I've managed to play Descent a few times so far. Never as a hero yet. I play with a Mish Mash of people which is extremely annoying at times. I play with my Younger brother, who is 15. Hes really into this game. I then play with my two Cousins Kris, 20 and Kristina, 15, as well. They are both into the game as well. Kris being almost Fanatical about it. We went to Ren Faire this weekend and are going camping next. I brought the game to Ren Faire and I'm not sure about bringing it camping yet. I then Play with my girlfriend Lottie, 25. She likes games but she can't pick up Descent. She likes Runebound, Oddly, more. In her Defense she has always had a sh*tty draw. Always. She gets a bad combo of skills and treasures. She also always plays with Red Scorpion. I dunno why, shes loved in her Runebound (and kicked ass) and now loves her here. She refuses to play anyone else. Sigh. So shes not having much fun yet. I then Also have my friend Amanda, 20. Shes into it, but weve only played with her a few times. Then theres a friend on the forums here, through sheer crap like and scheduling on my part, I have not been able to play yet. Sorry if you read this!

Anyway, we've never had everyone together yet, if we did we would have too many players. We've played with 2 heroes up to 4. We find the game much mor enjoyable with 4 heroes. Although it does take some time to play sometimes. I've never played a hero, because the people I play with do want to try overlord. I don't mind much, although I don't think I'm the best Overlord.

Heres some things we noticed. WIth a standard deck I can summon a lot of guys. I usually win by bogging down my heroes and then playing traps when thay have a handful of hps left. Kinda cheap I know. We started playing with all the expansions after our first game. The Feat cards were fun for the heroes and saved their asses a lot. Not all of them were useful, as poor Lottie found out time and time again. Or least useful for her situation and character. They really gave them some power.

Adding cards in my deck is cool, but I usually don't have time to. We setup extremely quick and since I build the board, I don't want to make them wait 20 minutes while I mull over and pick cards. I premade a deck once, when they were moving onto the brothers quest. Quest 2. When we played again, we had a player who couldnt make it and 2 more who joined. So they wanted to do the first dungeon again. There goes my premade deck (different amount of treachery and different dungeon flow).

The next few games I have been just been using the default deck and using usually the 6 to 8 threat I get on The teleport replacements (their actual name escapes me at the moment). Those things are devestating! I replaced every one with a cursed one. The Heroes had a very tough time with that.Generally on teh first was safe. and I replaced 2 of them with "duds" So they couldnt teleport at all. They were dropping treasure and couldn't potion up unless they went back to the first Teleporter (Runes?) Glyphs thats it. Too lazy to go back and edit at this hour and Im trying to get my thoughts out before I forget them. They had less fun when I started using those cursed Glyphs. Are they meant to be that strong? For 2 Treachery? They were very effective for me.

I've also managed to get in that card where I swap out one of their treasures for a cursed one. I managed to do it to a gold one. Oh man did that help me. The glass armor on a hero, who needed armor (and did have a good one equipped) and he also had 2 cursed items equipped. I dropped him and took 6 conquest from him. I like that card. It was a fine one time shot and allowed me to when I wasnt going to.

Generally I'v noticed I tend to win. Now I've played Heroquest, D&D and other games like this. I also play PC and Video games when time permits. For the most part my Heroes have little experience in this sort of thing. Kris having the most. So I assumed I would. I've tried not to go easy on them. Its not always fun for them when they murder everything they come across. But I did a few times and thats when they won. They tend to have less fun when I stop them in a corridor with traps and monsters. Mix that with bogus glyphs and the game starts to slow down and they have less fun. I completely understand I'm not a DM. Im a player as well. Trying to win. But no matter the game. When someone is also winning, they tend to have less people to play with. I don't want that to happen. These are casual players but I got them hooked and I would like to intorduce them to this type of Hobby. Anyone have any good ideas on how to achieve that? They want to do RtL but I'm not sure they are ready. Or me, for that matter. They hate spending 6 hours and having nothing to show for it. Well mostly Amanda, shes pretty greedy about her pet hero and it pains her to start fresh everytime. (they would have loved HeroQuest!)

Okay some rules Questions. Shiver (Aura 4). Is that really 4 Damage ignoring Armor? Jesus. I cannot go near him. I usually have to sorcerer him to death.

That one Ghost dog. Cant think of his name, but he rolls one white Die ignoring HP. HAs to be no more than 5 spaces away and the hero has to have line of sight to attack right? He ignores Armor as well right? That thing Snipes the crap out of my poor Kolbolds and saps the health of poor boss monsters as well. We've played yes and yes to both.

Leap. Can I leap through Aura free from harm. The book mentions "soaring" guys do not take damage. Not sure what they mean.

Grapple. Can a hero really Grapple 8 monsters and Still manage to attack? Can he Grapple guys Larger than I square wide? Can I leap through a guy that has grapple, or If I start my turn next to a guy who has grapple, can I Leap away? We've played yes, yes, no no to the above.

Nanok of the Blade Starts with 4 Armor?

Spiritspeaker mok. The Overlord's cost to play cards is increased by 1 threat token per card. Per card what? in my hand? In my graveyard? Deck? In play? Or is it just everycard I play cost 1 Additional Threat? Thats how we've rocked it thus far.

Mordrog recovers 1 Fatigue each time he is wounded. So is that 1 Fatigue per wound he recieves? So lets say I attack and hit him for damage and his armor only absorbs 2 so he gets hit 4 times. Does he recover 3 Fatigue? (he could recover 4 but he has a max fatigue of 3) Or does he reovers 1 Fatigue everytime he is hit per attack. Same example above. I roll 6 damage. He takes 4, he recovers just fatigue since he recieved damage? We've played teh first way I asked about and he had an item that allowed him to use fatigue to heal. Kris abused the crap out of this, high rolls of damage were then calculated and he recovered 1 fatigue for every damage and while counting that out his faigue would refill and he would heal. So I hit him for like 8 and he generally only took like 4 with that ability and Item.

Finally (until I edit when I realised tomorrrow I forgot something) .

Laughin Buldar. He cannot equip 2 two-handed weapons right? Seems pretty clear. Wanna make sure. Also he is allowed to equip one twohanded weapon and one one-handed weapon right?

Anyway thanks to those who read through this massive post and help! We are learning, slowly but surely!

StormbringerGT said:

your paras numbered for referencing...

1. It will be very rare to get anything but a poor combo for Red Scorpion. She is one of the worst heroes there is, by a large margin. No, I take that back. She is THE WORST hero, by the same large margin. She has NOTHING going for her. I have heroes categorised and ranked as tanks, warriors, runners, shooters and mages. Red Scorpion is only in one list and is unique in that list. The title of that list is 'Useless'. Frankly, someone screwed up when wrote up her stats!
No disrespect for your girlfriend, but I have no time for people who complain (not that you say she has, but you effectively are on her behalf) about a bad experience (or a persistent lack of good experience) when they deliberately hamstring themselves. In other words, for her to enjoy the game more she has to get over the Red Scorpion thing, even if it means using a different hero card but the same figure.
Sorry man, but there it is.

2. They are strong, in the right circumstances. You can get some extremely powerful cards for 2 treachery. Note that only the green ones (event treachery) prevent the heroes using them to glyph to or from town. The red and purple ones give the OL some bonus each time the heroes use them but do not prevent the heroes using them in any way.

3. If they are hooked then thy should be interested in other's experiences and lessons. There is plenty of advice available on BGG (here too, but the search function is so abominable that you'll be lucky to find anything worthwhile) on how to play heroes better. Having each player play as OL at least once, even if they aren't particularly keen, will give them better insights on how the heroes should play as well - not to mention getting you a chance to play as a hero sometimes.
It is about being a responsible member of a gaming group rather than only playing for yourself all the time.

4. Yes, Aura 4 ignores armour. Yes it is powerful (though pretty weak in RtL). OTOH that hero has 2CT value defensive stats with a 3 CT cost when killed. So munch him with ranged/magic monsters, or Reaching melee monsters and laugh at the extra cost the heroes have to pay when he dies.

5. You played correctly. Frankly it is IMO a weak skill. With 0-3 damage Furr will rarely, if ever, kill any monster in one hit, or even 2 hits, and is not all that easy to use effectively against a smart OL.

6. Get and read the FAQ. Now. Stop reading this and get the FAQ (in this case pg 7) immediately. You can continue reading this later!
Soaring is from RTL and only operates in outdoor encounters. It is not relevant in dungeons.
Basically Aura works when you move into (enter) a space adjacent to the aura-ed figure. A Leap Attack might take a leaping figure through/over those adjacent spaces but the figure never actually enters those spaces. All the MP for the Leap are spent at the starting location and the leaping figure then 'lands' in the final location without actually entering any intermediate space. So if the leap-er leaps past /over the aura-ed figure without landing adjacent, the leap-er never entered an adjacent space and does not take damage. But if the landing space(s) are adjacent to the aura-ed figure then the leaper does take the damage from the aura.
Also note that because the leap-er doesn't enter any intermediate spaces it can't be trapped or have a guard order interrupt used on it mid-leap.

7. The correct answers would be yes, yes, yes and no.
Grapple does not take up any hands or limbs or anything it is just an intrinsic ability the the figure exerts on adjacent spaces. Sometimes realism is sacrificed in the interests of simplicity and playability. Note that you can't grapple a figure while it is sharing a space (moving through another figure) so there are ways to get past grapplers if you have enough resources to throw at them.
Size has no relevance to grapple.
Because the MP are spent at the beginning of the leap you can leap through a grappled space - you aren't spending MP to move out of that space and into the next one.
However you can't leap out of a grappled space if you start in one because Leap requires you to spend MP (which grapple explicitly prevents)

8. Effectively yes. However note that he can't wear any armour, so really it is not much difference than a 2 armour hero wearing chainmail - and in fact worse than a 2 armour hero wearing Plate (bronze treasure). The best thing about Nanok in vanilla is that armour is limited (as is starting cash to buy it), so not having to buy some for one hero improves all the other heroes!

9. Each card the OL plays has its Threat cost increased by 1.

10. It is one fatigue each time he is wounded. He can be wounded for multiple wounds from one source but that it still only being wounded once.
You need to differentiate between Damage and Wounds, which are similar but different game terms, and being 'wounded' which is common language rather than a specific game term and means 'suffer one or more wounds'.
Note also that getting the fatigue from being wounded means that the wounds have been applied already. So it is too late to use fatigue to prevent wounds. You would need to prevent the wounds using existing fatigue first, then if you still took wounds (ie could not prevent them all) you would gain a fatigue from being wounded but could not spend that fatigue to immediately prevent more wounds from the same source.
If you are not careful about understanding timing and effects then lots of things can be abused.

11. You are right. It is clear. Yes, he is allowed to equip 1x 2H weapon and 1x 1H weapon. Strictly RAW he could not claim an Off Hand Bonus as this requires 2x 1H weapon per DJitD pg 19. However that is an original rule created when Laughlin did not exist. Given that his miniature explicitly shows 1x 2H weapon and 1x 1H weapon and there is absoutely no benefit in the rules for doing this (whereas there is a benefit from 1x 2H weapon + shield), it is generally accepted, I believe, that Laughlin can use the Off Hand Bonus for a 1H weapon when using a single handed 2H weapon.

Thank you. You've answered every question perfectly and clearly. I did read the FAQ. As a matter of fact I read every book except RTL and the FAQ on my first night had toruble memorizing what was in all of that. So please excuse me if I tend to ask some questions that were in one those sources. I try to look through them first but during a session that can get tedious for everyone!

Again thanks for clear and to the point answers!

StormbringerGT said:

Also- do check out the Descent entries at Boardgamegeek.com. You can download all kinds of helpful player aids, game play summaries and the like that will help cut down on the frustration of having to dig out rulebooks all the time, and speed up play.

Enjoy!

Also read the Gathered List of Answered Questions thread here on the board. Its a collection of official email answers to rules questions.

StormbringerGT said:

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you automatically hadn't read the FAQ. There really should have been a smiley or two there.

Even having read everything a dozen times, unless your name is Antistone* (tips cap), you are still expected to make mistakes and ask questions. Me too. Don't sweat it.