A little backstory:
My group and myself, like many of you on these forums, have found the base game of JiTD to be very easy on the heroes. While this wasn't necessarily a bad thing for the first play through of the initial campaign, we now find ourselves looking towards the purchasing of the expansions. I have already gotten a copy of Road to Legend (it was on sale for 25 dollars with a 40% off holiday coupon.) But we aren't sure we are quite ready to dive that deep into the game yet, we kinda want to play a little more of the basic game before we get into an epic adventure (plus we haven't nailed down our final party for RTL.) We are very concerned about the drastic difficulty ramp-up that has been discussed about many of the first few expansions, leaving the heroes defenseless against the new found treachery and monsters of the OL. Because of this we were considering jumping straight into ToI. Not only does it hold the appeal of better balance but it also has, from what I understand, shorter but more inventive missions.

The actual question:
My question is simple. If we purchase ToI without purchasing any of the other expansions and add it into our basic JiTD have we now doubled the ease on the heroes, because it seems like ToI was meant to power back up the heroes against the woes added by the other expansions. I really am interested in the shorter dungeons, but I just don't want the victories to become so commonplace that there is no point in playing.

I don't have ToI, but my impression is that it has treachery cards, which are the main thing that boosts the OL in the other expansions (other than perhaps quest design, which doesn't carry over if you're playing the ToI quests). It looks like the OL may not have a lot of choice about which treachery cards to add, but I imagine the overall balance would still be pretty good.

Though if you skip the Well of Darkness expansion, you're liable to be stuck with magic weapons being significantly more common than other types in all treasure decks, which can skew things a bit...

I'd go for WoD to compliment ToI if you can afford it, as the power the OL gains in WoD should be somewhat mitigated by the Feats the players will get in ToI.

There are a few Treachery cards in ToI but nowhere near the number found in WoD (or Altar of Despair) so if you just go with ToI you won't see much variety in the OL's deck.

joystickg said:

I think the RtL rules state that the heroes are drawn at random. Could be wrong though.... I have yet to play a campaign.

jwdenzel said:

That is correct. The option to select heroes is not even given in the RAW for RtL. Unlike the OL...

RtL Pg 8

1. Each hero player draws three hero sheets at random and chooses one of them to play for the duration of the Advanced Campaign. The players may confer with each other while choosing. If there are fewer than four players, some players must control extra heroes to bring the total number to four. Such players separately draw three hero sheets and choose one for each hero they will control.

...

5. The overlord player either selects an Avatar, or randomly chooses one by shuffling the Avatar sheets and drawing one.

However given that it could be 90 odd hours with the same heroes, many groups may choose to allow the Heroes to be selected to prevent the dissatisfaction of being stuck with a character one does not like for so long. I would just say, in that case, the OL Avatar should be chosen most carefully with an eye to the Heroes and their skills (actually, he should anyway, but particularly so if the heroes are 'chosen').

For example, if Kirga or Boggs the Rat are in play then spawning will be very difficult in the smaller RtL Dungeons so a spawn specialist Avatar (like the Beastman Lord) would be unwise. If the Heroes select heavily armoured but low wounds heroes like the dwarves, Jaes or One Hand then the Spider Queen can have great fun trapping them to death. If the party is overly heavy with lots of wounds but few shooters or magic users then an Overland Map specialist like the Titan (IIRC) is more useful (most of the Lieutenants having soaring creatures that require long range weapons to be effective against). If the Heroes have Mok, Cautious or similar Threat damaging capabilities then perhaps the Sorcerer King (or is it Skeleton King, I can't remember) with his extra threat generation might be useful.

Actually, to reply to the OP, if you have RtL I'd advise diving straight in with the intention that the first 'campaign' is a learner and will probably be abandoned before it gets halfway through. Even for experienced players there are significant differences in RtL play that are much more subtle than they appear*. The best way to learn is to dive in, screw a bunch of things up, figure out how to do things better and then start a campaign properly. By that stage you'll either be hooked and never want to go back to 'standard' or will have lost interest entirely anyway.

* basic examples being smaller maps changing spawn dynamics and other things, some subtle and some obvious changes in monster dice changing how different monsters must be treated, outdoor encounters with soaring, what to do and not to do on the mapboard, knowing when to quit a dungeon without completing it and weaker heroes to start with (only 1 skill).

Sorry about the confusion by "our party" I meant that we aren't sure of the actual players yet. We have many people who want to play (often times too many to play at once) but not all of them would be up for the campaign setup.