RtL : Question about TOI Dungeon 42, Secret Garden

By Specialist0815, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Posted at

Hello together,

Yesterday I had the pleasure to draw Dungeon 42 - The secret garden for my heroes and it seems a bit unfair to me.

The dungeon card states: "If a hero enters a tree space he suffers 2 damage without armor and his turn imidiatly ends" (not sure about the exact wording).

My interpretation as OL was that my monsters may move through the trees in a normal way. With a master shade as a dungeon leader this leads to a situation were I am nearly always will be able to escape the heroes and harm then with spawns or traps. In the end they fled after I have killed 2 chars...

Now the question is: Is there any rule I missed in my interpretation or will the heroes have nearly now chance to hunt my leader down?

Posted at

Specialist0815 said:

Hello together,

Yesterday I had the pleasure to draw Dungeon 42 - The secret garden for my heroes and it seems a bit unfair to me.

The dungeon card states: "If a hero enters a tree space he suffers 2 damage without armor and his turn imidiatly ends" (not sure about the exact wording).

My interpretation as OL was that my monsters may move through the trees in a normal way. With a master shade as a dungeon leader this leads to a situation were I am nearly always will be able to escape the heroes and harm then with spawns or traps. In the end they fled after I have killed 2 chars...

Now the question is: Is there any rule I missed in my interpretation or will the heroes have nearly now chance to hunt my leader down?

To the best of knowledge, you played it correct. Secret Garden is hard, but not unbeatable.

Posted at

There's some tactics discussion for that level here . Note in particular Reply #43 from James, which describes a fairly straightforward way to kill the boss:

James McMurray said:

All you need is two non-melee characters and one melee guy with the hammer. Once they're all three in the center there's no tree the leader can run to that the hammer guy can't knock both ranged characters over to so they can battle against it. If he doesn't end in a tree, then even the melee guys get to beat on him with their ranged weapons. Sometimes they'll have to take damage from the trees and/or use a fatigue or two for movement.

Posted at

Big Remy said:

Specialist0815 said:

Hello together,

Yesterday I had the pleasure to draw Dungeon 42 - The secret garden for my heroes and it seems a bit unfair to me.

The dungeon card states: "If a hero enters a tree space he suffers 2 damage without armor and his turn imidiatly ends" (not sure about the exact wording).

My interpretation as OL was that my monsters may move through the trees in a normal way. With a master shade as a dungeon leader this leads to a situation were I am nearly always will be able to escape the heroes and harm then with spawns or traps. In the end they fled after I have killed 2 chars...

Now the question is: Is there any rule I missed in my interpretation or will the heroes have nearly now chance to hunt my leader down?

To the best of knowledge, you played it correct. Secret Garden is hard, but not unbeatable.

+1
The OL gets some good dungeon levels too you know!

There are a number of tactics (well, skills mostly) that help with this level.
Acrobat (ignores the trees, which are obstacles).
Fly (available through Feats, a Gold item or Zyla) to ignore the trees.
Spiritwalker - allows the mage to attack from the position of a tank/runner who was stopped in the trees.
Leadership - can be used to place a guard on a hero who already got stopped in the trees
Quick Casting/Rapid Fire - enable spiritwalking or Leadership/Guarded heroes to get multiple attacks
Breath(/blast) weapons that shoot through(/into+beyond) the trees without requiring LOS (though they won't affect monsters in other trees).

The really nasty thing with this level is to use a green treachery glyph - then any heroes that die have to start right back at the bieginning, out of the action for at least a couple of turns due to sheer distance and on the wrong side of the trees again. demonio.gif

Posted at

This level game up in our last game, early copper, the heros decided not to bother and when to town instead.