Simplified Treachery

I’m a relative Descent n00b, and recently purchased RtL for the ongoing campaign feature. I feel I’ve got my head round most of it, but as OL the notion of Treachery still confuses me.

My avatar is The Titan, and I understand you use XP to by points in Treachery. So for example to buy 1pt in Monster Treachery costs 10xp. Now here’s what confuses me. Does that single point translate to an extra monster card in my hand in encounters/dungeons? Once I’ve spent it does it disappear or do I start all encounters with that extra card? My thinking is that 10xp could buy Avatar abilities that are always available, whereas Treachery seems to be a one-shot deal, and not very potent at that.

Please enlighten me!

If you're using the simpllified treachery rules from RtL, each point of treachery lets you start the dungeon with 4 extra threat that can only be spent on cards that match that treachery type (spawns for monsters treachery, events for event treachery, and traps for trap treachery). Alternatively, you can forego the threat for some or all of the treachery to draw an extra starting card per point of unspent treachery.

So is that 4 threat a one-off, you spend it and then it’s gone, or does it stay on, making cards that cost 4 threat free to play?

Just a one-off. It adds to your starting threat pool, but is limited in how it can be spent.

This is a little off topic, but how does the simplified treachery compare to "complicated" treachery in-game?

Having all the expansions, we've never used the simplified rules; All I can do is guess:

Since generally an overlord is more powerful with more cards in hand, more threat, more powers, etc.. I can see that giving the overlord a head start every dungeon can sometimes be better then him having a few superior cards. It seems that simplified treachery can also help against a "blitzing" hero party; since the Overlord will have more resources in the first few turns of a dungeon. Then again, a second dark charm or a crushing blow can make much more difference in a longer dungeon.

What do you think? Specifically, if you've used the simplified treachery model, has it made as big a difference as I think it might?

I haven't played RtL yet at all (we start a campaign this weekend), but it seems to me that simplified treachery is much more dependent on the luck of the draw. Normal treachery modifies your luck by replacing crap with cards you really want, or just flat out putting cards in your hand. Simplified treachery requires you to draw the right cards before you get any benefit from it.

For example, if the Beastlord has 3 Spawn treachery using the standard rules, he can remove some less useful cards (perhaps Aim and Dodge, or whatever he doesn't like) and replace them beefier versions of the Beastman War Party or other spawns. Alternatively, he could spend some of those to make sure he has a Beastman War Party in his hand at the start, to give the dungeon's ranged attackers free damage and range.

However, using simplified treachery that same Beastlord is going to have a rough time if the top 6 cards of his deck turn out to have no Spawn cards. Even spending some of his starting treachery on drawing cards won't help, because he doesn't get to cherry pick like he would for the normal rules. Against a blitzing group of heros there will be times when his Treachery upgrades are meaningless, because he'll never get enough cards and enough time to use them.

The Beastlord is probably the most screwed by the example, because of the use of the reinforcement counter, but this affects all of the overlords to some extent. Some, like the Sorcerer King and Great Wyrm have other ways of getting threat, so could be better served using that treachery to draw cards. But even then, they'll never approach the customizability of the standard treachery rules.

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Does anyone know why they let you cherry pick cards in the standard rules, but force you to draw them in the simplified version? Given that the loss of Treachery isn't really balanced by anything the heros lose (except the possibility of certain Heroes), there doesn't seem to be a reason to not allow the Overlord to use the standard 1 Treachery = 2 cards rule even with Simplified Treachery. Or at least let him draw two cards per unspent point of treachery instead of one.

At least in vanilla, you can't cherry-pick cards with treachery, you can give up 2 treachery points to start with a single extra random card in your hand (which is such a bad option as to be insulting).

In Road to Legend, I believe you can cherry-pick cards for lieutenant battles, but you use the same rules as vanilla for dungeons--so you need to actually draw one of your treachery cards at random before it benefits you (or pay a ludicrous cost to start with one or two extra random cards).

Thanks to James and everyone else for clarifying the rule.

Antistone said:

Yep, which is why treachery is best used to make LT battle hard on the heroes. Except in the case of Kar-Amog-Atoth and possibly Slaggorath, most of the bite of a LT encounter come from the treachery selection he brings with him. Treachery in regular RTL dungeons isn't nearly as effective as in Vanilla for a few reasons. 1) Until late in the campaign, the OL doesn't have all that much treachery to bear, meaning the likelihood of drawing a treachery card is significantly lower. 2) A number of Vanilla quests suggest certain treachery cards to be used, like the first WoD quest which almost begs the OL to pick treachery that slows the party down (The ice trap from TOI is a really good one, and a timely boulder is a game winner. Big blocking creatures are also nice). However, in RTL, the levels are so short there is very little chance of picking treachery that complements the level very well, especially as the OL only knows what the first level is when he picks his treachery. The effect is that the overlord generally picks the same "general utility" treachery selection, skeleton hoard, animate weapons, etc. 3) Red treachery is difficult to use to full potential, owing to the general lack of spawning areas in an RTL dungeon, and the larger number of creatures red spawns usually bring. On the flip side, it isn't all that bad in an LT encounter, as the heroes can't spawn block it.

snacknuts said:

I've played my very first campaign without expansions and so I used simplified treachery - but the result was that I bought nearly no treachery at all. It was nice to have some more threat at the start of the dungeon, but it wasn't that gainful. I prefered spending my XP on other upgrades.

Now, playing the expansion, I've become a fan of treachery and I'm spending lots of XP buying it.

I can't tell you if it's very gainful to buy lots of simplified treachery (it might be quite effective to play the first 4-5 cards for free) because I never bought so much of it, but I can tell you that there is definitely a psychological effect of motivation concerning treachery: With the simplified rule, I think most of the players won't buy much of it because they can't see a direct impact. But if you have that nice treachery cards and if you see that big troll spawning behind the corner and getting enraged, maybe destroying a gold weapon with your crushing blow, then you will see a direct effect of it and then you will want to have some more of it.