Hi,

a couple of weeks ago i discovers that for Descent 2. Edition there is finally a way to play solo/coop without an overlord using the RtL App. So i ordered the base box and Lair of the Wyrm extension. To learn the rules and get accustomed to the gameplay, i decided to play only a two hero group. My group consists of Reynhart (Champion) and Aldric (Disciplin). That way i wanted to avoid getting overwhelmed by to many (class-)rules at once and to long game sessions. In great excitment i started to play.

But now with the tutorial played 3 times, 2 side quests of Rise of all Goblins, two times the final Goblin quest and the starting and first side quest of Kindrek. Out of those 9 games i could only win 2. And i could only win those two, cause i acutually already knew what was coming pared with dice luck on part of the heros. The other 7 matches where losses.

As the first losses pilled up, i reread to ensure i didn't have anything important missed in the rules. No it wasn't. I used the two hero free attack rule from the start and there where no other issues. I also didn't only slay monsterns, i went after the objectives quick and straight.

But nevertheless winning seems only possible with a lot of dice luck on the heroes.

In the last two matches (Kindrek) i payed a good deal of attention to which mechanics acutually put me on the losing side. And here are the points i identified:

1. Perils: Even when losing no time to go after the objectives, they come up. In some cases - especially with group spwan ingnoring group sizes - for two heros it is simply impossible to get close to the objection before any peril comes up. Other part is peril scaling. For two heroes there pretty quick comes the point where peril effects simply cannot be overcome.

2. Monster special effects: For ranged monsters lots of range effects that turn into pierce and make armor - especially for just starting heros without much equipment - virtually useless. Not to mention all +dmg effects which make even a Act I Minion Flesh Molder attack something that cripples 1/3 to 1/2 of a heroes health in just one attack, or turns a master ettin attack into something able to oneshot a hero. I see where those specials have their place once the heros get more skills and equipment.

3. Refreshing monster skills: Often the quests give the monsters lots of HP req, especially to uniques or the scene boss. This often leads to a "one opportunity chance only" for the heroes. If they miss this single all out effort, its done. The ongoing rounds are then just delaying the inevitable loss.

4. Quest mechanics that prevent heroes from shutting down reinforcements or block them from objectives. This is very nesty, often monsterns totally block the way or make in necessary to spent so many movement point to get close to an objective, that two heros simply run out of actions. Remember in those situations they also have to deal with incoming damage, effect cards and everything else. So objective is just out of reach.

Overall I am really discouraged by the game and just prior to putting it away.

So i want to ask here, is RtL intended to be such an experience? Or do i have to know a special class combination that makes easier.

My current feedback to the designers would be, that RtL is currently setup so that is discourages the heros. Its no fun. Especially as a new play i neither should need to get here and ask for gameplay aids to enjoy the game or be forced to play with a certain number of heros and/or classes/class combinations.

Those are unnecessary obstacles and more importantly - for a company intended on selling a product - strongly keeping new players from investing more money.

Hi - I'm sorry you're having a rough time with RTL...

You've got a good combo of characters there for a two character campaign ... just a couple of questions -

You mention you used the two hero free attack rule, were you also making sure that if you didn't use the attack you were healing?

One thing that a lot of people miss is that Monsters can only attack once unless otherwise stated - this makes a massive difference (it was something I missed when I first played).

Another thing to check is that monsters are only using remaining movement points to retreat unless the App gives them a move action.

Hi Maxam,

to answer your questions:

Yes i used the healing if i didn't use up my free attack. Also - beside where RtL informed me about a special quirk - i only attacked once with monsters and only spend movement points remaining if they retreated.

I just have the feeling, that the points mentioned in my opening post, just add up in a way that 2 heroes have to rely on to many things go right to have sucess and any miss/failure puts success out of reach.

If just one point would be towned down or changed, the chances to succeed would be much better. Take the perils i.e. if they just where delayed by 1-2 or rounds and their scaling a little less aggressive. They would still have forced my 2 hero group to press for the objective and don't waste time. But as i experienced them now, i felt punished for no reason.

Just begann to play the second storylinequest in Kindrek broke off in round 2 as Reynhart was already Koed. Again the situation of spawns ignoring group limits combined with monster specials rendering hero armor worthless. The goblin archer group almost one shooted Reynhart in the first round and finished him in the 2nd. And no i did not roll particularly well for the goblins.

I should also note that i am playing on "normal" difficulty. If i tried "hard" mode i could have accepted the challenges presented, but for "normal" the things raining down and clobbering the "heros" are just to much.

There are two more things i noticed about RtL:

1. Regarding the tutorial quest. In a 2 player team, if you follow the orders of the App, you will have to open the door with the hero that was koed at the beginning, as the other hero ended his turn after reviving his fallen comrade. So he he moves, opens the door and than - if you rolled really well - you have a hero with 6 HP left facing the attack of the first monster group. High chance of the 2nd KO. This is a structural flaw i think. With 3 or 4 players you will always have a fresh hero be able to open the door.

2. The alternating turn between monsters and heros in RtL seem to favour the monsters more than the players. I noticed quite a couple of instances where the turn order from the normal game would have lead to a much more favorable course for my 2 heros. But the alternating turn, gave the monsters the advantage.

in RtL the "If X happens....than the heros can win." chain is simply to long and it just needs to few ifs to go against the 2 hero team to make success impossible, as it stands now this chain looks like this:

If the right heros are chosen

and

if i know the quest

and

if they have dice luck

and

if they have luck drawing equipment in town

and

if they win the quest prior to the quest they are about to beginn

and

if they are lucky with the monster activations

and

if they are lucky with the perils coming up

than they have a chance of success.

If just one or two of those "if" are not fullfilled a 2 hero team stands no reasonable chance to succeed in any way. That one of the "if" is to know the quest/scenario, is especially nasty, as this means for any new quest the chances of success are extremely questionable. And that in an APP that doesn't allow to replay quests, but steadily advances. Very discouraging.

I am glad i only bought basebox and one extension, althought i had intended to buy a lot more stuff.

I cannot recommend RtL to anyone intending to play with 2 heros. The App just seems to be badly balanced for this type of play. Its really sad, as the setting of Descent itself and the game material overall is of such high quality, but this is of no use if gameplay is such a miserable experience.

Ok, if I remember correctly, for that quest you have Splig, and goblin archers that all stay in their initial spots, but ignore black borders when counting line of sight. First turn, you need to get your weakest hero as far away from the goblins as you can. Then work your way back slowly making sure you are out of range of most of the goblins, and making sure your most capable hero closest (also iirc you want to make sure there is a decent distance between your heroes).

Also, don't worry about winning every encounter. Heroes fail, you want to make the most out of each quest, minimize the moral lost (even if its a loss, you can surrender early and do another quest). RTL is basically a rogue like, you need to make the best usage of the time and resources you are given, and then put that to work in the finale.

A friend and I have been playing RtL with 2 heroes and we are not having nearly as many problems as you are. We beat the Splig campaign and are now in Act II of the Merrick Farrow themed one. One thing is that I've played a lot of Descent-been playing since the original 1e box. My friend complains that I push us too hard, but usually we are just beginning to see Peril effects as we beat scenarios. We have had to retreat from a couple side quests without getting the best rewards but we have yet to fail a story quest.

Here's the main key to Descent: The game is a race. It's the monsters' job to delay you, to make you waste time, to force you to stop and rest and heal and kill them. But while you're doing all of that the objective remains unfulfilled. You ideally just want to kill enough monsters so you can somewhat safely move on. Don't try to clear the map before opening each door, and be aware that you can often outrun slow monsters(2-3 speed). When a boss monster appears, focus fire on it and often you can take it down before its minions. Sometimes that wins you the scenario right away while 8-10 other monsters are sitting there on the board.

Ignore Search tokens in general. With 2 heroes you just don't have the actions to search all the time. They give a trivial amount of money and the potions can be useful but you can often do better just resting.

Spend fatigue to move. Fatigue moving can let you take 3 attacks per hero in those turns where you really need them.

Try a pet class. Monsters treat your reanimate, stone, or wolf as a hero so it can suck up a lot of attacks for you.

Hopefully some of this helps. Remember, at its core this game is about speedily accomplishing objectives.

23 hours ago, Silidus said:

Ok, if I remember correctly, for that quest you have Splig, and goblin archers that all stay in their initial spots, but ignore black borders when counting line of sight. First turn, you need to get your weakest hero as far away from the goblins as you can. Then work your way back slowly making sure you are out of range of most of the goblins, and making sure your most capable hero closest (also iirc you want to make sure there is a decent distance between your heroes).

No Splig in the 2nd Kindrek storyline quest for me. I had a spawn of a group of Globlin Archers plus a Merriods both ingnoring group limits. Task was to get to the entrance the goblins cover. So i had to fight, but Reynhart basicly got steamrolled by 5 goblin archers rolling attacks with increased range, normally resulting in 1 pierce for every attack.

Quote

The game is a race. It's the monsters' job to delay you, to make you waste time, to force you to stop and rest and heal and kill them.

I know that and - beside surrendering early and saving moral - i engaged every quest as you described. Go hard for objectives, ignore monsters where possible, skip search tokens and and explore and open doors quickly use fatique to move even quicker.

Nevertheless i get perils all the time. Actually not clearing the map before opening doors killed me in Kindreks 1st quests.

As i am not easy to give up, i yesterday started Kindrek again. This time i could win the 1st quest, but only because i excatly knew what i was up against and had a complete strategy at hand, before even opening the app. With this knowledge and dice luck i won. But it felt strange, almost as cheating. Its not my understanding how you should win a coop dungeon crawler, by knowing everything in advance.

I than went on to a side quest rescueing spiders. Which i also won. Although this time not by knowing what lay ahead of me, but by incredible dice lug. The spiders defending their eggs sacs missed every attack, but one. While on the other side i missed almost no attack and almost every attack oneshoted a monster. Additionaly this time, when i entered the city prior to the quest, i had luck with the equipment available. So Reynhart had additional defensive dice and Aldric with the great iron axe paired with lots of valor tokens he got from Reynhart was a brutal damage dealer. But even in this quest, without a round wasted and an impressive progression to the the dice luck, i ran into perils. Which - again to lucky dice - didn't bother me. It didn't feel like i had beaten the encounter, but pure luck had beaten it. Again something i find rather odd for a coop game.

I also noticed that the differences in rewards between winning and loosing a quest is not so great. But his more adds to the questions, why RtL seems to make it so hard for the heros to win. If win/loss does not really differ in rewards, why not make the heros feel actually hero like?

Maybe thats me having different expectation from a coop dungeon crawler. From such a game i expect to have fun, explore a map, be faced with challenges not known to me and be able to beat them. With RtL this is simply not the case.

Looking at my current score i have done 12 quests/game and could only win 4. From those 4 wins, 3 required me to know the encounter plus some solid dice luck.

Again i would like to add, that i would not have problems with all of this, if i played in hard mode. But the odds i so far experienced keep me from even thinking of touching hard mode ever.

Now I wonder if there's something else going on then, like maybe you're misinterpreting a rule? It really shouldn't be that hard if you're playing as described. It should be easy to one shot monsters, for example. Those cave spiders only have 3 health. We actually thought the egg one was a bit tough because of all the actions required to grab eggs and dump them.

I am pretty sure i have no major rule issue.

I pay extra attention to the extra attack/health my 2 hero group gets. I don't hoard valor tokens, i use them to bolster both attack and defense.

I take care each monster only attacks once (beside where RtL says monster has an additional attack) and uses only two actions.

From my experience it is also not one single big thing that makes it so hard for me. But the multiple things i named here build up to something my heros can't overcome/mitigate.

i.e. in that second Kindrek Storyline quest, it was not that the Goblin group ignored group limits that killed Reynhart, but the combination of this with the specials those Goblins got during their activation.

Or a side quest where i had to close dark doors spitting out creatures. I lost the final encounter cause Perils combined with monster health regeneration, one monster group ignoring group limits and activation mechanics that blocked any passage for the heros to those doors from which the monsters spawned that reggenerated the quest boss.

One thing to remember is never underestimate the damage potential of goblin archers.

There are a few particularly nasty goblin archer action cards that can ruin your day, but their power comes from their numbers. Make it a priority to take out a few goblins from a group as early as possible.

I replayed the 2nd story quest and an additional sidequest. Won both this time.

Interesting was, that beside the opening scene against the goblin archers both quest were quit easy. From what i see, the main differences to my prior gameplay is that i had luck buying the 2h iron axe for Aldric and basically go full DPS, as one would say in an MMO with him now. I use Reynhart to kill the trash and so Aldric has lots of valor tokens on him. With them and the pierce stat and ability of the axe aldric than goes for strong master minions, uniques and scene bosses and really hits them hard.

Atleast the gameplay is now encouraging and i look forward to the next quests.

On 2017-4-5 at 6:00 AM, Ryric said:

Spend fatigue to move. Fatigue moving can let you take 3 attacks per hero in those turns where you really need them.

How does this work? Surely moving is a move action regardless, which chews one action, leaving another action to attack & your free 2P attack. You can extend a move with fatigue, but how do you turn it into essentially a free move?
Or is this a character specific thing that I'm missing?

1 hour ago, PHRAETUS said:

How does this work? Surely moving is a move action regardless, which chews one action, leaving another action to attack & your free 2P attack. You can extend a move with fatigue, but how do you turn it into essentially a free move?
Or is this a character specific thing that I'm missing?

Moving using fatigue does not count as a move action, and can be done at any interruptible part of your turn.

Wow, that's a bit of a game changer!