So I have hte first edition game bought years ago ... it was a neat game it was the campaign stuff that interested me the most ... my kids are getting to the point where I think playing a campaign in descent will be a rewarding experience for us.

Just wondering how the expansion kits work

1) The little upgrade kits that come with a couple heroes and a couple of monsters ... can you use those monsters / heroes at anytime? (Seems a silly question)

I played 1st edition a couple of times and it seemed to have a scripted method (The first dungeon is the first dungeon the key is where the key is etc) how does the campaign mix it up? Since the first gmae seem to say this dungeon has monsters XYZ ... I wasn't sure how these new expansion kits fit into the game ...

Ah flipped through the rulebook ... the campaign seems to play through the given scenarios in the book plus 4 unique campaign missions ... so its not as random as I had hoped ... (Or maybe I'm missing something) I got to play a couple of games in 1st edition campaign which seemed to have a large map, and towns where you learned skills and towns could be destroyed by the overlord etc. Quests were chosen from drawing from a deck (Or something like that ... hard to remember) it seemed to me that the campaign would almost never be played the same way twice.

Each monster group has 2 traits. These traits are given by icons on thr back of tje monster card. Most quests have a few set, unchangeable monster groups, plus a couple "open groups." These open groups must have at least 1 of the trait icons displayed at the top of the encounter page. Any additional monsters (such as from those expansions) can enter play this way, assuming that expansion is "enabled" on that playthrough. That is, expansions are included or excluded in their entirety. You decide at the beginning of a campaign which expansions are fair game to be included, which affects the available monsters, heroes, travel cards, shop cards, etc.

As far as.quest selection, there is variability, but it is not like road to legend. There is usually a set introduction, and then variable 3 act 1 quests, a choice of interlude, and thrn variable 3 act 2 quests, and choice of finale. There is certainly structure, but with room for flexibility.

If your experience with first edition was good, mostly you'll have a good time with the second too. Of course, there are people that disses the second edition compared to the first, but it's a matter of taste, after all.

You should see some videos on youtube, there are plenty, and see how it plays. I doubt you'll not like it

I just want some randomness that's all I read a full campaign takes like X hours say 25 hours to complete start to back. My worry is that I'm spending $$ to get a game that really is only fun the first time (As the overlord) or that after playing the only thing that changes is the characters running it, you get used to what needs to be done when where etc.

I will definitely read some articles on the game and watch some videos.

My daughters really like co-operative games (They are young 11 and 9) their favorite game is Dead Winter... they get attached to their characters and prefer playing women (For obvious reasons) I thought about Mice and Mystics ... but that had almost 0 replayability in my mind and I thought ... maybe I should look at Decent and pick up 1 additional pack that has a couple of female characters so they can all choose (My wife is the same way she prefers female characters)

Just reacting on the "wife/daughter prefers female characters"

For some reason I still chock people when I say that I played Fable II as a female Dark Elf with evil alignment who was married to another female human and had three other female lovers on the side, plus one man (I had to try that). The question I got was, surprisingly, not about why my characters had so many lovers and why I was playing on my various relationships, but why I did all this using a female character

Joke aside, my daughter (6.5 yo) also tends to go for female characters, but tell yours that Durik has a Wolf pet with him and see if she is interested. Anything involving animals, or funny looks, can well work as well. Descent as many of these strange weirdo characters.

By the way I think there's a H&M pack out there featuring 4 female heroes, that's probably the one you should look into getting.

Basically most campaigns can be played 2 or 3 times, without having to play the same quest twice (not counting introduction, interlude and finale)

You play the introduction, then 3 out of usually 6 available Act 1 quests, 1 out of 2 interludes, 3 out of usually 6 act 2 quests and then 1 out of 2 finales.

Extra randomness can be added to the campaigns through rumor quests that are available from small box expansions or Hero and Monster packs. They are randomly drawn each campaign.

After that I guess you would run into scenarios you already know, but monster selection/previous quest results can change the way some quest play out

edit: I see Zaltyre already said most of this lol

Crusade of the Forgotten

Yes that's right, with Tetherys, Tahlia, Astarra and Andira Runehand. Thanks

I never played Descent 1. I just bought Descent 2 and started playing the base game and its campaign with some friends of mine. We find it a lot of fun, I am really glad I bought it. From what I have seen so far the campaign itself has some randomness because there are more quests per phase then you play. And then what heroes and what monsters are chosen add a lot of variation. Especially on the hero side. I could see getting several campaigns and it not feeling like the same thing over and over. And there are easy ways to add some variety to the base game. You can buy Heirs Of Blood campaign book, for example, and have a completely new campaign with nothing else to buy after you own the base set.

I assume you are playing the overlord? One thing I do worry about is how tough this game can be if you want to play competitive. The heroes, and overlord for that matter, need to have synergy. You might have to "play nice" so they have fun. For an example, and I hope this isn't to spoiler, in one of the acts I used shadow dragons to block a hallway and just ran my objective for victory basically uncontested. You might want to think about how you play the overlord based on there skill level. One suggestion too is you can buy a co=op pack and play on the same team.

Just reacting on the "wife/daughter prefers female characters"

For some reason I still chock people when I say that I played Fable II as a female Dark Elf with evil alignment who was married to another female human and had three other female lovers on the side, plus one man (I had to try that). The question I got was, surprisingly, not about why my characters had so many lovers and why I was playing on my various relationships, but why I did all this using a female character

Joke aside, my daughter (6.5 yo) also tends to go for female characters, but tell yours that Durik has a Wolf pet with him and see if she is interested. Anything involving animals, or funny looks, can well work as well. Descent as many of these strange weirdo characters.

By the way I think there's a H&M pack out there featuring 4 female heroes, that's probably the one you should look into getting.

I never question the motivation of my wife / kids because I'm the same way I have always played Men in video games and RPGs.. and I have a really hard time getting behind a female protagonist ... not always some Female characters are awesome ... but I never choose to play female.

Thanks for the knowledge about the expansion pack I'll look out for it.

Basically most campaigns can be played 2 or 3 times, without having to play the same quest twice (not counting introduction, interlude and finale)

You play the introduction, then 3 out of usually 6 available Act 1 quests, 1 out of 2 interludes, 3 out of usually 6 act 2 quests and then 1 out of 2 finales.

Extra randomness can be added to the campaigns through rumor quests that are available from small box expansions or Hero and Monster packs. They are randomly drawn each campaign.

After that I guess you would run into scenarios you already know, but monster selection/previous quest results can change the way some quest play out

edit: I see Zaltyre already said most of this lol

By the way I think there's a H&M pack out there featuring 4 female heroes, that's probably the one you should look into getting.

Crusade of the Forgotten

Yes it was said before but always appreciated ... its a big purchase for me ... (given the things I worry about) ... but the more I think ... the more I like it ... (Now if I can just get rid of my 1st edition )

I never played Descent 1. I just bought Descent 2 and started playing the base game and its campaign with some friends of mine. We find it a lot of fun, I am really glad I bought it. From what I have seen so far the campaign itself has some randomness because there are more quests per phase then you play. And then what heroes and what monsters are chosen add a lot of variation. Especially on the hero side. I could see getting several campaigns and it not feeling like the same thing over and over. And there are easy ways to add some variety to the base game. You can buy Heirs Of Blood campaign book, for example, and have a completely new campaign with nothing else to buy after you own the base set.

I assume you are playing the overlord? One thing I do worry about is how tough this game can be if you want to play competitive. The heroes, and overlord for that matter, need to have synergy. You might have to "play nice" so they have fun. For an example, and I hope this isn't to spoiler, in one of the acts I used shadow dragons to block a hallway and just ran my objective for victory basically uncontested. You might want to think about how you play the overlord based on there skill level. One suggestion too is you can buy a co=op pack and play on the same team.

Yes I'd be playing the OL ... but like running D&D campaigns ... I'm here to make sure my kids love playing games ... not to squish them like bugs. So yeah I don't think that would be much problem.

You should be able to sell the first edition online with out to much problems

That's my thought I have it up for 50$ on our local board (Canadian 50 ... which is like 2$ american right now )

Well you have the first Edition, so in your case, I would consider picking up the Conversion Kit. You'd have the heroes from the 1st Edition that you can already just play with 2nd Edition and the monster cards. Up to you though.

In the base game there are 8 heroes. Each class has a male and female hero, so I think you're good there. Basically the genders are divided quite evenly.

Well you have the first Edition, so in your case, I would consider picking up the Conversion Kit. You'd have the heroes from the 1st Edition that you can already just play with 2nd Edition and the monster cards. Up to you though.

In the base game there are 8 heroes. Each class has a male and female hero, so I think you're good there. Basically the genders are divided quite evenly.

I thought about it ... but the cnversion kit didn't seem to come with the campaign etc ... can you build the campaign out of 1st edition?

With the "monsters and heroes" boxes, the "convertion kit" looks like totally useless and unbalanced now, since thoses boxes offers the old heroes and monster updated and with better new molds

I would say the conversion kits is useless oly if you spend a lot of money to buy ALL the H&M collections and still get satisfied in not having ALL the old monsters and heroes until now. There is still a lot of minis to be released, and who knows if all of them will be?

This all said, the CK was a GREAT product when D2E got released. That kind of move from FFG needs to be encouraged so owners of previous game versions get a smoother transition to the newest installment and don't feel robbed by FFG for all money and investment spent on the previous iteration.

The CK is only useless now to those who consistently buy H&M packs, otherwise it's still great value for your money, and like I said earlier you could change the wording on some cards to the new version without having to buy all the H&Ms.

The Conversion Kit is a good buy only if you bought the old base game and all the expansion (and dungeonquest) since it has no miniatures

And many of the figures are broken, too weak, and not at the good scale (especially for the heroes)

The new boxes offers the same monsters in new art, sculpts, balancing (better if not perfect), and with new quest to play them. It better fits with the game.

Now, there's only 5 monsters missing, 20 heroes, and I'm sure they are all going to come back !

I was the first one to buy the converstion kit and the old base game and expansions, and was also the first one to buy the new H&M boxes again and put my old game back to dust

For what it's worth, I wish game publishers considered "conversion kits" more often for their games, in order to port characters/tiles/objects from other similar games into it. So yeah, I´m no longer talking about the previous version of a game, but about plain other games.

I´d be more than happy to design a D&D adventure game conversion to Descent, and vice-versa, so these classy D&D heroes could be used in D2E and these weierd monsters as well. Descent could benefit from that huge Demon figure, all these elementals and so on. I'm fully aware game publishers cannot quite design extra-licence material to provide such crossover, but at least the numerous fans of these games could certainly come up with something nice and artistically professional to use in our games.

The reason I suggested the CK was because he had the 1st Edition. You could essentially use parts of the first edition with the second with it. But H&Ms are ( in my opinion) better if not pricier.

That being said, I think you will be ok with the base game. Get 2nd Edition and if you're in the mood to pay extra and spice it up a little, the Lieutenant Packs.

Indalecio- while it would be nice to have conversions, it is underatabdable why there are descent specific things. Also, with treaty of champions, we will get the demon lord.

Thanks everyone I guess the way to go is 2nd edition + some of those modules not sure if LT packs are something I'll get into especially at the price of those monter packs....

Well, Lieutenant packs allow you to play with the figure instead of the token and add Plot Decks that the Overlord can use. They're usually around 8-10 bucks, though larger sized ones run around 15.

Well, Lieutenant packs allow you to play with the figure instead of the token and add Plot Decks that the Overlord can use. They're usually around 8-10 bucks, though larger sized ones run around 15.

That's not bad at all compared to the monster packs.

While I agree H&M packs look more appealing in terms of mini quantities, I have to say that Lieutenant packs make a HUUUUUUGE difference on the table. These are the campaign's big bosses! The presence of a threatening character on the board has a heavy psychological impact on the players (OL included)and increases in-game immersion. Defeating a token has never felt anything else than anti-climatic. This is not a hex game.

Some LTs are massive and players tend to respect that.

If you buy an expansion to get a new campaign, then I strongly advise that you buy the related LT packs as well.