Is it true that TOI does not include information about TOI monsters in the dungeon levels of RtL and that you can only get the TOI monsters thru spawn cards? I was planning on getting TOI assuming that it would add the most to RTL, but if the monsters don't show up in the dungeons...well that just stinks. Has anyone done a homegrown for it?

This actually leads me to think, I wonder if there is a way to assign point totals or something to monsters so that the OL can mix and match monsters from the different expansions in a single dungeon. Has anyone thought of this?

Fang

ToI comes with several cards specifically for use with RtL (I believe there are dungeons, rumors, and some others; don't remember all the card types RtL uses). My understanding is that the ToI monsters show up on the ToI cards, but the only way to get them into the areas that come with RtL is to use spawn cards.

It is true that there is no "E" option of monsters for the original 40 (?) dungeon levels, though ToI includes a handful of extra dungeons (5? Can't remember exactly) and rumors. I thought someone had created their own flavor of option E monsters for the original dungeons, but I couldn't find it on BGG. I *did* find however a "point system" for using your own monsters in the dungeons:

www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/40918/alternative-monsters-for-rtl-ver-0-9

Haven't played with it myself, so cannot comment on how well it plays...

-shnar

howlingfang said:

Yes, unfortunately no Option E was given for RtL when ToI came out.

There is a way to assign point totals. I was actually working on it shortly after ToI came out but never finished it. Here is how I was going about it.

You can kind of reverse engineer point totals for Options A-D if you use the reinforcement chart from RtL or SoB (since SoB has the ToI monsters listed). I aldo added 2 threat if the Monster was a Master. If you then add up the threat total for each option and divide by the number of monsters you can get a rough "power estimate" of the options. So RtL Dungeon Level 1: Collapsed Columns works out to:

Option A : Threat total: 23 / Number of Monsters: 7.00 = Power: 3.29 Monster: 6 Skel, 1 M Sorc
Option B : Threat total: 23 / Number of Monsters: 6.00 = Power: 3.83 Monster: 2 Skel,2 M Skel, 1 HH, 1 Sorc
Option C : Threat total: 22 / Number of Monsters: 6.00 = Power: 3.70 Monster: 4 Skel, 1 Rzrwg, 1 M Frx
Option D : Threat total: 20 / Number of Monsters: 6.00 = Power: 3.33 Monster: 4 Skel, 1 DElf, 1 Dk Prt

So for those options, the average Power is about 3.5. So for that level, you could use for ToI monsters

Option E: Threat total: 22 / Number of Monsters: 6.00 = Power: 3.66 Monster: 4 Skel, 1 Wdgo, 1 M Shade

That comes out to be roughly equivalent based on those charts and this way of doing it.

WARNING: This is not full proof by any means. It breaks down badly the second Kobolds become involved. The only solution I've found for Kobolds is that you actually have to double their threat value for it to work out even close and even then they are always the weakest option. Every other monsters seems to work out fine.

I've done this for the first 7 RtL dungeon levels, and on one individual level the Power ratings actually have always worked out to within a few threat of each other (I don't think there was ever more than a +/- 4 Threat difference).

I have an excel sheet made up to calculate it, but just don't really have time. I'll gladly send it someone if they want to give it a shot.

There is another bit of work done on this by someone else at BGG that may be worth checking out: www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/35635/dungeon-level-monster-generator-sheet

Again I have no experience with it, but it certainly does look interesting. Anything like this would certainly provide a lot more variety than "Would you like 4 skeletons and 3 sorcerers or 4 sorcerers and 3 skeletons?"