I have a question regarding the difficulty and balance of Road to Legend. Specifically, I suppose, it's:

What's the consensus on the balance and difficulty of Road to Legend?

I realize that this is a tricky issue that depends on lots of variables that you don't really have access to, and I also realize that this is probably one of the more frequently asked questions on the forum. I've cruised what I could of the forum history, given the relatively crippled search function. There was a thread from another board that described one man's almost scientific approach to the difficulty of the JitD missions, with attempts, hero successes, and difficulty ratings for the first and subsequent passes at each mission. I found the thread extremely helpful and kind of exemplary of what I'd love to see, though I realize that with RtL that's all but impossible.

Anyway, for some background, and to address the many variables, my group has been playing Descent for probably three months now. I play the DM, and there's a rotating crew of seven or eight who man the four (always four) heroes, with one particular player always present and sort of the "master strategist." We're all pretty dorky and fairly intelligent, with plenty of hours logged playing strategy RPG video games, other complex board games, and so on. I've re-read the rules probably four times per book now, each time after a new session, and I'm fairly positive we've got all the rules down pat. They're doing everything they can to take advantage of Descent's often warped system (like Tahlia basically getting a run and battle way too often by way of Leadership); I don't feel like the game's subtle nuances are really escaping any of us.

That said, we're about 155 net conquest points into our first game of RtL, and after handing the heroes a few consecutive beat-downs, they're starting to lose enthusiasm and perhaps interest in the game. It's only fun for me if it's fun for everyone, and furthermore, I need players to play with to be able to actually, well, play , so I'm wondering if the balance of RtL is a bit off, or if it has a distinct difficulty slope, as do the normal missions, where the heroes are on the verge of death for the first half of the game, and then unstoppable for the second.

I'm currently up about 30 points (roughly 95 to 65, so time and a half), have razed one city, and am on the verge of razing the other. The heroes got pretty well obliterated by The Twins Rumor (am I missing something, or are those blue and yellow doors impossible to open?), a random dungeon level with a throne, a giant, and six skeletons, and a random level with a demon in a summoning circle who brings in a razorwing every turn. I brought the two additional Farrows out on the earliest turns possible, for a total of three lieutenants quite early on, and my players wondered aloud why I didn't just bring the nigh-invincible Alric to Tamalir right off the bat. Playing as The Titan, that's not a far walk, and I wondered the same thing myself.

We have all the expansions save Blood Ocean (i.e. Sea of Blood) too. The thread that had a number of attempts and difficulty per level of the original missions was very helpful, because I could tell my players after the second consecutive loss on dungeon five that yes, most people have a very hard time with this one, and no, the next one isn't is hard. I guess what I'd like is something similar for RtL, as much as that's possible. So:

Is Road to Legend tough for the heroes? Have mine gotten a few bad draws on random dungeon levels? Is The Twins all but impossible to win win, i.e. with both of the kids alive? Was I suppose to read to the heroes the part in the quest book that says that the monsters will attack the kids once the sorcerer is dead? Does the difficulty curve, with the game becoming tougher for the Overlord eventually? Can I tell my players, "hey, don't lose heart, the balance of power flips eventually"? What's to stop you as the Overlord from dumping the three Farrows on the board almost immediately and then heading straight to Tamalir? Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

tl;dr

Is Road to Legend really tough for the heroes, or is it just us and our position in the late copper stage of the game?

In my experience, RtL has a bit of steep learning curve but mostly...Cooper level is just brutal on the heroes. That you are only 30 ahead is the heroes actually doing good IMO. The trick to Copper level is the heroes need to be willing to just do two or even just one level of a dungeon and then flee with whatever loot and CT they have. They need to control how much CT they give the OL. For example, at the start of Copper if you give up more than 15 CT before hitting the start of the third floor of a dungeon you need to flee immediately. You want to limit the OL's ability to buy Upgrades.

Silver level starts to even out as soon as the heroes get into Silver treasures, and by Gold the balance actually shifts to the heroes over the OL.

Also, IMO, late Copper or early Silver (after buying some Silver weapons) is the best time to attack the Lts.

I've always looked at the balance of RtL this way: The game at any given point is itself not balanced. Someone always has the advantage, either the OL or the Heroes. The game overall has balance, because if the heroes can survive Copper and early Silver, they will probably win the game. Its a weird balance, but it exists.

And the doors in the Twins Rumor are actually supposed to be normal doors but were incorrectly labeled as Rune doors. I believe that is in the FAQ.

Your heroes should read this: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/325622/rtl-the-art-of-blitz

Blitzing is key, and it will not only keep the heroes more competitive, they can stay in the lead the entire game (if they're good). Remember, the deeper you go down a dungeon, the weaker the heroes are (they've used up potions, they are lower on health/fatigue, Alchemist at Tamalir is used up, etc), and the stronger the OL is (his hand has more cherry-picked cards now, there are Power Cards in play, he has a bunch of threat stacked up, his deck is closer to cycling for that extra CP, etc). So FLEE and flee often. Go through the first level, maybe, then look at the second level. MAYBE run to grab a treasure pile or glyph (and count this runner as dead) but for the most part, FLEE.

-shnar

What have the heroes done with their money and XP?

A 30 conquest difference means they're actually doing pretty darn well. As Copper draws to a close they'll get a little closer, and will then start to get slammed around again when Silver appears and your favorite monsters start becoming Gold. Towards the end of Silver they'll again be living high on the hog. Eventually, unless you siege Tamalir before then, they'll roll into a final fight with nigh-unstoppable power and roll right over everything you put in their path.

If they're doing this well, I wouldn't even bother blitzing if I were them, especially this late in the game. And extra especially if they have somewhere they want to go, since fleeing back to Tamalir every week quickly leaves you without being able to reach the legendary areas or the training towns you want, and the weeks you spend traveling later can give the OL more time to buy upgrades than he would have gotten if you'd just pressed forward and given him more XP. It's a good strategy at the start, but trying to insert it into the middle of a campaign really depends on what the map looks like, where the heroes have gone, and where they want to go.

For what it's worth, I am the author behind the 'Quest Difficulty Guide' that you mention.

The advice already given by other posters is sound. It sounds to me like your Heroes made the same mistake that EVERY first-time group of RtL players make, namely, go too deep in dungeons. You mention playing 'The Twins' rumor, which means the Heroes actually went to the 3rd floor of a dungeon. In general, it's not a bad idea to play the entire Copper level without EVER doing this. You will be simply amazed at how weak the Overlord is on the first floor when all the Heroes do is play first floor after first floor over and over.

I will add only a couple more points to what has already been said.

1) In terms of Alric rushing Tamalir immediately; I in fact ran exactly this experiment. In fact I assumed the Overlord used his starting 15 XP to buy the Transport Gem, and thus rush Tamalir as soon as possible. My results were that basically it is a coin-toss, and the Heroes can win the fight 50% of the time before Alric gets a siege roll. This is certainly a potentially strong option, but it is super high-variance; the price of failure for the Overlord is also VERY high, because if Alric gets sent home, he's lost his entire first 4 weeks, has taken the very useful Transport Gem out of the game forever, and is basically playing the rest of the game without a starting upgrade (which would usually be Siege Engines). If Alric is slower (ie. walks there), they should be able to win quite easily, so long as the party realizes that the Soaring Razorwings are the biggest obstacle to winning the fight and direct all their energy into finding ways to deal with them.

2) In terms of overall balance; it's my firm belief that if you just play RtL exactly as written without messing with any house rules, the external balance is actually PRETTY good (for any Avatar EXCEPT the Demon Prince, who is vastly overpowered). If anything, the Heroes have a slight advantage (ESPECIALLY if playing with Feats from Tomb of Ice) - so long as they play correctly, which numerous posts on these boards indicate that starting Heroes almost never do. The internal balance, however, is way off; the Overlord must focus all of his energies into his lieutenants with the plan being to raze Tamalir before Gold level hits. The plots are useless (at least in terms of winning outright with them) and he stands no chance in the final fight. This aspect of the game is, like you say, rather similar to original Descent in any case. For these reasons, I have devised a fairly comprehensive revamp that I have posted on Boardgame Geek; but this revamp is intended largely to address these 'internal' balance problems, not the external ones.

3) Sea of Blood is a different story; the external balance is totally broken in this expansion. Certainly don't buy it hoping it will 'fix' any problems you are having with RtL. In fact, I'd recommend not buying it at all unless you're willing to start house-ruling it immediately.

The_Immortal said:

How so? We're playing it now, and while the Divine Favor rule is making it stretch waaay out, especially without the promised "minimum of 1" errata, it seems to have been pretty well balanced so far without the need for house rules. We're about halfway through Silver now and it's still anybody's game.

The meta-game in SoB is much less balanced. Stopping LT from destroying 5 cities is far to difficult. Even with Runemaster Thorn my group can't stop me from laying siege to their cities. Most of the time I can force them to flee, but even if they do get close I just flee one stop on the map and then go right back. I guess I could just not do things like that, but we decided it is no fun if the OL does not go all out.

But I agree that in-dungeon the game is more balanced. Divine Favor and boss-scaling are good additions to the game. It just won't help them on the map.

Kevin replied directly in the forums that the minimum conquest is 1 CPs (so is probably in the GLoAQ but I haven't looked). Is that not good enough for your group?

-shnar

shnar said:

IIRC he actually replied that it would go in the FAQ. But it didn't.
And no, that won;t be good enough for James' group if I recall past discussions.

When a company spokesman says "X will be errattaed" and it is not, I have to assume that they changed their mind or were overruled by a superior. Either way, I see little reason to follow a rule that doesn't exist. If it makes it into the errata or we decide it's a rule we need, we'll follow it. But we try to avoid house rules whenever possible.

^Company spokesman? Kevin is the man who designed Descent. I'd say that if he actually made a rules posting on the boards here, that should be good enough for everybody, whether it eventually makes its way into the FAQ or not.

Cyan_of_Doma said:

If you look at something like Red November, FFG has actually explicitly gone against rulings made by Bruno Faidutti, the game designer. The publisher and designer won't always agree, and then who should we listen to?

Thanks everyone for the responses, and thanks to The_Immortal for the original guide. I suppose it makes sense that RtL has not just a rules learning curve, but a pretty heavy strategy learning curve as well, just like the original game has both. I shared some of the advice with my players, and I'll probably email then shnar's link later on as well. Interesting to hear that the plot cards are almost worthless - I picked Eternal Night and have thought pretty much the same. It just feels like my experience is better directed toward treachery or other upgrades.

James, for what it's worth, my heroes have, thus far, largely hoarded XP. They blew some on silver dice (which they later realized was a mistake - get all the black dice first), and one grabbed an additional skill. A lot of the money has gone toward party upgrades, and they're currently headed toward Olmric's Hut with the intent of doing the special training if they can squeeze it in before copper ends.

Now to gather my raft of RtL questions into one coherent mass and ask those...

Speaking of, dare I ask what the problem with Blood Ocean is in terms of balance and brokenness?

Cymbaline said:

Actually, I believe it's generally accepted that it's better to have upgraded dice - you don't want to have five power dice. This is because you must spend fatigue on die upgrades before you roll your attack but can spend fatigue to add dice (as long as you haven't already rolled five) after the roll.

mahkra said:

Ah. Interesting. I would have figured that black die are the better purchase, since they're the more efficient expenditure of XP. 15XP / 500G versus 20XP / 750G and later 25XP / 1,000G.

Never upgrade to 5 power dice, unless you have nothing left to upgrade (which will never be the case). That way you are free to add that one extra power die with fatigue after the dice are rolled. Our heroes only upgrade the 4th die after they've upgraded all their other 3 dice to Gold. Sure it's more expensive, but they like being able to boost w/Fatigue or Power Potions, which saves them XP for skills.

-shnar

Out of curiosity, what is it about the Demon Prince that makes it overpowered?

Cyan_of_Doma said:

I've seen too many games where designers make decisions that are later overruled by the company or another designer to have "designer = god" as my default assumption. Nor do I want to play the "scour the internet for all rulings made by designers" game that some companies seem to like to play.

We did use the ruling until the FAQ was updated, at which point it was clear that something had happened to invalidate the original statement by Kevin. It's possible that he rethought the situation and didn't bother to mention it on the boards, or that he was overruled by a boss. It's also possible that he just forgot about it. If it's one of the first two, the statement he made is no longer valid, so nobody should be using that rule (at least not just because "the designer said it." If it's the latter, it'll get rectified in a future FAQ and we'll start using it again.

In the meantime, do what's funnest for your group.

YellowPebble said:

His lieutenant has a demon minion, which is the toughest monster to begin with considering his high armor and fear, but also has soar in encounters. Fighting a soaring demon is ugly. The demon prince also has an amazing keep location, with cities 1 space and 2 spaces away, and talimar very close as well. Add in that he has eldrich at his main monster type (the best for dungeons, and very good in encounters also) as well as event treachery, and he is a powerhouse.

And with eldritch silver upgraded there is not a lot of thing the party can do against him....

I think the basic RtL campaign just doesnt work well. The Tamalir rush is very dangerous, not by teleporting a lieutenant to it, but simply marching one of them to there and start siegig with siege engines and silver upgraded eldritch while a second lieutenant is coming or sieging another city.

If the players want to do something against they wont be able to reach the copper legendary area nor trainer because it let too much time for the overlord to rase Tamalir.

Of course, not every game is the same... but I think RTL is too hard for the heroes player if no balancing rules are added, a lot of them. And even then you will see some unavoidable TPK in encounters.

Also some avatar/mission work well, some not.

I think Obsidian Shackles by example work well with Sorcerer because he didn't need so many upgrade. And the Shacles Cards can be really really nasties, wait for them to reach the secret trainer or city they want to train in then use the card to closes/rase it before they could train there. They have lost quite some turn of move for nothing. And if they dont come that way just dont play the card and use the CP to something else.

Ivan Kerensky said:

1. That depends entirely on the party. Kar-Amog-Atoth himself is not actually all that tough (40W, 4arm, Fear2) - he is most dangerous because his minions, once upgraded, hand out some serious damage (so limit the time the heroes have) and are not that easy to kill. Certainly he is dangerous. But not invincible I believe.

2. We have not had a successful Tamalir raze in 4 completed campaigns, though often it was very close (and indeed, several times actually had rolls to succeed, but failed). This is because the heroes had long, medium and short term plans to deal with Tamalir rushes and raze attempts. A Tamalir Rush is dangerous not so much for winning the game, but because it forces the heroes to modify their plans to deal with it instead of merrily cruising along unhampered getting exactly the upgrades and equipment they want, when they want it.

3. The Copper (and Gold) Legendary dungeons are entirely unnecessary. In fact they are traps for foolish heroes much of the time (especially the Copper one), as parties push too deep and too persistently and give up far to many CT to the OL. The copper SM training however is very important and should be the first training attempted - even which dungeons where/when choices in the first 2-3 weeks should be made with an early copper SM training upgrade in mind.

4. It is an Advanced campaign. No balancing rules are required, unless you want a Basic campaign that is easy for the heroes.
As for TPK, so what? Sometimes the OL gets to have a good week too!

Just one question . The heroes have killed sir alric farrow in ONE turn in copper level. Do you think that is it normal?

Another question. Has anyone played the final fight with the avatar with balanced difficulty?

gran_orco said:

1. Yes, although it requires good hero play and bad OL play.

2. No, though in every game our OL has focused primarily on map wins and so does not expect a balanced battle if he fails.

Killing Alric in one turn does not seem very likely, unless the OL does something really stipid. We did kill both the other Farrows in one turn each due to a combination of knockback items and extra attack skills, but that was in silver or gold and it was always very close to not working.

My group just started our campaign last night and we had a lot of complaining from 1 player that the difficulty was way too hard for the players now. He is used to the core set where the heroes just waltz through everything pretty will nilly. I kept trying to explain that the heroes get much more powerful but he just kept complaining.

I think overall though the heroes did pretty good. The heroes ended up already after one session (2 game weeks) with 45 xp and the overlord side 13xp.

One question I do have though is what about leftover threat tokens for the overlord.....do they get converted to xp at all or is any leftover threat from dungeons just wasted? It seems really hard for the overlord to earn xp if the only thing he generates it from is conquest tokens given to him for killing players.