Well so our crew has been playing descent, once or twice a week since the beginnig (i think it was 2005) so we played a lot of vanilla and then like 7 or 8 rtl campaigns and now we just finished our fort sea of blood. And we are really disappointed for the following reasons :

1. The sea encounters are really random, if the heroes get lucky with the location card(most of the time), they flee on the first turn and thats that (well if they get the one map where they control the sharks they win) , besides that if they are really unlucky they crash into boulders and its a tpk. If they somehow actually make the encounter, the Revenge is probably damaged or at least 1 hero died of whatever for 2 CTs and some change. So 2 hours of gameplay of risk for the heros and nothing to loose for the OL. So in the end we actually never even set up the encounter map, we just looked at it and the heroes fled. Ok so some of u might say, yes well the game is far to easy for the heroes so they gave something for the OL... but for what if the heroes cant win the game anyway, as i will explain latter.

2. Encounters involving Lieutenants : wtf is that all about, first no way in the world the heroes kill a lieutenant, second if a lieutenant flees an encounter he actually looses nothing, just stalls the siege a bit more, and gets some more CTs as the turns pass while he is harassing a city or whatever (if he would be fleeing the encounters which is not the case in 90 % of the time because the heroes cant kill him anyhow). So if actually the heroes decide to attack a lieutenant, he places him on the other place of the map and waits and waits until he has got enough treat to randomly boost some monsters and kill the heroes. Some rare cases give heroes a chance to kill a lieutenant but the odds are against the really bad, if the Ol is not a total tard. I am not about to argue how it is possible to kill a lieutenant on the first turn with feat cards and this skill and that skill... its still "almost"(the almost is conditional) impossible. And there are lots of issues with cannons and so on ...

3. Even if the Ol never upgrades anything else and just makes 2 or 3 lieutenants and gets blown away in the dungeons he will win 99 % of the time because the heroes cant chase the lieutenants on the world map, it is even hard to chase 1 if you cant kill him, not to think about 2 or 3. So that is that with the competitive play. U simply cant stop the OL from razing 5 cities.

4. Island levels - the more the heroes play the more the avoid them, in the last 2 campaigns we did not play a single island Lvl , because if you dont have Runemaster or Astra with the flying feet card u get slaughtered. And the island lvls give nothing more to heroes than normal dungeons do, besides a gazilion cards and treat to the OL.

5. Final battle is a joke (asides from it is not possible to get there if the OL does not play like a Dungeon master in D&D (which i hate btw )).

This are just a few issues i can think of right now... and i am not posting this because i would like to be a hater, but because i love the game and hate what has happened to it for the sake of profit... and mass printing new expansions and no playtesting whatsoever. This f.. capitalism

Give me some feedback .. thx

Sorry I cannot give you the feedback you request, but I am so staying away from this until FFG irons it out properly. Thanks for the fair warning, you are not the first person to say Seas of Blood plays horribly.

To think that I nearly wanted to get it as my first Advanced Campaign because I loved a manga called One Piece (about good pirates) and Seas of Blood sounded so close to it, being able to travel from island to island on your ship, and even upgrading the ship more and more.

I guess I will be targeting RtL in that case...

I highly doubt the game was "not playtested whatsoever." Poorly playtested? Perhaps, but not at all? I doubt it.

In the campaign I'm in, our heroes have hit an island level twice, and we've seen nothing really bad/awkward/over-under balanced about them. They're pretty fun with the more open maps, and we don't have any special abilities that take great advantage of the open space (i.e. no teleporters, no range boosters, etc). Not sure why your group doesn't like the island maps.

We have yet to have a Sea Encounter or a Lt Encounter so cannot comment there (our group plays once a month, and even then sometimes we pass on Descent to play a different game).

And it is of course within your ability to house-rule to game, fix it so it plays better with your group (or don't play it at all).

-shnar

shnar, as you will get further into the campaign islands in combination with treachery get really frustrating, depends how your OL plays... but anyhow all the trees... and sometimes there are more leaders, and they can be placed far apart. So it takes a long time for the heroes to get to the entrance, while the OL can summon anywhere he wants... Just compare an island level that you play, with a normal first dungeon level and it usually takes at least 2 or 3 times more turns, and that is all in the favor of the OL. A good Ol can make most of the island lvls really hard to make with big loss.

And about the house rules, i knew someone was going to mention that...

we made a lot of house rules just for the Sob in order to balance it, but there was a different issue in every game because its really imbalanced in all aspects. I guess you can house rule to a certan point, but if the game does not work it just does not work... And yes we will not play it anymore until there will be some reasonable rule changes or some rebalancing. And i dont really think, that" if you dont like it make some house rules" is a good argument to what i am saying.

Well keep me posted shnar what will be going on as u descent further into SOB

Island levels?
We've played two so far. Nothing terribly interesting to report. The heroes ran straight through the first one in two turns (1 OL turn). They don't have anybody really really fast or flying or anything, just good planning and working together. I think that level has no spawns and no minions except the three bosses.
Second tme was with the shipwrecked boat and a sorcerer. Heroes cleaned it out in reasonable time - slower than a RtL level but not noticeably different from a S0B level (the dungeon levels in SoB are generally much better designed than RtL and often have some special rules or effects that make things more interesting, as well as a lot of rubble etc to ruin anti-spawn LsOS).
Trees work for the heroes as well as the OL, and if the heroes space well there still aren't a lot of spawns spots available in useful locations - it's all very well being able to spawn 20 spaces away, but if you only move 4 then the heroes will have finished the level before you can attack at all so you would be better of keeping the threat.

Encounters?
Yes, a total waste of time. The heroes can usually move their vessel off the board on turn one or two. The Siren (haven't run into any other Lts yet) is very difficult to kill, but not impossible. Carried By Air (Feat), Runner skill and a hammer is the current plan for the next time... Without silver eldritch the copper siren has also had a great deal of difficulty in really bothering the heroes though.

I do agree that the inability to force Lts home on the map is likely to be an issue, but it hasn't got that far for us yet.

Playtesting?
I think that it is almost impossible to commercially playtest such a long and varied game effectively. So I think much of the 'balancing' is done by some fairly weak analysing. And then maybe a genteel playthrough a couple of times. The problem being that the playthrough is genteel, rather than cut throat. Playtester's job should be to deliberately try and break a game. Find and exploit loopholes mercilessly. Pull dodgy rules interpretations and argue them to the death. Try imbalanced strategies with their choice of skills and heroes rather than random draws. Pile on Koll's Mark and Saj's Mark to a 12W2CT mage with wound upgrades. Give Jaes MageCloak, chainmail, ghost armour, mana weave and a rune weapon (7 armour in copper with only 1 treasure).
I think they only have 'nice' people available for playtesting - the sort that wouldn't dream of sailing the ship off the map sideways in an encounter because it 'defeats the point of the encounter'.

I had a hard time spawning any kind of large creature on the island maps (anything bigger than 1x1) due to the expansive LOS on the maps. Trying to spawn hell hounds was really tricky, and spiders was nearly impossible. That limited what I could bring on as Invader. If I wasn't careful, the heroes could get the on the existing monsters, then I couldn't bring anything anywhere near them. The first island we did turned out to be a lot easier than any dungeon level. The second map I was a little better, but it definitely wasn't hard for the heroes. There are plenty of dungeon levels that were much harder.

-shnar

i really dont uderstand how this is possible, and that u guys are saying that it was as hard as a normal level when you need a couple of turns just to really get off the ship... and btw most monsters are 1x1, and the scrab thing means that when the OL puts the boss on the edge of the the island or whatever it may take a couple more extra turns just because u cant get enough range... the spawning just cant be a problem because most of island levels have boulders, and even if not, there are so many trees..

It there was only one or two heroes, the trees would probably provide enough cover to spawn larger creatures. But with 4 heroes relatively spread out, no chance. Since LOS has no limit in range, it's very easy to draw LOS to any number of squares.

As for getting off the boat, our games have been 3 turns before "action" happens. 1 turn for everyone to sprint off the boat (using ropes of course to swing off), and usually a second turn to sprint onto the island. That third turn is a mix of sprinting, advancing or readying depending on the monster situation. That's only 12 threat and 6 cards, not really a big advantage for the Overlord. I've seen plenty of dungeons where the heroes have dithered in the first tile or two, wacking monsters or resting, etc.

So far, our experience with the island maps is that they offer a different setting/scenery but very little different in game play...

-shnar

svarun said:

You can get off the ship much faster if you plan it properly.

The key is to be able to get someone to the island glyph.

This is what my opponent has done (I've ignored the Islands in my hero campaign so far, going the 'avoid all sea combat and get to the mainland ASAP' route:
Hero 1 runs, raising both sails and finishes adjacent to the ship glyph if possible.
Hero 2 operates the wheel and moves the ship closer to shore by 2 or 3 spaces, then moves next to the ship glyph.
Hero 3 is excess, might operate a canon with knockback if there are monsters on or nearby the glyph.
Hero 4 is the runner, Runs, uses the rope to get as far off the ship as possible (usually onto the one space sandbar, or into shallow water beyond that) and sometimes without even the aid of a fatige potion (well, the fatigue potion is used to refill his fatigue so he can use ghost armour if necessary) can easily reach the island glyph, or very close by it in a tree.

OL has a turn. He might be able to spawn something near enough to get into action, but usually not effectively given the runner is in a tree and the rest of the heroes are on board the ship.

Hero turn 2 and with a canon (knockback) covering the glyph nothing can prevent the runner from activating the glyph. The tank glyphs out from the ship. The cannon guy might have made an attack, but also has the job of lowering at least one sail. The 4th hero probably glyphs out as well.

As it happens, the first Island we fought didn't allow spawns (it had 3 big, nasty bosses). The runner in this case was able to get to the glyph on turn one, got flamebreathed on once by a dragon boss and then sprinted through to the cave entrance, which was not locked (maybe we missed smething there, but AFAICR there was no unlocking mechanism on this level, unlike uual island where you have to kill the boss). The other three heroes glyphed off the ship on turn 2 and that was the end of the level. (The island had a plot artifact for the lighthouse on it so the heroes were determined to go all the way through it in order to claim the artifact, so they were just happy to get through the first level with only one turn and effectively make the dungeon only 2 levels (+ a turn) deep.)

The second island we played had a shipwreck sorceror. The heroes did their thing first turn except the runner didn't make the glyph but stayed in a tree. I spawned silver Dark Priests nearby but couldn't kill him (he is pretty tough, 4-5 armour depending on who is wearing RoP, high fatigue, Ghost Armour, a cursed and a normal shield and the same effect as Dark Priests (-1 range and damage to enemy within 3 spaces - he might only have 8 wounds for 3+1 CT, but it is **** hard getting any of those 8 off him!) The second turn the runner activated the glyph and outpaced the dark priests heading for the cavern and ending in a tree (waste of a good dark priest spawn really, they headed back toward the main fight and just got there in time to contribute). The other heroes manipulated the ship so it came close to the shipwreck and prepared to board and take down the boss. There was a bit of a fight on turns 3 and 4, including a(n exploding) skeleton spawn that got me a kill or two, but the boss went down and the runner skipped through the cavern and the other heroes glyphed out from the revenge. I'm sure the OL didn't have more than 4 turns, maybe 5 at the outside.

Many dungeon levels are about that long so far, due to special rules (for example the barrel of explosives down the river - it takes 4 turns for the barrel to flow down the river, 2 turns to get the barrel into the river and at least another turn or two to kill the boss and get out, so 7-8 turns for a fast and efficient party) and random (carefully placed!) rubble making spawning easier. In fact, counting through my reports on BGG of a solo campaign there are a couple of levels finished in 4 turns and the rest very between 5-8 turns each.

I do accept though, that we seem to have done 'easier' island levels. No spawning and no need to kill the boss(es) on one, and an easy-killed boos starting close to the water in the other. But that is not entirely accidental either...

Corbon said:

What are your thoughts on a hero using two shields? I think our group feels it's cheesy, that in a "real" adventuring group no one would have two shields, so they never do it. Technically the rules don't disallow it, but it seems to be taking the game from a "dungeon crawl" to a tactical "I know how to make the rules work for me so I can win" game. I'm not advocating an RPG experience w/Game Mastering or anything, but some tactics feel too, I dunno, wrong?

-shnar

Carbon are u guys familiar with the scrub rule on islands? I think its almost impossible to hit the glyph with a canon because u need to have like 20 range or sth...

svarun said:

Cannons with +7 range and BY dice being used by heroes that have +4 range and damage from skills and special abilities (Keen Sight skill + Soldier 2 special ability from the Make Hero rules, adjacent to another hero with Blessing) can reach remarkable ranges...

There are also Feats which give +8 range (and have virtually no use in dungeons, so tend to be stuck in hand for a while)...

shnar said:

The game isn't a dungeon crawl in the first place. It is a tight tactical challenge and a race . If your job is to sprint through enemy fire without fighting back (while others do the fighting) then grabbing a shield in each hand and sprinting hunched with both hands up hold the shields in a wedge shape rotecting your front and sides is just plain sensible. People don't/didn't do it in real life much because shields are usually heavy . But it isn't really any different than having 3 magical staves sticking out of your backpack while you operate a 2H rune weapon, or swinging a 2H mace while carrying an axe in your pack for backup as well as having a shield slung and a 2H breath weapon for fighting soarers, all while wearing full plate armour. There is no 'weight' in this game, just an item limit, so making use of that one way is no different from making use of it any other way.

Compare it to the fundamental tactic of opening a chest in a room first, then fighting the monsters (hopefully with better weapons that magically sprung from the opened chest into far distant heroic hands). In a 'real' dungeon crawl that would be ridiculous...

Corbon said:

Really? Your argument is that if you stack cherry-picked items, skills, and an ability from semi-official variant rules (that are known to be broken) all on a single hero with about 8 power boosts in his ranged trait, then that one hero has almost a 50/50 chance of rolling enough range? Or that you can do it every once in while using tightly limited resources that only exist in an expansion that you may or may not even be playing with?

I haven't played either extended campaign and I'm not real familiar with the content, so it's entirely possible I'm missing something, but that looks like a pretty flimsy counter-argument to a casual inspection.

Antistone said:

I'm not making any particular argument. They OP is complaining the SoB is totally broken after playing it through once. I happen to agree with him in general but he also made a several statements that in my limited (and I have said that I've only played two island levels) experience aren't true. I also think that it takes more than one playthrough by more than one group to confirm brokenness. People can just play badly, which is not to say the OP's group does, just that it takes a while for people to work out correct tactics. SoB poses a number of very different challenges to any previous Descent game.

He stated that the island levels are much harder than normal levels. Well, IM E xperience they aren't, though that experience is limited. In fact they have been two of the easiest levels played so far, out of about 20 over several in-progress campaigns.
He claimed that it took "a couple of turns just to really get off the ship", implying that having spent a couple of turns 'just to get off the ship' you then still had the whole island to fight your way through.
Well, IME it is a trivial task to get a hero to the glyph, or close enough to all but guarantee killing any non leader monster standing on the glyph on turn one. Which means turn 2, glyphing to town and turn three most heroes are at least 1/3 through the map with their first MP. If they want to be.
From the glyph it is a couple of turns running at most by a single hero to get to the portal, often only one turn if you have a decent runner. Only ne hero needs to get to the portal. The main problem is likely to be killing the boss or whatever is required to open the portal.
I'm not saying islands are a breeze, I'm making the point that they aren't necessarily as hard as the OP is claiming. Perhaps his group have't devemoped their tactics or playstyle? Perhaps they just have a really bad combo? Perhaps they've just played the worst islands? I don;t know. I'm merely providing evidence that perhaps his claim isn't as definitive as he thinks.

The cannon option isn't even needed, unless the OL can put minions on the glyph that can prevent activation (and can't be killed/knockbacked by the running hero). If it is needed, it is only need once for a full dungeon.

Even if it is needed, every single example is going to be cherry-picked. Every possible hero/skill/item is a cherry picked combo when it is described.
IIRC the +7 range BY Knockback cannon is the starting cannon that the Revenge starts with two of. I may recall incorrectly. Even if it is not, it is a rare and foolish party that is doing island levels without a single cannon upgrade. The choice at the start is simple - you either avoid the ship upgrades (except the figureheads that either reduce encounter chances or allow you two sea trails at a time) and get to the mainland ASAP (which means not doing islands on the way so that you don't accidentally get sent all the way back to your home port) or you upgrade your ship on week two before sailing off. And the very first upgrade almost any party will buy will be a cannon that uses the Blue dice for their Ranger (assuming the starting cannon is the White dice one rather than the BY +7 knockback one.)
Inner Fire and Marksman give better range bonuses than Keen Sight - that's just the skill my opponent happens to have. Blessing is certainly a common skill to have in a party, and especially in SoB due to it's utility in ship fights (by which I mean I rate it higher in SoB than in RtL).

As for using Feats, sure, not everyone has that expansion. Does that mean I should avoid discussion of using the Hammer or Mace of Aver as your weapon of choice for a runner (to knockback monsters off chests and glyphs) because they are expansion weapons? No, I don't think it does.
In particular, if you do have feats, this +8 range feat (Shooting for Distance), of which there are three in the deck, is almost useless in conventional SOB dungeon levels so is very likely to be cluttering up your hand when you get to island levels

I also think (without checking) that the OP has overstated the range requirement somewhat and is ignoring the fact that the Revenge should have been deliberately moved closer to shore before the cannon fires. IIRC the required range to cover the glyph was actually about 14 or 15 when my opponent was calculating it, which I was laughing at until he pointed out that he automatically reached that with even a minimum ranged roll! (without any feat).

They key is that on turn one all (well, two of the other three at least) of the heroes are working together to put the fast hero as close to the island glyph as possible and end themselves beside the ship glyph. Heroes do not all have to wade/swing ashore .
I don't think the OP's group is even trying to do this, judging by his claim.

In my group hero campaign (which we play our second session of tonight, about 3 months after the first session) we would have it even easier as our running hero is Astarra so she only needs to get within 3 spaces of the glyph. She is a lot more likely to die afterward though...

Carob ofc there are ways to deal with them, but when that rushing in goes wrong and the glyph does not open(what occurred in most our attempts), as specially with the OL having a good spawn or being able to block the cannon action u describe, or simply puts a big fat monster on the glyph ...and as Antistone said 2 many ifs ....and a bad argument ... And btw if the ol just places 1 monster a couple spaces before the glyph, thats that with your extra sniper super duper cannon action.

and the list of OL cards that can break the tactic u got... spiked pit, dodge (against that cannon shot), charge(to put the leader or some random fattie on the glyph), dark charm, shade spooks (if the runner is melee), blood apes (2 much hp for hit), crushing block, well and many more i cant think of right now...

svarun said:

With a 5F 5M hero (most parties should have one at least, or they are badly selected), my opponent has been able to reach the glyph on the first turn , or within two spaces of it but sitting in a tree, and still have full, or very near full, fatigue (for the use of ghost armour), not tom mention 'shields up'. That means that there are no cards the OL can have that can prevent it. He has no threat and only three cards. the best possible combo he can have is Danger, Spiked Pit and Crushing Block, which would still allow the hero to reach the glyph, just without full fatigue. The only thing that can realistically prevent glyph activation on turn one, is a starting monster on the glyph, and that isn't always possible, or practical. And if it is, the OL still has to protect against a long range cannon shot with knockback. And even if it suceeds he has to kill that hero in his next turn or the hero will get the glyph at the start of turn 2 for the same effect (and the hero can afford to be a lot more conservative, sitting a bit further back, probably in a tree).
No method is sure and there are always combos or luck that can screw things up.
Your list of OL cards that can screw things up has a lot more 'ifs' than the tactic I have laid out. If you have those cards, if the cards when played succeed (crushing block can make things easier! Dark charm has 2x 1/6 chance of failure and then is not guaranteed of a kill, Dodge is probably not enough as the hero is quite likely going to hit on anything but a miss if he is even trying this, etc etc), if the OL can play them at all with his limited resources, if the heroes can't get to the glyph on turn one(since only a few can be played during the hero's first turn).

But the first key is that the first two heroes on turn one move the ship 2-3 spaces closer to the shore. I strongly suspect your group isn't doing that. It makes a very big difference.
The second key is that not all heroes need to wade/swing ashore. Your statement makes it seem like your heroes are doing just that.

If you are consistently failing to activate the glyph on turn one or two then I really think you aren't playing the best you could be.

No carbon,we play just like your part does, we try get to the portal on the first turn if possible and the best way is to use the carried by air card after the ship has been moved and so on, but anyhow that does not even matter because in a normal dungeon lvl, would heroes run and use the whole first turn just to get to the portal and then what... if the ol has any good spawns at least 1 dies, sometimes he does not even need a spawn card , plus he can hide the bosses so far apart it may take more than 10 turns plus a lot of kills. Im not saying they are impossible to make or whatever, what i am saying is that the price performance for the heroes is bad.. what u said is that heroes must upgrade the ship in order to be officient on the island levels, (i cant hink of any other reason why one would upgrade a ship because you cant kill a liutenant anyhow, besides if the ol messes something up ( he can always hide him benid all minions in a cornes plus put sharkes in the way so there is no good cannon shot in that direction)... and the second reason is that if u have a bigger ship, u have a bigger chance of geting smashed against a boulder.

Maybe the reason of imbalance is, that the heroes in our party play so good in the dungeons that usually the OL gets hardly any exp in the first half of the copper age... at the start of the campaign we only make a lvl or 2 than flee dungeons , we upgrade as soon as possible, we know exactly where to go for this skill and that skill, we plan all our game weeks in advance .. so the problem is when there is not enough overall exp the OL has a lot of game week to besidge... and at the start of the silver age there are at least 2 cities down... So basically if we played worse and died more the OL would have less time to besidge, and to me this sounds really really retarded strategy that ruins the fun of the game.

Btw if u move the ship and swing, first of all the swing can fail then the swing takes a half of a turn, so how can you get there with full fatigue even if you have 5speed, so you ment full fatigue after drinking a potion to get there and then drinking another one on the next turn to have full fatigue ?

Guys, this conversation is failing its purpouse.

And if we are talking about island levels....There is not a question if heroes can open glyph in first turn or not. Ye, sometimes they can, sometimes they can't.

The problem is that even if they open a glyph in first turn, there is still not very simple to make this level.

When i was Ol, heroes didnt make even 1 island level. And that is not a problem in their lack of skills, because we are playing descent for 5 years. The problem is when OL, have more than 1 boss! He separete them in different cornes of this giant map so heroes have 2 option.

1.- they go toogether to kill 1 by 1 (this method takes so much time, beacause when they kill first one, the second is on the other side of the map, surrounded by a lot of spawned monsters.

2.- they split - even worse, because they cant control the map for summonig so every summon card is deadth to 1 hero.

And ye, i agree, its possible to finish island level, even easier if you're playing against some average OL who goes straight into fight with heroes, but if the Ol knows how to play, there isnt very good calculation for heroes.

As i was checking this forums and heard a lot of people says its is normal, that OL has 2x experiance of heroes. Let me tell you this, its far away from normal. we played now 3 SoB campains, and in each of them heroes had 2x more experiance, but we still badly lost, because of unbalance of this game.

Regars, Bizonko

Maybe the reason of imbalance is, that the heroes in our party play so good in the dungeons that usually the OL gets hardly any exp in the first half of the copper age... at the start of the campaign we only make a lvl or 2 than flee dungeons , we upgrade as soon as possible, we know exactly where to go for this skill and that skill, we plan all our game weeks in advance .. so the problem is when there is not enough overall exp the OL has a lot of game week to besidge... and at the start of the silver age there are at least 2 cities down... So basically if we played worse and died more the OL would have less time to besidge, and to me this sounds really really retarded strategy that ruins the fun of the game.

I have never played SoB but it seems to me this could be the source of the 'imbalance'. I've played several RtL campaings and I know it's a common strategy for heroes to blitz dungeons to deny XP to the OL. But they also do deny their own XP (killing less dungeon bosses and activating less glyphs).

As you say there is very little an OL can do to kill blitzing heroes. But by this discussion it seems to me the counter to this strategy is razing 4 cities as the heroes need way more weeks to get their XP.

/e: sorry, i just don't get how i can get quotes to work

svarun said:

1. So what if a (the) hero dies. You just exchanged 3CT for 2CT (almost all good runners are 2CT, the 3+CT ones can be actually pretty tough too). ANd the dead hero can come straight back out through the glyph he just opened.
You also say 'at least 1' - which indicates you have multiple heroes running for the glyph. That is very different from what I suggested. Obviously we are not playing the same!
And yes, Carried By Air is one of the very best cards. It might be useful in this situation, but we would definitely try to say it for more important situations than this, particularly when the OL has done an effective 'block' somehow (eg placing a Demon boss on top of the portal entrance!)

2. Right. Like I said, the real difficulty is likely to be getting at the boss, if that's what it takes to open the portal. Also, like I said, we've only played 2 islands, so a limited sample. In one island you didn't need to kill the bosses to get through the portal and in the other Island the boss actually starts close by the shore on a shipwreck, so isn't that difficult to get to.
I'm not arguing that killing the bosses is easy. I'm saying that getting to the first glyph shouldn't be hard, which you seem to have great difficulty with, and not all islands have difficult conditions to get through the portal.

3. You said that islands are bad and one of the reasons is that they give "a gazilion cards and treat to the OL" indicating that they take a lot longer than normal levels. And "if you dont have Runemaster or Astra with the flying feet card u get slaughtered" indicating that you aren't able to use the glyphs effectively and are getting pulled into stand-up fights against superior forces.
Well, I'm just pointing out that with a very limited sample of 2 islands they have been the shortest and 3rd shortest dungeon levels we've played, out of about 20. And as OL I haven't yet managed to even break even CT-wise on an island level (although I did get 2 kills on the second level, silver exploding skeletons rock). Since apparently you find it near impossible to get to the glyph on turn one, and we've found it trivial, something is very, very different in our games - be it the levels we've played, the quality of the heroes and their skills, the tactics of both sides or just the cards that the OL manages to drawn in his starting hand.

4. Upgrade the ship? With a single cannon! That's the only upgrade needed (and only needed if the OL is sitting a tough monster on the glyph). Its also a 'normal', logical upgrade to buy on week 2 anyway. I'd imagine few parties don't buy a 500 coin cannon with a blue dice* on week 2 (although for a combination of reasons my group party is one of those.)

5. Well, perhaps, Like Hinni said, you simply haven't adapted. You've taken RtL tactics into SoB and they didn't work. It wasn't an unreasonable thing to do, but it also isn't unreasonable that it is the wrong tactic and at least partly responsible for you difficulties.
I've already decided that for the most part dungeons need to be burned all the way through for most of the game. The exception is very early, to prevent the OL getting silver monster upgrade before you can escape the Siren. Otherwise there are three reasons why blitzing in SoB is not as smart as it was in RtL.
i) Due to the Divine Favour rule, CT won't blow out the same way it did in RtL. So you can afford to concede a bit more at times, in order to get more, because the exponential factor in the imbalance between sides is not the same.
ii) The 5 cities razed win condition. It is much harder to defend cities in SoB because firstly Lts only flee one space, and secondly you can't always instantly go back to the central board position at Tamalir, so it is much harder to actually get places
iii) there is actually a significant reward for completely lots of dungeons (though I'm not sure how signififcant it is really, since I haven't played enough yet) through the treasure map mechanism.

6. It isn't playing 'worse'. It's adapting your strategy to the different game conditions. You don't have to 'give' the OL kills, but you do need to push harder and deeper through dungeons, which usually means getting killed more anyway!

7. The swing takes 3 MP, not half a turn. There is a 1/18 chance you will only swing 1 space, which will probably screw you (there is no 'fail' for the swing except this bad range roll). The ship should be moved so that the sand bar space is 2 spaces from the ship - which means that if you jump you have 100% chance of landing on the sandbar for the same cost. If you swing the rope you might even get 4 or 5 spaces out which will save you MP overall. From the sandbar you can get ashore by wading or jumping 2 more spaces for 3MP. That's 6MP used to get 4 spaces. You can then move another 8 spaces forward (4 with Run MP, 4 with fatigue MP) before drinking a potion to refill fatigue (using a 5f5m hero here). That puts you on or very, very close to the glyph with 5 fatigue in hand, at least for both the glyphs we've encountered so far.

*I checked last night and the starting cannon is the white dice only +4range cannon. Which means that the most logical extra cannon to buy on week 2 is the 500 coin BY +7range Knockback (not inaccurate vs figure) cannon so that you have a W dice cannon and a B dice cannon for two different party members to use if necessary.

"From the sandbar you can get ashore by wading or jumping 2 more spaces for 3MP."

First of all you can not jump water spaces... read the rules..

Man i am geting pissed, as you are describing ordinary gameplay to me, ofc we only have 1 runner ffs, we are not idiots we have been playing descent for the last 5 years... and ofc we adapted the strategy and whatever, and we even made some island lvls really fast... but whatever my post has nothing to do with you teaching me how to play island levels... we played island lvls at least like 15 times and u only made 2... well whatever i would be really happy if things were like you are saying,but they are not! that is why there is so much people complaining about SOB.

svarun said:

You cannot jump water obstacles in the dungeons, but I was under the impression that there's a difference between a water obstacle and regular water.

mahkra said:

In Vanilla/RtL rules, jumping is only ever described within the rules for pits, IIRC. Jumping is not an action you can take whenever and wherever, it's something you can do to cross pits. Perhaps there's an expanded rule for jumping water in SoB I'm not familiar with, or perhaps there's a FAQ ruling I'm forgetting about that says people can jump whatever they want, but barring one of those two things, it's my understanding that jumping can only be done in relation to pits.

Water on the island map is definitely different than water in a dungeon - for one thing you can't go swimming in dungeon water. I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea of jumping water on the island maps, I'm just wondering if there's actually support for it in the rules, since last time I checked jumping wasn't a generic movement option that could be done over any old space you want.

@Svarun: Calm down, kiddo. You seem to be getting a bit worked up in your last reply. This isn't a competition, it's just a discussion. There's no "winner" here, just people's opinions. Maybe you should take a step back and breathe a bit. =)

Jumping is referenced a bit more than that in the rules.

JitD:
If a hero or monster is aware of a pit, it may jump across the pit for three movement points for each space crossed. Simply place the figure on the other side of the pit after spending the movement points.

FAQ:
Q: If a figure jumps over an obstacle that is adjacent to an enemy figure with Grapple, can the jumping figure be grappled "in mid-air"?
A. Figures may be grappled in mid-air. Being grappled in mid-air would stop a figure's movement as soon as it is grappled. This could result in suffering penalties from hazardous terrain.

WoD:
If a hero or monster is aware of lava, it may jump across the lava as though it were a pit.
If a hero or monster is aware of mud, it may jump across the mud as though it were a pit.
Scything blades cannot be jumped over.
Dart fields cannot be jumped over.

ToI:
Heroes and monsters may jump across ice using the same rules for jumping across pits (i.e., by spending three movement points for each ice space crossed.)

RtL:
(The RtL rules make no mention of things that CAN be jumped, but do clarify that Scything Blades, Dart Fields, and Water CANNOT be jumped. This certainly makes it seem like obstacles that do not block movement can be jumped unless otherwise specified.)

SoB:
Water (In Dungeon)
Water cannot be jumped.
Water (Shallow)
Figures in shallow water cannot jump.
Water (Deep)
Figures in deep water cannot jump.

I don't think jumping is ever explicitly defined as a generic movement action, but you can definitely jump over more than just pits. I think figures can jump over empty spaces or many obstacles, though there's often no benefit (except that the OL wouldnt' be able to play a trap on the space that was jumped, I suppose).