No dungeon bosses for AoD and WoD

By Paul Grogan, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Posted at

It puzzles me a little why in the 40 dungeons included in RtL that all of the bosses are from JitD. Whilst this makes it great for those people who only have JitD, what about us that have all the expansions?

I know most of the dungeons have minion options which include monsters from the expansions, but not as leaders. I'm not sure why they didnt do the same as they did with the encounter cards. Have some of them only to be used if you have the expansions, such as 30 dungeon levels featuring bosses from JitD, 5 from AoD and 5 from WoD.

So, moving this forward, I'm thinking of tweaking some of the existing dungeon levels to have new leaders. There appears to be an awful lot of them where the leader is a sorcerer for example. Has anyone else tried doing this or have any advice on how to do it?

The only thing I have to show their relative "strengths" is the reinforcement costs that lieutenants use. With that in mind, I'm thinking of just swapping out some monsters for similar value ones.

Posted at

Paul Grogan said:

It puzzles me a little why in the 40 dungeons included in RtL that all of the bosses are from JitD. Whilst this makes it great for those people who only have JitD, what about us that have all the expansions?

I know most of the dungeons have minion options which include monsters from the expansions, but not as leaders. I'm not sure why they didnt do the same as they did with the encounter cards. Have some of them only to be used if you have the expansions, such as 30 dungeon levels featuring bosses from JitD, 5 from AoD and 5 from WoD.

They do that because they want people to be able to play this expansion with the regular game w/o having to buy all of the other expansions in between. Imagine that you ONLY have RtL and JitD, and you encounter a dungeon that features minions/monster boss for which you have no figures or stat cards. It could be somewhat frustrating. Although I do like how they did it (they dont force you to buy all of the expansions JUST so you can play this expansion), it does seem kinda boring to have a very limited choice of OL avatars and boss monsters.

Paul Grogan said:

So, moving this forward, I'm thinking of tweaking some of the existing dungeon levels to have new leaders. There appears to be an awful lot of them where the leader is a sorcerer for example. Has anyone else tried doing this or have any advice on how to do it?

The only thing I have to show their relative "strengths" is the reinforcement costs that lieutenants use. With that in mind, I'm thinking of just swapping out some monsters for similar value ones.

It could work, but I would likely playtest several of the 'new' dungeons. The new boss monsters should have strengths that are amplified from its respective dungeon. IE a dungeon consists of several large rooms put together, so its boss should probably use a range weapon so to benefit from living in such open spaced quarters.

FF Games could remedy this by releasing small packs of cards (like they do for RuneBound) where they contain the same dungeon with newer boss monsters (from the expansions). Three sets of cards (one for AoD, WoD, and ToI) that have several of the old dungeons 'redone'. Include a few outdoor encounters, maybe a rumor, a bonus avatar from the set (such as a Golem Avatar or Kobold one) and possibly a new plot, and you'll have a small RtL 'mini expansion' set that could be sold for, lets say, 20$ a pop. Id buy it.

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quesodog said:

They do that because they want people to be able to play this expansion with the regular game w/o having to buy all of the other expansions in between. Imagine that you ONLY have RtL and JitD, and you encounter a dungeon that features minions/monster boss for which you have no figures or stat cards. It could be somewhat frustrating.

I'd have to disagree. They could have done what they did with the encounters. Have most of them usable if you only have JitD, but have some only in the game if you have AoD and WoD. They should have done 30 dungeons where the boss monster is from JitD. 5 with a boss from AoD and 5 with a boss from WoD. 30 dungeons is plenty for the game for people only with JitD and at least those of us who forked out for the other expansions can use them.

I dont have ToI yet, but that contains extra dungeon levels, rumours and encounters for use with RtL.

quesodog said:

It could work, but I would likely playtest several of the 'new' dungeons. The new boss monsters should have strengths that are amplified from its respective dungeon. IE a dungeon consists of several large rooms put together, so its boss should probably use a range weapon so to benefit from living in such open spaced quarters.

FF Games could remedy this by releasing small packs of cards (like they do for RuneBound) where they contain the same dungeon with newer boss monsters (from the expansions). Three sets of cards (one for AoD, WoD, and ToI) that have several of the old dungeons 'redone'. Include a few outdoor encounters, maybe a rumor, a bonus avatar from the set (such as a Golem Avatar or Kobold one) and possibly a new plot, and you'll have a small RtL 'mini expansion' set that could be sold for, lets say, 20$ a pop. Id buy it.

Yep - thats what I'm after, but I dont think they will do it. I think its down to us! :) So, once I have finished by dungeon level leader statistics, I'll work out what I have too many of, and then go with some substitutions. You are right - it aint gonna be easy, I need to look at the level and work out what effect replacing the leader actually does. Trying to keep relative strengths and similar attacks and abilities might be a bit tricky.

I'll do one and see what people think. You guys can playtest it for me :)