Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. These days I devised some home brewed characters and I'd really like to show you them, so I can gain some feedback. RIght now I'd like to know how do I upload Images on the forum. I've got the sheets ready on my computer, but I can't find a way to upload them. Do I need to upload the images somewhere on the net before I upload them in the forum? Or is there a way to upload images directly from my PC? Thanks for any reply.

Elric of Melniboné said:

You need to put them up on the web somewhere first. There are plenty of free websites you can send them to (imageshack seems to be popular around here) and then you can use the "link image" button at the top of the forum post page to include the URL in your post.

Thanks very much, Steve-O, and sorry everyone for the very stupid post (bad, bad start...). I actually just red the instructions and was about to post them, but then I had to lunch, so I had no time. By the way, here are 5 characters I just made...there's one more to come very soon. Before I show you them, I must say they were planned for a Dwarf based expansion of some sort, hence the characters starring are 3 Dwarves (which are a very rare race in Descent, by the way), a human, an elf and a dragonborn (yet to come).

Here they come:

Well...Oami is a Female Dwarf Warrior...and a "Fiend Hunter" of sort. Her nice HP and Armor are due to her "fighter class" nature. Since the Official Character Editor allows Dwarves to have 12HP, I decided to give her those many, but I kept the "base" Armor of 2 for Dwarves since female character's aren't supposed to be too "heavy". Since she looks quite the agile type I supposed Fatigue 5 and Speed 4 would be flavorful as well. In the picture she carries only melee weapons, actually (an axe and a long sword...), but she's the type of character who faces any type of monster, so she has to adapt her tactics (hence her split power dice). Also, she's got completely split skills to represent her eclectic lore. Finally her Hero ability is the kind of ability a Fiend Hunter should have, since she knows the means of bypassing supernatural defences.

The reason I gave her a Conquest of 3 is due to comparison with Brother Gherinn. They both have 12HP and 2 Armor. She's got +2 Fatigue and +1 Speed, but this should be balanced by her split dice and skills. Besides I don't believe her skill to be as much effective as Brother Gherinn's one (which I believe to be one of the best of this entire game). Hence the same Conquest value.

Here we have a real Dwarven Guardian-styled Tank. Compared to a typical Tank, he has less HP, but 1 additional point of Armor and Fatigue. Doesn't look like anything but a melee fighter, so his dice and skills had to be put that way. Now, Ironskin is his primary ability, allowing him to ignore Sorcery, Aura and Pierce (and much more, actually). The "guardian" flavor is also in the secondary skill, allowing him to Rest while Guarding. Since he seemed a bit overpowered to me, I also thought of fitting flaws. Being unable to Run means being very slow in many a situation and being unable to Dodge is bad on characters with High Armor, since I believe they're the best targets to Dodge orders. These two flaws are also very flavorful for a "guardian type Tank". Balgar's not going to haste things, nor he's going to avoid incoming attacks. He's just standing his ground steadily. That's what the character's meant to do. With 12HP and 3 Armor, the Character Editor imposes a conquest value of 4, and I believe it right since it's the conquest value of characters with 16HP and 2 Armor, which I consider somewhat equivalent (less vulnerable to traps, but more vulnerable to attacks).

And here is a nice Human "paladin" tank. Sir Lothar is a Paladin, starring the usual Human tank statline. His dice are split, because paladin's aren't pure fighters and the same goes with skills. I know subterfuge skills aren't very fit for the character, but I decided to allow him those after I decided for his hero ability. The flavor for this paladin is the sword & shield master, hence I thought of an ability that would make him a favored shield bearer. I think that having shields confer off-hand bonus would represent well the "shield bash" technique a similar character should have. Besides, this skill improves with the advancing of his equipment, keeping it balanced with the game mechanics through all the game. I allowed him to subterfuge skills because I thought this character could really enjoy the Ambidextrous skill (which is usually botched by other characters for more effective skills). The other ability of Sir Lothar (the immunities) is a really minor one, making him immune to those things a Paladin should be immune to by principle. He won't get very often an advantage by those immunities, but they'll come in handy from time to time. Conquest 4 is due to his statline...he's a tank, hence Conquest 4 is due.

I know everyone loves dark styled elvish archeresses...by the way, I really liked this picture, resembling a character I loved from a game I played in the past. Her statline is the elvish type, but I decided to give her a strong runner statline. Her dice and skills were split, because of her eirie appearance which makes me think of some sort of "magic archer" or something along those lines. I wanted to give her some ability which could represent well her "magic" nature, then I saw that flying black bird in the picture and decided it to be her familiar. Now, weapon runes can often make strange things by spending surges to represent the nature of peculiar magical effects...hence I thought of this somewhat odd ability to transfer the magic contained in the runes to the weapons wielded by close enough heroes. The ability shouldn't be too strong, since heroes have to spend their surges to trigger the abilities described on the runes, hence they will have to choose between triggering their own weapons' abilities or the Rune's ones. What do you think of it? The low conquest value is due to her very low defensive stats combined with no defensive ability and lack of access to Fighting Skills (which are the ones usually giving "survival bonuses").

Yeah, if you look at this guy's proportions he's more a dwarf than a human...still it's supposed to be taller and much more muscled than even the average dwarf. This guy had to be tough and neither 16HP 2Armor nor 12HP 3Armor could satisfy me...hence the big statline of 16HP and 3Armor. Fatigue and Speed had to be 3 and 3 for the sake of tank flavor and game balance. Trait Dice and Skills couldn't be but that way...just look at him...Now, I compared him to Hugo the Glorious and saw their statline could be compared. Hence he should have had some penalties just like the human ubertank. I decided for a very restrictive equipment. Although in the beginning he might seem quite normal (anyone would equip this guy with a Chain mail and an axe or an hammer by the way), his inability to equip but a very restrict set of items makes so that he's very slow to upgrade his equipment. Actually there are only 3 weapons for treasure deck he can carry, only 1 armor for copper and silver treasure deck and 2 armors for gold deck (although I think I have double copy of both Golden and Dragon Armor for some reason), and only 1 Other item for copper and silver treasure decks and 2 for gold. It's not hard to see that in Vanilla Descent he may very well end up fighting the dungeon boss with the very starting equipment (except perhaps for the Other Item giving +1 Armor for 250 gold). In campaign he'll still be slow to upgrade his equipment, compared to the rest of the party and this could prove to be fatal advantage to the Overlord (right now I'm playing as a Overlord and I really know how annoying it gets when characters start to pop-out all those amazing tools of destruction...). Besides, he won't be able to use any healing Other Item, movement buffing Other Item, except for Knight's Ring, and the allmighty Beastman Fetish (so useful against misses...). He could be ok like that, but I really wanted to give him some ability, although not an overpowered one. He looks quite the strong one (in the original picture he's also shown without armor...he's a frigging monster...), besides, all he can increase based on his flavor are damage output and damage reduction. Now, with starting HP16 and Armor3 I really thought that giving him an ability further increasing survivability would mean the Overlord couldn't simply kill the guy...which would be so lame, hence his skill should increase damage somehow. I opted for doubling damage bonuses from skills and items, because there are only three items (one per treasure deck: Belt of Strength, Bracers of Might, and Sheath of Might) actually giving a bonus to damage and only three Fighting skills (Berserker, Brawler, and Mighty) giving bonus to damage. Hence this skill will prove quite nice if he's lucky enough to find one or more of the six items and absolutely useless otherwise. Anyway, since he still was something more than Hugo the Glorious I decided to rise his conquest value to 5, which is very flavorful for a "Champion" and may prove a major drawback with a character who cannot carry shields, use healing Other Items and has problems increasing the Armor value.

That's all for now...the Dragonborn guy will come later. He'll be a 20HP 2Armor tank like Hugo with Conquest 5 and both drawbacks and some minor advantage...but I haven't devised it completely yet. I'll really appreciate your considerations on my characters, since I'd really like to improve my designing skills.

Here's the last one (for now...).

Ok...a Dragonborn Warlord had to be something HUGE. Starting with Hugo's statline I directly took away a point of Fatigue, rised Conquest to 5 and split its trait dice and skills to make him somewhat weaker. The penalty I chose for this character was very Dragon based...Dragons are hoarders, they don't share their stuff...hence Kzar can't give his stuff to other guys, even his friends...its just too much against his nature. When you're giving something to this character think well about the fact he ISN'T going to give it back, EVER. This penalty should be quite troublesome, expecially in Advanced Campaign! His attacking ability is very nice though. All his abilities require spending surges, which means he should use less surges for the rest, but bonuses are really nice. Negating Undying is very helpful but situational (the flavor is something like the target is reduced to ashes, hence cannot resurrect). On the other end, Breath is a very nice thing to have (and a really drakonic one), especially on a slow-moving melee-oriented tank (range and crowd control in trade for some damage). The last ability is warlord-flavored, +1 Damage and Range isn't very good for 3 surges (expecially on melee or breath attacks that use no Range). Still, the ability is cumulative and if Kzar acts before other party members, he may use this ability to increase damage output of the entire party! That's what a warlord should do, isn't it?

Waiting for reviews!

None of the images are showing for me.

Although the images are perfectly showing to me, this time I tried putting the images on Imageshack, here are the pictures loaded from there. For references and comments look at the previous posts.

I hope now the pictures will be visible for everyone. By the way, they are in .jpg format, I hope that's not the problem...

Thanks again, I'll be waiting for replies.

Sir Lothar looks cool. I like the offhand bonus from shields idea, that's pretty original I think.

Sheeriel's (familiar's) ability looks kind of complicated. The idea is everyone nearby the familiar can just add the abilities of the Rune to their own attacks, while still rolling the dice from whatever weapon they're using? That could potentially be pretty powerful, granting benefits like Blast to attacks that have much stronger dice than Blast weapons normally have. It can also cause some curious things like a melee attack gaining Blast X. I don't know about how broken it would be in play, but it's the kind of thing that's sure to raise several intriguing and difficult to answer rules questions.

The others look good at a glance, but I'm no expert on balancing homebrews.

The second set of pictures is visible to me.

My immediate impression is that their abilities are overcomplicated and most of them are overpowered. Why are you comparing them to weird, unreleased heroes instead of to ones that have been heavily playtested? Balgar, in particular, is just stupendously good - he's got higher-than-average stats, arguably better defenses than any official hero (and also better than your own 5-conquest heroes), fully concentrated traits and skills, and a very strong ability.

A lot of those abilities are confusing. Saying that an attack ignores Unstoppable is pretty weird, since Unstoppable doesn't provide any protection at all against "normal" attacks, and protects against many non-attack effects. Being immune to Dark Prayer has even more ambiguity than the Ironskin issue that sparked a ten-page forum debate. Heroes already can't give coins to each other under any circumstances (also, note there's a power card that duplicates Kzar's disadvantage). "Armors that reduce [Yuron's] base speed" is arguably nothing in the game, since his speed is already 3. "Gain Command 1 for the current turn" probably doesn't mean what you think it means.

Others are just staggeringly good. Two surges to add an area-of-effect to an attack is amazingly good, which makes both Sheeriel's and Kzar's abilities certainly top-tier, and quite possibly game-breaking. Abilities like Shadowcloak and Stealth are kind of uncommon, but they're a big deal when they show up, and if you only fight a couple monsters with them at a time, one hero that can ignore them is often all you need (and Shadowcloak is enormously more common in advanced campaigns due to trees, if you care). Ironskin severely nerfs the attacks of something like a third of all monsters. Being unable to Dodge is negligible, but you can Guard almost every turn without sacrificing efficiency, and a free Rest every turn is awesome, especially on a super-high-armor hero (though technically that ability doesn't actually work, because you can't have 2 orders readied at once).

I strongly dislike highly luck-dependent abilities, like Yuron's. If he happens to draw a two-handed melee weapon - which are more common then one-handed melee weapons, by the way - his weapon restriction does nothing at all. If he doesn't, then it hurts him quite a lot. Doubling the effects of certain specific items and skills is the same: it has either a huge effect or no effect at all based on luck of the draw.

You can't assume that +4 wounds is always equivalent to +1 armor, because wounds give diminishing returns and armor gives escalating returns. Thus, going from 8 to 12 wounds is probably better than going from 0 to 1 armor, but going from 16 to 20 wounds isn't even close to being as good as going from 2 to 3 armor.

Concentrated traits and skills are better than split ones, but not 3 stat points better. My editor wouldn't allow Oami under default settings even if you removed her ability entirely. Actually, it wouldn't allow Balgar or Sheeriel without their abilities, either.

While I appreciate the effort gone into thematics, I have to agree that these heroes are all vastly overpowered. The stats are mostly too high and the abilities both too complicated and too powerful.

Not to mention that some of the abilities simply don't make sense or are apt to create rules messes. (I do note that ignoring unstoppable does make a limited sense because it means that Knockback will work. However I think this is a BAD idea. Unstoppable monsters are usually unstoppable for good reasons. Many times nullifying that means that the entire flavour (or balance) of a quest, encounter, Avatar battle, Lt fight etc is utterly destroyed. )

Simplify and weaken, then simplify some more.

As a good starting point, after dividing wounds by 4, stats should add up to 12, with slight variations only - usually balanced in part by weaker abilities and/or split dice. Yes, you can go further than that and a number of official heroes do (especially the good runners - largely because Speed over 4 is also a slight disadvantage due to common armour restrictions*), but that should be your baseline starting point.

*Not that I am suggesting that 5 sedd is worse than 4 speed of course!

First of all, thanks everyone for the quick comment...seems like there's quite a lot to do.

The characters I used for comparison (Brother Gherinn and Hugo the Glorious, mainly) are fully official characters. I suppose they must have beenthroughlyt playtested since I believe Fantasy Flight to be a serious gaming company.

Oami is actually slightly overpowered statwise, being 14 points (although Silouette is the same, but let's assume a point of Armor makes more difference than a point in Speed), Blagar is 13, Lothar is 12 (and he's the classical tank skeleton), Sheeriel is 14, Yuron is 13, Kzar is 12.

Lets start with Oami and see what we can do.

Oami's first problem is with her statline...too high. Let's reduce her HP from 12 to 8, for now. This should dramatically reduce her survivability, making her conquest value more sensate anyway, especially considering she's melee oriented (so she's more frontline matter than other characters) and she's got no defensive ability of sort. Her total statline drops to 13, which at this point should be balanced by her split dice and widely split skills. Looking at her ability, we could remove the Unstoppable ability from the list (by the way, negating Unstoppable doesn't only mean being able to knockback an unstoppable, but also being able to web, daze or stun the target). Negating unstoppable could actually be too powerful in campaign, because it negates the main ability of Alric Farrow. I can tell he could be killed even without that by a strong party I once participated in, but still...Returning to matters at hand, you may still remove the...Ironskin? She gets to be a pure "ghost hunter", negating Ghost, Shadowcloak and Stealth. She might be strong on some dungeons, but all considered I don't think this makes her overpowered. Shadowcloak is already negated by another character: Truthseer Kel, who also ignores models and obstacles when drawing line of sight, has fully concentrated magic dice and wizardry skills...

Hence, Oami would become:

HP8 Fatigue5 Armor2 Speed4 Conquest3

1Melee + 2Ranged

1Fighting + 1Subterfuge + 1Wizardry

Oami's attacks negate the Ghost, Shadowcloak and Stealth abilities.

What do you think?

Now Balgar.

Let's remove 1 point of Fatigue and the Guard+Rest option.

Now his statline is 12 points (and it's easily obtainable even by the Official Editor without losing BP's during character creation). His dice and skills remain the same and he's got a pretty nice Ironskin ability, which he pays with inability to Run (made worse now that his Fatigue is just 3) or Dodge.

If you want a comparison with the old, well tested characters, I don't think this character's better, sheetwise, than Tahlia, Hawthorne, Nanok, Nara, Tobin (who I consider a tank, despite use of Ranged weapons), or Varikas. Actually, considering the restrictions I believe he might be slightly worse than any of these.

Reassuming he'd be:

HP12 Fatigue3 Armor3 Speed3 Conquest4

3 Melee

3 Fighting

Balgar cannot Run or place Dodge orders. Balgar has the Ironskin ability.

Who's next? Sir Lothar. I see most arguments against this guy (whose statline, traits and skills are almost comparable to Valadir's ones, not the best in the game) are his ability would be somehow troublesome and/or complicated...Assuming Descent is a 12+ (years old) game, I don't see how immunity to Dark Prayer is more complicated than immunity to Pierce or Sorcery (both included in Ironskin). Simply the Dark Prayer rule does not apply when targeting this character...Besides the only monsters in the game with Dark Prayer are the Dark Priests...do you think the Overlord's tactics would be so impaired if the few Dark Priests had to be used to target ANOTHER character? As a Dark Priest-loving Overlord, I don't think so...His ability with the shield doesn't look any more complicated to me. The shield can cancel 1 wound, he gets +1 Damage off-hand bonus, the shield can cancel 3, he gets +3 Damage off-hand bonus. It gets really big if Lothar gets the Warrior Shield of course (which is one in the whole gold treasure deck, by the way), but even then, he's stuck with a single handed melee weapon, so I believe that a Laughin Buldar's melee damage output (with an Ice Axe and a Shield) should still be superior to Lothar's.

I don't think he requires fixing, but you're still invited to reply with reasonable motivations.

Sheeriel is pretty strange design I must admit. This means of course her ability is pretty hard balanced. Fair enough, I'll think of something simpler. Forget about the Raven...it's just in the picture because it's passing by...

Starting with the Statline (which might be too high), I might take away a point of fatigue, making her Fatigue4. Now her stats are fully comparable to Tatianna's or (for old timers) Grey Ker's, Aurim's, Ronan's, Lyssa's. Since she's in the meek-side (HP8 and Armor1) without defensive abilities (or access to Fighting skills), I also believe her Conquest of 2 should be ok.

Now let's get to the ability and let's think of something new and easier to predict balance-wise. How about:

"Sheeriel's Ranged attacks are also considered Magic attacks, but she cannot add both Ranged and Magic trait dice to any attack."

What's the point of this skill. Simple enough, she can get bonus from skills and items augmenting magic attacks. She might even be a nice wearer for armors allowing more Other Items, so she can collect bonus to both Ranged and Magic attacks. She's still a very paper-made character and I don't believe her damage output would far surpass that of many other characters. Nice shooter, but requires adequate equipment.

So, she would be:

HP8, Fatigue4, Armor1, Speed6

2 Ranged + 1 Magic

2 Subterfuge + 1 Wizardry

Sheeriel's Ranged attacks are also considered Magic attacks, but she cannot add both Ranged and Magic trait dice to any attack.

Ok, now we start with the Ultra-heavy characters. Yuron first.

Being a Conquest5 character, I don't think a statline of 13 is overpowered (Lindel has 15 frigging points on that sheet...and a total of 6 trait dice...). He's just got 1 more Armor than Tahlia and same dice/skills distribution. Considering the high conquest I think he's balanced both if compared to Tahlia (who's also got an amazing skill), or Nanok (14 sheet points for a Conquest value of 4, only slightly distributed dice and skills and a very strong skill). Also Hawthorne has 13 points on the sheet, fully melee oriented dice/skills and a pretty nice ability, for Conquest 4. I can't see how this character could be much more overpowered than the aforementioned.

Let's get to the ability. The equipment limitation is quite strong I believe, since it obliges a player to gamble when choosing this guy. Games with cards and dice are supposed to be luck based. Chess isn't luck based, Draughts isn't luck based. But luck is surely present in Descent. Usually players are allowed to choose a character from three randomly picked characters. If a player doesn't want to afford the risk of being equipment-skrewed, then he can simply choose another character. By the way, I admit the armor restriction may be misinterpreted, hence it will be "...Armors that does not allow to equip Runes...". In my intentions he could have worn the Red Plate of Kellos, like this he can't...it's ok, by the way. With that statline he can afford to face a Dungeon leader wearing his Chain Mail, by the way. In Advanced Campaign he will have a hard time waiting for the few armors and items he can use, balancing his starting strength. Perhaps his ability is far too sinergistic with his limitation, hence I should think of something else...In the beginning the character had Grapple (very "strength flavored" ability), but I botched it as too powerful. I'd like something with the "strength" or "champion" flavor, but nothing overpowered, any suggestion?

Reassuming:

HP16 Fatigue3 Armor3 Speed3

3Melee

3Fighting

Yuron can only equip two-handed Melee weapons, Armors that don't allow equipping Runes, and Other Items giving bonus to either Damage or Armor. Yuron has ??? (suggestions welcomed, I'll also be thinking of something)

Last one, Kzar!

For 5 Conquest, his statline is plain low. He's got a total of 12, hence he's just an average character with stats moved a bit around toward the "solid but slow" format with some unhuman trait (HP20). I don't think that's the problem. Hugo (who's a human) has a higher statline. By the way, I'd prefer to confront him to Varikas (since he's been around since the very first game box). Kzar has +4HP and -2Fatigue. Both 2 Fatigue and 4 HP may be bought with an appropriate skill or by training at the secret master's area. Hence, I believe them to be comparable (by the end of Copper Campaign, Varikas and Kzar might have exactly the same statline), Besides, in Sea of Blood, secret masters trainings only earn 1 Fatigue, hence I suppose that (at least in the Sea of Blood campaign), 4HP must be considered less powerful than 2Fatigue, at least by the professional game designers. Dice and skills distributions are exactly the same. Then again, Kzar has a higher Conquest value. Where's the unbalance in all this? A comparison with Nanok goes along the same lines, but Nanok ALSO has Movement 4 (which is no way a "problem" with armors since he can get his natural armor of 7 without wearing anything). I'm not really convinced Kzar's statline is overpowered, especially considering his Conquest value...

His ability...ok, let's remove the Coin thing over there. I apologize for that. I'm an Advanced Campaign player so I couldn't remember if in vanilla descent players could give each other money. I should have checked, though. I apologize again for the very poor mistake. Having a power card duplicating the effect of Kzar's penalty doesn't mean its less effective. First of all, I don't think Greed is the most used Power card around. Besides, having already a character suffering from it by himself is still going to the Overlord advantage, since it's a drawback to the party that appears from the beginning of the game. And we haven't still talked about Advanced Campaign. In campaign having a character unable to give his items means you have really to carefully plan on what you're giving him. No Power Card has effect during movement on trails in the Map, while this ability has full effect. I really believe it's a mayor drawback, even if the party players play very well. I'll admit his ability might be overpowered on the second line. How about he gains Burn, instead of Breath. That would mantain the "Dragon Flavor" without being absolutely overpowered, probably. I believe the third ability gives +1 Damage and Range to his attack and any following attack by him and other heroes within 3 spaces that attack the same turn. It's very expensive (most melee weapons give +1 Damage for 1 surge), and to be used correctly requires Kzar to activate before other heroes, which is something you might not want to do, depending on the placement on the board and the situation. And I know Command instances are cumulative, that's why I make Kzar pay so much for it. By the way, surges are a limited resource, using them for triggering Kzar's abilities means not using them for the weapon's own abilities.

To sum it up:

HP20 Fatigue2 Armor2 Speed3 Conquest5

2 Melee +1 Magic

2 Fghting +1 Wizardry

Kzar cannot give Items or Potions to other characters. Kzar's attacks have:

surge: negate Undying

2Xsurge: gain Burn

3Xsurge: gain Command 1 until start of Kzar's next turn.

Once again all comments are appreciated. I'm trying to improve.

Elric of Melniboné said:

First major mistake. First two actually.
1. Don't assume FFG's stuff is playtested thoroughly. For Descent it simply isn't. Stuff comes out that is missing major basic holes all the time - like that fact the the advanced campaigns introduced new props and didn;t bother to classify them, so as they are not officially 'obstacles' Acrobats and Flyers can't ignore them. Then they fixed the RtL ones in the FAQ but did the exact same thing agains in SoB (and still haven't fixed it). Technically, Flying heroes in SoB can't fly over water and get moved by the current!?! (Flying monster do not because they have Soar, and ignore 'terrain' rather than 'obstacles'). Flyers can fly over rubble, but not statues or cannons!?!
2. In particular, there are two types of 'fully official' heroes. Ones that have actually come with a gaming set, and ones that are 'special release'. Do not use the special release ones as a baseline .
Some of them are released by FFG but not designed by FFG and are not even close to being reasonably balanced (you mention Truthseer Kel - she was designed by the spanish language distributors and apparently (judging by her design) by someone who hadn't played the game more than once, and then not in their own language! FFG later released such 'foreign' heroes as well due to clamour from complete-ists.
Others are deliberately stretching the boundaries of Descent heroes in order to bring something new and 'different' to the fans. They are 'outliers'. You don't use an outlier as your baseline....

Elric of Melniboné said:

If you make the special ability more reasonable, then Oami will be fine. Ghost is rare enough to be added onto one of the others, but Stealth is almost common enough to be a full power and Shadowcloak is extremely common in Advanced Campaigns. Ignoring both is too powerful, probably.
As she is, she is strong but acceptable for vanilla, too good for AdvCamp. I prefer to see heroes that can play both styles, so I would drop the immunity to either stealth or shadowcloak. However this is fairly marginal I admit.
Note that your argument about Truthseer Kel is not only wrong (Kel does not ignore Shadowcloak - she ignores terrain. If a tree is giving a montsre shadowcloak then Kel ignores the tree, yes, but the tree is not affecting her attack except for LOS. The tree affects the monster, giving it an ability, shadowcloak. Kel's ability does not negate that), but also poor in that Kel is famously the worst designed character yet, not designed by FFG at all, but released by them due to complete-ist complaints (after all, she'll sell, which is their primary concern, so fair enough).

Elric of Melniboné said:

Utterly no.
There is a fairly well established 'value' for Ironskin. It is something like +1 armour and an inability to equip armour .
Ironskin is extremely valuable. Many monsters ( many ) rely on pierce to reduce armour and enable them to get through any damage at all or Sorcery to boost damage. With Pierce (and Sorcery damage) negated, a very high proportion of monsters have their damage capability almost removed entirely at even middling armour values, let alone the extremely high AV this hero can achieve effortlessly. Note that Armour has an exponential value increase. 5 is outstandingly high in vanilla. This guy starts with 5 without making an effort, can quickly get to 6 (RoP) and with a decent treasure armour get to 7. At Armour 7, with Ironskin he can basically ignore anything that doesn't have two green dice . At that point the rest of the heroes can go home. This boy can, with a couple of healing potions, crawl through the entire dungeon one space at a time and still win. Even a dragon can't touch him! Beastmen need max damage rolls (1/18) to do a single wound without the command bonus...
Look, I can go on for ages here, but the simple fact is Ironskin must come with a heavy restriction on maximum armour capability or it breaks too many things.
The inability to run or dodge are moderately bad penalties, but they simply don't matter in face of such a huge imbalance.

Elric of Melniboné said:

This is why Dark Prayer is a complicated issue...
You aren't applying the mechanics of immunity accurately. An immunity protects the figure when something is applied to it . That is all. Dark Prayer is not applied to the affected figure, it is applied to the attack - it 'operates' before the attack reaches the target figure, much the same way as range bonus sorcery 'operates' before the attack reaches the target figure.
Dark Prayer affects surge conversion, not the target.
An attack by a Sorcer who rolls 5 range (needing 6) and 3 damage reaches the target as an attack with 6 Range, 3 damage, and 2 Sorcery (damage). The sorcery damage falls off (assuming Ironskin giving immunity to Sorcery) because Sorcery is affecting the target. The sorcery range does not though, because it has already been applied to the attack, before the target has been affected.
Similarly, a Dragon breath doing 5 damage with Pierce 5 (and burn). The attack affects the hero with 5 damage and Pierce 5, but the pierce falls off due to Ironskin immunity.
An attack by a Dark Priest who rolls 3 damage, 3 range and three surges, reaches the target as an attack with 6 Range, 6 damage (and gain 3 threat) - no Dark Prayer involved, so nothing to fall off.
There was a 10 pg argument about this 'immunity' thing, before the FAQ answer. It is a messy and complicated subject. Some immunities are easy, because they are clearly an end result part of the attack (Pierce, Bleed, etc), which is the thing actually affecting the immune target. Some are not easy because they are not an end result, but an integral part of the attack before it reaches it's target. Note that It is not the monster that affects the hero, it is the monster's attack which affects the hero.

The Off-Hand bonus thing is messy (rather than complicated) because the rules explicitly state that in order to use an off hand bonus you must have two one handed melee weapons. Getting (gaining) an off hand bonus is easy - you can get an off hand bonus from a sword while shooting a crossbow for example, it is using it (gaining the benefits ) that is difficult (you can't use the bonus from the sword when shooting the crossbow. You need to rephrase or change the concept because at the moment you are giving him a nice little bonus that he can't technically use.

Yes, we are being technically officious or whatever term you want to call it. That is the point of testers or editors (and we are sort of doing an editorial commentary here) - it is to find and point out the loopholes and possible problems. The concept might be clear, but you need the execution to be clear as well in order not to leave a percentage of people wondering.

Lastly, I don't see why you need to pile lots of abilities on. The shield one, once worked out, is enough of an ability by itself. Throwing extra bonus abilities on is unnecessary and complicated even if they are clear and simple. And only worth doing if they are very weak and or very rare. Yes, Immunity to Fear and Immunity to Black Curse are both relatively rare. But not that rare, and not exactly weak either.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Interesting... I can't immediately see any major flaws. I think I like her. She could combine Prodigy and Master Archer, but I don't think I have a huge issue with that.
As an aside, comparing her to Aurim and Lyssa is fine, Grey Kerr and Ronan considerably different.

Elric of Melniboné said:

I object to 5CT heroes on general principle, since most vanilla games start the heroes with 5CT. That means a good start for the OL can kill the game with just one hero. Suppose, for example, the OL started with Crushing Blow and a good spawn in his first 5 cards (start 3 + draw 2 first turn). Crushing blow to Yuron's armour (chainmail we assume) to 3 and a decent spawn with some starting monsters on turn 1 could well kill him. Or it could be a Raged Master Beastman, or a Critical Strike, or any of several other combos.

Otherwise, I don't think he really needs any extra ability, or a very weak one at best. The boost from armour 2 to armour 3 is enormous - the Dwarves get away with it because they are trap bait with only 8 wounds and have split skills and split traits - but mostly because they are trap bait so have a massive vulnerability.

Elric of Melniboné said:

You seem to be happy to ignore the value of synergy (actually that seems to be a theme) when comparing values of things. Let me give you an example. +4W on Glyr 8/3 is enormously valuable, as is +4W on Nanok. However +4W on Eliam is nice but doesn't massively change things so isn;t nearly as valuable. Similarly, +1 Armour on Zyla is, well, meh, but +1 armour on Tahlia rocks.
Now, on to Kzar specifically.

Ok, I've covered 5CT heroes above. Yes, FFG has done one, that doesn't make it a good idea, nor a balanced one.

Negating Undying is a very big deal, especially in RtL with so many Skeleton and Sorcerer Bosses, not to mention Ogres. I wouldn't have it as a hero special ability at all by choice, but would make it an entire special ability all on its own if I did. having it as a 1~ cost is just ridiculous. I also don;t see what relevance it has to the theme, though I don't find that particularly important.

It is also dangerous to give abilities that trigger off surges and can stack, because it is entirely too easy to get massive numbers of surges in Advanced Campaigns. You have the opportunity to target skills (and the surge bonus skills are right up there with the best in most cases) and can end up with very high numbers of dice - I've seen attacks with over a dozen surges. Sure, you say if you use them on the specials then you aren't using them on the weapon, but you don't always need them at all on the weapon. I could easy see Kzar going first late in a campaign, wiping out a piddling copper monster (with a guaranteed not-miss kill without using any surges) and adding +2 or +3 command (Weapon Mastery, a weapon that give bonus surges, a single gold dice rolling surges and maybe some other surges rolled), use that command on a second or third attack against tougher monsters (heroes often have multiple attacks and enough fatigue/free MP to use them) then the next 6 hero actions (3 this turn and 3 next turn) all get the command bonus as well. Heck, why not wipe out 2-3 piddling monsters and give everyone else +6 or more bonus from command. As I said, it's dangerous....

Nice, useful reply Corbon. I really appreciated it. Let's see how can I work on it.

As most of you saw, this time I tried to balance my characters comparing them to the non-promotional characters for the most part. Besides, I'm not really sure Hugo is better than Tahlia or Varikas or that Gherinn...ok, sorry, Gherinn is a house...definitely...

OAMI:

First, I must tell you that Truthseer Kel's sheet clearly states that she negates Shadowcloak. Yeah, she's pretty powerful...but you can stop her anyway...even when she gets a frigging powerful starting skill like Inner Fire...Coming to matters at hand, how about I substitute the "Shadowcloak" instance with a much rarer "Ironskin" instance? Shadowcloak afterall is more about being able to hide, while Ironskin is more about having something supernatural. As a supernatural hunter, negating Ironskin should be ok with the flavor, along with the Stealth and Ghost and it should be have very minor effect on the game (Golems are almost absent and only a few bosses have Ironskin).

Hence her ability would be: "Oami's attacks negate the Ghost, Ironskin and Stealth abilities".

BALGAR:

I understand here people decisively don't like the idea of having a guy with the Ironskin ability...actually even Nanok (who can get to a fully equipped armor value of 10) can get Ironskin in Advanced Campaign just by making the appropriate quest (Hunting the Wyrm). Anyway, let's try again and rebalance him.

Remove the no-Run/no-Dodge penalty (just to make text shorter) but make his ability like this:

At the start of the Overlord's turn, Balgar can spend 1 (or 2?) Fatigue to get the Ironskin ability until the heroes next turn. If I make the ability cost 2 fatigue, I believe Balgar should get 4Fatigue, so he can use his ability twice before having to recharge with a Vitality Potion/Rest Order. I actually believe that making the ability cost 2 Fague and give Balgar 4Fatigue would be the best solution. It means Balgar can't have Ironskin all the time, and he cannot even Spam it. Even on advanced campaign it would be definitely better than having the ability cost 1 and having him with 3 Fatigue. Besides, Fatigue is a very important resource, I don't believe players using Balgar could afford to play the game sparing Fatigue all the time to fuel this ability.

Better balanced now?

SIR LOTHAR:

Ok, ok...I see the problem now...Let's try to simplify everything by giving him a single ability as a starter, instead of two (I can always make another character with the other ability, by the way). And THIS TIME, let's try to make rules so that their ruling is clear and flawless (I said TRY)...

ABILITY 1: Since (despite what you say) Dark Prayer, Black Curse and Fear are VERY RARE skills (only Demons and Master Dragons have Fear, which are not so common encounters, only Dark Priests have Dark Prayer and only Master Dark Priests and Master Chaos Beasts have Black Curse), I think that a single ability that negates them should be an area effect like: "Black Curse, Dark Prayer, and Fear abilities of enemy figures within 6 spaces of Sir Lothar have no effect." The "aura" flavor is very typical of Paladins. Considering his stats (1 less Fatigue point than Varikas, dice and traits are the same), I don't believe I would choose Lothar with this ability over Varikas with his own...so he shouldn't be too much overpowered.

ABILITY 2: "While Sir Lothar is equipped with a Shield, his Melee attacks gain +X Damage, where X is equal to the number of wounds the shield can cancel." I entirely removed the "off-hand bonus" thing, so it should be clear and plain enough.

Which ability do you believe would be more fitting?

SHEERIEL:

No problems?! Oh, joy! Happy you liked my solution...thanks!

YURON:

I understand you don't like 5 CT heroes...I believe that risking an immediate KO for the party is part of the fun while using such characters, but this is REALLY just a question of what each of us finds "fun" when playing. I believe on general notes that Vanilla Descent is too much luck-based. It depends too much on how heroes draw skills and treasures and a single lucky assassination run may earn enough CTs for the master to ruin the party (or bring to an almost umpredictable fall of a dungeon leader). I prefer advanced campaign because a lucky assassination run means a few points difference and when you get to the final battle, you really have the result of the campaign outcome. On that side I prefer much more the Sea of Blood rules both for keeping balance (variation of the CT for big gaps of xp between overlord and heroes) and for final battle (bonus HP awarded based on xp earned during the WHOLE campaign). My friends and I are playing with this rule also the Road to Legend campaigns and we find it really satisfying.

I'll compare Yuron once again with Tahlia (before taking into account her ability, which is one of the best in the game, by the way). Tahlia has -1 Armor, but she has also -1CT and she can equip freely whatever comes to her hands. I assume +1CT and strong equipment restrictions should balance a +1 Armor, but still I'm not willing to give Yuron a strong ability, because I believe Tahlia's ability to be a bit overpowered, so he should have something less powerful.

Right this morning I thought of this:

"Yuron can equip only two-handed Melee weapons, Armors that don't allow to equip Runes, and Other Items giving bonus to either Damage or Armor. Yuron's attacks gain +2 Damage on any turn he declares an Advance action".

First, a +2 Damage bonus gets less and less useful in Advanced Campaign. Second, he cannot use it on Guard attacks or if he declares a Battle action. Of course this ability stacks well with Able Warrior, but then he has only 3Fatigue, so he's not going to spam it anyway...besides most heroes (and I'm not talking about promos) already have abilities stacking very well with skills (Tahlia, Varikas, Glyr, Bogran, Laurel...are just a few examples).

Anyway, do you believe this ability to be overpowered? Suggestions and comments are appreciated.

KZAR:

Ok, I admit Kzar is pretty strange design, which also means he's pretty hard to balance. I DON'T believe the +4HP to be such strong advantage, especially in Advanced Campaign where you can buy HPs at secret masters' areas, especially on a character that with a starting Fatigue of 2 is probably going to buy additional Fatigue...but since you seem to be very concerned about it I thought a good solution could be making him pay fatigue to trigger his abilities, making him somewhat different and incentivating the buying of additional fatigue (and equip of vitality potions), instead of HPs (and healing potions). Lets get to it.

I'd leave the statline be, just like dice and traits (I don't see why anyone should complain about the dice. I also leave 5CT and his penalty. They both are drawbacks which tow him down in balance. Let's try like this:

"Kzar has the Command 1ability but he cannot give Items or Potions to other characters. Once per turn, Kzar may spend 2 Fatigue to gain one of the following bonuses until the end of turn: his attacks negate the Undying ability, his attacks have the Burn ability, he gains an additional Command 1 instance."

With this he shoudn't be able to spam anything anyway. He can't stack things and he has to choose carefully how to spend his very limited Fatigue resource. And I don't think he'll exit Copper Campaign or even Silver Campaign with more HPs than any other average Tank.

What do you think now?

Hi there, following the discussions about my homebrewed characters I worked a bit on them and this is the result.

Oami is as previously described (HP reduced from 12 to 8 and Shadowcloack and Unstoppable instances removed from the original version).

Balgar now can run and dodge, does not rest while guarding and has to pay 2 fatigue to gain Ironskin for 1 turn.

Lothar now has only the shield damage bonus ability, which is slightly modified in wording in order to prevent "miscomprehension".

Sheeriel has -1 Fatigue (4 instead of 5), no familiar, and her ranged attacks are also considered magic attacks, although she can only use one trait of power dice while attacking.

Yuron doesn't double damage bonuses from skills and items any more. He simply has +1 damage while adjacent to more than 1 enemy.

Kzar now has Command 1, although he cannot pass items/potions to other heroes. He can no longer spend surges to do funny stuff, but instead he may spend 2 Fatigue (his only 2) at the start of turn to either negate Undying or gain Burn.

What do you think now of the guys? Better balanced for good? Thanks everyone for the very helpful comments I already received and for any comments to come.

First of all, apologies for utterly getting it wrong with the shadowcloak/Kel thing. I didn't check the card (always a mistake) and assumed you were making the error I described. My (very) bad!

Elric of Melniboné said:

I would be happy to let Oami in my games now (or open up for discussion with my playing partners is more accurate).

Elric of Melniboné said:

Still dubious to me. It is a lot better, but I simply don't like the idea of allowing Ironskin without the not-wearing-armour penalty. It is too big a deal, game breakingly crushingly un-fun for the OL to have a hero that is simply untouchable. Yes, it is doable in the campaigns through a rumour. That doesn't make it acceptable as a general rule.
As an aside, whatever the BPs come out as, I still think Balgar is slightly too strong. He is over-stat-ed and he gets 'pure' skills and traits? I don't see the big (or even small) disadvantage that compensates for this.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Much better. Simpler, easier to use and remember and still quite powerful. I'd even be prepared to move his wizardry skill to combat.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Sheriel is pretty cool now. Interesting, useable, but not a 'must take if drawn'* hero.

*Actually, that is more or less my defining yes-no status. If a hero is good enough to be must-take-if-drawn, then I don't think it should be added. I wouldn't for example, accept Astarra if she wasn't official, because Astarra is a hero for whom you shuffle your whole party composition around if necessary.
Balgar would be the same for me. 12W/3Ar, pure dice (and skills) and can even add Ironskin sometimes? I'll take him every time (ahead of Tahlia, Nanok etc), and build the party around him. Even if you did a small thing like move one Trait dice, then he suddenly become a lot more 'questionable'. His damage output goes down, ever so slightly, but enough that he is 'out-outputted' by many heroes, some of which (like Tahlia) have other benefits as well

Elric of Melniboné said:

My 5CT objection remains. I don't like Yuron - again, he is super-super-tough (already tougher than I think is reasonable) and good at combat, which is IMO overdoing things (but that's why he is pricing up at 5CT).

Elric of Melniboné said:

Naturally, still with the 5CT thing...
Apart from that, I'd still the anti-Undying thing - It is overly powerful and even though it is difficult to pay for, it only needs payin for when you are actually about to use it. In fact, If you dropped the anti-Undying thing I would almost be happy with dropping him down to 4CT (though I'd prefer to 1 armour or 4W as well, and add a fatigue (keep the stats up, and 2 fatigue is really too low in general with only 1 official hero that low). You could even just give him Burn full stop, without the fatigue cost.

I'm not sure if I said this already, though I note Antistone has said something similar (with regards to highly luck dependent but powerful abilities)... I really don't think that giving great power balanced with penalties is a good way to go with character design - and I think this is a general pattern in some of your characters (most particularly the Dwarves).
What you end up with then is heroes that sometimes are too powerful, and spoil the game as a result, and sometimes cripple the party with their weakness, and spoil the game as a result. I've said the same thing to people who try overpowering their heroes and compensating with higher CT values - it just doesn't produce a good game for one side or the other (often, not always) when you do that (in fact it often spoils the game for both sides!)

I think it is good to try different things, but that at the same time one should intentionally put flaws in ones heroes rather than trying to power them up as much as possible within set parameters. It keeps the game interesting to have actual weaknesses in heroes and keep the players 'choices' important.
For example, going back to Balgon, if he had only 2 melee dice and no damage boost, then he becomes a little bit of a risk to take in a party - he is really good at what he does (be tough and never die), but your melee guy is usually your best single-attack damage dealer, and if you him down to below 'average' for a melee dealer (no ability 'bonus' and one less dice, so for your tank, he comes in below average in attacks, although skills can change that) then you have lost something in your party... I'd probably still take most of the time, but would be tempted by a Tahlia, Varikas or, for other reasons Laughlin, or if in the same draw by top class non-tanks.
You generally see this in most of the 'better' heroes (not the best, which is why they are the best). Okaluk has weak fatigue and split dice. Thorn lacks the combat bonus most other mages have. Nanok just lacks a little in the damage dealing, as does Varikas. Hawthorne is CT-expensive for his defensive capabilities, Carthos has low fatigue for a mage, Jaes is seriously short on damage, etc etc.
Only Astarra, Tahlia, Silhouette, Kirga and Landrec really cover all their bases well (and Landrec is slightly iffy with one off skill and low speed - but 2 surges is extremely useful for a mage, so he is still right up there). I don't think these heroes are where anyone should be targeting their custom hero levels (for public consumption of course - private, go wild).

Thanks, Corbon! Your comment was very useful!

Although I've got the feeling that Oami is slightly underpowered for her cost, I'll go with that if the community believes she's OK like this.

As for Balgar, I believe that moving 1 melee trait dice to a ranged one could be ok. After all, he's supposed to be a defensive hero and not an attacking one...to go with the flavor he could even have just the two melee trait dice, without a third die. That should make him somewhat different and flavorful at the same time.

Lothat shall stay like this. He doesn't need to move the trati die from magic to melee, that's in his flavor, which is most important part in characters.

Happy to know you also appreciated Sheeriel MKII.

To reduce a bit the "luck" in Yuron's aspect I make his ability "Yuron can equip only 1 Melee weapon, Armor that don't allow to use Runes and Other Items giving bonus to either Armor or Damage." He'll still be better off with two-handed weapons, but he can stillupgrade his gear easier at least at silver/gold campaign/dungeon level. I believe shield and armor restrictions should remain, in order to compensate for his initial boost in resistance (when compared to other melee tanks). On the other hand he now HAS NO SPECIAL ABILITY BONUS. Moving around feats and traits wouldn't be fitting him as a character, so I won't do it with him, besides giving him different skill types could bring about combos I think would be rather too powerful on this character. I don't want to see Yuron with Swift, for an example or with an Earth pact on him or with anyone of SoB marks. I believe that "restricting" him to Fighting abilities is the best way of balancing him actually. Comparing him again with Tahlia anyway...

Yuron benefit: +1Armor.

Tahlia benefit: -1Conquest, no equipment penalty, one of the best abilities in the game.

I don't believe people should see Yuron as a must have now, compared to most other Tanks in the game.

Basically Yurons ability placed on the Tank chassis is: +1 Armor, equipment restriction (including strong defensive/movement restrictions), +1CT. I know Corbon won't like him anyway because of the 5CT, but the +1CT should be considered part of his "ability" just like -1CT is definitely part of Zyla's and Krutzbeck's.

Kzar...can't understand why shouldn't he reduce to ashes enemies (hence inhibiting regeneration-resurrection like things). Nevertheless I'll go with Corbon's advice and change him a bit again (removing the negate Undying thing). I'll add 1 point of Fatigue to him (so 3 instead of 2, same statline as Hugo). Dice and skills are already split so they're ok. His CT shall remain 5. His ability:

"Kzar has the Command 1 ability, but cannot give Items and Potions to other characters. Before rolling any dice for an attack, Kzar may spend any number of fatigue. If the attack hits, place 1 burn token on the target for fatigue spent." His ability now loses some flexibility but becomes pretty strong against big characters. Still, with 3 Fatigue and 3 Movement (and no access to Subterfuge skills), Kzar shouldn't be able to spend so many Fatigue on Burn. Also, Fatigue spent on Burn, is Fatigue you don't spend to augment power dice. I believe a fair trade.

Hi guys, now that I have the least bit of time, I'm going to uploads the sheets of the new version of Balgar, Yuron and Kzar I made in response to Corbon's comments. I hope they're getting better...

As already said, now Balgar has 2 melee dice instead of 3 and no other die anywhere...better?

This new version of Yuron has litte less restriction for equipment, but comes with no bonus ability at all (just restriction).

This time Kzar has no anti-Undying ability, sports an additional Fatigue (making him little more mobile) and before rolling for an attack may spend any number of Fatigue, adding 1 Burn token to target for Fatigue spent (if the attack hit...).

Waiting for replies!

Elric of Melniboné said:

I would reluctantly accept Balgar in my games now. I don't like him, but he is objectively reasonable enough, maybe . Experience may change that . The ability to get Ironskin with that much armour (remember it could easily be at 6-7 anyway) can negate so many important damage dealing abilities (Sorcerers/Naga/Demon Sorcery and Skeleton/Dragon/Hellhound/Manticore Pierce) - that is a lot of big, nasty, hard hitting Boss monsters he basically totally negates. Sure, you can hit him with 'surprises' when he doesn't have Ironskin up, but there are just too many of the real damage dealers, including a huge proportion of Level Leaders, that he can just shrug off the damage from.

5CT blah blah blah... Otherwise they seem fine.

Wow! Looking back at how my characters were in their MKI version now that they're MKIV they really changed a lot! By the way, I'm glad to know now they're far more acceptable than they were in the original post.

Thanks everyone, expecially Corbon, for the useful comments! As soon as I come up with something new I'll let you know!