Hi folks,

I have a quick question, and a forum search didn't answer my question. I apologize if it's been asked a billion times before. Played my first game tonight, which was a blast. However, one of my players (the tank, naturally) pulled Leadership. As written on the card, when you take a ready action, you both move AND attack, and then have the option of assigning the ready action to someone else.

As my tank interpreted it, he basically tooled around taking ready actions that were actually advances, and unless he took a battle action, he always, and I mean *ALWAYS* had dodge or aim on. I think he used leadership to give status to someone once. This seems, well, broken to me.

A rules argument occurred, and I basically insisted that for the rest of the game, he had a choice. He could take a ready action and apply it to himself, or he could pop leadership, get the advance, and give the ready action to someone else. It still seemed overpowered to me, but seemed more in line with the spirit and power level of the game. He couldn't effectively have 3 "half actions" every turn. I still think that "and" should be "or", but I see this in no erratta. I can't be the first person who's asked for an official ruling on this. Is there anything to back me up? Or does leadership really just turn you into a constantly dodging, constantly advancing tank?

I guess the erratta does say that you can't take two identical half actions using leadership, which would indicate that the "and" applies. My question of the ready action applying to yourself when using leadership then goes into effect. I can live with someone advancing and giving someone else their ready status, but I can't understand getting readied *and* gaining the effect of advancing. It just seems too powerful to get two benefits beyond the rules instead of one. Does this get less absurd in later, harder dungeon levels? Because really, for 80% of the game the character was nigh untouchable, and that last 20% was either when I busted out web and a master sorcerer, or when the boss fight started up.

Leadership really turns your "two half actions" into three.

There are plenty of those Skills in the game btw:

-be it paying one fatigue to attack after slaying a monster (Cleaving it was called?)

-paying two fatigue to shoot once more, doable as often as you can spent the fatigue (with swallowing a potion and the vampiric blood skill i have seen 10 attacks in 1 round so far (Rapid shot))

-Giving you two attacks AND a guard-ready action and a +1ac bonus on top of that (unmoveable)

-giving you two fields of movement and three attacks each round (Knight)

And there was somethiogn about advancing and slashiing two times too, and of course a magic equivalent to Rapidfire.

As Overlord i fear you must get used to those mighty hero skills... forget merci and butcher them as good as you can!

Leadership and the others mentioned can give an Overlord a really hard time. The best counter-tactic that I've found is to play the power that gives you threat every time an order is placed. I can't recall the name of it right now. I think it came with Altar of Despair but it could have been Well of Darkness.

Anyway, it shuts this kind of behavior down quickly. And if it doesn't, you spawn them into oblivion.

TheFlatline said:

You may have a pre-errata version of the card (which was less clear IIRC).

The full current text of Leadership is:
When you declare a Ready action, you may immediately spend 1 fatigue to take 3 half actions instead of two half action (one half action must still be an order half action).
In addition, when you place an order, you may allow another hero to place the order instead.

This is utterly unambiguous. You (the hero with leadership) get 3 half actions. You get them, all three. You may (not must) allow another hero to take the order half action instead.
I don't really understand your power level problem because frankly, if it stays on the same hero all the time (which you are objecting to) rather than get moved to other heroes (which you are ok with) it is substantially less powerful.
There is a further clarification (FAQ answer) that explains that each of the three half actions must be different.

Leadership is one of the best skills in the game - not because of it's inherent power (as pointed out by others, there are substantially better skills from the pov of getting extra attacks etc), but because of it's incredible flexibility.
The most commonly annoying use of Leadership from an OL's POV is the Rest order placed on a different hero who has not yet had his turn. That hero can then start it's turn immediately, successfully resting (the OL has had no opportunity to break the rest).
Other really annoying uses are put dodge on a hero with Stealth, putting Guard on a hero who has just barely managed to get into a good position (especially say, a hero whose turn was suddenly ended by Ice or similar) or giving Talia a Guard order (which is effectively almost an entire extra turn during the OL's turn).

Sinso said:

Note- I do NOT believe that you can continue Rapid Fire by stopping to drink a fatigue potion (Vampiric Blood certainly works though).

Oboewan said:

Definitely not. The Rapid Fire only allows an immediate additional attack. Stopping to spend a MP to drink a fatigue potion means any more attacks will no longer be 'immediate'. However it is entirely possibly to Battle, attack (many times) spend the last fatigue drinking a fatigue potion, then attack again (many times). Two attacks (battling), each with multiple immediate uses of Rapid Fire, and a fatigue produced MP spent between them to drink the potion.

It gets really ridiculous in RtL with additional fatigue upgrades.
We are in the Overlord's keep now and despite no time for training at all during Gold level I am facing Vyrah with 6 Fatigue (only one upgrade), Eagle Eye, Master Archer, Rapid Fire, three silver dice (double strength blacks) and one black dice. He has an Archers Charm, but luckily no other useful 'other' shooting items and fortunately is only using the Scythe of Reaping (BGG, Sorcery 2, ~=damage or range) as his gold treasures have mainly been armour or runes. Still, his average attack only does 13-15 damage, Pierce 3, Range +2 and with a battle and a potion he can get in 7 attacks in a turn. It could be much worse!

Some further notes:

- You seem to be confusing the Ready action and orders. Leadership allows you to place an order on another hero; it does not allow another hero to take a Ready action. Placing an order is normally only possible during a Ready action, but a Ready action involves both placing an order and doing something else.

- The pre-errata version of Leadership does not have a fatigue cost, which does make it arguably the best skill in the game. And yes, it is completely normal to use it pretty much every single turn. Normally you wouldn't even Battle, as you could move+attack+guard for generally better effect, so pretty much the only reason not to use it would be if you needed to Run.

- Placing orders on other heroes is generally at least as powerful as placing them on yourself, if you know what you're doing, so suggesting that restriction as a nerf to leadership seems rather ineffectual. It's still the same total number of half-actions even if someone else takes one of them.

- Aiming is a terrible waste of your action almost all the time. Guard should probably be your default order. Also, placing a Rest on someone before they take their turn allows them to recover fatigue without risk of interruption, which is pretty awesome.

- The first quest is really easy. The second quest is also easy if the heroes figure out what to do. They do get harder after that.

Taken from the offical FAQ:

"Leadership (skill)
You may not choose the same half action twice with Leadership. It is not possible to place an order on another figure and an order on the figure with Leadership. It is possible for a hero with Leadership to give another hero a Rest order, and then have that hero activate and recover full fatigue on their turn in the same round that the order was placed"

Meaning you can not use Battle action while using Leadership, but you Advance and place a Guard order on yourself, which is almost the same as an Battle action

Splitting up your attacks through attacking and guarding is usually no better than just attacking twice, but I can't think of any situation where it would be worse.

Corbon said:

I *do* have a pre-errata version of the card. I'm TOTALLY okay with leadership costing a fatigue. This puts a limit on it's usefulness. Not a huge limit, but there is *some* cost trade off now, which is the issue with the power that I had. The pre-errata version of the card literally has no cost cost to it, and only (immense) benefits. With some kind of cost/limit, I am much, MUCH more comfortable with the skill.

Is the errata'd version of the card in Well of Darkness? Because that's on order. Or do I just have an older version of the game?

Rajamic said:

Rajamic said:

The strength of leadership is not so much in using the ability on the owning hero. If you put an order on another hero you can do some pretty impressive things.

Place a rest order on a hero who has yet to go this turn and when they go they also get their fatigue back.

Put a guard order on a hero who has already battled and they can get an extra attack in. Or a dodge on the runner that is in the middle of all the overlords forces.

Etc.

All of this is on top of the hero with the leadership getting thier normal action. The basic idea is that the extra order allows for a very powerfull advantage for one hero. Some of the possabilities are particularily strong when combined with a hero's special ability. Have Talia do an Advance order, place a guard on her and she will get an additional full move when her guard is activated. Combine this with another skill like Able warrior and she gets the effect of a Run (2x movement) and Battle for the total cost of 2 fatigue for her and 1 fatigue for the hero placing the order on her. There are a multitude of options based on the interaction of specific skills and hero special abilities.

Brian

Rajamic said:

It's worse if you need to kill the monster in order to permit movement/LOS through its position--for example, if it's blocking your path to a chest, or if a ranged hero is hoping to kill a monster standing behind it. It also means that you have to end your turn in the position from which you want to make the attack, rather than doing a hit-and-run. You also sometimes want to do it right away so that the other heroes know what your roll is before they decide their actions (for example, so another hero can attack the monster if you miss).

A Guard can be better than an attack during your turn because you have more information when you make the attack--you know what all the other heroes did, how they rolled, whether the overlord is playing any spawn cards, and usually something about what the monsters are doing with their activations (depending on exactly when you make the interrupt). It also gives you a chance to attack monsters you couldn't target on your turn, such as newly-spawned monsters, monsters that are just moving into range to attack, or monsters to which your LOS was blocked by heroes that have since moved or monsters that have since died.

TheFlatline said:

The errata'd version is in the Altar of Despair expansion. The main reason for the errata appears to be that they wanted to reword it to work with the "concentrate" option added in AoD for prolonged orders, and the fact that they could rebalance it at the same time was just a happy coincidence.

Antistone said:

Good to know. I actually told my fellow players tonight that I'd like it a whole lot more if they played with this "errata" and they were cool with it at first. Then they pulled it and actually fell in love with the new version of it. For some reason, having to blow a point of fatigue made the skill far more dramatic for the players, especially after the guy with only 3 stamina pulled Leadership. Literally, without a cost/drawback to the skill, nobody cared about it, but were totally willing to abuse it. As soon as it had a cost, for some reason, the skill became more valuable, even though it was less powerful marginally.

It was not nearly as overpowering as I originaly thought it was. Useful? Incredibly. But I didn't feel frustrated when it was used constantly. In fact, it became a contention point, whether or not it was worth spending fatigue on other things to keep the leadership engine running.

I actually wiped the party tonight, but after the players conceded that I had, in essense, won, I fudged the winning action so that it left them with *a* conquest point, with the understanding that I had won. We finished the dungeon out from that point on, and it was a bitter, brutal, hard-won "victory" for the PCs (but not the players).

Thank you for all the fantastic information in the thread though. I appreciate it a lot.

Corbon, thanks so much for posting the full text of the errata'd Leadership. My friends and I have only played base game and WoD. We had known about the new fatigue cost of Leadership, so we always played with the extra cost. However, we didn't know *when* the Leadership hero had to pay the cost. For example, if if the Leadership hero didn't have any fatigue when he delcared his ready action but drank a vitality potion during his turn, we allowed him to use the Leadership ability. I guess the use of the word "immediately" nixes that plan. Which if fine by me as I usually play OL. :-)

I don't understand why FFG never put this new version on their errata section of the FAQ.

Falculus said:

This site, not from FFG, is an invaluable resource.

http://www.descentinthedark.com/

I'm not involved with it, but a big thanks to the guys who are.