I'll boil down this post to two main queries.

I've made some rather anecdotal (~30 quests) observation that the "challenge" of quests seems to lean heavily either in favor of the OL or the players. Of the thirty-ish quests we have completed in campaigns, I can only recall one or two where victory seemed imminent for both players and Overlord and things were exciting and tense. The rest of the quests either saw the heroes cutting through monsters like wheat or an Overlord sealing the win in a manner that the players were powerless to prevent. Essentially the perceived "balance" of encounters seems to trace a sort of inverse normal distribution where games that "feel" balanced are very few and far between. This is, of course, a hasty generalization and I want to attribute this effect to a wide variety of factors like gear, class, character, synergy, luck and planning.

My questions are:

1. Are others experiencing this? What would your perceived "balance" curves look like and why?

2. Are there any simple strategies or advice to improve the likelihood of hitting that "sweet spot" where games are close, tense and exciting?

My group really appreciates the set-up-and-play nature of Descent, which requires little homework and narrative, but as the infatuation wears off those exciting encounters are starting to feel like oasis in the desert. In many ways Descent is a roguelike, so I understand this is an inevitable occurrence. I just wanted to know if the community has discovered ways to smooth out the wrinkles.

Thanks,

You could make a system in which you don't allow certain class, ability or hero combinations... other than that I don't see way to go about this without changing the rules...

If you don't have a problem with changing rules, you could establish a few house rules on some quests.

In quests in which the OL is to likely to win, make him a little bit weaker (less monster in one group, isn't allowed to activate one group or something similiar)

For the heros, if they are likely to win (in some encounters it is possible for them to win, before the OL even get's a turn...) make it so all 4 heroes start with only 1 action.... or make it in this missions the OL get's to imobilize one or two heroes or something.

But to be honest I haven't had many encounters in which I thought I had no chance at all (I had one quest in which the heroes beat me before I got my first turn as OL) AND had a major impact on the kampagne. And as one of the heros in my group often says: Descent IS a game which uses dice for almost all mechanics.... so luck determines everything.

What campaign are you playing? I see this in some quests, but not others. For more info, check out the unofficial camapign tracker by Atom4geVampire- it keeps track of wins/losses at least (though it does not explicitly keep track of how close that win/loss was, just how often it occurred).

Do you find one extreme occurring more than the other? I ask because (for me) if half the quests were strong hero wins and half the quests were strong OL wins, that would tell me that the players are well matched and maybe it is the quest. If the OL is crushing more consistently, your sweet spot will be found by adjusting that. If heroes are stomping monsters, a plot deck might be in order.

We have Shadow Rune (obviously), Labyrinth of Ruin, Trollfens, Manor of Ravens and Skarn's Lieutenant pack so far. We're about to finish up our fourth campaign, our first trip through LoR.

The unofficial campaign tracker is an interesting tool (too bad it has so little data) but as you said, doesn't keep track of how close the win was. We've only had 2 players in our group OL taking turns over the four campaigns so there is some consistency. Wining and losing aren't really the issue. It doesn't feel bad to lose if the game was good. We had a fun quest where the heroes won by the skin of their teeth and had to abandon teammates to fulfill the quest. There was also the game when the OL won due to very lucky combat rolls with his couple remaining reinforcements on his last turn before the heroes won.

What seems to be the problem is jankyness with quest objectives and gear. When a quest is heavily determined by OL mobility or the vulnerability of a single target, no effort from the players can prevent the OL's victory (this results in a "**** this quest, everyone go straight for the Search cards" mentality). When players get lucky or hit a power spike (looting/buying a good item and placing on the first hero with Blast or Whirlwind) they cleave through all but the most stacked quests (see previous sentence) while camping the reinforcements and letting the Scout loot every search space.

I understand that some campaigns are designed better. I've read somewhere that Heirs of Blood does a better job but have yet to confirm it. Judging by Trollfens and Manor of Ravens I'm not going to keep my hopes up high.

I was thinking of instating house rules that give both the heroes and OL some kind of "ban" on the campaign before getting started. I'm not certain how I would balance such an approach, however.

I've just recently got my copy of "Das Blutvermächtnis" (--> that's Heirs of Blood).

As far as I have seen it is better designed... the OL has much more monster groups, so it doesn't seem he looses all his monsters in 1-3 turns like it was possible in the Shadow rune campaign.

You mentioned you had 2 Players playing the heroes... the Game is more balanced if there are 4 heros, so you could try to let every hero-player play two heros (if you don't do this already, anyway).

Also your heros should know, it's always the best option to have at least 2 heros who have movement related heroic feats or at least another attack action... so they always have the change to disrupt the OL plans.

In many missions there the OL seems to be realy overpowerd, it can help to choose a different monster group for tactics... I think it's often better to take many small monsters to have more attacks per turn than just using the Shadow Dragons. They don't do a good job at stoping heros, if they are attacked by heros with range or reach.... If you want to block a passage, you could use 4 small monsters... just let two of them block the path, let one square free and set 2 again to block directly behind them (--> if the heros don't have aoe effects yet, you could just position them like ettins or so.

Also what I noticed in the german forums is, some heros are not aware they can use their heroic feat 2 times in a quest... once in the first and once in the second encounter of a quest... Some even don't bother to use it, because "it just lets him/her move a bit" (Thats what someone wrote... no kidding). Do your heros use them in the Quests wich seem to favor the OL too much? Or more specific... are they using their heroic feat in a way which uses it's full potential in your opinion?

Some even don't bother to use it, because "it just lets him/her move a bit" (Thats what someone wrote... no kidding).

Are you talking about the Syndrael feat, aka the best feat in the game?

I love Descent and think it plays really well, but I see where you are coming from when you say that the balance of some quests feel a bit off. IMO this becomes much better in Shadow of Nerekhall, which is easily the best campaign and has the most interesting missions.

The biggest problem with Descent's balance is the fact that there is just so much stuff out there now. It is impossible to balance between all the heroes, classes and weapons or all the different cards, lieutenats and monsters an overlord can bring.

For clarification, we are playing with four heroes. Myself and another player are alternating OL duties.

We're all aware of open group monster choices, Heroic Feat rules, etc.

The main topic is do others experience "tight" games frequently? Because we rarely do and I'm wondering if there are solutions. If an OL creature needs to get to the exit for him to win, it's Dash+Move+Move in one turn and the heroes are never catching up. If it is protect an NPC, the OL drops several cards he saved from Encounter 1 and drops it in 1 turn, using Ettins or knockback to remove the heroes from body-blocking. If the OL can't win from a mechanic like the aforementioned, usually players destroy everything and camp the reinforcement tile. The only "tight" quests we've had are the "claim the points" styled ones which were only close because our gear at the time was so bad we couldn't reliably kill goblin archers.

If you think the dash card is too usefull, maybe you could use the basic II OL deck? It's more random (because of the attribute tests) and still more fun and still powerfull enough to still get a good chance to win quests.

Also the heros in my group are at a losing streak in our current shadow rune campaign... They lost everything except the interlude (wich OL win normally easy) and the intro quest.

But they chose a relatively bad combination of classes, heros and skills to try that out. And I usually have good luck rolling my defence dice. It doesen't help, that in one turn the heros missed like 5 attacks in a row.

We all loughed pretty hard how the "mighty heros" couldn't even kill a Zombie which uses only a brown defence die.

Also I have expirienced really "tight" games. Even on maps which favor the OL or the heros. Sometimes the herosdon't give in to the "only loot matters mentality" and keep on putting up a good fight... Sometimes even a surprise victory which seemed unlikely even a round before.

You could also try quests from the quest vault, because the questmakers are often open for suggestions and try to make the game expirience really ballanced. They do change the quests if someone tells them they overlooked something to make it unfair.

I had many encounters that were decided in the last turn, sometimes by dealing just that one damage needed or passing an unlikely attribute test. One time I won after forcing a reroll while the hero's were already celebrating their victory. There have been a few times where the game was decided in the first turn. But most of the time, there was enough dice rolling involved to make it indecisive until the last turn.

Huh. I wonder why our games are so dramatically different from your own. Can you give me an example of how you folks played a particular quest? I'm curious what we as players and OL might be doing differently.

I'll give an example.

Off the top of my head I can't remember if the quest was Where the Heart Is or Wrong Man for the Job . It was the one where the heroes start at the only entrance/exit and Skarn starts deep in the snaking map. Skarn picks up randomized tokens and the OL win condition is to get out of the exit with the correct color (blue I think).

Turn 1 the players kill off most of the group blocking them from entering further. Typical first-turn stuff. First OL turn, Move, pick up objective. OL begins retreating all monster groups into the Library/Study and sends 1 monster down 21B to open the door for Skarn.

Turn 2, players move into the second room. One player is immobilized near the entrance by a single remaining monster but isn't in trouble an decides he'll deal with the respawns before catching up. OL turn 2 Skarn gets another token.

Heroes turn 3 they continue looting and positioning themselves for a showdown that looks like it is going to happen in 4B, 27B and the library. OL turn 3 Skarn gets another token.

Heroes turn 4 open the doors but cannot get close enough to attack any creatures in the library. OL turn 4 I believe Skarn needed to Move twice to get into position for a token the following turn. One group of monsters engages the heroes.

Heroes turn 5 they deal with the group of monsters that has engaged and get in position to fight Skarn and the second group. OL turn 6 Skarn gets a fourth token and advances toward the exit (toward the players). Overlord plays Phoenix on Skarn.

Heroes turn 6, those who can get in range try to down Skarn but phoenix keeps him up: players don't receive the opportunity to destroy tokens. OL turn 6, Skarn moves, destroys a random token to relocate 4 spaces over the pit tiles on 4B, OL plays Dash, Skarn is now two moves from the rear-most hero and reinforcements are streaming from the entrance.

Players scramble for Skarn but cannot get there with monsters jamming up 4B and being so deep in 27B/library. Skarn casually saunters to victory with 3 tokens. Inevitably one is the token he needed to win.

If you think the dash card is too usefull, maybe you could use the basic II OL deck? It's more random (because of the attribute tests) and still more fun and still powerfull enough to still get a good chance to win quests.

Also the heros in my group are at a losing streak in our current shadow rune campaign... They lost everything except the interlude (wich OL win normally easy) and the intro quest.

But they chose a relatively bad combination of classes, heros and skills to try that out. And I usually have good luck rolling my defence dice. It doesen't help, that in one turn the heros missed like 5 attacks in a row.

We all loughed pretty hard how the "mighty heros" couldn't even kill a Zombie which uses only a brown defence die.

Also I have expirienced really "tight" games. Even on maps which favor the OL or the heros. Sometimes the herosdon't give in to the "only loot matters mentality" and keep on putting up a good fight... Sometimes even a surprise victory which seemed unlikely even a round before.

You could also try quests from the quest vault, because the questmakers are often open for suggestions and try to make the game expirience really ballanced. They do change the quests if someone tells them they overlooked something to make it unfair.

Yeah, I've noticed once the OL gets a theme deck, the players must munchkin the best hero/class combinations or risk losing every quest until they get their hands on Act 2 weapons and damage-multiplying effects. The low damage of the worst hero/class combinations is just atrocious. In some ways it is such a handicap that it almost seems like a fair basis for "picks and bans" prior to the campaign.

"Heroes, I will remove Dash and Frenzy from my deck IF you play as the Apothecary and Hexer! MUAHAHA!"

In our games the quests are often very close.

Some quests the overlord or heroes makes some error, and then the quest can feel unbalanced. We have noticed that a few miscalculations or "lost turns" for either side can tip the scales in the other sides favour and make the quest feel impossible to win for the other side. The best example are the search tokens, they often feel like they are so close, and as a hero you want to loot them, but often you're giving up at least an entire hero turn (moving to the token + searching) per token you go after, not to mention that it often splits the party up. Trying to go after most or all search tokens on a map often seem to spell doom for the heroes.

After a quest that feels unbalanced we often discuss what went wrong for the loosing party (and what the winner did right as well). That way the loosing side learns and can adapt to the next quest. It's often possible to pinpoint at least a few bad judgement calls that could have made the quest more balanced.

For exampe when my gaming group played Siege of Skytower (Heirs of Blood) where the heroes can open and close three doors to control where the monsters come from. We went after some search tokens early on which led to a spread out group of heroes, then we decided not to close one of the doors and got swarmed by goblins, Alaric Farrow and Changelings. The Overlord had positioned a Master Changeling outside the door we had closed, and the heroes were too far away to reach it if we decided to open it. Also we were too focused on wanting to kill Alaric Farrow and get his shield relic, so we made a string of really bad judgement call and got badly outsmarted by the overlord, so the overlord got an easy win. Had we replayed the quest, we (the heroes) would probably have done things a lot differently, and might have won (or at least gotten close to winning).

I had many encounters that were decided in the last turn, sometimes by dealing just that one damage needed or passing an unlikely attribute test. One time I won after forcing a reroll while the hero's were already celebrating their victory. There have been a few times where the game was decided in the first turn. But most of the time, there was enough dice rolling involved to make it indecisive until the last turn.

Huh. I wonder why our games are so dramatically different from your own. Can you give me an example of how you folks played a particular quest? I'm curious what we as players and OL might be doing differently.

I'll give an example.

Off the top of my head I can't remember if the quest was Where the Heart Is or Wrong Man for the Job . It was the one where the heroes start at the only entrance/exit and Skarn starts deep in the snaking map. Skarn picks up randomized tokens and the OL win condition is to get out of the exit with the correct color (blue I think).

Turn 1 the players kill off most of the group blocking them from entering further. Typical first-turn stuff. First OL turn, Move, pick up objective. OL begins retreating all monster groups into the Library/Study and sends 1 monster down 21B to open the door for Skarn.

Turn 2, players move into the second room. One player is immobilized near the entrance by a single remaining monster but isn't in trouble an decides he'll deal with the respawns before catching up. OL turn 2 Skarn gets another token.

Heroes turn 3 they continue looting and positioning themselves for a showdown that looks like it is going to happen in 4B, 27B and the library. OL turn 3 Skarn gets another token.

Heroes turn 4 open the doors but cannot get close enough to attack any creatures in the library. OL turn 4 I believe Skarn needed to Move twice to get into position for a token the following turn. One group of monsters engages the heroes.

Heroes turn 5 they deal with the group of monsters that has engaged and get in position to fight Skarn and the second group. OL turn 6 Skarn gets a fourth token and advances toward the exit (toward the players). Overlord plays Phoenix on Skarn.

Heroes turn 6, those who can get in range try to down Skarn but phoenix keeps him up: players don't receive the opportunity to destroy tokens. OL turn 6, Skarn moves, destroys a random token to relocate 4 spaces over the pit tiles on 4B, OL plays Dash, Skarn is now two moves from the rear-most hero and reinforcements are streaming from the entrance.

Players scramble for Skarn but cannot get there with monsters jamming up 4B and being so deep in 27B/library. Skarn casually saunters to victory with 3 tokens. Inevitably one is the token he needed to win.

Often a quest is very close without realising it. A few days ago we played Death on the Wing where the OL managed to kill the guards thus meeting his objective. the heroes felt that this quest was decided from turn one when I use fire breath to kill 2 of the 4 guards in one turn. However, if only one attack from the monsters missed, things could have gone very different. However, I can imagine that if a string of events occurs like in your example, there is a feeling that a certain victory was inevitable. The composition of the hero party is very important here. If the heroes had access to conditions like immobilize or stun, Skarn would have a much harder time escaping and the OL would feel that there was no way to avoid his loss. The same goes for AoE attacks, if the heroes don't have these, the OL is more likely to pick larger monster groups which allow for more attacks but are individually more squishy.

If you think the dash card is too usefull, maybe you could use the basic II OL deck? It's more random (because of the attribute tests) and still more fun and still powerfull enough to still get a good chance to win quests.

Also the heros in my group are at a losing streak in our current shadow rune campaign... They lost everything except the interlude (wich OL win normally easy) and the intro quest.

But they chose a relatively bad combination of classes, heros and skills to try that out. And I usually have good luck rolling my defence dice. It doesen't help, that in one turn the heros missed like 5 attacks in a row.

We all loughed pretty hard how the "mighty heros" couldn't even kill a Zombie which uses only a brown defence die.

Also I have expirienced really "tight" games. Even on maps which favor the OL or the heros. Sometimes the herosdon't give in to the "only loot matters mentality" and keep on putting up a good fight... Sometimes even a surprise victory which seemed unlikely even a round before.

You could also try quests from the quest vault, because the questmakers are often open for suggestions and try to make the game expirience really ballanced. They do change the quests if someone tells them they overlooked something to make it unfair.

Yeah, I've noticed once the OL gets a theme deck, the players must munchkin the best hero/class combinations or risk losing every quest until they get their hands on Act 2 weapons and damage-multiplying effects. The low damage of the worst hero/class combinations is just atrocious. In some ways it is such a handicap that it almost seems like a fair basis for "picks and bans" prior to the campaign.

"Heroes, I will remove Dash and Frenzy from my deck IF you play as the Apothecary and Hexer! MUAHAHA!"

Hey, I quite like the Apothecary class:p the starting equipment is horrible, but you can just give him/her the first thing that shows up in the shop. But granted, some classes are better than others.

In our games the quests are often very close.

Some quests the overlord or heroes makes some error, and then the quest can feel unbalanced. We have noticed that a few miscalculations or "lost turns" for either side can tip the scales in the other sides favour and make the quest feel impossible to win for the other side. The best example are the search tokens, they often feel like they are so close, and as a hero you want to loot them, but often you're giving up at least an entire hero turn (moving to the token + searching) per token you go after, not to mention that it often splits the party up. Trying to go after most or all search tokens on a map often seem to spell doom for the heroes.

After a quest that feels unbalanced we often discuss what went wrong for the loosing party (and what the winner did right as well). That way the loosing side learns and can adapt to the next quest. It's often possible to pinpoint at least a few bad judgement calls that could have made the quest more balanced.

For exampe when my gaming group played Siege of Skytower (Heirs of Blood) where the heroes can open and close three doors to control where the monsters come from. We went after some search tokens early on which led to a spread out group of heroes, then we decided not to close one of the doors and got swarmed by goblins, Alaric Farrow and Changelings. The Overlord had positioned a Master Changeling outside the door we had closed, and the heroes were too far away to reach it if we decided to open it. Also we were too focused on wanting to kill Alaric Farrow and get his shield relic, so we made a string of really bad judgement call and got badly outsmarted by the overlord, so the overlord got an easy win. Had we replayed the quest, we (the heroes) would probably have done things a lot differently, and might have won (or at least gotten close to winning).

We have also concluded that greed from the heroes often leads to their demise. And I agree that bad judgement early in the quests can decide the game before you realise it.

"Heroes, I will remove Dash and Frenzy from my deck IF you play as the Apothecary and Hexer! MUAHAHA!"

Keep in mind that unless your class has specific skills that require specific weapons (mostly scouts, some mages and warriors) there is nothing restricting the heroes from selling their initial weapon once they have found one either through a treasure chest, quest reward or shopping phase and using the new weapon.

For example, when I played the Apothecary, I traded his vials for a bow as soon as I could.

I'm currently playing a Disciple; after our first quest I traded his mace for a sling. Melee BY, surge for stun vs Ranged BY, surge for +1 range +1 damage, surge for stun? Duh!

In our games the quests are often very close.

Some quests the overlord or heroes makes some error, and then the quest can feel unbalanced. We have noticed that a few miscalculations or "lost turns" for either side can tip the scales in the other sides favour and make the quest feel impossible to win for the other side. The best example are the search tokens, they often feel like they are so close, and as a hero you want to loot them, but often you're giving up at least an entire hero turn (moving to the token + searching) per token you go after, not to mention that it often splits the party up. Trying to go after most or all search tokens on a map often seem to spell doom for the heroes.

After a quest that feels unbalanced we often discuss what went wrong for the loosing party (and what the winner did right as well). That way the loosing side learns and can adapt to the next quest. It's often possible to pinpoint at least a few bad judgement calls that could have made the quest more balanced.

Interesting. For our group, victory (for one side or the other) rarely seems the fault of judgement. It seems to hinge entirely on equipment availability and Dash/Frenzy-like mechanics.

Last campaign the heroes constantly received powerful weapons but never any armor. During the Finale only one person had chain mail but the players were so armed to the teeth with weapons, abilities and accessories that boosted damage output that every single one of them was one-shotting every Act 2 Creature. We all had a good laugh at the Scout that was doing 9 damage+penetration from 11 spaces without line-of-sight (Heartseeker). In the Finale, I tried my damnedest as OL to get as many players dead in one turn from Gryvorn with good use of OL cards, but it just didn't happen. Not like it would have mattered; one player took down Gryvorn in the finale in one turn. We all knew that campaign was weird because of damage, but that wasn't the first time that damage made entire encounters trivial. The OL who ran Manor of Ravens needed to play the entire game around my Barbarian or else the whole thing was a joke.

This campaign we are having terrible luck with gear, which is only presenting the other problem: conservative play and focusing on the objective still cannot stop the OL in particular encounters (Which still happened in quests where heroes were overgeared). Most often these are mobility-related or "escort missions."

Often a quest is very close without realising it. A few days ago we played Death on the Wing where the OL managed to kill the guards thus meeting his objective. the heroes felt that this quest was decided from turn one when I use fire breath to kill 2 of the 4 guards in one turn. However, if only one attack from the monsters missed, things could have gone very different. However, I can imagine that if a string of events occurs like in your example, there is a feeling that a certain victory was inevitable. The composition of the hero party is very important here. If the heroes had access to conditions like immobilize or stun, Skarn would have a much harder time escaping and the OL would feel that there was no way to avoid his loss. The same goes for AoE attacks, if the heroes don't have these, the OL is more likely to pick larger monster groups which allow for more attacks but are individually more squishy.

Hey, I quite like the Apothecary class:p the starting equipment is horrible, but you can just give him/her the first thing that shows up in the shop. But granted, some classes are better than others.

We have also concluded that greed from the heroes often leads to their demise. And I agree that bad judgement early in the quests can decide the game before you realise it.

I understand this and on some level you are right. Things could have gone differently. If I didn't have Dash and Phoenix or destroyed my win-condition-rune to move, that could have gone differently. But there are other cards that can do what Dash and Phoenix do; Blinding speed and Dark Resilience come to mind. I also didn't bother picking up runes on my way out, which I could have done to improve my chances of getting the one I needed to win. The OL was also not playing with a lieutenant pack that campaign, so he was generally weaker. The fact remains that there was nothing the players could do to avert the OL win once the stars aligned. Powerless, they could only watch in horror as the Overlord removed all possibility of winning in a single turn.

In every roguelike there're gonna be moments that you just weren't prepared for and never could have been. In our particular game, no one in the group could Immobilize and I can say with some confidence that Stun wouldn't have mattered. One fewer move action would have only given the heroes hope, since I still had plenty of reinforcements to meat-shield and only one hero was in any position to do anything to Skarn. If an encounter necessitates the heroes bring a mechanic like Immobilize or lose, that doesn't really seem like a problem with judgement, but design. I'm looking for ideas to maybe present a less volatile, binary experience.

Speaking of Death at the Wing, that second encounter is pretty clearly stacked for the OL. Only poor luck for the OL will result in a win for the heroes. Luck and not skill. Again, poor design.

Hey, I quite like the Apothecary class:p

Keep in mind that unless your class has specific skills that require specific weapons (mostly scouts, some mages and warriors) there is nothing restricting the heroes from selling their initial weapon once they have found one either through a treasure chest, quest reward or shopping phase and using the new weapon.

For example, when I played the Apothecary, I traded his vials for a bow as soon as I could.

I'm currently playing a Disciple; after our first quest I traded his mace for a sling. Melee BY, surge for stun vs Ranged BY, surge for +1 range +1 damage, surge for stun? Duh!

Oh totally. Gear makes a huge difference. That said, classes like Apothecary don't seem to bring much to the table skill-wise. Medium-high costs for low impact.

The apothecary is insane. He has a free attack each round and can give out elixir tokens like candy.

Well you could say all classes with familiars get extra attacks and they got other damage abilities as well. (Though no healer class has a familiar)

Also the potions he gives out can be given before anyone gets damage and are pretty usefull.

I think as whole his skills a bit lacking though.

I am not so sure I agree. The Apothecary became the go-to healer for our group after a while. His Bottled Courage is amongst the best skills in the entire game, and Concoction makes you deal a lot of damage with a decent weapon. Potent Remedies is also a very good card. We found the Apothecary to be as strong as the Disciple for healing, while he also had a significant combat presence.

His starting weapon is extremely weak though, and should be upgraded as soon as possible.

In our games the quests are often very close.

Some quests the overlord or heroes makes some error, and then the quest can feel unbalanced. We have noticed that a few miscalculations or "lost turns" for either side can tip the scales in the other sides favour and make the quest feel impossible to win for the other side. The best example are the search tokens, they often feel like they are so close, and as a hero you want to loot them, but often you're giving up at least an entire hero turn (moving to the token + searching) per token you go after, not to mention that it often splits the party up. Trying to go after most or all search tokens on a map often seem to spell doom for the heroes.

After a quest that feels unbalanced we often discuss what went wrong for the loosing party (and what the winner did right as well). That way the loosing side learns and can adapt to the next quest. It's often possible to pinpoint at least a few bad judgement calls that could have made the quest more balanced.

Interesting. For our group, victory (for one side or the other) rarely seems the fault of judgement. It seems to hinge entirely on equipment availability and Dash/Frenzy-like mechanics.

Last campaign the heroes constantly received powerful weapons but never any armor. During the Finale only one person had chain mail but the players were so armed to the teeth with weapons, abilities and accessories that boosted damage output that every single one of them was one-shotting every Act 2 Creature. We all had a good laugh at the Scout that was doing 9 damage+penetration from 11 spaces without line-of-sight (Heartseeker). In the Finale, I tried my damnedest as OL to get as many players dead in one turn from Gryvorn with good use of OL cards, but it just didn't happen. Not like it would have mattered; one player took down Gryvorn in the finale in one turn. We all knew that campaign was weird because of damage, but that wasn't the first time that damage made entire encounters trivial. The OL who ran Manor of Ravens needed to play the entire game around my Barbarian or else the whole thing was a joke.

This campaign we are having terrible luck with gear, which is only presenting the other problem: conservative play and focusing on the objective still cannot stop the OL in particular encounters (Which still happened in quests where heroes were overgeared). Most often these are mobility-related or "escort missions."

In every roguelike there're gonna be moments that you just weren't prepared for and never could have been. In our particular game, no one in the group could Immobilize and I can say with some confidence that Stun wouldn't have mattered. One fewer move action would have only given the heroes hope, since I still had plenty of reinforcements to meat-shield and only one hero was in any position to do anything to Skarn. If an encounter necessitates the heroes bring a mechanic like Immobilize or lose, that doesn't really seem like a problem with judgement, but design. I'm looking for ideas to maybe present a less volatile, binary experience.

Speaking of Death at the Wing, that second encounter is pretty clearly stacked for the OL. Only poor luck for the OL will result in a win for the heroes. Luck and not skill. Again, poor design.

I would personally rank the apothecary as the third best healer, behind the Bard and the Disciple.

The apothecary allows you to give your team elixirs, that they can then use at their leisure, wherever on the map they are.

The apothecary can use elixirs to boost his own attacks with concoction or boost his or that of others with secret formula.

Imagine giving someone with blast an extra green die on his attack and surge ability to add 2 damage for the cost of 2 stamina (1 to summon the elixir token, 1 for using the skill). No range, no line of sight, just "exhaust when a hero with an elixir declares a target"

I would personally rank the apothecary as the third best healer, behind the Bard and the Disciple.

The apothecary allows you to give your team elixirs, that they can then use at their leisure, wherever on the map they are.

The apothecary can use elixirs to boost his own attacks with concoction or boost his or that of others with secret formula.

Imagine giving someone with blast an extra green die on his attack and surge ability to add 2 damage for the cost of 2 stamina (1 to summon the elixir token, 1 for using the skill). No range, no line of sight, just "exhaust when a hero with an elixir declares a target"

Third best? that would mean even in your ranking he's "only middle class" (3rd out of 5)

I have to disagree with any static ranking for a single healer class. Healers have to interact with other heroes to be useful (or at least as useful as they can be) so which healer is best depends heavily on party and strategy.

The disciple has to be adjacent to someone to use prayer of healing and the effect is temporary. Consistent disciple healing therefore requires at least one hero to be very close to the disciple. The disciple can decide to be a lonely tank if there are no other heroes around.

A bard only does anything important to heroes within 3 spaces- so again, the party has to stay close.

An apothecary has to be close to a hero at some point to give an elixir token, but once the hero has that token, he can go off on his own and do whatever.

The prophet really doesn't care about range. He can give the insight token to anyone, anywhere. Any of his skills that do depend on range depend on range to the insight token, not range to him. Therefore, he's awesome for a party that doesn't want to stay close.

The spiritspeaker also has range requirements, but in addition to hero requirements, has to think about monster range limitations. However, she's got 'Vigor', which is just so cool it makes it all worth it.

Hmm... to say the truth in (my group at least and some of the groups in german forums) the healer is almost in every "overpowered hero group" Avrick Albright.

And most of the time the heros kill the monsters so fast they don't need any healing except for Avricks heroic feat. He can only use it once per scene of course, but that's most of the time enough, as OL mostly try to get the quest goal over and don't even try that hard to kill the heros (in the Shadow rune campaign at least, in the others it's a bit different).

Avric is a great healer- but if he is a class which doesn't include condition removal, the heroes are lacking something serious.

Yeah... that's true (and good for the OL)