Hi All,

I recently picked up Descent and am loving it so far! I decided to do a Let's Play/Live Stream of it and wanted to share in case you guys felt like checking it out, hopefully you enjoy it! I'm still learning the game, so apologies if I get some rules wrong or misplay.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions on the production. Thanks for watching! My plan is to continue the series through the entire campaign!

Descent - Let's Play Kindred Fire - Episode 1

Hey Swagglehaus, welcome to Descent 2nd Edition

I love the production quality of your videos, they're very well put together. It might be nice if you could zoom out on your dice tray a little bit so you can fit two whole monster cards in that view, and also maybe raise the elevation of your map camera slightly to increase the view slightly as the map gets larger.

Btw the things you're calling 'Ns' are lightning bolts, typically referred to as 'surges'...

A few rules pointers for you (in slightly random order):

1. In the first video you missed a set of attacks by the Ironbounds, since the app had given them +1 to their reach they could have reached two of your heroes across the water.
2. I think you also used two spare surges to recover two fatigue a couple of times - you can't do that... The 'Spend one surge to recover one fatigue' ability can only be used once per attack - see '4. Spend Surges' on p13 of the rulebook .
3. Monsters can move twice (apart from Zombies and others with the 'Shambling' characteristic) - the Ironbounds mentioned above could have moved again to cross the water, if they hadn't had the extra reach added, and the Trolls in your third video could have moved twice during their first activation (they would still have been blocked so it wouldn't have made a difference).
4. 'Spot' requires that a monster move to 'within 3 spaces and in line of sight of the target ' (p8 of the Road to Legend rulebook , emphasis mine). So the way you've been playing it with the fire imps is correct, they would move to the front to get line of sight.
5. In the third video when the master Troll was just round the corner you said that nobody was within line of sight for the app effect to trigger, however you could trace line of sight from both of your leading heroes to the corner of his base. There are some examples of Line of Sight rules on page 86 of the CRRG , and also Zaltyre has put together a very comprehensive Guide to Range and Line of Sight .
6. You can move diagonally across map tile corners - see Movement examples on page 85 of the CRRG .

The Bard's two tokens are denoted by Treble clef and Bass clef, typically referred to as Melody and Harmony effects respectively. You can place both of them onto the Song of Mending card at the same time (by paying two stamina each) and they will both activate at the end of each of Ispher's turns. Note that the wording on Song of Mending is slightly different for each effect; specifically the Melody effect for recovering hearts will affect Ispher himself, however the Harmony effect for recovering Stamina does not affect Ispher - the wording for that one is 'Each other hero...'

Don't forget about High Mage Quellen's hero ability - I haven't been paying that much attention to whether you're doing it or not, but the stamina recovery mechanism is useful.

Regarding the Geomancer's Summoned Stones, they are treated as possible targets by the app... From page 17 of the CRRG : "When a monster is instructed to target a hero, attackable tokens and familiars treated as heroes or obstacles are included as possible targets ." (Emphasis mine)

In general if you have rules questions, check out the CRRG - it's an incredibly valuable resource.

I'll look forward to more videos

Hey Xyphistor! Wow, thanks for all the helpful feedback here! Really great to read some of the stuff that you pointed out. Figured I send you over some responses.

- I'll definitely work on improving camera angles, feel like that is a constant work in progress for me. I finally started to streamline my process in Episode 4 (with some additional editing).

- Didn't realize that about the surges! Oops, well hopefully it didn't mess things up too bad since I was playing the Bard sub optimally anyway as I never put the Harmony token on the card (didn't realize I could have two on the same card)

- Yeah I realize I missed some of the Ironbound activation's, thanks for pointing out, will correct for next time.

- Do monsters always move twice if the app doesn't say to do so? For instance, lets say there was a monster really far away and the app gave two instructions - Engage the Closest Hero, Attack the closet hero. Do I the player just decide that the monster will move twice even though the app only says to move once?

- Good to know I did the spot correctly.

- Ahh, gotcha on the line of sight!

- Yeah, I started doing High Mage Quellen's ability later on and started treating the Summoned Stones as heroes.

Thanks again for all the great feedback! I uploaded the next few episodes in case you wanted to check them out (though I did pre-record before seeing this post, so might be a bit before I apply your corrections)

No worries mate, happy to help

1 hour ago, Swagglehaus said:

- Do monsters always move twice if the app doesn't say to do so? For instance, lets say there was a monster really far away and the app gave two instructions - Engage the Closest Hero, Attack the closet hero. Do I the player just decide that the monster will move twice even though the app only says to move once?

Each activation instruction can be performed more than once if it remains valid. In your example, going through the list you would first perform the 'Engage' action and move the monster, then if there is nobody in range to Attack you would cycle back to the top of the list, where Engage is again a valid action, so the monster would move a second time.

Obviously (most) monsters can only attack once, so any 'Attack' action would become invalid after being executed on a first pass, but movement actions like 'Spot' and 'Engage' can be executed twice if nothing else is valid - see page 7 of the Road to Legend Rulebook for details about Monster Activation.

I enjoyed the 4th video, you gotta stop rolling so many Xs though

Gotcha, makes sense! Thanks so much for the tips.

And, unfortunately more X's are coming 😫

Giving this thread a little bump.

Got a few new videos and finally got to take into account some of the notes you mentioned on the rules and production! Hope you like the new setup!

Descent Road To Legend - Episode 7 - Finding Kildarth

Hey mate,

Just caught up on the last 3 videos, looks like things are going well - not quite so many Xs!

When you did a city action to get the extra XP I really thought you were going straight for Rehearsal on your Bard - given your dice rolling, can I advise getting that next?! 😛

Based on a couple of the other skills you've chosen I'm wondering if there might be a Road to Legend rule that you're not aware of... From p10 of the online Road to Legend rulebook (which is somehow completely different to the PDF copy I have downloaded):

Quote

When a hero performs an attack that targets or affects multiple monsters, the monsters gain an additional advantage during the “Deal Damage” step. Choose 1 monster to which you will deal damage first and resolve the step as normal. Then halve the Hearts results (rounded up), and apply that value to each of the additional monsters, before applying Hearts. This rule applies to attacks with Blast but also actions such as “Whirlwind,” “Army of Death,” and Leoric of the Book’s Heroic Feat.

This is further clarified on p6 of the CRRG , specifically with the requirement that (one of) the Targeted figure(s) will be the one to receive full damage.

This makes Whirlwind much less fun in Road to Legend, but it can still be a useful skill. However it makes Earthen Anguish totally rubbish (since the full damage goes on the stone and only half to any adjacent figures) - so much so that I would advise undoing that XP and saving it for something else, since presumably you were unaware of this rule...

Generally if you want to max out the benefits from the side quests, it's worth doing two of them first and then going shopping - that way a) you have maximum gold and fame each time you shop, and b) if you do lose morale during the side quests it will be recovered when you travel to the city. I realise it's hard to resist the temptation to shop straight away though

Keep up the good work 👍

I'm writing this post live while I catch up on the last few episodes

Starting with Episode 8, which I see you recorded before my post above, so I won't answer your Whirlwind question again... Sorry for assuming you didn't know about the half damage rule!

• Your Cave Spider activation wasn't quite right - the minions would have attacked Tomble the way you had the Master attack him (moved, can't attack a non-diseased hero, engaged Tomble already, next order is to Attack adjacent hero). Since the master killed Tomble, it went pretty much the same way anyway...
• I didn't notice if you maxed Tomble's fatigue with the KO? Also, when heroes are knocked out they recover all conditions - it's the sure-fire way for heroes like Leoric of the Book and Tomble to cure Poison
• When Tomble recovers a heart due to the Bard's Song of Mending, he will be revived and will stand up (on one health and maxed-out on fatigue)...

Episode 9:

• Spot doesn't require monsters to retreat - if they are within 3 spaces and in line of sight, Spot is satisfied so you could skip that action. But since the Goblin Witchers wouldn't have been able to do anything else, having them retreat a bit would probably be a thematically sensible thing to do
• Don't forget you can move (and also see) diagonally across the black corners of the map tiles - Tomble could have moved up to the master Witcher with only 3 moves. Also, he had line-of-sight through the same path so his Sneaky damage wouldn't have been applied...
• You probably should have just gone through the north door and ignored the others at the bottom (that's what we've always done on this quest) - having said that, since you opened that bottom door my guess would be you can find the Staff of Light relic in one of those Search tokens, which would be pretty cool if you don't have to give it up to open the locked door 😛

Episode 10:

• The Master Merriod would probably have used his surge for Immobilize, rather than the +2 damage...
• The RtL activation instructions for Manticores are rubbish 😂
• Tomble only has speed 4 - but since you're not doing the diagonal moves across corners it works out to the same distance moved
• You moved the Minion Merriod 6 spaces then attacked - moving 6 spaces would have been both his actions, so he couldn't attack... However, taking into account the shrink-expand movement of Large monsters, and the fact that they can move diagonally across map corners, he could actually have moved to that space with only 3 movement so it works out the same anyway again 😛
• Yay, Staff of Light
• Pretty sure the minor peril would have affected Reynhardt (he's within 3 spaces of himself)

Episode 11:

• The Summoned Stones wouldn't have blocked the Master Merriod, since he could move diagonally through the corner...
• Merick should have attacked Tomble both times, he's the closest hero (he's adjacent, the others are two spaces away)...
• 2 XP each is nice, go get Rehearsal on that Bard!!!

Episode 12:

• Bushwack is a nice choice, but you're not supposed to undo your spent XP... From p16 of the CRRG: " Though skill selection can be freely toggled on and off, heroes cannot decide to change which Class cards they have purchased unless a game effect allows it. " That was something we got wrong at first as well
• Concentration? Not Rehearsal?! 😲
• The Elm Greatbow should be ok with Bushwack, it only ignores adjacent figures so you should be able to make it work.

I'll try to keep up a bit more going forward, so my comments aren't quite so out-of-date

I'm trying to just point out rules stuff now, and answer questions you ask in the videos - I'm not mentioning when you forget small things, we all do that... Hopefully this is all coming across as helpful rather than critical, since that's definitely the intention!

I'm really enjoying the videos, looking forward to the next one!

Thanks so so much! Yeah totally read it as helpful, not critical. This will help a lot moving forward. Totally miss a lot of things, sometimes cause I didn't realize, sometimes because I have a brain fart (Tomble moving 5, I think I looked at his stamina and got confused)

I so didn't know about the class cards being permanent. I might either just house rule for myself that I can swap or from here on out make them permanent.

One clarification, when Tomble gets revived with Song of Mending...that means I don't need to spend an action Reviving him right? Is this considered a better "meta" play? Or is reviving better cause they can potentially get more health.

13 hours ago, Swagglehaus said:

One clarification, when Tomble gets revived with Song of Mending ...that means I don't need to spend an action Reviving him right?

Correct. As soon as a knocked-out hero recovers hearts by any means, they are counted as standing up again - that heart recovery could be from a Revive action, or someone using a health potion on them, or skill card effects like Song of Mending's melody.

13 hours ago, Swagglehaus said:

Is this considered a better "meta" play? Or is reviving better cause they can potentially get more health.

Unfortunately there's no choice 😛

If the Bard ends his turn within 3 spaces of the knocked-out hero, he automatically recovers one heart and stands up - you can't choose not to apply that effect.

In some cases this is great as it saves you a revive action, but if the hero is just going to get attacked and killed again immediately then you need to do something different with your Bard - either make sure he's not within 3 spaces at the end of his turn, or move the melody token off the Song of Mending card so the heart recovery doesn't trigger...