In a couple of weeks we are about to embark upon our second RTL campaign. I’ll be overlord again having won during the final battle with The Demon Prince last time around (it was an epic final battle & a fantastic ending to the campaign as I only won by the very narrowest of margins). This time around I’ve decided to take The Sorcerer King who looks great fun (especially the Snipers upgrade & the one which gives Blast to Sorcerers).

A couple of things to note:

1) We’ll be playing with all the expansions.

2) Party makeup is nearly finalised: the Yeti, Fairy & other melee character from Tomb of Ice (the one who can hold a 2-handed weapon in one hand) + one ranged character yet to be decided upon.

Does anyone have any advice having played as The Sorcerer King? I’ve got a few myself but as Overlord I can’t really bounce ideas off the others players J

Sorry some of the above is slightly vague but I don’t have the game to hand.

Cheers

sounds exciting! The S. King needs no advice, he is the badass of all badassery. Arguably one of the best avatars( did u know avatar means "fallen god" in ancient sanscrit? Just droppin a little knowledge on ya.)

I guess I could suggest to take advantage of his threat stack early on in a dungeon. Trap treachery would be the first upgrades ("welcome mat" works deviously as well as "animate weapons") I would concentrate on upgrading eldich monsters too. Thats about it, play him any way u want cuz like I said, he is as bad as they come.

Let them run!

The heroes will have powerful melee-fighters, so keep distance.

Your advantage: In using eldritch-monsters, you will have lots of distance-fighters, especially your sniper-skeletons. They can shoot above great distances, so use this! Don't walk near to the heroes, you don't have to do this with your tons of skeletons.

As your prime monsters will be eldritch-distance-fighters, there is another advantage: You won`t have any problems to hit and kill that fairy.

At last, you will be able to play any card you like. Be glad about tons of threat-points. Spawn often (that 15 points to turn the eyes won`t be any problem for "Mr Threat") and use traps to baffle the melee-fighter's turns. But that's all just standard-descent-play and nothing surprising new.

As Earth Wyrm Jim said, enjoy your power. The sorcerer king will be such powerfull that it will be an opportunity to test any play-style you want to play.

I'll also be starting my first RtL campaign in a few weeks! Hooray!

I'll be playing the Overlord. I don't know which avatar I'll be yet though. Is the Sorcerer King so powerful that the game is un-balanced? More than anything else I want it to be a close campaign all the way to the end, rather than just being a blow out either way.

Advice?

Thanks

Snipers and silver eldritch are nice. I read a strategy on here once that I haven't had a chance to try out, but it said to get 1 event treachery for crushing blow and the sorcerer king LT. who comes back to the keep when he dies. Then just keep attacking them with the LT and trying to play CB. The only problem I can see is that it could get really annoying to the heroes and it might make them want to quit the campaign. So you might not want to do that if you think that could be a problem

As with any avatar, there are upgrades for heros that can help defeat him. For the sorcerer king, I believe the 3 best hero upgrades would be:

Armor

Wounds

and more Armor

He can spawn early and often due to his "Mr. Threat" status (thanx for that nick name Graf, I like it)

Heros should pick a powerful magic user and get him/her the "spiritwalker" skill early and at all costs. This skill is the number 1 most hated of mine as overlord . For those who are not familiar with this skill, it allows a magic user to attack through any other hero on the board as if he/she was standing in that heros spot. The hero must be within 10 spaces for vanilla descent and within 5 spaces for RTL(no line of sight required). This allows a powerful (and weaker armor) magic user to stand back from the main fights and cover line of sight behind the front group of heros, while still making devastating attacks.

Grabbing boggs the rat would be a great idea too. Hes so sneaky .

jwdenzel said:

Oh Gawd! There is that "unbalanced" word creeping its way into these new forums. The game is not unblanced and works just find, The Sorcerer King is powerful but I have seen Heroes run his little gaunlet and best him

For our first RtL campaign I used The Demon Prince & the Obsidian Shackles plot (I think that’s what it’s called).

Upgrading Eldritch monsters was very effective: skeletons are standard in nearly every dungeon & if you’re playing with the expansions the Dark Priests at Diamond are fantastic for the Overlord. In fact it could be argued that once the campaign hits silver level you should try to upgrade Eldritch to gold even if the other two monster types remain at bronze initially (this plan does have it’s flaws). At Diamond, Demons are very, very tough to hit for substantial damage with their high levels of Fear unless the characters have the cards which give them free surges (& Landrec obviously).

Green Treachery allows for very interesting possibilities – if in doubt, put an extra Danger or two in for loads of Threat.

The ‘Shackles’ card is great fun during the final battle if you get that far – each round you have the possibility of controlling one of the characters J

Also, the Avatar upgrades are very useful but watch out for ‘The Twins’ rumour – the players removed two cards which I hadn’t purchased which increased Aura & the distance at which it worked – during the final battle a Diamond Master Demon with Aura 6 (?) which works with a radius of 2 squares is very tough for the melee character(s).

Oh and watch out for Rapid Fire in Road to Legend – with the fatigue upgrades the players have access to you could be facing a ranged character with 5 or 6 attacks (which could be Aimed attacks if you have the expansions).

Lastly, I would let the players CHOOSE their characters: they will be playing with them for a long time so it makes sense that they get a chance to playing using a character that they are going to enjoy playing with. We played by the rules first time around but I’m letting the players choose for our upcoming campaign.

That is all. Brilliant fun and I hope your campaign goes as well as our first one did: we got to the final battle and right at the end The Demon Prince had one attack to kill the remaining character (Ronan) otherwise he would have been toast. Thankfully he made it and enslaved Terrinoth J

I must say, I'm very interested to hear a report of the Avatar actually winning the final battle. I just finished a game as the Spider Queen, and came away with the conclusion that the difficulty of the final Avatar battle is COMPLETELY out of whack (an opinion which mostly seems to be shared by many as far as I can tell). Going back and doing a simulation of my Spider Queen battle, I found I would have needed 1131 HP going into the fight to win. As it was, I had 52. I assumed other Avatar battles would be similar, but I have been purposefully avoiding reading the 'tricks' to each battle, therefore limiting my analysis somewhat.

I don't suppose you could post the exact stats of your party that lost to the Demon Prince? Ie. the conquest totals, all skills, upgrades and weapons that they had going into the final keep, as well as the Overlord's upgrades? A lot of info, I know, but I at least would find it useful.

I haven’t kept the stats so I’ll see what I can remember. Oh & bear in mind that Demons have a big advantage over spiders: Fear. Diamond level Master Demons have Fear 5 or 6 (I forget & haven’t got the game to hand) as well as base armour of 8.

Party was made up of: Steelhorns, Ronan, Vyrah & Landrec. Broadly speaking, by gold level, Steelhorns was capable of massive damage, both Ranged characters had Aimed attacks and Landrec had that sodding Word of Vaal rune that stuns monsters within 3 spaces of him.

The Avatar upgrades I had for the final battle in no particular order (again, please forgive the lack of proper names but I don’t have the game to hand):

+15 wounds

+1 armour

+1 speed

+1 gold power dice (x3)

Blast 1

So Fear 5 (or 6) + Armour 9 – all damage done to the avatar was much reduced and several attacks missed because of a lack of surges for the Fear.

Blast 1 helped hitting multiple heroes with one Battle action – basically, with a lot of luck both attacks hit for nearly full damage (with Sorcery 5 and an extra 3 gold dice that’s quite a lot).

On top of this I was using the Obsidian Shackles plot (I think that’s what it’s called) and had the plot card which gave me a chance for one of the characters to be Enslaved every round. This meant that every round there was a chance that Landrec would toast one of his friends. Which was nice J

Everything was geared towards the final battle – once we’d reached Gold level in the campaign and it was obvious that the final battle was definitely going to happen I just concentrated on getting the Avatar stronger. In fact, had it not been for ‘The Twins’ rumour he would have been even tougher as there are avatar upgrade cards which increase the Aura radius to 2 squares which would have been a big help - the most damaging character by the end was Steelhorns with the Spear (has Reach) and every damage boost under the sun.

Hope this helps.

My first campaign was Sorceror King as overlord and plot (blotting out the sun, can't remember exact name). I more or less smashed heroes throughout and final conquest tokens were probably, heroes (250) and overlord (350). The final battle was appalling and overlord was smashed. Had good upgrades (the mirror and no surges) but there was simply no chance. Mirrors were smashed from a distance and overlord was unable to fire until avatar actually came on the board.

Strategies as sorceror king. Upgrade eldritch creatures & trap treachery. As others have pointed out sorceror king generates alot of threat and you feel quite free using it. Eldritch creatures are ranged and upgraded sorcerors, skeletons, and dark priests are excellent long range damage dealers. Throw an extra dark charm, poison spikes, etc. into the deck and you'll have a good time (until good level and gold weapons).

Ahh - I can certainly see how Landrec being on the Overlord's side sometimes could help immensely. Do you remember if this actually happened (particularly on the first round)?

Nevertheless, I am quite aware of the Demon Prince's armor and Fear, and basically, my conclusion is it's not very much at all. Steelhorns using the Frost Axe + Weapon Master skill (which he will DEFINITELY have) gives him 4 out of the 5 surges he needs AUTOMATICALLY. The first surge he rolls goes to fear, and after that the rest are going through. He should still easily do at least 10 net damage per hit, perhaps closer to 15 if he has stuff like Mighty as well. Since the Demon Prince only has roughly 60 HP, he will not even survive the first round by my estimation.

I'm also not sure how you were able to hit multiple heroes with only Blast 1. Under normal circumstances, it would be trivial for the Heroes to spread out so that never happens. Again, I don't know any 'tricks' concerning the battle, so perhaps that's what's responsible.

I think that the overlord gains extra hit points based on the conquest tokens gained throughout the campaign

Also the overlords turn starts when the last square questionamrk is activated if the players are badly placed that could be a player down before the players even get a go (especially if the player in question is the mage.....

Also in order to use a frost axe the player also has to come right up to the Avatar which is a nice 5 dmg to take from the aura, or a potential 12 if you have the increased aura damage and radius

Also the corridors are quite narrow so it is easy if the players make a misjudgement to end up together.

Yes, got control of Landrec once or twice. With the Blast attack I got lucky that they were close together for one round. Also, the Avatar had more wounds than that: the early dungeons were deadly. All ends up I had A LOT of luck and still only just squeaked it – the final battle was exactly what everyone wanted: it went down to the wire.

One more quick question to ensure no mis-interpretation: the rules are quite clear that the Avatar gains 2 additional wounds for each Conquest Token he gains in the Final Dungeon (ie. the one that consists of 4 floors with the Overlord's Keep floor at the bottom). Conquest tokens gained during the rest of the campaign are irrelevant for this calculation.

Mr. Minti-Me's comment about the 'campaign' and your use of 'dungeons' - plural implies perhaps a mistake was made here...? Just making sure we're on the same page. By late Gold level, this should amount to between 10 and 15 conquest at the most for the OL - Gold-level Heroes just don't take very many casualties in dungeons.

Also, the Demon's aura is irrelevant - it is a trivial matter for the Heroes to attack with the Frost axe and still not take any aura damage at all. With the rules as they stand, my estimation is the Aura upgrades aren't even worth purchasing.

Sorry, should have said “the early dungeon levels” meaning the first 4 dungeon levels of the Overlord’s Keep.

I am running my first campaign, my Avatar is the Beastman Lord. We have just gotten through the first two levels of our first dungeon. I have managed to collect 27 Conquest tokens and have 73 threat even though one of the heroes has the Cautious skill ( Overlord collects 1 fewer threat per turn). Is this normal or am I doing something wrong. I have been throwing monsters at them hand over fist, with my favourite being the Dark Priests and their 1 surge = 1 threat ability.. but still have all this extra threat. And yes I am spending the required threat to turn the eyes over before spawning a new monster. but I only need 12 as that is the Beastman Lord's skill. Any comments would be welcome. Thanks.

Well, if the heroes play like crap, this happens.

Usually, you pile up threat in levels where establishing LoS is easy and spawning, the largest threat sink, is difficult. But - where would you get that conquest?

Are the Heroes weak? Do they have any of the crucial skills? (Leadership, Grapple, Taunt, Telekinesis, Spiritwalker, Knight, Quick Cast...)? Did they hit any of the true killer levels like Trial by Fire?

If not, then a crappy play on their part is likely.

The_Immortal said:

The 10 to 15 doesn't work as well when the OL puts the animate weapons card in (the one that is essentially 4 simultaneous dark charms) especially if two of the characters have auto aim, although i prefer turning everyone to monkeys.

I dont understand why the Aura is irrelevant though If the demon has the extended aura and has it increased to Level 6 doesn't the player automatically receive 12 to get next to the monster and then has the option to 1) stay and suffer another 6 for starting next to it at the begining of the next turn (if the demon doesn't move), or 2) suffer another six when he runs away as he would have to step through the outer aura to get away. Have we been reading the Aura rules incorrectly?

As soon as you step into a monsters aura you take the level of the aura in unsoakable damage right?

Animate weapons is good and admittedly I wasn't playing with the Altar of Despair cards in my previous game - however, for any Avatar but the Spider Queen, there is a good chance you won't even get to it before the Avatar fight, as Gold heroes should be able to clear levels in 3 turns at the most. Furthermore, even if you DO get it, there is roughly a 33% to 50% chance that the Heroes will just drop it using Wind Pact. This is because on any turn but the first in a dungeon level, the Heroes definitely will not have their weapons equipped, but will have put them away in their pack. Even on the first turn, this will sometimes be the case if the level is easy enough. So if you draw it on your second turn of the dungeon level, the Heroes will just drop it as soon as they start the next level. Only if you draw into it on your first turn of a floor AND have the threat to play it immediately will it do any good (and sometimes not even then, depending on how easy the level was).

As for the aura, no, you're not misinterpreting any rules. I'll admit it was slightly mean of me to throw that comment out there without elaboration, but sometimes I like seeing if other people can come up with the answers by themselves.

The reason Aura is useless is because it triggers when a Hero moves into a space adjacent to the Monster. It does not trigger when the Monster moves into a space adjacent to the Hero. Therefore, the Heroes will just abuse Telekinesis and move the Demon next to them, thus not taking the Aura damage. It's a little tricky to arrange things properly for the other Melee Hero that DOESN'T have telekinesis, but it is still very doable.

Xandria said:

The first dungeon level was 33. Down the Drain, the second was 30. Stuck in the Middle. As for the Conquest, my understanding was that you gained it whenever you killed a hero (equal to his Conquest Value), and I have done so on many occasions already. When the Party entered the first level I only had 1 Conquest token. I have killed each party member twice and one of them had 2 Curses on him when I did so.

The Party Skill Equipment

Laurel of Bloodwood - Born to the Bow - Bow, Leather Armour,

Mordrog - Parry - Axe, Chain Mail, just got Plate Mail

Sir Valadir - Cautious - Axe, Chain Mail, Ring Protection

Runewitch Astarra - Fire Pact - Mage Staff, Elven Robe, Ring of Quickness

The party does seem to just go at a slow pace and are, I think, possibly a bit (irony coming here) overly cautious although when I kill a party member it usually only takes one round as I concentrate my attacks on the one character until he/she is dead. They don't really ever get a chance to flee to town to heal, or use potions.

Well, from what I read, Wild Duck, they drew rather crappy skills, and none of those that can turn the game. Fire Pact? Parry? It is hard to imagine a draw for Mordrog or Astarra that holds nothing better. Also, Ring of Quickness is wasted on Astarra, it should go on Mordrog.

Still, if they struggle in levels with Skeleton leaders...

Try having someone else do the Overlord; you join the heroes and teach them some useful moves.