I'm interested in playing this game fully (with expansions like "Road to legend") but I wonder if this game's any good for only 2 playes (overlord + 1 player)?

I play the game with my 6 year old, so it's definately different than playing with an adult. It's very difficult for one person to keep decent track of every character's wounds, fatigue, skills, and whatnot. So the overlord needs to help in that regard. The heroes are operating at a disadvantage mentally. But it still can be lots of fun, even with a child that runs off to go chase the cat.

I've played a few dungeons with just two people before and we didn't have any problems. It's definately more fun w/ more, and I think the heroes are better off when there is more then one mind driving them, but overall, I would rather play with just two people then not play at all.

I have ONLY played with 2 players. We have had a very good experience, but would love to play with more people.

We have found that the game is more exciting if there are 3 or even 4 heroes rather than just 2. I can't imagine winning some of those tough quests with just 2 heroes.

I've not tried a 2 player RtL campaign yet, but we plan to soon.

I've tries RtL with 2 players (1 hero, 1 OL) and it moved very slow. The problem is that the hero can't plan moves for all 4 heroes simultaneously. It becomes more of a chess match and I hate chess. Regular Descent is actually pretty fun with two players, although the more players the merrier.

I play almost entirely RtL with only two players. We each have a (full set) copy and at my place I'm the OL (and can set up the game in advance) and at his place he is the OL (ditto). The game does play a little slower (assuming you have a competent and fast group normally that is) but as a tactical game it is much better IMO with just two. Socially of course, 5 is usually more fun.

Neither of us have any difficulty whatsoever in keeping track of the different heroes - with one exception.

One night I forgot Weapon Mastery on Corbin for the entire night (the card slipped under another when I was laying them out and it was over two months since we had last played at his place) which cost me immensely (in just one example I would have killed a Silver level master in early Bronze campaign 3 turns earlier (there were 3/3 Xs in the following two turns turn when he was down to 1 life). However I was pretty sick that night anyway so it was not just having to keep track of too much that caused it.

Larger groups are difficult to keep a campaign going with. Someone always gets disillusioned with how the heroes are doing in bronze and stops making an effort to be available.

I've never played basic Descent with less than 5 players though.

In my opinion, the biggest disadvantage to one player controling more than 1 character is that all of the heroes ideas come from the same pool. I would see the game moving faster if there was a collective mind doing all of the ordering. In the players mind all of the actions would be leading to the same goal. The player(s) would have to limit their excuses to bad die rolls rather than blaming the other players for talking them into trying that bad idea...

I play RTL with just two players. It's much easier to organize a regular session when you only have to worry about 2 schedules!
I'd love to play with more, but (at least with the guys I know) I could see the campaign lasting beyond my (real world) death.

TK

Thank you for all your replies! It might help me decide about buying this game

I would not wait to buy this game. I bet if you bought it and sat there with it in your local game store, you will end up with someone that plays willing to run it and an instant game group would form.

Me and my friend also wondered about this, but the box does say 2-5 players, so we went ahead and picked it up. We only ever play anything with 2 players, so games like TI3 are out for us (too bad too, as I really want to try that one).

In any case, it can be played with only 2 people and I dont imagine there is much difference. The instructions say that 2 players should use 2 heroes and up from there each player only runs one hero each.

What I find wierd, is that some scenarios, 2 heroes is just enough to give it the right amount of difficulty, but there are other scenarios where 2 heroes is just impossible. We are toying with the idea of running 4 heroes instead and wondered if this would unbalance the game? Should we stay with 2 or go with 4?

the balance for different number of heroes is completely non functionnal. With RAW, it is much easier to win with 4 heroes than with 2.

Almost all expansion levels are only doable with 4 heroes, and probably most of the second half of Vanilla Descent:

This is because the only thing that changes in the monster stats is their HP pool, but it is largely a non issue as most heroes can one shot the most common ones, even with their 5 players stats. So the heroes get a largely inefficient boost but lose 50% of their firepower and anti spawning capabilities.

It's better to give 4 heroes to the hero player in a 2 player games IMO (and 2 to each player in a 3 player one).

My suggestion is just to try it out. If you have 2 players (one OL and one for the heroes), then pick a quest and play it with 3 or 4 heroes.

3 well-played heroes should be able to handle most vanilla Descent quests. If you find it too difficult, try it with 4 heroes.

So far we have played Vanilla scene 1-3. I was able to win scene 1&3 but scene 2 just seems pretty hard with only 2 heroes. I wish to avoid making a desicion to switch to 3 or 4 heroes if the rest of the scenes shall be winnable but tough with only 2 heroes. I dont want it to be too easy, but the point is taken about the scalability. My only concern is that while monsters may be a bit tougher, there are not more added when playiing with more heroes. A room with 4 monsters can be wiped out in one turn with 4 heroes, while 2 heroes might have to take more rounds.

I have so far pla yed onl y with two plavers, and it's worked out fine. We've been useing four PC's mostel y, but we started with three, then moved up when the first dungeon was too much of a handful.We just started the RtL expansion, and it's been plenty of fun so far

One thing to consider though, is it's a lot more of a one on one tactics game with only the two players. Thats fine and quite fun, but it's a little different then I imagine three or more players would be.