Has anybody thought about what a fair number of heroes would be for the vanilla descent quests? I've only played through the first 2 quests, and it seems like 3 heroes presents a fair balance so that either side could win; however I've read that some quests are more difficult than others. So if you've assessed (or have an opinion) on what would be a fair number of heroes for each quest, I would like to hear it (minimizing spoilers [i.e. quest specific hints] please) so I can get some decently balanced games.

My impression is that changing the number of heroes tips the balance of the game significantly, and I'd be tempted to just stick with four heroes on all quests, all the time. Some will be easier, some will be harder, but trying to make the easy ones hard by slimming down to three heroes might end up making it too hard. It depends on what characters you have, too - if you do random draw, and the manner of random draw. Three good heroes might be better than four crap heroes. For example, quest three is virtually a cakewalk, as I recall, but tuning down to three heroes might make it more frustrating than fun; I'm not sure.

Personally, I think you're better off just taking the good with the bad and having a few quests tipped towards the OL and a few tipped towards the heroes, and calling it even on the whole. But that's just me.

I agree, use 4 heroes all the time. The first couple quests from the base game will be easy, but they're mostly meant as introductory quests anyway.

Some people recommend playing with 4 heroes all the time. Some recommend using 3 heroes for the base game quests and 4 heroes for expansion quests. But varying the number of heroes is a very crude control on the difficulty and you can't seriously expect it to have a significant balancing effect on the game, no matter how systematic you are.

The hardest quest in the base game is widely acknowledged to be quest 7, "The Black Blade." Quests 1, 2, and 6 are probably the easiest ones. This thread on BoardGameGeek has useful quest difficulty analysis.

Antistone said:

?? Not quite sure what you're saying here- surely you agree that varying the number of heroes changes the difficulty substantially?

It's certainly true that if you have to pick one number of heroes and stick with it, four is the best. However, I would actually suggest playing the first few quests from the base game with three heroes, particularly if you're finding them too easy otherwise. Certainly quests 1-3 should work well with 3. Don't attempt any of the Well of Darkness quests with fewer than four, whatever you do- some of them are borderline impossible even them.

Changing the number of heroes alters the difficulty significantly, yes. What I mean is that the range of variation in difficulties isn't going to decrease much even if you prescribe different numbers of heroes for different quests, because you've really only got 2 values to pick from (3 heroes or 4 heroes).

If your goal is to have a certain, consistent level of difficulty, then most quests won't meet that target, no matter what number of heroes you choose to play with. You can take the N easiest quests and make them all harder by some large fixed increment by playing them with 3 heroes instead of 4...but some quests are still going to be massively easier or harder than others.

In other words, letting the number of heroes change might unbalance the game, but controlling the number of heroes isn't sufficient to balance it.

Antistone said:

I'm not getting your last sentence. If we change the number of heroes, we might BALANCE the game, not unbalance it. And I'm not sure whether you meant "controlling" to mean hold constant (at, say, 4) or to manually change based on each quest's difficulty. I'll assume you meant the latter, even though it's essentially the same as "changing" in the begining of the sentence because that's what I'm proposing to do. Maybe it won't balance it "sufficient"ly to your standards, but I just want a closer to balanced game without too much work. Will it be as balanced as EE? Doubtful. I haven't played it, but it/you seem legit. I would play it, but as mention before, I only have RtL expansion, and it's hard enough to get my friends to play this game without having to teach them a whole new set of rules/items/whatever. Also, my friends are fairly slow to take their turns, so it'd take forever and ever to learn the rules, and from what I understand, the dungeons take longer. And I looked at all the shop weapons you made. Way too many options for a few of my friends. Don't get me wrong, I think it's badass, but it would take forever, at least for them.

Anyway, what I was thinking was I'd alter the number of heroes based on the site from the link you posted. I was thinking:

Q3) 3 Q4) 4 Q5) 4 Q6) 3 Q7) 5 Q8) 3 Q9) 3 or 4

This is for a first run through. Maybe on Q9, i would let him choose 3 random heroes, or have the overlord pick the 4 heroes he thinks will be the worst, or let the player just choose which 3 they want.

Certainly, this will only be a "crude" way to balance the game, but I think it will balance it somewhat, and with little/no change in rules or effort.

Eric! said:

Varying the number of heroes will definitely alter the difficulty, but isn't going to change the balance all that much. Most of the "imbalances" that people complain about and ask questions about are concerning the mechanics of individual effects. Some people get caught up in "logical behaviour" while others worry about how easy or hard it is to defeat a given special ability. Going from 3 to 4 (even to 5) heroes isn't going to address those issues. Having more heroes will make it easier to clear the dungeon of monsters and harder for the OL to put monsters in the heroes' way, but it won't address questions like "can ability X affect a figure in special terrain Y?"

The game has a number of flaws, yes, but "there aren't enough heroes to beat back all these monsters!" isn't one of them. Maybe at first it might seem that way, but once everyone at the table knows how to play that really isn't a problem, so while altering the number of heroes might make it easier (or harder) it won't really change the balance of the mechanics. I think that's what Antistone was getting at, too.

It sounds like you've played a couple quests and are trying to pre-emptively avoid the balance concerns you hear being raised by other people on these forums. My best advice would be to avoid trying to fix stuff before you know what's broken. Some people throw logic to the wind and end up enjoying the game as written without making any house rules, other people rewrite large chunks of the rules so that things "make sense." You should give the game a chance as is and then fix the specific things you don't like. It's easier that way, and probably more effective too.

Steve-O said:

+1

While you're learning, I suggest playing quests all the way to the end, using negative conquest instead of ending the game as soon as the heroes hit zero. You really need experience to learn what works and what doesn't, and if you play to the end you'll learn how the full game works instead of potentially just getting lots of experience with the early game. Keep track of the conquest points at the end of the quest so you can see which quests are easier or harder for your group and see if the heroes are improving. (The OL should also be improving, but I think basic hero tactics are less intuitive than basic OL tactics, so your heroes will probably be at a disadvantage when you're first learning the game.)

Also, let different players be the OL from one session to the next. You'll understand tactics better if you've played as both sides.

Once you're comfortable with the game, I'd still say go with 4 heroes all the time. If you want to alter the difficulty of certain quests you think are too easy or too hard, probably the least game-altering is to set a target conquest value (which could be negative, if you think a quest is too hard) that the heroes need to have at the end in order to win. (Use the records you've been keeping to determine a reasonable target number for your group.)

Steve-O said:

I guess when I hear "difficulty" I think it's a weird way to describe a facet of this game because of its competitive nature, as what makes it more difficult for one side makes it less difficult for the other side, so I naturally chose the word balance, but I will go with your definitions.

I am not trying to avoid any balance concerns that I have. Those will be dealt with separately, such as the web token removal, and extreme skill usefulness variance (i.e. deflect arrows vs. rapid shot). I am trying to "correct" (dare I say balance?) the difficulty for the quests, because to me, it's not that fun to steamroll, or be steamrolled in a quest.

So I'm not trying to balance the game by altering # of heroes, I'm just trying to make the difficulty equal for both parties involved, so that each side has a fair chance of victory.

Even with my new vocabulary, I'm still at a loss for what Antistone meant in his last sentence on this thread.

Eric! said:

I see what you're saying here. I think most people on these forums tend to think of difficulty from the heroes' perspective. A quest which is more difficult for them is considered a "hard" quest even though it is technically easier for the OL. If your sole concern is making sure both sides have a fair chance at winning, then it would be good to remember that the OL gets Threat equal to the number of heroes playing each turn. This means he will have more threat to play with when facing more heroes, and will be able to do more stuff with that threat. The other thing to remember is that the reason everyone suggests using 4 heroes is because 4 heroes is still a challenging fight for both sides. Using 3 or *shudder* 2 heroes is just harder (for them).

I would recommend playing each quest with 4 heroes the first time you play it. If your group decides 4 heroes is too easy for a given quest, you can make a note to try 3 heroes next time you play that quest. Using the same number of heroes each time will help you establish a baseline for each quest. I suppose your original question was whether or not anyone else had already done this, but I don't believe anyone has (at least not to my knowledge.)