First off I want to point out that I just got the game and have no expansions.

My question is, is there any primary healing in the game, other than the one per turn health potion and the one health per turn that a few characters have?

We are baffled that there is no way to heal, as it seems that the overlord just kicks the players asses every game, even when we were playing it wrong and the players could drink multiple healing potions a turn, and they were spending about half of their money on potions.

For example, in our last game (a 2 player with the player playing two heroes, and using the 2 player overlord cards) first turn, as the overlord, I took one hero, that started with 16 health, down to 8, and the other hero, that started with 12 health, down to 4. If the player hadn't been able to drink multiple healing potions her second turn, I would have killed them both on my second turn, ending the game.

Maybe we are just missing something, but it seems like without healing, it will be hard for the overlord to lose.

You are missing one of the biggest mechanics of Descent. When a hero dies, they don't die permanently from the game. Instead, the go to town and can return to the dungeon via a glyph of transport, with full health. The only thing that happen when a hero dies is that their CT value (the number in the lower left corner of the character sheet) is deducted from the party total, all status effects on the hero go away, they are restored to full health and fatigue, and they lose half of their gold coins. Only when the parties pool of CT is reduced to zero (unless specified by the scenario) do the heroes lose. And since there are ways for the heroes to gain CT, it may be necessary for the OL to kill the heroes multiple times over.

The difficulty is heavily dependent on the number of heroes you play with; the scaling rules really don't work. Try playing with 3 or 4 heroes. You can also try The Enduring Evil , my Descent mod, which addresses the scaling issues (and some other things), but that's a pretty big commitment if you're just starting out.

Healing is not a major part of Descent. Quaffing the occasional healing potion can help keep losses to a minimum, but mostly you just have to gain conquest faster than you lose it by activating glyphs, opening chests, and completing quest objectives. The overlord is supposed to wear the heroes down over time; giving the heroes powerful healing can pretty easily break the game.

Also make sure that your heroes all have strong attacks (choose a weapon with a green die), and spend fatigue to move so you can attack more often and kill the monsters quickly. The heroes probably shouldn't be taking a cumulative 12 wounds on the first round, even when there's only two of them, and they certainly shouldn't have two deaths within the first two rounds. Even with no healing at all.

We were doing the second scenario, in which 4 mobs start the game in the first room. First hero turn, one of the heroes moved and missed the red beastman, the second hero moved and killed one of the other beastman. OLs first turn, rolled 7 wounds on the first attack (reduced to 5), 9 on the second attack with the red beastman (reduced to 8), and 3 damage with the last mob (reduced to 1) for a total of 16 damage. Second hero turn they drank healing potions and killed one of the 3 remaining mobs, with the other hero scoring a miss. Second OL turn I did enough damage that if they hadn’t healed they both would have died, removing enough conquest tokens to end the game. Exact numbers may be wrong, but you get the point.

I know this may just be dice luck, but every game we have played has been similar.

Keeg said:

Actually its 5 monsters by my count - Master Beastman, 2 Beastmen, 2 skeletons.

Ok, first thing is as Antistone said, 2 heroes just doesn't work. Experienced and skilled Descent players struggle to win even the easy quests with just 2 players because the scaling is hopelessly inadequate. It isn't difficult to control more than one hero for a player, even three heroes if there is just two of you. With a little bit of experience one player can even control 4 heroes without much difficulty if you want.

Second thing is, basic tactical theory (Descent style). Basic Theory 1: Hit before you get hit. Almost all of the smaller monsters (and even most of the big monsters) die with one hit, so if you hit them they don't get to hit you.
Basic Tactical Theory 2: Fatigue is your friend. Fatigue is that little bit of tactical flexibility that allows you to 'tune up' your move to perfection.

Example from Start Area in Quest 2 with 2 heroes.
One hero (the weaker attacker or a ranged/magic user) should start adjacent to the Glyph NE. He/She is therefore already adjacent to the northern Beastman, and out of attack range of the Master Beastman. The other hero starts SE of the glyph and goes first. Declaring a battle, the SE hero gains a MP by spending a fatigue and moves 1 space SE to be adjacent to a beastman and a skeleton. He/She then has two attacks from the battle and should attack the beastman first (most deadly). If he hits he should kill it (spend fatigue for extra dice if necessary). He then should be able to kill the skeleton as well, or if he missed get the beastman with his second attack. The other hero then has two swings at his beatsman, or if ranged/magic he may be able to shoot down one of the other two monsters as well.
If one of the heroes has a skill which allows an extra attack then you can probably work it so that you can get an attack on every monster in the room on the first turn. If you can't as long as you stay 6 spaces from the Master Beastman he can't hurt you anyway (unless the OL is lucky with his card draw and gets just the right card).
If any hero spent a lot of his fatigue he can spend the last to quaff a fatigue potion and 'refill'. Generally, fatigue potions are more useful than other potions because you should be spending a lot of fatigue a lot of the time and fatigue is what really makes the heroes excel.

That's something I wasn't sure about...

You're saying that if a Hero uses x fatigue to move x spaces that doesn't count as movement and the Hero can still 'Battle'? That is, preform two attacks?

Moving via fatigue still counts as movement, but it's separate from and in addition to whatever your action is. So you can run and move twice your speed and then spend fatigue to move even further, or you can battle to attack twice and spend fatigue in order to move at all (before, between, or after your two attacks). In either case, you actually declare your action before you spend fatigue, so if there were any question about how it works, the question would be whether you can still spend fatigue to move after declaring a battle, not whether you can still battle after spending fatigue.

Rules page 18:

Spending Fatigue for Movement
At any time during a hero’s turn, he may spend one fatigue to gain one movement point, even if he is currently taking the battle action . This may be done as often as the hero desires. Movement points gained in this manner are spent just like normal movement points .

And yes, spending fatigue to move during a battle action is a VERY important hero tactic. It's pretty much required.

Hein99 said:

Note that there is nothing in 'Battle' description that stops you moving. It just gives you 0 movement points.
As Antistone already posted the rules then further explicitly clarify this making it absolutely clear that you can move (with fatigue or items) while doing a battle action.

Still, a lot of Descent beginners make the same mistake of assuming that you can't move during a battle action.

It sounds like others have already addressed the main points that have been causing you difficulty. Play with 4 heroes, mind your fatigue, etc. One other thing to keep in mind: The heroes don't NEED to kill every monster in the dungeon. To be sure they should hit and hit hard at the monsters that are in their way, but once the heroes get into the second or third room, they should not be doubling back to kill things the OL may have spawned behind them. Focus on the goal, keep moving forward. Attack the things that are a direct threat but don't go out of your way to attack things that aren't. Doing that only buys the OL more time which ultimately hurts the heroes chances.

This game can be pretty fierce at times, and that usually throws new players at first. The Overlord definitely has an easier time when the heroes are still learning the game, but once everyone is up to speed the heroes can win as easily as the OL.