I believe the card really should read “Exhaust this card during your turn to choose any number of your other exhausted skill cards”

There may be a few minor revisions necessary (this is a wordy card, so maybe drop “during your turn” to save space) but I think that would be more reasonable than the card looks currently.

And the use of “other” to exclude All-Knowing itself is similar to abilities like the Barf’s Song Of Mending harmony part, which uses “each other hero” to exclude the Bard himself.

Even given the OL’s myriad of attribute test cards, this card just looks too easy to use without “exhaust this card”.

It's also important to note that the Overlord has to consume precious finite resources (e.g. Overlord cards, threat tokens) to manipulate hero attribute tests. The hero can use All-Knowing every single turn, possibly to perform attacks which will recover the very stamina used to activate the card.

Even with the "Exhaust this card" change, it is still extremely powerful, especially combined with Bottled Courage.

But theses classes and this card in particular wasn't tough with the Overlord in mind, so, Even with infinite bottled courage, facing overwhelming boosted monsters, it's strong but no broken.

I'm trying theses on "normal" play so I will give my toughts soon.

1 minute ago, rugal said:

But theses classes and this card in particular wasn't tough with the Overlord in mind, so, Even with infinite bottled courage, facing overwhelming boosted monsters, it's strong but no broken.

I'm trying theses on "normal" play so I will give my toughts soon.

Did you just say these classes weren't designed with the Overlord in mind? That is madness - where is this information from?

- Jee

14 minutes ago, Inspector Jee said:

Did you just say these classes weren't designed with the Overlord in mind? That is madness - where is this information from?

- Jee

You saw stuff created for descent outside of the since the app ?

The issue with an infinite use All-Knowing really stands out with Quellen. He would have 6 Knowledge (+1 from All-Knowing). Refreshing a single card adds one to your attribute test, which means he’s testing knowledge at an attribute value of 5.

If he begins a turn, he can:

-Spend 2 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage.

-Spend 1 fatigue to use All-Knowing, with a 92% chance of refreshing Bottled Courage.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage

-Spend a fourth fatigue to use All-Knowing. 92% chance to pass.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage (The odds of reaching this third attack are 85%)

Assuming he did not recover any fatigue and does not wish to use All-Knowing again, Quellen has spent all his fatigue and performed 3 attacks, and handed out up to 3 elixirs. He could have performed 2 actions at any time during that sequence.

Let alone what he could do with his feat.

Is it better than Carve a Path or Whirlwind, neither of which require 5xp?

It certainly takes a lot less setup. I’ll have to see it on the game board, but it feels so very easy to do.

1 minute ago, Lightningclaw said:

The issue with an infinite use All-Knowing really stands out with Quellen. He would have 6 Knowledge (+1 from All-Knowing). Refreshing a single card adds one to your attribute test, which means he’s testing knowledge at an attribute value of 5.

If he begins a turn, he can:

-Spend 2 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage.

-Spend 1 fatigue to use All-Knowing, with a 92% chance of refreshing Bottled Courage.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage

-Spend a fourth fatigue to use All-Knowing. 92% chance to pass.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage (The odds of reaching this third attack are 85%)

Assuming he did not recover any fatigue and does not wish to use All-Knowing again, Quellen has spent all his fatigue and performed 3 attacks, and handed out up to 3 elixirs. He could have performed 2 actions at any time during that sequence.

Is it better than Carve a Path or Whirlwind, neither of which require 5xp?

It certainly takes a lot less setup. I’ll have to see it on the game board, but it feels so very easy to do.

I'm almost sure this card was meant to be played once per turn. I've already houseruled it that way. Far strong enough.

1 minute ago, rugal said:

You saw stuff created for descent outside of the since the app ?

Sure. But nowhere in this expansion does it say that it was balanced only with the app in mind.

- Jee

37 minutes ago, Inspector Jee said:

Sure. But nowhere in this expansion does it say that it was balanced only with the app in mind.

- Jee

Let's say it's a conviction I have. many cards tell this fact.

5 minutes ago, Lightningclaw said:

The issue with an infinite use All-Knowing really stands out with Quellen. He would have 6 Knowledge (+1 from All-Knowing). Refreshing a single card adds one to your attribute test, which means he’s testing knowledge at an attribute value of 5.

If he begins a turn, he can:

-Spend 2 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage.

-Spend 1 fatigue to use All-Knowing, with a 92% chance of refreshing Bottled Courage.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage

-Spend a fourth fatigue to use All-Knowing. 92% chance to pass.

-Spend 0 fatigue to attack with Bottled Courage (The odds of reaching this third attack are 85%)

Assuming he did not recover any fatigue and does not wish to use All-Knowing again, Quellen has spent all his fatigue and performed 3 attacks, and handed out up to 3 elixirs. He could have performed 2 actions at any time during that sequence.

Let alone what he could do with his feat.

Is it better than Carve a Path or Whirlwind, neither of which require 5xp?

It certainly takes a lot less setup. I’ll have to see it on the game board, but it feels so very easy to do.

This is also assuming that you can't target All-Knowing WITH All-Knowing , which "as written" you totally can. This would allow you to just keep going basically forever.

- Jee

15 minutes ago, Inspector Jee said:

Sure. But nowhere in this expansion does it say that it was balanced only with the app in mind.

- Jee

I do not know about the entire expansion, but at the very least, the wording of Unholy Bond indicates it was not designed with an Overlord in mind.

It is used when a monster attacks, and the wording indicates the hero is rerolling an attack or power die. This is consistent with the RTL attack rules which state that a hero rolls dice for monsters he is attacking or defending from. (See the combat example on page 7 of the RTL rules)

The following link takes you to a post by Zcurator containing an image of Unholy Bond:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/296639-red-scorpion/?do=findComment&comment=3726656

I personally believe that this expansion was not designed with an OL in mind, but Unholy Bond is the only evidence I can point to that supports that idea.

@Lightningclaw That wording on Unholy Bond is very disappointing. I expect to house-rule cards when playing variants and non-publisher material, but I shouldn't need to house-rule a publisher card when playing the standard game.

This expansion is increasingly appearing very unprofessional, to the extent that they should make all the necessary erratas, fix the inconsistent wordings, and begin mailing out replacement cards for the ones that somehow slipped through the vetting process. To be frank, a game this mature shouldn't have these kinds of issues.

I already ordered my copy, but there are half a dozen cards I don't even want to play with at this point.

14 minutes ago, varusSMK said:

@Lightningclaw That wording on Unholy Bond is very disappointing. I expect to house-rule cards when playing variants and non-publisher material, but I shouldn't need to house-rule a publisher card when playing the standard game.

This expansion is increasingly appearing very unprofessional, to the extent that they should make all the necessary erratas, fix the inconsistent wordings, and begin mailing out replacement cards for the ones that somehow slipped through the vetting process. To be frank, a game this mature shouldn't have these kinds of issues.

I already ordered my copy, but there are half a dozen cards I don't even want to play with at this point.

I completely agree with that many cards seem half-done..

I’ve started thinking of Lost Legends as the “Soul Reaper Expansion” since Unholy Bond and a few typos aside, it seems to have the best design and balance of everything I’ve seen.

Granted, I don’t have mine yet and I cannot read many of the hybrid cards, but I’m happiest with the Soul Reaper for the most part.

13 minutes ago, Lightningclaw said:

I completely agree with that many cards seem half-done..

I’ve started thinking of Lost Legends as the “Soul Reaper Expansion” since Unholy Bond and a few typos aside, it seems to have the best design and balance of everything I’ve seen.

Granted, I don’t have mine yet and I cannot read many of the hybrid cards, but I’m happiest with the Soul Reaper for the most part.

I'm probably being too cranky about things, but this expansion was 2+ years in the making, and hence, there was a ton of pent up anticipation around it. Regardless of what industry you're in or what product you're making, you have to bring your A-game in these situations.

In addition to having plenty of time to design, @rugal pointed out that FFG had a ton of fan content to inspire creation. The editing process could have been well supported, as there are members of the community who know this game better than the creators do at this point. It is a missed opportunity to not extend a short term contract to these folks and build a flawless expansion. Just today we are reminded of how sophisticated some of the community members like @Sadgit are with the release of Sands of the Past .

Alright - I've descended into giving unsolicited business advice. Definitely time for me to shut up now.

varusSMK

6 hours ago, Lightningclaw said:

I do not know about the entire expansion, but at the very least, the wording of Unholy Bond indicates it was not designed with an Overlord in mind.

It is used when a monster attacks, and the wording indicates the hero is rerolling an attack or power die. This is consistent with the RTL attack rules which state that a hero rolls dice for monsters he is attacking or defending from. (See the combat example on page 7 of the RTL rules)

The following link takes you to a post by Zcurator containing an image of Unholy Bond:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/296639-red-scorpion/?do=findComment&comment=3726656

I personally believe that this expansion was not designed with an OL in mind, but Unholy Bond is the only evidence I can point to that supports that idea.

Mmm messy, but not exactly a smoking gun. There isn't a strict rule that states that a die's roller can't be a different player than the reroller. All this really means that is that regardless of who rolled the Monster's Attack dice, the person RErolling it will be the Healer.

- Jee

16 hours ago, Lightningclaw said:

I personally believe that this expansion was not designed with an OL in mind, but Unholy Bond is the only evidence I can point to that supports that idea.

In fact, there's another clue : almost, if not all of the cards are oriented around "move and actions" because the app is balanced only around time, the more you move and kill, the more you are wining. Many cards function about gaining actions or advantage with killed monsters, as if the game is no more than that

Versus and Overlord, this is not the only option you can have, because the Overlord has many other weapons for countering all of theses. But what the use of manipulating a monster, Overlord cards, or else, versus brainless swarming monsters all around and killing perils ?

In french, we say "shut up, it's magic", and old sentence used by Game masters when they are cornered. This is a bit like this, if the heroes are not strong enough or taking to much time, they are killed, that's all. So, the only thing usefull in the app is time, and time is action, so, the more action you gain, the more you are going to win.

And this is THE deceiving point to me. Some other options can be greater but with no use the app in mind.

The app is cool (and ultimately necessary to the longevity of this game), but it's not the heart and soul of Descent. The heart and soul is old school dungeon crawl pvp; the game was designed from the ground up with this play-style in mind and every deviation from this is going to introduce more entropy in the system than it otherwise would have, regardless of how fun and engaging said variant might be. I'm aware that that 1 vs. many play-style has fallen out of a favor with boardgamers in the last decade or so (and I could write an entire post on why I think that is), but FFG ignores the true nature of Descent at the game's own peril.

Ok good discussion all - it sounds like the answer to my original question is: "This expansion you bought is partially broken. The manufacturer is probably not going to fix it. Caveat Emptor, pal."

- Jee

It really looks like All-knowing would exhaust upon use, but that it can target itself.

Is there any previous class card with a fatigue cost that doesn't get exhausted when you use it?

Yup

1 hour ago, ssorgatem said:

It really looks like All-knowing would exhaust upon use, but that it can target itself.

Is there any previous class card with a fatigue cost that doesn't get exhausted when you use it?

Yup ! Quick recovery, Healing Rain, (but cost an action), etc ...

It's hard for me to believe that the interaction with Bottled Courage (and things like it) wasn't discovered during play-testing. The bare minimum effort required to test a hybrid class would be to play out every single one of its possible class combos (hopefully, they also tested each with a wide variety of heroes). Once they inevitably got to Lorekeeper / Apothecary , any player even half-awake would be like "oh snap fighting power 1,000,000". So even conceding the lowest possible level of competency to FFG requires the acceptance that the lack of "Exhaust" on All-Knowing was deliberate. The only explanation for this (other than "FFG purposefully created a combo that for 1 Fatigue obliterates all Monsters within LoS") is that the current behavior of All-Knowing is intended minus its implication that it can affect unexhausted cards (i.e. itself). Under this assumption, the combo IS deliberate but each employed iteration costs 1 Fatigue and a [Book] Check (after the initial 2 Fatigue buy-in of Bottled Courage ).

Whether or not this is still an OP combo is pretty well up for debate IMO. As mentioned by LightningClaw , both Carve a Path and Whirlwind are more than capable of delivering a similar amount of Attacks for a cheaper cost - both in XP and in Fatigue - and no attribute risk. The only real advantage this combo has over those 2 skills is that a) it gives out pots sometimes and b) it's only limited by Fatigue. But you would expect this, for all the extra stuff you have to spend - and do - just to get it going. The XP cost alone means that you're not going to be seeing this employed until ACT II at the very, very earliest and that's IF the Apothakeeper prioritizes it over everything else - which means a Healer (or possibly THE Healer) is gimping themselves for at least 2-3 whole Missions (one of which is the Interlude ) whilst saving up. That seems like a reasonable amount of time for a crafty OL to gain enough ground to effectively counter the expected-value garnered from this combo later on.

I think I'm convinced. All-Knowing should probably be clarified to: " ... Choose any number of your exhausted skill cards and test [Book] ..."

I am also going to apply Occum's Razor to the original topic and assume that Tide should have been worded thusly: "Exhaust this card when you perform an Attack. After that attack , a monster adjacent to the target space .... ". This clears up the Sun and Sea interaction while not ascribing any additional mechanics to either skill.

Thanks everyone for your input!

- Jee

Well, Healing Rain requires an action.

Also, I'd swear the Spanish version of Quick Recovery does say "exhaust" instead of "use", the same for the other hybrid skills with 2 different uses, but I'll make sure when I get home.

Good news, everyone! /Farnsworth

I received a response from FFG about this.

From Nathan Hajek:

“ Tide should have the same timing as Blaze, after dice are rolled. The timing on Tide is an error.

All-Knowing should have “other” in the text so that it cannot target itself: “Choose any number of your other skill cards and… ”

So there you have it.

- Jee

Thanks for that. I created versions of the cards including this errata.

Download them from here.

Finally something to put into the CRRG

3 minutes ago, Sadgit said:

Thanks for that. I created versions of the cards including this errata.

Download them from here.

Those look great Sadgit! How do you make these revised cards?
I appreciate the errata to fix the rules problems with these, but I still wouldn't want to play with many of these cards as originally printed.

1 minute ago, Charmy said:

Those look great Sadgit. How do you make these cards? I'm thinking of printing my own for the rework I'm doing.
I appreciate the errata so these are playable, but I still wouldn't want to play with many of these cards as originally printed.

I recreated them in Adobe InDesign.