Last night we took a break from our campaign to play vanilla descent for a change (and so I could be a hero instead of an overlord). We played the first quest in WoD; the one that has a collapsing mine. We drew our starting heroes randomly using the RTL method, and the party ended up being Ispher (me), Mordok, Karnak, and Silhouette (whose skills of quick shot and the +2 fatigue made her a room clearing beast). We started off really well, making it to the third room by the third turn. This is where things went to hell for us. First, the overlord played the treachery kobolds for speed bumping us, which slowed us down by way to much. It took us a little over 3 turns to make it out of the room, by which time the falling mine started catching up to us. Then the next section (the long bendy section with a couple of ogres) proved to be our undoing. We ended up getting stuffed by Kobolds, Blood apes the overlord played, and an ogre stepping on top of the unactivated glyph making it so we'd have to kill him first to activate it. So...we start hacking our way through the minimum to clear a path to for me to run and hopefully kill the ogre and activate the glyph. Unfortunately, one of our characters was killed by a trap, and another fell off the map when we had no more glyphs to bring us back. Then I did something stupid. I opened a chest and got turned into a monkey, completely sealing our fate . We had a blast, but even if I hadn't been stupid I doubt we would have made it. Aside from an unfortunately unavoidable time-crunch in the room with the Ogre and bottomless pit, and me being silly at the end, we were making great time.

My question is, aside from the overlord not drawing a large number spawn card (which is pure luck), and my idiotic mistake at the end (which at that point we were more than likely screwed anyways. It just took our last hope), what can the heroes do to beat this level? Get Lucky?

Yeah - it looks to me that area 3 is the hardest (with regard to the OL being able to slow you down) and that you really want to sprint to get there AFAP... BUT - I would suspect that dealing with LOS in area three (the removal of LOS for the OL) is absolutely crucial. I personally - next time you play it - as you will know where the ogres are - you need to bust into that room and time it with your heroes - so you can hopefully get the first ogre killed and possibly someone moved through to remove LOS from the rest of the room.

If you can't - yeah - me as an OL - I will pack the heck out of that room and make every effort to slow you down there.

Side note - a rolling stone trap card would be helarious to play in here - if it were to show up in the deck at the right time... or would that be too mean? ::evilgrin::

Its all about speed, dont worry so much about clearing a room but worry more about getting ahead. Heros are faster than monsters and eventually all the monsters trailing you will end up falling off the map. And the game i played and beat it on one of our heros had water pact so he could knock any monster that was blocking us out of the way. That skill was what got us past the ogre room.

We ran almost the whole time and only killed the monsters that were blocking the path...but the overlord played smart and crowded all his monsters to act a speed bumps instead of attacking with them. We luckily were able to diffuse 2 traps with feats that would have ended the game earlier (an ice floor and a web 'splosion). The problem with the twisty corridor is that the OL can pack it to the brim with trash that the party has to slog through. Removing LOS in area 3 is almost impossible in one turn, especially if the corridor is loaded with trash.

mc-hemmer said:

So you won because of a lucky skill draw? I can see the level being easier with a good skill draw...but that shouldn't make it impossible without something like acrobat, shadow-soul, etc.

SamVimes said:

While I certainly agree with the sentiment, it should probably be noted that you're more likely to have at least one of the many mobility-related skills (Acrobat, Shadow Soul, Skilled, Swift, Telekinesis, Tiger Tatoo, Water Pact) than none of them, at least in most parties. The party starts with quite a few skills between them.

Having no good skills is an unusual case.

Antistone said:

True, having no good skills is super unlikely. And we had some good skills and a hero with a great combination of skills for shooting everything to pieces. We just didn't have a single movement skill, which did kind of blow. I just don't love the idea that without good skills the quest becomes super-ridiculously difficult. That said, I'm really looking forward to taking another crack at this level. I just don't see us winning unless we get a good movement skill.