Hi !

I'm planning to buy Descent with two expansions, but I'm not sure which ones should I choose ...

Can somebody help ?

This depends on what you want.

The Well of Darkness , The Altar of Despair , and The Tomb of Ice are all really just more of the same. Getting at least one of these is very important because they include new Treachery rules. But getting more than one is purely optional based on how much "stuff" you want with your game.

I personally have The Well of Darkness and The Altar of Despair , and haven't regretted it. But I think I'm going to skip The Tomb of Ice , just because I don't see it adding enough to make it worth the cost when I could save the money and buy other games.

Road to Legend doesn't so much expand the game as make it into a campaign. In regular Descent, everything is lost from one quest to the next. Each quest is it's own game; they don't really connect at all. Road to Legend allows you to connect a bunch of smaller dungeons into one large campaign. If you want a campaign, this is the expansion for you. If you are happy with separate individual dungeon crawls, you would probably be a lot happier with the others.

I would suggest getting Road to Legend and The Well of Darkness myself.

Joram said:

I have these expansions myself and I'm very satisfied with my selection. If campaigning is your cup of tea, I would highly recommend this combination.

And what do you think about buying Altar of Despair and Road to Legend ?

Is there big difference between Altar of Despair and Well of Darkness ? And whats the diffrence ?

I think one considerable point is that Well of Darkness includes replacement cards for a few things in the base game that were changed in the errata, and the treasure distribution evens things out between melee, ranged, and magic weapons (the base game is heavily skewed towards magic). And Ferrox kind of seem to fill the tactical niche that Razorwings should have filled...

An argument could be made that Well of Darkness is more like the completion of the base game and Altar of Despair is an actual expansion.

If you are buying two expansions, make sure that one of them is Well of Darkness .

The other expansion will depend on your style of play. I suggest Road to Legend if you have a regular, recurring game and want to have a long campaign (ie, an on-going story line).

If you will play less reguarly, or prefer a more stand-alone like sytle of play, then take your pick of Altar of Dispair or Tomb of Ice .

Also, check out the Descent Support page on this website. You can read the rules for each expansion and see which ones most appeal to you. For example, Tomb of Ice seems to have some cool monsters and the new invisibility potion, all of which look neat. But Altar of Dispair has those cool Dark Relics....

Either way, I think many people would still suggest that Well of Darkness is one you should not skip on.

I have felt the the vanilla scenarios go from very difficult in the beginning to being a cake walk at the end for the heroes. With Road to Legend , it seems as though they made it much more balanced by increasing the difficulty of the monsters as the game progresses.

Thank you guys for help !

Finally, I chose The Road to Legend and The Well of Darkness . I think these are most important expansions, which change flow of the game VERY MUCH. I'll see how it works with each other in Christmas.

I hope thats the best choice for me.

I would actually recommend The Well of Darkness and Tomb of Ice as the first two expansions to buy.

The Well because it corrects some cards from the vanilla game plus adds Treachery and the Tomb because it adds Feat cards which help balance the Overlord's new found power once Treachery is added to the deck.

Road to Legend is only really useful if you have a group willing to dedicate all it's gaming time to Descent...

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=4&efcid=1&efidt=2421&efpag=0#3748

WoD is the obvious must-buy. I certainly couldn't do without that one. (Or any of them , for that matter! )

But, AoD and ToI are both really cool. Although I have not used Ice as much, as of yet, it being new and all...I love the Feat cards...gives us Heroes some tricks and the whole snowy terrain concept is cool (pun intended).

AoD has some great quests and would be considered a necessity to us freaks, but, imho, is my least favorite of the 3 (tempering ToI's high regard due to newness?)

RtL is the odd man out depending on your group and regular amount of players and time available...

I love the campaign, but am not prepared to do anything at the expense of vanilla Descent. Just my 2 cents; I know you made your decision already...this was more for others interested and in a similar quandary.

So my next expansion will be ToI. How much ToI affects RtL campaign ? Does it change the game a lot, or just chars and feats ? BTW I already bought RtL and WoD and I can't wait to christmas to open it ! I never played Descent, but I will buy next expansions SOON ! It's addictive and so beautiful !

I played Vanilla Descent with some buddies then had to buy the game myself. So I went and purchased the entire set and it was well worth the money. For the Base game, all of the Expansions and I paid $202.

I would suggest getting all the expansions atleast at some point to add all that they game offers. RtL probably will be the last expansion used since we are playing all of the dungeons from all of the expansions first but yea, getting WoD and AoD I believe are must haves. ToI is great also but we haven't started any dungeons in that yet just using the feat cards and minions.

I havent played any of them, but isnt WOD far too difficult for the player characters?

I would chose Well of Darkness and Road to Legend, mostly because I like the campaign playing style and WOD came with the replacement cards for changes from original descent.

But I´ve bought every expansion and I´m not regretting none of them..

heh... I see I`m not the only one who have the problem with expansions^^ I think about buying RtL but my heart tell my "Buy WoD, without it your monsters will be doomed". I don`t know. After reading some topics i will buy WoD. The rules for RtL is cool but this exp. do not change THE Game at all. So, if I have some extra money I will buy RtL.

This topic is helpfull for nOObs like me. :]

Aust said:

Greetings fello Noob!!!

I was struggling with the same thoughts as you... I am excited about the campaign - my gaming group is as well...

But - we really want to have a handle on the game before we jump into RtL - so we will be playing through all the original JitD quests and WoD before we get the campaign running. We want to get to the point where we are extremely familiar with the game play and don't need to constantly be checking the game manual over and over!!!

But - I settled on WoD (instead of just the base game and then campaign in RtL) as I felt too much would be missed without a bit of treachery - as well as all the traps that come with WoD - the dart fields, the scything blades, the rolling boulders, lava, etc. Needed a bit of love for the OL before the campaign!

Also - if on your version of Descent JitD - there is a 2009 copyright - you have the new reprint, this is the one I have, and you do not actually need the expansions for replacement cards. The new reprint has all the items fixed and the latest version of the game manual.

Great noob topic,

i have started with JiTD and thinking of purchasing the expansions one at a time, first WoD then AoD and last ToI. It might sound cool to buy all at once but i do't want to miss all the excitement each time me and my friends get a new box and start the new missions.

For RtL i am still not so sure since we don't have so much time to play (2-3 times/month is our maximum) and still we have all these expansions to explore.

Cheers

While I would strongly argue that every expansion offers something definitely worth getting, I believe that, if I was forced to choose only two expansions, I would have to recommend Tomb of Ice and either Well of Darkness or Road to Legend, with Road to Legend being the better option of the two.

The reason I recommend Tomb of Ice so strongly is that it offers the players something they do not get in Vanilla or any of the other expansions: the element of surprise. Feat cards are an incredibly fun addition to the game that allow the heroes to pull off some serious shenanigans. No longer is the Overlord the only one with tricks up his sleeve! In addition, ToI offers several new monsters, a couple new terrain pieces, and the very fun Stealth mechanic.

Once you've got Tomb of Ice, the decision will come down to whether you want Road to Legend or not. Many of the responses here have indicated that you should only purchase Road to Legend if your playgroup plans on playing regularly, and there's some truth to that, but I would argue that, even for more casual players, Road to Legend is the way to go .

RTL comes with completely rebalanced monsters, a huge variety of dungeon levels and encounters (which are significantly more creative, fun, and faster-paced than most of the quests offered in vanilla Descent and the other expansions), and a gameplay style that is better suited to shorter playtimes and can be packed up easily to be played again later. Even if your playgroup only plays once every month or two, I really think you'll have more fun playing a three-level dungeon with exciting bosses and special rules on each level in Road to Legend than you would have while trudging through a mostly boring quest in regular Descent, only to get to the exciting part (the final boss) and finish it in a single turn.

Again. I cannot emphasize it enough: get Road to Legend.

If, for some reason, you choose not to get Road to Legend, then Well of Darkness is the way to go. Like others have said, Well of Darkness pretty much "fixes" or "completes" vanilla Descent, and also introduces the Treachery mechanic, which will be useful in non-campaign play.