James McMurray said:

Right you are. I was misremembering his ability as saying "when an area is revealed" but it doesn't say that at all. My bad.

Ryric said:

Say Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Yeah, that's a pretty heinous drawback. I haven't got a close look at Hugo's full character sheet but I can see how that would put a lot of us (in our group) off wanting to play him.

Steve-O said:

Eh, I'll still play him at least once. He may be a little slow, sure, but slap some big fancy armor on him and think of the tanking possibilities! For my money, 20 base health is nothing to scoff at, and when I play heroes (I'm usually OL), I almost never spend fatigue for movement anyway. Too busy fueling my black dice with it.

Still, I'd be better able to judge if we knew the rest of his stats. I mean, If he equals the Yeti in dice (5 melee), then fatigue is pretty much useless for him, save if a skill he draws requires it, cutting down his usefullness a smidgeon.

I'd be shocked and appalled if they made a hero that can't spend fatigue on movement AND starts with 5 dice in a trait.

I'm also shocked that you "almost never spend fatigue for movement". Making 2 attacks instead of 1 during a turn is huge, and that usually requires that you spend fatigue to move (especially on a melee hero). An extra 4 wounds is nice, but I certainly hope that's not the only thing he gets in exchange for that disadvantage (or that Ryric is pulling our collective leg).

Cyan_of_Doma said:

Oh I'd play him at least once, too. Make no mistake, I'm a big proponent of the "play with a hero before you call him broken" philosophy. But I don't see him being a popular choice with that limitation.

Also, which heroes have you been playing as the few times you weren't OL? I don't mean any offense, but the idea of rarely spending fatigue on movement seems odd to me. Maybe if you always play mages or rangers who are fast enough to move a reasonable distance naturally and who can strike at a distance, that might make sense (also if you've never been the party's designated runner.) Big, slow Melee heroes, in my experience, need the fatigue for movement thing even more than the rest, and it ain't exactly useless for the rest generally speaking.

What's Hugo's base move? I don't remember from the pic and I'm too lazy to go back up and find the image link again. =P

If he's abnormally fast (4 or 5) and has a hero ability along the line of "never has movement reduced by armor" then the drawback thing might not be so bad. Of course, that would still be an odd hero since it would feel to me like they basically invented a hero ability just to cancel out (or almost cancel out) a random drawback.

Photos of the last two are up:

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

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/784969/descent-journeys-in-the-dark

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/784968/descent-journeys-in-the-dark

Seems that Hugo is the deadweight he appeared to be. Krutzbeck is interesting though, with 4 armour once he hits 4 wounds. Easy to finish off with a trap, if the overlord has one, but only worth 2 conquest for the pleasure...

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

3 Melee dice

3 Fighting Skills

CT:4

Cannot make Magic Attacks nor spend fatigue on movement

Krutzbeck
8, 4, 2, 4

3 Melee dice

3 Fighting Skills

While he has 4 or fewer wounds remaining, gains +2 damage and +2 Armour

I don't like Krutzbeck's ability; that's a titanic bonus for being at low health and looks possibly systematically exploitable. I foresee heroes deliberately attacking him to trigger his ability. I think it'll cause frustration when he gets one-shot from 5 wounds and arguments that he should be able to choose to reduce the healing he receives. Of course, even ignoring Krutzbeck's ability, he's easily the toughest 2-conquest hero published. Laurel's worth more conquest and has strictly worse defenses. In fact, if you assume his ability applies about half the time (gross oversimplification, but just for a rough comparison), he's got roughly the equivalent defenses of Brother Glyr - at half the conquest value.

Just for easier viewing:

-shnar

shnar said:

Hello,

did someone else try to play with Lindel and other Heroes from DQ?

I saw Lindel and Brother Gherinn in action. The latter doesn't count very much because the player really wasted his powers and potentially leading role, after drawing a great set of abilities. I was the OL and gladly punished his mistakes.

We had Lindel in two quests and we noticed that he's a big gamble at the beginning of a quest, especially with a 3 Hero party (might be a better jolly joker as the 4th Hero, along with 3 specialists). 5 CT means losing the quest IMMEDIATELY at the very beginning. An OL who clearly shows the will to kill Lindel to score an early victory becomes quite predictable; however, he could succeed in many quest layouts where a Hero death is difficult to avoid in the 1st area. The Overlord can also bring him down later and the party gets a huge CT loss when this happens.

He needs Armor. He can't get on the board without at least a Chainmail or the party will lose in an eyeblink. This automatically lowers his Speed but 4 is good anyway. We were so afraid of him getting killed that the player was also encouraged to buy the Ring of Protection to get at least to Armor 4. To be honest, we played two quests and had some bonus Gold at the beginning of both, otherwise he won't have had any chance to get this gear, a weapon and at least a Fatigue potion.

Besides the obvious doubts in RtL gameplay and the interpretation of his Ability-cycling rule, which is not very effective when quests have big simmetrical maps with few areas, I think Lindel is an interesting Character but to justiry his 5 CT value he needs 2 armor points. Now he's too vulnerable and not so useful to a group, except in the late game when he becomes very versatile (need additional Melee/Ranged/Magic power? Don't want to waste powerful Runes? Here I am, Lindel the Almighty). But if you lose at the beginning, you don't see any late game and perhaps at that point any hero will do his job pretty well.