Some months ago I asked for advice as a new OL when I started a campaign. Well, so far the heroes are getting creamed. I am playing with two others, each one controlling two heroes. I don't want to let up too much on them, but I want to give them advice and possible a handicap (e.g. extra gold). We are playing with the base set, LoR, LotW, and the Trollfens. Here is the composition and the results so far:

Overlord

• OL Deck 1 with 2x Web Traps and 2x No Rest for the Wicked
• Plot Deck: Baron Zachareth with Sole Purpose, Trouble on the Road, Nefarious Power, and False Friends
• Artifacts Won: Bones of Woe, Staff of Shadows, Valyndra's Gift, and the Shadow Ruin
• My strategy has been to avoid confrontation except when necessary and play off of their immobility by using traps and No Rest, especially after they activate Grisbane (tanky and high damage, but slow) and Leoric (makes group tanky and explosive damage).

Heroes

• Grisbane as a Berserker with Iron Battleaxe, Elven Boots (just purchased), and Mana Weave. His skills are Rage, Cripple, Counterattack, and Charge.
• Avric as a Disciple with Steel Broadsword (just purchased) and Wooden Shield. His skills are Prayer of Healing, Armor of Faith, Cleansing Touch, and Prayer of Peace.
• Leoric as a Runemaster with Magma Blast, Arcane Bolt, and Rune Plate (just purchased). His skills are Rune Knowledge, Runic Knowledge and Rune Sorcery.
• Jain as a Wildlander with the Bow of Bone, Crossbow, Iron Shield, and Heavy Cloak. Her skills are Nimble, Accurate, Danger Sense, and Bow Mastery.

Campaign Progress:

• First Blood : This was a narrow win on my part. I top decked a Dash that saved my master Ettin and then surrounded him with goblin archers. I got lucky and had just enough actions to escape with enough goblins.
• The Masquerade Ball : In the first encounter most of the guests ended up being on the side opposite the heroes. This set them up for defeat in the second encounter. Honestly, this felt the most imbalanced so far.
• Gold Digger : This was a narrow victory on my part. After calling done Valyndra, they very nearly killed her before I could even activate her for the first time. Basically, she ran away with monsters blocking the path and I used Dash to race a Barghest to the exit with the item.
• The Cardinal's Plight : They focused on getting treasure instead of killing zombies in the first encounter. In the second, I rolled very high damage with the zombies early against the Cardinal. I allowed them to select the next map after this loss.
• A Fat Goblin : My only loss so far. They learned their lesson with the zombies and I only got away with two out of four grains in the first encounter. They blocked off the tunnel so Splig couldn't escape and I couldn't move them.
• The Overlord Revealed : We played this one yesterday, so I can give the most detail. This has been likely their most demoralizing defeat so far. I had Hybrid Sentinels to their south spawning from the Blue Portal, Volucrix Reavers from the northeast at the Green Portal, and Shadow Dragons from the southwest at the Red Portal. Basically, they were going to try to shut down Blue Portal early. They activated Leoric and moved him with stamina so that he could get two attacks off on the Hybrid Sentinels. I used No rest for the Wicked to make a blast attack impossible. Then they activated Grisbane to join Leoric, but I used a trap to stop him from advancing too far. I don't recall what the other two heroes did on their first turn, suffice is to say that they were divided and spread thin, which left them vulnerable to an attack from three directions. Each hero was knocked down that game at least twice, Leoric four or five times. They did a decent job taking out the master monsters and delaying me, but they couldn't handle the monsters. After the game, we talked about what they could have done better. I wondered whether moving to the narrow passage between the Cave and the Lava cave would have better allowed them to defend their position and take out the Runelock of Strength in the Process. Does this seem right?

After the Intermission, they bought the Elven Boots for Grisbane, the Steel Broadsword for Avric, and the Rune Plate for Leoric. This left them with 25 gold. I allowed them to select the next map, which will be the Monster's Hoard.

So here are my questions:

• What general pointers can I give them to help them out?
• Would a handicap be advisable? Perhaps some gold or a few Act I items?
• I have the Rumor Card that spawns shop items face down and the plot card False Friends to restrict the amount of shop cards they will get. Should I hold off on playing these?
• Do you have any other general suggestions?

Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoy being the evil overlord, and I doubt that the heroes will quit (my wife and cousin), but I want them to at least feel like they have a fighting chance. Any help that you can offer is appreciated.

Some pointers:

Remind them it's about accomplishing the mission, NOT KILLING ALL THE MONSTERS. In my experience heroes who lose a lot tend to think the game is all about monster slaying and their wrong.

If they don't understand yet, explain ways they can give themselves activation advantage (stun, immobilize, etc). Sometimes direct damage can actually be counterproductive.

Know what their upgrades do and give them advice in a sencire way.

Don't handicap the game or make cheap victories, it will haunt you in the end. In my experience the OL rolls until late act 2 or the finale. Giving them a bump may unbalance the game for you in the end.

Let them know side quests are their friends! Extra gold, rewards etc.

And if they ever think the mission is unwinable go for gold to improve their gear.

Let us know how it goes!

Also, as overlord, I have had to learn to put aside my competitive nature and play to my group. I have not played cards, used the "best monsters" picked the best upgrade cards, and so on to keep the game even.

Thanks for the responses so far, but it doesn't help that they are conflicting. I forgot to mention that I have five threat tokens at the beginning of Act 2. I'm considering giving them conditions with two of them and reducing my deck to 13 with one. In addition, I could play a rumor card that spawns shop items face down after the next quest, though their gold is so low at 25, I may save it.

But it seems like the flightmaster would have me not hold back, while wtfboar would.

Switch out and let one of them be the OL in a completely different encounter. It gives them a feel how that side of the game works. then return to your campaign and see if they see the game from a different perspective. When ppl only play from one side I don't believe they grasp the full concept of the game.

Thanks for the responses so far, but it doesn't help that they are conflicting. I forgot to mention that I have five threat tokens at the beginning of Act 2. I'm considering giving them conditions with two of them and reducing my deck to 13 with one. In addition, I could play a rumor card that spawns shop items face down after the next quest, though their gold is so low at 25, I may save it.

But it seems like the flightmaster would have me not hold back, while wtfboar would.

Its still a competitive game, and you dont want to be there when your heroes find out you went easy on them. IMO that hurts way more than losing squarely.

Also you mentioned your threat tokens, do you flip those to the fortune tokens once you spend them? That can be a huge difference in balance if youre getting threat effects and the heroes are not getting fortune effects.

I also agree with hideous prime, maybe take a break from campaign play single missions and give everyone a shot at OL. This will aid in their planning since they will have a better understanding of what the OL can do.

I would like to hear from you about your heroes strategy. Are they monster slayers first and mission accomplishers second? IMO there is a huge jump in the understanding of the game when heroes realize that monsters dont matter unless they are in your way. That will lead to a much more balanced game.

The number one pointer I would give, is if it looks they are going to lose the encounter they should be making sure to grab all the search tokens. at least get the money out of it.

Money to buy better gear means they will be able to handle what you throw at them better.

A lot of the "imbalance" comes from Character selection and experience.

And last but most important its all because you are only playing 2 heroes. Some people will argue this but it is basically true especially with new players:

2 Heroes - advantage Overlord

3 Heroes - advantage Heroes.

4 Heroes - balanced (based on character selection anyway)

I would honestly start over and let your 2 players play 2 heroes each.

Nevermind miss read that part. You are playing with 2 each.

One feed back is getting the steel broad sword going into actII is a bad idea as it is barely better than a starting weapon. I would say they would be better off not getting that and the boots and get the bearded axe instead or even just saving the gold for an ACT2 item. I cannot image having a steel broad sword making a difference in the first ACT2 quest.

My suggestion would be get bearded axe instead of what they did in the last shop and go for the quest which can get them true shot bow. If they can pull off the win there they are back in it. .

A few people have asked how the heroes play. They generally do not try to kill every monster, but they do make an effort to kill most of them. The reason is because they fear getting knocked downed and swarmed. I hope this last game did not reinforce that fear.

One of their biggest problems involves pacing due to a lack of mobility. This is largely due to group composition. Grisbane is slow and the rest of the group needs Leoric around to buff their defenses. Consequently, I often hit those two with traps to slow them down. I'm actually a bit surprised that they haven't learned from this yet. I've done it a few times to slow them down in the beginning of a few encounters. Nonetheless, they still exposed Leoric in the beginning of the interlude (see above), which was really risky. Still, I'm not sure how they can easily overcome this. A lack of mobility is their group's weakness and I need to exploit this to win. I think it will help that Grisbane now hasthe Elven Boots and Leoric the Rune Plate armor though.

Another problem that compounds off of the first one is positioning. Sometimes they get it right (e.g. A Fat Goblin), but sometimes their efforts are disastrous (e.g. The Overlord Revealed). Perhaps one thing I can do is help them by criticizing their game plan at the beginning of encounters and reminding them of what cards may be in my hand.

A few suggested that they give the overlord a try. I will certainly suggest this, but even if they opt not to I could still review the overlord deck with them (prior to reducing it to 15 or 13 with Sole Purpose).

BenOverlord expressed concern regarding the purchse of the Steel Broad Sword. I can ask the player who controls Grisbane and Avric if he wants to reconsider getting the Bearded Axe in lieu of the sword. I think the reason he took the sword is because he was frustrated with how ineffective Avric has been in combat. Nonetheless, I agree that the axe is much better.

Flightmaster asked if I have been flipping threat tokens after using them. Yes, I have been doing this, though neither threat nor fortune tokens have had much of an impact on the game yet as I have been hoarding them to buy plot cards and to use them in Act II. So far, I've used the one that gives them status conditions at the beginning of the first encounter twice so this has given them a total of four fortune tokens to use so far. I was planning on using quite a few in the next quest (The Monster's Hoard) as that one is more competitive.

Are the hero players new and you are not? Because that sounds like what is happening here, and that is what I was referring too. I just started a campaign were I am the OL. 3 of the 4 heroes have never played descent before, and the other has played but hasn't finished a campaign.

So, in that campaign I am only playing with the core set pieces, none of my expansions are included. I could combo the crap out of them, meaning I know enough about the game to take the best monsters and upgrade cards to combo there weaknesses. Also I took Spligs lieutenant pack, and I don't see any advantage in that pack. But I am not doing that because I want them to have fun also and I want to keep playing.

They are at a different point then me, They are just trying to learn the game and figure out the rules and how it works. They are seeing the shop items cards for the first time for example and not sure what to take. So I am taking it easy on them, because frankly I don't want to smash there face and then they decide they don't want to play anymore. Now that being said, I am not just letting them win. They won the opener and 1 act 1. I have won 2 act 1 quests as the OL.

I am just saying, in my experience. The best thing to do as the OL is to play to your group. Especially if they are new to the game because it is a lot at one to figure out, especially if some veteran in stomping your face. And as they play and get better, The game and campaign will get a lot more harder for the OL.

This is the first time playing descent for all of us. I should probably mention that one of the players tends to be a bit sloppy in regard to positioning and a poor dice roller (I know, I know, statistical probability should preclude this possibility). The latter I can't do much about, but the former I only noticed when that person and I recently played a Forgotten Souls coop game together (with four char), which we barely won. It was mostly little things that were the problem. For instance, in the last room we were surrounded by Barghests and Zombies with the door to our back. The Shadow Dragon couldn't advance past the other monsters, but could move closer so as to be exposed to our attacks. This player moved their figure up to attack, but neglected to afterward spend a stamina to move it back so that the dragon could not attack them. I had to remind this person at the end of their turn that moving would be ideal, especially as this was the most poorly armored hero.

I think another part of it is that I am a rather analytical person and I scrutinize my choices very carefully in order to optimize my plan of attack. For instance, I even sought out advice on these forums as first time OL and that's why I ended up with Web Trap and No Rest for the Wicked. Of course, this isn't to say that they aren't intelligent in their decision making or that they rush in without a plan. In fact, they usually spend about 5 minutes or so discussing their turn before taking it.

Sounds like then they just need some play time and trial and error

That might be the case. I think that helping them come up with a game plan at beginning -- and before I look at my OL cards -- might not be a bad idea, too.

This is the first time playing descent for all of us.

If this is the case I guarantee you are playing some of the rules wrong. This isn't a slight against you and your buddies. We have all gone through it. Its just the way this game works.

One little rule played wrong can have huge implications on balance.

In fact it is still happening to me, and I've been playing Descent since day 1 of 1st Edition.

I just found out heroes get to look through the entire Act I deck and buy anything they want after the Interlude. Go figure.

I know its hard not to get frustrated when you are loosing, but wtfboar is correct. Experience in this game is everything. That includes strategies and getting the rules correct.

This is the first time playing descent for all of us.

If this is the case I guarantee you are playing some of the rules wrong. This isn't a slight against you and your buddies. We have all gone through it. Its just the way this game works.

One little rule played wrong can have huge implications on balance.

In fact it is still happening to me, and I've been playing Descent since day 1 of 1st Edition.

I just found out heroes get to look through the entire Act I deck and buy anything they want after the Interlude. Go figure.

I know its hard not to get frustrated when you are loosing, but wtfboar is correct. Experience in this game is everything. That includes strategies and getting the rules correct.

So after reading this, I went onto BGG to read a comprehensive rules summary PDF to see if you were right. Lo' and behold, there are three rules we have been getting wrong:

1. Fatigue recovery occurs at the end of the hero's turn [after using a rest action]. The heroes have been recovering fatigue immediately.

2. Up to 1 unused surge may be used by an attacking hero to recover 1 fatigue. This was forgotten and the heroes have not been taking advantage of this.

3. If the overlord has the relic, it is placed with its overlord side faceup, and may be wielded by any lieutenant (this is the only way the relic’s abilities can be used by the overlord). Each lieutenant can wield only 1 relic. This is perhaps the biggest infraction. I did not know that relics had to be equipped and I was using the Bones of Woe every turn and occasionally the Staff of Shadows .

Yea. Those are 3 great examples. Commonly missed I bet. I also missed all 3 my first couple of times

ya another one that I had missed was when players can trade gear. They can only trade as part of a move action. They cannot spend fatigue to move and trade with a player.

So many little small things that are easy to miss.

One of the very first things we missed, was when cards are tapped like shields and such, they do not get refreshed until each individuals turn. My heroes were refreshing everything at the end of the overlord turn.

I think a lot of this stuff is missed because it does not seem that important, but it is.

Big misunderstandings for new people are pierce, movement, and LOS.

Pierce essentially just takes one shield away.

Remember that you cannot move through an opponents space. The only monster worth fighting are those who are blocking a path to your objective. The corollary is you can block monsters from getting to their objectives, and heroes are much tougher than monsters to get through.

Line of sight is corner to corner and only blocked by and EDGE. That is huge, becasue if you draw los and it hits the black wall on the corner you still have los.

With Jain they should be able to run circles around the OL.

Yeah, flightmaster. We are playing those parts correctly. Their problem with Jain is that she is a bit squishy and vulnerable to a swarm when she moves away from Leoric and Avric.

One small note. In my view Jain is one of the least squishy scouts. This is one of the case where you need to play as a team as the heroes. If the OL is beating up on Jain she should be resting almost every turn and take damage as fatigue. It is way easier to get fatigue back than it is health. One issue I have notice when each hero is control by individuals is they all want individual glory rather than playing as a team.

On and a runemaster without ghost armor.... That is a sin and he should be flogged for that.

Now that you mention it, the player controlling Jain hasn't used her ability often enough. Besides Ghost Armor, are there any skills that you find terribly lacking?

I ersonally would do things very different but its ok to have different play stiles. Only one I see that I think is really important is first strike for Jain.

Danger sense in my mind is broken and if they play it right they would win almost every time. We have house rule band that skill

If they are ok with being really cheesy for a few easy wins, They can do this.

Wildlander (jain) should get danger sense, first strike and fleet of foot.

Then every turn basically just do danger sense and rest as her two actions and then do first strike when possible on OL turn. Very boring way to play for both the hero and the OL but wins almost all of them as the OL does not keep carks for long. Then to really abuse it swap in Mok for a healer. OL basically has to play with no cards. Good luck! It still takes a little bit of smarts on the hero side but it basically easy (and very boring) mode

Update: We played the first encounter of the Monster's Hoard. My monster groups were Merriods (mandatory) and Hybrid Sentinels. It was a narrow, albeit Pyrrhic, victory in my favor. Before the match, I allowed them to revisit skills and items. Leoric took Ghost Armor with a point he was sitting on. Avric undid his purchase of the Steel Broadsword.

They did a very good job of keeping Frederick safe for much of the game. In the second area, they kept him against the wall and put Avric next to him using the Prayer of Peace to prevent adjacent monsters from attacking. Early on, I was able to still get a hit on Frederick with a well-placed Fire Breath from the Master Hybrid Sentinel that did three points of damage. After that happened, they made sure that their heroes were never in a position to allow Fire Breath to reach Frederick.

The game changing turn happened about half-way through. They were keeping Frederick safe from the Sentinels, but they forgot that Merriods have Reach. I got three lucky hits on them after using Frenzy on the Master. This brought Frederick from 17 to 4 health. After this, they positioned their heroes so that a Merriod could never occupy from which they could attack Frederick.

From here they protected Frederick well and thinned out the number of monsters. Unfortunately for them, the Rune Key was in the furthest possible location from them so it took longer to get it open. (Yes, we were aware that they simply had to find the key in order to open the door. No one had to carry it.) During this time, I tried to use the Sentinels flying ability to manuever around the heroes and get into a position to kill Frederick. It didn't work.

I won because I top decked a Dark Charm and used it on Leoric along with a Dark Charm and Critical Blow to kill Frederick. However, this left me with no cards left in hand for the next encounter.

Postscript: One of the players brought to my attention some questions about the rules and after a lot of digging on the forums, it became clear that we got two things very wrong, one of which may have changed the outcome.

First, I used a Tripwire to stop Grisbane's charge. Apparently, this was not legal because that only counts for movement points gained from move actions. This happened relatively late, though, and Grisbane still used two stamina to complete the attack. It would not have affected the outcome as he was positioned precisely where he wanted to end up regardless.

Second, I used a Web Trap on Jain after she used her feat. We treated this as an immobilization that prevented further movement. However, immobilization just prevents movement from movement points gained through fatigue or by a move action. It would not have nullified the feat. The effect of this would have been that they would have been a turn ahead of where they were as she was about to search for the key. Given their distance from the exit, I would have still definitely drawn that Dark Charm, but it would not have been guaranteed that Leoric would be position to target him.

So what do you think? Should we replay that one?

I think I've identified four possible problems here.

1. One problem could be that you are adding expansion content and trying to play competitively when neither side is fully familiar with the rules. You have five games worth of rules (base, plot, Wyrm, Trollfens, and Labyrinth). Mess up a rule, give a false victory, skew the campaign. Sure, your group could be great with rules, but you're just making it harder on yourselves. When the quests are linked and you can't simply "restart," try to give yourself as few rules to get wrong as possible. Besides, it's OK to not use all your content. Introduce your expansions gradually. You'll play more campaigns (of course you will, otherwise you would only have bought the base set!)

2. The OL has more options than usual for a first campaign. Beyond the base game, you have 8 extra monsters, 2 extra OL classes, and a plot deck. Not just any plot deck, but the Sole Purpose deck that narrows down your OL deck. You can choose open monsters in response to heroes' weapon and skill choices. You can choose from 5 different decks to build your OL deck, and focus it using Sole Purpose. The heroes are stuck with their classes they chose at the start, and that's it. If you're in the lead now, expect the gap to only widen.

To prove the point, you said the "game-changing turn" was when they forgot the Merriods have Reach. They may have been trying to process other rules not included in the base game, such as threat, your plot deck, your OL deck, the new Hybrid Sentinels, etc. If you own a lot of monsters (e.g. through H&M collections), you could literally win through confusion, by choosing a new type of monster for your open groups every quest, without giving heroes a chance to adopt tactics for anything.

This is because the heroes have a very limited selection of abilities and skills at the start of the game. The OL has 4 mixable class decks (basic, warlord, magus, saboteur) in the base game to allow for fair competition against four heroes worth of classes opposing him. But the heroes grow slowly, as does the OL via his OL deck.

As the heroes gain expertise with the game, the 4 vs. 1 aspect starts to dominate the OL, which is why expansions give him extra options during the campaign (plot, more monsters, rumor rewards, more class decks, etc.) while the heroes are limited to just the startup options (heroes and classes - shop decks are more or less moot, as they are randomly selected). But to give the OL the extra options during the first campaign may be what is dominating the heroes.

3. The heroes may not be familiar with all your cards. They have a right to look at your deck before you shuffle it prior to each quest. It takes them almost a full campaign to just become familiar with the basic cards. If you don't show them your deck or XP choices, this makes it extra challenging.

4. Finally, you said you won "First Blood," presumably with the help of the Sole Purpose plot deck. This is a sign your group is highly competitive, as that quest is designed for hero victory. Just take care to play to your group; the OL needs to be comfortable with losing for the sake of keeping interest in the game. There really are only two ways to play Descent: have a "facilitating" OL (i.e. one who goes easy sometimes), or be highly competitive but still have fun even when one side is a runaway leader. If you want to be highly competitive but you can't tolerate runaway leaders, then that would be a problem, as the motivation for greater XP and rewards for winning the quest is the only drive for people to win, as it all comes down to the winner of the finale. Basically, at the end of the finale, if one side was overpowered and totally destroyed the opposition, the losers have to say, "Well, that side surely deserved the victory, as he clearly won more quests than us to become so powerful! Good campaign, good campaign!" as opposed to, "Man, we didn't stand a chance, this quest is unfair." (It's not; it's just a measurement of overall campaign success.)

My group had recently played through its first campaign and the four heroes got destroyed. We only won the first 2 quests. Every quest afterwards was won by the OL. We had several issues like an unbalanced team, but we also forgot many rules, like using a surge to gain a fatigue and the OL can only cast 1 copy of a card per trigger. Also, it turned out that the OL was using Unholy Ritual without taking an action away from the chosen group and keeping 4 cards(as the card printed says).

My point being, on your first run through, you're gonna forget rules left and right. We considered our first campaign a practice and learning experience.