Hi everybody,

Question about the advanced campaign (SoB). What's better, to roll another black die or to upgrade your die to silver/gold? I'm guessing it's not 50/50? But I'm a little confused beacuse during encounters/ in dungeons it costs one fatigue to roll the extra die, but it also costs one fatigue to upgrade the die... ?

But when you're training it's more expensive to get the upgrade than the extra die, so that means it's better? But why the same cost during encounters?

During an encounter, IMO, its better to add a die, and 1 at a time at that.

Most items in the game require a certain cost to do things, like 1 or 2 surge before an effect can occure. like paying fear costs, etc.
Paying 1 surge for that extra bit of oomph that you need to top off your roll is all you really need. If you're going to be short before you roll your dice, and know that its a clutch battle between you and that monster guarding the door/glyph/treasure/etc. then paying the extra fatigue to upgrade your dice AND add extra dice is worth it. Mind you, you'd probably not go wrong with an aimed attack if that were the case.

Buying dice vs Upgrading dice: I think its a matter of prefference for each hero. Personally i would opt to get all 5 power dice first, then work on upgrading them to silver/gold afterwards. For the majority, adding power dice is a far better upgrade than a single power die upgrade. Once you hit the 5 cap, using power potions in the game is much easier, since youre not paying to add the dice, you're simply upgrading all of your dice up.

Cheers for the winner, Roots for the underdog, and pays lousy prices for dissatisfactory hotdogs.

pewpew lazers,
The Quitter.

You might want to read the following thread over at Boardgamegeek: www.geekdo.com/thread/303422/upgrade-or-add-an-exploration-of-dice-statistics

Statistically it's been proven through math and probabilities that most of the time adding a die is better than upgrading. The reason is that you can add a die AFTER you have made your roll. So if the attack was a miss and you can't change that, then you aren't wasting any fatigue. Upgrades have to be made before you roll the die, so they are more of a gamble.

EDIT: and edroz beat me to it.

Ok,

Thanks everyone. I get it now.

The added die AFTER the roll versus the upgraded die BEFORE the roll. That's the big difference.

And as the BGG thread said. It's all situational what you should choose.

Unless you can't afford it, always upgrade to silver/gold. This gives you room to add power dice after-the-dieroll with fatigue.

-shnar

TheQuitter said:

This is extremely bad advice. It is definitely better to upgrade trait dice if you can afford it rather than add more. You want as many 'open' dice slots as possible so that you can add dice with fatigue after the roll - when you know exactly what you need (if you need anything).

So much so, that I would literally prefer 4 dice to 5. The amount of times that you exactly need that 5th dice, and so already having it saves you you one fatigue, will usually be less than the number of times you come up 2-3 short and can add a silver or gold dice instead. And the pay off is bigger too. Gain one fatigue (well, spend one less) sometimes, or get a kill that you otherwise couldn't, slightly more often.
And if you have only 3 dice, and come up one surge/enhancement short, then you have two options available (one at a time even) just in case your first extra dice is a blank, or an enhancement when you need a surge or a surge when you need an enhancement.

Statistically there is little to choose between upgrades and adds, with upgrading dice providing a more evenly spread distribution of results (slightly) and adding dice providing a more reliable spread of results. (Ie, upgrading gives you more low results, which is bad, and more high results which is good, but overall the average is the same, as is the max and min). However statistics are too bare in this case, dealing merely with averages and distributions/deviations. Descent is a highly varied game with massively different bonuses (skills, abilities, weaponry etc) and massively different requirements (different W/Ar monsters and even monster abilities or immunities or terrain bonuses like Ironskin, elevation etc) not to mention potentially quite different rolls. on each attack. Consequently averages and distributions are marginally useful, but only marginal, because they tell us nothing about situational usefulness . Upgrading is situationally useful far beyond adding. Far, far beyond.

It isn't how much damage you can do on average, or maximum, that is important in Descent. It is whether you can achieve the amount required to get the kill. This is because a monster with 1 wound left is just as dangerous as a monster at full health (or in the case of master Blood Apes, more dangerous!) and overkilling a monster is wasted (except on vanilla undying). Thus the concept of situational usefulness. You have to match your roll to the situation because underperfoming is more often than not completely pointless, as is overperforming.
Thus, the ability to modify your rolling after you know the requirements is exceptionally powerful. The ability to modify a lot when needed is worth more than a little bonus, applied all the time . Partcularly when that little bonus is wasted most of the time!

And the reason upgrading gets more expensive is probably tied, at least in part, to the fact that income increases considerably in higher campaign levels (while coinpiles stay the same, chest income doubles and triples).