Shnar, the game already has some sort of incentive for the heroes to finish the third level of a dungeon : leaders are worth twice as much conquest and gold on the last level of a dungeon. It's just not enough as you say, considering that the Overlord tends to be in a pretty good position at that point and that the heroes have expended some resources getting there. That leads to blitzing and although I've never experienced it, it sounds rather boring and defeats the spirit of the game in my opinion. The problem could in fact be that the heroes have no incentive to complete the second level. So in SOB you get +2 conquest, +100 gold, and 1/4 of a special treasure (I'm guessing they're special and not just drawn from the normal treasure) for finishing the dungeon. Is it enough? Probably not. You could try scaling the rewards for the leaders (and possibly glyphs, but that may be too much) by dungeon level. On the first dungeon level, glyphs are worth 3 conquest, leaders 2 + 100 gold, on the second level glyphs could be worth 4 conquest, leaders 3 + 150 gold, and on the third level glyphs would be worth 5 conquest, leaders 4 + 200 gold. It might be worth a try, but I suspect the impact would largely vary from group to group. You could also get a ridiculously easy third dungeon level with two leaders from an unupgraded category, which would be really bank for the heroes. I'm not sure that would really discourage blitzing as much as your idea of giving free conquest to the Overlord by fleeing the dungeon though. You could try a mix of both.

P.S. This may seem a bit off-topic, but it actually isn't. It really is something I would like to see addressed in future campaign expansions if SoB's treasure maps don't do the trick.

I've actually thought the scaling needs to happen too, but I wouldn't touch the Glyph rewards, but adjust the Leader rewards. Something like 1CP, 50 gold for the first level (making it not so valuable to hit level 1), 4CP and 400GP for 2nd level and 7CP and 700GP for 3rd level. The key being making the 1st level not worth going through, but the 3rd level making all the difference.

Course, I've just pulled these numbers off the top of my head, haven't play tested yet, but the general idea is to make the first level relatively worthless, forcing the heroes to go deeper just to make up the difference in CPs, and if they go a lot deeper, then it really becomes worth it. And these might need to be adjusted at different campaign levels (i.e. more in copper, less in gold), I've yet to get a campaign into Silver (the groups I've played with have all fizzled right at the end of Copper) to know how the game rolls at the higher levels...

-shnar

Currently it's 2CP + 2CP + 4CP, so maybe 1CP, 3CP and 5CP. In dungeons with multiple bosses on the first level, the first boss slain is worth 1CP and the subsequent ones are worth 2CP. On level two and above, the last boss slain is worth the bonus CP , whereas each other boss is only worth 2CP. In the Avatars keep the 4th level boss is worth 7CP.

This increases the total Conquest available to the Heroes (from 8 to 9), so by the same token the Overlord ought to get a mild enhancement. This enhancement is equal to a bonus to HP equal to the Dungeon Level x Campaign Level. So a first level boss at Copper gets a measly 1 HP extra, whereas the 4th Level boss in the Avatar's keep gets 12 extra HP. As an added benefit the Avatar gets +15 HP to boot.

But that's the problem. Most dungeons the CP earned is /not/ enough compared to the CP lost, so the total given for a dungeon needs to be more, and should be weighted the deeper the heroes go down. IMO, the 8CPs for leaders plus (average of) 10 CPs for glyphs/treasures doesn't equate to the 25+CPs the OL usually gets from kills. Most of those CPs for the Overlord come deeper in the dungeon, where-as the heroes it's spread out evenly across the three levels. So why would the heroes want to go deeper?

So, the problem needs to A) give more CPs to the heroes and B) weight it similarly to how the Overlord gains CPs (and C) should be heavily playtested ). That's why I think 1CP on level 1, 4CPs on level 2, and 7Cps on lvl 3 is a good starting point to test with...

-shnar

Whew, my first post...

I would love to see Zombies, and I mean Zombie everything. Zombie humans, Zombie Beastmen, Zombie Manticores, Zombie Kobolds, Zombie Dragons, etc.

Also, it seems like they could do more with a jungle setting than anything else. Imagine different types of spiders, small creatures that ride the spiders, large cat like creatures, snakes, giant flying insects, more apes, fungal plants that have poisonous spores, streams/rivers that contain pirhanaesq fish, borrow lizardmen type creatures from warhammer, those annoying little mummies from Diablo (you know, the ones that Mummy II stole).

As for new terrain, swamp (movement is cut in half) Rapids (roll x power dice, for every surge you are moved down stream x spaces) vines (you can roll a power die and on an enhancement you may swing OVER obstacle for 1 movement point).

Speaking of zombies, what about templates in general? The overlord could have access to events and power cards that allow the application of templates to different monsters. A fiendish template might give aura and burn, being a zombie would give more health, etc.

Along the lines of Zombies, an Infection token would be cool. Once per turn, roll a die, on a Surge nothing happens, else lose 1 wound (ignoring armor). Can only be removed by a special treasure item (some remove infection). And if dies on the dungeon map, replace with a master skeleton.

-shnar

Although it would be cool if the Zombies had high move (a la Dawn of the Dead 2004) to simulate them running. Also a special rule;

Headshot: After declaring normal attack, player roles attack, if successful role power die, if result is Blank the head is hit and Zombie dies instantly, if not ignore all wounds done to Zombie. After declaring an aimed attack, player roles attack, if successful role power die, if result is enhancement the head is hit and Zombie dies instantly, if not ignore all wounds done to Zombie.

This would only be for man sized Zombies, not Zombie Dragons or other LARGE Zombie monsters. Plus, it would make aimed attacks in Vanilla Descent more worthwhile.

I already added zombies to my Descent set. It's a simple and straight forward approach, and naturally I have tons of zombie minis.

Zombies (among other Undead creatures) are also included already in the (inofficial) Order of Kellos expansion, see the homebrew section for that. These Zombies also features a new ability (Disease), which works similar to the one described above.