I am not new to RPG but i am new to Descent. It seems every time i play the monsters get killed fairly quick sometimes befor i can even use them. I also make sure to adjust the level of the monster as well....is this the way the game is or am i doing something wrong...the combat aspect of this is very difficult to understand..if someone could clarifiy for me..........
Thanx
Depends on the monster, really. Also depends on what the heroes have. With Copper Treasures, monsters last a while. Once you're into Gold, many monsters die with one hit (i.e. AOE attacks).
Are we talking Vanilla Descent or Advanced Campaign?
-shnar
Monsters do die incredibly easily in this game. The damage on most weapons (even the basic town shop weapons) is enough to kill the majority of 1-square enemies in a single hit fairly consistently, and few multi-square enemies have the speed/manuverability to get passed the tanks to the squishies if the heroes are playing right. This lack of durability in the common enemies is often cited as the main hinderance to getting a proper balance when trying to scale the game for different sizes of hero parties (the default rules don't scale well at all). As such, it's fairly common for the heroes to open a door and immediately wipe out at least half the room, provided to Overlord doesn't disrupt the hero actions with his cards. If you get unlucky on the hero team creation (as recently happened with my group) and end up with something like Landric the Wise with Wild Talent, Prodigy, and have the expansion that has a rune weapon with blast in the town shop, you may as well just assume the heroes won every map at that point, as he will clear most rooms by himself in a single turn (pretty much only the final boss of the map will stand up to him, and then the rest of the party can mop that up).
IMHO the primary purpose of monsters is to hinder the party's progress not actually stand toe-to-toe. Try to burn through the overlord deck as quickly as possible and try using opportune traps. But if you do want to use monsters, then use then use them early and often. If you can kill a hero before they exit the first room you may have a chance of winning as the OL.
This is my experience from play Vanilla (Basic) Descent missions with and without WoD and AoD. I cannot comment on RTL.
Descent is a game of rocket launcher tag. Everything dies really, really fast.
zelbone said:
Try to burn through the overlord deck as quickly as possible and try using opportune traps.
There is (almost) no way to change the rate at which you go through the overlord deck. The Evil Genius power lets you draw an extra card per turn, and that's useful, and there's a couple of more obscure cards that give you bonus card draws (such as Greed), but basically you just draw 2 cards per turn. It's not as if you draw more cards when you get cards out of your hand faster or anything like that.
So if you're trying to cycle the deck, that means you're actually trying to prolong the game by slowing the heroes down and giving them lots of stuff to do. Which usually means spawning lots of monsters, especially in smaller games.
Yes, the monsters die easily, mostly after one hit - and that's what the heroes should be aiming for.
But as OL, you should be in a position to have so much monsters that it doesn't matter if the heroes kill them, since you can spawn more and kill the heroes with them.
Small monsters (especcially those from the original) are easy to kill. I will start by stating I suck at being overlord, but on that note, I have a couple tips.
1. DO NOT EVER GO EASY ON THE GROUP!! This game is generally aimed toward the group. The later expansions try to even the odds with more difficult monsters. If you can kill someone do it .
2. Go after the weak ones. I know the 4's are tempting, but you will waste alot of time and energy trying to get them. The weaklings are easier to kill multiple times, then the big brutes are to kill once.
3. Space out your monsters abit if you can. Grouping them will be an easy target for "Battling" heroes.
One more note. You may already be using it this way, but the levels of monsters
do include
the overlord as a player. I.E. Two heroes and one overlord would use Level 3 monsters. Happy gaming!!
Antistone said:
Descent is a game of rocket launcher tag. Everything dies really, really fast.
zelbone said:
Try to burn through the overlord deck as quickly as possible and try using opportune traps.
There is (almost) no way to change the rate at which you go through the overlord deck. The Evil Genius power lets you draw an extra card per turn, and that's useful, and there's a couple of more obscure cards that give you bonus card draws (such as Greed), but basically you just draw 2 cards per turn. It's not as if you draw more cards when you get cards out of your hand faster or anything like that.
So if you're trying to cycle the deck, that means you're actually trying to prolong the game by slowing the heroes down and giving them lots of stuff to do. Which usually means spawning lots of monsters, especially in smaller games.
That's exactly what I was trying to state. I guess I should have been more clear.
How to cycle through the deck faster:
zelbone said:
Play Power Cards...Power cards stay in play and are removed from the deck. Therefor every power card you have in play is one LESS OL card in your deck when its time for you to reshuffle.
That only matters if you manage to cycle the deck more than once, which is quite unusual for most quests (especially with the extra cards from expansions), and their high discard values means that drawing them an extra time can be helpful.
There are certainly reasons that you might want to play a power card somtimes, but this wouldn't be high on my list.
Awsome!!!!! every one of you gave me exactly what i was looking for.......GREAT!!!!! thanks for the help, i will try the suggestions. Im glad it was not some missinterpitation of rules.
zelbone said:
Antistone said:
Bit confused by that one, was not aware that an attack cost a movement point, given that you can mare a battle action ie attack twice by not moving, even if you have a movement of 5, using your example you would still have 1 movement point left?
mordak5 said:
zelbone said:
Antistone said:
Bit confused by that one, was not aware that an attack cost a movement point, given that you can mare a battle action ie attack twice by not moving, even if you have a movement of 5, using your example you would still have 1 movement point left?
He means you prevent one move "action," i.e. make them Advance as opposed to Run...
Ok NP, just ran and checked the rules, in case we'd made a mistake
Antistone said:
zelbone said:
Play Power Cards...Power cards stay in play and are removed from the deck. Therefor every power card you have in play is one LESS OL card in your deck when its time for you to reshuffle.
That only matters if you manage to cycle the deck more than once, which is quite unusual for most quests (especially with the extra cards from expansions), and their high discard values means that drawing them an extra time can be helpful.
There are certainly reasons that you might want to play a power card somtimes, but this wouldn't be high on my list.
We play with WoD and AoD expansions and as the OL I still cycle through the deck at least once per quest. I agree that the extra threat generated by Power cards is often more useful than the power card itself. But I still think that this is usually a short term gain for a long term loss. The question is does my short term gain out weigh my long term loss. Obviously that question is time and quest specific, but that is the question the OL must ask him/her self every time a power card comes up.
I also strongly suggest the OL card that simply generates 20 threat. I don't remember the name, but it's a green treachery card.
zelbone said:
I also strongly suggest the OL card that simply generates 20 threat. I don't remember the name, but it's a green treachery card.
20 Threat? wow, i only know the 10-threat card, in WoD: "Danger"
Shmoozer said:
zelbone said:
I also strongly suggest the OL card that simply generates 20 threat. I don't remember the name, but it's a green treachery card.
20 Threat? wow, i only know the 10-threat card, in WoD: "Danger"
Typo...you are correct. 10 Threat.