Hi All - First post here. Long time Gamer - Warhammer, Axis & Allies, Risk, Setttlers of Catan, Powergrid, etc...

Played my third game of Descent (main set) recently as the overlord. We played the 3rd quest from the main set using the main set only (the Naga quest).

1) The overlord seems to roll very few black dice. Is this right? Is there no way to add black dice to monster attacks? (*I feel like I missed something but I don't see it on multiple read throughs)

2) My heroes setup seemed very overpowered. I had 2 melee characters, 1 had Leadership & Cleave, the other had the ability which let him battle & move after spending fatigue and make 3 attacks instead of 2. Then there was a ranged char. with the ability to spend fatigue to shoot twice and the threat reduction card. So my heroes were dishing out 7+ attacks per turn. I just could not keep monsters alive against that assault. Was this just a spell of bad luck? Given the order my cards came to me + the attacks dished out I just felt like I had no chance against them. I don't mind losing, I just like a chance.

3) Slow hero players. Anyone else have issues with the heroes analyzing every tiny detail and taking 20+ minutes to complete a hero turn? Is it sensible (& fair) to apply SOME kind of time limit?

4) Orders - My heroes were complaining about me being able to see which order they set (Guard, Aim, Rest or Dodge). Is that right or should it be hidden from the overlord?

5) Line of Sight - Once we read that I can't use monsters to block LoS for spawning I had a tough time spawning monsters anywhere. And this was without the Boggs the Rat familiar in play. It just seems like moderately intelligent heroes can prevent you from spawning (without playing the card to reduce LoS to 5 spaces).

6) Leadership - Bunch of questions here. Can the LD character give the ready order to a character who is nowhere near him and has already completed his turn(which seems to me to be the main use of this card)? Can he give it to one who hasn't completed his turn(and if so, how do you resolve that)?

7) Armor - My heroes "armor" up very quickly getting to a 5 or better armor value. I found my poor beastmen and skellies had a tough time hurting them with such high armor. Is this normal?

8) Items - I had a hero with a shield he could exhaust to cancel two wounds and a cloak (Silver treasure I think) which let him cancel wounds for each surge rolled. Can you really use both to ignore an attack? The cloak never exhausts (the card doesn't say it)?

9) Does the overlord count as a player when determining which mons-ter cards to use? (IE - 3 Heroes + Overlord uses monster 4)

I know I have a lot to learn yet about playing the game and the strategy of the overlord in general.

Thanks in advance for any / all help you can provide,

Cheers

Domus

1) The overlord seems to roll very few black dice. Is this right? Is there no way to add black dice to monster attacks? (*I feel like I missed something but I don't see it on multiple read throughs)

That's right. Doom! can add black dice, but that's generally it without playing another expansion.

2) My heroes setup seemed very overpowered. I had 2 melee characters, 1 had Leadership & Cleave, the other had the ability which let him battle & move after spending fatigue and make 3 attacks instead of 2. Then there was a ranged char. with the ability to spend fatigue to shoot twice and the threat reduction card. So my heroes were dishing out 7+ attacks per turn. I just could not keep monsters alive against that assault. Was this just a spell of bad luck? Given the order my cards came to me + the attacks dished out I just felt like I had no chance against them. I don't mind losing, I just like a chance.

It sounds like they got an insanely good skill draw. Most games will not see them get near that lucky with their random characters and skills.

3) Slow hero players. Anyone else have issues with the heroes analyzing every tiny detail and taking 20+ minutes to complete a hero turn? Is it sensible (& fair) to apply SOME kind of time limit?

There's a lot to think about in Descent. They'll get better. I recommend everyone taking at least one turn as Overlord to get familiar with that side of the game so they have a better idea what to expect. It'll make their decision process faster as they won';t have to guess as much.

4) Orders - My heroes were complaining about me being able to see which order they set (Guard, Aim, Rest or Dodge). Is that right or should it be hidden from the overlord?

You get to see them. Very little is hidden in Descent.

5) Line of Sight - Once we read that I can't use monsters to block LoS for spawning I had a tough time spawning monsters anywhere. And this was without the Boggs the Rat familiar in play. It just seems like moderately intelligent heroes can prevent you from spawning (without playing the card to reduce LoS to 5 spaces).

Yep. That will differ dependiing on the map. Some maps it's practically impossible for them to stop you from spawning right next to them at times.

6) Leadership - Bunch of questions here. Can the LD character give the ready order to a character who is nowhere near him and has already completed his turn(which seems to me to be the main use of this card)? Can he give it to one who hasn't completed his turn(and if so, how do you resolve that)?

Yes, in both cases. It doesn't matter if they've taken their turn or not, do the order exactly as the order rules say. This means, for instance, that a hero with Leadership can give another hero a Rest order and then that person takes their turn, immediately gaining the benefit since the OL can';t damage them to get rid of it.

7) Armor - My heroes "armor" up very quickly getting to a 5 or better armor value. I found my poor beastmen and skellies had a tough time hurting them with such high armor. Is this normal?

It depends on the heroes they draw. If they get a lot of magic characters and armor up, they'll be greatly limiting their attack options by shutting off runes.

8) Items - I had a hero with a shield he could exhaust to cancel two wounds and a cloak (Silver treasure I think) which let him cancel wounds for each surge rolled. Can you really use both to ignore an attack? The cloak never exhausts (the card doesn't say it)?

Yes.

9) Does the overlord count as a player when determining which mons-ter cards to use? (IE - 3 Heroes + Overlord uses monster 4)

Yep.

I highly recommend reading the FAQ. It answers a lot of questions you probably don't even know you'll b e asking.

James McMurray said:

Thanks for the quick and thorough response. I've read through the FAQ once and could do with a re-read. I know with games of this complexity it takes a couple of reads + a couple of games to work out and understand all of the rules. The group of guys I'm gaming with is a good bunch and we are keeping to the spirit of the game when in doubt.

Thanks again!

I thought of one more question.

With the Knight Skill...

One of my heroes was declaring the Battle order the turn after porting to town and then using his allowed move + potion + Fatigue to move into the dungeon and lay waste to monsters.

I couldn't find anything to disallow it in the rules and thought it was a cunning application of the rule.

Is that right or did I miss something?

Yes, that was a cunning application of the rules indeed. But it's OK.

Keep faith! You had some bad luck with these characters this time, but next time you"ll simply slaughter them!

James McMurray said:

I agree that the heroes got ridiculously lucky skill draws that game. Having said that, it's also true that monsters tend to be of the expendable variety more often than not. Don't expect to wage epic multiple-round long battles with white monsters, they are the cannon fodder in your armies.

Welcome to Descent! Just some additional comments:

2) don't bother to keep monsters alive. Except for some of the bigger (master) monsters, monsters are just meant to attack and die the next turn. However, plan your attacks carefully; it's best to overwhem the heroes with as much monsters as possible so that they have a hard time killing them all in one turn. This requires room planning and management of your cards.

7) You say your heroes often get to 5 armor and above. I suspect something's not right there; a 2-armor hero can only get to 5 armor with Plate Mail (a Copper treasure) or better. I think there's only one of them in the copper treasure deck. Furthermore, mages can't equip heavy armor and use runes at the same time. While I can see one of the heroes getting to 5+, there will always be at least one 'squishy'. Take advantage of that and concentrate your attacks on him as much as possible.

In addition, the first 3 quests are commonly regarded as easy for the heroes. Also, your heroes seem to know what they're doing. This means you'll need to brush up on your own tactics, but you will be helped by more difficult quests as well. And if all else fails, buy Well of Darkness and watch your heroes cry

El Ravager said:

I'm not overly concerned with monsters living. I destroyed the heroes in Quest 1 / 2. In quest 3, due to the luck of the skill / hero setup, they were able to open a room and almost instantly slay all of the monsters. They activated all 3 'statue' naga at once (on accident I might add) and defeated them handily that turn. I was glad to see all the reassurrance that they just got INCREDIBLY lucky.

El Ravager said:

1 Fighter / Ranged - 2 Melee Black Dice, 1 Ranged Black Dice - Skills were LD / Cleave - Leather Armor + 1/2 Base. Got Shield to exhaust and cancel 2 wounds and got the cloak to roll surges and cancel wounds.

1 Ranged / Fighter - 2 Ranged Dice / 1 Melee Dice. This guy I kept killing but he was only worth 3 conquest points. My heroes played slow and cautious in the first 2 areas and prevented me from spawning anywhere by controlling LoS nicely. Once they got the treasures, I just couldn't reliably hurt either melee warrior and had to concentrate on the ranged, who I managed to kill like 6 times.

El Ravager said:

In addition, the first 3 quests are commonly regarded as easy for the heroes. Also, your heroes seem to know what they're doing. This means you'll need to brush up on your own tactics, but you will be helped by more difficult quests as well. And if all else fails, buy Well of Darkness and watch your heroes cry

Thanks again for all the replies! It seems that my heroes simply managed to be incredibly lucky. I know I have a lot of OL tactics still to learn so best get to it!

Cheers!

domus said:

It looks like he may have been wearing Leather and the Cloak of Mists at the same time? If that's the case, he had on one too many sets of armor. While it makes sense thematically that you could wear a cloak over leather armor, they're both "Armor" equipment so you're only allowed one of them at a time in Descent.

James McMurray said:

Started with leather, upgraded to Cloak. My bad.

I just realized one other factor we did wrong last night.

We were playing the black dice wrong. We were treating 1 / <3 as two wounds instead of 1. We counted all the hearts and then misread the power enhancement and played that the 1 added dmg or added range. But I see now that they mean use the 1 OR use the heart.

domus said:

While boring maybe, this is the way to go for the OL: mercilessly pick on the weakest hero. And 'only 3' should be 'as much as 3', since usually the squishiest hero is only 2 CT. You should feel lucky to be able to kill a 3CT 6 times.

Laugh. Don't feel alone Domus. I just ran my first quest and my players party make up was almost identical to yours. I even had a ranged player with the rapid fire ability. They walked through most of the dungeon until I got a few luck cards and spawned an overwhelming force on them and manage to inflict a few casualties and make the game a little more in contention.

Welcome to Descent1 it's good to see others enjoying this game so much.

I'm so glad you have most other expansions, cuz it only gets better!

Things to remember:

Skeletons are great for making strong defense characters pin cushions with their pierce. The WoD shipped with fix cards for skellies and beastmen, the skellies have pierce, and the beastmen have + damage. This changes your strategy drastically, since you won't be wasting big damage beastmen on high armor dudes. Save 'em to smack the hell outta a mage or two.

And yes, that FAQ is like gold, especially when you and your buddies will be debating rules for a long time...