too much XP either, as play balance has not been tested in situations where the heroes were given access to their entire skill tree. It was a mistake of Lair of the Wyrm to provide an XP reward in its final quest, a mistake they have since rectified in future expansions.

Hehe, I figured Whitewing would have a dissenting view on this! I don't think he chimes in when we do happen to agree ;-)

Threat isn't nearly as valuable a resource as gold and shop card draws are. The overlord always has to weigh the pros/cons of threat and fortune. An awesome sword is just an awesome sword.

Also no matter how hard you try to limit the search tokens, they are still going to come away with a few. This is especially true if the quest goes south for them and they decide to ditch the objective and devote all their resources to acquiring treasure. If you have ever been on the receiving end of your critical lieutenant being wiped out in a single turn by the many powerful weapons in the game, you'll know how important every single shop card draw is in swaying the balance of power.

And don't forget that there are travel cards that force the Overlord to play their rumor quests! You do not have as much control over if/when they are played as you think you do.

Ultimately though, I think the best advice is to experiment. Try out the rumors as is, and see if you agree with Whitewing. I know I'm not alone on the board in viewing rumors as bad for Overlords, so try out the variant too and see if you enjoy that.

Yeah, I don't usually reply unless there's a new point to be raised. If I agree with what people have said, I usually just remain silent.

The bit about a new sword being great is true, but I think you undervalue the potency of threat well used.

I very commonly play a rumor card down the instant I win a quest and then force it to be played immediately, because I know that rumor is going to be exceedingly difficult given the hero makeup. I'm pretty much always correct about that, and often can limit them to very low amounts of treasure, and sometimes none. The relic reward I get is nice, but more importantly, I get 1 threat per hero killed, 1 for playing the rumor card, and 2 more for winning the quest.

It's entirely up to you to decide if it's worth playing it, but I want to point out that if you make the houserules that chamy suggests, you are going to heavily imbalance rumor quests in favor of the overlord. The heroes essentially get no reward out of it at all unless they win (and you can decide whether they're allowed to try it, meaning you'll never let them unless you know they probably can't win it), and you still get rewards as normal.

There's only one travel card that forces you to play a rumor card, and you can play the rumor quest that most heavily favors you. Even when it goes down, you still get a threat out of it.

And for the record, I pretty much always play overlord.

My goal with the variant is that I want to see as many of the rumor quests played as possible. This content isn't as easy to open up as the main campaigns, as mini-campaigns aren't as popular with my group as the full experience, and you may never draw certain rumor quests for quite some time. Then of course there are all the cool H&M quests which don't have mini-campaigns!

As you have pointed out, the Overlord usually gets to decide whether the Rumor quest ever becomes available or not. The Overlord can then carefully determine how likely they are to win the quest and only pick the quest if a win is a near certainty. If the win is a near certainty, and the Overlord can really lock down search tokens, and the reward is a good one, then yes, its probably worth the risk. But what if their composition is good for the Rumor quest? What if the odds of winning are 50/50, or worse? The rumor then sits in the OL's hand unplayed... That is a shame!

This means some Rumors will probably never get played, as some are hero favored (for an extreme example, see What's Yours Is Mine). In a regular campaign there are hero-favored quests and OL-favored quests, but the hero-favored quests can get picked, because the heroes can choose them if they win. Not so with a rumor quest locked in the overlord's hand.

If the heroes' windfall from a rumor quest is reduced, the Overlord can feel a little more comfortable playing it, even if the odds of winning aren't stacked in their favor. The Overlord can stop and think, "I have never played this rumor before. I might lose, but hey, lets give it a shot!"

If they do lose, the heroes get a nice relic or card. Ow, that hurts, but not as much as them gaining a powerful relic, hundreds of gold, and another chance at that Grinding Axe or Crossbow they've been coveting the entire campaign. That is a true face palm moment and too great a risk.

I don't think the Threat gain imbalances the rumors in favor of the Overlord, and not only because I think Threat isn't as valuable as gold/loot. This is because the overlord may have to spend some threat on the quest just to win it. The threat spent may even exceed the amount gained and the poor OL is in a hole.

Meanwhile, the heroes do not have to expend any finite resources to complete it. All of their stuff regenerates, so the worst that can happen is they gained nothing.

I think one of the problems is, that rumor quests have come a long way since their first implementation.

If you look at them without using a plot deck, there is just no reason to play them as OL, you have very little to gain, and a lot to lose.

When adding plot decks, rumor quests become a bit more attractive. But the overlord still has to think carefully, wether playing a rumor quest is worth the risk.

Disregarding this, the quality of the rumor quests itself has improved over time, which for example led to universal and monster relics, which the overlord can use without lieutenants, as well as quests that feature a lower number of search tokens than heroes.

Personally, I think either skipping or altering the shopping phase(only allow to draw 2 cards for example) after a rumor quest might be enough, to make them worth playing as OL.

As most regular posters lurking around here know, I´m definitely leaning towards Charmy concerning rumors, however I´m in the process of giving them another decent shot, and hoping that all the time spent playing as the overlord will help me making better decisions. I probably started with them too soon, as I do believe you really need to project yourself ahead rather than just looking at the rewards and the overall difficulty of the quest(s). It does take some homework.

It really comes down to the heroes composition and how agressive you think they would play the quest. If you think they´ll go for treasure or if you think they´ll try to get the relic, or even both. Above all if you think they can pull this out at all. Bar all marginal situations where you find that pearl of a quest, in which the heroes have strictly zero chances of winning at all - like interacting with objective tokens testing willpower and every hero's willpower is 1- I don't think you can easily estimate the chances of the heroes to pull out a victory. Descent remains a game of luck in many aspects and [as everybody knows] **** can happen - and not only once

It's an informed decision. I don't think there is an "always play rumors whenever you can to gain threat" (even if that's not entirely what Whitewing was saying), I think playing rumors and losing however often can wreck the campaign completely from a OL perspective. If you have some form of damage control, as for limiting heroes from looting every boot and pocket in the camp, or if you can influence the shopping step, then you can more safely lean towards playing a high value quest. As the first quest of Act I is a good opportunity while the heroes still sit with their start gear. But then start gear can be even nastier than the Act I items themselves for some classes so it's not even a 100% garantee, lol.

Overconfidence from a party of heroes gearing up like crazy in a campaign can also be their demise, and my advice would be to play a maximum of "mirror effects" if you ever reach that point - where what you do no longer has any impact on anything as heroes have answers to everything - which uses their strengths against themselves rather than relying on subpar monsters imposed by the campaign. Also one OL card I tend to buy quite early in a campaign, especially if I know such campaign is going to take long [rumors involved especially] is Airborne from the Infector class. Just alone. Makes your X rolls very useful in the most desperate situation. In the best case you can allow a monster to survive that extra turn. As I´ve always said, each monster has an unprinted number of actions to defeat and as long as you can keep that number higher than 0 you´re in the right boat.

For the record, I would either play rumors as they are intended to be played, or not play them at all. No house rule can fix them without breaking balance, imho. But you can also draw the cards and play the ones that do not trigger rumor quests.

We've only got the finale left in our Nerekhall + Manor of ravens campaign and we, the 4 heroes, are brutally overgeared

This is the only campaign we've had this much of the act 1 gear going in to act 2 and it's been doing a world of difference! We picked all the items to counter the OL-deck (which with basic II and a couple of purchases focused lots on willpower rolls and other attributes), which included belt of water walking, thief's vest, elven boots etc while also having all the power items such as ring of power, rune plate (this should be an act 2 item btw!), mana weave etc. We've won every act 2 quest while focusing a lot on looting throughout the entire campaign, much because we've still had the money to buy the act 2 weapons.

I don't know if the rumour quest has been the culprit here, but it certainly is what the heroes go to the quests to get, not the relics. Another shot at a treasure chest and some extra gold and 5 more outs at weapons or other strong items in act 2 is what makes it so immensely strong for heroes. I think removing both the gold and the shopping is too much in favour of the OL though. We might think of something different or just try again in the next campaign (will be labyrinth and trollfens, that's how we do it with the rumour cards) and see if we end up with the same problem..

Someone suggested using challenge tokens in the rumour quests, which is interesting, but can mess with quest balance if monsters spawn. Maybe just the attribute ones...? Or do 1/2 gold from search cards? Or just no extra shopping phase (that fixes the problem with allowing for an additional act 2 shopping phase, which is a huuuuge hero boon!)? Or a shopping phase with reduced number of items like heroes/2 round down? Or just leave it as is and play them smarter with this in mind? Or any combination of the above?

I really wanna play the quests without skewing the overall campaign balance too much.. I don't really know what the answer is.

We've only got the finale left in our Nerekhall + Manor of ravens campaign and we, the 4 heroes, are brutally overgeared

This is the only campaign we've had this much of the act 1 gear going in to act 2 and it's been doing a world of difference! We picked all the items to counter the OL-deck (which with basic II and a couple of purchases focused lots on willpower rolls and other attributes), which included belt of water walking, thief's vest, elven boots etc while also having all the power items such as ring of power, rune plate (this should be an act 2 item btw!), mana weave etc. We've won every act 2 quest while focusing a lot on looting throughout the entire campaign, much because we've still had the money to buy the act 2 weapons.

I don't know if the rumour quest has been the culprit here, but it certainly is what the heroes go to the quests to get, not the relics. Another shot at a treasure chest and some extra gold and 5 more outs at weapons or other strong items in act 2 is what makes it so immensely strong for heroes. I think removing both the gold and the shopping is too much in favour of the OL though. We might think of something different or just try again in the next campaign (will be labyrinth and trollfens, that's how we do it with the rumour cards) and see if we end up with the same problem..

Someone suggested using challenge tokens in the rumour quests, which is interesting, but can mess with quest balance if monsters spawn. Maybe just the attribute ones...? Or do 1/2 gold from search cards? Or just no extra shopping phase (that fixes the problem with allowing for an additional act 2 shopping phase, which is a huuuuge hero boon!)? Or a shopping phase with reduced number of items like heroes/2 round down? Or just leave it as is and play them smarter with this in mind? Or any combination of the above?

I really wanna play the quests without skewing the overall campaign balance too much.. I don't really know what the answer is.

I am curious, when you say " We've only got the finale left in our Nerekhall + Manor of ravens campaign ", do you imply that you merge both campaign into one ?

If this is the case, no wonder the heroes became overpowered as compared to the OL.

Adding too many potential XP rewarding quest to a campaign will unbalance the game in favor of the heroes.

I am curious, when you say " We've only got the finale left in our Nerekhall + Manor of ravens campaign ", do you imply that you merge both campaign into one ?

If this is the case, no wonder the heroes became overpowered as compared to the OL.

Adding to many potential XP rewarding quest to a campaign will unbalance the game in favor of the heroes.

Ofc not. (I thought this was clear, speaking about rumour quests in a rumour quest thread?)

We're using only one small box rumours for each big box campaign to get it more thematic.

I've seen many say that trollfens is more balanced.. But in those quests you get gold as rewards as well as gold from the search cards.. Isn't that contradictory to the point that gold/loot is what skews it heavily in favor of the heroes? :/

Frankly, I'm going to maintain my stances that the rumor cards, as designed, favor the overlord, not the heroes, in general. Don't forget that many of the rumor cards are purely overlord benefits and do nothing to help the heroes, and you get to draw a new rumor card after playing them.

People tend to fixate too much on balance over a single quest, and tend to over value gold.

I think FFG has recognized how imbalanced the rumor quests are in favor of the heroes, and have been taking steps to correct it. This is very clear if you observe the progression in rewards/layout of the rumor quests with each new rumor quest release.

You could already see things shifting with Manor of Ravens adding the universal relics and reduced search tokens.

Today I just played the "Guardians of Deephall" rumor card for my group, and was reviewing the quest to prepare for it. To my great surprise I noticed that the Act I quest actually has no hero reward whatsoever . It's true! If the heroes win the rumor quest, they get nothing . The only consolation they have is that the Overlord doesn't get their reward card. Furthermore, the Act II reward card for the heroes is very weak. One of their heroes gets the power that every time they slay a monster with the Cursed trait they gain 1 stamina back. That's all. Not even a gold bonus. Similarly, the Overlord reward card isn't very powerful either.

This is a drastic change from the days of Lair of the Wyrm, with plenty of search tokens and super powerful relics like Valyndra's Bane available for the heroes right from Act I and full-on XP bonuses in Act II.

I think its great that FFG has recognized the problem, I'm just not thrilled about how they're going about fixing it. Its all well and good if you play with the newer rumor cards, but that doesn't address the broken nature of the older ones and just means they're less likely to be played and enjoyed.

I'd have preferred if they had kept things more consistent and simply changed the rumor rules to do the things that we've been talking about, such as skipping the shopping phase, and/or reducing/eliminating search card gold. Another approach would have been to release a patch fixing the rewards for all the previous rumor quests.

In any case, my heroes still enjoy the rumor quests, even with reduced rewards. I think they recognize that by limiting the rewards the rumor quests are more of a fun detour that isn't supposed to drastically alter the balance of the main campaign. And they still love chances at Treasure Chests.

Yeah that's a good point Charmy, same goes for the Oath of the Outcast Act I quest (the one giving you the Unseen Wings OL card) which gives no reward to the heroes - only search tokens. I think it's a move in the right direction, but a relic is just one card, as powerful as it is, as opposed to X shop item cards bought with the gold gathered from the search tokens.

Talking about gold and gear in general, I've witnessed heroes abusing the following item to basically get the same result as drawing the Treasure Chest card any amount of times until they found one of the uber-pieces of gear in the deck.

I agree with you Indalecio. The extra shopping phase is probably the biggest boon of all to the heroes from the Rumor quests as written. This is especially true in Act II when they have very few chances to acquire the amazing items contained within.

Talking about gold and gear in general, I've witnessed heroes abusing the following item to basically get the same result as drawing the Treasure Chest card any amount of times until they found one of the uber-pieces of gear in the deck.

I am happy when the heroes get the lamp. It is actually very costly for heroes to consume actions for non-quest related activities. If they get a bad luck streak they could end up wasting many turns just trying to substitute the lamp for something good. Yes, it does suck when they end up finally getting broken items like Bearded Axe and Rune Plate, but what if it took them 10+ attempts to get there? Even a single lost action can cost the heroes a quest, or some search tokens, so its not a bad trade off really. The fact they can only get Act I items from the deck.. items which they have access to after the Interlude anyway, makes it not so bad in my opinion. They can also only get the lamp once per campaign.

Yeah that's a good point Charmy, same goes for the Oath of the Outcast Act I quest (the one giving you the Unseen Wings OL card) which gives no reward to the heroes - only search tokens. I think it's a move in the right direction, but a relic is just one card, as powerful as it is, as opposed to X shop item cards bought with the gold gathered from the search tokens.

Talking about gold and gear in general, I've witnessed heroes abusing the following item to basically get the same result as drawing the Treasure Chest card any amount of times until they found one of the uber-pieces of gear in the deck.

That item is pretty bad, barring exceptional luck. It takes an action every time you use it, and if the overlord is playing well, the heroes shouldn't be able to afford spare actions without throwing quests.

That item is pretty bad, barring exceptional luck. It takes an action every time you use it, and if the overlord is playing well, the heroes shouldn't be able to afford spare actions without throwing quests.

*gasp* Agreeing with Whitewing makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside

I agree with both of you on the lamp's account. This is exactly how I "handle" it as the OL.

However, just for the sake of discussion, heroes could just plain decide to have one guy waste his actions turn after turn looking for a good piece of gear (or interesting from a monetary perspective). If a quest is virtually over then there is no reason not to do this.

Yeah, but its a 100 gold punt into the dark.

You have to burn actions to use it, you have no guarantee that the items it will turn over are any good and it only works in act 1 where act 2 items are the proverbial gold rush.

If you dont find a good item worth 100 + its just money you could have saved for the better stuff in the 2nd half.

Not when the lamp itself comes from a treasure chest.

Which only adds on, what, another 2 variables with increasingly small odds?

Now you have to draw the chest, then hope the lamp is the top card AND then hope that the lamp is able to flip you something worthwhile while not clogging actions and costing you quests/relics/more money.

It is only worth 50 when sold as well in the even it finds nothing of value (because if you are using this in the interlude then you are either coasting to victory or have all but given up)

Outside of being used in a scenario where you are already losing so terribly it cant actually get worse (it can always get worse) this just screams 'avoid' at me.

I appreciate that Funkfried is giving a viable use of the card, and of course there will be times that it gives you something that you otherwise couldn't have but it seems far to reliant on to many variables to merit serious consideration.

Yeah sorry, in my particular situation the Lamp was indeed found while searching. I should have presented it this way, e.g. assuming heroes don't have to waste money on the lamp during the shopping phase, they own it from a treasure chest. It makes it more viable I suppose.

So, as a hero in LoR who so far, our 2 treasure chests (with treasure hunter) have been "boots of iron" and "iron shield", anything else would be better.

I agree with both of you on the lamp's account. This is exactly how I "handle" it as the OL.

However, just for the sake of discussion, heroes could just plain decide to have one guy waste his actions turn after turn looking for a good piece of gear (or interesting from a monetary perspective). If a quest is virtually over then there is no reason not to do this.

I see how it could be abused when a quest is virtually won else it clearly favors the OL. Also, I feel like the heroes need to get their hands on the lamp early in the campaign for it to be good. Getting an act 1 item close to the Interlude does not seem that strong.

This item would be overpowered if it was for an act 2 shop item.

So... Rumour quests, balance issues and so on?

So... Rumour quests, balance issues and so on?

Well the general consensus is that the extra income generated by these rumor quests, along with the added possibility of finding a treasure chest (and even a treasure room, mind you), has a general (and negative) impact on balance. The problem is aggravated by the quality of the hero reward in many quests, but I would still believe the problem persists even if there is no hero reward like in the H&M quests.

It's all about gold, regardless of winner. Only the Finale matters in the end, so heroes could just give up an arbitrary amount of quests just to loot everything and still get a pretty decent shot at the Finale. Unfortunately I think this is a viable strategy, even with a OL getting many rewards.

At the end of the day it's something the OL has to evaluate. A generic relic can only be wielded by a Lieutenant (I´m not talking about monster relics here) so it makes its use very situational. OL rewards are drawn randomly like the rest of the cards, unless you include card draw control cards which again makes you "waste" scarce XP resources. If you think the reward is worth a shot considering the heroes' party then go for it. Otherwise I´m of the side of the players who believe there is close to zero incentive to playing the quest. Gaining threat is not enough of a reason for me to play a quest. I would play threat-light plot decks anyway, even zero-threat cards like good old Tristayne's, anyway.

At 50/50 chances I would never play a rumor quest unless the reward had great significance for me as the OL. Not a random item or card, something really useful. Unfortunately, most quests don't offer that type of reward. Act II more often, so theoritically you could just play the Act I quest and get behind in terms of gold earnt by the heroes, and then try to "catch up" in Act II to get the desired piece of card board. That's a hell of a gamble, though.

If I know I´m losing I "could" play the rumor as part of a gamble, so I get a small chance of coming closer in case of a win. If I'm already winning then again zero reason why I would risk to obliterate my position in a campaign by playing a rumor quest.

Then of course you might want to play the quest just for fun or variety, but I´m talking from a pure strategical perspective.

I guess the heroes' efficiency at searching plays a huge role in the equation too, and a Mimic card is barely a protection =) If the party has 3 move, or no rogue etc then maaaaaybe you could lean towards playing these on a more often basis.

I'm currently trying my hand at Basic, Infector, Alric deck. I'm investing in low cost cards that make it harder for the heroes to kill monsters. I played the Oath rumor quest card, but have not attempted it - yet. I intend to, because I think it will give me an opportunity to gather a good amount of threat, and to me, that is worth giving the heroes the opportunity to search a little- their scout is a stalker class.

I'm actually more inclined to try it since I have been winning so far- perhaps it isn't strategically sound- oh well.

For me, If using plot decks rumors have significantly more value to the overlord - threat is one of those resources that can really swing a quest your way at the critical juncture and the chance to earn more and potentially win a relic/reward is excellent.

Without the threat bonus the general consensus is that the potential gold and relic give up favors heroes to much to be played unless you are completely curb stomping the hero group.