I have trouble making use of my monsters spawned because they cannot activate in the turn I spawned them, but when its the players' turns, they decimate them quickly and I often will not get the chance to use them at all. If I spawn the monsters far away, they will take turns to reach the heroes, which is usually too late and the final boss will already have been killed.

I understand the monsters newly spawned by an OL cannot be activated until his next turn. But is there any existing card or way that allows the OL to instantly activate his monsters? So far the only one I have seen that can be spawned and activated instantly is the Mimic.

Wanderer999 said:

What gave you this idea?*

DJitD pg9
Step 2 : Spawn Monsters
To resolve this step of his turn, the overlord player may play one (and only one) spawn card. The overlord player must spend the indicated number of threat tokens to pay the cost of the spawn card. After playing a spawn card, the overlord player places the monsters indicated by the spawn card on the board. For complete rules, see “Spawning Monsters, page 12.
Step 3: Activate Monsters
The overlord player may activate each monster on the board once during his turn. To activate a monster, the overlord player simply declares which monster he is activating and consults the monster reference cards. When a monster is activated, it may move a number of spaces up to its speed and make one attack. Just like an advancing hero, a monster may make its attack before, after, or at any point during its movement. After the overlord player has had the chance to activate every monster on the board, his turn is over.

You spawn during step 2, placing the monsters on the board. Then in step 3 you activate each monster on the board in turn - including those you just spawned.

*There is a ruling about spawning in the GLOAQ that explicitly and only applies to spawns during a Lt encounter in the Advanced campaigns. These are very different rules to vanilla descent, and indeed even Advanced Campaign Dungeon rules, and do not apply to normal spawns. It is possible that you got the idea from this, though I'd be very surprised if that was so.

There are some Treachery cards (mechanic from expansions) that allow out of synch activations.

Monsters that are shown on the map in the quest book are placed (usually) during the heroes' turn, and the OL cannot activate them until his turn rolls around. It's not uncommon for all of those monsters to die without ever being activated.

Monsters spawned from OL cards, though, are spawned before the OL activates monsters and can be activated that same turn (as Corbon described already).

Finally...................... A good news....

I had my games getting handed to me constantly and I kept trying to find out why! Was it coz they were not allowed to unequip at the end of their turns using Fatigue? Was it they could not rest in town? Was it they could blast thru monsters? Finally.... The one thing that changes everything.... I can spawn monsters AND use them in the same turn!! Thank you Corbon! Thank you Mahkra!

Wanderer999 said:

Yes, it's true that a room full of monsters will often not survive the first turn they come in contact with the heroes, especially if those heroes are geared reasonably well. Monsters in this game are expendable, and the ability to attack with newly spawned monsters before the heroes have a chance to mop up is a big deal for the OL. Good thing you figured this one out!

There's lots of other possible reasons the heroes are finding things too easy, too. Like if you're only playing the early quests (which tend to be easy for the heroes). Or if they're taking advantage of the house rules you posted to build up +4 max fatigue over the course of the quest...

Yea after playing to quest 8, I finally understand how Fatigue can be so deadly. I will be revamping my variant to require 20 exp instead of 12 for +1 fatigue and the max being +2. I hadn't been using the variant after quest 4, partly because the players did not want to start with 275 gold, torches getting blown out, OL gaining threat from hero kills and getting to close doors using threat.

I lost quest 1, 6 and 8. Quest 6 they literally walked all over me and easily finished the game under 1 hour 20 min with 15 conquests! Quest 8 was similar but lasted about 4 hours, though they also walked all over me again, this time using Acrobat and Fatigue+Run combo.

Quest 6 is very easy for the heroes, and quest 8 is on the easy side. Quests 5 and 7 are probably the hardest in the base game.

my wife and I played our first game last night and did not complete it after 6 hours due to fine tooth combing the rules. As Overlord you spawn and activate in your turn which can help put pressure if a rooms not cleared out first. If a doors left open spawn them around the corner if you want to set them up. Mimic cards you can play during the chest phase so you get your attack.