HI guys. I have a few questions and need any tips you can give.

1. How does movement work on the world map? Can heroes move along a trail to a town and skip the dungeon during movement, or do they have to end their game week at the dungeon regardless if they stop? Can the overlord skip dungeon locations during his move or does he have to stop?

2. How often should we heroes be restocking?

3.Do the glyphs still alow you to travel from glyph to glyph while in the dungeon?

I probably have more questions, but at the moment im just to in despair to think of them. It really seems to me

that the heroes are fighting a very one sided battle in RTL. As of right now, this is our 3rd attempt at the campaign.

Our first ended with 200 conquest to 40 conquest in favor of the overlord. The second with 160 to 60, and the one we are playing now is currently at 32 conquest for the heroes and 79 conquest for the overlord.

I can't help but feel overwhelmed, and frankly i almost feel like i dont want to play this game anymore. I really love my buds, and not playing this game after investing so much money could cause major issues. Don't get me wrong either, I love this game too, just don't like getting my head smashed in so much.

On another note, the create a hero guide, is that written by the creators of this game? To be quite honest it seems like some of these heroes are way underpowered for RTL. Is there any universal guide to creating stronger heroes that is accepted whoely by the community?

Any tips or tricks to make the game more fun for the heroes would be appreciated, along with any strats to keep us alive and not so in debt conquest wise to the overlord.

P.S. We are getting so owned with traps, seriously owned. Is there anything that may be useful to know about trap placement or when and where a trap can and cannot be played?

Thanks guys,

desperate in texas.

Also, I would really like to know "exactly" what the overlord has control over when he dack charms me; i.e. skills, items, etc. I saw the forum war over rapid fire and dark charm, so to know the other things not mentioned would be really great.

Thanks again.

And another question for you...in the quest, RTL, where the overlord rolls to move pits around the board, can he move those pits under chests, piles of gold, the fountains, or even stack two pits together? This question would really help alot.

Another question, if the overlord moves two pits to cover the red rune door, can a hero jump over the pit and open the door (i.e. spend all the needed movement points) before landing on the other side, or does it just close that door from being opened and give the overlord the win?

I'll keep posting them as they come to me, and thanks again.

Another question, the rulebook for RTL says "you gain 1 extra conquest for opening a chest with no treasure items.", does that mean you get 1 conquest for every chest you open?

Also, how does it work with ejecting heroes from a dungeon? If the overlord has only 2 cards left in his deck on lvl 1 of the dungeon, and we the heroes move to level 2, and cycles his deck at the begining of lvl 2 because of those 2 cards, does that count towards his 2 cycles per lvl?

A side question to that the one above would be, what exactly is a cycle? Is a cycle when the overlord would draw the last card in his deck the reshuffle? Would the order go as follows? ( The overlord draws cards until none are left, he then performs his first cycle, he then draws cards until none are left, he then performs his 2nd cycle, he then draws cards until none are left, he does not cycle a 3rd time but instead ejects the heroes from the dungeon.)

More to come, and thanks again.

lordviper69 said:

There is far to many possibilities for you to be doing things wrong to cover without more specifics from you. But I'll answer the direct questions, and give some generalities afterwards.

1. Each trail goes from one location to another location, not city to city. Locations can be cities, dungeons or secret Master training areas. It is the same for both sides.
When you reach a location, you do not have to enter a dungeon there.
There is a party upgrade (staff I think) that allows the heroes to move through two trails in a single turn instead of one. They do not have to stop at the middle location in such a case.

2. Restock actions are what you do during a dungeon. Restocking is restricted to the Alchemist (buy potions), the Market (but shop items and a limited selection of treasures) and the Temple (pay 25 to heal <temple rating> wounds).
The Market should be checked for useful treasures at least once in every dungeon, usually early on - because there might be magic treasures available for you to buy that will help you with the rest of the dungeon).
Similarly, the alchemist should be bought out (it has a very limited weekly stock) in every dungeon.
The Temple should be used on a situational basis. If you can get there and heal without causing major problems inside the dungeon, then do so. Sometimes it is better just to die, but if you can, heal up. It is cheap and saves CT!

3. No. They never have so I'm not sure how you got 'still'. They work exactly the same as in vanilla, except it takes an entire turn when adjacent (but you get to do a restock) to use one to go to town, not 1MP when on top. You still cannot travel from glyph to glyph, although tyou might use a glyph to restock in Tamalir one turn and use a different glyph to return to the dungeon on the next turn.

The OL has control over the attack. He can't use fatigue, he can't move the character and he can't use orders (though he can play an Aim card). The hero player keeps control over defensive options (Shields, Dodge orders, Ghost Armour ect).
Basically the OL rolls the dice according to the hero's weapon and traits and adds in any skills, items or special abilities that give bonuses to attacks. The OL decides how to spend surges and enhancements for the attack, and if Aiming (or with a special ability or item which allows partial rerolls) which dice to reroll.

General RtL stuff:
i) read up and learn the art of blitz
ii) understand that the heroes control the pace of the game and are free to flee dungeons. They do not have to complete dungeons. Their mission is to defeat the OL, not to clear the countryside of minor monsters. They are only doing these dungeons in order to gain resources (equipment and money) and experience (XP for improvements in traits, skills and W/F) so that they can handle the Avatar without getting butchered.
iii) Get the FAQ, and read it carefully. Every night before you go to bed read it again. Play with the FAQ and rules available on a pdf reader at the table so you can word-search for rules.
iv) if you can, do play by play writeups. Post them on BGG if not here and you will find many little rules errors you make get pointed out for you to fixe, as well as glaring strategic or tactical mistakes (sometimes).
v) always keep in mind what you short term, medium term, and long term goals are. The easiest thing to do in RtL is get caught up playing the dungeon you are in and lose track of important milestones and goals. Good players keep track and have their minds on these, bad players don't.
For example: Our last dungeon was with this situation. OL has 24XP and gains 2/week. No monster upgrades yet. Heroes have around 19XP each and around 1500 cash. Our goal for this dungeon was to make sure we have 30 XP (preferably 35) by the end of it and at least 3200 cash. That means we could each train 2 black dice (SoB Garnett trains dice at 100 cheaper, and most of our heroes started with only 2 black dice) or a skill before going into the next dungeon. We didn't have to worry too much about the OL's score because he was guaranteed to get 2CT at the start of next week and so guaranteed to be able to afford a silver monster upgrade. (The reason he was close is because we had pulled out of the previous dungeon in just enough time to prevent him upgrading - we were watching the totals carefully).
vi) Unfortunately, understand that RtL is an Advanced Campaign. It is better for experienced players and rewards some research and analysis before playing.
vii) Mix up who is playing the OL. Playing both sides should help improve the heroes game a bit.
viii) Get ToI. The heroes get a new mechanic, Feats, which is a considerable help to them.

Hero Creator: Actually, it is possible to make generally overpowered heroes in the official hero creator, rather than underpowered.
However, the best thing since sliced bread for hero creation is Antistones Hero creator spreadsheet (do a search here or on BGG). I find the heroes it creates generally a bit too variable from the basic model for my taste, but that can be fixed by applyig appropriate constraints on another page. But it is certainly the best balanced piece of work out there for Decent Hero Creation.

I'm surprised you are getting owned by Traps, unless you are playing against the Spider Queen - in which case, dude, that's what she does!
In general, check the FAQ. The only really significant things are the restrictions on playing Crushing Blocks.

lordviper69 said:

1. It depends on the card wording. Probably yes. However if you have taken that many turns to get through that level you are doing something wrong! That level was one I posted a long time back to show a starting hero party, with a single treasure each and no upgrades, could go through many levels within two turns (ie, OL only gets one turn) while collecting all the available loot and killing the boss. Now that won't be do-able always, but if you take more than 3-4 turns (ie the OL gets 2-3 turns) then you are probably doing several somethings wrong (well, unless you are up against upgraded monsters, or it's the second or third level down and you come in battered badly already...)

2. The hero must complete each little sub-action before doing another one. So he can't pay three to jump the pits and 2 to open the door before he jumps. However there is nothing to stop him simply opening the door from inside the pits.

3. No, it means you gain 1 extra conquest each time you open a chest and don't get any treasure from it (roll no blanks on 4 dice).

4. Yes.

5. A cycle is when the OL draws the last card - at that point he has cycled his deck. In your case the OL would eject the heroes after the second cycle, not go through the deck again (maybe you are reading an out of date FAQ - the current version has the ejection rule as 2 cycles on a single level, not 3 cycles over the entire dungeon).

Just read the blitz tactic, and i feel as if i am born again.

Will come back with anymore questions i have, and thanks again.

I feel overwhelmed by this post. I cant beleive that the OL is dominating at all. Im playing RTL with all expansions and we only are running three heroes and im getting DESTROYED as the OL. My friends all min max as hard as possible though. blitz and the whole nine yards.

I have seen many games of decent with different expansion combo's in my time. (used to work at a game store for three years) and i have noticed the OL only does good until the players start min maxing and figure out that the game should really only be played in a combination of X ways. you start to see a lot of the same heroes and a lot of the same equipment combo's. the tactics are static and anyone deviating from that is spelling out disaster for the players. you can basically statistically breakdown your chance of winning by every move a player makes.....so you just make the ones that are statistically in your advantage, which usually happen to be the same ones.

Now as the OL...... i have no idea. seems to be luck to me. Unless i get the right cards or have the right cards using treachery they lose every time. though i consider myself a pretty bad OL. i have seen ones lose slower than others.

I thought i would be good to come back and give you guys an update.

The blitz tactic works beautifully. We actually got in the lead for total conquest. It was a welcomed change of pace.

We changed the way we handled dungeons and thus far have gone through 5 dungeons, 1 at all three levels, and have also received our copper level secret training.

The game is still at copper level, and we certainly feel more powerful, if not just a little bit better at playing the game.

I really appreciate the response from the community, thanks again everybody.

The only bad habit earned from Blitzing is that sometimes Heroes run when they should fight. When you start getting later into Copper, don't be afraid to go deep into a dungeon. In my campaign, I have Eldritch upgraded in Copper and the heroes have gone completely through the Copper Treasure deck, so have all the weapons/armor they want. They went *fast* through this last dungeon, and I only managed to kill Runemaster Thorn twice. I just couldn't get enough Threat grown to do a lot to them (and Danger never came up, nor my 2 Treachery cards ). A couple of the heroes were going to "play it safe" and go a little slow, but one guy convinced everyone else, "Let's GO!" and they all fell in line, and BOOM, they finished the dungeon 21 to 5...

Blitzing is good, especially early Copper, but it can build timid heroes, so use it wisely.

-shnar

just a question:

can a hero that start his turn on a glyph(in RTL) attack with 4 example an advance or a battle and then go to town restocking?

let me know thanks

Lord Loren Soth said:

FAQ pg15
Glyphs and Town
Q: Can a hero traveling to town via a glyph take any action before Restocking, such as attacking? Does returning from town still cost 1 MP? What other limits are placed on heroes in town and using glyphs?
A: A hero who begins his turn adjacent to or on top of an activated glyph has two options: take a normal turn or go to town. If he goes to town, he is immediately moved to the building of his choice and gets to Restock there. No movement points, no declared action – he just Restocks .

So, No.