Do you think lieutenants are significantly overpowered in encounters? They have the ability to run and flee from encounters whenever they want,reinforce monsters and can cover more ground than the heroes while moving on the adventure map(since they're greater in number)

I guess my question is: is it even possible for heroes to kill a lieutenant without him fleeing first? I don't really want the game to fall into a "lieutenant chase" routine At least in dungeons the overlord and heroes are more or less equal in their potential to gain conquest. Encounters, however, in general feel unbalanced.

I also wanted to ask: when there are several lieutenants in a city does each of them contribute to the city's siege in any way?

And while unrelated, another query: are figures with the Shadowcloak ability affected by a Breath attack that originates from a space that is not adjacent to them? My guess is that they are, since it's an AOE attack;, but I just want to make sure.

And I forgot to ask: what is the function of the spaces marked by arrows on location cards: are those the exit spaces for the purpose of a lieutenant's flight and monster reinforcement?

zealot12 said:

1.IMO I haven't found that lieutenant encounters are significantly overpowered. One monster in the encounter has some of the hero players options in terms of what it can do. They can flee from the encounter like a hero but when they do they are forced back to the OL keep so it sets back the OL's map strategy significantly in some instances. I don't think they should be entered into lightly, however I don't think that they are overpowered.

2.As for killing a lieutenant before it flees that is going to be dependant on a number of factors and tactical decisions on both sides of the equation. In Descent any tactical error should be horribly exploited by the other side. That's just the nature of the game.

3. For every Lieutenant who meets these conditions you place a siege token on a city. Besiege a City: If the lieutenant begins his turn in a city, he can besiege it. If he does, the overlord places a siege token on that city’s space, as long as it currently has fewer siege tokens than the city’s Defense rating. (If it currently has siege tokens equal to the city’s Defense rating, the overlord does not add additional siege tokens.)

4. From the FAQ:

Q: How does Shadowcloak interact with Blast? Is the origin of the attack considered to be the attacker or the space from which the Blast
originates?
A: The origin of the attack is still considered to be the attacker. If a hero with a Blast attack wishes to hit a Shadowcloaked monster without hitting himself,
he should move adjacent to the monster and target the attack in a (potentially empty) square such that the monster, and not the hero, is hit.

This can be extrapolated to breath as well. That being the case, adjacency matters.

zealot12 said:

Yes

I notice you didn't say whether you're playing Road to Legend or Sea of Blood. I haven't played either, but based on forum discussions, the lieutenant encounters are very different between them.

I'm playing Road to Legend, combined with the Altar of Despair stuff (the only non-campaign expansion I own).

As for why I think lieutenants are overpowered, the overlord may position his lieutenant close to one of the exit pieces and make the attacks from there and when he's low on health, simply flee after probably managing to kill two or more heroes. It seems like the party are at quite a disadvantage in these situations. They gain little(some gold) if the lieutenant flees and gain no conquest.

Thanks for all the help.

zealot12 said:

They gain little?

1) They gain money.

2) The cause the Lt to be moved back to the OL's Keep. Which in the case of some Avatar's can be quite a distance from Tamalir and could take several game weeks for the Lt to get back to Tamalir.

3) If there are any siege tokens on the city and you cause the only Lt to flee then ALL tokens are removed from that city at the start of next game week. That his huge, especially if the OL is going for the Tamalir win condition. Your Lt just wasted a bunch of game weeks.

Forcing a Lt to flee or managing to kill him are huge blows to the OL.

They also get any quest item the lieutenant was carrying, if the OL is going for one of those plots.

If the OL is experienced I agree it is easy to flee with the lieutenant, even easier if the heroplayers arent experienced. If ltnt has upgraded monsters its alot harder for the heroes, and if he also has some treacherycards at his disposal one ltnt can easily defeat 4 heroes. Heroes will also be able to prevent some of the major problems if they planned well, this includes basicly their upgrades. Wind Pact is of great help countering the surprise of Treachery Cards, a knockbackweapon(either melee or through magic through water pact) gives the heroes option of tossing another hero or a monster/ltnt 3 spaces away, and then you have the rapid fire/quick cast/cleave options for more attacks to get rid of more enemies.
I read someone recommended the skill "Cautious" as well, since it gives the OL less threat, yet we have never tried it ourselves.

Our group was in the position of having 4 ltnts at Tamalir, whereas we decided to attack 2 of them in one week, resulting we managed to box one ltnt in and kill him. Once the ltnt was down, the remaining monsters flee. The same happened the following week(total of 2 ltnts dead, 2 fled). OL learnt and now positions his ltnt close to the exit-tile, or at least so that he cant be boxed in.

I think the ltnts should be hard to fight, yet it seems like most ltnts rely on their minions more than their own power(its risky for the OL to have the ltnt in the front, but his minions can easily be replaced with curses).

As a sidenote: we use rtl, WoD and vanilla.

My experiences with Ltns is that the ones in RtL are too powerful with lots of treachery, but too weak without. With or without monster upgrades. The Ltn treachery rules basically guarantee the heros must get Wind Pact just to have a chance. I've never liked it when you're given 50 options to do things and 1 is a requirement to have a chance.

Granted my experiences are before I got Tomb of Ice. Feats could make a big difference there.

I agree Ltns should be a challenge and should have a chance at driving the heros away. The heros need to have a chance too. It just seemed that an Overlord that concentrated on treachery could walk around the map with impunity and was guaranteed a win.

SOB ltns, well the only experience I have fighting with any is the Siren and it died before it could go. And I don't mean flee. The overlord didn't get a turn in the fight.