The RtL rules for removing web tokens read;

At the start of each of that hero's turns, its owner must roll a black power die for each web token on it, plus one additional black power die for each die of Melee trait the hero has. For each power surge rolled, remove one web token. If any web tokens remain on the figure after rolling, the figure cannot spend any movement points that turn.

Monsters caught in a web remove tokens the same way, except that they roll one black power die for each web token, plus one extra black power die for each space they occupy beyond the first.

The vanilla rules read:

At the start of each of that figure's turns, its owner must roll a power die for each web token on the figure. For each power surge rolled, one web token is discarded.

So my questions:

1) Did the devs purposely do this? When playing vanilla should I play by vanilla rules and RtL by RtL rules, making web tokens easier to shrug off for whatever reason, or is there a concensus to go by one set when playing any combination of expansions? - one reason I ask this is that the RtL version of the rule is found under the heading "Collected Lingering Effects" which I would think would all just be the same as the rules found in vanilla or the respective expansions. Another point to note, RtL is the only expansion I own or have read the rules to.

2) I'm unable to paste into this text box. Is that because I'm using google chrome?

Eric! said:

Normally, I would it is a design difference between vanilla and RtL, but now that I've heard the second hand comment from someone that KW said Undying has always supposed to in vanilla Descent like it does in RtL I'm less sure. I don't think its going to unbalance the game if you use the published RtL rules for web in vanilla Descent.

As for pasting, this website has a pop up box to paste into. So if google chrome isn't told to allow the pop up, then you'll never see it.

Several abilities are different in RtL, with no explanation. The Tomb of Ice expansion, released after Road to Legend, reprints the original versions of those abilities (not the RtL versions), and they never showed up as errata in the FAQ, either, which suggests that they're intentionally different in the extended campaign.

On the other hand, one of the changes was adding ranks to the Aura ability, and one of the heroes in ToI has Aura 4 , even though the ToI rules make no mention of Aura having ranks. And there's the comment Remy mentioned; someone posted on the forum that they heard the designer (at a conference) say that Undying should follow the RtL rules in vanilla Descent, or something to that effect; though that's unverified, and without context, and certainly doesn't show up in any official FFG publication.

Descent is notorious for having really bad editing.

In terms of playability, lots of people were complaining about Web around the time Road to Legend was published, because a run of bad luck can cause a hero to remain trapped for a long time. The change to Web (but not to the other 3 effect tokens that used the same mechanic) was probably designed to address this complaint, and I've seen some people post that they apply the change to vanilla Descent as a house rule. I think that's a bad way of addressing the problem for a variety of philosophical reasons, but it's not going to snap the game in half or anything.

Agreed on all counts. It won't cause any problems if you use it in vanilla, but I personally don't think it's a very good "fix" anyway.

If you think about it, a melee character would be able to use his sword easily against a web. So it makes sense to allow the extra dice for the melee trait. I would have made it that you only get the number of dice in your melee trait. If you have 0 then roll 1. Don't give the extra die to a melee 3 character. That would have been a better rule IMO.

eWabbie said:

Firstly, no, I don't see any particular reason that someone whose legs are encased in webs is going to have an easier time removing them with a sword than with a utility knife or some other tool that every hero would carry but that is below the level of detail the game models. If you were trying to force yourself through walls of webs, maybe . But not when you're wrapped up in them; I think you'd cut your own legs off. It's possible I'm wrong - I've never personally been trapped in giant, magical Bane Spider webs - but your claim is certainly not self-evident.

Secondly, "high melee trait" doesn't equal "sword". Having a sword card means that you have a sword. Melee heroes could very easily be using, say, the Walking Stick or Shillelagh, or even a ranged or magic weapon, if they felt like it. Non-melee heroes can buy swords if they want, and there are even circumstances where that's a perfectly legitimate tactic. Having more melee dice just means you're better at using a sword - in combat - not that you have one. The mechanic you suggest doesn't model the situation you describe any better than the current mechanic.

Thirdly, the intricacies of how easy or hard it is to break out of webs under various conditions ought to be pretty far down on your list of problems to fix if you really take the story that seriously. Currently, webs don't permit you to move, but they do permit you to attack and dodge - try to figure that one out, I dare you (especially while preserving your story about swords being helpful). Don't forget that the hero can't be attached to the floor, walls, or ceiling, because a webbed figure can still be moved around with Telekinesis (and will still be webbed after moving). Runemaster Thorn can't teleport while webbed, but a hero with the Shadow Soul skill can. There's a ring you can wear and a tattoo you can have that let you ignore the webs. Come on, I want to hear how you imagine these webs actually work.

And the web effect itself pales in comparison to a ton of other mechanics.

More to the point, there's a special place in hell reserved for people who generate game mechanics based on thematic reasoning (especially half-assed thematic reasoning) without considering the implications for gameplay. Have you even considered low long a hero is likely to be webbed under your rules if they ever manage to get multiple web tokens at once? A hero with 0-1 melee dice can't remove more than 1 token per turn even with ideal rolls - if you get ambushed by a Bane Spider Nest and suddenly have 3 web tokens, you'll be lucky to be free in fewer than 6 turns! If you're one of the unlucky people who gets stuck for 5 turns from a single web token, you'll probably be trapped for the remainder of the game. That wouldn't unbalance the game so much as destroy it.

The RtL mechanic for removing webs (probably) isn't intended to represent better tools - it's most likely designed so that the heroes that are hurt most by webs can break out of them the fastest, with no particular thematic explanation in mind at all. (And if there was an explanation in mind, it's pobably that melee heroes are "stronger," not that they have swords.) Your rule is designed to accomplish a completely different goal - and a very dubious goal, at that.

Yeah. I read on a different thread on BGG that someone established a house rule that you can sacrifice an attack to roll another get out of web attempt. I think I'll adopt that, but instead of rolling 2 power dice as would be the case with 2 web tokens, you just get 1 power die per attack. Maybe that's me being a stickler, but I feel that the house rule is generous by right of its existence.

Also, off topic, they had a rule about undying being really swingy, but were ambiguous about the actual specifics of the rule. I think I'd change it to a 1/6 chance of coming back for free, 2/6 chance for 1 threat, 3/6 chance for 3 threat. Thoughts? Maybe you know The_Immortal, Antistone, and you know the specifics of the rule.

There is a perfectly thematic reason. Melee dice are how strong the hero is (try to find a 3 melee dice hero who isn't buff). A stronger hero can use brute force to break free of the webbing.

When it's been discussed before, I believe the majority of posters recommended using Undying as written, and the majority of the posters arguing for something else didn't seem to understand probability.

If the variance really bothers you, you could change it to a 50% chance to revive, but each figure can only revive once. That gives you the same average number of revives, but no chance that a figure will revive many times in a row. IMO, any Undying house rule that's more complicated than that is silly.

Badend: I already mentioned that possibility, but the fact that you can create a thematic explanation after you know the rule (especially one that relies on subjective evaluation of an exhaustive artwork search to try to justify itself) doesn't mean that that was the reason the rule is the way it is.

Badend said:

The flip side of this reasoning would be that heroes with fewer melee dice are not as buff. But Bogran's got pretty meaty arms, and Ispher and even Carthos have impressive bulging biceps.