Ok i'm one of the people then never got the "vs OL" play off the ground meaning my play group never completed a campaign

so playing solo and or coop is new .. and glad to say i've got a solo and coop plays off this app so far hope i can keep the momentum up

i'm really hoping a few coop game might inspire a few vs games too

other then that im very glad for solo play or the occasion one off night with a cool coop quest

but the following discussion is still valid

on this forum and Boardgamegeek forums i see difficulty raised as a query "we want an easy mode" and people saying its not needed .. i assume "vs OL " game veterans or genius tacticians in general, and yes i think coop's do need to be hard..

1) for me i feel it was my 1st hero choice and lack of descent vs tactics lead to my 1st defeats ( e.g attack str 1st game 4 heros i had very few red blue attack dice heros, 2nd game made sure i had 2 red blue hero they seems to be my killers helping me progress )

2) not following rush tactics ( move to progess at no momment think you can linger and clear a room, so opens doors as fast as you can..,hit objectives over monsters, unless hitting monsters 1st makes the objective easier for the next hero )

3) impact of player number 2 vs 3 vs 4

4) inbuilt play for the hero or play for the monster mentality bias? is our brain making it difficult where it should not be?

5) just getting rules wrong, missing conditions, miss reading perils, missing 2 player bonus, forgetting monster blast effect bonus

6) playing hero with familiars seem like an up and coming tactic , (does target hero with X attribute prevent this as familiar dont have attributes?)

7) all round party needed? ( do we want a jack of all trades party or will a focus on X do) i ask this as though my attack party won it almost got stuck on the book attribute test of the priest side quest,, and how do you do an all round party with 2 heros? hope for luck?:

8) challenging your self .." don't game the system.." 4 hero with 4 familiars might be over kill so chose something different and test your self

(p.s not sure the 4 hero 4 familiar is a sure fire win, but in theory more activation seem a good tactic )

my experience has been when i rush it was close also i've not come across these 12 to 14 damage perils because of this...

are you playing wrong or having bad luck if you get that far the ..game just wants to end your misery?

will there be none rush quests? is there any thing like that in the Vs play campaigns?

another tactic i found that seemed to work was find healing potions! ( treasure hunter getting 2 search cards was a bonus!) and then the app said i got got gold discard the token i was in panic hoping i would survive the next attack wave ..

most of the search deck is potions, i dont think from experience anything bad is in the search deck???

finally thing do you think the app tracks win losses.. uncompleted.. hero used monster used etc??

6) playing hero with familiars seem like an up and coming tactic , (does target hero with X attribute prevent this as familiar dont have attributes?)

another tactic i found that seemed to work was find healing potions! ( treasure hunter getting 2 search cards was a bonus!) and then the app said i got got gold discard the token i was in panic hoping i would survive the next attack wave ..

most of the search deck is potions, i dont think from experience anything bad is in the search deck???

finally thing do you think the app tracks win losses.. uncompleted.. hero used monster used etc??

Familiars have an attribute of 0 across the board. So that's why they always fail an attribute test. They would be automatically targeted if monsters are to engage/spot/attack the hero with the lowest attribute of ....

I don't remember her name but there is a female healer dwarf that lets her and other hero's look through the search card until they find a potion card. That would be a huge plus if you only want to search potion cards. Even an additional plus with apothecary.

As for the app tracking win or losses, I am curious about that because maybe it would determine how it will play the upcoming quest. It would be nice if the app released the group really sucks so should go soft on them or the group is too awesome and needs to get serious. Also would be nice if it tracked what monsters used to ensure it mixes them up enough.

Familiars DO NOT have attribute scores and they fail automatically because of rules:

Similar to monsters, if they are required to make an attribute test, they automatically fail.

You can pass attribute test if it's 0. You can roll 0 on black and grey dice, which would be a pass, since 0 = 0.

Those values are 0 only for purposes of targeting in RTL:

For the purpose of targeting, if a familiar or attackable token does not have the statistic the monster is targeting, that familiar or token is considered to have a value of 0 for the corresponding statistic.

In case of RtL looking for healing potions ability might not work if the token doesn't instruct you to draw search card. In the situation described by OP it wouldn't.

@milarky:

1) blue yellow and blue green weapons can still dish some nice damage, and there's good chance your hero will get blue red weapons. Remember yellow and green have their advantages(bigger range, higher change for surges). You need to take those things into consideration while deciding on a weapon. In case of hero selection generally slow characters aren't that good. Going below 4 speed is problematic. There are exceptions, Tahlia can keep up by killing monsters or Serena by burning her massive stamina pool. Also think how your heroes will spend actions and stamina. Taking hero with low stamina and class that burns a lot will make you weak. Some classes have a lot of abilities that use up actions and not really give you enough gain for that.

2) Actually we are winning and we kill most of the monsters. We still do so efficiently though. Killing monsters in RtL is more important than in regular campaigns, because you lose by being KOed. Leave too many monsters in attack range and you'll lose the quest. Ideally you want to minimize damage from monsters to area which you can heal with your healers(if any). Remember to look at the monster group order. If you know group A will move next it's good to cripple them.

3) 2 is doing well! Sorry, I'm playing it mostly on 2. We are also pretty experienced with Descent so our moves tend to be very optimized. We never waste our free attack or healing and abuse nice combos etc. In 2 player game familiars can be especially nice.

4) I don't understand this question

6) Familiars aren't very durable and getting them back costs an action. I'm often very pleased when no monster targets my familiar. That also depends on which familiar etc. Overall familiars tend to give kind of free actions, and anything that gives free actions is great. Also, in real campaign, which will transition into act 2 monsters at some point some of the familiars might have scaling issues(like in real campaign). In demo it's easy to use your 3 exp to get buffed familiar, because you know it won't become irrelevant in 2nd act.

7) With 2 heroes you usually can cover at least 2 attributes very well and have other 2 at 3 or so. Enough to pass on your 2nd try. If you are really worried there are ways to get attribute rerolls. Even with warrior only party you could have book high(Alys Raine has 4). Obviously your hero choices are limited by expansions you own. The solution? BUY BUY BUY BUY.

I don't think the app tracks anything. It probably acts completely randomly. Tentacle sidequest spawned crow hags in 1st room 3 times in a row for me, this seems pretty random(on other occasions it spawned other monsters, like sorcerers). I think the quests don't allow all monsters in existence for open groups, but have limits, just like regular quests. They probably limit by monster size(I never saw first open group in tentacle quest to be anything but small monsters) and monster icons(cave etc.) That's fine, since it allows random while keeping stuff thematic.

I don't think it increases the difficulty of monster activations and perils based on your previous games. After winning intro quest and both sidequests the finale gave me easy activations to deal with and never dished peril that would really cripple me. It also doesn't seem to favor attributes you don't have. Well, that's obvious since the game probably doesn't know what stats heroes have.

Overall most of the things that were working against regular OL still hold true, except you are allowed to hit monsters more. You have enough time to kill everything in most rooms, and most of the time they don't respawn. Be sure not to get KO'ed, since unlike regular campaign KOs have real danger now.

I don't remember her name but there is a female healer dwarf that lets her and other hero's look through the search card until they find a potion card. That would be a huge plus if you only want to search potion cards. Even an additional plus with apothecary.

Ulma Grimstone is actually a lot more useful, in my opinion, in the RtL co-op format than in the standard 1 vs All. Not that she wasn't helpful before, but like mentioned above, KOs can cost you a quest now and potions are a lot more valuable.

Her Hero Ability:

Each time a hero within 3 spaces of you (including yourself) would draw a Search card, he may instead reveal Search cards until he finds a Potion. He may take that card and shuffle the rest back into the deck.

Is very, very nice, but I love love love her Heroic Feat:

Use during your turn to flip one of your facedown Potion Search cards faceup. In addition, each hero adjacent to you may also flip one of their facedown Potion Search cards faceup.

Ulma Grimstone is actually a lot more useful, in my opinion, in the RtL co-op format than in the standard 1 vs All. Not that she wasn't helpful before, but like mentioned above, KOs can cost you a quest now and potions are a lot more valuable.

Her Hero Ability:

Each time a hero within 3 spaces of you (including yourself) would draw a Search card, he may instead reveal Search cards until he finds a Potion. He may take that card and shuffle the rest back into the deck.

Is very, very nice, but I love love love her Heroic Feat:

Use during your turn to flip one of your facedown Potion Search cards faceup. In addition, each hero adjacent to you may also flip one of their facedown Potion Search cards faceup.

Yes Ulma! And the perfect adventure partner.... Ronan with Pico!