Me and my gaming group are currently playing our second campaign of Descent and we are doing Labyrinth of Ruin, after first having played The Shadow Rune. We just played our second act 1 quest.

LoR adds green dice to the game, and my group has been very vocal about these dice, and 'how bad they suck'.

They claim the game was a lot better without these dice because, according to them, they do a lot less damage now.

(because they roll blue+green for an attack instead of the blue+red or blue+yellow like most weapons in the Shadow Rune)

Are these dice really as bad as they claim they are, or do they only shine later on in the game?

From my standpoint it just seems like a combination of them still having in mind the higher damage they were doing in Act II of the Shadow Rune, and the fact that they were going up against tanky monsters like Ettins and Giants. But of course I could be wrong.

So, green dice. Good, bad, or misunderstood?

Info on heroes:

HM Quellen - Hexer, using Staff of the Grave (starting item)

Lord Hawthorne - Beastmaster, using Skinning Knife (starting item) and Iron Spear

Logan Lashley - Treasure Hunter - using Leather Whip (Starting Item)

Elder Mok - Spiritspeaker - using Poisoned Blowgun

Green dice are different. In comparison to yellow dice they have a higher chance to give a surge but give in average less damage and less range. Whether they are better than yellow depends on your equipment. Does your Damage largely depend on getting surge effects than a green die might net you more damage on average than a yellow die would.

Green dice are gods gift for anything surge related and lots of items or skills feed off them. rule of thumb is that the green dice items usually have some impressive surge abilities but are reliant on using them to boost the reduced base damage.

The mace of Aver is a reasonable example, costing 150 gold its a pretty pricey tier 1 item, especially as without rolling the surges the weapon is likely to do sub par damage but rolling 3 surges on blue green green is not all that unlikely considering the each green die has a 50% chance and the blue die has 1/3rd, with favorable rolls that's around 6-8 damage and stun inflicted.

looking at the items that your heroes have its not a question of damage per say but utility, the skinning knife is obviously used for high damage on a wounded big monster (monsters with a black defense die should fear this a great deal), the staff of the grave is mostly to allow the hero to heal themselves per attack roll while harassing small monsters and the blowgun is pretty useful due to the inbuilt pierce and poison at harassing any monster of choice.

Check out the act 2 staff of the wolds to looks at how bonkers green dice can get

Underworld40k : sorry but green dices don't have 50% chance to have a surge but 2/3. Yellow dices are the one which give 50% chance.

These graphs detail the probabilities of a blue/green, blue/yellow, and blue/red roll. What is apparent is that if you need range, you want yellow. If you need surges, green is your best bet. If you just need damage, of course go red. Damage and surge wise, yellow is in the middle- it gives greater surge chances that a red, but not as much as a green (notice how much lower the chance for zero surges is on a green roll than either of the other two.) The leftmost column on all the graphs "-1" represents the chance of a miss, so that all charts add up to 100%.

Green die are good when they are added to what a weapon already has.

As has been explained, this allows you to activate surge effects and can greatlyimprove the heroe's capabilities. As a base die on a weapon, green sucks, because it has a very low output.

If you want to see the green die shine, try using the bow of bone and having an Apothecary Concotion and Secret Formula use it.

Blue yellow green green spells BYGG problems for the OL's monsters

I love the green dice, it's my favorite dice.

Getting a surge has proven to be more critical than maximizing damage, at least these days. In the latest campaigns I´ve been playing as the Overlord, using the surge ability of my monsters has revealed to be key in my odds for winning quests. If you only pick monsters for their sheer damage then it seldom leads you anywhere once the hero players have started to grasp the main strategy of the game. Dealing conditions, activating special abilities, you name it. Certainly more useful than getting an extra damage or two to try to take down that 18-life hero. Just pointless.

So yeah, I love Rat Swarms. I like to complement then with a free surge from a OL card.

I like Flurry as well on a big monster, to ensure the next attack will be devastating. I have played this card once on Mirklace to roll a ridiculous 5-dices on a free attack. Doing a billion damage on a single hero has never done anything in that game, but it's absolutely fun and psychologically devastating for the heroes, which is my only purpose as the Overlord.

I like Flurry as well on a big monster, to ensure the next attack will be devastating. I have played this card once on Mirklace to roll a ridiculous 5-dices on a free attack. Doing a billion damage on a single hero has never done anything in that game, but it's absolutely fun and psychologically devastating for the heroes, which is my only purpose as the Overlord.

I agree with the majority of points made in this response, with special attention to this paragraph. With just a few exceptions (there are some quests where the OL's victory condition is to knock down all of the heroes), the ability to deal conditions or utilize surges for special effects can be far more "damaging" to the heroes than actually doing damage ... especially to those heroes that are tanks.

More often than not, dealing pure damage to heroes does not advance the OL's goals towards winning most quests.

Underworld40k : sorry but green dices don't have 50% chance to have a surge but 2/3. Yellow dices are the one which give 50% chance.

Correct, i apologize,

The green die gives you a 66%chance (4 surges on green).

I like Flurry as well on a big monster, to ensure the next attack will be devastating. I have played this card once on Mirklace to roll a ridiculous 5-dices on a free attack. Doing a billion damage on a single hero has never done anything in that game, but it's absolutely fun and psychologically devastating for the heroes, which is my only purpose as the Overlord.

It's just as fun for the heroes when using skills (like those I mentionned earlier) and items, like the sunstone, you unleash a 4-5 dice attack on the OL's strongest monster and kill it instantly, at ranges where it can't retaliate.

An OL who believes his reinforcements will all be killed as soon as they appear is an OL that's already half defeated.

Underworld40k : sorry but green dices don't have 50% chance to have a surge but 2/3. Yellow dices are the one which give 50% chance.

Green dice are gods gift for anything surge related and lots of items or skills feed off them. rule of thumb is that the green dice items usually have some impressive surge abilities but are reliant on using them to boost the reduced base damage.

The mace of Aver is a reasonable example, costing 150 gold its a pretty pricey tier 1 item, especially as without rolling the surges the weapon is likely to do sub par damage but rolling 3 surges on blue green green is not all that unlikely considering the each green die has a 50% chance and the blue die has 1/3rd, with favorable rolls that's around 6-8 damage and stun inflicted.

looking at the items that your heroes have its not a question of damage per say but utility, the skinning knife is obviously used for high damage on a wounded big monster (monsters with a black defense die should fear this a great deal), the staff of the grave is mostly to allow the hero to heal themselves per attack roll while harassing small monsters and the blowgun is pretty useful due to the inbuilt pierce and poison at harassing any monster of choice.

Check out the act 2 staff of the wolds to looks at how bonkers green dice can get

So around 22% chance for 3 surges and around 50% for 2 surges. Pretty stable damage you get from surges. I would say it is a very nice weapon to kill off or stun monsters with low defence.

Green dice are particularly useful on mages or as a bonus to someone who has a variety of options for surge usage. Having a green die greatly enhances your ability to consistently activate surge abilities.

As has already been stated, the green dice have their upside as well. Also don't forget that you can recover one fatigue per attack by spending a surge.

On another note the heroes have chosen a very strong party, not the best classes, but Logan Lashly as a Treasure Hunter is brutal, Quellen, Hawthrone and especially Eldar Mok are extremely strong heroes as well. I think they will stop complaining very soon when they wipe the floor with the OL if he isn't prepared well