First let me apologize for repeating any questions that may have already been asked, but there are 100+ pages of posts.

A little about me...I'm a noob to Descent. Bought the game on Black Friday at my comics shop for way cheap. Played my first game the next day with me being the OL and 3 friends. I loved the game, it will get played many times.

The game went smoothly...sorta. One player was a wizard, but by luck of the draw on the skill cards, he was WAY OVERPOWERED. Every attack of his was doing 13+ damage. I thought maybe there was something wrong, but I watched him draw his skill cards at random after they were shuffled and he fairly purchased weapons/armor so I can't say much there. Another friend was a warrior type and was somewhat powerful, but again, I guess it was luck of the draw. Rules were fairly easy to understand and grasp, we only had to go back to the rulebook a couple of times.

Okay, on to my questions...

1) Is it just me, or are the monsters way too weak? I played the monsters at the 3 player stats and they (the players) were wiping the floor with them. I kid you not, after I revealed the first room on the first quest, I had no monsters to activate on my turn, and no where to spawn monsters, which brings me to question 2.

2) Are hero's considered to have line of sight all around them, even when their back is turned? I found it hard to find good spots to spawn monsters. I had to resort to spawning in rooms they already left. To which I had to waste a turn moving them there tiny amount of move speed (I know there are OL cards to help with that, but I had none at the time)

3) What are some good OL strategies? I realize now that I shouldn't bother with some cards and should discard them right away for threat tokens. And I should probably play traps while the players are in the middle of combat, but beyond that, what are some other good tips?

So, to sum up...are the monsters really supposed to be that weak or did my friends get lucky and get powerful players? What are the best strategies for spawning monsters? And what are some good key strategies for the OL?

Thanks for your time and responses!

1) Monsters are really supposed to die in one hit most of the time. Having the heroes kill all monsters in a new area before the overlord's turn is not uncommon.

The numbers on the cards refer to the total number of players, including the overlord, so if it was you plus three friends each controlling a hero you should have used the ones marked "4", which would give the monsters each 1 additional wound. But the scaling rules really don't accomplish much; the game gets significantly easier for the heroes the more of them there are, even after taking the overlord's bonuses into account. Most people seem to always play with 3 or 4 heroes in the base game and always play with 4 heroes in expansions, because playing with less usually doesn't work.

The first quest is pretty easy for the heroes, though. The second is a cakewalk if they figure out what to do. They start to get harder after that.

If the monsters dying easily bothers you a lot, you could try out The Enduring Evil , my homebrew mod. Among other things, it has monsters with significantly more health. It also addresses player scaling issues. But it requires a lot of printing, and it's not compatible with standard quests (because the monsters are stronger).

2) Yes, heroes really have 360-degree line of sight. Yes, this can make it hard to spawn near them if they're careful. Using fast ranged monsters like skeletons can help.

3) Don't have time to get too detailed at the moment, but look the quest over in advance and choose a place where you think the heroes will have trouble, and pile on as much as you can righ at that time to try to overwhelm them. Learn which cards are good and which are better to discard. Use traps at times when they prevent a hero from attacking their intended target (remember they can't change their declared action to get more movement, unless they're Grey Ker), or when it will finish off a weakened hero (if a hero dies during their own turn, their turn immediately ends).

Also, once your players have a tolerably good grasp of the rules, be sure to move on to harder quests.

Ah-ha! I didn't think about the fact that the OL counts as a player. That makes a little difference. I have been searching and found some other good OL tips that are so simple I felt like I don't even deserve to look at the game. Thanks for the help, I'll make sure I remember these next game session.

Ninjaman65 said:

The power of the heroes can vary sometimes depending on luck. Lots of things about the heroes are randomly determined. It sounds like your wizard friend got lucky this time. Was he by any chance playing Landrec the Wise? That's certainly one of the better heroes from the base game in my experience.

Ninjaman65 said:

As Antistone has said, you should've been using 4 player stats instead of 3, but honestly that won't make too much difference. Monsters are definitely expendable and you'll find your ability as the Overlord will improve if you treat them as such. Don't get too attached to a single monster, the effort you expend keeping him alive will only incur greater losses in the long run. You goal is to damage the heroes as much as possible, and throwing waves of killable mooks at them is one way to do that.

Ninjaman65 said:

Yes, barring closed doors or rubble or something else that blocks LOS (remember other figures do not block LOS for spawning, but they DO block LOS for shooting. Even friendly figures block LOS for attacks.) While we're on the subject of closed doors, monsters are allowed to close doors if they want, and it can be a handy way to block LOS for spawning next turn. Also, spawning in a room the heores left behind is not always a bad thing. Put a skellie patrol two rooms back and harrass the heroes in the hopes of making them double back. The last thing the heroes want to do is waste time hunting everything that moves in this game. This is a lesson best taught by example >

Ninjaman65 said:

I've touched on a couple tips already. Play traps whenever you can, but don't obsess about them too much. The heroes will almost never put themselves in "the perfect position." If a hero plans out his whole move down to the MP, toss a pit trap on the first empty space you can. Damage aside, it will cost him an extra MP to climb out and force him to re-think his turn. If you use traps opportunistically like this, it also lessens the sting when the hero makes his save and doesn't fall in.

Defnitely don't be afraid to throw away cards for threat. Especially those big juicy cards like Doom! or Hordes. Yes they are nice abilities if you can afford to put them down, but if you can't it's also a nice big injection of threat for whatever else you have. Be careful not to miss too many opportunities to hurt the heroes while saving up to play a big bad Power card.

Here's a good one: Don't play the game, play the players. If you notice that your hero players like to target certain monsters first, consider using those monsters as bait while you set up to hit them with other things, or use those monsters to suck up Guard orders, etc. (My common group loves to go after Hellhounds so much I've stopped even trying to hurt them with the things.) If you know how one or more of the hero players tend to play board games, try to manipulate that to your advantage.

Save your aims and dodges for the monsters that matter. Don't blow them on puny whites.

That's all I've got off the top of my head. I'm sure other people will have more.

For the question number three: Read Descent Decrees for an Aspiring Overlord By Robb. Here's the link www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp .

You mentioned that Monsters can close doors. So I assume that means they can open them back up?

Ninjaman65 said:

DJitD pg 13
It is possible for both heroes and monsters to expend movement points to open or close doors, ... It costs a figure 2 movement points to either open or close a door ...
Important: Monsters cannot open any door leading to an unrevealed area ...
Important: Monsters can never open or close a runelocked door. ( which is partially overuled by... )
FAQ pg 2
Runelocked Doors and Named Monsters
Named monsters may open and close runelocked doors, whether or not the heroes have the runekey to that door. However, named monsters still cannot open any door leading into an unrevealed area.

Ninjaman65 said:

Corbon covered it in greater detail, but yes they can.

I recently got Vanilla descent and I've been playing Overlord for most of the games. I've played about 10 now, so I'll give you some tips and tricks I've learned and read.

1) Bane Spiders are (mostly) crap. They are large, difficult to manuvere, made of paper, and their attack isn't that great. The nice thing about them is that they have a greater chance of getting you extra threat on their attack than other monsters. The web ability of the master spider can be a pain for a hero, but most of the time I don't even bother with bane spiders. I almost always discard the card for threat.

2) Beastmen Warband is a pretty sweet card. Beastmen, when leader by a leader (or 2, or 3) can be lethal. Particularly early in the game before the heros get good armor. If you manage to get lucky enough to get a Beastmen Warband in your starting draw, try to play that early in combination with other beastmen. It may not seem like much, but you can strike fear in a group of players early by killing a player (not to mention, make them strapped for conquest).

3) Powers are great but not always worth it. It is best to get them out as soon as possible, that way you will benefit from their powers the most. Evil Genius is nice because not only drawing another card, giving you more tactical choices, but you get extra cards to throw away as threat. It also allows you to go through the deck 50% faster, meaning that you will be reshuffling and they will be loosing conquest.

4) This is touched on in the aforementioned article, but if they have a weak character will little armor who always seems to be in the way of danger, kill them over and over and over again. Sure thye may only be worth 2 conquest, but in my experience, it is easier to kill one of these guys twice than a bit tank once. It is best to use traps on those heros who have high armor, since traps go through that armor.

5) If you're having problems spawning monsters, Gust of Wind can help you out. If you limit their sight to 5 spaces, you can spawn monsters like Skeleton Patrols, Sorcerors Circle, Hellhound Packs, and Razorwing Flocks and strike them on that turn.

6) Mimics are your friend. My group seems to make the mistake of having the last player moving open up the chest with their last few movement. This is a great time to spring a mimic. You get to move the chest yourself, once on your turn, and if you have a charge you can move it twice! If you have the monsters, moving a mimic into areas that they have already been to, then closing the doors behind it, are a great way to distract players. I usually follow up a fleeing mimic with a skeleton patrol to close doors or take shots as they chase it. Treasure is important and players will usually have to make the decision of whether to chase it or just move on. Either way, you win. If they move on they have less treasure, if they chase it, you buy some time. Remember that time is on your side, the longer a game goes the more conquest they loose from going through your deck.

7) Don't get discouraged if the players are beating the first couple of scenarios. As other people mentioned they are very easy. Luckily the difficulty increases as you go along and soon enough your players will have some real challenges to deal with. Just as someone mentioned, look at the dungeon and pick a place that you are just going to throw everything you have at the players. Even if you can't kill them all or only wound a few, the difficulty you've caused will have hopefully set them back a few turns

Just a minor note, don't be afraid to gang up on one of the tanks as well. When I first OLed a few games, I tended to ignore the tanks and always go for the squishies. After a few games, I started hitting a couple tanks, and found they're pretty squishy too, especially pre-gold armor. Hit them with a trap or two, then gang up on them, and you can usually take out a full health tank in one turn...

-shnar

Thanks everyone for your input. Since my original post (about 7 months ago!), I have played the game several times with the latest play being the best. I have found that having a full party (4 heroes and the OL) puts the monsters at the highest difficulty level and made the game feel truly balanced. The regular monsters where still pretty easy, the master monsters and bosses certainly made the heroes think twice, especially with the OL power to add a black power die to all monster rolls.

Ninjaman65 said:

Yep, that's a good one. (Doom!) Glad to hear you got all (or most) of the kinks worked out and are still enjoying the game. =)

Yep, enjoying the game immensely . Now if only we could see this game in some other form. I think I read somewhere that some type of video game was in the works. I wouldn't mind reading some fiction set in the world of Terrinoth.

The video game version of squashed long ago over some IP issues I seem to recall.

Big Remy said:

Shame. I too would love to see a video game version. I think one of the corollary advantages of it would be that it'd make the developers run up against all 1,653,387 of the situations not adequately covered by the rules, and thus they'd all be resolved. Or so I like to tell myself, anyway.

Cymbaline said:

Cymbaline said:

Hah. More likely they'd just leave the video game on "manual control" so the players would be required to enforce the weird rules themselves. It would set up the map, reveal areas and roll dice, basically. Probably also add some wicked sound effects. Time saver, yes, rules lawyer, no. =P