So a friend of mine wants to potentially play a day long RtL session on his birthday, and the best option looks to be starting at Gold level. I looked over the rules and they seem pretty straightforward except I noticed that the OL has zero options for buying anything with his XP.

Beginning at Gold Level
To begin the Advanced Campaign at Gold level, first conduct campaign setup normally. Then, the overlord and heroes each receive 200 conquest tokens, and 20,000 coins are added to the party treasury. After that, the heroes may look through the Copper and Silver treasure decks and purchase any Copper and Silver treasures they wish (other than “Treasure Caches”) for either 250 coins (Copper) or 500 coins (Silver) each. Next, the heroes may purchase any training that they could receive in Tamalir. Finally, the hero players, as a group, choose three cities and/or secret masters, and may then purchase any training they could receive at those locations. The campaign then begins as normal.

So apart from it being Gold level and the OL is typically not doing well to begin with, he has to start the campaign with no monster upgrades, no treachery, and no Lts apart from what he can get with the initial 15XP? Against heroes who have Copper/Silver weapons and extra training? Since he can only purchase 1 upgrade a week, it will take him 4 weeks just to get the monsters all up to Silver and 1 to Gold. That is four dungeons the Heroes can do with the OL severly underpowered.

Who wrote this section and even remotely thought this was a good idea for a way of starting the campaign in Gold level?

I considering houseruling that the OL spends his initial 15XP the same as always and then for a Gold campaign start to let the OL spend his 200XP as much as he wants, up to the limits of the end of Silver. So the OL can purchase:

1) All monster categories at Silver, and one at Gold

2) Purchase as many Lts as he wants

3) Purchase Plot cards and Avatar Upgrades

4) Purchase treachery upgrades

Thoughts?

Big Remy said:

Someone at FFG. That sums it up.

pinkymadigan said:

Probably the same someone who thought the monsters scaled well for different sizes of parties.

Big Remy said:

This is pretty much exactly what we did for a Silver start (which is working very well), with one extra addition. If you don't allow the OL to 'save' any CT (to upgrade to Diamond first turn) then you even get the 'early blitz' type of feel.

I would advise that you let the OL raze two cities as well. Partly because it is extremely rare for the OL to not have razed at least 2 cities by gold level, partly because the OL needs the increased income, partly to reduce the combo capabilities the heroes can create with their skills eg, get acrobat+swift+tiger tattoo+ox tattoo, or Unmoveable+Knight+Battle Cry etc etc.
If you allow the OL to raze a city in between the heroes choosing of training locations, then the heroes still get good choices but they become actual important choices and the OL can reduce the worst combos (though not greatly).
An example;
Heroes choose the city with Acrobat and Taunt.
OL Razes the city with Boggs (and the good market).
Heroes choose the city with Weapon Mastery, Leadership, Precision and Blessing
OL razes city with Wind Pact
Heroes choose a Secret Master and get Rapid Fire, Quick Casting and Cleaving!

We razed only 1 city for a Silver start and it worked extremely well.

I think it is pretty obvious that there is an entire paragraph missed out in the rules about what the OL can do setting up a fast start.
No one is stupid enough to think it could possibly work without the OL getting to upgrade as well. No one!

Corbon said:

Someone at FFG?

Take a look at the latest free plot card - it's terrible for the OL to play.

pinkymadigan said:

I agree and disagree, and I think it all depends on when you play it. In the hands of the right Avatar, and if he is consistantly spending 1XP a week to put down a Icy Path it could work. But he'd need to get this out there like the second or third week to have it be effective IMO.

And I would never play this plot with any of the Avatars whose Keep's are a bit out of the way, like the Sorcerer King. It would take like 6 game weeks before the Icy Paths would be even close to being effective.