can the heros target an empty space between 2 monsters so that blast hits them both?

Yes. All attacks in Descent are targeted at spaces. However, in order to activate abilities with surges, the attack must successfully hit a figure.

No wonder my OL is getting creamed, we had spiritwalker at 10 instead of 5 and players blasting empty squares to hit multiple monsters with blast

SamVimes said:

I could be wrong, and I'm sorry if I am, but you confused the FAQ ruling on this a little I think. There doesn't have to be a valid target there in order to activate abilities with surges. There has to be a valid target after you have spent the surges in order for the attack to take effect. From the FAQ:

Q: Can heroes attack an empty square? For example, could a blast effect be centered in an empty square or could a hero fire his Staff of Knowledge off into a corner to burn the overlord’s threat?

A: Yes. However, if after spending surges there are no valid targets in the area of the attack (hero or monster), the entire attack is canceled without effect. This means that if the blast is not large enough, the attack fails, and the Staff of Knowledge must actually hit something to use its ability.

So say you have 2 monsters with three empty spaces between them and a hero has a weapon with Blast 1, and you can also add a level of Blast for 2 surges. He can hit the center square between them with the attack, but the Blast 1 won't hit them (they are still one square outside its radius). But the hero rolled 2 surges, so he can add a level of Blast, and now its hits them both.

Good point. I was thinking mostly about beastmen attacking the air for threat and paraphrased a little sloppily.

sheesh, so blast can take out 8 monsters all standing round an empty square, seems a bit over powered to me.

mordak5 said:

Not quite (unless you have more than 1 rank of Blast). The hero has to have LOS to the target space, which isn't possible if it's surrounded on all sides by monsters.

Also, once the heroes have a respectable Blast weapon, any overlord worth his salt is going to be positioning his monsters so as to minimize the damage that a single Blast attack can do.

Still, AoE weapons do tend to be extremely powerful. The fact that all the standard AoE abilities in the game (Blast, Breath, Sweep, etc.) hit rather large areas is a contributor to that fact, though I think the largest contributor is the fact that most monsters die so easily that there's no disadvantage you could realistically give a weapon that would balance out the ability to hit even two monsters per attack.

hmmm, seems that RTL is designed to give every advantage to the heros and none to the OL from what I can see.

The Hero party have spirit walker and no spawns within 5 squares, blast weapons guard and dodge orders, feat cards the overlord has nothing at the start of the game, the dungeons so far anyway have been so small that there is almost no where to spawn.

Encounters at the start cant even use OL cards as I have no treachery points as no XP at the start that I can spend on treachery.

mordak5 said:

Yes, the OL starts out relatively weak (mostly) and a good hero group can take advantage. OTOH, some of the bosses can be very hard for a starting hero party to take on by the time they get extra wounds and armour. And although some levels are relatively easy, some are very very tricky indeed, especially for a group of new would-be heroes.

But as soon as the OL gets his first monster upgrade that should turn around fast. Upgraded monsters are generally about twice as tough, usually needing more than 1 attack to kill unless a heavy hitting hero on a weak monster. And upgraded bosses and Lts are really quite tough early on.

Because the OL can't buy any more monster upgrades in Bronze level, the rest of the OL's accummulated CT will generally be spent on Lts and Treachery mostly. By the end of Bronze expect 3 Lts and 3-5 treachery. Early Silver can be very dangerous for the heroes.

Thanks, we have been playing descent for awhile, but this is our first run at RTL, so its not so easy to gauge how things are going.

Antistone said:

Not quite. There is a skill that lets a hero ignore one figure or obstacle to draw LOS to his target. It's still require the OL to make a 3X3 block of something though, which I doubt.

mordak5 said:

Oh, I forgot to add, there is also the fact that heroes only start with 1 skill - so they too are quite weak.

err 1 skill or 1 feat?? cos that makes a big difference

1 Skill, mordak5.