Hey guys,

Let me describe a scenario that may be familiar to many of you.

You're playing Overlord, you've setup all your lovely monsters on the map ready to ruin the heroes' day. The quest guide informs you to place you monster groups in specific rooms around the map; one of which is the room directly in front of the heroes.

The game begins; heroes activate. The first hero storms into the room and attacks, killing one of your precious spiders or what-have-you. Next hero activates, another spider down. Third hero activates, this one is ranged and pulls off two attacks; two more spiders down. You see where I'm going with this.

Its finally your turn; the heroes have practically taken the first room. Your turn to attack. Your last remaining spider moves in for the attack; a tiny dent made.

Heroes turn again.

TLDR; Sucks when all heroes activate and wipe out an entire monster group on turn 1.

This is something I've always had an issue with in Descent and I think a mechanic built into RtL may provide a solution.

So for those who've played it, you'll have noticed that monster groups activate in between hero turns. This gives a much nicer flow to the encounter I think.

It prevents all the heroes storming through a map. It gives monsters a chance to attack before they all get wiped out. It adds a bit more of a back and forth interaction to the game. Monsters can immediately react to hero actions, and vice versa.

So, how do you think this would mesh into normal Descent gameplay (without the app)?

Granted it would be a little bit more difficult to track turns etc. (the app handily does this for you), but it could be managed by flipping the hero cards (as described in the rules); and the same could be applied to the monster cards to keep track. The OL could choose the order in which they all activate as they see fit.

And as with RtL, each group/hero would still only ever receive one activation per round as normal, its just the OL and Hero turns would be essentially merged.

Can anyone see any significant downside to this approach?

I may give it a try next time I try a normal quest (may not be soon, stuck into RtL campaigns atm).

If it works out well do you think it could be something that could get errata'd in? Similar to the significant change made when HoB was released regarding the extra hero actions during a 2 hero game.

Thoughts?

Hey guys,

Let me describe a scenario that may be familiar to many of you.

You're playing Overlord, you've setup all your lovely monsters on the map ready to ruin the heroes' day. The quest guide informs you to place you monster groups in specific rooms around the map; one of which is the room directly in front of the heroes.

The game begins; heroes activate. The first hero storms into the room and attacks, killing one of your precious spiders or what-have-you. Next hero activates, another spider down. Third hero activates, this one is ranged and pulls off two attacks; two more spiders down. You see where I'm going with this.

Its finally your turn; the heroes have practically taken the first room. Your turn to attack. Your last remaining spider moves in for the attack; a tiny dent made.

Heroes turn again.

TLDR; Sucks when all heroes activate and wipe out an entire monster group on turn 1.

This is something I've always had an issue with in Descent and I think a mechanic built into RtL may provide a solution.

So for those who've played it, you'll have noticed that monster groups activate in between hero turns. This gives a much nicer flow to the encounter I think.

It prevents all the heroes storming through a map. It gives monsters a chance to attack before they all get wiped out. It adds a bit more of a back and forth interaction to the game. Monsters can immediately react to hero actions, and vice versa.

So, how do you think this would mesh into normal Descent gameplay (without the app)?

Granted it would be a little bit more difficult to track turns etc. (the app handily does this for you), but it could be managed by flipping the hero cards (as described in the rules); and the same could be applied to the monster cards to keep track. The OL could choose the order in which they all activate as they see fit.

And as with RtL, each group/hero would still only ever receive one activation per round as normal, its just the OL and Hero turns would be essentially merged.

Can anyone see any significant downside to this approach?

I may give it a try next time I try a normal quest (may not be soon, stuck into RtL campaigns atm).

If it works out well do you think it could be something that could get errata'd in? Similar to the significant change made when HoB was released regarding the extra hero actions during a 2 hero game.

Thoughts?

Personnaly i dont' like it that much as it limits monsters and heroes combos. My feeling is that it down sizes the strategic aspect of the game, because as you explain there would be no need to plan all the other parties moves. You would have just to react to each party moves. Of course it streamlines the gameplay making it more nervous, but it is not what i am after. I really enjoy the difficulty that is brought by the current gameplay.

It is one of the point that makes RtL far more easy that the classic game mode.

I'm a big fan of Imperial Assault which uses the alternating system like you described. I think there are pluses and minuses to it. I think if you tried to force the alternating system into Descent you might run into some balance issues. The one mission of Descent I've played so far would have put the heroes at a huge advantage if the overlord was forced to move a unit each activation.

Alternating activations can add a bit of gameyness to it. Some people will choose to activate a cheap unit forcing their opponent to activate more important units. Then the big guns come in when the opponent is spent and defenseless.

I don't mind alternating activations in general, but I think it's a terrible idea to try to retrofit them into Descent.

First and foremost, the quests are designed, tested, and balanced WITHOUT alternating activations. The game is all about allocation of actions, and there are a good number of objective based quests (see LoR intro as an example) that alternating activations absolutely wreck. Therefore, even if you wanted to adf alternating activations, you'd need to rewrite old quests or write new ones.

Secondly, there are hero classes (and monster groups) that benefit from direct activation before or after another friendly unit. Alternating activations ruins that too, regardless of quest objectives.

One thing I've found in RtL is that it is really hard to revive a hero with alternating actions. Often I have to leave them KOd for a few turns so I can try and clear the room before I revive a KOd hero. I think with an intelligent OL this would be an even bigger problem.

I one time played that system and realized it creates a number of problems to house rule. I start to do some sort of list and research and this is what I found. If I have to say that you need to house rule the “altering system” you will need to evaluate these three things:

1) The Overlord Turn : How are you going to resolve the Overlord Turn? When does the Overlord turn happens, during the whole round and it is stop by hero turns and resume when ending? OR, Will the Overlord turn be divided into monsters activation? This was one of my conserns when RtL arrived and FFG just simply said there is no Overlord Turn, and this is why. There are numerous effects that trigger at the start or end of the overlord turn. I think this is the biggest problem of all. For example, take a monster ability like "Regeneration" from Sir Alric Farrow, or "Air" from the Elementals, you will have to determinate when does it trigger or how long does their effect last, respectively. Another example is "Word of Misery" Overlord Card, does it affects the whole round or does it only applies during one monster activation? Another thing is “Plot cards and refreshing”, it can cripple some of them. Or even heroes abilities, like Elder Mok’s hero ability, just imagine this, Mordog as knight, with defend, then he gets hits, recovers 1 stamina and Mok uses he’s ability, then another monster group does the same and Mordog repeates…and also does Mok’s because IT IS A NEW TURN. I mean, it can be done, but there are just too many changes to be done to do not mess with the core system of the game.

2) Quest balancing : As stated above, many effects that are linked to the Overlord turn and can destroy balance of the game. For example, the intro of Heirs of Blood. Let say you house rule overlord effects to apply both at the beginning and end of the round , respectively. So now the Overlord will only activate the goblin archers after the last hero (assuming he passes and decides not to activate his monsters, like SW:IA), then a goblin is in the tile when it has to be in order for the overlord to get the "fatigue" needed to accomplish the victory condition. Now, the round ends, the overlord receives a fatigue for having a goblin in the tile; now, a new round begins and then again, the overlord receives a fatigue for having a goblin in the area (Start and end of turn effect). Heroes weren’t able to do anything and if the overlord does spams this successfully, then the quest is over in 4 rounds.

2.1) NPCs activation : Another thing is Castle Daerion Encounter 2. Sir Palamon will be immobilized in most of the cases due to the master zombie activating before him, this because "Turn alternation" messes with NPCs activation. Therefore, any quest having a NPC objetive will have to be rewriten.

2.2) Reinforcements : And lastly, well, remember that Descent reinforcements aren’t as SW:IA reinforcements. In Descent a monster comes back almost every turn. Heroes will be swarm after they could effectively clean certain area.