My wife and I stopped playing IA because we fought when we played. Last night I had a friend start Descent (at his request) and I think we had fun, but we had a VERY frustrating two losses due to the same thing that made IA unwinnable (IMO) as the Rebels. Focus Fire!

So when my wife played as the Imperial, I felt that a wise Imperial always focuses ALL their fire on a single hero, who is unable to do anything to prevent this. Same in Descent. Without time limits, the heroes can hang back and rest, killing enemies more leisurely. But with time limits, they have to balance move, attack, and rest. I think nearly every mission can be won by the Imperials by simply clogging hallways and focusing on a single hero until they are wounded.

The mission for Descent last night had us chasing after the boss as she tried to escape, with monsters and a series of closed doors in our way. One of our characters had a good attribute for opening doors, and had the equivalent of 14 health. She had a potion to regain health, a talisman to give her extra defense, and an ally who could give her extra defense. The overlord (me, I play as both OL and two heroes in Descent) moved monsters in front of the doors two layers thick, forcing the heroes to thin them out for her to get up to the next door. This placed her in a precarious position each turn, and with 5+ attacks targeting her, she got knocked out each and every turn.

I feel like it is unrealistic for three squads of stormtroopers to be presented with a Jedi, a Wookiee, a guerrilla fighter, and a smuggler, and have all nine stormtroopers ignore the other three to shoot at the smuggler until she is dead. We have been tossing around the house rule that "If there is more than one viable target, each deployment group must target a different hero." But I can see this being a major power-swing.

I don' t see why it would be pb if the overlord is focusing on the weakest hero. The point is to stay as a group no more than 3 spaces one from eachother.

I don' t see why it would be pb if the overlord is focusing on the weakest hero. The point is to stay as a group no more than 3 spaces one from eachother.

Oh, we definitely stuck together. But no hero can take 8-10 attacks and not go down (at least early in the game). If a hero goes down, that's one less action on the following turn, and this matter keeps compounding.

I don' t see why it would be pb if the overlord is focusing on the weakest hero. The point is to stay as a group no more than 3 spaces one from eachother.

Oh, we definitely stuck together. But no hero can take 8-10 attacks and not go down (at least early in the game). If a hero goes down, that's one less action on the following turn, and this matter keeps compounding.

On any given turn, how is one hero taking 8-10 attacks? This simply isn't possible in 95% of the quests.

Unless a monster has the ravage ability, they can only attack once per turn.

I have owned this game since the beginning. I have played at least 4 dozen campaigns and hundreds of quests. I have never had a single hero face 8-10 attacks in a turn. Ever.

Something seems off here ...

The quest was Masquerade Ball Encounter 2. You have to follow Eliza through doors, and due to a very unlucky dice roll at the very end of Encounter 1, she has the passwords. You start in a room with 5 cave spiders, and as soon as you open the door to the next room, an open group (goblin archers in this case) are placed. Leoric used his heroic feat to try and kill 4 spiders, but rolled an x. Two spiders were killed allowing Jain to get to the door and open it. Then 5 archers and 3 spiders attacked her. Archers activated first, and being the first person in the doorway, all 5 had LOS and range. Then the spiders attacked one at a time as they moved into the next room. Again, had there not been the ridiculous time restraint of eliza moving unobstructed through the doors and outpacing us, we could have killed more as we went, but we still lost the mission because Eliza moved off the map before we even got through the 4th door (out of 6). We didn't lose due to the KO's, necessarily, but it was still extremely unfunny for Jain's character.

The best solution I can think of is not picking flimsy characters. If you pick weaker characters there should be another hero covering that, for example the Knight class. If I may comment on your example, it was unwise to have the last Hero, who has low health, open a door right before the OL turn. I presume this happened since you say that Leoric failed to kill the spiders, but two more were killed by the other two heroes. This would be less of a problem if there was a Knight adjecant to Jain who could take the blows.

First, the knight would need to have the ability to take those blows (not purchased yet, this being the first quest). Secondly, the overlord had two rows of spiders in front of the door, so to even get adjacent you have to "tunnel" through the enemies, leaving only one door space available. It's all well and good to say you shouldn't open the door at the end of a turn, but with the time constraints present in this quest, you cannot really sit back and wait until the next round to open the door, because each hero can only try to open one door per turn. We successfully opened one door per turn, killing at least two monsters each turn in order to get TO the door, but Jain, being the most capable door opener we had, kept being the target.

And again, we lost the quest because Eliza was able to ignore the doors and just move off the map. That was without the overlord even playing his two dash cards to give her extra movement. In all reality, the heroes would have to open more than one door per turn to have any chance of stopping Eliza. That takes two heroes moving successfully (no traps stopping them) and rolling successful attribute tests WHILE killing enough monsters that they don't get a.) blocked or b.) killed.

Masquerade Ball E2 is known to be a difficult quest for the heroes if they don't succeed in the E1 rescue. Eliza is much too fast. Waiting (as you said) isn't really an option, and it sounds like the OL got lucky on Leoric missing his multi-attack.

I agree. It seems you simply had a set of circumstances that you couldn't avoid, and as a result, you placed your heroes in an untenable situation.

There are several quests within the Shadow Rune that are heavily slanted either towards the heroes or towards the OL. I have come to accept that if I am forced to play one of those (and especially given triggers in encounter 1 impacting encounter 2), I simply may not win.

That particular quest was an irritant of mine when my group played the shadow rune campaign.

That said, to add my two cents, are you sure that all the monsters who attacked had the proper line of sight? If they were, as you said stacked two deep, then the second line wouldn't be able to attack unless the first line moved after attacking. Not impossible, but it does mean that your "two line deep" wouldn't be that way at the end of the OL turn.

As to your question about what I think about focusing fire: What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.

or to put it in Star Wars terms "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer."

That particular quest was an irritant of mine when my group played the shadow rune campaign.

That said, to add my two cents, are you sure that all the monsters who attacked had the proper line of sight? If they were, as you said stacked two deep, then the second line wouldn't be able to attack unless the first line moved after attacking. Not impossible, but it does mean that your "two line deep" wouldn't be that way at the end of the OL turn.

As to your question about what I think about focusing fire: What's good for the goose, is good for the gander.

or to put it in Star Wars terms "We've got to give those fighters more time. Concentrate all fire on that Super Star Destroyer."

Yes, all had line of sight. She opened the door, with triggered the goblin archers to spawn. She was standing in the doorway while each goblin archer shot, and then moved into position in front of the next door. Each spider then attacked and moved or moved-attacked-moved on their way to the second line in front of the NEXT door.

Part of the problem with the goose/gander comment is that it is relatively rare that the heroes HAVE to focus fire on any one target. The heroes are almost always contending with numbers while the overlord is contending with power. Sadly, while 8 possible attacks from the heroes can thin the OL's herd, those same 8 attacks from separate monsters can definitely down a single hero. Which of those scenario is more crippling depends on the mission I guess.

I wouldn't say the heroes rarely have the chance to do it. It depends on what campaign you are doing. IN some of the newer campaigns, there is more Lieutenant involvement which gives heroes more chances to "focus fire".

I know our OL for Chains and for Mists would always make a snarky comment when we managed to kill a lieutenant before it could do much, especially in those quests where the lieutenants presence affects reinforcements.

You also have that Lt focus in Heirs of Blood in some quests.
In any case it is not cause you have a heroe knock down that it would chance the outcome of the game (except in 2 last expansions of cours). Being knock out is part of it you have to mitigate the risk by staying close. A knock out is no more that a stun condition in terms of number of actions lost so you should be able to handle it.

You also have that Lt focus in Heirs of Blood in some quests.

In any case it is not cause you have a heroe knock down that it would chance the outcome of the game (except in 2 last expansions of cours). Being knock out is part of it you have to mitigate the risk by staying close. A knock out is no more that a stun condition in terms of number of actions lost so you should be able to handle it.

A single knock out here and there is no biggie (unlike in IA, in which the heroes can be permanently incapacitated and often the Imperial win condition is wounding all heroes), but some missions (like this one) run on time requirements, in which getting knocked out CAN be a big deal, especially a knock out each round. Not to mention that a single knockout most often makes THAT hero incredibly easy to knock out next turn. A single stun is no big deal usually, but a stun-lock, to which this is similar, can be crippling.