Greetings guys,

Was wondering if anyone has a method to select a 'random hero and class' prior to the start of a campaign? There are so many choices and we get into analysis paralysis each time we play!

This is still on my to-do list for my campaign tracker

This is still on my to-do list for my campaign tracker

What for real?

In my group the heros take like forever when they choose their heros and classes... Maybe you could do a Hero AND classes random roulette kinda thing?

The idea was that you press "random" and it selects a random random heroes, and a random class for each.

You'd have some modifiers like 'ignore heroes that we've played before', 'x number of heroes', 'only warrior and healer are required, the other 2 can be random archetype',..

The idea was that you press "random" and it selects a random random heroes, and a random class for each.

You'd have some modifiers like 'ignore heroes that we've played before', 'x number of heroes', 'only warrior and healer are required, the other 2 can be random archetype',..

And yeah, they only think about it right before we want to start playing...

As OL you don't have anything to do in that time period... and if you try to "help them" to decide they think you want to prank them or stuff and they take even longer.... As if they couldn't trust a friendly OL

Well, in my opinion, you should force them to choose well in advance. Give them like a week, but tell em you need an answer the day before the campaign starts.

At least then they had a chance to make an informed decision.

I never expected anybody else to want such a thing, but this might indeed be exactly what you are looking for: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ilcgf7b57db1j7j/AADzmI5I-K6EYixpJGwAyClaa?dl=0

Well, in my opinion, you should force them to choose well in advance. Give them like a week, but tell em you need an answer the day before the campaign starts.

At least then they had a chance to make an informed decision.

Then I guess you are being a too benevolent overlord to allow such a thing!

Anyway, I remember that I was actually working on this in the past, but I don't know what happened to the code (its not in the current version).

I'll see if I can dig it up somewhere, and check how much work is still needed for this.

I am kind of shocked to see such request, to be honest. Of course - go ahead and select heroes & classes randomly if you want, same for monsters etc, if your group is having a blast doing so. Games are for fun after all so I´m really not against modding them if you think that would enhance your experience.

But the strategic planning in this game (heroes side in your case), which is extremely important (for not saying critical to how the campaign is going to fare), takes a serious hit if you implement random selection rules like this. Besides obvious variance between the heroes and classes (different tiers, which means you can get 4 sucky heroes using your method), you REALLY need to build a team with complementary skills, and only deciding on an archetype is not going to make it. You have big differences between the classes of the same archetype.

So yeah, what you suggest is a strong suboptimal choice the heroes are making before the campaign even begins.

I am NOT saying you should be picking the same hero and class every game because you think it's the strongest. My playgroups have always had entirely different team compositions (some heroes and classes do recur, although never in the same hero composition). But you can at least choose classes that make sense together, and a hero with some form of affinity to your class.

It also sucks being stuck with a bad combination of hero/class for the whole campaign. It also sucks having a hero ability or feat you can never trigger because you lack the skills to reliably do so.

Hero players should take their time to select their team, so if they are taking too long either ask them to decide before the session begins, or help them deciding if you are the knowledgeable person in the group.

I am kind of shocked to see such request, to be honest. Of course - go ahead and select heroes & classes randomly if you want, same for monsters etc, if your group is having a blast doing so. Games are for fun after all so I´m really not against modding them if you think that would enhance your experience.

But the strategic planning in this game (heroes side in your case), which is extremely important (for not saying critical to how the campaign is going to fare), takes a serious hit if you implement random selection rules like this. Besides obvious variance between the heroes and classes (different tiers, which means you can get 4 sucky heroes using your method), you REALLY need to build a team with complementary skills, and only deciding on an archetype is not going to make it. You have big differences between the classes of the same archetype.

So yeah, what you suggest is a strong suboptimal choice the heroes are making before the campaign even begins.

I am NOT saying you should be picking the same hero and class every game because you think it's the strongest. My playgroups have always had entirely different team compositions (some heroes and classes do recur, although never in the same hero composition). But you can at least choose classes that make sense together, and a hero with some form of affinity to your class.

It also sucks being stuck with a bad combination of hero/class for the whole campaign. It also sucks having a hero ability or feat you can never trigger because you lack the skills do reliably do so.

Hero players should take their time to select their team, so if they are taking too long either ask them to decide before the session begins, or help them deciding if you are the knowledgeable person in the group.

I would let them change all they want... It would just be a random thing they they could take... or not.

Sometimes a hero chose his class a few minutes and suggests to someone a stupid combination... And the person just took it.

We don't really play to win or something. For example in the first 2 playthroughs of the shadow rune campaign the heros won the beginning and interlude (I had pretty bad rolls there...) but NO other quest at all.

They still had a blast makeing fun of how the heros were so stupid and in reality everyone was helping the OL (because they seemed to miss everytime it was really important). It was super fun. ;-)

Fun, very important to playing the game. I stopped spamming Immobilize with Leoric during our first campaign because our OL was just not having fun anymore. Now when he was about to win one of the Act 2 quests, and I saw that fevered look in his eyes, that devilish grin as he looked over his cards I knew the time had come to start spamming that Ru-Ni-C Sorceryyy Baaaa-byyy!!!

Greetings guys,

Was wondering if anyone has a method to select a 'random hero and class' prior to the start of a campaign? There are so many choices and we get into analysis paralysis each time we play!

Hi Gibby,

I would roll some dice to randomly select a hero, then roll another for the

class.

Fun, very important to playing the game. I stopped spamming Immobilize with Leoric during our first campaign because our OL was just not having fun anymore. Now when he was about to win one of the Act 2 quests, and I saw that fevered look in his eyes, that devilish grin as he looked over his cards I knew the time had come to start spamming that Ru-Ni-C Sorceryyy Baaaa-byyy!!!

Why did you do that? Why couldn't your Overlord player adapt to that? Sure it's challenging, but why are people giving up so easily? Did you also remove every item in the game with the Immobilize condition? Did you forbid your OL player to use Merriods, Elementals and Crypt Dragons?

I mean, sure I sometimes hold my plays (not much anymore though, to be honest), but that's really shooting yourself in the foot. If I play against my 7yo then sure, but in an experienced group you can barely ignore the strengthes of the character you are playing.

Again, not opposed to people making decisions against the game to improve fun factor. But at the same time I´m wondering why people cannot have fun with the game as originally designed/intended? It's nothing to do with playing competitively, it's about playing a balanced game between the two sides. If you deliberately omit rules or skills, and operate with a black list of all things, then how can this not affect your experience of the game?

It's also kind of detrimental to the community as a whole as I cannot quite take a person's insight or opinion about things as seriously, if that person plays the game with heavy custom rules, and/or sub-optimal decisions made in that kind of scale? No offense meant, mate, but can you see what I mean?

Fun, very important to playing the game. I stopped spamming Immobilize with Leoric during our first campaign because our OL was just not having fun anymore. Now when he was about to win one of the Act 2 quests, and I saw that fevered look in his eyes, that devilish grin as he looked over his cards I knew the time had come to start spamming that Ru-Ni-C Sorceryyy Baaaa-byyy!!!

Why did you do that? Why couldn't your Overlord player adapt to that? Sure it's challenging, but why are people giving up so easily? Did you also remove every item in the game with the Immobilize condition? Did you forbid your OL player to use Merriods, Elementals and Crypt Dragons?

I mean, sure I sometimes hold my plays (not much anymore though, to be honest), but that's really shooting yourself in the foot. If I play against my 7yo then sure, but in an experienced group you can barely ignore the strengthes of the character you are playing.

Again, not opposed to people making decisions against the game to improve fun factor. But at the same time I´m wondering why people cannot have fun with the game as originally designed/intended? It's nothing to do with playing competitively, it's about playing a balanced game between the two sides. If you deliberately omit rules or skills, and operate with a black list of all things, then how can this not affect your experience of the game?

It's also kind of detrimental to the community as a whole as I cannot quite take a person's insight or opinion about things as seriously, if that person plays the game with heavy customer rules, and/or sub-optimal decisions made in that kind of scale? No offense meant, mate, but can you see what I mean?

Well I can mostly aggree with you, but I saw some older threads (not sure if it was in this forum or the german forum...) about players being somewhat bewilderd by the idea that the OL is even ABLE to win.... because they see him more as a "Dungeon Master" (like from Dungeon & Dragon) who's role is to "entertain" the heros.

The OL was like "I play this way, because if I try to win, the heros won't have fun. If they don't have fun, they don't want to play it anymore and the group would fall appart." In a later comment he mentioned he wouldn't mind it to be stuck as a "loosing OL" he had still fun.

Some groups seem to make it funnier with some role playing... and that would (in my opinion) still make lot's of fun, even if I as OL would not be allowed to win at all.

My group likes challenges though...

I tryed to let them win one time (it was a campaign, in which I almost won everything ... I suspected they would get bored if they had no chance at all) and they all were like "no, no... don't do that... that would be stupid, do it this way and you would win!" They obviously thought I made a silly mistake and wouldn't let me help them that way.

It saddens me to realize that misconception that Evil [in game] always has to lose in the end exists in some circles. Playing Descent as a way to entertain the hero players as opposed to the clash of two factions, is completely missing the point of the game in my opinion. It's completely childish of the hero players to force the overlord player to play dumb otherwise they wouldn't have fun. If the gap between the OL player skills and the hero players skills is huge, then the Overlord player should be trying to close that gap by sharing key information and making the hero players make informed decisions. If human beings cannot communicate between them in an attempt to make everybody happy, then playing a game like Descent might be a very bad idea at the first place...

It saddens me to realize that misconception that Evil [in game] always has to lose in the end exists in some circles. Playing Descent as a way to entertain the hero players as opposed to the clash of two factions, is completely missing the point of the game in my opinion. It's completely childish of the hero players to force the overlord player to play dumb otherwise they wouldn't have fun. If the gap between the OL player skills and the hero players skills is huge, then the Overlord player should be trying to close that gap by sharing key information and making the hero players make informed decisions. If human beings cannot communicate between them in an attempt to make everybody happy, then playing a game like Descent might be a very bad idea at the first place...

Well some people play board games just as a way to pass time and meet up with friends. The most fun IS (in my opinion) not the playing of the board game (whater it may be) but the talk between the players while they do so.

I played lot's of apps and games which "simulate" a board game... at first they look fun but after some time they just get so boring without other players, so I am not playing these anymore.

Also what many players in Descent 2nd edition seem to think is only wining makes fun, but that's maybe because they never played the other side before? When I played for the first time as a hero I noticed how fun the game can be, even if the OL just stomps all over your party. Except of course, the few times you really get crushed... like all heros are dead, and get up every turn just to get killed again. (Yeah... that's not a fun way to play for the OL as well as for the heros)

Fun, very important to playing the game. I stopped spamming Immobilize with Leoric during our first campaign because our OL was just not having fun anymore. Now when he was about to win one of the Act 2 quests, and I saw that fevered look in his eyes, that devilish grin as he looked over his cards I knew the time had come to start spamming that Ru-Ni-C Sorceryyy Baaaa-byyy!!!

Why did you do that? Why couldn't your Overlord player adapt to that? Sure it's challenging, but why are people giving up so easily? Did you also remove every item in the game with the Immobilize condition? Did you forbid your OL player to use Merriods, Elementals and Crypt Dragons?

I mean, sure I sometimes hold my plays (not much anymore though, to be honest), but that's really shooting yourself in the foot. If I play against my 7yo then sure, but in an experienced group you can barely ignore the strengthes of the character you are playing.

Again, not opposed to people making decisions against the game to improve fun factor. But at the same time I´m wondering why people cannot have fun with the game as originally designed/intended? It's nothing to do with playing competitively, it's about playing a balanced game between the two sides. If you deliberately omit rules or skills, and operate with a black list of all things, then how can this not affect your experience of the game?

It's also kind of detrimental to the community as a whole as I cannot quite take a person's insight or opinion about things as seriously, if that person plays the game with heavy custom rules, and/or sub-optimal decisions made in that kind of scale? No offense meant, mate, but can you see what I mean?

Well in this case particular case, as I said, we were playing our very first campaign with just the core box we had just bought. After a couple of quests of my Heroes getting destroyed because I was losing whole turns to stun (we like so many others had read the card incorrectly, not realizing stun only takes up one action) we started to get a better grasp of how the game was supposed to be played.

My OL was also having problems with the rules, and once we got into Act 2 and I bought Runic Sorcery she saw the power of the Immobilize condition.

I made a personal choice, much like she had on not spamming stun, since we were still newbies and were looking to have fun and not frustration.

Since then we have a much better grasp of the rules and the strategy involved in the game. Although I must admit there are still times when we mess up, getting caught up in the heat of the moment. We play competitively and enjoy that aspect of trying to outwit each other. We also enjoy the co-op mode since it also pressures us to use our limited resources wisely to reach our objective as quickly as possible (**** you perils!)

I think ultimately people should play whatever way helps them get the most enjoyment of the game. I do think that playing the game the way it was designed and intended is loads of fun. But to those people who bought this game looking for a lighter version of D&D I say play it how you want. Different groups have different tastes. I think the most important thing for any one particular group of people who want to play this game or any other is to be on the same page. Be in agreement on the kind of experience you're looking for and make sure everyone is having fun.

If you're the OL, constantly holding back because your Heroes are whining sore losers then you wont have much fun.

If you're a Hero who's not very knowledgeable of the rules or bad at strategy you wont have much fun with an OL who's more interesting in crushing inferior competition than trying to elevate and impart the knowledge that will ultimately make the game much more challenging and FUN for everyone.

I think house rules are fine as long as you understand that's how your group operates and if you're going to play with other groups they may not agree with your changes.

We play our games trying to follow all the rules as written, I've personally found some sick sense of enjoyment in scouring these forums looking for clarification on certain rules & strategy. But at the end of the day, if I ever feel that in trying to keep the game balanced and correct, playing it isn't fun anymore then I will find something else to enjoy.

Hell i bought this game thinking it was the second coming of Hero Quest. I've been very happy to see all the advancements in the co-op side because it gives me that flavor of a dungeon crawl and exploration. But the "traditional" open map version of the game has been a blast so far as well. I still think my original assessment was correct, while it does not play exactly like it, it has enough elements in common with Hero Quest, Advanced and Warhammer to satisfy that itch. Without those games, D&D and countless others before it we, most likely, wouldn't have Descent at all.