We are 11 conquest points from 600. The team just entered the gold legendary dungeon so the 600 will definitely be reached but not till they finish the dungeon becuase the "time passes" action will not take place till then and no points will get totaled. Since all my, the overlord, conquest tokens are dumped and I do not get another chance to spend anything there is no reason to play the entire last dungeon. It is guaranteed that they will finish because it does not matter how many times I kill them, since my getting conquest does not matter. It all gets set back to zero during the first game week. This takes away any possible goals the Overlord could have in the last dungeon of any campaign?

If I am understanding this right, it is better and faster to just give them max points and treasure for all levels of the dungeon since nothing I do can make a lick of difference and they can sloppily take their time kill all possible monsters. My only strategy would be to try and jump master monsters into traps to kill them myself and cheat them out of the extra gold.

Please advise?

If you pack your deck with a Crushing Blow or two, as well as other item-hitting stuff, then the last dungeon is definitely not without its worth as an overlord. Remember too, that the overlord gets a final buy-round just as the heroes.

The overlord gets a chance to purchase one upgrade during the changeover to the final dungeon, a rule altered by Kevin Wilson himself in the previous forums. Also, if the overlord goes through his/her deck 3 times, the heroes get kicked out of the dungeon they're in. Thus, there's still ample opportunity for you to deny them treasure and conquest, and a good chance for you to try and get that last little bit of conquest you need to get one last upgrade.

I don't know why, but I keep thinking there might be a hard limit on the total amount of conquest available. In other words, I think there's a rule that says that no one gets any more conquest after the total hits 600, but I'm not really trusting this memory.

I thought only the heroes got the final buy?

Three times through the deck? That is one I have not heard of before? Where is that?

We made a house rule that crushing blows only get used once and stay on the item till the item is tossed or half its value is paid in gold to repair it. If a second crushing blow hits the same item the item is eliminated.

It was too easy to blast through their items. Of course the three times through the deck might change that a bit. Still I think they would end up naked and begging for money in record time

Well, it depends. If you have a strong hero party with lots of luck, then you may need all the Crushing you can muster. Also, I think it may be necessary to keep down Hero power in gold campaign level, for if they were free to spend all their cash to upgrade their stats, the game wuld look differently. Diligently crushing can mean the heroes get upgrades later, thus are weaker longer, thus you get more conquest, and they less.

Still, it can be demoralizing, so I don't crush much, as I own my players already anyway.

Kevin Wilson officially ruled that the Over Lord gets one last buy round too... which may still be not enough to spend all his conquest, but then it's better than nothing.

The "three times through the deck" rule was implemented to prevent heroes from "waiting out" a dungeon when they're already happy with their stats and equip, to force an OL battle earlier.

My games must go very differently. I find I have to hold back or the players would not even have a single card to their names. I have even found myself stacking treasure decks in their favor when I get tired of being way too powerful. Of course now in gold they are kickin my poor OL butt. We are going to be starting a new campaign in about a week with someone else as the OL. I will have to see how that runs. As for that three times through the deck that can get tough at higher levels and in legendary dungeons.

Still the prob I have with the last dungeon is that I already have 45 unspent conquest. The most I can spend on anything is 20 and with one more buy its nice but not highly game altering.

Xandria said:

Bear in mind that for Legendary Areas, I think it was stated that its 4 times through the deck then the Heroes get booted.

I'm not sure about this, but do the heroes get full recovery when they enter bad-guy central?

If they don't, then you can take the opportunity to hurt them in the dungeon and force them to start the final stage at a significant deficit. I like to do this to my group when they get nearby a Lt. and have aspirations of wailing on them. A hero party that has several members at 1/4 or less wounds is more likely to go find something else to occupy their time rather than mobbing your personal sidekicks.

If nothing else, you can force them to spend that last buy in temple rather than in training

Assuming that works, of course

Or they just kill themselves just before leaving the final dungeon before the keep. The only reason not to do this is if the OL cannot buy the best final upgrade with his current XP.

yup, it would be better to allow the OL several rounds of training. Something like 1 upgrade at normal price, and the following ones at twice the normal price, so that the heroes would still have incentives not to die over and over again, without making it interesting for the OL to wait with unspent XP.

There was a thread in the other forums where one of the playtesters said that Red Scorpion and Ispher were granted total healing between dungeons because otherwise the heroes would just sit around for a few turns, metagaming instead of playing. This situation is similar: if the heroes would just kill themselves in order to heal, just let them fully recover before the final dungeon to avoid the time spent abusing the rules of the game.

Bibbles said:

So you made a house rule and now you are complaining the game is too easy?

Bibbles said:

I had posted it in another thread, but figured I'd put it there as well. KevinW's official word on the the 3 times through and out ruling.

I will errata this in the next FAQ. If the overlord goes through his entire deck 3 times (or 4 times for a Rumor or Legendary Area), the heroes immediately flee the dungeon.

When the heroes get their last training opportunity after the campaign reaches 600+ conquest, the Overlord may purchase one final upgrade as well.

-Kevin Wilson
Fantasy Flight Games

Already Answered... ignore post.....

That crushing blow card is broken. it costs 12 points to target and break a gold treasure or like 34 to have the party roll to have one of their new found gold treasures be a curse artifact till that character dies, which they inevitable find a way to do.

I find blasting their treasures and items is a perfect strategy to which there is no defense, save that of getting sick of the game and insisting that we play another one. It gives the OL much needed power to weaken the party but is too cheap and there is no roll. I figure 24 points to break a gold treasure with a dice roll to resist is a lot more fair.

Honestly how would an OL who uses the crushing blow combo to constantly deprive the team of items keep players? You would win all the time and soon have a game only you want to play Is this a strategy you have tried and managed to keep players playing?

There's been a lot said on the topic of crushing blow, but, for the most part, the Overlords are unapologetic and the players cry foul. I would suggest changing the activation condition for the card to "Play when declaring an attack"; this is how it was in Doom (the predecessor to Descent) and it reintroduces the element of possible failure into the card (if the attack misses, crushing blow fails).

Well with the new Tombs of Ice and Feat Cards, you got a defense aginst Crushing Blow. You can use Foiled Plans to remove cards from the overlords hand and there is another feat that stops a card from being activated, forcing the Overlord to discard. You also can use "I am not afraid" to lower his pool of threat to prevent him from spending the cost. So why Crushing Blow can be cheezy, there is ways to deal with it if you chose to use feats in RTL.