Hi,

we played our first 5 games last sunday and I was the overlord. We played 4 times with 4 heroes (quest 1 & 2 two times each) and 1 time with 2 heroes (3rd quest) and I played the overlord and I totally dominated all of the games. The heroes often barley got to see half of the areas before loosing. The forth game I didn't try to win as hard (like consentrating on killing weak heroes multiple times) and just attacked pretty much at random (a few times not making the attack that would give me the winning kill) and still won (just barley but still).

Most post about this game seems to be about the opposite, about how the game is easier for the heroes so now I wonder if there is any beginners mistakes that are common that we might have made (one thing I thought of was the order tokens, maybe they should be hidden from the overlord? But I guess that doesn't mather that much...)?

The heroes didn't "super rush" all the time and didn't open doors if half of them already had had their turns, do you have to pretty much run thru the quest to prevent the overlord from getting the good cards or what? I need hero-help!

(With beginner mistake I also meen rules that might have been misread/missed)

Well, some things you could double-check:

• The overlord is limited to 1 spawn card per turn, and spawned monsters must be placed outside the line-of-sight of all heroes. Figures do not block line-of-sight for purposes of spawning, so you can't just spawn monsters behind other monsters.
• When a chest says something like "1 copper treasure," that means per hero . Every hero immediately draws a copper treasure, no matter where they are. Similarly, "100 coins" means that every hero gets 100 coins.
• Monsters cannot open doors leading to unrevealed areas; only the heroes can choose to reveal the next area.
• Heroes can add their black trait dice to their attack rolls when using a weapon corresponding to that trait (in addition to the dice printed on the weapon). Heroes should pick their weapons appropriately to maximize this advantage.

Maybe you could give us a blow-by-blow of the first few turns of one of the games, so we can see generally what each side is doing and what the major tactical issues are?

Ideally, the heroes should usually be spending fatigue to move so that they can get more attacks in, and drinking vitality potions for more fatigue so they can attack even more (when a new area is revealed, most heroes usually declare battle actions so they can each attack twice). Having one hero rush in and grab the chests right away can also be helpful, as that allows everyone else to attack with the shiny new weapons right away. A highly experienced hero party will often kill most or all of the monsters in a new room before they even get a turn. But with four heroes and just the base game, the first quest ought to be fairly easy even if the heroes are being rather inefficient. You certainly don't need to bum rush the whole dungeon; opening a door to a new area when half the heroes have already taken their turns is usually worse than waiting.

Be sure the heroes are choosing reasonable starting equipment; the Dagger should only be used as an off-hand weapon, and the Bow really shouldn't be used at all. Melee heroes should have a sword or axe, ranged heroes should have a crossbow, magic heroes should usually have immolation. Melee and ranged heroes with a base speed of 4 or less should start with chainmail, everyone else should get leather armor.

Oh, and continue playing with 4 heroes, at least until they actually win a game. The number of heroes significantly affects the difficulty.

Thanks for the respons. We got all those rules right. I don't think I can give a good recap of the game turns, sorry, but I'll try for the the second quest (the second time), the one with the 2 giants they, first kill of every monster in the first room on first turn. No spawn and nothing fun for overlord just getting up to 5 cards and 4 'evil' tokens. Then the next turn opened one of the doors and got pretty far into the corridor (except for leaving one guy in the back to prevent monster spawning). Then I spawned some monsters in the room (my only spawn for a couple of turns since the after that gains full view of all explored areas). Then they fight the giant and the spawned monsters, losing one 4 character (losing conquest down to 4 after activating gylph). And then I got one 4 character down to 2 hitpoints but dont use my (last) mage attack on him because I don't want them to loose the dungeon again against the first giant. Probably went something like that.

I will copy your answer and send it to my players and hope that they will do better next time. Thanks again for a nice and well written respons.

ilgoga said:

Keeping a door closed until everyone is ready to go through is a good tactic*, as long as the heroes can keep good LoS to prevent too many spawns behind them. When people on these boards say that the heroes need to keep moving, what they mean is the heroes shouldn't go out of their way to kill every monster on the board. If they approach the game with that mentality, as many new players do, then it becomes fairly easy to for the OL to bait heroes backwards and build up more power ahead of their position. The heroes should also carefully weigh the benefits of going down a side corridor for one potion or coin pile at the end. Kevin himself has said that some of those treasure items were placed out of the way as a means of distracting the heroes from the end goal.

It doesn't sound like you're making any of the common rookie mistakes, at least rules-wise. For what it's worth, the first few games we played I dominated as OL as well. Once the hero players got a feel for the way things went, they began to improve significantly.

* This is assuming the area on the other side is unrevealed. If it has been revealed then you don't ever want the door to close, that just gives the OL more room to spawn things.

The Problem is very simple, "they fight the Giant".

As some people have stated in other discussions before, scenario 1 2 and 3 of the core rulebook are there to learn basic mechanics.

Scenario 1 is a standard dungeon to learn the basic actions.

Scenario 2 is there to actually learn to run from things you can not defeat. and to run and grab what you can get before the overlord can "seal it away" behind huge, possibly even undying monsters.

Scenario 3 is there for them to learn to adept to dungeons special rules and surprises.

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So far, for your Scenario 2 session i see no rules error, just Heroes without equipment battling a giant they can hardly defeat. And that will even come even back to live if they get him down! [Maybe not even useing their fatigue to efficiently woounding him.]

Instead they should place a runner next to the door with fatigue pot in hand, and haveing the door opened by another char. As the door opens the runner sets on a "run" and moves his speedx2, then his fatigue-1, then gulps his potion, and moves hsi full fatigue again. [Can do 19 spaces with Silhouette in that way]. And in this way runs past the giant, pics up the needed Runekey, activates the glyph behind the giant, and ports out.

Ending in the Heroes haveing the key they need, the 3 conquest, and maybe even the silver chest if the runner was real fast. And then its the overlords turn to chase them with a slow movement 2 giant, as their is very little left in the room they actually need.

The one and only lesson Dungeon 2 is good for is to learn "run past the giant before he can block your way" really. Afterwards it becomes a piece of cake, with plenty treasure on top.

Sinso said:

Sometimes seeing someone articulate your answer much better than you could is really really cool.

Sinso said:

Yeah, they pretty much got this as well, the second time and the second giant. But by then the overlord had good control of the game. I thought that maybe you shouldn't have to totally max out your characters and do the best possible action in such an early quest to have a good chance of beating it. But maybe it was too many small mistakes that piled up. Thanks fotr the good responses!

granor said:

+1

ilgoga said:

The heroes don't need to maximize everything in order to win (at least not dungeons in the base game), but they definitely DO want to go for the treasure chests they find ASAP. Having the best level treasure cards available makes a big difference. They can twink everything if they want (it sure won't hurt their efforts) but it's not absolutely necessary as long as they play smart. And playing smart is largely a matter of learning how the game works, so don't worry if the first few sessions seem a bit lop-sided.