It seems that encounters (both for RTL and SOB) don't give much incentive to complete them unless they involve a lieutenant (which gives the most XP and sets back the overlord) or a green shield (which is the easiest to do). Since yellow and red are progressively harder they should offer more rewards. So I thought up the following:

Green shield encounters give 2 XP and 100 coins for killing the leader. (as normal)

Yellow shield encounters give 2 XP and 200 coins for killing the leader.

Red shield encounters give 3 XP and 200 coins for killing the leader.

Lieutenant encounters give 4 XP and 250 coins for killing the lieutenant.. (as normal)

Also it makes little sense to roll random dice for each color encounter when looting. At copper level you could wind up getting 400 gold for a green while getting only 200 gold for a red depending on dice rolls. So instead replace the die results on the chart with the color shield of the encounter instead :

Color Copper Silver Gold

Green 50 coins 75 coins 100 coins

Yellow 75 coins 100 coins 125 coins

Red 100 coins 125 coins 150 coins

I think this would give a little better incentive to do encounters. Any thoughts?

Nevron said:

It is a fallacy (typical of FFGs limited ability to analyse their own game) that green encounters are significantly harder than yellow or red ones. What matters most in an encounter is whether the monsters are upgraded. What matters second most is the location. Neither of these are related to colour.
Typically the red or yellow encounters have lower tier monsters, but they generally have more of them and more ability to reinforce (which allows the Boss to stay at the back and send waves of forces forward - to a limit extent).

You haven't explained why you want to incentivise encounters anyway? Their purpose is to be a nuisance to the heroes - sometimes a big nuiance, mostly a small nuisance.

But encounters are wildly unbalanced.

This is something I don't quite understand. When there's no ambush, the party may flee the encounter right from the statrt, since the heroes get to go first. When they escape, they can continue their movement unhindered. Now, I know that encounters are generally hard for the heroes, and not worth completing due to the limited payoff and the risk involved ( with dead heroes being removed from the board until the encounter ends) But I do think the party should be penalized in some way for escaping, because often even setting up the map for the encounter is pointless if the heroes announce that they're fleeing on the very first turn.

The heroes and the overlord should be able to see equal profit for doing something in the campaign. In encounters it is the overlord who seems to get the strategic advantage.

Edit: okay, nevermind. I always forget that the heroes cannot escape from any edge of the map tile, but only from the spaces indicated on the location card.

It's strange that there's no dissection/explanation of location cards anywhere in the RTL rules. Makes me wonder if the inclusion of the encounters mechanic was nothing more than an afterthought.

zealot12 said:

1. Most encounters end up being fairly easy party victories. So the party tends to gain a small strategic advantage (cash and CT). This is sometimes offset by teh OL killing a hero (CT) or doing wounds to one or more heroes, weakening them. However when things do go wrong they tend to go badly wrong. A TPK is a devastating thing and can be an indirect game winner when it costs a party map position at crucial times (for example just before legendary dungeons or SM trainings close to campaign level upgrades).
And note that neither side is actually doing anything for most encounters, so they haven't exactly 'earned' any advantage accrued, strategically.

2. I'm not sure what you would like dissected or explained? Moving over trails between cities and dungeons takes the party a week or more at a time. So they will have to make camp at random spots somewhere along those trails several times during each week. The location cards are just representations of those random spots. The raging stream, the butterfly meadow, the shrouded oaks, box canyon etc etc.

With regards to the dissection of location cards it's not written anywhere that the spaces marked by arrows on those cards are actually exit spaces from which the overlord can summon reinforcements to the board, or from which lieutenants or heroes can flee the battlefield. But I suppose it's somewhat intuitive; still for completeness' sake it should have been noted.

Since you've mentioned this, is the opportunity to receive secret master training(max fatigue/wounds upgrade) at a certain campaign level wasted if the heroes didn't make it to either of those special areas at that level, or are they still eligible for this upgrade only for an increased fee(i.e. if they only reached the secret training area at silver, can they get a total of two wound/fatigue upgrades, paying the "silver level" price for both?) I haven't found anything in the rules about that.

Corbon said:

I never said the green encounters are harder, but generally easier. If you look at the encounters that have only 1 or 2 shields on it you see how different in power the creatures are. The green/yellow leaders are mostly kobolds, spiders, skeletons, etc. The red are mostly dragons, demons, giants, etc. That is a big power difference whether they are upgraded or not so the color does matter in how deadly the encounter is for the heroes.

Nevron said:

Yes, I got easier/harder switched around. By the time I noticed I couldn't edit, but I figured it was obvious anyway.

The red/yellow encounters are not generally harder. The monsters are generally higher tier, but there are fewer of them and often no minions at all, or very limited reinforcements. The green encounters tend to have a lot of minion monsters and easy reinforcements. The higher tier bosess might be individually slightly harder to kill, but they are vastly less likely to do anything significant to the heroes.
A single copper Boss Giant, for example, is a much, much easier prospect than a Silver Beastman boss and 4 silver Beastmen,

Guys, so what about campaign level dependent upgrades? E.g. Is the opportunity to get the first fatigue/wounds upgrade wasted if the hero had made it to the secret master's area only at silver level?

zealot12 said:

Yes. That is why the counters are colour coded.

SoB pg32 (RtL the same but probably pg23ish)
When the party takes a game week Train action at a Secret Master Area, a hero can either increase his maximum wounds by four, or his maximum fatigue by one. This may be done only once at each campaign level , and each hero may increase either his wounds or his fatigue – but not both – at each campaign level.

If you can only do it once per campaign level then if you missed out on bronze, you will never be able to do do bronze again - you can do it once in silver and once in gold.

I have examined RtL encounters quite closely but I am not sure I understand the logic. Some green encounters are easy but some are as tough as red ones. Also, there are some encounters which are listed red/yellow/green ?! All in all, they could have easily left out the colors entirely (or used only two colors): the impact of this change to the game would be minimal. BTW, there are hardly ever any red encounters: by the time hereos travel secret trails they have Staff of the Wild. (The staff allows heroes to move two trails and lets them choose which trail to check for an encounter - only a few routes have adjacent red trails)

As regards fleeing an encounter you could award the winning party with half of the reward, e.g. if a lieutenant flees then the Party receives 2 CT; if a party flees the OL recieves full CT for each hero killed and half CT for each hero that fled (rounded up).