We separated the heroes by type before doing "draw one, pick three." Even that was way too powerful in my opinion, though I'm biased as I'm the overlord now having to deal with Verikas, Landrec, Hawthorne, and Silhouette. When someone else is overlord for SoB, I'll recommend we don't do it that way as it's too easy to get a near-perfect party. However, I can definitely see doing it if the overlord is the master tactician of the group and the other players need a boost to be competitive.

That's why we do it that way - the heroes need a leg up in campaign play. Even so I'm spanking them a bit too hard on the first two encounter / dungeons we've had and they're feeling pretty demoralized.

They just don't understand how to properly play the Copper level of a campaign. They need to learn the "Blitzing" technique, and then the OL is no longer in control...

But as for giving the heroes a leg up, that's why we implemented the all-or-nothing redo. If one hero wants to redraw his set of 3, ALL heroes have to discard, reshuffle, redraw. It keeps things still relatively random but at least no one feels like they're "stuck".

We've also been toying with the idea of retiring a hero and drawing a new one (that way if one hero feels he's "stuck", then he can at least change things up mid-campaign): At the tavern, draw 3 heroes. For $1000 GPs, a player can discard their current hero and choose one of the new ones to join the party. All upgrades move to the new hero, or may be exchanged on a one-for-one basis (for example, a magic black die upgrade can shift to a melee black die upgrade). Equipment too is given to the new hero, and he's SOL if he doesn't like it (i.e. if a magic user trades up for a melee guy, then he's got to go shopping).

Thoughts?

-shnar

yep.. i dont like it. its not like you should feel connected to your hero throughout the campaign or anything...?!

The hero trade sounds good to me. We let aplayer trade out for free in our last campaign, but he hadn't been at the first session so he didn't get to pick his own dude. Trading for a cost sounds like a good idea.

Descent is not an RPG. I never feel myself connect on an emotional level to One Fist, Karnon, Steelhorns,etc...

The trading idea sounds promising. I would not encourage it, though. Leave it as a last resort for potentially irate players. Otherwise, they may begin switching higher lvl characters and switching around purchased upgrades and dice based on which monster classes you choose to advance or which equipment draws they've received. My group does not look for loopholes & take pleasure in finding new ways to break/abuse the game, but some others may.

Edit: Fat-finger fix. D'oh!

Well the way I see it if I get to pick my avatar and plot then they should be able to pick their character.

Plus, in a campaign, I want them to want to play. So they need a character they enjoy playing.

Further, it's more challenging if they have a team built to fight me. Random draws make it a cakewalk for me and nobody has fun. At least when they choose their team they put up a little more of a fight as I crush them.

you will never crush a picked hero team.

There are many ways you can crush a picked hero team. A well-prepared Tamalir rush as you transition to silver still works well, as does just being a better player than the rest of your group.

If there was only one person playing all the heroes and he was as good as I am, then yeah I couldn't beat a picked hero team.

But half the game for me is finding the little rifts between the hero players and exploiting them so they get pissed at each other. That makes my win all the more satisfying. When that happens I'm always reminded of the scene in Fellowship where the elves, dwarves and men are arguing in the reflection of the ring and the flames come out showing its satisfaction.

Descent is all about teamwork. Fortunately you could just as easily call this game Dissent.

It's worth noting that if I'm playing on the hero side then the heroes win. When I'm on that side of the table I play diplomat and I make sure everybody's working together and our common enemy remains the Overlord.