RTL - some newbie questions...

By BayAreaBanger, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Yesterday we played our first campaign game and after a while it went pretty well.

But a few questions come with me:

1. In the first "Market Step", where the party can purchase items, we had the party to choose from all of the cards available.
Only limtation was their starting gold. Have we done this right, or is there a randomized procedure - like "draw 3 random items from which you can choose"?
The way we've done it, the party could buy pretty good items to start with.

2. If we've done the first Market Step wrong, should we reset the items of the party, give the money back and buy again? For the purpose of better balance?

3. The party entered a dungeon in the first week and we started to set up the first level (selected randomly). While the party fighted its way through the first level, some questions arrived. How many Questmarker has the party at the start of a dungeon? As the Overlord i took Questmarkers from the party every time i killed one player, according to the stats on his Character Sheet. The party also got Questmarkers for activating glyphs.
When i remember it the right way, the party should be bashed out of a dungeon, when they don't have any more Questmarkers, which should be soon when they already start the dungeon without Questmarkers?

4. Another thing that was quite unclear to us, was how to handle weapons that give an "off-hand"-bonus? Can you please explain how this things are worked out the right way.


I thank you right away for your efforts to answer my questions. Furthermore i hope i managed it to explain it good enough for you to understand. As i'm from Germany it's not always easy for me to find the right words...

P.S.: I really had the party down to its knees in the first dungeon, but then i checked out that i've accidentally come up with silver monsters already from the very beginning. As you can imagine this was a very funny moment for us all!

Another questions i've missed above...

There are several types of dungeons:

  • Encounters (occuring during travels, an outdoor-area is created randomly)
  • Rumours (created depending on the rumour itself) - can the party enter the dungeon immediately after hearing the rumour? Or do they have to travel anywhere first?
  • Legendary Areas (depending on the area, only when the party enters it on the map)
  • Dungeons - how are they created? Every time with three randomly drawn levels from the "40-cards"-deck?

Are the normal dungeons of JitD or the other expansions used in any way in RtL? For example in exchange for a randomly three-level dungeon?

Not a veteran, but i'll give you my answers as far as i think i've read them in the book.

1: All shop items [the ones with prices tagged on em] are always available. even at the start of the Campaign to outfit. When useing the Market while visiting the town the party can draw treasurecards of the actual campaign level (Bronze). Quantity of those Cards depends from the market value of the town.

2: you've done it right as far as i know.

3: First of all, you Gain conquest, the Heroes gain conquest. You do NOT take theirs away. it's their Experience Points. you have two seperate tracks.

-They gain 1 conquest for reachign the dungeon, no matter if they step inside it or not

-They gain 3 for opening a Glyp

-They gain Experience for killing lvl leaders of the dungeon ( 2 for the first two bosses, 4 for the third and last)

-They gain 1 conquest when openign a Chest and not finding a treasure-item in there.

-They are bashed out of the dungeon if you manage to run through your overlord deck twice in oen dungeon level. [pretty hard to do]

4: I'll try it with an Example.:

-Axe = 1 Attack with 1 red and 1 Green die + ´Melee stat powerdice [the black ones] AND 1 surge = 1 damage

-Sword = 1 Attack with 1 red and 1 Green die + ´Melee stat powerdice [the black ones] AND 2 surges = 1 damage

-Sword with Sword in Offhand = 1 Attack with 1 red and 1 Green die + ´Melee stat powerdice [the black ones] AND 2 surges = 1 damage AND +1 Damage Offhand Bonus for the second sword in hand.

As you see useing two weapons gives you no extra attack, as most people would easily assume it. The second weapon just gives the attack with the mainhand a bonus. An "Offhand-bonus".

_________________________________________________________________-

Encounters: created randomly. The encounter comes from the "monster peers through thicket" deck. The place where the encounter happens from the "trees" deck. so you can have the same Enemy in different surroundings.

Rumors: The rumor gives a "distance" between the inn and the dungeon itself. (tthe trail witrh the x and the number).The party places the rumor-token on a dungeon in that said "traveldistance" . The rumordungeon thign only replaced level three of that dungeon, level 1 and two are drawn randomly.

Legendary dungeons: i don't remember the setup right now

Dungeons: 3 levels, level per level from the 40-Dungeons deck.

Normal JitD Dungeons are not used in RtL.

Sinso said:

-They gain 1 conquest for reachign the dungeon, no matter if they step inside it or not

Sinso said:

-They gain 3 for opening a Glyp



Sinso said:
-They gain Experience for killing lvl leaders of the dungeon ( 2 for the first two bosses, 4 for the third and last)

Sinso said:

-They gain 1 conquest when openign a Chest and not finding a treasure-item in there.

Sinso said:

-They are bashed out of the dungeon if you manage to run through your overlord deck twice in oen dungeon level. [pretty hard to do]

Your fundamental mistake is that you try to apply vanilla conquest mechanics to RtL. Forget all about vanilla conquest.

...

...

...

Done? Good.

In RtL there's conquest and there's XP, they are somewhat similar but at the same time very different.

First and foremost: No side ever loses XP OR Conquest for something the other side does (like killing a Hero) unless there are special events explicitely stating it (actually I don't know if any such cards exist).

Second: OL and Heroes both gain their own amount conquest, which is then converted to XP in a 1:1 ratio for EVERY Hero and 1:1 for the OL. That means if the Heroes gain 3 conquest for activating a glyph ALL of the Heroes will gain 3 XP when you convert the earned conquest to XP at the end of a dungeon (recommended to avoid tons of scribbling on the papersheets).

Third: Coins are always awarded to the party pool of gold, there's no individual amounts of gold per character.

I strongly recommend reading carefully through the rules and the FAQ again, there seem to be some elemental misconceptions in how you understood the mechanics. The fact you didn't see the "twice through the OL deck in one dungeon lvl equals kick-out of heroes" rule in your looking through the FAQ strengthens that point.

Now go out there and enjoy RtL

Thanks for your answer! In fact, i didn't look carefully enough and therefor didn't find the passage in the FAQ...
I also know that i might have had some twists in the rules used and may probably not always have used the RtL rules for one thing or another.
But in general i thought that every rule of vanilla Descent is used in RtL as long as it is not overwritten by a rule of the expansion?
Here's a example for what cases i mean:

Nitewolf said:

Third: Coins are always awarded to the party pool of gold, there's no individual amounts of gold per character.



Grimzak said:

Yesterday we played our first campaign game and after a while it went pretty well.

But a few questions come with me:

1. In the first "Market Step", where the party can purchase items, we had the party to choose from all of the cards available.
Only limtation was their starting gold. Have we done this right, or is there a randomized procedure - like "draw 3 random items from which you can choose"?
The way we've done it, the party could buy pretty good items to start with.

2. If we've done the first Market Step wrong, should we reset the items of the party, give the money back and buy again? For the purpose of better balance?

3. The party entered a dungeon in the first week and we started to set up the first level (selected randomly). While the party fighted its way through the first level, some questions arrived. How many Questmarker has the party at the start of a dungeon? As the Overlord i took Questmarkers from the party every time i killed one player, according to the stats on his Character Sheet. The party also got Questmarkers for activating glyphs.
When i remember it the right way, the party should be bashed out of a dungeon, when they don't have any more Questmarkers, which should be soon when they already start the dungeon without Questmarkers?

4. Another thing that was quite unclear to us, was how to handle weapons that give an "off-hand"-bonus? Can you please explain how this things are worked out the right way.


I thank you right away for your efforts to answer my questions. Furthermore i hope i managed it to explain it good enough for you to understand. As i'm from Germany it's not always easy for me to find the right words...

P.S.: I really had the party down to its knees in the first dungeon, but then i checked out that i've accidentally come up with silver monsters already from the very beginning. As you can imagine this was a very funny moment for us all!

Grimzak said:

1. In the first "Market Step", where the party can purchase items, we had the party to choose from all of the cards available.
Only limtation was their starting gold. Have we done this right, or is there a randomized procedure - like "draw 3 random items from which you can choose"?
The way we've done it, the party could buy pretty good items to start with.

All the town items are available (the double-sided cards with prices in the bottom right). This includes the new "party items" like the magic boat and the staff of the wild, although realistically they shouldn't be spending money on those at the start, as they won't have anything left for equipment, if they can even afford one of those items anyway.

The heroes may NOT purchase treasure cards at the start of the game. Also, make sure to separate the relics (the double-sided cards with no money price in the corner.) I made that mistake once, and if the player hadn't stopped to ask how much he had to pay, they would've started the campaign with Soul Biter ;)

Grimzak said:

2. If we've done the first Market Step wrong, should we reset the items of the party, give the money back and buy again? For the purpose of better balance?

If you haven't gone too far yet, you could do that. As long as everyone's agreeable (and assuming mistakes were actually made.)

Grimzak said:

3. The party entered a dungeon in the first week and we started to set up the first level (selected randomly). While the party fighted its way through the first level, some questions arrived. How many Questmarker has the party at the start of a dungeon? As the Overlord i took Questmarkers from the party every time i killed one player, according to the stats on his Character Sheet. The party also got Questmarkers for activating glyphs.
When i remember it the right way, the party should be bashed out of a dungeon, when they don't have any more Questmarkers, which should be soon when they already start the dungeon without Questmarkers?

Conquest Tokens work differently in RtL, as others have said. Neither the heroes nor the OL have any CT to begin with, they each gain CT as they go along. The OL does not take CT from the heroes anymore, he simply gains his own pool.

The heroes gain CT as a group. Every time they open a glyph or a chest or whatever, the party as a whole gains the listed amount of CT. At the end of the dungeon, CTs are converted into XP and each hero gets XP equal to the CT earned by the heroes in the dungeon. Thereafter, XP is spent individually by the heroes.

Grimzak said:

4. Another thing that was quite unclear to us, was how to handle weapons that give an "off-hand"-bonus? Can you please explain how this things are worked out the right way.

When you equip two one-handed weapons, every time you make an attack, you choose which of the two weapons you are using. If the weapon you did NOT choose has an Offhand bonus, you apply that bonus to the attack you are making with the chosen weapon. If the weapon you DID choose has an offhand bonus, you ignore it and make a regular attack using everything else on the card. You do not gain extra attacks for having two weapons, but having an offhand weapon in your other hand will help the attacks you make with your primary weapon.

Grimzak said:


The rules for JitD state on page 18 that for ever money marker one hero picks up EVERY hero immediately gets 100 coins. As there is no rule in RtL that overwrites it, i think this also applies for advanced campaigns.

Please correct me, if i see things wrong again!

That is correct, however in RtL all money goes into the common pot (that's a new rule from RtL.) So the heroes gain 100gp for each hero (there are always 4 heroes in RtL), and all that money goes into the pot. So every time a hero picks up a coin pile, the heroes get 400gp in their collective pot.

RtL changed the rules about where the heroes keep their money, but it didn't change the rules about how much they get. It's a subtle change, but an important one.

Also, don't forget to go read the Gathered List of Answered Question thread in this forum. Its a collection of official answers from FFG in regards to questions from players. I think it actually has the 400 gold per pile answer in there. Some of the answers there have made it into the FAQ, but some haven't for some reason but they are still viable rules answers.

Grimzak said:

Sinso said:

-They gain 3 for opening a Glyp


As i've understood it, only the hero who first opens the Glyph gains 3 conquest.

Not sure where you got the your Glyph idea as Glyphs work the same as in "Vanilla" in terms of Conquest Tokens awarded. The party gains 3 Conquest Tokens. Using the formula that 1 CT = 1XP for each hero, each hero then gains 3 XP.