Hello,

I think, there is small issue with OL player gaining 3 XP after finishing his/her deck. It's much simplier playing only Descent JtD + SoB than having all cards from all expansions. Either OL should get e.g. 5 XP or the deck should be customizable and limited to fewer cards.

Apart from this, it's impossible to finish such deck at only one level to benefit from "Running out of time".

Any suggestions / ideas ?

thanks

Apart from this, it's impossible to finish such deck at only one level to benefit from "Running out of time".

It's meant to be impossible. The rule was put in place to prevent the hero players from hiding in town to run out the clock and force the campaign into the final fight. It's not meant to let the overlord chase heroes out of a dungeon unless they're trying to exploit a loophole.

I can't tell what your first paragraph means. If there's a question in it, could you please rephrase it?

The first paragraph - actually it was my complaint

Seriously, do you have any played house rules for correcting this OL penalty ?

thanks

None. The overlord will typically get 3 conquest per three-floored dungeon in our campaigns, more if the map is a tough one. He will never force the heroes to flee because we don't try to break the game, so the time limit never triggers. It almost triggered once on the last level of the copper legendary area in Road to Legend because that's an incredibly big level and we were overly cautious.

I think when the OP referred to "running out of time" he meant the OL's CT gain for cycling the deck in general, not the rule about ejecting the heroes if he cycles twice per level. IIRC, from JitD, the reason the OL gains CT for cycling the deck is because the heroes supposedly are "running out of time" to complete their quest.

To answer the OP:

There aren't that many extra cards added to the OL deck from expansions. I think it's only 2-5 cards per expansion. I'm sure someone else can provide more specific numbers. The added time to cycle the deck is negligable as far as CT generation is concerned. Also, unless I've playing Advanced Campaigns wrong this whole time, you don't reshuffle the OL's hand and deck after every dungeon level, only after the heroes leave the dungeon. So you can get most of the way through the deck on level one and then cycle on level two to earn CT. The only time you need to cycle entirely on one dungeon level is for the errata rule about ejecting the heroes which James was referring to - and then you would have to cycle twice, which is indeed meant to be impossible unless the heroes are being jackasses.

Since Treachery cards replace existing cards in the deck, they don't actually make it grow any bigger. Unless you choose to use a house rule that says "Treachery cards are added without removing something" in which case you're deliberately changing the balance to suit your tastes. Some people do like using that house rule, since they feel Treachery in general is overpowered, but in that case the added length of time to cycle is part and parcel of depowering the OL who uses Treachery, I would say.

It's 36 cards with just JitD, 48 cards with all expansions. So if the CT per card were to remain constant for the OL, I suppose you could raise it to 4 if using all expansions. Really, though, I don't think it's significant enough to worry about. The other expansions add enough fancy stuff for the OL that it's not a big deal to wait longer before cycling the deck. (Especially because it's going to take a long time for those extra deck cycles to add up, since the deck resets every dungeon.)

You're right. I've counted additional 13 cards, the total of 36+13 = 49.

I'm just worried about small amount of XP which I'm gaining by playing OL in comparison to vanila Descent. These 3-level dungeons pose almost no difficulty for heroes, even the boses. E.g. one hero has 6+1 armor and is almost unstoppable, however he has 2 curse tokens and I'd like to see him dead

There are cards such as "Crushing blow" which destroy e.g. armor but they cost treachery. Having weak monsters it's problem to beat heroes and I'm going in circle.

Thanks for answers

First time as the overlord is tricky, getting the 1st upgrade or treachery cards will help.

If the "tank" is that tough concentrate on killing the weaker heros. In our campain there is a hero with 6 armour, I never attach him unless hes been trapped to death first, I just kill the weakest and 2nd weakest heros.

We just finished the first dungeon heros got 28 xp Overlord got 24xp

Never recylced the deck either.

What many times saved the heroes are the Feat cards. Due to small dungeons containing these glyphs, they get 3 XP + Feat cards (each hero) and this make life harder for OL

Second thing, opening chest with only money or money + potions, according to rules heroes get extra CP = 1XP each hero. I had map with many chests what inducted lot of XP for heroes.

To make this issue more balanced, each kind of treasure driven from chest is only for opening hero (the same with potions).

Giving all the heroes a lot of treasures make them unstoppable.

Greetings

lighting said:

This is how it's supposed to be. If the heroes open a chest and get 1 blank, they only get one treasure, not one treasure per hero. Likewise, if they roll a surge it's a little bit of gold and 1 potion, not a little bit of gold and one potion per hero.

James controls the apples...

This is not how it is supposed to be. The posted house rule is that the hero opening the chest gets the non-money stuff (and has to carry and distribute it)

Sorry, I misunderstood the original post. IMO that's a bad idea, even though it's how we do it in our SoB campaign.

Are you saying you voluntarily use a bad idea in your campaign? ;-)

Yep, because the alternative is to debate it with the rest of the group, and we have too many rules fracases as it is. I don't like it, but it's not so big of a deal that it's worth the effort to change it. Kinda like politics. ;-)

So as summary,

According to rules there is only one treasure/per blank dice but heroes decide who take it ?

regards

Yes, that´s correct.