my house rules to adress the problems w/Sea of Blood mentioned in this forum (and a few other changes in Descent in general):

1) If a lieutenent flees an encounter in SOB w/the heros, he is returned to his starting location. Similar to RTL and makes it possible for heros to EFFECTIVELY chase down lieutenents to end sieges.

2) In encounters w/lieutenents in ports in SOB, if hero ship reaches opposite side of map and moves off the edge there, they have relieved the siege and the lieutenent must flee. This rule makes for a fun battle, as the heros try to break thru the lieutenents lines, and avoids a sitzkrieg and/or having to chase the lieutenent all over the map, most often in vain (I know, I know, if you have such and such a skill w/such and such a weapon and character, you have a 23.4% chance of chasing down the siren but so what, its still broke IMO .

3) Heros cannot steer ship off the edge of the map in an encounter in SOB, and a current can never do so either. The heros can move their ship off the far side of the map via forward movement and/or current, but that takes time... This forces heros to fight encounters, rather than flee w/o penalty, and makes for some fun running battles.

4) On island levels in SOB, the cavern entrance is always unlocked ie no need to kill bosses (except Shrouded Gulf and Bright Sea still have their special unlocking rule) but all heros must move through cave mouth in order to get to the next level. Monsters may sit on the cave mouth, however, essentially bloccking it (a good potential tactic for bosses) and forcing the heros to kill them first. This combination of rules eliminates the gamey tactic of the Overlord running his boss(es) all over the map away from the heros, all the while racking up threat.

5) Fatigue potions restore 4 fatigue and health potions restore 4 health, and the fatigue countermix is an absolute limit on total individual hero fatigue limits. Fatigue is just too potent when used to blitz and prekill the small levels in RTL and/or SOB, and there needs to be some incentive to choose potions other than fatigue/vitality.

6) Every second diagnol space moved/traced across increases distance/range/MP cost by 1 (I have always disliked the time/space warps of unlimited diagnol movement lol

These rules seem to be working well for us - comments/questions/thoughts anyone?

It seems intresting. Did you aready test these rules on your SoB camapaign? How well did they fit?

yes, played full game w/them, and I am midway thru silver in 2nd game and they work great - lots of fun sea/island encounters the way (I believe) the designers intended - we actually look forward to such encounters now.......running ship to ship battles w/cannons ablazing, dodging reefs and rocks, airborne razorwings, swimming skeletons, all harassing the heros as they cross the board in their ship, trying to escape or relieve the siege - great fun

w/such encounters actually meaning something now, ship upgrades are a must (13 CP if the overlord sinks ur ship (which will happen in one volley in some cases if u keep sloop.....), both to survive encounters and fight the lieutenents (esp those w/ships)

and island encounters that dont end w/30 threat and a full hand of cards for the overlord is an added bonus

I think the next time I want to run a Descent campaign, the "house rules" I invoke will be D&D 3.5, and it'll mainly be Descent in theme only. I love the bits in this game, but I'm growing increasingly annoyed with the rules. Nor do I seem to have the time to sit down and fix them the way I want to.

Kudos to your system though. Sounds like it's working out pretty well. In fact, I think I'll make a copy of these ideas in case we ever play a *real* game of SoB.

Ok Shoak1, you convinced me: I'll try to introduce them in my next upcoming campaign!

Thanks for your suggestions!

The first 3 suggestions address real problems that badly need fixes to make the game playable. They are probably among the simplest way to do this (although I am not certain they are sufficient). The 'Heroes win sieges by sailing off the edge of the map' one I use already. On its own, it is not sufficient of course.

The 4th seems mostly unnecessary, with a few exceptions. Notably I'm thinking the map with the soaring Razorwing bosses - not only ridiculously fast, but there are TWO of them and they can spread out to make tracking them impossible, and they fly so they can hide in over the water. On the other hand, there's another map with a Naga who can warp between two pits and I find this map very strategically interesting with having to 'cover' the two areas - this would go away if you could just sprint for the exit.

The 5th is largely unnecessary - the downgrade of the fatigue upgrades from +2 to +1 (from original RtL) went a long way to fixing the fatigue problems.

The 6th I would never even contemplate, as it adds completely unnecessary complication to an otherwise simple mechanism (counting distance). Yes, it makes no sense from a geometric or thematic perspective, but strategically the existing rules are perfectly fine. Of course, you're quite entitled to use it, but I don't see what it has to do specifically in a thread about (badly needed) corrective house rules for Sea of Blood.

thanks for the input

what would you say is insufficient re the fix for lieutenant encounters in port?

The_Immortal said:

+1

With the exception that I dislike autobreaking seiges by sailing off the far end of the map. That basically gives the Lt a countdown time in which he must kill all the heroes (many, if not most, Lts cannot harm the Revenge itself) and on some maps that can be as little as 5 turns, less with upgraded ships that move faster and are larger. Frankly, even with upgraded eldritch in early copper (ie no upgrades on heroes, the Siren was able to do a total of 2 wounds (ie less than a single potions worth) in 5 turns before the heroes sailed past her in our campaign. 2 very heavily armoured heroes (Dwarf and Mage Cloaked Mage) and one reasonably well armoured and double shielded Ranger, all three mostly dodging, with the weak hero protected from LOS by two of the others + a mast, and there was very little the Siren could possibly do in such a short time.
Perhaps this could be refined by saying that this result only force the Lt to retreat instead of go all the way back to their starting location, though I am still not comfortable with it. IMO it basically allows the heroes to all-but guarantee breaking any seige at will (barring a sudden death rocks type location). I don't think that's reasonable, and I think Lts have already been massively nerfed by losing Treachery. It seems the Lt fights are supposed to be long and difficult now, in general.

Good feedback.

I think part of it is the expectation of what lieutenants "should" be able to do. I believe the heros should be able to break the siege in most (80%) instances or the campaign would be broken. Chasing down 3 lieutenants is a full time job as it is, leaving little room for questing and training. The Lts will run when threatened w/elim, if the overlord is smart, so they will live to siege another week soon (retreat to their starting locale means usually only 1-2 moves from a town), even after defeat. Three Lts all besieging towns close to their homes in 3 separate parts of the map is daunting enough. Throw in a 50% (or even 33%) chance of losing the battle (and 13 or so CPs for a party wipe) and you would have a runaway situation easily.

The siren is a 5 point lieutenant, she "shouldn't" be able to defeat the heros except in the very best of circumstances, imo.

Most of the other lieutenants can challenge the heros in the time it takes to cross the board, especially w/the right incident locale, timing (at the beg of copper/silver/gold, or when the heros are less than full strength) and/or a lack of ship upgrades. Having said that, a couple Lts need some work to really be compatible at all w/a suitable encounter regardless of rules (such as the Kraken), but I will leave that to the threads that have adressed those issues.

The Lts, imo, should be a distraction and a ticking clock, not a force that can wipe the heros, or prosecute a siege in the face of their arrival, except in the most favorable circumstances. I think that is a value commesurate w/their CP cost.

shoak1 said:

I flat out disagree with your premise, while accepting that this is a subjective discussion rather than an objective one and thus there can be no one 'correct' viewpoint.

While I don't think that everything from RtL does or should be relatively similar in SoB, both Merrick and Elysa Farrow could be exceedingly dangerous to the heroes with the right monster upgrades (and treachery), for just 5 CT each (assuming you purchased in the correct order, which you would generally be a fool not too).

I think the Siren shouldn't be easy to drive off , unless you can get the threat to her personally (in which case she will be fairly easily driven off - she is pretty weak after all).
I also don't think the SIren should easily be able to crush the heroes - IMO she can't, unless they screw up while going after her or get a bad map - OTOH very early on with silver upgraded eldritch vs starting heroes she is a real threat if they do try to go after her.
The 5 CT cost isn't a factor in that. After all, harassment is the primary purpose of Lts, even if it is in the form of map-board harassment.

The way I see it, if the both sides want to actually duke it out (in a Lt encounter), it should be a difficult and close fight for both sides, with a lot resting on it - not a cruise for either side. Losing a Lt is a very big deal in SoB with fewer available Lts than RtL. The Heroes have far to much freedom and flexibility on the SoB map if there is no or little Lt pressure (no encounters on land gives much greater surety and some of the training options available are extremely powerful - great skills and training bonuses seem to be far more concentrated city-wise than RtL, and the treasure maps are also a big boon to heroes if they can afford the time.

Well, it sounds like we have conceptual differences re what Lts "should" be able to do. I just dont see how SOB could work as a game if the heros cant chase the Lts away most of the time reliably. In the campaign I have now, the siren keeps beseiging the SE town while kraken and sweetheart beseige 2 of the northern. Dallak was razed as per plot card play. Now the heros seem to have to keep running back and forth across the map (over the same spaces they have explored dungeons in, so no enroute questing poss.), with scant time for training or questing, chasing them off sieges or it will be game over soon.

I just dont see how making it poss for lietenants to win much of the time in a heads up battle (which would result in about a 13cp loss AND almost certainly the razing of a town) could result in anything but a victory for overlord in the campaign, its too tough already in the siege game.

And finally, the heros should win most of the time because they are the good guys !!!!!!

shoak1 said:

I think they can chase them away 'reliably' if they make a committed effort (except perhaps for very new hero parties) - if they risk a TPK (which won't happen in most cases unless the OL also risks his Lt). After all, it's in the OL's interest to flee fairly easily...
I think being able to chase the Lts away reliably with no effort at all (which is what it takes to get off the far end of the map in most cases) is... pointless.

I also think that SoB is differently paced to RtL. I think most people playing it have played at RtL pace and are finding themselves in trouble by mid silver in the campaign. I think that this is a subtle point that nearly everybody has gotten wrong from the start, and it doesn't become apparent until it is too late.
But until someone plays a campaign hard out - arguably a campaign could be completed in around than 20 weeks or less, including training etc and still find themselves under too much time pressure, we won't know for sure, only suspect.

And no, I absolutely dispute that the heroes should win most of the time because they are 'the good guys'. This is a contest, a game of skill - not a game of moral rectitude.

I recommend to you Jaqueline Carey's 'The Sundering' (Banewreaker and Godslayer) for an examination of 'good guys and bad guys'.
Or George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire (start with A Game of Thrones) for a more realistic fantasy series and what happens to the 'good guys'.

Total Aside: I love Song of Fire and Ice. Its like George R.R. Martin is sitting behind a desk and somehow he gets word when someone likes a character...and he magically changes the book and they die 10 pages later.

Big Remy said:

Loved it until he stopped writing about Tyrion Lannister. I don't mind that the good guys die like flies; but I do mind when the most interesting guys disappear and are never heard of again.

Then we have this Daenerys saga that has so little to do with the rest of the story (at least until now) that Song of Fire and Ice is a more interesting read if you skip her chapters. At least I thought "Compared to the rest, what a bore!" every time I read them...

The trick for Lt balance is that there is a HUGE gap between individual LT abilities. If you balance around the Siren, Darkwind will destroy the heroes every time. If you balance around giving the heroes a chance vs Darkwind when the OL draws 2 location cards, then all other LTs become easy.