Just picked up Tomb of Ice and Road to Legend to add to the game, and we're about to start an Advanced Campaign game on Friday, but after reading the Tomb of Ice book it fails to mention the use of feats in Road to Legend.

After checking through the forum, the closest I found was a post mentioning that it 'seemed' that Feats were originally not considered to be used in Road to Legend.

Has anyone actually gone through the Advanced Campaign with /and/ without Feats to know whether or not they are reasonable to offer to the heroes. I'm still unsure if myself or a buddy is going to play the Overlord on this one, and no matter which side I end up on we'd probably like to use the feats, because they look like fun, but I was getting the idea they might slightly unbalance the game in the heroes' favour. Anyone have an experienced voice on this one, or have an official answer?

Kard said:

From the FAQ available in the Support section of the Descent product page

Q: How do Feat cards from TOI interact with the advanced campaign?

A: Start with the normal mix, and draw 1 per hero per glyph activated. Feats stay around between dungeons/encounters. They are present for the Lt. encounters, but are discarded at the start of the final battle with the Avatar.

If you have not read the FAQ yet, I highly recommend doing so. Bring some coffee, as its 12 pages long.

Thank you kindly Remy for the answer.

Read through the FAQ when I started the game, but skipped the ToI and RtL sections because I didn't have them then... time for a reread, thank you kindly for the reminder.

I recently finished my first campaign, and we used feats. They definitely got the heroes out of a few scrapes, including saving their lives a few times. I still crushed them, but they were less knowledgeable about the campaign than I was. I think the next go will be a much tougher fight for me, assuming I'm the OL.

I'm thinking about trying the Great Wyrm.

Kard said:

I've completed campaigns (with both sides winning) without feats and have just entered Gold level in a campaign with Feats.

If you notice in the currect FAQ, as well as Feats being added, Telekinesis and Bear Tattoo have been removed (as have one of the crushing blows and poltergeist).

IMO these changes are approximately even. Both Bear Tattoo and Telekinesis were massively powerful skills for the heroes, particularly Telekinesis. The removal of these makes the game a lot more interesting and Feats basically make up the loss balance wise. More or Less...
The OL finds Feats frustrating because he often sees his best plans and best cards come to naught. On the other hand he doesn't suffer the same kinds of instant total wipeout as he did with Telekinesis in play, and the feats don't always work (unlike Telekinesis and Bear tattoo).
A super treachery spawn that fails due to a feat card is no more useless than a super treachery spawn that never gets used because the heroes have so much more flexibility to cover the spawn LOS with Telekinesis.
A chest trap that fails to explode due to an alarm probably misses less damage than the three upgraded monsters that died before they had a turn because the heavy hitter was Telekinesised into attack position.

Generally, we find it a better (more interesting and more varied) game with Telekinesis gone and feats in play.

I still like the idea that Feats area secret trainer upgrade.

We play that each player's Feat Hand Limit starts at 0 (except that one ToI girl who gets +2 to her hand limit, so she starts with 2). Then, at the secret trainer, you can choose between +4 Health, +2 Fatigue, or +2 Feat Hand Limit. Once you have a positive Feat Hand limit, you draw Feat Cards as per the normal rules.

This forces the heroes to choose between how they want to excel in the game (plus having a different option for +2 Fatigue is nice).

-shnar