Hi!

I couldn't find a good answer for this so I wrote a new topic...

I just bought D:JitD and I have read many posts about game balance. Many writers have said that JitD favours the heroes (in 5 player games). I have also read some of the rules of the expansion sets and the FAQ/Errata. So my question is:

Is it a good idea to play basic JitD quests with the treachery rules? (Look WoD rules p. 4 http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/descent/descentwodrules.pdf ) And would the OL draw 8 overlord cards at the begining of the JitD's the first quest 'Into the dark'? (Initial 3 cards + from unspent treachery: 2 + 2 + 2 = 9. Note that the maximum is 8 cards and because we don't own any expansion sets OL can't buy any treachery cards.)

Or is it a better idea to play with 'Simplyfyed Treachery' rules (from RtL p. 24)? In the case of Into the Dark OL would get 8 cards AND 3 points of threat. (I think that these rules would make OL very strong.)

Or should we play with basic JitD rules (= no extra cards for the OL)?

Or should we play with homebrew rules and give some (say 1-3) extra overlord cards for the OL at begining of the quests?

Sorry for my English. Hopefully you understood my point.

We played the first few quests in the main game with out treachery, but as we got the expansions added the extra cards feats etc. Its would be handly to get a feel for the game and to play a few quests with the basic cards, and then add the expansions, decide for yourself if they unbalance or balance the game. I feel thats a very subjective argument, very dependent on the skill of both the heros and the OL.

We now play with every thing included.

But in RTL the heros start with no feat cards. we think that balances the lack of treachery at the start for the OL, as the heros quickly earn feat cards anyway.

The way I play with treachery in the base game and its non-campaign expansions is this:

draw 8 overlord cards in random from the base deck and 8 random cards from the treachery deck, then choose the ones I want, swapping the ones I don't from the base deck,trying to hit the treachery quota for the quest we're playing while keeping in mind leftover treachery bonuses for drawing extra cards and the cost of dark glyphs, (if there are any I want to place instead of paying for one card or another.)I may decide not to add any cards from the treachery deck and just use all points on purchasing dark glyphs and extra starting cards.

I suppose this method can be further randomized as follows:

1)draw only 8 cards from the treachery deck and out of those 8, pick the ones you want, without exceeding the quota allowed for the quest.

2) from the base deck remove in random a number of cards equal to the amount of treachery cards you've decided to keep, . This way you may be discarding good cards without knowing, so the addition of good treachery cards will not disrupt the balance of the deck too much.

Honestly I would recommend just playing with base rules at first. It helps to know the real rules for this game, whether you make house rules to adjust them or not, and the easiest way to learn the rules is to play the base game with only base rules (there's enough of them to wrap your head around anyway) and then play each expansion you want to buy one at a time.

You might decide you like the balance just the way it is, slightly favouring the heroes or not, and there's no point trying to fix what ain't broke. Worry about expansion rules when you start buying expansions to use.

Just make sure you play past the first couple of quests in the quest book before making any decisions, since the first few are training wheels. =)