Hey folks

I'm the overlord for our ROTL campaign.

We started the campaign with the altar of darkness expansion and basic game, along with ROTL. After a month we added in the other expansion mentioned in ROTL. (The well one)

I want to relate our experience before I ask my questions and for some advice.

We meet weekly. We used this game as an alternative to traditional pen and paper role play.

I allowed each player to draw 5 characters and pick one from that set as a group. Then pass it to whomever wanted to play it.

We spent the first few weeks working out the kinks in our understanding of the rules, and getting everything situated...(who knew that they got 100 gold EACH for the piles in the dungeons...heh...).

I feel my players are very capable. They share items where they make the most sense as a team. They discuss tactics before execution...and though time consuming at times it's been very fun. Both sides have had casualities. They do not blitz through dungeons, and at the same time they do not get lagged behind.

Our home brewed house rules...Overlord reads ONLY the flavor text of the dungeon level, but not the extra abilities of the boss or the "way" to defeat the level. The magic item deck DOES NOT reset and recycle when an item is destroyed or sold. Telekensis is banned for the players.

The overlord is revealed to them and is the beastlord.

Our heros are the wise old surge wizard, captain spends-a-surge, Skeletor, and "I'm a female rogue, I'll declare my action and change it whenever I want". (Nuker/healer, Tank/single target, Tank/trash clearer, Sniper/sprinter.)

After 3 months...we finally made it to silver level campaign.

We played about 6 hours a night, and would clear about 6-8 boards worth. I say boards because this includes outdoor encounters. I have become very proficent and quick at change overs, and we have not repeated any of the dungeon cards yet...we've set them off to the side for now. We still have about 20-25 to go before we loop.

That being said. The players are at 112 conquest, and the Overlord is at 102 (+15 from the start). I have razzed 0 cities. They have all the movement group items, and upgraded the main city to near max. They are trying to find ways to spend gold, and have 2 skills each, one with 3, one with 1 but 5 black dice in magic (nuker), and all have the stamina upgrade. They drink stam potions like football players drink gatorade on the sidelines.

My questions. Should it have taken that long to make it to silver campaign level?

We are starting to feel a rut of combat...no new magic items in the last month has started to burn my players out. We're actually on a 2 month break due to work schedules...so now is the perfect time for me to ask these questions.

What can I do as a the overlord to help keep the players having fun if the campaign arch is designed to be this long?

Are lieuteants even worth trying to fight the players with!? (OMG please tell me how if yes cause I am horrid with them...)

Please any suggestions or discussion on this topic will help. I enjoy the game, and so did they for the first 2 months. Since then it has slowly been dragging down and I cannot find another board game that fits our "complicated" co-operative play style.

Please help.

-The overlord hiding behind his castle in the cave

Lieutenants can pose a threat to the heroes. . . jut not with humaniods as your main upgrade. At silver level, I'd suggest upgrading beasts to gold and getting your razorwing lieutenant out to give the heroes trouble.

The beastman lord is by far the worth of the Avatars in RtL. His keep location is bad. His special ability is the worst in RtL. His monster specific upgrade is bad. And humanoids are a terrible choice to upgrade first.

Sill, it is surprising that you have no cities sacked yet. Riverwatch is close to your keep and has weak walls. What is your strategy in lieutenant fights? Generally it is a good idea to keep your monsters back in trees and make the heroes rush you. This can be true in dungeons also. Remember, time is threat.

One more thing. If the heroes are tired of having an empty item deck, you should consider having sold / discarded / destroyed items get shuffled back into the deck at the end of the game week. This is actually something that you be doing anyways, because otherwise cards like Crushing blow are broken. The OL could just detroy all the melee weapons, and force the melee heroes to go into the final battle with shop weapons, or even just their fists if enough weapons were destroyed.

It all kind of varies per player, but I've actually been trouncing my players on our first RtL campaign. I have an 80 point lead in Silver mode, though I hear the balance shifts towards players in gold.

My questions. Should it have taken that long to make it to silver campaign level?

In my very limited experience, roughly, yes. The campaign lasts a long time. If you want to speed it up, I'd recommend adding a multiplier to all conquest values, or something like that.

We are starting to feel a rut of combat...no new magic items in the last month has started to burn my players out.

No new magic items? Have they had bad rolls through chests? If so, they should consider taking that money and spending it on the staff that lets them move 2 spaces a week, and then booking it over to Riverwatch (?), which has a market rating of 5 and doesn't suffer from shortages. If they spend a few weeks there and have a pile of money behind them, they should get a few new items each.

What can I do as a the overlord to help keep the players having fun if the campaign arch is designed to be this long?

Kill them over and over again, so the campaign moves a little more quickly? Okay, bad idea... Hard to say, really. Maybe you could put some plot cards into play, so that they have something else to focus on? Somehow take the lead so that they can try the special dungeons? Remind them that they can get special training, or training of any sort, if they haven't been doing that much? Start sieging cities with lts. so they have something else to worry about? Actually, that first idea about killing them a lot might be good - tougher competition makes things more interesting a lot of the time.

Are lieuteants even worth trying to fight the players with!? (OMG please tell me how if yes cause I am horrid with them...)

Sure they are. Depends on the lts. and the heroes. Remember that heroes don't recover for free after every encounter, and that lts. can run, so it can be entirely worth it to attack them and just whittle them down a bit, and then flee. If you can get a kill or two, all the better. Make use of their special abilities - the one Farrow lt. who gets 15 free threat can roll that into a pretty monumentally powerful attack in an attempt to get one kill before he flees. 15 threat = 8 power die upgrades = 2 gold and 1 silver over your starting amount. Do that, and then take the threat from surges to run the hell away. Eliza Farrow is like a souped up Beastman, so use that to your advantage. Keep her safely back in the trees while you ping heroes with ranged attacks. Make sure she has an escape route. Spawn more friends.

Purchase treachery upgrades, and use them to bring cards into lt. encounters. The easy and popular choice is one green treachery and the Crushing Blow card, which will destroy one piece of equipment (provided I'm remembering my colors and names correctly). Since you're the Beastman Lord, maybe you should buy some cheap red threat, grab some nasty spawn cards, and bring them in, too. If nothing else, buy red treachery and then add a battle and aim to your hand.

Please any suggestions or discussion on this topic will help. I enjoy the game, and so did they for the first 2 months. Since then it has slowly been dragging down and I cannot find another board game that fits our "complicated" co-operative play style.

If nothing else, maybe you should go back to non-campaign Descent?

SixStringSamurai said:

a+b+c = 4x3x6=72 boards! And only just into silver level?

e) tells me that the heroes have at least two separate weeks of training each. And have ended the week at Tamalir probably 4-5 times at least for temple/bazaar/wall upgrades.
And potions are a very limited resource. Only 2 per week from Tamalir and 1(total, not each) per surge rolled in chests. I assume you mean fatigue where you say stamina, which means your players are fairly sensible, but resources are strictly limited.

It very much sound to me like you have some rules pretty screwed up, aside from your houserules.

1. No, it should not. The average level should reap around 6-10 CT total (3 for glyph, 2 for boss, on average a hero death and sometimes some extras from chests, specials etc. Add in weekly and exploration CTs for OL and heroes respectively and even if you are overstating the number of levels played slightly you should have entered Silver level in about half the time you state (6 sessions of 6hrs should be waaaay more than enough - say 5 levels per 6 hr session over two game weeks is from around (6x5+3)x6=198 to around (10x5+5)x6=330). If the heroes blitz well a few levels will only reap 3-5 CT, but equally a few levels should reap 15+ CT if the heroes push through when pushing through is appropriate.
As an example, my solo SoB campaign 'Capturing the Count' chronicled on BGG is up to 176 combined CT (90-86) after only 5 combat weeks (3-4 hr sessions, actually less than half that when playing solo as it is much faster - it takes longer to write up a session than play it) out of 20 actual weeks (it is a little bit skewed due to the differences between SoB and RtL and the strategy the heroes are trying).

f. No new items in a month? Because you ran the deck out? Have you no expansions? (each adds extra treasures) Are you doing the markets and chest right? (markets are strictly limited for number of cards drawn per week, you can't buy extra draws and blanks on treasure chests are one single treasure for one hero only)

2. Well, it shouldn't be that long! The problem seems to be that your players are having things too easy. They have multiple upgrades, Tamalir upgrades, lots of equipment, lots of potions, no apparent threat from Lts... RtL is (should be) a knife edge balance through bronze and early silver because resources are scarce and the OL should be putting pressure on the Heroes with Lts seiging cities and/or Tamalir. The ability to get the secret training should be a tight struggle, maybe even a risk, as it takes the heroes multiple weeks getting out there and training while Lts should be seiging razing cities.

3. Lts need treachery to be really dangerous, but with upgraded monsters, and in the first weeks of a new campaign level (when they have instantly upgraded and the heroes have not had opportunity to get new treasures or upgrades) they can still be a handful, especially if hunting in packs. Heroes need to go in to Lt fights well prepared with potions, full health and feat hands if they can.
Once you have 5+ points of treachery Lt fights are really very dangerous for the heroes.

The first month we had no expansions.

Then added one every month. So treachery and additional cards came last.

Just to clear some things up.

Every time the heroes move on the board...it is one week... (unless they have the double move upgrade).

What destroys items other then the frozen ability on monsters?

Many dungeon maps have potions scattered everywhere. When they descend into a dungeon, and go back into town through the portals...is the town limited to how many potions it can sell them for that "week"? Can they heal at the temple in town while in a dungeon?

SixStringSamurai said:

That last one sounds like Grey Ker. I'm pretty sure he's a dude. =P

SixStringSamurai said:

In my experience it usually takes 3-4 weeks to reach the next campaign level, 3 months should be nearing the end of the campaign. Of course, that's after our group was well familiar with Descent.

SixStringSamurai said:

Correct. Even with the move twice upgrade they can only do one dungeon (going into a dungeon ends the game week.)

SixStringSamurai said:

Crushing Blow. I don't think there's anything else besides those two methods - destroying items is pretty harsh.

SixStringSamurai said:

There aren't too many potions on the maps in RtL, IIRC. Are you using the big vanilla dungeons every time your heroes go into a dungeon on the overworld map? That would certainly explain how you can play 6-8 hours a night for 3 months straight and still only be at Silver level. You aren't supposed to use those dungeons in the advanced campaign, you're supposed to draw three cards from the dungeon deck.

The town is limited by it's Alchemist rating in terms of how many potions it can sell per week, and an entire dungeon takes place in one week. The town the heroes are visiting when they go through a glyph is always Tamalir.

They can heal by using the Recuperate (?) option of the temple. They can't use either of the other two (Train and Visit, I think?) as those options are only available when visiting a town on the overworld map.

Note that if you ARE using the larger maps intended for vanilla play, neither the potions nor the healing at temple will be sufficient to sustain a group of heroes through one of those dungeons. RtL is intended to have smaller dungeons that play fast and the supplies the heroes are given were designed to reflect that. In vanilla Descent the heroes can buy as many potions as there are tokens available, and those dungeons were designed with that in mind.

SixStringSamurai said:

1. That isn't what defines a week, and weeks can pass without the heroes moving at all, but yes, unless the heroes have the double trail upgrade each week they can only move once. See RtL pg10

2. Crushing Blow (event treachery). The cursed relics trap treachery can effectively destory some treasures by forcing the hero to them. That's about it though.

3. There are almost (not quite) no potions at all in any RtL or SoB dungeons. It sounds like you are using vanilla dungeons which is a major mistake. These dungeons are designed totally differently and completely unsuitable. They have the wrong balance, the wrong size, the wrong 'loot', the wrong rules, the wrong bosses, the wrong everything.

4. Yes it is. Each week, whether in a dungeon or not, during that entire week there is a limited amount of potions available. See RtL pg21

5. Yes, at a cost of 25coins and one turn, healing the temple rating worth of wounds. See RtL pg21 and 22

1. ... See RtL pg10

3. There are almost (not quite) no potions at all in any RtL or SoB dungeons. It sounds like you are using vanilla dungeons which is a major mistake. These dungeons are designed totally differently and completely unsuitable. They have the wrong balance, the wrong size, the wrong 'loot', the wrong rules, the wrong bosses, the wrong everything.

4. ... See RtL pg21

5. ... See RtL pg21 and 22

Or to put it a little more succinctly: the rulebook is your friend.

So we have been using the dungeon deck. We've even cycled through it (see first post), and we are a group of rules mongering gamers. We like to know the rules and play by them.

The amount of potions on the map is sufficient enough it appears, with 2 a map most of the time. I'd like to think our group isn't that dumb...

8 hours a week = 10 cleared boards. 2-3 full dungeons and some random encounters.

I guess I'm just gonna have to find another local game to see how I am doing it wrong...

• Our home brewed house rules...Overlord reads ONLY the flavor text of the dungeon level, but not the extra abilities of the boss or the "way" to defeat the level. The magic item deck DOES NOT reset and recycle when an item is destroyed or sold

I would be very careful with the home rules considering you guys haven't played a lot of the game yet. Your first one could make several of the dungeons nigh impossible if you don't know how you're supposed to actually complete them. For example, one dungeon requires you to 'drink' from a fountain in order to hurt the boss. There are no specific rules for 'drinking' from a fountain, so the players would more than likely never consider that course of action. Not resetting the magic item deck is not as dangerous, but if you're using crushing blow it's definitely going to hurt the heroes as they'll never get a chance to get the items back.

So what do the conquest counts on both sides look like?

SixStringSamurai said:

If you've cycled through the dungeon deck (40 dungeons) you ought to be far, far past the copper/silver divide.
Every level (more or less) has an unactivated Glyph, so there is 3CT for the heroes. Nearly all levels have a boss to be killed, those where you don't need to kill the boss more than balanced out by those with multiple bosses, so there is 2CT per level (4 for bottom levels in a dungeon)
That's 200CT for the heroes alone, ignoring empty chests and exploration CT. The OL is probably roughly level...

Potions from the alchemist are 2 per week, not per map. But I guess you are probably referring to ~ potions from chests as well.

No one means to suggest that your group is dumb, btw, we just respond to what you write as best we can. There is a major disconnect between several things you say...