Hi,

I've owned Descent: Journeys in the Dark for nearly a year. Played it much and have always been the Overlord. Right now, we've started to think about playing campaign games and I'm looking at Road to Legend.

Was just wondering, does it make sense? Will Road to Legend play nicely with the basic set or do I need to get Well of Darkness and Altar of Despair first too? Will I need creatures / cards from either preceding expansion?

On another note, was wondering if I could just skip everything and go straight to Sea of Blood for campaign play. Is it better?

davidlian said:

You don't need the other expansions but the experience is richer for having them. There are more options available and possibly a better balance if you do have them (don't forget Tomb of Ice either), particularly with the treasure decks.

I'd advise RtL first, SoB much later if you enjoy RtL.
RtL is a much better developed product - most problems have been solved in the FAQ already (though many groups still find problem due to their own inability to adapt their playstyle and play well - its a punishing game if you play it badly.
SoB is still in it's infancy and many problems are yet waiting to be discovered (no doubt) or confirmed (by experience over analysis). The ship stuff is possibly a bit iffy for example - its a difficult thing to translate to the Descent mechanics, and a doubly difficult thing to playtest something with multitudinous options that takes 60+ hours to play (especially if you don't have playtesters in the habit of going out with th express intention to break the system*).

*The job of a playtester is to find potential problems and exploit them so that they can be fixed. To that end you want the hardest, nastiest, gamey-est rules bending, word twisting, rules lawyering (in the worst way) scum you can find to playtest complex games like Descent. I really get the impression that FFG's Descent playtesting involves a very genial and relaxed group of gamers who don't seem to push boundaries at all - assuming they actually have playtesters.

Thanks so much for the response! Appreciate it.

Do you think I'd need Well of Darkness first, though?

davidlian said:

You don't need it. There will be a few monster cards and I think maybe one or two dungeon cards you can't use without it, but 99% of RtL is independent of other expansions.

Steve-O said:

I would recommend picked up either WoD or AoD with RTL for the additional monsters and heros but most of all for Treachery. I think RtL without treachey wouldn't be nearly as fun.

We ended up... well I ended up... getting all of them. That's the BEST way to go!

I like the treachery as the OL - especially in the campaign - crushing blow is a nice way to frustrate the heroes...

Feats are fun as well - for the heroes - kind of helps to balance the play out... even though as the OL - they will frustrate you.

I also like having all the variety of monsters - all the tiles - yada yada.

On another note - with ALL the Tiles. My heroes have entrusted me to randomly draw the three dungeon cards inbetween play sessions. Having ALL the expansions have enabled me to essentially label them #1, #2, #3 and get all the pieces in ziplock bags - so dungeon setup is REALLY fast now. I also have enough dungeon pieces to not have to use ANY of the encounter pieces (grass and trees on the back) - so all of those tiles are in a fourth ziplock and free for that as well. Really has helped to speed up the setup of encounters and dungeons by cutting down on the "where is that **** tile I need!!"

BUT - I would agree with Corbon - RtL would be my pick if you were only going with Vanilla box and one campaign. More of the bugs have been squashed at this point. And more wrinkles have been ironed out.

Thanks so much for all the responses. Really appreciate getting help in making a decision.

Looks like I'll grab Well of Darkness first then Road to Legend.