Wanderer999 said:

Characters? I don't really care about them. The reason I am excited about an expansion...a vanilla expansion is more tiles, more cards, more monsters figures. It has been 2 years since a vanilla expansion. I thought Sea of Blood was lame.

Frog said:

U forgot to mention the best part of an expansion - TRAPS

Hero number 3 (of 6 I think):

Unique character design...

-shnar

I really like the Lindel card and given his back story/history this refelects well on a very old old and wise/determined elf. As I have stated before this guy reminds me of a Terrinoth version of Glorfindel. Looking forward to DungeonQuest and these new Heroes! Since I am usually the Overlord I look forward to trying to best this guy.

That's a really bizarre character. Looks like a "jack of all trades, master of none" concept. I would think it'd be more useful to actually specialize in something. (I mean, something other than being a 5 CT runner.)

I think its all speculation until he is actually used.

His stats are really good (high end for most heroes) but his traits and skills kind of suck. Most players don't like playing the "balanced" heroes and prefer those who specialize in melee/ranged/magic. With his high CP, I imagine he won't be a preferred hero...

-shnar

Also, how does that hero ability even work in an Advanced Campaign? If he's a "vanilla-only" hero, that will significantly reduce the pool of players that will ever use him.

Even 1/1/1 from skills doesn't preclude you from specializing, especially in ranged or magic as those often have a lot of overlap and there are fighting skills that can help there as well by increasing your survival or giving you extra attacks. What it means is that if you get a good combination you'll definitely be able to use it since you'll have 2 dice in the ability it affects or high speed and fatigue if it's a runner combo. And since he trades out skills, once 2 out of 3 match you've got a good chance of getting a third that matches too (or at least doesn't run counter to the theme).

I assume he'll be banned in the Advanced campaigns. Though perhaps not. They may decide that his 5 CT value makes up for his ability to get around training restrictions.

The question I have is what happens after cities are razed, are those skills still in the skill deck and he can potentially draw those (that he could otherwise not train in)?

-shnar

They're still in the deck. No rule says to remove them and there are other in-game effects that could let you learn them (like the silver legendary dungeon in RtL or one of the buried treasures in SoB).

While I'm not sure that this would be a good hero tactically speaking, mainly for the 5CT, I think his hero would be a whole barrel of laughs to play.

Going to try couple of theoretical quests, pulling cards from the deck:

Start:

Beserker, Eagle Eye, Vampiric Blood.

Redraw one skill: Relentless, Eagle Eye, Vampiric Blood

(With 5 fatigue and Vampiric Blood, shouldn't need Relentless. Want more attacks. Let's give him chainmail and a sling)

Starting area:

Taunt, Eagle Eye, Vampiric Blood

Area 1 (disaster, last thing the 5 CT hero wants is to be the target. Change quick):

Bear tattoo, Eagle Eye, Vampiric Blood

Treasure: Knuckle Dagger

Area 2 (Not bad, but still want more attacks. Knuckle dagger's not great so let's keep him ranged)

Able Warrior, Eagle Eye, Vampiric Blood

Treasure: Magic Bow

Area 3 (Two Eagle Eye attacks & five move per turn, regaining Able Warrior fatigue with two kills. Stick for this Area)

Treasure: Lifedrinker (maybe time to become a melee hero)

Able Warrior, Rapid Fire, Vampiric Blood (huh... so much melee... Will probably stick with this til the end of the Quest. Rapid fire/Vampiric Blood for clearing areas out, and Lifedrinker against any big bads).

And again:

Start:

Parry, Born to the Bow, Bardic Lore

Change one:

Parry, Precision, Bardic Lore (oh dear. bad call. Alright, let's give him a sword and shield so he can at least kill things)

Starting Area:

Knight, Precision, Bardic Lore (much better)

Area 1:

Knight, Deflect Arrows, Bardic Lore (not great, but at least deflect arrows will help with his low armour. Might change if he gets a silver ranged weapon)

Treasure: Dragontooth hammer (perfect)

Area 2: (probably shouldn't change any more, but I'm enjoying this)

Knight, Deflect Arrows, Blessing

Treasure: Mace of Aver

Area 3:

Treasure: Elven Boots (yeah, think I'll stick with this.... just out of curiosity, changing the subterfuge would have been... Appraiser)

Alright, just one more and then I'm going to bed:

Start:

Ox Tattoo, Deflect Arrows, Spiritwalker (!?)

Change one: Brawler, Deflect Arrows, Spiritwalker

(alright, so he's a bit of a mess this one, but let's make him a wizard staying relatively safe with Spiritwalker and covering sight lines, carefully out of beastman spawn range. Wizard's Robe and Sunburst. Can at least put lots of fatigue into getting those three surges)

Starting Area:

Mighty, Deflect Arrows, Spiritwalker

Area 1:

Relentless, Deflect Arrows, Spiritwalker

Treasure: Falcon's Claw (was going to change the subterfuge anyway)

Area 2:

Relentless, Cautious, Spiritwalker

Treasure: Gauntlets of Power

Area 3 : (not sure what to do now. Probably ditch Relentless with 5 fatigue and the gauntlets. Maybe wait to get the silver treasure before deciding)

Treasure: Mirror Shield (doesn't really help unless using the webs, I suppose)

Furr the Spirit wolf, Cautious, Spiritwalker (going from bad to worse)

Area 4:

Taunt, Cautious, Spiritwalker

Treasure: Black Widow's Web (yeah, think this hero has failed, assuming he's even made it this far without losing the game for the party with his 5 CT)

I don't think I'd call him a 5CT hero, but I think I'd be tempted to play him at least once for real. Of course the make-up of the rest of the party would make a huge difference to all of this, plus I'm a bit more tempted to change his skills than I would be in a real game.

Incidentally, after thinking about it, I don't think he'd be overpowered at all in a campaign. In fact quite the reverse.

In campaigns heroes are optimised in their skills anyway. True, he might get one of the powerul Secret Master skills relatively early in the game, but so does everyone eventually. And once you have good skill (and who buys bad skills in campaigns?), is it really going to be worth trading it in with the risk of getting something dire? True, Vynelvale may have been razed, but do you really want to trawl through the whole Fighting deck, one Dungeon Level at a time in the hope of eventually getting Leadership?

The only exception would be Sea of Blood with its many "exhaust" skills. I could see the elf using a skill, exhaust it, and rather than trying to get to a glyph simply discarding it for a new skill...

-shnar

Looking at the ideas posted by "inle_badger" i'm wondering if this hero is allowed to change skills in the starting area as well. Sure it is called starting area, but the other areas actually still start at the number 1 (just wondering).
Also "inle_badger" mentioned the "Change one" at the start, i can't remember if this is an actual rule or a house-rule? (we've always used this but i don't have the actual rules with me).
If he is really allowed to change this much then he's very likely to have some great skills when he actually hits the first (real) area where the fun (normally)starts: 3 draws, change one > starting area, change number 2, area one where normally the monsters start change number 3.
Also keeping in mind that you have quite a few skills that overlap and are usefull eventhough you are using another treat, this would a fun character!

Looking at the ideas posted by "inle_badger" i'm wondering if this hero is allowed to change skills in the starting area as well. Sure it is called starting area, but the other areas actually still start at the number 1 (just wondering).

Other than a minor difference in labeling there's nothing that differentiates the starting area from any other area.

Also "inle_badger" mentioned the "Change one" at the start, i can't remember if this is an actual rule or a house-rule? (we've always used this but i don't have the actual rules with me).

This is an actual rule.

If he is really allowed to change this much then he's very likely to have some great skills when he actually hits the first (real) area where the fun (normally)starts: 3 draws, change one > starting area, change number 2, area one where normally the monsters start change number 3.
Also keeping in mind that you have quite a few skills that overlap and are usefull eventhough you are using another treat, this would a fun character!

Yeah, I'm definitely looking forward to playing him. At 5 CT he's going to hurt like hell when he gets killed, but he'll have to be extremely unlucky to get juiced on skills and not have some nice synergies going.

Photo of the others is up but everything but the stats of the last two is obscured.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/781108/dungeonquest?size=original

Tatianna
12, 4, 1, 5
3 Ranged
3 Subterfuge
CT:3
Once per area she can move back to town at the start of the Overlord's turn.

Hugo the Glorious
20(!), 3, 2, 3

Krutzbeck
8, 4, 2, 4

I can see the questions over Tatianna's ability already. Presumably this works indpendently of Glyphs. Key though is the timing of how this works in relation to spawning. Can she run ahead, prevent spawning in the area and then vanish? Balance-wise I'd hope not but as I recall "At the start of the overlord's turn" includes spawning. My guess would be that the Overlord can opt to spawn somewhere out of her sight, after which the hero can choose to vanish; or the overlord can wait to see whether she goes back to town or not, and can spawn then. I'll leave it to people with more time on their hands to work that one out. If she can, I'd say she's among the best runners in the game. If she can't, I'd say she's pretty good, on a par with Grey Kerr.

Hugo the Glorious' 20 health continues the trend of "I know, let's just mess with convention to make our promos more attractive to Descent fans".

/edit: nvmd I misread the rules

Tatianna seems very strong especially in the advanced campaign.

inle_badger said:

I think "at the start of the overlord's turn" means any time before the first monster is activated. So the OL could wait until Tatianna goes back to town, then spawn. Or Tatianna could wait until the OL spawns (out of her LoS, by necessity), then go back to town. Or Tatianna could wait until the OL goes to activate his first monster, then say "Wait, I'm going back to town first." And then the OL could spawn in her former LoS.

If the hero player doesn't show her hand too early, it's an interesting little poker game in each new area. If the OL goes to activate his first monster and Tatianna does not interrupt him to leave, then he's missed his opportunity to spawn anything. So should he just spawn somewhere else, or should he assume Tatianna's bluffing about staying in the dungeon and try to activate a monster?

mahkra said:

I agree that it's an interesting little power struggle, however, I as OL would probably just plan my spawns around the assumption that she'll be there. If she decides to leave before I spawn, great. Otherwise I'm just dealing with spawns vs 4 heroes' LOS like I normally would be. There may be a few specific tactical scenarios where I try to bluff her out, but most of the time I wouldn't worry about it.

If she waits until I spawn and then says "Ha ha! I'm going back to town now, you could've spawned THERE!" then I just shrug and say "Okay, well now you're in town and can't come back until your turn. I lost out on prime spawning ground, the heroes have lost out on your presence during my assault." Her power, like many of the other DQ heroes, is interesting, but I don't plan to worry about it until I at least see it in play.

Besides which, I imagine there will be times when her intentions are pretty obvious. If she has a guard order on her, she probably isn't going back to town at the start of my turn. If she just ran into a mess of monsters to grab a chest, she probably is (and if she doesn't I'll slaughter her with everything nearby.)

PS: Regarding the question of whether the starting area counts as a place for Lindel to swap skills, I'm firmly in the "no" camp. The starting area begins revealed when the dungeon starts, it is therefore not revealed during play. Just like how the heroes never get 3CT for "activating" the glyph they begin on. It was already active when gameplay began. That's my ruling anyway, others are free to go their own way but that seems pretty clear cut to me.

mahkra said:

I'd imagine the OL simply asks "I'm about to begin my Step 3: Activate monsters, does anyone want to do anything?"
If Tatiana says no, the OL says it is now Step 3 and it is too late for Tatiana to use her ability. If Tatianna says yes and uses her ability then it is still officially step 2 and the OL can change his mind and spawn or even play a power card etc.

inle_badger said:

Strangely, our group was quick to assign him the "worst character ever" title due to his drawback - he can't spend fatigue on movement.

Steve-O said:

Lindel's ability says nothing about when an area is revealed. Step 5B of the setup rules says that the starting section is "the start area" so I don't see how it's possible to argue that Lindel can't change out a skill while there.

As written he could even run all the way through the dungeon without changing any skills then backtrack through the areas when the final fight starts and change out a bunch of skills on the same turn (not that it's likely to be wise).