After many and many hours of playing (I'm played each campaign at least 3 times, each mini campaign 5 times, I did beta testing, and I'm working on custom campaign), I come to a fact : the game is not balanced !

The only problem comes with the fact that FFG wants to avoid the "Descent 1st edition syndrom" with a FAQ of 25 pages, and I can understand. But I cannot understand that they don't want to publish a "balance pack" with all the cards remade.

So, that's why I'm working on it : files with all cards rebalanced after many times of play and that some effects or to powerfull, other not enough, etc ...

At first, what do you think of the idea ?

Then, here is some remade cards :

(print them and place them in your sleeved cards)

If anybody want to helps me since i'm not so good at photoshopping, he would be really welcome ! ^^

Maybe it need so balance more (for example, minor Medusae should keep their stun ability and surge + 1 heart on act 1 ad surge +2 hearts on act 2).

I'm still on some Rumor quests, Ogres, and I'm thinking about zombies but they are so much used in many quests that i'm afraid to break balance if changing them, even a bit. Serena is still weak even after 5 try, same for Raythen, Augur hero ability should target himself too, Lord Hawthorne is stupidily too strong, Dezra is strange, even as a battlemage, Steelhorns feat should not damage himself and i'm still unable to play a descent Orkell, Splig, Eliza and Merrick are oftenly too weak to be played with (not mentionning agents ...) and I'm still shoked that Belthir gives poison (poison ?! burn, stun maybe, but poison ?!?)

I like the idea. I'm not on my computer right now, so I'll have to check them out later. I did see grisbain and the text should say he can't be "stunned"

I am definitely in favor of having a collection of rebalancing fixes, but I have to say that I think you make many of them way too different and I cannot yet say if that the results are balanced. Some changes, like those for the Spirit speaker, seem very reasonable and the kind of minor adjustments I think are necessary.

But many monsters have completely new abilities now which I am not at all sure are balanced (beastmen seem a tad bit too strong as now the can, with high frequency, move AND attack twice, Medusas can now shut down a hero for way too long in some cases, etc.) and same goes for other cards.

And no addressing some candidates desperately in need for balancing?
Nothing on Bandits (I think they need to have one less minion in their group limits)? No fix for the bard (like making song tokens be removed from cards when he is knocked out, after all, if you go to the ground, you rather have to start from scratch with playing a song)?

It is very hard to have any kind of consensus on such big changes as you do in many cases, why not some minor ones which can be more easily reasoned for?

I think hardly anyone would object to the buffs for Grisbane or the Spirit Speaker, but I could really not see the thief finding approval in a whole group of players which all will have to be convinced of such a change.

I would really rather see some small but sensible tweaks than all those big changes.

First of all, you're right about the Bard for example, but Bandits are not so strong if you asks me

And let me explain :

Some cards only need minor changes because the balance was not so problematic. But other needs to be remade fully because as it is, the idea could not be saved as it is. We are many to think that the Treasure hunter did what the thief was but better in all ways, so the thief had to be anything else. The same applies for the Necromancer and the Beastmaster, so I had to changes them so they could fit better their differencies.

For the beastman, Ravage was useless on them because they never survives so they could use it and because they are 1 space it makes it useless.

Medusaes never enough range and/or damages to hit the heroes, and it's stupid that medusaes do not do what they are intended to : petrify, but only the master do this now.

It's not finished, but I did my best really to offer the game the better experience ever that when you choose among all, all would have the same value.

Bandits have blue and red dice (save for the master, who makes up for it with other boni), 4/5 health, normal speed, range, can inflict poison (or poison and doom) and also are able to take away search items, something no other monster can do, which can seriously mess with the heroes.
Please look at other monsters with their group size, unless you desperately need one of the things they are good at, Bandits are always better.
Bandits even compare rather well to groups like fleshmoulders or sorcerers.

Their combination of high numbers, high damage and survivability (the brown die does not matter as much as their high life points which make one shotting them hard) and sopecial abilities is brutal.

My problem with beastmen is that they now wopuld pretty much outperform Volucrix reavers easily.
The boost is a bit too strong, especially given that they already have a solid ability in command.

Yes, they fall as easily as most monsters of their group size, but you can still make use of ravage, unless you send them straight at the heroes without any backup at all.
If nothing else, their ravage ability forces the heroes to deal with them or flee from them, and that is rather good on its own.

Also, I completely disagree on Medusas.
They roll an average of 2.77 damage, an average hero has 1.33 (grey dice), 2 (grey and brown) or 2.17 (black) shields.
You have a pretty good chance to immobilize at range and then you can leave many heroes unable to do anything but rest on their turn, which is extremely powerful.
The added stun only makes it better.

If you use any card to boost medusa damage, they are downright terrifying even against well armored heroes.
I really dislike that one because it can hurt some heroes really badly and on the other hand makes medusas loose any unique flavor in a two player game.

I just feel like you do not foresee how far many of this changes can affect balance and just having big changes for style reasons (medusas should petrify, treasure hunter and thief should be more different) seems bad to me. Just nerfing some of the treasure hunter abilities and maybe boosting some of the thief should really be enough to make him viable.
Maybe loosen the restriction on dirty tricks and boost Lucky (permanent defense bonus would be a start) and such and nerf the starting skill of the treasure hunter and maybe sleight of hand to get them on more even footing.

I generally prefer cards to remain what they are and not have them, change too much.
It makes it just too much work to figure out the balance.

Bandits are not as strong as you thing they are : brown defense die, red power die so not good to shoot at, and needs to be adjacent to use steal. Only the master is good, and flesh moulders will always do better job when shooting or healing.

Medusas along with beastmen, razorwings, chaosbeats, goblin witchers and fire imps are monster that our group NEVER play because of all of their weakness, and we are 10 and each of us has been playing the OL at least once. I've played many times, with many players, around 3 days a week since 5 years, and I've tried many many things, and even if I can hear you arguments, I'm sorry to say that they are not what I say in play.

I've really tried to change as slowly as I could, but sometimes, it wasn't enough. And thoses tests have been played over and over and that's why I'm posting them here, not a simple idea I've come out with. Theses have been played from aroud 6 month now, and we have integrate them at our game now.

You are free to not uses this changes if you want, I'm only giving my game returns, and each player can do what it wants, even keep the changes they want. Personnaly, i'm not going to go back now.

You solicit feedback from users of this forum, and players of the game ...

Players take you up on that and provide you feedback ...

You refute everything stated, and suggest that everyone else's opinion is wrong ...

Not sure why this is even a thread.

because none of thoses returns are made from play, just from reading.

And because all of them are about bad ideas and not good one.

It takes me really many time to do this, so trying it out would be the little respect about it.

4 hours ago, rugal said:

because none of thoses returns are made from play, just from reading.

And because all of them are about bad ideas and not good one.

It takes me really many time to do this, so trying it out would be the little respect about it.

I can get how you're feeling disappointed. Most of the responses have indeed been about how the changes look bad, except for poor Grisban. You should understand though everyone is just expressing their concerns that your balance changes are worse than the originals.

It would show some respect from you if you at least listen to them and discuss the reasoning behind everything. Your responses so far come across more as if you think you're more experienced than the responders and your opinion carries more weight than theirs.

Testing your changes requires a lot of time, and many of us just do not have much to spare. It's your job to convince us why we should invest the time to try your changes, and so far I don't feel you're doing that.

I don't need to be a chef or food critic to express a concern that the cooking looks burnt.

I've explained, but most of you didn't read what I wrote.

Maybe I'm loosing my time for nothing then ... I just wanted to share my work and spend time. If I knew, I would had.

That the last time I'm doing this, I will keep next to my own use then. Sorry to bother you, guys

15 hours ago, rugal said:

Bandits are not as strong as you thing they are : brown defense die, red power die so not good to shoot at, and needs to be adjacent to use steal. Only the master is good, and flesh moulders will always do better job when shooting or healing.

Medusas along with beastmen, razorwings, chaosbeats, goblin witchers and fire imps are monster that our group NEVER play because of all of their weakness, and we are 10 and each of us has been playing the OL at least once. I've played many times, with many players, around 3 days a week since 5 years, and I've tried many many things, and even if I can hear you arguments, I'm sorry to say that they are not what I say in play.

I've really tried to change as slowly as I could, but sometimes, it wasn't enough. And thoses tests have been played over and over and that's why I'm posting them here, not a simple idea I've come out with. Theses have been played from aroud 6 month now, and we have integrate them at our game now.

You are free to not uses this changes if you want, I'm only giving my game returns, and each player can do what it wants, even keep the changes they want. Personnaly, i'm not going to go back now.

I am sorry, you are now complaining that things do not come from play?

I have used bandits, I have faced bandits, quite a lot of times and if you honestly can say that, I have to doubt if you ever did.

yellow versus red is a difference in average range of 4.67 versus 4, you have fifty percent chance to roll any range at all on yellow, it is not really that great a difference for consistent attacking. Whether it is Blue+Yellow or Blue+Red, you always try to get as close as you can afford and ranged is still always better than melee as you only gain options.

Have you ever checked the damage output of the other groups with a size of 4+1? None of them have a red power die. Most of them also are very fragile when they have ranged options (fire imps and goblins). Could you for example ever think of a scenario, where you would put something like a cavespider even on the same footing as a bandit?

I have used Medusas multiple times to great effect, especially with the enchanter deck to boost damage and thus make sure they almost always are able to immobilize. Ranged immobilize is extremely deadly unless you ave a lot of heroes who can ignore it (anyone with skills that let you move freely, like Berserker, Champion or certain heroes). And your solution is to make Medusa Minions much worse (no immobilize) while making the master too good against a lot of heroes.

Also, whether you tested this or not is a bit beside the point. I do not know your group, I cannot access any of that. I and anyone else can only go by our play experience and the pure numbers. I can easily say what would have happened with a Medusa as you made them in scenarios where they were used. I can also apply this to other cases.

And I am saying that those big changes without even a real explanation are of no great use to others. I would indeed have to playtest or extensively theorize on many of those, simply because they are so very different, that experience so far does not apply, they are for all intents and purpose closer to fan made classes than any normal fix.

And when you give the reason that you see them as "too similar" to another class, that does not really make a good case for the balancing either.

And sorry, if you say " I've explained, but most of you didn't read what I wrote. ", but your responses are something like " and it's stupid that medusaes do not do what they are intended to : petrify, but only the master do this now. ", then how exactly do you expect this to be taken?

I have explained to you why my experience indicates that your replies are insufficient, I am showing you why on average, Medusas do a fine job inflicting conditions on heroes and why the existing cards, many of which are generally strong (Dragon Bone pendant is a card that is worth taking even if you do not use enchanter), already do address the problems that can arise when heroes get better at defending.

I would rather say that you apparently do not read or address my points.

But fine, if you think that valid criticism is somehow a reason to act dismissive or insulted, it is your right to do so.

I really like the changes overall. This is my take on it:

• Grisban is clearly a straight buff - not sure if stun immunity is a good idea though
• Really like the Thief cards. They're much more thematic than the current ones, but I'd have to see them in play to get a good feel for them.
• The Berserker cards look like an improvement. Rage is definitely better worded; I'm not a fan of the base version of Execute, so I quite like this one; and I'm not sure if Death Rage is balanced with the extra health, but I like it to emphasize increased damage opportunity.
• I don't like the Spiritspeaker changes. I think being able to add dice after they've been rolled for Stoneskin is a bit too powerful, and the new Tempest completely invalidates Healing Rain in my mind - i.e. normally, when a risk of failure = 0 healing, then you've always got Healing Rain as a backup if you need it. Then again, you can't really sell skills, so maybe it's worth it. I'd like to see this tested a bit more, but I'm wary of it.
• Stalker changes are a straight upgrade. It's actually amazing that Set Trap doesn't include trapped spaces by default, so that new one is instantly better as it makes more sense in my mind. Losing traps is payment enough in my books for Upper Hand, so dropping the stamina cost seems fair in my mind, as traps can't move around anyway like other classes' dropables.
• Interesting nerf to the Treasure Hunter, but I like it. It encourages him to be the party searcher.
• Not sure about the Conjurer. If you stick a black defence die on him (such as from armour), then summon a mirror image next to you, you've got 1 black, 1 grey and 1 brown dice (thanks to Many Friends), and the mirror images can use those dice. Most heroes could then summon 2 more mirror images in a corridor on their turn and keep monsters blocked in. Although they do only have 1 hp, so maybe it's not that big of a deal, not sure though.
• I like the Necromancer changes. I like the rename to a Skeleton instead of a Reanimate too. Changing it to ranged is a nice touch too and only being able to summon it on a death of a monster is very flavourful. I like the idea to limit Army of Death to 5 spaces too, but I think I'd still keep it limited to line of sight myself.
• Love the Chaos Beast changes too, but I think I'd drop their HP to counter their increased defense die.
• I like the Medusa changes too - much more flavourful, however, I'd like to see an alternative method for escape. Maybe another hero can break you out with Knowledge or something - otherwise you could end up with a Hero of Might 1 being stuck in that spot for the entire encounter, with no hope of doing anything by rolling to see if they can play the game with their friends or not.
• Interesting change to the Beastman card - not sure if it's better or not though.
• Straight buff to the Dark Priests - Grey def dice now and Dark Chant is essentially a 5 space range Horrifying. I think I might limit this to only affecting the master monster's Dark Prayer though.
• Interesting changes to the Deep Elves too. I like the idea of them being some kind of elite monsters, so having a higher defence dice makes them now feel like elites that you want to really watch out for. However, the Act 1 Deep Elves are ranged, but act 2 ones are melee? If that's not a mistake, I think they should always be melee.
• Not sure about the Razorwings too. Stun ability on all 4 monsters with yellow attack dice? A stun locked party seems more frustrating than balanced, although I guess they could go down quite easily enough though.
• I like the Soul Shackle changes on the Shades too. I personally think it's a bit stupid to have a mechanic to suck fatigue out of heroes but it costs you life when you only have 2 hp on an act 1 minion, so I like this version a lot more. One thing I'd suggest is that multiple versions shouldn't stack, and only the highest would apply. This gives Heroes a chance to still recover fatigue from resting in a group of them, but really punishes them from doing so.
• Not sure about the Basic II card changes. The Reflective Ward changes seem very complicated and subpar. I think the base ability is fine as it is. Same with Uncontrolled Power; I think the base card is fine as is.
• I like the Infector card changes, although I'd add a clause that all tokens are lost after an encounter/quest, otherwise, you could hoard them over several encounters to crush heroes on later ones.
• I like the Trading Pains change.
• The Web Trap and Curse of the Monkey God look good - Wicked Laughter looks OP as hell though. No conditional application - just slap it on a hero and he's now at -1 attributes for the rest of the fight or until he dies. I don't think any other card has as much as power as that. It really needs a conditional application, or at least an easier way to remove it from a Hero.
• I like the Imploding Rift card - not sure about the Treacherous Shadows card though. It's already very powerful as it is - to keep being able to cast it until you gain control over heroes seems quite strong. Then again, it's only if everyone passes, so maybe it's not too bad. I'm very cautious of it though.
• I like the Warlord card changes - Reinforce makes a lot more sense now.
• Relic changes look good.
• Item changes are good too.

I think it all needs extensive playtesting, but I like it.

I think it is a good idea to start working on what the community thinks would need to be balanced or not, in form of gradual tweaks made to the existing cards, so they can carefully be tested individually for what they are. Any full re-design (brand new abilities or cards) or thematic-related changes should be kept outside of this initiative in my opinion. The former would fall into variant-type content rather than an actual patch to an existing issue. The latter is greatly subjective and you will find some trouble getting the community to back you on those. If you can get your playgroup to play by these rules then I´m happy for you, but porting them to other playgroups may prove difficult given the scope of the changes.

So, my recommendation would be for you to either keep this as a personal project solely based on your views (which is totally fine, but also requires you to disclaim it, otherwise people will call you out), which you can always display here for those who would be interested. Or, you start an initiative with a list of things you would like to address, with your own proposal as for how to fix them to start with. And it cannot be "let's redesign the whole class". Then the community jointly discusses and decides what would make sense or not out of said changes. It may be we all disagree and everything dies out after a while, but I don't think you can get anywhere without doing this as long as you seek approval from the community.

Also, I think Unknown X has made valid points, and he is also an experienced player I have had interesting discussions with in the past. I don't necessarly have the same opinions or playstyle as him, and that will always affect how people value certain cards or abilities.

As for my personal view, I don't think the cards that are lackluster in this game need fixing. I think cards that have 0% use whatsoever would need a small tweak to make them usable again. This is to enable options in this game (as opposed to dead cards) rather than increasing the power output of the ability itself. However I wouldn't touch monsters at all to be honest. You don't need to make them all equally good. You get what you get from the encounter rules, it's up to you then to make the best out of it. Open groups are a different matter. But if your motivation is for Fire Imps to see play as an open group (just taking an example), then I don't think this is a valid motive for changing them. I do wish I could consider them when selecting my open groups, but I also see this type of monster as being the "basic" kind of monster, that are just designed to be lackluster (i.e. it's the intent) as the bottom-tier of the bunch, but that you are forced to play with in certain campaigns.

Peace out.

Hey Rugal. I really like the idea, but I feel this needs to be in control equally by everyone to maximize it's usefulness. I'm sure some of your ideas could be ported to a community-driven patch where everyone has say.

15 hours ago, Dunamis55 said:

I really like the changes overall. This is my take on it:

• Grisban is clearly a straight buff - not sure if stun immunity is a good idea though
• Really like the Thief cards. They're much more thematic than the current ones, but I'd have to see them in play to get a good feel for them.
• The Berserker cards look like an improvement. Rage is definitely better worded; I'm not a fan of the base version of Execute, so I quite like this one; and I'm not sure if Death Rage is balanced with the extra health, but I like it to emphasize increased damage opportunity.
• I don't like the Spiritspeaker changes. I think being able to add dice after they've been rolled for Stoneskin is a bit too powerful, and the new Tempest completely invalidates Healing Rain in my mind - i.e. normally, when a risk of failure = 0 healing, then you've always got Healing Rain as a backup if you need it. Then again, you can't really sell skills, so maybe it's worth it. I'd like to see this tested a bit more, but I'm wary of it.
• Stalker changes are a straight upgrade. It's actually amazing that Set Trap doesn't include trapped spaces by default, so that new one is instantly better as it makes more sense in my mind. Losing traps is payment enough in my books for Upper Hand, so dropping the stamina cost seems fair in my mind, as traps can't move around anyway like other classes' dropables.
• Interesting nerf to the Treasure Hunter, but I like it. It encourages him to be the party searcher.
• Not sure about the Conjurer. If you stick a black defence die on him (such as from armour), then summon a mirror image next to you, you've got 1 black, 1 grey and 1 brown dice (thanks to Many Friends), and the mirror images can use those dice. Most heroes could then summon 2 more mirror images in a corridor on their turn and keep monsters blocked in. Although they do only have 1 hp, so maybe it's not that big of a deal, not sure though.
• I like the Necromancer changes. I like the rename to a Skeleton instead of a Reanimate too. Changing it to ranged is a nice touch too and only being able to summon it on a death of a monster is very flavourful. I like the idea to limit Army of Death to 5 spaces too, but I think I'd still keep it limited to line of sight myself.
• Love the Chaos Beast changes too, but I think I'd drop their HP to counter their increased defense die.
• I like the Medusa changes too - much more flavourful, however, I'd like to see an alternative method for escape. Maybe another hero can break you out with Knowledge or something - otherwise you could end up with a Hero of Might 1 being stuck in that spot for the entire encounter, with no hope of doing anything by rolling to see if they can play the game with their friends or not.
• Interesting change to the Beastman card - not sure if it's better or not though.
• Straight buff to the Dark Priests - Grey def dice now and Dark Chant is essentially a 5 space range Horrifying. I think I might limit this to only affecting the master monster's Dark Prayer though.
• Interesting changes to the Deep Elves too. I like the idea of them being some kind of elite monsters, so having a higher defence dice makes them now feel like elites that you want to really watch out for. However, the Act 1 Deep Elves are ranged, but act 2 ones are melee? If that's not a mistake, I think they should always be melee.
• Not sure about the Razorwings too. Stun ability on all 4 monsters with yellow attack dice? A stun locked party seems more frustrating than balanced, although I guess they could go down quite easily enough though.
• I like the Soul Shackle changes on the Shades too. I personally think it's a bit stupid to have a mechanic to suck fatigue out of heroes but it costs you life when you only have 2 hp on an act 1 minion, so I like this version a lot more. One thing I'd suggest is that multiple versions shouldn't stack, and only the highest would apply. This gives Heroes a chance to still recover fatigue from resting in a group of them, but really punishes them from doing so.
• Not sure about the Basic II card changes. The Reflective Ward changes seem very complicated and subpar. I think the base ability is fine as it is. Same with Uncontrolled Power; I think the base card is fine as is.
• I like the Infector card changes, although I'd add a clause that all tokens are lost after an encounter/quest, otherwise, you could hoard them over several encounters to crush heroes on later ones.
• I like the Trading Pains change.
• The Web Trap and Curse of the Monkey God look good - Wicked Laughter looks OP as hell though. No conditional application - just slap it on a hero and he's now at -1 attributes for the rest of the fight or until he dies. I don't think any other card has as much as power as that. It really needs a conditional application, or at least an easier way to remove it from a Hero.
• I like the Imploding Rift card - not sure about the Treacherous Shadows card though. It's already very powerful as it is - to keep being able to cast it until you gain control over heroes seems quite strong. Then again, it's only if everyone passes, so maybe it's not too bad. I'm very cautious of it though.
• I like the Warlord card changes - Reinforce makes a lot more sense now.
• Relic changes look good.
• Item changes are good too.

I think it all needs extensive playtesting, but I like it.

Thanks you so much for your return !

- Deep elves should be melee in both act.
- Reflective ward is basicaly only reworded from FAQ and I only take the the text out. No changes on it. I'm not a fan of Uncontrolled power, and maybe I'm going to not change them, since I always remove them from my deck, in fact, all deck should have cards to be removed.
- Wiked laughter is maybe too strong. Need to do some work back on it.
- For Treacherous shadow, the idea is when you have 2 or 3 heroes. They may be lucky, so you card could do nothing. Since it cost at least 6 xp to have it, having a card that could do nothing at all because of unlucky is really a pain (and the card could fail twice, because of missing the test, and after because of an X on attack)
- Need to think back about Infector cards. Maybe all the 3 cards should not be on the OL play area. Will thing it back again, and testing it more.
- Since Razorwings have no additionnal damages on their dice, I don't think they would stun the whole party on each time. I'm going to test them more soon.
- Beastman should say "surge : perform an additional attack targeting the same hero. Applies - 1 heart to this attack"
- Grisban needs at least 1 more stamina, but the more I think of it, the more I think the only condition Grisban can take off with this hero ability is stun. So, giving him the ability to not be "stunnable" would fit him well. On top of this, since ispher is immune to poison and logan to immobilize, Grisban could be to stun, and a hero could be to disease, but I don't see who for the last one.
- During my test, Medusae haven't been able to make a hero skip more than 1 turn, since it only work once for each attack, and the master never stay on the ground many time. But i'm going to think of it.
- Death rage has + 2 health because of two things : the beastmaster could have +6 health (more than the berserker, strange), and because the more health the beserker has, the more this skill will be.
- Base thief's card should be change, tough. Having 3 accessories is cool, but unequiping it to add +1 is a bit strange when playing. I will have to work more on this one.
- Dark chant is not horrifiying, since it only work on the dark priest ability, where horrifying works for all. But since the master should not be on melee to activate his ability (the dragon does this better), i tought of this.
-

More changes soon with my returns.

I'm going back on conjurer and spiritspeaker then.

But for Bandits, i'm not according to you : the math in descent does not makes it all. Indeed, they are the only 5 monster group to roll blue + red, but Goblin have range bonus on surge and fire imps have 2 masters. I'm sure that Bandits should be melee for minor and range for master, but could not be because of the card. Let me think of it.

I've tried medusaes multiple times, and I never was able to inflict a condition and they never survived more than 1 turn ...

I don't have time now, but I will explain my ideas, playtesting returns, and all the reasons I come to this on next days with the best explanation I have.

18 hours ago, rugal said:

But for Bandits, i'm not according to you : the math in descent does not makes it all. Indeed, they are the only 5 monster group to roll blue + red, but Goblin have range bonus on surge and fire imps have 2 masters. I'm sure that Bandits should be melee for minor and range for master, but could not be because of the card. Let me think of it.

I've tried medusaes multiple times, and I never was able to inflict a condition and they never survived more than 1 turn ...

I don't have time now, but I will explain my ideas, playtesting returns, and all the reasons I come to this on next days with the best explanation I have.

The thing is, long range ranged attacks are not that much of a factor in many Descent games.
Yes, Goblins have surges for range, but those are surges they will not be spending on damage.
Most importantly, none of the big groups (Zombies and cave spiders as well as Shades) do blue and red either. So even if you value range very highly, Bandits still overshadow the other monsters in their "class".
More importantly, Bandits have an extremely powerful combo by using the master first to doom a hero and then have all minions attack him. This also makes it much easier to use Pillage. They are extremely powerful just on their own.

And the math in Descent DOES make it. See, you can have wild swings of luck. You might have monsters constantly dealing low damage or some other times heroes rolling very highly. When it comes to damage, math trumps playtesting to a degree, because unless you do a high number of repetitions, playtesting for such things as damage or survivability are not necessarily representative.

I have had shadow dragons or giants last through multiple turns while decimating the heroes, I also have seen both fall in one turn. And luck has played quite a role in that. So you have to look at the actual math to judge this, a few lucky or unlucky runs of the game do not make a solid case.

I can show you that Medusas, unless facing heroes who are clearly above average in defense, consistently are able to inflict conditons. They have a 70% chance on a non-miss to roll a surge and against a grey die would do 1,43 damage on average and a chance of 75.56% to at least do one damage. So without any effort to boost it, you have a pretty good chance to immobilize (or in the case of the master stun) a hero, which will potentially leave him unable to do anything useful (including attacking the medusa, if it is a melee hero who does not, yet, have a skill to negate the restrictions of immobilize).

I have seen this play out in game. Yes, certain parties will counter this with higher defense or good defense boosts that can be used when needed, but any monster can be countered.

Big monsters with high defense get demolished by weapons with pierce, reanimates and other swarm monsters can be decimated with blast, heroes with high attributes can make certain conditions less useful, etc.

But balance must be based on the overall range of opponents.

Plus, what does it solve in the end, when Medusas turn from primary condition inflicters to mostly damage dealers with the exception of the master?