I've started playing my first game of vanilla descent + well of darkness and a few questions have creeped up. I say "started" because we spend 1.5 hours last night just to clear Area 1 of the intro quest. Regardless, it was quite a lot of fun. On to the questions:

1.) Telekenesis and Pits : Can a player move an enemy / friendly player out of a pit for 1 fatigue or does it cost 2 fatigue since normal movment out of a pit requires 2 movement points. It's a bit confusing because the card uses the terminology "move one space" but then follows that up with "following normal movment rules".

2.) Curses in a chest: Are "curses" just a means of giving the overlord threat tokens? I don't see any other text in the rulebook other "For each curse, the overlord immediately gains threat tokens equal to the number of heroes." But the text is then followed up by the statement "After the overlord has resolved any curses..." which is confusing because that implies a curse is some sort of action or effect.

I'm sure more questions will arise as we play another hour and half tonight. For now, thanks for any clarification.

Russ

I just noticed that the first question is addressed by the FAQ. My apologies. So, might I presume that If an enemy is adjacent to a pit, a Hero with Telekenisis could use 3 fatigue to move the enemy into the pit, take him back out, and move him in again just to do 2 points of damage?

Russ

Curses in chests only give the overlord threat, and the ability to use this threat to play a trap card(since curses are the first thing to be distributed when chests are opened). Thematically, it's plausible. A cursed chest simply has more chance to be trapped.

As for the telekinesis skill, yes, it costs one fatigue to move a figure one space. In short, one fatigue per space, regardless of pits.

russ_c said:

The reason that curses are resolved first is because the OL can use the threat from any curses inside the chest to play trap-chest cards.
That sounds sort of counter-intuitive, because the Ol can use threat generated by opening the chest to prevent the contents of the chest from being distributed (if he uses a Mimic chest trap), but it is clear and explicit.

In other words, even if the OL has no threat, he could use the threat from the curses in the chest to play any trap that triggers off opening that chest (and keeps the threat if he doesn't).

Resolving the curses just means 'give the OL the threat'.

So last night we managed to get through Area 2 of the 1st Quest with another 2 hours of game play. A few more rule ambiguities came up:

1.) Is a Hero with the skill "WInd Pact" automatically immune to the effects of a Pit Trap when the OL plays it on him?

2.) Similarly, does a Hero with the skill "Acrobaticts" automatically ignore effects of all obstacle related traps such as Crushing Block and Pit Trap?

3.) Do monsters ever get more dice then indicated on their card (like extra power dice)? Seems like this would be a good way of scaling difficulty of monsters as well.

4.) Does it ever get fun for the OL? The hero's are so stacked with treasure and potions in this first quest and the monsters are so incredibly helpless to do any damage to them that they never even felt threatened. I read somewhere that this is of course an intro quest and is not designed to be challenging, but really it's a total push over that I'm afraid will cause everyone to lose interest in playing.

Thanks,

Russ

1.) Is a Hero with the skill "WInd Pact" automatically immune to the effects of a Pit Trap when the OL plays it on him?

2.) Similarly, does a Hero with the skill "Acrobaticts" automatically ignore effects of all obstacle related traps such as Crushing Block and Pit Trap?

Wind Pact and Acrobat only let you move through the obstacles. If they are played on you you'll still take the damage.

3.) Do monsters ever get more dice then indicated on their card (like extra power dice)? Seems like this would be a good way of scaling difficulty of monsters as well.

The Coom! power card gives them an extra black die. There's another treachery card that adds power dice for one attack. Also, the advanced campaigns have rules for buying more powerful monsters.

4.) Does it ever get fun for the OL? The hero's are so stacked with treasure and potions in this first quest and the monsters are so incredibly helpless to do any damage to them that they never even felt threatened. I read somewhere that this is of course an intro quest and is not designed to be challenging, but really it's a total push over that I'm afraid will cause everyone to lose interest in playing.

It depends a lot on your definition of "fun" . Also, what heroes the players draw and what skills they get. If they come out of the gate with powerful characters and good skills you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

Also, don't get sucked into the idea that Descent is meant to be a long game. Some Overlords try to go easy on the players at the start, perhaps because they've played RPGs before and that's how GMs do things. But you've got to start crushing them immediately as they'll only get more and more powerful as the game progresses.

James McMurray said:

Is this documented anywhere I can point at? I'm not a rules lawyer, but the entire group wanted to disagree so I just allowed them to be invulnerable to these effects to keep the game moving. It's really a question of "what was the designer thinking?" and it could go both ways.

Concerning what I think is "fun": I'm not evil! But, I would say fun for our group is a push-and-pull challenge on both sides as it's a race to the finish. Just move, roll, win, repeat lacks depth and surprise for the Heroes as well!

Thanks!

Russ

It's on the cards themselves. They say exactly what they do, and letting them prevent damage from trap cards being played on the hero is adding abilities they don't specify.

Descent can give a push and pull feel. A lot of it boils down to which heroes they pull. If they get a bunch of weaklings it'll be one-sided in your direction. Most games there's one or two really strong heroes, a weak one, and an average one; at least IMX. Those games tend to be the ones where both sides are struggling for victory. Also, this assumes you do a straight random draw for heroes. If you add in any sort of choice you'll be more likely to have games where they stomp you.

Finally, it's good to remember that the first couple of quests are designed to be easy on the heroes. As you start playing other quests there will be some that are almost impossible for the heroes to win.

russ_c said:

The designer was thinking these heroes wouldn't be immune to the traps, only to the pre-existing obstacles. And frankly, although it's true the first quest is easy for the heroes, allowing this house rule makes it a heck of a lot easier for them.

I don't know if this specific question is in the FAQ or not, but that's where it would be documented if it's anywhere. All I can say is you have to be careful with this game not to let "common sense" interpretations add more effects than are actually printed on the card. In the case of these two, I agree with James that the wording of the cards does not extend to immunity from traps, only from obstacles already on the board.

Thanks to everyone's help thus far. Sorry about the slow trickle of questions, but tonight was gaming session 3 on the first quest and 2 questions arose:

1.) Does pierce from multiple sources stack or does the highest pierce take precedence since it's a "ranked" ability? We played as none stacking as that seemed most consistent with the rules.

2.) When in town does selling an item count as "shopping" when deducing movement points?

Thanks again,

Russ

1) Pierce "stacks" because it is a ranked ability

"Note that some special abilities have ranks (e.g., Fear 2 or Blast 1). The effects of these ranks are always explained in the ability description. If a hero or monster gains a given special ability from more than one source, any ranks the ability has are added together. For example, if a hero gains Blast 1 and Blast 2 from two different items, the hero gains Blast 3 on appropriate attacks." (p.22, emphasis added)

2) A "shop" movement action allows the hero to buy and sell as much as they wish before continuing their turn, but you cannot sell anything without taking a "shop" movement action. So you always need to spend 3 movement points in order to sell things, but that's not a separate cost from buying items (and certainly isn't a per-item cost).

"Shopping: The hero may visit the town’s market. He can purchase one or more items from the town shop deck, he may sell any of his items for half of their value (rounded down to the nearest 25 coins), and he may purchase any of the following..." (p.18, emphasis added)

Steve-O said:

+1
There is an important, though not necessarily obvious, distinction between pits (which are obstacles) and spike pit trap cards, which are Traps that leave an obstacle behind after the trap is resolved.

The wounds from the spiked pit traps don't come from the pit obstacle (falling into a pit is 1 wound), they actually come from the trap card (and thus are increased by Trapmaster power). It does place a pit obstacle on the space though, which costs the hero extra MP to move out of and can be fallen into again later for 1 wound.

Water Pact and Acrobat allow you to ignore pits (obstacles) not pit traps (trap cards).

russ_c said:

Oboewan said:

The only difference in monster stats for different numbers of players is the amount of wounds; their attacks do not change.

Antistone said:

I didn't intend to imply that it did. It's still something that many players overlook... assuming that # of players = # of heros instead of # of player = # of heros + OL

Gah, finally we finished our first game! After 5 play session and 7.5hours later...The heros barely won, once they got to the door from Area 2 into Area 3. I really started punishing them and after several deaths and an exhausted OL deck I managed to get them from over 20 conquest down to 4 going into the last room. Of course, they ended up winning, but they were sweating it in the last room. A few more questions came up:

1.) Quickshot and Stun. If a master Manticore is stunned and elects to take it's half turn as an attack. Can it attack twice due to quickshot?

2.) When a blast hits many enemies and the OL plays a dodge card, that dodge only affects a single monster correct? Can the OL play a dodge card for each enemy affected that he has a dodge card for or does this violate the rule "only one event card can be played per triggering condition"?

Thanks, I look forward to Quest 2 with fewer questions,

Russ

russ_c said:

1. Yes

2. No. A dodge card or order forces the dice to be rerolled. The same dice affect everybody, so if one dodges, they effectively all dodged.
It seems slightly counterintuitive, but you just have to think of it as distracting the attacker, rather than 'avoiding' the attack. It is very clear that this is the way it is though if you go through the attack process step by step. The dice are rolled. The dodge is applied and some dice may be rerolled. Then you look at the (new) result and apply it to the affected spaced (spaces for AoE attacks like Blast) and therefore figures in those spaces. There is no mechansm to remember the 'old' dice roll, no separate application of the attack for separate figures (there is an explicit execption to this general rule in one of the expansions, ToI, for a 'stealth' dice, that only applies vs 'stealthy' figures - it has Xs on it so you can miss the stealthy figures while still hitting other figures). Obviously the second part of this question is now null and void...

Common sense was keeping me from even considering that dodge affected EVERYONE. But now that I've glanced at the steps of an attack again I can see that the dodge re-roll occurs at the end of step 4 and it isn't until step 6 that actual damage is applied. Thus I concur with you. That's silly or awesome depending on which side of the dice your on. Thanks!

Russ

russ_c said:

1. KISS principle.

2. Some people need a thematic explanation or they revolt. Like I said, think of a dodge as being a 'distract the attacker' rather than a 'avoid the attack' - that way it 'sensibly' affects everyone. It would be better called 'Feint' or 'Parry' or something similar - with implications that the attack is being modified by the attacker (even though the defender is controlling the reroll) to account for the target behaviour, so the modified result is 'global'.

Corbon said:

No thematic explanation needed in my group, just clear rules and it appears to be so. Perhaps it could be called "Divine Intervention" or "Evil Disruption", that pretty much covers the gamut of "causes" for failing. Thanks again,

Russ