Well, let's go to discover how many OLs out there won at least one Final Battle in his/her life...!
There are too many voices which say that is almost "impossible" to beat the party in the Last Avatar's Keep....Is it true??
My experience (2 final battles so far...) is: 2 victories for the Party (Great Wyrm both times as avatar....), but the last time the Avatar was at a stone throw from the victory!
Our very first campaign (with some newb mistakes on the heroes' and the OL's part part) ended in a Final Battle against the Sorceror King. The SK ended up winning with just about 20ish of his wounds left, so it was quite a tight battle.
(It only lasted so long though due to our houseruling that Ispher's regen should scale, oops)
In my very first campaign, my Titan won against the heroes. He started with exactly 222 hitpoints and had about 80 wounds left at the end of the fight. But the reason I won was that I could play out the last of the ascension plot cards early in the gold grade (or maybe in the late silver grade, can't remember any more) and so I forced them to start the final battle too early. I had lots of comets in play so they had nearly no fatigue to use and their main-tank had only skills that needed a battle-action, but they Titans stun avoided him from using battle actions at all (He simply didn't thought about that problem for the whole game until he recognized his fault in the OL's keep. He was a whirlwind of blades against the normal enemies, but very lame in the final fight.).
Moreover, this first campaign started with just the main game, so there was no spirit walker, no bear tatoo...
don't forget the last battle is the only way for the heroes to win, so they should have a distinct advantage. otherwise the point of the game would be somewhat failed.
Nitewolf said:
...But how could a batlle be exciting if you already know who will win? I guess the "Last Battle" could be an epic event always, with an uncertain ending 'till the last hit..
So, yes, I agree: the heroes "should have a distinct advantage" in the Last Battle (since they have only that way to win the Campaign), but they shouldn't be so sure 'bout their final victory...
In other posts, somewhere in this forum, I read many comments 'bout the easy (or sometimes almost obvious) defeat of the Avatar in his Last Keep by the heroes...My unique fear (since in my last 2 experiences the Avatar was destroyed in the Final Battle) is that maybe could be really IMPOSSIBLE for the OL to win the Campaign by the "Last Battle solution"....Well, fortunately the first two comments on this post are changing my opinion on this issue!
Basically, Heroes that are allowed to get all the traits and upgrades they want will pound the avatar into the ground twelve times out of a dozen. The only solution I see is that the OL has to harass them, keep them poor, force them to flee dungeons, raze crucial cities, and keep them from upgrading whenever they want, so that they enter his keep at well below their full capacity. Ideally, he should be able to even keep them from visiting a secret master once or twice... Then, he has a chance.
Xandria said:
Basically, Heroes that are allowed to get all the traits and upgrades they want will pound the avatar into the ground twelve times out of a dozen. The only solution I see is that the OL has to harass them, keep them poor, force them to flee dungeons, raze crucial cities, and keep them from upgrading whenever they want, so that they enter his keep at well below their full capacity. Ideally, he should be able to even keep them from visiting a secret master once or twice... Then, he has a chance.
So in other words, if the Overlord actually *plays* the game, he has a chance?
-shnar
I've been playing the game hard and I do not have a chance if we get into an Avatar battle (which I do not think we will). I haven't bought a single Avatar battle upgrade, and the party can kill a Diamond demon in 2-3 turns. Instead, a bunch of my CT has gone into completing my plot (blot out the sun, which is 55 points, and 5 turns of buying power, plus the cost of LT's to march all over the map to get it, plus travel time...It's an expensive plot) and buying treachery. Good thing I'm 3 turns from completing the plot, and the heroes have 1 last ditch attempt to stop me, otherwise I'd have wasted all that CT.
I'm assuming you mean you're playing that Demon avatar? If it takes 2 to 3 turns to kill a diamond demon, it should take longer to kill your avatar. I think (especially if you had a few Avatar upgrades) you'd have a good fight at the end, considering how much tougher your avatar should be before the heroes make it down 3 levels into your keep. The armor and health boost would serve you well...
-shnar
Oh, I've no doubt that I could make my Demon Prince an absolute monster if I'd have outfitted him to be that way from the very beginning, but that would require me to sacrifice all the investments I made into completing my plot (which I chose randomly, as I did my Avatar). I have plenty of CT to buy all the upgrades I want, I just don't have enough time to buy them. As it stands, the party would face a Diamond demon with a few more wounds (maybe 20-30 more) if we went into the final battle, which isn't something that is going to pose a threat at all to the heroes.
After 4 levels of dungeons, you only expect to get 15CTs? I think it'd go a little worse for the Heroes than that
-shnar
Oh, I thought that you only got 1 wound per CT, not 2. Still, Even with an extra 100 I think I'd be pretty screwed. Especially as Laurel does an average of 22 wounds right now without flipping, and Ronin hits like a truck with the ice blade, and landrec the mega-blaster has about 8 free surges without rolling any. The only character that doesn't hit hard is Varikas, but he has 11 armor. But, I don't think I'll have to worry too much, as I'm about to win from a plot victory.
Hitting them with Crushing Blow at least 2 times while they're going through 4 dungeon levels should help even the odds (unless you're playing with Feats and they have that "cancel OL card" card).
-shnar
We are, and that pesky mage hasn't used any feats for a
long
while. I expect some sort of deviousness is afoot
That said, these guys are smart. After the first time I crushing blow-ed their equipment, they all have back-ups. Pesky balanced parties!
Ooof, if a Hero was holding on to some Feats, that would scare me as OL!
We played our first game with Feats last week, and they *suck*! Granted, it was the first quest from the base game, we just added Feats and Treachery so the new players would get used to them, but still they came in handy. OL still won, but it was close. The Gold Treasure at the end gave one hero a weapon that with one attack, he almost killed an unwounded Narthak (he only had 2 health after that). But that was the end of the Heroes turn, and Narthak and his Manticores wiped out the heroes CTs to win
-shnar