A New Law (i.e. WTF???)

By James McMurray, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

We played our first session of Sea of Blood this weekend, and the overlord upgrades are definitely beefed up compared to Road to Legend. The one that's been played so far is called A New Law. It doubles the costs of cannons and weapons, and closes all of the alchemists. yipe!

It's the closure of Alchemists that's the nasty part of that one. One option might be that any Treasure Cache / Potions which would normally indicate no sale instead sell that variety of potion.

Doubling the cost of weapons is nasty too, as it basically means we won't be buying any weapon treasures that pop up in the market (unless they're incredibly nice).

I doubt we'll be changing anything about it,I was just amazed at how powerful it was compared to the sorts of things that the overlord got at copper level in RtL.

Jake yet again said:

It's the closure of Alchemists that's the nasty part of that one. One option might be that any Treasure Cache / Potions which would normally indicate no sale instead sell that variety of potion.

A very good skill for your runner/Thorn/Astarra is Alchemist which is trainable at your starting hometown in SoB. Theoretically it should lessen the penalty of no purchasing potions.

Yep, that's first (or close to first) in our plans for the future. :)

Tepes said:

A very good skill for your runner/Thorn/Astarra is Alchemist which is trainable at your starting hometown in SoB. Theoretically it should lessen the penalty of no purchasing potions.

Out of curiosity, is that in any way similar to the Alchemy skill I created for Enduring Evil?

Alchemy: You cannot drink potions. Exhaust and spend 1 fatigue during your turn to gain the benefits of drinking a potion of a type of your choice.

Antistone said:

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Out of curiosity, is that in any way similar to the Alchemy skill I created for Enduring Evil?

Alchemy: You cannot drink potions. Exhaust and spend 1 fatigue during your turn to gain the benefits of drinking a potion of a type of your choice.

No, it's not that similar other than the fact they both circumvent buying potions.

"Alchemist" skill allows the character to receive three potions of his or her choice every time they activate an inactive glyph.

It was introduced in SoB with many other skills that care about the character activating glyphs. Although some of them are cool, the skills are not popular in my group as two party members competing to touch an inactive glyph, or holding off on activating a glyph because a slower member wants to use his skill are both not good for the party.

That being said Thorn currently has it in my RtL game and it is rediculously good. Normally healing potions are frowned upon in my group but the heroes are just drinking their free potions whenever they have extra movement points and it is making them very hard for me to kill.

The skills are ok for the most part. Only a few of them are really good without some sort of combination, because it's usually a runner activating glyphs so anything combat-oriented that triggers on glyph activation will usually be wasted. It'd be cool to see a strong attack character with the one that heals and some of the marks so they have something to spend their health on. But even that's debatable as to whether it's a smart move or not, since you'd need an offensive runner (probably magic) to keep up your speed in the dungeons and still benefit from the combo.

Runewitch Asarra with her 5 speed, 3 magic dice, 5 fatigue, and special ability could do some really scary things in Sea of Blood. With the mark that gives extra magic attacks and the one that gives free surges on attacks she could have 3 attacks just before she activates a glyph, with 8 extra surges to spread amongst them, then heal back the damage she dealt to herself. With Captain she could couple that with Dodge, Rest, or Aim orders for everybody.

Maybe we'll play another Sea of Blood campaign after this and start at a higher tier so I can get lucky and draw the combo from the start. :)