Since there have been a few similar topics I didn't want to start yet another one-off thread, so here is a general topic to ask the community for opinions on X party for Y campaign!

So, we are about to start a new MoB + CtR campaign, and as the overlord I was a bit unsure about the selection the heroes have made so far:

Sahla as Apothecary

Tahlia as Beastmaster

Lyssa as Battlemage Skirmisher

Roganna the Shade as Shadow Walker (might be subject to change)

I think Lyssa could potentially be very powerful, as well as Roganna, but I'm afraid my heroes have very low attributes overal. Never higher than 3 in anything, which potentially means certain doom.

So, is this party viable, or not? Which hero would you change to stand a better chance? (I think they want to keep the classes)

And against this party, would you use Basic I or II?

Some thoughts ...

As you stated, this party's attributes are horrible. Your entire party does NOT want to be poisoned ... like ever. You have 3 2's and a 3 for Might. Which means that most of these heroes are going to fail their tests at best half of the time, and most often 3/4 of the time. For a hero like Lyssa with just 8 health, this is not good. Then you combine that with the fact that to get rid of a condition you will have to initially rely on Sahla's hero ability which itself will fail 50% of the time (Willpower test of 3), and this could get ugly quick.

For the most part, this also applies to being Diseased. You would be testing Willpowers of 3, 3, 2, and 4. The 2 belongs to Lyssa which means she can be Diseased and Poisoned, costing her hearts and fatigue. Once the fatigue are gone, more hearts. And did I mention she has 8 Health?

Sahla's Apothecary skill class cards average the requirement of 1 Fatigue to use, and she has a total of 4, with a speed of 4, and a weapon (Smoking Vials) that may require you to be reasonably close to hit. Since she won't want to spend fatigue to move often (freeing them up for her skill cards), she is going to play slow. Add this to Tahlia, and now you have a group with two people who are very fast, and two who are slow. The problem is the healer is slow, the tank is slow, and the heroes that are fast (and subsequently may be out front), have 8 and 10 health. Overall, I don't really like the combination.

Tahlia is SLOW. SLOW. SLOW. Yes, she does get 2 additional movement points when she delivers the killing blow to a monster, but this can be very situational. As a melee warrior, she will always want to be next to a monster for this to occur. This can be an issue with the other heroes involved.

Just like Tahlia, Lyssa is almost always going to want to be next to a monster to perform an attack (leveraging the greater damage her Hero ability can bring). The problem with this is that she only has 8 health. Not good. Now, let's look at her weapons. The Rusted Handaxe and the Jagged Handaxe. The Jagged Handaxe's special ability is basically cancelled out by Lyssa's hero ability (although admittedly you do save a fatigue). In addition, the Rusted Handaxe's average damage is 2.27 (Blue-Green) with on average 1.07 Surges which results in an additional 2 damage, meaning on average the weapon provides 4.27 damage. If Lyssa uses her hero ability to replace the green die with a red die, the average damage becomes 3.77 (Blue-Red) with on average 0.57 Surges, which means using her hero ability will actually reduce the damage you do. In other words, you are basically nerfing her hero ability. Obviously, you would want to upgrade her weapon as soon as possible, or you would want to get her a 1 handed shield to make her less squishy.

Now, as we have previously mentioned, two of your heroes are going to want to be next to monsters much of the time. Roganna the Shade, on the other hand, does NOT want heroes next to something she targets, as her hero ability provides her +1 Hearts on all of her attacks if no hero is next to the target. Obviously, this can become an issue. It becomes even bigger as being a Shadow Walker, she would like to ultimately get +1 Heart and Pierce 1 from the Shadow Walker as well.

Given all of the above comments, I would use Basic I against this group. Just the card Poison Dart will have a huge value against this group, as even if they choose Awareness to test, only Lyssa has an Awareness above 3. In addition, you will get cards that add Surges, do additional damage, etc.

So, I have been pretty negative in my initial assessment of the group. Having said all of the above, I like it because my group loves a CHALLENGE, and I think you are going to have an enormous challenge with this group.

Yeah, I think I'll talk to my heroes again. I do think Lyssa is a viable choice though. The tainted card will give her +2 to her health, and she can get bonus health for each rune she has from one of the battlemage skills. Its true that she won't get much out of her starting weapons, but the idea would be to switch them for 2 runes, which are mostly BY instead of BR so her hero ability can come into play there, and of which she can then use both surge abilities from being a skirmisher.

I think Thalia was mostly selected because she looked cool, and Roganna might become something different all together, with that player also considering being a bounty hunter.

I do like Lyssa. It's just normally she is so effing squishy. I must admit I was looking at her in a vacuum and not considering what buffs she may get from MoB-CtR.

Having said that, I don't like relying on the assumption that I will acquire whatever I need to make her effective (I mean from Shop Item cards).

Until the end of Act I, you aren't guaranteed to get anything for her (Runes, better weapons, etc.). That is a long time to go with her base abilities. Even if you are fortunate to get good draws, you will have to spend a large amount of gold on a single hero to get her to where you need her to be, not to mention the fact that you may have tough choices to make.

Still, I love a challenge.

EDIT: I will say this ... if the players involved playing heroes are not very experienced overall with D2e, I would not bet on them doing well with this hero party. And if even one of them is the type to start pouting or being upset if the game turns into a landslide, then you might not even finish, and there might be some seriously unhappy gamers.

As an aside, sorry to poke my head in..

What a great assessment. Really, really well done.

This entire topic idea would be a welcome thing 'pinned' to the top of the forum - with many new or (like myself) returning players with the app release, finding that we are playing both OL and Rtl, you can pick up a lot by osmosis (especially as my brain is on the patchy side of semi-permeable).

Also, informed enthusiasm is always interesting to read.

This may have been misprint, but steelcaster/skirmisher is impossible. You mean battlemage, right?.

Anyway, Lyssa makes a great battlemage. If she is using runes, she can increase her health. Also, dhe is a mage whose hero ability FAVORS melee attacks- a lot- but it means she shouldn't be counting on surges.

As a standard deck with battlemage, skirmisher is not bad. My favorite parts of the class are the missing 3 XP cards, but the class certainly has more going for it (like born in battle, ever in motion, and unrelenting).

As an aside, sorry to poke my head in..

What a great assessment. Really, really well done.

This entire topic idea would be a welcome thing 'pinned' to the top of the forum - with many new or (like myself) returning players with the app release, finding that we are playing both OL and Rtl, you can pick up a lot by osmosis (especially as my brain is on the patchy side of semi-permeable).

Also, informed enthusiasm is always interesting to read.

Per your request, I added this thread as a link under Community Opinions within the pinned topic at the top of the forum called Index of Useful Links .

This may have been misprint, but steelcaster/skirmisher is impossible. You mean battlemage, right?.

Anyway, Lyssa makes a great battlemage. If she is using runes, she can increase her health. Also, dhe is a mage whose hero ability FAVORS melee attacks- a lot- but it means she shouldn't be counting on surges.

As a standard deck with battlemage, skirmisher is not bad. My favorite parts of the class are the missing 3 XP cards, but the class certainly has more going for it (like born in battle, ever in motion, and unrelenting).

Yeah, thats what I meant Skirmisher just seemed the best option, as 'Planar Weapon' turns 2 runes into one handed weapons, and Skirmisher can utilize both at the same time with its base skill. Then with back in action to further boost her health and unrelenting, she could be really good (probably the best in this party)

Otherwise, Berserker was an option, but this is just based on what was recently played. Beastmaster is already in use, Champion seemed like a bad fit and marshall was played in the last campaign.

Then you combine that with the fact that to get rid of a condition you will have to initially rely on Sahla's hero ability which itself will fail 50% of the time (Willpower test of 3), and this could get ugly quick.

Also, I just remembered that you start with 1XP in MoB, so Sahla could buy Herbal Lore right away and could remove 1 condition with certainty and possibly remove another one (and move that to a monster even) with his hero ability.

Well, as people have mantioned, group's might is 3/2/2/2 which hints OL to take web trap

3/3/2/2 knowledge may be used in case you choose plot deck to pick up Twisted Soul deck. Whenever you manage to get Faithful Guardian + Summon Skarn + Unknown Origin (10 TT total) you may use Skarn in each mission - Unknown Origin will give you 2-3 TT to compensate 2 TT used to Summon Skarn, Faithful Guardian will compensate Summon Skarn card in case Skarn is killed.

I can confirm that Lyssa makes a great battlemage...

Ours was as a Beastmaster. Once she gets a few runes under her belt, she becomes more tanky...

I'll +1 for Lyssa as a battlemage/Beastmaster.

As a skirmisher, she simply requires far too much gear investment before paying off (as awesome as dual-lightsaber runeswords sounds). With the beastmaster she gets the added benefit from the +green attack pool ability when beside the familiar, making it a +red, and another +red on a surge roll, with a guaranteed surge from the battlemage ability.

Couple that with a nice act 2 rune (Rune of Blades) and you can easily be rolling blue, yellow, red, green, red, +2, +4 pierce, followed by a heroic red, yellow, red, green, red, +2, +4 pierce..... 8]

We are running just the core on the Kindred Fire campaign:

Grisban - Knight

Syndrael - Berserker

Avric - Disciple

Leoric - Necro

So far we have done pretty good, we are 3-1 for quests. I imagine the core set is pretty fool proof for party composition though? What are the advantages to bringing a rogue? Nobody wanted to play one.. I am playing Avric, I enjoy support. I just got the ability to let me add a yellow die to the person I heal.. not sure where to go from here. I was pretty unimpressed with his 1 xp cost abilities and the 3 xp cost seem to take a lot of strain to use.

i think as well, that its a bit controproductive...but not that much...guess there are not so many changes necessary....but for example Tahlia as beastmaster :

she may often be forced to summon her wolf -> one action lost, so one action less to trigger her bonus 2 MP...and slow in general to get near enemies since beastmaster doesnt really have skills that allow her to move and attack at once. This gets even worse if you watch her stamina ...simply not made for beastmaster in my opinion. And as you stated out, the heroes want these classes, right? I would rather say your heroes shall go for Nanok as beastmaster then...faster, can push away some little monsters (synergy with roganna in case she needs the additional dmg or in case you want to push some monsters more close to the shadow walker) very good at start and when the OL heads for big blocking monsters (which he cant push around), his feat. give 2 additional actions / attacks which is very nice against mighty monsters ...furthermore he wont be expensive..you cant buy him heavy armor (and he has black die anyway) -> may be good, because lyssa may need a lot of gold -> 2 runes as weapons -> Mana Weaver i would suggest -> and rune armor...quite expensive...but would be worth the price i think.

he would have 4 in strength...so if strength may become important for quests its good to have him too

EDIT: i would also recommend to play Lyssa more likely as a beastmaster...or Jaes as skirmisher, as someone stated out earlier

@frogTrigger: I think as well, that rogues are not that important in your current RtL campaign since there are not that many objectives that differ much from killing Monster X or Y

in the usual campaigns though i would recoomend to have one in your party, since they are great for objectives / gold income via search tokens
-> have to say, that i think, that the best rogue class in RtL is stalker, since he has a skill that allows your heroes to grab search tokens without using actions...thats really useful..especially since you do not need to scry through the search deck anyway without the treasure chest

regarding your setup : i would have had syndrael and grisban swapped their classes, since syndrael has great synergy potential with respect to her hero ability and that porting skill the knight starts with...though theres also a nice synergy of grisban eating all attacks / conditions and easily get rid of them ( or at least most of them) so fair enough i would say

what are the experiences so far regarding campaigns with 2 or 3 heroes? is it unbalanced or is it quite similar to a 4 hero campaign?

cause im really interested to run a campaign with 2 heroes :

Nanok as Berserker
Syndrael as Steelcaster / Conjurer

i think theres much synergy potential in them :
syndraels feat grants 2 move actions ! -> fast
Nanoks feat also grants 2 actions...attack actions -> strong against tough enemies and bosses
-> the combination could be devastating...fast and hitting like a bomb...2 free actions per feat is really powerful

conjurer is great in tactical positioning and can easily attack on big distances and even around corners with images ! -> OL has no real advantage in spreading monsters ...its maybe more favourable to hold them together and meat block more important monsters
berserker though can attack all adjacent monsters -> OL is forced to spread monsters

Nanok has black def die -> awesome at start and with cripple he can make sure monsters are forced to target him instead of going for syndrael
Syndrael wont have to move around much -> heroic ability may trigger every turn

syndrael can move 5 spaces via her port skill which adds stun on top of it -> she still gets the 2 fatigue back ...and while she stunned a monster (or maybe more) next to her , nanok can walk past by and move one monster one space away from her (if monster isnt large...which may happen quite often, since nanoks feat is strong against few but tough monsters) -> monster cant attack in case OL doesnt play a card or has no ranged attack

i already stated out, that these two heroes can be very fast -> syndrael places some images behind them to block hallways(either monsters have to waste one action to attack the images , or maybe the conjurer already has the skill which forces monsters to use one additional MP to enter spaces adjacent to images) -> they can easily outrun monsters and head for objectives

both have 12 life at start and Nanok can easily get up to 16 life; syndrael can acquire the skill which gives her 2 life and one fatigue for surge (and with "many friends" thats quite easy to trigger)...so both are hard to knock down

weak points :

- both have only 2 in awereness -> syndrael wont move often anyway -> no real traps playable at her
Nanok though...well...no real solution for this (at least charge can even be played while immobilized) ...and once he has charge he wil mainly walk via charge anyway-> so tripwire becomes more and more irrelevant....and pit trap is easy avoidable as well by simply investing one additional fatigue for 1 MP in case its important to be save from the stun effect

- both have only 2 in willpower -> weak against disease -> Syndrael will recover a lot fatigue on the go anyway though...so not thaaat tragic for her
Nanok will wear the belt that lets him easily walk on water spaces and boost his willpower by one


despite these weakpoints though : i think this duo hits very hard and that monsters are usually dead before they were able to really threaten them...so im sure, they will eradicate barghests before they could howl more often...or they will have zombies down before they were able to give them disease (but well...they would outrun them anyway)

If i was OL i guess i would head for Basic 2, since i surely cant win with power / frenzy ...and blinding speed is much better than run due to Nanoks attributes. Its a pitty i would not have dark charm against this low willpower duo, but at least grease trap which may help to either dmg nanok a bit, or get rid of an image token which could destroy my plans, if it walks to close to me, or simply steal them one action if they slide into the wrong direction. Dark charm may be not that good anyway because on syndrael : she wont have the additional green die from many friends, wont she? and dark charm on nanok : well...he has a black def die to guard him -> so i guess it would only be useful to either kill an image with it, or move the heroes farther away..which is to some extend also possible with grease trap....poison dart in basic one would be useless too. Furthermore Uncontrolled power from basic 2 would help the OL a lot i think . But i have a question regarding this : is syndrael a mage in that case? i dont think so, but im not sure...if she would be treated like one in case of uncontrolled power, this OL-card would be very effective then against that duo.
and cards i would buy as an OL : imploding rift, and maybe go for infector deck since this duo wont get that much dmg from my attacks. so i can make attribute rolls harder for them and weaken their defense/attack a bit...but im not sure if this pays off enough. further i may go for the ariad plot deck since its strong against low willpower parties. I can easily move this duo around as an OL that way (with some monsters too) but is it worth it?....if i move them into lava or pits+immobilization they will easily get out with port/charge...i can only move them away from their objectives ...(at least if i cant get out a combo like moving them into lava, and while they enter that field i give them max fatigue dmg and immobilize them) ..its possbile, but clever heroes may hardly open the opportunity for this. guess it would be really hard for the OL..even while exploiting this low willpower
the low aweareness can be exploited via explosive runes, but it would just give a bit dmg to them.

wondering about your thoughts on this duo! and how you would cancel them out?

EDIT: just realized that nanok has 3 in awareness...thought he would have 2....well...this makes it even harder to get all 4 MP out of blinding speed -> another plus for this duo

Thanks for the suggestions and tips!

The problem I guess is that the girl in our group really wants to play as the beastmaster already (cause the wolf is cute and all that), and the guy who would play Lyssa has already played all mage classes before (and we like to play with some variation in our games), and so it felt a bit boring just letting him play as an additional warrior for the group when we could use one of the hybrid classes instead. Combine that with the fact that the guy playing it has always voiced complaints like "B+G weapons suck! I want a B+R one cause they do more damage!!" Lyssa just seemed like a perfect fit for the guy

Also:

Savagery (or Feral Frenzy) both target 'a hero', not 'you'. So Lyssa could still use her ability to switch that extra green die, even though she herself is not the Beastmaster in this group.

When the argument is made that its expensive to make the Battlemage skirmisher work (which I do agree might be largely true), I don't see how Lyssa would not be ok, but Jaes would be.. It's not like he gets free runes or something so it would be the same in that aspect. It's true that he would be a lot more powerful in the end though (but I'm just wondering if such a combination isn't too OP?)

Anyway, I have told our beastmaster to take a look at Nara the Fang, instead of Tahlia. She seems like a better fit.

We are running just the core on the Kindred Fire campaign:

Grisban - Knight

Syndrael - Berserker

Avric - Disciple

Leoric - Necro

So far we have done pretty good, we are 3-1 for quests. I imagine the core set is pretty fool proof for party composition though? What are the advantages to bringing a rogue? Nobody wanted to play one.. I am playing Avric, I enjoy support. I just got the ability to let me add a yellow die to the person I heal.. not sure where to go from here. I was pretty unimpressed with his 1 xp cost abilities and the 3 xp cost seem to take a lot of strain to use.

Rogues are for getting search tokens.

Since you have Syndrael, you'll have some mobility because of her heroic ability, but rogues are much better at going out of the way to get those far, far search tokens.

As far as the Disciple goes, Armor of Faith is great since it has no cost, other than using prayer of healing. Think of it as a free defence boost. Cleasing Touch is another must since it allows you to remove conditions. Just wait till Leoric gets poisoned and you will see why that is very important!

Divine Fury has the same requirement as the previous two skills I mentioned, in that you must use Prayer of healing. So they all have the same cost...but you can activate them all at the same time so you can heal a party member, boost his defence and remove a condition while giving him a yellow power die to his next attack!

The difference I will point out is that the defence die stays until the end of your next turn... the yellow die is only good for his next attack this round .

None of the 3 XP disciple powers require fatigue to use, so I'm not sure what you mean by they require lots of strain.

All good tips, thank you. I guess I never looked at the condition cards that closely but you are right, being able to clear one is a huge help. This could mean that I could also clear a stun or immobilize on a unit which has hurt us before.

Radiant Light is the 3 cost card I was looking at, costs 3 strain, but it is very powerful.

http://descent2e.wikia.com/wiki/Radiant_Light

I am thinking I might get Cleansing Touch then save up for Holy Power. This allows me to heal 2 people at once, add 2 yellow power die and possibly clear 2 conditions. I might have to eat a few of our extra weeks up in town to boost my XP faster to get this ability.

Regarding Rogues

Many rogues allow for fast and easy pickup of search tokens, which in a campaign can be pretty crucial as gaining gold is the biggest way the heroes gain power (through equipment).

However some rogue classes can provide a ridiculous amount of group synergy. The Shadow Walker in particular hits the table pretty much every single campaign (though as OL I wish it would not). Shadow Soul is insane...adding a free pierce to the group (rogue goes first and places optimally), benefits the attack that creates it, adds an additional damage to every attack made by the group (assuming attack did one damage and SL is adjacent), and can be moved one space after creation (allowing it to affect mobs spread out if needed).

And that is without the REALLY crazy skills.

Although my personal favorite is the WildLander with a decent bow. First Strike is great for spoiling OL plans.

Regarding Rogues

Many rogues allow for fast and easy pickup of search tokens, which in a campaign can be pretty crucial as gaining gold is the biggest way the heroes gain power (through equipment).

However some rogue classes can provide a ridiculous amount of group synergy. The Shadow Walker in particular hits the table pretty much every single campaign (though as OL I wish it would not). Shadow Soul is insane...adding a free pierce to the group (rogue goes first and places optimally), benefits the attack that creates it, adds an additional damage to every attack made by the group (assuming attack did one damage and SL is adjacent), and can be moved one space after creation (allowing it to affect mobs spread out if needed).

And that is without the REALLY crazy skills.

Although my personal favorite is the WildLander with a decent bow. First Strike is great for spoiling OL plans.

I concur about the Shadow walker, but the Wildlander loses a bit of utility if you use it in a RTL game, which I think FrogTrigger does, as he mentioned "weeks in town".

Any power that affects the OL in RTL is basically a wasted ability so First Strike, Elder Mok's feat, etc. can't be used.

Pretty sure First Strike works as normal. You simply activate it when the monster activates.

I have a question about Nanok as a lot of folks have mentioned he's OP, would you allow his passive to move Lieutenants and servants like Raven flock and Scourge?

I think you are referring to his Hero ability. Yes, Servants and lieutenants are monsters so Nanok's ability could be used to move them.

2 hours ago, Lewton said:

I have a question about Nanok as a lot of folks have mentioned he's OP [...]

Beware there are two versions of Nanok
- the first one from the Conversion Kit
- the last one from the Heroes & Monsters Pack : Stewards of the Secret

the one I have seen most people complain about being OP was the first one!
the explanation you ask is from the last version.