Hello all,

I thought I'd canvass people's thoughts on the use of the Knockback effect by heroes on other heroes.

Basically, in my game it seems to be a staple of practically every combat. The designated "batter" battles a couple of the other heroes into prime positions using the best knockback weapon available (the Mace of Kellos, etc.), who are then often able to kill or incapacitate most or all of the baddies. The more frail wizard-y Knockback-ee in the group even has an extra suit of armour and shield equipped at the start of each fight to mitigate the damage he might take.

Sometimes there can even be Knockback chains, where one hero hits two others with a standard knockback (say, a staff attack with Water Pact), and then one of the Knockback-ees then battles with the Mace of Kellos on the other, using fatigue to cover the distance between the two hits. Doing this lets them cover the entire length of many dungeons and outdoor locations.

Despite being a thematic nightmare – heroes smacking each other around the battlefield like golf balls isn't really a staple of high fantasy – I don't really see this as a problem as such. It actually creates some really interesting gambles for the heroes to consider, because often the person hit the furthest really needs to take down their target or they'll be left isolated and vulnerable.

But because it's become so integral to our heroes' tactics, I'm wondering if other people use it every fight too, or tried it and think it's inefficient, or never thought to try it, or whatever.

Cheers!

Dave

It's been used in our group, but nowhere near every fight. Usually people are better off attacking monsters than each other, or running off to grab some treasure. It's only if they're boxed in by soaring creatures or otherwise can't get to the fight that the idea gets put forth.

The ability to move heroes outside of their own activations just seems incredibly useful. Most of the Knockback-ery happens in the first round when it can end fights before they're begun, but there's always lots of uses for it afterwards, too: bumping heroes into spaces that prevent spawning, knocking them adjacent to glyphs so they can leave next turn, hitting them out of range of monster counter-attacks, etc.

Perhaps we (over)use it because of our hero/skill setup. The "batter" has Shadow Soul, so he can get back into the action pretty easily on the next round, while the two Knockback recipients do vast amounts more damage than the primary and secondary batters, so it seems to make more sense to use them to get the heavy-hitters straight into the action when they can end fights before they've begun.

Also, if you want to blitz a level for loot without taking on the boss and then leave ASAP, Knockback is king. And in our lieutenant fights, hitting hard in the very first round often seems to be the only way to even have a chance (mucho event treachery, Gold Beasts, Eliza Farrow and her master naga and hellhounds: Command 4, Pierce 4 – ouch).

It is fun, though, planning elaborate Knockback sequences, and trying to calculate the odds of success ... and how catastrophic it might be should the process fail.

Dave

I *love* the idea of the Fastball Special in Descent, just seems to fit the run-n-gun style of the game. I kind of wish my players would use it more, just to make the fights more entertaining

-shnar

Hmmm ... I'm not sure it's that entertaining for the Overlord.

We play with a few house-rules, and one of the main ones is "Delayed Fatigue Recovery" which means that heroes don't get their fatigue restored from vitality potions until the beginning of their next turn. It's meant to stop heroes in the Gold campaign from steamrollering entire dungeon levels in a single round, and it seems to do the job. (We really, really like the rule generally.)

However, the party just found the Gold Knockback weapon (the "Hammer of Ouch" or something similar), so even with Delayed Fatigue Recovery the party can now finish off level bosses in one round. In the first round, our batter usually hits the two big guns at least 13 squares each, which often covers most of a dungeon level or encounter location. We're basically using it as a teleport stick that leaves a nasty bruise.

Our most recent outdoor encounter was the one with the Chaos Beast. Admittedly a copper eldritch creature was never going to challenge a party in the Gold campaign, but it was still laughable. The poor thing cowered in the furthest corner of the map, but the batter was still able to hit the other two heroes adjacent to it in the first round, who promptly finished it off.

We'll carry on as-is for now, but we might house-rule out friendly knockbacks next campaign. Incidentally, this would apply to the Overlord, too, who once used usually-too-slow-to-be-useful ogres to excellent effect by knockbacking a Raging level boss into our ranks.

My first thought on this thread was "Nobody tosses a dwarf!"

We've recently adopted a house rule whereby Glyphs cannot be opened on the first turn into the dungeon. This prevents Heores charging a Glyph, opening it and then whacking the boss before it can even react! This seemed out of the spirit of the game. (And before you ask, traps are only any good if you have 'em in your hand. I'm almost tempted to change the rule to you can't enter a Glyph unless it was active at the start of the turn. This would allow Heores to open the Glyph (and hence gain the CT) but it would prevent the exploit. To show that a Glyph has been activated but hasn't "warmed up" yet, turn it through forty-five degrees til the start of the Heroes next turn.

..what exploit?

Jake yet again said:

No need to change a rule for preventing heroes from whacking a boss and then vanishing through a glyph to avoid taking damage from him. In RtL and SoB, glyphs do work slightly differently. RtL rulebook page 18 (and slightly different, but with the same emphasis, SoB rulebook page 20):

"However, to move through an activated glyph, a hero must begin his turn on or adjacent to it."

Does that fix your exploit? Or were you talking about something else?

haslo said:

Not really.

Heroes start in town. Hero 1 (the Magic scout) Advances with a Fatigure Potion if necessary. OL puts monsters on map. Hero 1 zaps any monsters in the way of Glyph near Boss. (There's always one!)

If necessary, Hero 2 comes in and helps clear the way.

Hero 3 (Runner) runs with a Fatigue Potion, legs it from starting Glyph to Glyph Near Boss, actiavtes it. Hero 3 cannot pop back TO town, but dioes not care as any new Heroes can come FROM town through the new glyph.

Hero 4 use a battle order plus Fatigue (and Knight), emerges not from initial Glyph but from Glyph near boss, engages boss with multiple attacks. If Hero 2 was not required to clear the way, he does the same. Boss dies under hail of hero attacks and sues Heroes for breach of contract because he couldn't even monolouge his dramatic speech , under the terms and conditions of the Evil Villain Megolamania Act 1923.

Sure, this tactic doesn't work for every dungeon, but it works on a lot, certainly enough to be cheesy. Pits and Crushing Blocks cards, can foil this plan, but quite often such cards aren't available. Blocking the path with monsters won't stop it, as any that are in the way will die.

Does your tactic work when all of the hero's start the level on the level. According to the rules for RTL it does not matter if a hero went to town, or through the portal. When they start a new level they all start next to the glyph. As you can see from the quote below, none of the hero's get to stay in town. This would result in no hero can come through the glyph near the boss untill the second turn. The first turn any hero that is going to do this has to go back to town. They can not use two glyphs in the same turn, so they would need to wait until the next turn to come back to the dungeon. (See page 17/18 Glyphs of transport in dungeons for the details.

Page 18 "THE PORTAL"

"Beyond the red rune-locked door on each
level is a portal leading to the next level.
Once a hero steps onto the portal map piece,
he is removed from the board and becomes
invulnerable to harm. Heroes remain thusly
in transit until all of them either enter the
portal or move to town, at which point all of
the heroes are moved to the next level"

Brian

Indeed. For setting up fresh dungeon levels, the following applies (RtL rules page 17):

"Once the overlord has set up the dungeon level board according to the map, the hero players place their figures on or adjacent to the activated glyph as normal."

No mention of heroes in town getting to stay in town. If they want to exit through the freshly activated second glyph, they have to wait until their second turn, spending the first with going to town.