hi all, i'm considering buying the compendium. our group really like thematic quests like the fan-made quest: "Crypt of the Vampire". we try to avoid regular quests that starts like: "you and your friends were sitting in the inn when...".

There are two major problems with the compendium from what I hear:

#1: printing errors skewed a lot of the artwork and cause parts of the text to go missing.

#2: most of the quests were designed by people who were used to making RPG dungeons, hence there was a lot of story and theme based stuff going on that the basic game engine wasn't really designed to handle and lead to some odd questions about how things should be done.

There is an errata to correct the mistakes, it's about 10 pages long. If you don't mind crossreferencing your computer throughout the game (or printing out ten pages of errata) then it sounds like you'd probably enjoy the high thematic content of the book. If all that sounds like too much effort, then maybe not.

Most of the regular forumites (myself included) tend to accept that Descent is a hack and slash tactical combat game, not an RPG, and that theme and story mainly exist to set up the premise for why the heroes are hacking and slashing. As such, the drawbacks of the compendium are generally considered too great to make it worthwhile. But your mileage may vary.

I bought it and have downloaded the errata which itself isn't 100%, but most of the quests are playable.

The quests were not written by veteran Descent players with the possible exception of The Siege of Tamalir which was written by Kevin Wilson. Most of them do try to change something from the basic hack and slash of killing monsters. Some of the most interesting are those that take some basic element of the game and twist it. The Schism is a good example of this. Instead of the usual Overlord and four heroes it has two Overlords and four Heroes. The overlords are in direct competition with each other. The only problem with this is finding a sixth person and also a second Overlord player.

I bought the quest for completeness sake and whilst I haven't played all of the quests (mostly due to getting into the advanced campaigns) the ones that I have tried have been quite interesting. I'd recommend it, but you will need the Errata and plenty of time to read the quests through together with the errata before you start trying to play.

I really am sorry that the Compendium received such negative feedback. Not only will it discourage people/players from buying it....bypassing some really imaginative quests and stories, but FFG will never do a second volume.

I am sure the Quest Compendium will go down in history as a cult classic type of thing.

I nabbed it when I was as the Terrinoth event last spring.

After getting it - I was slightly disappointed with how much had to be FAQ'd but like another said - there are some fun things in it. I haven't played the one with the competing Overlords - but am looking forward to that one in particular.

I am glad I got it for "completeness" as well.

It did get a bad wrap - but I also don't think it was entirely undeserving at the same time. Compared to what else has come out from them with regards to Descent - the book is the bottom of the list on quality at time of publish. It is better now that is it FAQ'd - but how annoying that you have to get the book AND print a what... 14 page FAQ or whatever it is.

anyone know if they will do a reprint of this compendium?

just to eliminate many of the faq and text problems...i'm still waiting to buy it and i hope they will do a reprint

Lord Loren Soth said:

Well if or when they reprint it I'm sure they'll correct the skewed art at least, as that was an actual printing error. Hopefully they'll double check to make sure it doesn't happen again. That said, considering how poorly it was received at launch I wouldn't be surprised if it still hasn't sold out the initial print run. They might also decide not to waste money on a second print run anyway, if it's taken this many years and more to get rid of the first batch.

As for whether the other FAQ corrections will get integrated into the book, it's hard to say. They have, on occasion, updated rulebooks with errata and corrections to text that was flat out wrong, but they also don't make a habit of incorporating ALL errata as a general rule. Most of the clarification stuff doesn't get put anywhere, nor do rules that were vaguely worded but technically not misspelled often get rewritten in new print runs.

The chances of a reprint are very slim. The chances of said reprint including the massive faq are pretty much non-existent. I would consider ourselves lucky to have received such a book in the first place. Buy it, enjoy it for what it is, and hope we get a sequel at some point in the future

-shnar