To those who propose a desert / quicksand setting... If you get stuck in quicksand, what happens?

...if you get stuck and lose your turn (on some die roll) then it's essentially ice.

...if it slows you down (2 mp to cross) then it's essentially mud.

...if you get stuck (and presumably then roll a strength check to get out) then it's essentially web.

All these effects already exist. What's new? That's key, that a new type of tile has to add something fundamentally different.

Some ideas come to mind:

Copper Treasure: Iron Boots (Other) - immune to effects that move a hero. (includes Knockback, Poltergeist, Telekinesis). May be too much like the unmoveable skill.

Copper Treasure: Magic Eye. Heroes can set this down, and retain vision (block spawns) with it. If they leave it in a dungeon, too bad they leave it. So they'd have to go back and pick it up, else just give it up.

Town Item: Grappling Hook - Performs like a ranged weapon, but for 2 Surges, you may grapple and pull any small (1 square non-leader / LT) monster to you. Of course change Ghost to be immune to Grapple.

Potion: The Morph potion idea was really cool, I like that one.

Doors - How about a steel bar door, (like a prison gate) instead of solid wood doors? Magic and Range attacks could pass thru them.

Monsters:

Tier 3 (since each set comes with at least one tier 3)... Hydra (gets 4 attacks?)

Tier 1 - Green Slime? (Eldritch) comes in bits of 2-square and 3-square plastic "L" parts that fit together like Tetris pieces, but can move around freely so long as they're connected. One blob of slime could be composed of 10 of these, which can extend themselves out in any funky way. Attacks by Melee, doing very little damage, but ignoring armor. Like 1 blue die on the attack, ignoring armor. This one answers that call for an Eldritch that attacks via Melee, but still is sufficiently Eldritchy.

Melee - Dont think we need more melee. Already Ogres, Trolls and Giants are too similar. Perhaps something mid-tier, like a 2-spacer. A Centaur? This makes for a nice Ranged Melee character.

Eldritch - Some sort of Conjurer / Summoner? Someone who can bring about new monsters via a non-spawn method. Could also call upon acid rain, clouds that block vision, or thundering sounds that use a new template, a round template that's 7 squares in diameter, and rounded. He just points to a square, and the effect centers on there. (in other words, every square within 3 spaces of the target square, following flat edges). This would allow them to include a new template.

Just some ideas...

-mike

Well qiucksand could be something like web, but you need someone else to pull you out. The hero has to be adjacent to you and each round it taks one more movement/fatigue to pull you out. After 3 turns without help you die.

Ithaine said:

Forget needing someone else. That's way too limiting and time consuming. Remember, one of the Heroes biggest assets is their speed and "requiring" assistance may unbalance things quite a bit. Why not require a prolonged action to escape? I am a HUGE fan of the Prolonged Action, but it isn't used nearly enough. Perhaps another Hero COULD contribute to the Action, but it shouldn't be necessary. I guess the biggest thing I would like to see in a new expansion would be more uses for the Prolonged Action. (Especially Prolonged Actions to which the entire Group can contribute, requiring them to kinda "Tag" each other to keep the Action going while fighting monsters. )

Well, let's see. We've already delved into good old-fashioned dungeons in search of good old-fashioned treasure. We've faced off against evil in the darkest of darks. We've played Indiana Jones in a jungle temple. And, most recently, we've squared off against the Lich King in Northre- I mean, Tomb of Ice.

A lot of people are going to naturally make the jump from frozen wastelands to somewhere a little... warmer. I, too, am a big fan of the desert theme.

But we mustn't forget the most basic rule of game design. Every epic game needs one or more of the following: zombies, pirates, robots, and ninjas. Don't believe me? Let me reassure you: it's a proven fact in game design . I know. I went to college.

We're a little low on zombies, but Skeletons are close enough, yeah? Pirates are scarce, but One Hook represents them well. We have more ninjas than we know what to do with.

That leaves my personal favorite.

Now, I know a lot of you dungeon-dwelling diehards just had small aneurisms at the mere thought of a technology-based theme in a game such as this. "Get your peanut butter out of my chocolate," you say!

But let me remind you that the kobolds have already engineered a fully [semi] functional mechanical dragon! Think of that as your immunization shot. The full onslaught of the clockwork menace will not even surprise strong heroes as yourselves: ready for anything at a moment's notice, never fearing what they do not understand!

Perhaps the seriousness of my suggestion is lost in clever dialect, so let me assure you: I am quite serious.

I would love to see the heroes venture across the blazing sands to the dangerous crypt of some long-dead king, only to discover (and accidentally awaken) an ancient technology: something with a very steampunk/clockwork feel to it. The entire expansion need not revolve around it: I'd also love to see some desert/Egyptian themed enemies (basilisk/alligators with Swallow+Ironskin, jackal-headed zombies with Necromancy [zoooombiieeeees], giant hands that reach up out of the earth and pull you under) in addition to the clockwork menace, but I think it's long past time our heroes met some robotic fiends, perhaps with self-destruction (deals a Blast attack immediately when killed), magnetism (on successful attack, chance to "steal" an item until the monster is defeated), and of course, laser beams that use the Bolt template!

From the descriptions I've read,I think that's more or less what they did with the Frozen Wastes expansion for Runebound.

poobaloo said:

Quicksand should deal damage with changing position (randomize):

person on this kind of field make roll , if fail then is removed from actual position and is consequently transported to another quicksand (adjacent square) which party previously explore. Always backward not to unrevealed area!!! If party don't find quicksand props till now, then person take only some damage. Purpose of this effect is slow down party prevent from runners and finally little bit shatter the party.

I exclusively play RtL and only want more stuff for this:

40 new dungeons. (please balance so that eldritch (skeletons) are not the super monsters they are now)

6 new avatars + 6 avatar dungeons

9 new plots (come on, 3 aren't even close to being enough)

new overlord upgrades to better balance the final battle (right now it's a walkover and our group have made a silver and gold level card to balance this:

silver campaign level: 5 points for 5 wounds to all monsters

gold campaign level: 10 points for 10 wounds to all monsters)

3 new monster types

12 new characters

12 new rumors.

This shouldn't be too hard to do. Otherwise just steal it from the fan-fiction and make it official.

Would love to see an Isle of Dread style overland map for RtL, or Sands of Al-Kalim. Or even Midnight Chronicles!!

Another Avatar or two would be nice, especially to go with the above themes. Asaf-shibsah from Isle of Dread would be awesome!!

LOTS more lieutenants - so many the players could never kill them all in RtL. Preferable more dangerous ones as well. Lord Vorakesh, Mistress of the Ferox, and Kral the Bone Lich -- you have a call on line one!!! Would like to see another 5-8 generic LTs, and 2-3 specific ones for each Avatar.

One big thing missing from Descent that is in Runebound - LOTS OF UNDEAD!! Sure there are wraiths and skeletons - but no liches, no crawling undead, no ghouls, no mummies, no vampires, and no zombies!! That could be an expansion in itself!!

For the Overlord deck - the Overlord needs something to help him counter the Feat cards. He has so little reactionary things in the Deck. Also an official size needs to be laid out as the deck keeps expanding.

Want to keep adding things for players? How about Allies/Retainers?? There is alot of potential from the Runebound set here. Rules wise they could be somewhere between a familiar and a player. Big difference of course - they don't come back.

More player skills would be nice as well - especially some more balanced skills to make the Rapid Fire more rare. Also rewrites of the Spiritwalker and other cards would be good.

I'd like something that i can play with 2 more Player, means new monster cards.

Nice would be more cards the boost the monsters abilies like "DOOOM" or give one moster type a special ability (waht about sweeping Beastmen? *eg*).Also some new board parts would be good an a few more models for the old monster especially rthe smaal ones like beastmen, ferrox and Razorwings.

I too play RtL strictly.....but I own every expansion and I wish I could use more of Altar and Well without having to proxy in a campaign.

I would like to see a full usage of the 2 expansions that came out BEFORE RtL (Altar and Well). Almost every quest items and xpac specific tile just rots in the box when you play RtL campaigns. Deep Elves are nasty little guys but you can't get them into your campaigns without spending monster treachery poorly or randomly flipping the 1 or 2 dungeon/encounter cards they are on. Boulders, mud, big trap doors they all need to be given a purpose in a campaign - use them more.

I would like to see any new xpac include new cards rolling the old xpac content into a campign setting (so I don't have to proxy it and look like timmy power gamer).

Small card subsets 80-100 cards would be great for RtL expansions. More campaign cards (rumors, dungeons, encounter, treasure, etc.) Just like you did with Runebound.

I would also like to see Quests rolled into campaigns and new random Legendary dungeons. If they were made as Dundeon cards they could be used once per campaign and only when flipped as the first floor of a dungeon - sunstituting as all 3 floors.

Currently I have all of the quests from all of the xpacs and core game proxy'd and sleeved with the random dungeon encounters. If flipped as the first floor the party can play the quest out as a dungeon - remove the relics for silver and copper campaign levels - but the rules for spawning on some of these massive maps needs to be predetermined, help from the developers to convert the quests would be real nice (currently I use the rules - no spawning in the starting areas within 10 spaces from the portal on the first turn, then its by sight and after that I allow them to close doors behind them - if the room is empty OL can no longer spawn in there - OL cannot open doors the players havent with monsters or cards - stairs flip the eyes for summoning and trigger all new areas triggers like windpact).

Some of the quests require some tweaking to fit into a campaign but it isn't too hard. It would be nice to see a FAQ or errata for the published quests (and new ones coming out in this new 96 page book) for use in a RtL campaign setting.

Last but not least - Custom Character creator (in an xpac and not online) with cards that can be filled in.

As far as campaign settings........surprise us!

I'd love to see an expansion that has randomly generated dungeons. Something where there was a deck of "areas" and another for the monsters in that area. It'd need to be usable in both RTL and Vanilla, but FFG are smart people so I have no doubt they could get it to work if they moved in that directon.

I have dream ....

It was cold, rainy and foggy morning when group of four good armored figures enter the tavern. I can't remember name of this tavern and don't know in which town stay but one I know this morning was empty. Only innkeeper behind the bar polish the glasses, when they enters, sleepily murmur something like "we'com travellers, we have rainy this mornin" and continues in his hard work. All figures sit down at the table near the window. Window was dirty, covered with grossly layer of dust and spider webs. So, observer in room can only hardly recognized what happen outside. One of new guests better tighten his bag which swings him on belt. Air breaks sound of tingling coins, which echoed from bag. Innkeeper cancel his work and in the nick of time came to table. Now he could seen that one of them has cape and so, he can't see his face, another has pack of swords packaged in leather laying by on bench. When person see that innkeeper gazed at them simply covered them by buckler. Innkeeper slowly sink eyes and continue in examinations just at that time yell out "aaaggrrr RAT! disssgustinggg RAAAT!" trying to hit n' beat them. But synchronous with innkeepers arm blow up hand one of new guests with dagger pulled off from boot. "I warning you don't do that, because it should be your last thing what you do"! say person with thunderous voice holding dagger on innkeeper neck. After short break person continue "his name is Boggs and he's travelling with us... rather bring us four mugs of beer and something to eat". "Three suffice" silently whispers that in cape. "Yess of course, and please excuse my for this accident" say innkeeper and after while serve the drinks and meals. When he finished say "did you hear last rumours about old cementery"? After he spoke last word rain outside was changed into blizzard and small piece of ice starts knock on window and windowsill. "Let's continue" say innkeeper "peoples don't know if someone envoke dark powers or on the world is too many evil that dead leaves their places on churchyards where rest in peace, but no one knows. Certain is that shades, ghosts, ghouls, lycantrophes, skeletons etc... all this undead creatures don't wander over land as now. And as Temples or churches are in every city this threats are legitimate". Again, noisy bold cleave the sky, and in shine was seeing that all country were covered with snow. Everything quitened, silent breaks man in cape which stood up and whisper "we knows". Thereafter all party members follows this in cape and went outside the house, whereby last one throw some coins on desk. Only innkeeper still gaze at frozen window in which frost sketch sihouettes of vampire above the body on graveyard.

New tiles : (cementery, graveyard) outdoor with graves and standalone prop too
New monsters: typically Graveyard

Props: Grave (as props ),
Ice grave (as props),
Tumulus - with entrance through the correct grave (random/non-random),
Cauldron with holy water,
Candlestick - character gives only half movement points without set on fire them, shoud be turn off by hero/humanoid monster

Effects: darkness - LOS is reduced only to ??? squares. Alike as Reach, better light source (stand with 1,3,5 candles) = better LOS.

Potion: cure lycantrophy (stop changing on lycantroph - conquest eater)

Ways:

- how to randomize chance "know" as result play same map - hidden some item in one of this "grave" props, (must search/pick up correct grave in map - OL
randomize draw loss an place marks before starting map - alike as chest contain)
- how to utilize Sarcophag props (which is used only in one quest)
- how to utilize Temples materialize them in game (search all temples, special relic "rare" Quests or items)
- how to utilize 8 towns in RtL and 8 towns in prepared SoB expansions

This crossed my mind before going to sleep... I know it's too early but I forot it, if I don't write it here

A "pirate" or sea-based expansion, something that would compliment Sea of Blood!

-shnar

Some great ideas here.

1) More quests for both the base game, RtL and SoB are always a must have.

2) Some rules and or items to help work out the RtL kinks (haven't played RtL yet but I've read a lot of concerns on the board)
And (again) rules or items that help integrate other expansions into RtL and SoB.

3) Small card expansions (similar to Runebound, as already mentioned here). More OL cards, skill cards, treasure cards, feat cards, market cards and other kinds of cards? This kind of variety would really help make each play through feel very fresh.

4) Maybe some kind of expanded mini-campaign. Something between the base game and RtL. Quests that might be a single dungeon with multiple levels and a grand end boss/monters fight. Maybe each level of the dungeon is built to play as long as regular game session. This way way we can have Hero's that get the keep the stuff they earn and feel like their getting more growth out of their character and not commiting to a RtL game that takes so much longer then 2 or 3 dungeons.

5) Maybe different modes of play (Similar to Doom)? 4 Heroe's, two teams of 2. 1 Treasure/goal. Imagine 2 heroes on 1 team entering the dungeon from one side and another team of 2 entering from the other. Could introduce some very cool dynamics including PvP.

6) And of course, like eveyone else... I'd love to see expansions with new monsters and new tiles for dungeons.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I'd *love* to see some Psychic creatures, using a new Psychic die, like the one The Warp created, where instead of damaging wounds, it damages fatigue...

-shnar

Lot of great ideas here. i would really LOVE a city based expansion. That would be so awesome! Imagine the tiles with streets and building rooms! Maybe sewers and crypts... I wonder if that would be too much of a departure from the dungeon based game, though. I mean even RtL and SoB use the dungeon tiles for the meat of the game...

For those who haven't seen TheWarp's excellent Psychic Die addition to Descent, look at this:

So in addition to the normal dice rolled, the purple Psychic die is rolled. Not that there are no "hearts" on the die, but instead there are "tear drops". Psychic die does fatigue damage, not wounds, a *really* good addition IMHO, especially for RtL where heroes could potentially have +8 fatigue...

-shnar

cadamec said:

Yes, please. There could even be a small deck of encounters (10-ish would be plenty) areas using the city maps so you could defend RtL cities by fighting sieging lieutenants in the streets instead of in the woods.

I'd ike to see the dungeon cards restructured into three decks that could be used as Level 1, 2 and 3. OK skip 3 when there is a dedicated thrid level. The fact thet level 1 can be harder than the lower levels irritates the hell out of my group. I know its a nioce random effect sometimes - but every time. Let's face it, chances are heroes will be stronger at the second and third levels so those levels should get harder.

I'd also quite like to see a new class of monster - Psychic seems like a nice idea as suggested above.

I like the Cemetery theme above- I was thinking Necropolis myself. Some great suggestions in there. I especially love the Lycanthropy effect.

Lastchance said:

Are you sure about that? Chances are much better that the heroes will be weaker on the second and third levels, and the Overlord will be stronger , which is why the Blitzing tactic works so well. Think about it, after the first level, the Heroes will have used some potions and probably bought the 2 potions from the Alchemist already (so no more new potions except from treasure chests in this dungeon). They will have used fatigue and have been damage (some more than others). The *only* reason why the Heroes will be stronger is treasure. They might have had a decent draw at the market, or gotten lucky with the chest in that dungeon.

The Overlord on the other hand has threat amassed, has the Eyes flipped up for free, may have one or two Power cards in play, has a good, relatively cherry picked hand all set for the next level. He may have already used some devestating tactics, like Crushing Blow, weakening the heroes even further.

Just about everything points to the OL being stronger the deeper the heroes go down into a dungeon...

-shnar

I still think Lastchance has a point about the randomness of dungeon difficulty (based mostly on what monster upgrades you purchased and on level design). They could possibly have implemented dungeon difficulties related to, say, campaign level, using a model similar to encounters (green, yellow, red, some having more than one tag). It would make the difficulty curve less erratic, but then you'd get less variety in each campaign level. We're probably never going to see such a system though, unless someone makes a houserule for it.

I take your point Shnar, but what you say about the way in which heroes only blitz the first level and then run for home kinda makes me point for me. Descent used to be about progressing through zones of a dungeon withour knowing what was in the next zone. That seems to have gone from RtL, or at least been reduced. If the balance is now such that heroes all play a single level only, then someone should be asking why? It certainly does not seem to me to be the intention of Kevin or FFG. I guess you could argue that the possibility of the second level being easier encuorages heroes to carry on down, but that does not seem to be the case.

I guess I just like the greater surprise associated with bigger, complex dungeons and the current model does not seem to deliver that in the right format for the standard dungeons. Maybe the SoB treasure rule will bring that back - but if it does then the randomness of the dungeon cards will become even more of an issue for me. I would just like to have 50 dungeon cards for each of the first, second and third levels, preferably with more doors to open within each level. By all means make the levels more difficult for the Silver and Gold stages of the campaign - although I suspect the "natural" development of the monsters, luitenants and the overlord will take care of that.

To be honest I'm not sure about the solution - I just know the game has lost some of its' dungeon surprise!

The problem is the incentive for going deeper into a dungeon just isn't there. I do believe that Kevin thought that you'd only flee if it was *really* hard, not flee just about every time, and so Fleeing was a worst case scenario. But us players who do a lot of min-maxing have seen that the rewards for going deeper are not better than the penalties for fleeing (i.e. dying more for little CP/Treasure is good enough to just go back to Tamalir and take another week or two traveling to get back where you were).

They tried to address this in Sea of Blood by adding the Treasure Map pieces, so now the heroes have greater incentive to "complete" the dungeon. IMHO, it's not enough. I think there should be an *immediate* reward, or maybe even a penalty if they fail to complete the dungeon (say the OL gets 2 CPs per uncompleted level if they decide to flee, or something), in addition to the treasure maps.

But at least they're starting to think that way...

-shnar

a plot where you defend a city/castle against an overlord and purchase traps and stuff and the overlord on the other hand tries to break through