First I want to say I love the game, have dropped a couple of hundred bucks on it and it's worth every penny. Unfortunately no one in my group has ever played and so aside from 5 base adventures, we have zero Descent experience. And in 4 of those adventures, the heroes were savagely butchered, once in the very first room (there were 2 players plagued by misses, destroyed by a couple of beastman spawns in a low-visibility room).

I've read the rulebook four or five times and I'm still baffled on a dozen or so SoB issues. Any help or opinions are appreciated!

Water-encounter questions:

1. The heroes had a sea encounter, but have no idea how to board the enemy ship, and the configuration wasn't used in any of the book's examples. The diagonal on the front of the hero ship interconnected with the diagonal on the front of the beastman ship. Because the ships are more or less adjacent, can they just travel freely between them, or do the railings and 1/2 water spaces interfere somehow? (nobody has leap or fly)

2. When the two ships touched, the book is very clear that front to side= ramming. Front to front diagonals (not head-on) is not addressed. So, who is ramming whom? When the ships are interlocked, is there any way to back up? Would it be useful to do so? Can the beastmen ram if they are already adjacent to (ie, touching) the Revenge, or is ramming only for ships that weren't already touching? When tides or winds move a ship into an unmoving (anchored) ship, is that considered a ram attack?

3. How does one go from the water onto a ship? Is it different for friendly vs enemy ships? I'm good with the swimming rules, but the "getting out of the water" rules have eluded me.

4. The rulebooks seems to indicate that the ropes can only allow a character to swing directly perpendicular to the ship's facing without moving diagonally or otherwise. Is this so?

5. The rules seem contradictory on what to do about killing an enemy master indirectly. Someone on the forums indicated that gold was acquired for sinking an enemy master's ship, but elsewhere I've seen it said that if a master dies indirectly (by falling into a pit, for example), that no "killing blow" was landed and no gold is awarded. Is the ship-shooter the "killing blow" deliverer, or does the party just get a typical "encounter defeated" treasure roll.

6. Is there any conquest available at all in encounters?

7. Do ships start with sails up or down?

Campaign questions

8. When a hero does activate a glyph, that seems to give 3xp to each hero. In a five player game, does that mean that the total conquest is now at 3 or 12 for determining copper/silver/gold/endgame point values? (if 12, it seems like it would be impossible for the OL to win, my heroes would be winning 28 to 3 right now...)

9. The rules seem to indicate there is a number on each rumor card corresponding to a map in the rulebook. None of my rumor cards have numbers, making it a pain to look up the dungeon location in the book. Is this a printing error, or have I just been drinking too heavily?

10. Is there a YouTube video with a real-time game of Descent (especially SoB!) where we can watch people play to learn the rules? Especially if there's someone playing who is explaining what's happening in game. If FFG doesn't have people on staff who could do this, they really need to invest the 10 hours or so to do it. It'd be great advertising and it would make the hundreds of pages of rules seem more approachable to new players.

One note

We use an apple iTouch/iPhone app called party timer and give each player randomly 1min to 1min 30 seconds to play his/her turn. The OL gets two full turns of time to do all his stuff. This moves the game along, takes out all the "perfectionistic micromanaging" and actually evens things out because both players and OL are in the same boat. I can't imagine playing a campaign without it. Even as is, the game looks like it will take 30-40 hours or so to complete, and even with 6 hour sessions weekly, that is a BIG investment.

Thanks in advance!

librarycharlie said:

1 & 2. I'll skip because I haven't played SoB yet and don't want to misspeak.

3. I believe you pretty much just move onto the ship paying the normal movement cost plus the cost for the railing if needed.

4. I haven't play SoB yet, but the rules do seem to indicate that you must swing perpendicular to the ship's facing.

5. The indirect killing blow is for effects like Divine Retribution and Black Curse. There must be a killing blow for effect like those to trigger. The party still gets the gold and conquest if a level/encounter leader dies by indirect means.

6. The heroes get 2 CP for killing the encounter leader (SoB Rules, page 17: Leader Death ), 4 if they kill a Lieutenant (page 18: Encounters Involving Lieutenants , very last paragraph in section). And of course, the OL gets CP by killing heroes.

7. Raised. See SoB Rules, page 17, Ship Setup and Ambushes .

8. Remember, heroes earn CONQUEST points for actions. For each CONQUEST point any hero earns, each hero in the party gains one EXPERIENCE point. So for the glyph example, the hero flips the glyph and gains 3 CONQUEST points for the party and campaign but each hero gets 3 EXPERIENCE points. The campaign level is based on total CONQUEST points earned, not EXPERIENCE points.

10. No YouTube training video that I know of.

Well, we're getting most things right at least. Thanks very much!

If anyone has thoughts on 1,2, or 9, (or anything else), I appreciate it.

For number 1 yes you could move between the ships. But you must pay 1 extra MP to cross the railing onto the enemy ship (but not to cross the railing to LEAVE your own ship).

For number 2 no there is no way to back up from that, and no I don't think it'd be useful. If a ship is anchored and another ship hits it, it is still a ram attack, the anchored ship is considered to have 1 raised sail. As for your example of them interlocking diagonally, I'm not sure. I don't think either ship would be ramming in this case though I could be wrong. Ships are supposed to move simultaneously at the end of each round, thus, just start scooting each ship forward 1 space at a time until they run out of movement. If another ship still has movement left and contacts the other one, it has rammed it. Otherwise I'm not really sure what you do. Probably I would just scoot both ships in the directions they are traveling as per normal rules for a non-sideways ram.

librarycharlie said:

i would say, move the ship in order of the initiative

page17, SoB rulebook
Initiative
If the encounter is not an ambush, the heroes take their turn
first during the encounter. If the encounter is an ambush, the
overlord takes his turn first

so, move the ship with the initative first, then the other.

and yes, i would say, when ship are moved through tides or wind, this is a ram attack, same initiative order as above.

p.s.: i hate formatting text in this forum....

1. You can use the rope to jump, read the rules there

2. You cannot ram ships if the boats are parallel , only if the Overlord managed to ambush the encounter, then the ships may be perpendicular.

3. There are no rules for entering the ships is just like land, leaving the water does not affect anything. Every rule is for entering the next space, with the exception of pit that cost you 2 moves to get out.

4. YES

5. no, no , The reward is for "party victory", doesn't matter if you didn't killed him personaly or even if he flees it is still "party victory"

6. Only for killing master monster

7. In encounter they raised and in islands they are down

8. The experience is for the party so you only get 3 CT which means every heroe has +3 exp to spend , but the total is still 3

9. Rumors have names not numbers check the name in the book and you'll find the, rumors are quests just like in original descent , with areas to discover and are pretty hard.

10. Don't know