Hi all, i've got a problem with this Power Card that is a 2 poitn Treachery from Altair of Despair.

The Card text says :

"Play at the start of your turn and place it faceup in front of you. At the end of each hero's turn, that hero must either discard 1 potion (without effect) or roll one power die. If the hero discards a potion or rolls a blank on the power die, nothing happens. If the hero rolls the power die and does not roll a blank, he loses 1 wound, ignoring armor."

How does it function. I mean, does it affect only heroes who have potion equipped (because it must discard it) or, if you do not have potion to discard you must anyway roll the die ?

In the second case, in every dungeon, it seems that the party is doomed to begin losing 1 wound a round 'till all the party is dead ...

Can someone tell how it is interpreted ? Tks in advance!

totax said:

If you have no potion, you must roll a die. And indeed, the party is doomed... To lose 5 wounds every 6 turns until they leave the dungeon, but certainly not until they die, as the effect of Gluttony ceases as soon as they exit the dungeon. They can also heal at the Temple in the meantime. Gluttony is annoying, sure, but not as powerful as you seem to think.

I don't see why one would ever discard a potion if he has more than 1 life left, since a healing pot gives you 3 turns by drinking it, and only 1 turn by discarding it.

Tks for the answer ...

the problem is ... in road to legend in that dungeon you cannot evade :

- the 3 epic dungeon (you cannot count on them)

- the final one, if you arrive there, you've got loto of troubles and points to the overlord ..

Well, i don't know how to affront such a Overlord ... but i will try to invent something ...

The counter is speed. It will force the heroes to move faster, and it would bad for the players if the OL gets it into play during the first level of a legendary or the Keep. But keep moving forward, use the temple to heal and don't waste any time. A while into the campaign the Heroes will be very powerful and can often clear a level in just a few turn.

Also, it's Road to Legend. Except for the final fight heroes are never forced to hang around. If gluttony is that bad, just leave. Likewise, in RtL a hero death isn't that big of a deal compared to vanilla. Sure, it might make you lose the game eventually if those 1-4xp buy the OL something nice or give his avatar just enough health to kill you in the final fight, but it's not a game ender like it is in a standard quest.

Personally I'd love to see the OL spend 2 trap treachery and 22 threat on Gluttony. It means he didn't spend them on Dark Relic, Dark Charm, Curse of the Monkey God, or other guaranteed ways to gain CT. Instead he opted to put the choice whether to give him CT or not into our hands by letting us choose to heal at the temple, buy healing potions, or just risk a little damage here and there.

James McMurray said:

Agreed. Gluttony is a weak effect that leaves the heroes in control of it. 5/6ths of a wound for each hero, each turn, is practically negligible really. Heroes should have 12-20 wounds at least for most of the game, and can heal at the temple cheaply in all but the final dungeon.

Corbon said:

I quite like the Gluttony card. I've probably been quite lucky the couple of times I've played it though. Currently, my group are about to go start the 3rd level of the Caverns of Thuul (although they've drawn The Monastery *sigh*) and I was able to play the card in the first level. I find that it can be a useful card for reducing the number of times the heroes are able to place a Guard action and the damage that it does, while small, can help keep the number of healing potions the party has down to a minimum when combined with other traps and monster attacks in general. I also find it good for whittling away at the health of the tank I normally have difficulty getting kills on.

Granted, my heroes don't seem to make as much use of the temple as they should (shhh ) which helps. I also agree that the effectiveness of the card is heavily dependent on how early the OL can get it into play, but I'm sure that's the same with any power card.

One thing though, I always have the card take effect on a hero even when they are visiting town. Is this the right way to play the card? I was doing this as the card states that the effect takes place at the end of the player's turn, nothing about where the hero is (unless I'm mistaken).

BatintheBelfry said:

This seems correct, though the "can't be targetted by OL cards" rule gives it some wiggle room. It looks like a blanket thing, not a targetted one.

BatintheBelfry said:

I hadn't ever really thought about this aspect of the card, and I can't recall ever actually seeing it in play. The damage is fairly trivial, but negating 5 out of 6 Guard orders might actually have a significant effect on the game.

mahkra said:

Agreed. However between the Skull Shield (which seems to turn up with disturbing frequency in my campaigns and always goes to the ranger for use with a 1H ranged weapon) and Ghost Armour (which is without fail purchased, along with RoP, after the very first coinpile in the very first dungeon level) which is usually on the mage, the two most common guard orders are already covered.

If it was half the price (in treachery especially) then it might be worth while. But there are so many better cards that you can get for two treachery...

Not sure about affecting heroes in town. Mechanically, maybe. Thematically, definitely not. Now I ignore thematics if there is any possibility of a mechanical solution to a question, but I do prefer to have a thematic explanation if it isn't clear. And thematically, it cannot affect Tamalir because if it did then all power cards would always be on, especially those automatically in play with Lts.
But by the wording, it just says at the end of the hero turn, and heroes in town have turns (even though they are different), so I guess i does have toaffect the hero in town mechanically.

Does it make more thematic sense if looked at as a curse that affects all heroes in the dungeon, and can't be lifted until they leave? The power card in play would then just be a reminder.

James McMurray said:

Either it has the range to reach Tamalir or it doesn't.
If they are in 'town' then they are at Tamalir. There is in fact no guarantee that they will ever return to the dungeon. If they are being affected, it is either because a) Tamalir is in range of the effect, in which case all other power card, especially those attached to Lts, should always be in play over the entire board or b) ... nothing.
They may elect not to return to the dungeon themselves, so individually delving in the dungeon can't be a reason.
The effect stops the moment the party elects to flee, regardless of any party member being in the dungeon or not, so it is not an individual connection/thing anyway.
They don't even have to have any fellow party members in the dungeon (the whole party can sit in town for 2 or 3 turns healing and shopping before they flee), so that can't be a reason.
All I basically get is a mystical no-reason that the party is somehow connected mystically to that dungeon regardless of any member actually being there , or the effect can reach Tamalir, in which case it (or at very least Alric's Doom) should be permanently active over basically the entire map.
I guess I am not imaginative enough in this case.

Sorry, pal but yuo say that you can use the temple or town to shop :

- to go to town (tamalir) you must be adjacent to a glyph and start moving right ?

- in a single dungeon each hero can heal a max of wounds equal to the Temple stat so it seems a maximum of 5 per dungeon (not more)

- in the same way you can buy a max of potion equal to the alchemist stat (2 in tamalir) per week

Is every assumption correct or am i missing something ?

In this way, healing at the temple is a 1 time option (it buys you time but only once ... )

There is no limit to how many times the restock action can be taken in Tamalir's temple. The temple rating is how many wound you can heal per action, not per week.

totax said:

The number of potions you can buy is per week, equal tot he alchemist's rating in town and applies both inside a dungeon and while wandering around the overland map (IIRC.)

The temple function of healing <temple rating> wounds while in a dungeon is per turn , you can go visit the temple as many times as you like, but you can only heal this amount each time. The temple functions differently when on the overland map.

Although knowing how the heroes are usually played in our games, most of the time they'd probably just burn their way through the dungeon like usual and deal with dying if this card caused it. Maybe they'd stop to heal a few times if they had to deal with a rumour or legendary dungeon level which is longer. I've never actually dropped this one on them myself so it's hard to say.

OK tks all ...

it's clear to me now ... i still dont like Gluttony and i would prefer not to deal with that card ...

but at least i know how to confront with the problem ...

It is a problem to deal with ... it's hard to do it ... but it's not impossible ! I'll let you know how it ended ...