Hi all,

I'm playing the OL in our first campaign, and I'm having a little trouble clarifying the situation with gold piles and conquest tokens in the game.

1) When the players pick up a gold pile do they get 100 gold, or 400 gold? The original rules state each player gets 100 gold, but now the players don't get individual money so I just wanted to check how it works. My players seem to be accumulating huge ammounts of gold.

2) Can I just confirm that players get a total of 3 conquest tokens for activating a rune, two for a boss on dungeon level 2 or an encounter, and 4 for a boss on level 3 or a lieutenant? I'm pretty sure this is correct, but my players have loads of money and very little experience. This means they can't train much.

3) One small side question, if 3 or 4 lieutenants walk around together, can they not raze a city within a couple of turns since each of them places a siege token?

By my calculations, in a dungeon of three levels, assuming one rune per level, they should get 17 conquest tokens.

3 x 3 = 9 for the runes, plus 2 x 2 =4 for level 1 and 2 bosses, and plus 4 for the final boss = 9 + 4 + 4 = 17

If the OL keeps his monsters back, then uses them all in an assault on one character, he should be able to get one kill per level, (we're at copper level so this may change as players get silver and gold items).

The characters are mostly 4 points in our campaign, so I should get around 15 tokens per dungeon.

This is 3 x 4 for 3 character deaths, and 3 for getting through my deck once, which I seem to do.

Does this sound about right?

They've done two dungeons, and in both of them, they have had a level where they've lost 4-5 characters, due to my spawaning extras and using lots of rage cards.

They should also get about 400 gold for each treasure pile (assume one per level), and around 300 plus a copper treasure (worth250) from each chest (assume one per level). So in a dungeon they get 950 x 3 = 2850 gold.

So in a dungeon they should get, let's round up, 3000 gold and 17 experience, while the OL should get approximately 15 xp.

The campaign level should go up by a total of 32. Is this about right ?

This means they need 5 dungeons to get 160 xp, plus some extra for exploring and some for the OL each game week, plus some encounters.

This should get them to silver campaign level.

Currently, they have 28 xp, and the OL has around 60 xp. And they've done 1 dungeon, 2 encounters, and 1 level of the next dungeon. They are getting creamed!! This seems very unbalanced. Does this happen in your games?

Sorry if this is a bit confusing, thanks for your help, I appreciate your time.

My first experience with Rt was a quite similar, with the OL VERY STRONG in Dungeons (at early copper), and A LITTLE LESS STRONG in outdor fields (due the absence of the OL's deck and the relative weakness of the copper monsters).

Yes, the party gained an huge amount of gold during the adventure, but a very low number of XP...'cause they gained 400 gold every single pile taken! I don't know if this interpretation is right, but we're still playing this way....Someone out there maybe could clarify this issue.

Anyway, the "weak" party was able to defeat the first Lieutenant sieging Tamalir after a couple af weeks (Sir Alric Farrow), always in copper...

...and (unlucky).....I was the OL

You are playing correctly, they get 400 gold per pile. The heroes make a LOT of money in RtL, because they need a LOT. It costs them big to upgrade Tamalir, buy skills, etc. They also face the prospect of buying treasures since they aren't guaranteed to get any.

My campaign in still in copper, but from what I have read, the OL's greatest strength is during copper. I have had dungeons where I have wiped the floors with hero blood. I always go after the weakest characters, as a good OL should do. If you have stubborn heroes who will not flee, they will give you a lot of experience.

As the heroes grow in strength, the balance of power starts to shift back in their favor, and, again from what I've read, once you hit gold level, the OL is pretty much done for.

Starchaser said:

A couple of things:

They still get 50g for killing master monsters too- 3000 sounds a little high but it all depends on the chest rolls.

Also, I think you should point them to this forum and have them read some of the posts about playing as the Heroes... and also Kevin Wilson has a very nice Hero guide in the support area. It definitely seems that they are trying to "clear" each dungeon level rather than "get through it". This is key- if the OL gets to 25 xp early, he upgrades to Silver monsters before the heroes have a chance to pick up decent Copper equipment.. They need to learn that fleeing a dungeon is ok... get through level 1, if level 2 is looking dire, snag the glyph/loot and flee!

And the usual- Make sure you as OL aren't abusing spawns - once per turn and must flip the eyes before spawning again (but it's flipped after each level anyway) and encourage them to play faster and be more concerned with Line of Sight to prevent your spawning effectively.

For consistancy's sake, please use CT for measuring the campaign levels NOT xp (they're related but NOT the same)

I'd say 5-6 dungeons should get the campaing to Silver level on average.

Thanks for the responses, and sorry for blurring the lines between experience and conquest tokens.

Sounds like things are about right, I'll let the players know about running away and rushing through the dungeon levels.

Currently, they are clearing out each level, and getting thrashed doing it.

Obviously I've upgraded to silver monsters, and I bought a second lieutenant so I can siege multiple cities at once, or take down cities faster. I'm also getting the siege engines card to help with this. I plan to save tokens so that when we hit the silver level of the campaign, I can quickly upgrade all monsters to silver and one to gold.

I haven't tried treachery yet, but it does look good. Possibly I'll buy two points and use them to get dark glyphs or dark relics.

Thanks again.

If you buy a point of treachery, give strong consideration to it being event treachery, and always buying Crushing Blow. It can really demoralize the heroes.

Starchaser said:

Yes, the party gets a total of 400 gold per pile. It does add up fast, but training gets expensive pretty quickly, too.

Starchaser said:

CT != XP. The party (as a whole) gains 3 CT for activating a glyph. That 3 CT is then converted into 3 XP for *EACH* hero to spend later on. All other CT gain is likewise converted into the same amount of XP for each hero. They should have enough to get a skill here or a training token there within the first two dungeons, unless they're doing very poorly.

Also note that the campaign level tracks CT gained by each side, not XP gained, so the hero side of that equation is NOT multiplied by 4.

Starchaser said:

The way I read the rules, during the seige step you check for each city to see if an LT is present, and if so you place a seige token. You do not check how many LTs are present. In other words, a city will only gain one seige token per turn, regardless of how many LTs are present. You can, however, have one LT start a siege on turn 1, then move him away and have a second LT arrive to maintain the siege. As long as there's an LT present in the siege step, it keeps going.

Also remember that it is not allowed for multiple LTs to enter combat with the heroes at once, so having three of them in a stack will not protect them from a well-geared party of heroes.

Starchaser said:

Mathematically speaking, your calculations seem correct. The only thing it sounds like you missed is the fact that when CT becomes XP, each hero gets that much XP. So it should be 28 XP per hero, not 28 between them. I think you'll find that will make a big difference in how they perform.

Steve-O said:

I believe that you may be reading the rules wrong there about seiges. Siege tokens are added AFTER you check the Siege resolution.

2. Resolve Sieges
First, remove all siege tokens from cities where at
least one of the overlord’s lieutenants is not also
present.
Then, for each city that has a number of siege
tokens on it equal to its Defense rating, roll a black power die.
On a surge, the city is razed. On any other result, simply leave
the siege tokens in place.

As long as there is a LT present, the siege is rolled for (if the defense value is overcome) and if unsuccessful (or defense value isn't met) the tokens remain.

3. Overlord Actions

Lieutenant Orders
The overlord may issue one order to each of his lieutenants per
game week. Each order may be to either move or besiege a
city.
• Move: ....

Besiege a City: If the lieutenant begins his turn in a city,
he can besiege it. If he does, the overlord places a siege
token on that city’s space, as long as it currently has fewer
siege tokens than the city’s Defense rating. (If it currently
has siege tokens equal to the city’s Defense rating, the
overlord does not add additional siege tokens.)

So as long as the LT begins his turn in a city he can add a siege token. EACH LT can either Move or Besiege independantly. AFAIK, there is NOTHING in any of the documentation that limits this to a SINGLE LT per city. If there are 4 LTs in Tamalir at the start of the week, EACH one can INDIVIDUALLY take the Siege action and add a siege token.

If I'm wrong about this, PLEASE point me to the verbage that specifies that a city can only receive a single siege token/week

You can most definitely place multiple seige tokens per week if you have multiple Lts there. Its pretty much the whole basis of the "Tamilir Rush" OL strategy.

I'm guessing if you can get 2 LTs in Tamalir, the heroes are pretty much done. This seems like a really not-fun way of ending the game. I'm not saying I won't try it.

Veinman said:

I've seen it in action, its stupid.

I understand why the have razing Tamalir as a victory condition for the OL, but it unfortunately lends itself to things like this. I'll be interested to see in SoB how this works with no Tamalir on the map.

I wonder what happens to Heroes when they die in dungeons?