My wife and I have finished one campaign of The Shadow Rune. We have gone back and restarted with the other heroes and classes and have finished the first Act I quest. We both play as heroes, and I double as a ruthless Overlord. My plan was to try and get as much of a different experience as we could without replaying anything if possible. The problem is that there are only 5 Act I quests to choose from. So, I have a couple options that I can think of, please advise me on which would be the least problematic after we finish the second Act I quest (meaning that we have played all 5 between our two campaigns).

1.) Just suck it up and replay a third Act I quest. (not my first choice, obviously)

2.) Pick an unused Act II quest and use Act one monsters and Act I shop cards.

3.) Move to the Intermission and play 4 Act II quests after that.

P.S., I'm using Splig's plot deck this time as well, if that changes anything.

Option 1, but you have no expansion packs whatsoever? Otherwise you could pick the quest with the most open monster groups and use different monsters for a different feel.

Also: You could instead buy the Heirs of Blood campaign book, the cheapest way to get a new campaign to play (and it's a better one too! )

Least problematic?

Option 1, no doubt.

I echo the other voices here and say option 1 is the only reasonable choice. For Act 2, there are two quests in the quest vault (top of the likes list) which can serve as act 2 substitutions. You can also ignore the rules and play "the dawnblade" instead of "the desecrated tomb", etc.

Option 1, but you have no expansion packs whatsoever? Otherwise you could pick the quest with the most open monster groups and use different monsters for a different feel.

Also: You could instead buy the Heirs of Blood campaign book, the cheapest way to get a new campaign to play (and it's a better one too! )

I own 50% of H&M packs and all expansions, but haven't opened the expansions and haven't added the H&M's in yet. I'm trying to 'use up' what is in the Shadow Rune before moving on. I have Heirs of Blood too, so the existence of other quests is not the problem. The problem is trying to play ALL the quests I already own in Shadow Rune while limiting the number of campaigns we have to run. It seems a waste to play a campaign in which material is repeated, rather than playing new quests each time.

Option #4: Play the 2 quests you've missed in epic mode standalone

Option 1, but you have no expansion packs whatsoever? Otherwise you could pick the quest with the most open monster groups and use different monsters for a different feel.

Also: You could instead buy the Heirs of Blood campaign book, the cheapest way to get a new campaign to play (and it's a better one too! )

I own 50% of H&M packs and all expansions, but haven't opened the expansions and haven't added the H&M's in yet. I'm trying to 'use up' what is in the Shadow Rune before moving on. I have Heirs of Blood too, so the existence of other quests is not the problem. The problem is trying to play ALL the quests I already own in Shadow Rune while limiting the number of campaigns we have to run. It seems a waste to play a campaign in which material is repeated, rather than playing new quests each time.

Man, wow. You really should add in the expansion content and the H&M:s. Expansion content for Descent doesn't really expand piece by piece, but rather, you add content to the entirety of the game, no matter the campaign, with each expansion. For example, the H&M quests are played by means of Rumor Cards, which are introduced in the three first small expansions. You're meant to incorporate that into campaigns (at least when starting them).

All those extra monsters and extra cards and so on and so forth is part of what makes each new game of Descent interesting, even if you're playing the same campaign again and again. Change in items that appears, change in rumors and extra quests that become available, new heroes, completely different combinations of monsters, etc.

You'd have to drag me to the game if I had to play through the same campaign with the same basic core set twice in a row. ****, man. ****.

Oh snap, totally missed it.

What's the point of playing Shadow Rune over and over again if you own ALL other expansions? Play SoN, play LoR, play mini campaigns, for god's sake

I forgot to mention that those three smaller expansions (Lair of the Wyrm, The Trollfens, Manor of Ravens) are explicitly meant to be played as parts of full campaigns. You can play them as "mini-campaigns", but they're meant to be played by means of rumor cards, and the narrative (at least in Manor of Ravens and The Trollfens; I do not have Lair of the Wyrm yet) is written for that, as you'll most likely only play two single-encounter quests from each small expansion (or from the H&M collections) per full campaign.

Playing The Shadow Rune with only the Core Set twice in a row just feels like you're eating some (admittedly pretty good) hardbread while there's a literal banquet lined up next to you. ****, you can't even deploy Goblin Witchers to match the Goblin Archers that gets used constantly.

And on top of that: There is the Quest Vault where you can download campaigns or quests other people have created and play them as well. I think I'll keep playing Descent for years before it gets boring.

And on top of that: There is the Quest Vault where you can download campaigns or quests other people have created and play them as well. I think I'll keep playing Descent for years before it gets boring.

Yup. If you have the right 50% of the H&M packs (Oath of the Outcast, Crown of Destiny, Crusade of the Forgotten, Guardians of Deephall) you can play my custom campaign, Legacy of Timmorran. With just the base game and Labyrinth of Ruin, you can play Weapons of War. There are other custom campaigns out there, I'm just most familiar (and biased towards) the ones I wrote.

And on top of that: There is the Quest Vault where you can download campaigns or quests other people have created and play them as well. I think I'll keep playing Descent for years before it gets boring.

Yup. If you have the right 50% of the H&M packs (Oath of the Outcast, Crown of Destiny, Crusade of the Forgotten, Guardians of Deephall) you can play my custom campaign, Legacy of Timmorran. With just the base game and Labyrinth of Ruin, you can play Weapons of War. There are other custom campaigns out there, I'm just most familiar (and biased towards) the ones I wrote.

Those 4 H&M are the last ones I need to buy. I bought everything in reverse because I was hyped by the more recent news articles and character sculpts. They're on my list... just waiting for budgeting.

I hear everything you guys are telling me! I'm just trying to ration things out. After this playthrough of Shadow Runes we are planning to move forward to Lair of the Wyrm, but we're trying to ration our enjoyment. Again, I'm playing as both heroes and OL, this time I added a plot deck, we don't wanna get too crazy just yet. Thanks for all the input.

LotW is arguably the second worst campaign after SR. Go for SoN or, at least, LoR.

Option 1. You may have played the quest before, but certain factors can make it play a little differently. Things like what heroes are being used, what monsters are on the board, how the die decide to roll, what cards the OL plays and when- those can influence the way a quest is played through. So yeah, I would say go through it again.

I hear LotW is biased towards the heroes, especially as an included rumor quest. Fair enough.

Is the SR campaign biased towards the heroes or the OL?

I hear LotW is biased towards the heroes, especially as an included rumor quest. Fair enough.

Is the SR campaign biased towards the heroes or the OL?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jPc_zCh8aWyNZ3frjq30C5CVjA_kqPUcPZpiBJbaetI/edit#gid=2

Also: http://d2etracker.com/stats_quests.php

Also: http://d2etracker.com/stats_quests.php

I love that, even though I was confused at first. Many of the quests are almost surprisingly balanced (I'd consider anything 40-60% to be balanced), while others are very clearly out of whack. Especially The Shadow Rune has some really **** solid data.

Makes me think that an official app like this coupled with a "Living Quest Guide" (to compliment an actual Living Errata) could be a really cool thing. Would have to reset the data each time, though, I guess that'd be frustrating.

In all it is pretty balanced. The homepage show the balance for all quest played and is at 59 - 41 now, but if I would remove First Blood, it would be almost dead on 50-50.

But don't go too much by these numbers. It all depends on so many factors. Hero composition, at which point the quest was played, monsters selected, hero items, ... Wouldn't put my money on it

Using those stats, it appears that The Monster's Hoard is a very unbalanced Act II quest that favors the Heroes. If I played that as the third Act I quest instead, it may be more competitive and balanced maybe? Please say yes???

Using those stats, it appears that The Monster's Hoard is a very unbalanced Act II quest that favors the Heroes. If I played that as the third Act I quest instead, it may be more competitive and balanced maybe? Please say yes???

I wouldn't play this as an Act 1 quest, since it'll mess with the narrative aspects and I'm not sure how you'd work out what Act 2 quests to play later if you did. Also, someone would end up with a fairly powerful Relic easily on-par with an (expensive) Act 2 shop item for the remainder of the campaign.

Using those stats, it appears that The Monster's Hoard is a very unbalanced Act II quest that favors the Heroes. If I played that as the third Act I quest instead, it may be more competitive and balanced maybe?

I think what veteran players have been saying is that this game is finely tuned, maybe not at the encounter level but definitely at the campaign level. You can't house-rule things willy-nilly like you're encouraged to with a typical AD&D session; it's a different type of game.

If you suspect you're doomed to lose a particular encounter, then change your objective as OL. Concentrate on collecting Threat tokens, on forcing an end to the encounter so that the heroes don't traipse around collecting all the search tokens, etc.

Well, I ignored all of your advice

As our third Act I mission, we played the Monster's Hoard using Act I monsters rather than Act II monsters. The overlord tried his hardest, but the heroes still prevailed. The first Encounter was VEERRRYYY narrow and the heroes entered the second encounter with significant damage. However, with luck they drew the Trueshot on their first turn, and were able to heal enough to slowly chip away at the large monsters the Overlord played and get out at the end of their 6th turn.

Now, I do understand that the Trueshot is very powerful, so I have ruled that we cannot use it for the Interlude. I must say, this was the most challenging quest that we played in Act I, so as the third quest, I would say it was very well balanced.

With luck they drew Trueshot? What do you mean by this? It should not be possible for the heroes to get to tile 10B and search round 1. Yeah, Jain can do it with her heroic feat but the other heroes need to clear a glyph for her first.

OL is plain stupid to hide Trueshot somewhere else in my opinion.