In order to render gold and silver dice somewhat more useful during combat for the overlord, has anyone thought about the following:

During combat, the Overlord can convert two surges to 1 damage instead of gaining 1 threat.

It is extremly frustrating for the Overlord to throw gold or siver dices at high campaign levels and end up with practically no damage when the dice rolls result in many surges. Of course the tradeoff is that you don't get the threat, so the decision still needs to be carefully considered.

I'm against it for the following reasons...

I believe that the Overlord's forces are supposed to weaken the heros over time, not slaughter them outright. At the Gold level of the campaign, and a great deal of times before, the heros are accused of one-shotting monsters. If the OL starts to do that on a regular basis to the heros the conquest will greatly imbalance in the OL's favor, and the game will likely lose it's flavor.

If you feel as OL you're getting beaten down every single game due to lack of ability to damage the heroes at all, consider buying a couple treachery and adding in a couple of event treachery and using "Guiding Forces" (which allows you to aim attacks for 2 threat). If that doesn't float you, consider allowing 2 threat to upgrade a power die, like a fatigue does (such as encounters allow), it would allow you to gamble the threat you get for a little extra damage, but that is 4 threat to 1 possibly damage.

However, overall, I think you'll find that 2 surges for 1 damage is going to push the limits too far in the Overlord's favor. But heck, test it out... do a for fun dungeon run, 3 levels, see how it turns out for you, and if you do try it with your players, please let me know how it ends up for you, I like to know how different rule scenarios play out.

Actually the problem at this point is just trying to do some actual damage. I got a Lieutenant battling a 7-armor hero at gold level for 3 turns and hardly managing even hit him once. So the point is actually to try and score a few hits at times and I don't believe that at any point the heroes would get slaughtered because of this rule. Using 2 threat to upgrade 1 power dice was also considered and could be an interesting alternative actually. Anyhow, well be testing all this tomorrow and I'll get back with the feedback.

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I'm pushing this thread up again because after having tested this all through the end of our RTL campaign it's become a rule that we have adopted. Of what we've experienced, It is not overpowered, it makes for some quite interesting decisions and actually in the end, the idea is so logical I just don't understand why this wasn't included in the basic Descent rules in the first place. So I really encourage the players to test this further and come up with their own remarks.

no thx.

wait did you say the L word in combination with descent..?

Logic + Descent = Madness

Patmox said:

Are you saying that OL can choose whether to collect threat or do damage after rolling the dice? Can you split the surges, e.g. 4 surges for 2 damage, 2 surges for one threat? Did you use the same rule for encounters? How did your campaign end? What is the biggest impact the rule had on the campaign?

My first thoughts and doubts (without testing the houserule). The fights (but not necessarily the game as a whole) seem too easy (read boring) for heroes at gold level. I am sure that the rule helps OL at silver and gold. However, isn't it too good in early silver against gold monsters? The heroes are most vulnerable in early silver: high armor gold monsters are not easy to kill with copper weapons and Lieutenant battles can be rather difficult in early silver. Moreover, doesn't the house rule result in less interesting gameplay? I mean, in most cases (especially in encounters) OL wants to damage heroes instead of collecting more threat. So, there should be fewer cards played in dungeons and fewer monsters/fancy moves in encounters.

IMHO, the rule is probably OK at gold because diamond monsters are much easier to kill with good silver weapons (not speaking of good gold weapons) that gold monsters with good copper weapons. So some extra challenge may be good at gold.

Thanks Udutont for many interesting questions !

Are you saying that OL can choose whether to collect threat or do damage after rolling the dice? Can you split the surges, e.g. 4 surges for 2 damage, 2 surges for one threat?

Let's say you roll 4 surges, you could use 2 surges for 1 extra damage and the 2 others to generate 1 threat. Or 4 surges for 2 damage or 4 surges for 2 threat.

Did you use the same rule for encounters?

Yes

How did your campaign end?

By a crushing victory for the heroes. But at least I magaged to squeeze in some damage and score a few spectacular kills at Gold Level.

What is the biggest impact the rule had on the campaign?

At the point when we adopted the rule (mid-Gold), practically no impact on the general strategy as a whole, but tactically it made fights more interesting, because at least when I was throwing gold or silver dice they were actually useful at dealing damage (which is the primary purpose of combat dice in the first place).

My first thoughts and doubts (without testing the houserule). The fights (but not necessarily the game as a whole) seem too easy (read boring) for heroes at gold level. I am sure that the rule helps OL at silver and gold. However, isn't it too good in early silver against gold monsters? The heroes are most vulnerable in early silver: high armor gold monsters are not easy to kill with copper weapons and Lieutenant battles can be rather difficult in early silver.

I've made some test runs with different level monsters at different periods of the game. Nothing seemed broken or devastatingly strong to me. Just more interesting. And all in all, I think everything balances out at the end.

Moreover, doesn't the house rule result in less interesting gameplay? I mean, in most cases (especially in encounters) OL wants to damage heroes instead of collecting more threat. So, there should be fewer cards played in dungeons and fewer monsters/fancy moves in encounters.

I think that this is actually the interesting point: having to carefully balance your decision between a quick immediate gain or long term benefit. More often than not I was actually collecting the threat in order to put down that Power Card or play that Dark Charm on the next turn. For encounters, I think the decisions you will take are case-dependant (type of cards in your hand, situation on the map).

This point actually was discussed in or group before we implemented the rule. I was pleasantly surprised with the actual outcome, the decision between threat/damage can be challenging.

IMHO, the rule is probably OK at gold because diamond monsters are much easier to kill with good silver weapons (not speaking of good gold weapons) that gold monsters with good copper weapons. So some extra challenge may be good at gold.

And in Copper or Silver, the monsters still don't throw that many dice to generate enough surges for these to be an overwhelming threat. Anyway that is what my gaming experience suggests. But again, I would be interested to have some feedback from other players who might have tested this.

End point for us; more fun for the Overlord, more challenge for the heroes and definitely not a game breaker. And yes it's more L... (mouth freezes) this way :-)

Sounds interesting, thanks for testing it, too. I'll suggest this when my heroes eventually get around to helping me in finding a suitable date by saying when they actually have time.

The lazy buggers.

As I already said in another post in this forum, an intresting house rule we played was to use 2 threats to gain 1 dice upgrade or 1 MP for an activated monster, also during a Dungeon (the campaign rules allow this only in the outdoor encounters).

Our experience (so far) is very very positive: the battles inside the dungeons seem to be more balanced in this way, and rolling surges during a monster's attack now becomes an important resource for the OL's strategies, since he can spend threats as fatigue with his minions...

Actually, I don't see any good reason to apply this rule only in the outdoor encounters...

i see a big why not! Why would the Ol do anything else than just accumulate threat, discard cards, then hit with some random monster and add 4 gold dice to the attack and 1 hit anything...

How well did it interact with Dark Prayer? Dark Priests already get +1 damage per surge rolled. Did adding another +1 damage per 2 surges spent change anything?

Also, which monsters did you have upgraded in each tier?

James McMurray said:

Dark Priests don't get to add threat for their surges though, and players can only use surges for one thing, too. I don't think giving the Dark Priests two damage upgrades would thus make sense. Make them decide whether they want to spend their surges on two = +1 damage, or one = +1 damage. Makes it kind of a no-brainer for the cute little evil-worshipping buggers, too

I ask because Dark Priests don't normally spand their surges for +1 range and damage, it happens just by virtue of them being rolled. They only spend them when generating threat.

"A monster with the Dark Prayer ability generates one threat for the overlord for every surge it spends when attacking, instead of for every two surges. In addition, the figure gains +1 range and +1 damage for each surge rolled when attacking." (Road to Legend p. 28, emphasis mine)

The Dark Priest ability just overrides this house rule (as it is just stronger).

We did consider at one point using the outdoor "2 threat to movement/black dice conversion". However the ability is weaker than a straightforward two surge to 1 damage conversion and also it doesn' remove the frustration of throwing a bucket of silver/gold dice resulting in close to no damage (as has happened many times in my case, especially with Lieutenant attacks ). Also we actually thought that the 2 surges/1 MP conversion was actually too powerful for monsters in dungeons. But I must admit we didn't go so far as to test this thoroughly.

My wife has been doing this for a while being the OL and it actually has helped the low end monsters become more effective in the campaign. It's a gamble though as you can load up on all of those dice and either roll a miss or have a player throw a feat at you that completely nulls the attack. More often than not she will use some tokens for a little extra movement so monsters don't end up funneling themselves into a tunnel of death. I am not sure converting surges to damage or even adding range would really be all that helpful to be honest.

All in all i would say it's actually made the game more exciting and we have added in a small rule that doesn't allow either side to just spend all the way up to gold dice unless they are rolling 5 silver power dice. At that point they have spent a lot and getting golds is not very cost effective. I will say that we allow the cultists to spend the surges for upgrades as normal and allow token collection on a one for one basis. It may seem really powerful but it makes for an interesting game since the OL will protect them to the end and the party will do just about anything to knock them off.

If your wife is playing Descent i have to congratulate you, you met "THE ONE"

Jonny WS said:

You people still use that? I feel all warm and fuzzy to have made an impression.

On topic, I wonder how well this would do on a campaign from the beginning. Since it looks like I may get to actually play in the near-ish future, I may try this little house rule out.

This idea seems to be a really smart addition, I'm going to have to see how it plays out in my player group. I'll admit that gold level got quite boring for my first rtl Ol experience with the hero's becoming so highly armored. Have to played it in non-rtl dungeons? I'm always looking for ways to change up game play I just worry that it would be to strong for the overlord in the dungeons otherwise.