I acquired the Sea of Blood expansion over Christmas, and while I have yet to play an actual game, I have been studying the rules and looking for fun things to analyze. So far, it looks like this expansion is a combination of awesome and intriguing ideas with several incredibly sloppy bits on the side that just make you scratch your head about how this could possibly have gotten through play-testing. In other words, par for the course for Descent.

In any case, I came across the following issues that are badly broken and in need of further specification.

1) Ship movement.

According to the rules, ships move at the end of every round, due to their raised sails and the ocean current. Non-swimming figures in the water move according to these currents as well. The rules, however, are silent on one critical aspect: in what order do the ships and figures move? Especially in the case of one ship about to ram another, this can be of critical importance. It cannot be simultaneous, or else you could potentially end up with two ships on the same space, so there MUST be an order. Ships are PLACED on the map in order from largest to smallest and starting with the Heroes in case of ties; this same rule could be applied to ships (although it is not in the RAW), but even that does not resolve what happens to figures. If both figure A and B are being moved by the current and A would land in B's space UNLESS B is moved by the current first, then the order in which these figures are moved matters. Furthermore, do figures (swimming or otherwise) block movement for non-swimming figures that are moved by the current? None of this is specified.

2) Tentacles.

A tentacles suffer from two problems, one of them entirely mechanical and the other one partly mechanical and partly balance. The purely mechanical problem is as follows: the rules state that tentacles have their own movement, move after the figure controlling them and may never move more than 3 spaces away from their controlling figure. But what about the controlling figure moving away from its own tentacles?? For instance, the Kraken has a movement of 4. It is a Lieutenant, so it can declare a run action. Its 5 tentacles START the map adjacent to its body. But if it declares a Run, the body can easily end up more than 3 spaces from the tentacles - even after the tentacles move at the end of its turn trying to 'catch up.' I guess you can rule this isn't allowed, but then what on earth is the point of the Kraken being faster than its own tentacles??!

The second problem with tentacles is that the maximum distance of 3 away from the main body seems insufficient for them to EVER land on a Hero in an outdoor encounter. This is because the Hero ship is 6 spaces across. If the figure controlling the tentacles is on one side of the ship, the Heroes need only stand 4 spaces in and they are invulnerable. Since it is not possible for the lieutenant to circle the ship in a single round, this means the Heroes can always dance away from wherever the tentacles could conceivably land (this is even assuming the first point above has been resolved in some satisfactory fashion).

Of course, this second point isn't really a HUGE issue, since most Lieutenants will always flee immediately anyway, as there's very little penalty for doing so, but it does seem like a shameful waste of effort and cool ideas that these tentacled lieutenants can't even THINK about trying to attack the Heroes in any way.

3) Swimming with Armor.

This is more of an exploit than an under-specified rule, but it seemed worth mentioning. If a Hero enters a deep water space, he loses 1 fatigue + 1 for every 2 points of armor (rounded down, natural or otherwise), and losing wounds instead if he has insufficient fatigue. However, rather than suffer this penalty, it seems far better to unequip (for free) the Hero's armor during his start-of-turn equipment re-arrangement, and simply re-equip it at the end of his move for 2 movement points (so long as the Hero is moving even 2 spaces in deep water that turn). Thus, only Heroes with natural armor 2 will ever pay the increased fatigue penalty.

About ship movements, page 28 of rulebook says:

That's incorrect, rgalvan. A round consists of both player and overlord turns. The ships move at the same time, after both heroes and monsters have gone.

The tentacle thing seems pretty dumb, and something I noticed (but hadn't experienced yet).

Another thing that I would add to the list is what happens to a figure in the water if a ship pushes it into another ship? Either in a ram situation or not. I guess it would just push him on board of the other ship but that's kinda silly.

Also, what happens when a non-swimming figure collides with a reef or rock due to current?

The armor situation is as intended. Yes, you can take off your armor and swim more easily. That actually makes sense. But watch out for sharks now that you're 2 less armor!

Another thing that I would add to the list is what happens to a figure in the water if a ship pushes it into another ship? Either in a ram situation or not. I guess it would just push him on board of the other ship but that's kinda silly.

Yes, you would get pushed onto the other ship. It's silly, but no more or less silly than many of the other things that happen in Descent. Luckily it's a board game, not a reality simulator, so silly is forgivable.

The armor situation is as intended. Yes, you can take off your armor and swim more easily. That actually makes sense. But watch out for sharks now that you're 2 less armor!

I believe the concern involves people being able to take their armor off, swim some, and then put it back on. Having 2 less armor won't be a factor unless the OL can activate the sharks while you're moving.Personally, I'll wait to see it in action before I bother trying to decide if it's broken or not. Worst case scenario you have 5 armor from gear and 1 personal armor. If you unequip the gear you spend 2 fatigue to reequip it and save yourself 3 fatigue per square. More realistically, you'll be saving yourself two fatigue per square (i.e. 3 armor from gear + 1 base), which means you'd have to swim 2 squares (4 movement points) in order to benefit.

I've seen it in action and it's not really what I'd call broken.

Smart heroes will do it. It costs them less fatigue overall but it still costs them fatigue / movement (which heavy armored heroes tend not have much of either). It's also hilarious to knock them further back using cannon fire.

MasterBeastman said:

MasterBeastman, you are right. During our first test encounter in Sea of Blood we made so many errors that I'm starting to think we played another game ...

So did we! I think a lot of us were on the right path by having an example (practice) ship battle before doing the real thing. So much is at stake with the risk of a total party kill. But mistakes that happen in practice are the whole reason we do it right?