Has anyone tried this? I haven't picked up SoB yet since I was house ruling RtL with the main SoB changes and didn't feel I needed a second campaign setting. Some of the discussion I have come across about the cards though seems to be that they are generally a bit more balanced. What are your thoughts?
Using SoB skills in RtL / Vanilla
Essentially, I have been using the SoB rules with no problems. I have even included the treasure maps and treasures (They get them immediately apon getting all 4 pieces)
I especially like the change to Bosses (Adding their extra health again per campaign level)
I also include all the additional skills (I just add them to certain cities)
All in all it has been pretty balanced Vs someone who knows the game really well and is pretty smart. I'll admit, vs a new team of heroes, this would be a very difficult addition to RtL, so I guess you should take that into consideration.
ProtoPersona said:
Has anyone tried this? I haven't picked up SoB yet since I was house ruling RtL with the main SoB changes and didn't feel I needed a second campaign setting. Some of the discussion I have come across about the cards though seems to be that they are generally a bit more balanced. What are your thoughts?
They probably are a bit more balanced - mostly. The worst excesses and combo's of RtL have been removed (Rapid Fire with mass fatigue, Knight + Immovable, Swift, Skilled, Leadership - not to mention Telekinesis and Bear Tattoo).
However there are a few (very few really) that aren't compatible - Alex the Wise, Shark Tattoo and Gunner.
There are also some really powerful new skills - at least as powerful as those gone.
Koll's Mark and/or Saj's Mark can really make mages into death machines. That's a good thing in bronze, but a really, really bad thing in silver/gold where they already tend to be too powerful - at least melee heroes have to get up close and have fewer mass killing options.
Runner is an incredible skill likely to be much overlooked. Being able to run and still attack makes your runner (or even tank) much, much more powerful - he/she can now run full distance, including fatigue expenditure, while being able to knockback (shop hammer) monsters off chests or glyphs.
The new ranged skills are very powerful and can really combo nastily. Keen Sight and Dead Eye, ouch! (especially Keen sight with Rangers or Mages - +1 range and damage and no shadowcloak! Can you say AOE weapons in outdoor encounters?) Think of a hero like Bogran with Keen Sight, Precision, Dead Eye and Inner Fire - shoot through an obstruction, ignoring shadowcloak (trees), with +3 range and +6 damage and no dodging!
Basically Ranged and magic users got lots of boosts. Melee heroes not so much (well, none really - they lost a lot more options than they gained).
However runners now want combat skills with Runner, Enduring, Ox Tattoo, Tiger Tattoo, Nimble and even Captain or Die Hard as good runner skills compared to Burglar, and Spry (and to a lesser extent Trickster and Lightfinger) from Rogue skills and Alchemist and Wind Pact from wizardry.
If you'll pardon the tangential post, I've just noticed that SoB skill descriptions are now posted on descentinthedark.com, so I'm seeing a bunch of them for the first time (though Ran's Mark and Saj's Mark have the same text; presumably a copy-paste error). On a cursory reading, I'm really underwhelmed by this skill set. A couple of them look fairly interesting (I could see Counterattack give rise to some interesting tactics, for example, though I'm not sure I'd choose it over other skills), but a lot of them look fundamentally boring and/or wildly unbalanced (even ignoring the "refreshes when you (and only you) activate a glyph" mechanic, which I loathe on general principle).
Now keep in mind I haven't played extended campaigns, but if you were seriously considering buying SoB just to get the skills, this is probably mostly relevant...
Alchemist: You get some free shop items (specifically: potions). Not enough to match the theoretical cost of a skill in a vanilla game, and you get them in large batches that seem likely to generate backpack space problems.
Dead Eye: The design strategy here is apparently to take existing attack-type-specific skills and copy them for other attack types, but with minor modifications to attempt to compensate for not actually balancing attack types in the first place.
Defender: You can use your shield on behalf of an adjacent hero, and give adjacent heroes +1 armor while you have a guard order. Those don't sound worth a skill (given how easy it is to lose a guard order if you don't use it right away), even if standing adjacent to other heroes was something you would normally do in combat, which it isn't. I guess you could stand behind two heroes blocking a corridor, if giving them +1 armor and the shields in your hand slots is seriously worth giving up your own opportunity to actually attack something (not to mention a skill slot). They could've at least made it work with a dodge order, which would be weak, but at least it would actually matter.
Hand of Death: WTF? When you could attack, you can instead kill one normal, unnamed monster...which you can probably do with an attack anyway (in fact, a mage in an extended campaign would probably do better than that with an AoE weapon, right?). Except this way, the monster must be adjacent, you've got higher miss chance than normal (1/3), you take damage if you miss, and it's got that asinine glyph refresh so you can hardly ever use it (not that you'd want to use it often). And it isn't even worded clearly enough to know how it interacts with Undying , probably on the philosophy that normal monsters don't have Undying and you could never possibly run into a dungeon with special rules giving it to normal monsters, right? This looks very much as if it would suck even if it were free to use, instead of being substituted for an attack. Does SoB routinely make you fight normal, unnamed monsters that would typically take 5 hits to kill or something?
Keen Sight: See Dead Eye, except not actually a different attack type. I guess it might be important with trees all over the place (though presumably you could compensate by standing behind the tree instead of in it), but I wouldn't try importing it to a vanilla game.
Koll's Mark: Clearly they think that fatigue is much more valuable than health, since apart from paying the cost in health instead of fatigue, this is a huge upgrade over Quick Casting, already a very respectable skill. And since health isn't also used to allow you to move, it would increase your nova potential more than Quick Casting even if it were otherwise identical.
Mage Cloak: +1 armor per rune equipped, max 3. So, almost a guaranteed +1 armor for mages (if your weapon isn't a rune, you can upgrade to chainmail anyway), which makes all the "+1 armor vs. one type of attack" skills look pretty crappy in comparison. Except that it also becomes a ton more powerful if you get a lucky treasure draw and can equip some rune "Other" items. Kind of makes me wonder whether making skills equally good is even a goal here. Incidentally, it looks like the "max 3" part is totally meaningless unless you own AoD, since there are no "Rune" armors, potions, or one-handed items that I'm aware of.
Nimble: +1 fatigue, and "it never costs you more than 1 movement point to enter a space". That's worded vaguely enough to cause arguments, but probably applies to, like, 2 kinds of terrain. One of which is new to this expansion, and the other is from a different expansion, can't be generated by overlord card, and is so weak that it's not even worth jumping over. Seems unnecessarily confusing, and insulting if you tried to use it in vanilla.
Spry: Identical to Tiger Tattoo, except without the trap resistance. Tiger Tattoo itself being a trivial average of two other pre-existing skills, except for the trap resistance randomly thrown in. I can only assume that the next phase of their plan calls for exact replicas of existing cards printed under new names so that they can sell us expansions without actually involving a game designer at any stage of the process.
Antistone said:
snip
Alchemist: You get some free shop items (specifically: potions). Not enough to match the theoretical cost of a skill in a vanilla game, and you get them in large batches that seem likely to generate backpack space problems.
Dead Eye: The design strategy here is apparently to take existing attack-type-specific skills and copy them for other attack types, but with minor modifications to attempt to compensate for not actually balancing attack types in the first place.
Defender: You can use your shield on behalf of an adjacent hero, and give adjacent heroes +1 armor while you have a guard order. Those don't sound worth a skill (given how easy it is to lose a guard order if you don't use it right away), even if standing adjacent to other heroes was something you would normally do in combat, which it isn't. I guess you could stand behind two heroes blocking a corridor, if giving them +1 armor and the shields in your hand slots is seriously worth giving up your own opportunity to actually attack something (not to mention a skill slot). They could've at least made it work with a dodge order, which would be weak, but at least it would actually matter.
Hand of Death: WTF? When you could attack, you can instead kill one normal, unnamed monster...which you can probably do with an attack anyway (in fact, a mage in an extended campaign would probably do better than that with an AoE weapon, right?). Except this way, the monster must be adjacent, you've got higher miss chance than normal (1/3), you take damage if you miss, and it's got that asinine glyph refresh so you can hardly ever use it (not that you'd want to use it often). And it isn't even worded clearly enough to know how it interacts with Undying , probably on the philosophy that normal monsters don't have Undying and you could never possibly run into a dungeon with special rules giving it to normal monsters, right? This looks very much as if it would suck even if it were free to use, instead of being substituted for an attack. Does SoB routinely make you fight normal, unnamed monsters that would typically take 5 hits to kill or something?
Keen Sight: See Dead Eye, except not actually a different attack type. I guess it might be important with trees all over the place (though presumably you could compensate by standing behind the tree instead of in it), but I wouldn't try importing it to a vanilla game.
Koll's Mark: Clearly they think that fatigue is much more valuable than health, since apart from paying the cost in health instead of fatigue, this is a huge upgrade over Quick Casting, already a very respectable skill. And since health isn't also used to allow you to move, it would increase your nova potential more than Quick Casting even if it were otherwise identical.
Mage Cloak: +1 armor per rune equipped, max 3. So, almost a guaranteed +1 armor for mages (if your weapon isn't a rune, you can upgrade to chainmail anyway), which makes all the "+1 armor vs. one type of attack" skills look pretty crappy in comparison. Except that it also becomes a ton more powerful if you get a lucky treasure draw and can equip some rune "Other" items. Kind of makes me wonder whether making skills equally good is even a goal here. Incidentally, it looks like the "max 3" part is totally meaningless unless you own AoD, since there are no "Rune" armors, potions, or one-handed items that I'm aware of.
Nimble: +1 fatigue, and "it never costs you more than 1 movement point to enter a space". That's worded vaguely enough to cause arguments, but probably applies to, like, 2 kinds of terrain. One of which is new to this expansion, and the other is from a different expansion, can't be generated by overlord card, and is so weak that it's not even worth jumping over. Seems unnecessarily confusing, and insulting if you tried to use it in vanilla.
Spry: Identical to Tiger Tattoo, except without the trap resistance. Tiger Tattoo itself being a trivial average of two other pre-existing skills, except for the trap resistance randomly thrown in. I can only assume that the next phase of their plan calls for exact replicas of existing cards printed under new names so that they can sell us expansions without actually involving a game designer at any stage of the process.
Harsh but fair in general.
Additional comments...
Keen Sight
is incredibly valuable in the Advanced campaigns with Trees very common outdoors, both in RtL encounters and SOB Island levels. Shadowcloak is a very big deal in these fights, very big.
Saj's Mark
. Something like sacrifice 1 wound for 2 surges, up to 2x per attack. Ridiculously powerful, much like Koll's Mark.
Mage Cloak
combines well with Ghost Armour - a shop 'other' Rune. Scary... Jaes, with Chainmail, Mage Cloak, a Rune weapon and Ghost Armour. Not to mention RoP... Armour 7 with nothing but shop items, and can soak wounds with fatigue... Give him a hammer (knockback) and the rest of the party can view progress from town for most vanilla games.
Nimble
is actually more useful than Antistone suggests. Given that 'terrain' is not defined anywhere and therefore probably includes most props and obstacles, it applies to includes Barrels, Beds/Tables, Bone Heaps, Fountains, Masts, Mud, Pipe Organs, (out of) Pits, Railings, Sarcophagi, Thrones, Trees, deep and shallow Water and empty Weapon mounts. Arguably it would even apply to jumping!
Now for vanilla that isn't much use - though there may be individual scenario special effects that it is useful for, but for RtL there is still a lot of that stuff around to be useful.
I still don't rate it highly as a skill, but it is not quite so terrible as Antistone makes out.
Keen Sight: Of course, if Shadowcloak becomes a big deal, then you have to wonder if it isn't overpowered compared to Inner Fire, since all it loses is 1 range.
Koll's Mark: I notice that I said the first sentence backwards, though you could probably figure that out from context.
Nimble: I had apparently forgotten there was a panoply of props in RtL with increased movement costs.
My instinct would be that it doesn't apply to climbing out of pits, though, since that's an effect of "leaving" a space rather than "entering" a space (not forgetting that the wording on all of the movement penalty rules is terrible). And if you're going to apply it to things like jumping pits, you could also argue that it applies to Runemaster Thorn's ability, which is quickly carrying us into ridiculous territory. In vanilla, I don't think it should apply to anything other than mud, which is expansion-specific and extremely minor.
And it's precisely this sort of discussion that I had in mind when I said that the wording was too vague.
Antistone said:
Keen Sight: Of course, if Shadowcloak becomes a big deal, then you have to wonder if it isn't overpowered compared to Inner Fire, since all it loses is 1 range.
Koll's Mark: I notice that I said the first sentence backwards, though you could probably figure that out from context.
Nimble: I had apparently forgotten there was a panoply of props in RtL with increased movement costs.
My instinct would be that it doesn't apply to climbing out of pits, though, since that's an effect of "leaving" a space rather than "entering" a space (not forgetting that the wording on all of the movement penalty rules is terrible). And if you're going to apply it to things like jumping pits, you could also argue that it applies to Runemaster Thorn's ability, which is quickly carrying us into ridiculous territory. In vanilla, I don't think it should apply to anything other than mud, which is expansion-specific and extremely minor.
And it's precisely this sort of discussion that I had in mind when I said that the wording was too vague.
Yes, I think in the Advanced campaign Keen Sight is overpowered. But perhaps not as much as Koll's and Saj's Marks!
For Nimble I think you are right about pits and the same point will avoid troubles with jumping and Thorn's Teleporting. In all cases they are not entry costs for the space, but effectively 'activation' costs for the effect (climbing out, jumping and teleporting).
I must say, Koll's Mark is ludicrously overpowered. Two free attacks every turn! It's even worse than Leadership in its original incarnation. Perhaps not better than Acrobat (which remains broken), but that's hardly saying much.
YellowPebble said:
I must say, Koll's Mark is ludicrously overpowered. Two free attacks every turn! It's even worse than Leadership in its original incarnation.
I think that's quite a stretch. Sacrificing 4 wounds to make 2 attacks may be underpriced, but it's certainly not free; I don't see how you could reasonably do that every turn. Leadership could literally be used every single turn (unless you needed to Run) for an absolutely free half-action...and the ability to place orders on other heroes rather than yourself is no small perk.
Antistone said:
Hand of Death: WTF? When you could attack, you can instead kill one normal, unnamed monster...which you can probably do with an attack anyway (in fact, a mage in an extended campaign would probably do better than that with an AoE weapon, right?). Except this way, the monster must be adjacent, you've got higher miss chance than normal (1/3), you take damage if you miss, and it's got that asinine glyph refresh so you can hardly ever use it (not that you'd want to use it often). And it isn't even worded clearly enough to know how it interacts with Undying , probably on the philosophy that normal monsters don't have Undying and you could never possibly run into a dungeon with special rules giving it to normal monsters, right? This looks very much as if it would suck even if it were free to use, instead of being substituted for an attack. Does SoB routinely make you fight normal, unnamed monsters that would typically take 5 hits to kill or something?
While I agree that for the most part you wouldn't want to do something like this often, where this comes in handy is at the ugly parts of the campaign (right after the overlord has upgrade a monster class). To use copper phase as an example, the first dungeon where the heroes have to fight silver level monsters is really unpleasant. To be able to 1 shot a silver troll (18 health / 5 armor) when you're on your 4th game week is certainly better than letting it bash you next round.
Later in the campaign, some of the monsters can have RIDICULOUS health.
Example: Diamond Level White Troll: 36 Health / 7 Armor. Diamond White Giant 44/8. Even a copper level white dragon is 11 health, pretty tough for a 1 hit kill. Looking briefly through the dungeon levels in the rulebook, it looks like each one has at least 1 configuration in which I think a 1 hit kill against a same level monster would make sense (copper vs. copper etc.), and if the overlord has upgraded, then there were several configurations that look tempting.
Taking damage on a miss + the glyph refresh probably make it something I'd pass on as well in general. The other thing to consider here is that by having this 1 shot weapon on hand, thats 1 less piece of equipment that your party needs (so that money can potentially be spent upgrading your other heroes first)
Antistone said:
Mage Cloak:
+1 armor per rune equipped, max 3. So, almost a guaranteed +1 armor for mages (if your weapon isn't a rune, you can upgrade to chainmail anyway), which makes all the "+1 armor vs. one type of attack" skills look pretty crappy in comparison. Except that it also becomes a ton more powerful if you get a lucky treasure draw and can equip some rune "Other" items. Kind of makes me wonder whether making skills equally good is even a goal here. Incidentally, it looks like the "max 3" part is totally meaningless unless you own AoD, since there are no "Rune" armors, potions, or one-handed items that I'm aware of.
Ghost armour - Shop, Rune Other, DJitD
Remove Curse - Shop, Rune, Other, RtL
Deflect - Gold, Rune, Other, DJitD
Healing Runes - Copper/Silver/Gold, Rune, Other, WoD
Not applicable in Advance Campaign anyway
Mana Weave - Copper, Rune, Other, DJitD
Not terribly sure of the provenances necessarily, but all from www.descentinthedark.com
With an Elven Robe/Wizards Robe (3 "other" items) and the rumour in SoB that makes all rune weapons one handed, it would otherwise be possible to get +5 armour from this skill, quite easily by copper too - you only need to find the Mana Weave for +4 and do the rumour for +5.