Hello everyone,

Having searched the forum for a thread related to my question, though not finding one, I have come across a great deal of threads discussig wether or not the game is "balanced" or not. This thread is not supposed to be another one of those. I don't have much experience with the game, so I would not be able to cotribute in any meaningful way to such a discussion.

What this thread is supposed to be, is a request for help, by me and my inexperienced party of heroes, from a player on this forum that don't mind helping out a few newbies.

My group only have access to Descent - Journeys in the Dark, so please limit your resposes to material in the original game. We have played the first quest of the game 3 times. Two of them, I was Overlord, the third I was a hero. Every time, the heroes won the quest with great ease. The second time through,the heroes had 16 Conuest Token after slaying Narthak. The third time, I (as a hero) simply ran through the dungeons, not fighting any monsters unless absolutly neccessary, not even stopping to pick up any potions, activating any glyphs, or opening any chests. As I reached the boss room, I grabbed the gold treasure and slew Narthak.

Like i said, I'm not interested in getting into a huge debate over game balance. My group would just like to know: Have you ever played as Overlord on the first quest and won? If so, how did you do it!?

If this has already been brought up, feel free to verbally reprimand me and link me to the thread.

Thanks

With just the base game, it is almost impossible for the OL to win the first quest...this is assuming that there are 5 players, and all have sound tactics.

The first quest is supposed to be easy for the heroes, as well as the first several quests to just give a introduction of the game and how things work.

If the OL is playing against only 2 heroes, then it is easier for the OL to just swarm the hero players with monsters.

Another tactic would be to pick on the low armor heroes and ignore the front-line fighters. Eventually, you should be able to put some preasure on the heroes.

I've won the first quest as an overlord...using treachery (from expansions) against a less-than-max-size group of all-newbie heroes.

The overlord is really unlikely to win the first quest against competent heroes. Move on to other quests.

I've won the first quest as OL once or twice. Using nothing but base game materials. It's also worth pointing out that these occaisions were among the first few times me and my group ever played Descent. The heroes made a number of tactical errors, including doubling back in an effort to kill everything in the dungeon before moving on the boss chamber. I had played as the Invader in Doom before, so although many of the rules were new to me, I was familiar with some of the base concepts of being the OL - in particular the idea that the monsters are expendable.

I would not expect to have a chance in hell against a hero party who knew what they were doing, or even against a party that had most of the basic rules down pat. I was really only able to win because the heroes thought they playing "a new version of HeroQuest" and made a number of assumptions based on how THAT game worked which did not hold true in Descent.

Edit: If the ease with which the heroes can beat the first quest concerns you, then know that the game DOES get harder in later quests. Substantially so in the expansions. They might be laughing off your attacks right now, but they'll learn in time that victory is not always so easy.