Here's another of the custom heroes I've made. Let me know what you think.

The best of the new four you made, IMO. I would however make her skills match her trait dice.

Big Remy said:

Thanks! I playtested her a little and my overall reaction so far is "fair." Her ability did get her away from being smooshed by Blood Apes, and allowed her to get some potions more quickly as the other heroes moved ahead. Will rethink the skill spread.

Big Remy said:

Looks fine to me. She appears "rogue-ish", but her innate ability seems somewhat magical. In Vanilla descent if you draw a subterfuge card pertaining to ranged attacks more than something stealthy you can always trade it in. You are allowed to redraw 1 skill card during set up.

Digitality said:

Yes, and then what if you pull something again that pertains only to ranged attacks? You're stuck with a useless skill more than likely. Not saying there aren't Subterfuge Skills that would work great on her (Shadow Soul immediately comes to mind) but she would probably be better served having it match up.

Big Remy said:

Digitality said:

Yes, the central concept around her (which became a chicken-and-egg thing with the art I found) was that she's able to "walk the shadows" which is an arcane gift or ability she learned. I liked the idea of the skills spread this way as it accentuates her stealthiness while allowing her to be a hard hitter, an assassin or perhaps more of a "monster hunter"-like concept (which Lyssa seems like to me, as well, though we know Lyssa's rather weak).

I want to playtest more before I decide to change her skills. I forgot to take notes on her during her initial playtest so I can't remember which skills I pulled for her. I remember that I definitely swapped one, and it was either Fighting or Subterfuge.

Sir Valadir also sucks. Like, bottom 10% of heroes or thereabouts.

I don't think it's inherently inappropriate to have skills that don't match trait dice, though I think you need to take into account the fact that skills aren't as valuable when their matching trait is lower than the hero's highest trait, because it increases the risk of drawing a skill that you can't use (or can't use without a penalty).

It's hard to estimate the value of Riva's ability, but assuming an "average" ability she looks quite weak: split traits, completely split skills, lower than average stats, and typical conquest value for her defenses. The most similar official hero ability is Runemaster Thorn's, and IIRC he's got better stats, more focused trait dice, more focused skills, and arguably a more favorable conquest value relative to his defenses (depending on whether your standard is official heroes, the build-your-own hero rules, or your personal analysis of how powerful different defenses are). And Thorn's a good hero, certainly, but I don't think he's generally regarded as an outlier.

For comparison purposes, in order to generate her current stats with my random hero generator, her ability would need to be valued at around 100 points, which is a higher cost than I assigned to any ability currently in the generator's list (which includes most of FFG's hero's abilities). That's not a lot different from me saying "I think she's weak," but it perhaps quantifies that assessment a bit. If you assume her ability is equal to Thorn's, my algorithm might have generated her with +1 fatigue and speed compared to what you've got.

I did feel that Riva's overall Fatigue/Speed was a little on the low side due to the fact that she seemed to lag somewhat behind the other heroes (there were just too many monsters ahead for her to 'port behind them but more testing will see that happen, I'm sure). I've boosted her Fatigue to 4, but will leave her Speed at 4, for now. I'll get some testing in soon and report back.

Got in about 5 hours of playtesting time with Riva tonight. I was OL while a friend played 4 of my customs. Riva did quite well and my friend used her hero ability a lot, specifically to 'port in as close as possible or right behind the beasties (behind cover of course) and use fatigue to get some great attacks.

Overall her current traits seem OK but maybe further testing will prove otherwise.