This thread is basically just an excuse for me to play around with my hero editor. I'll also record the heroes on this web page for easy viewing, so feel free to clutter the thread with comments, if you have any.

Aria the Immaculate

Having very good defenses while at full health, Aria will want to try to stay that way, and may find herself drinking healing potions more often than most heroes. Picking up a shield will allow her to negate one or two wounds that make it past her primary defenses and help her maintain her aura of invincibility (and she's got enough trait dice to do fine with a one-handed weapon). She may also want to add the Ghost Armor later, if she gets a good light armor as a treasure draw, but I suspect it's not worth it if she would have to downgrade from Chainmail to Leather Armor in order to equip Runes.

As a low-health, high-armor hero, I'd ordinarily say that she's vulnerable to traps, but her ability will defend against those, as well, so perhaps not as vulnerable as one might think. Still, traps have a good chance of puncturing her defenses if she doesn't have the Ghost Armor, so that may be an appealing way for the overlord to open her up to further attack.

Hmmm, very interesting hero ability. I agree with you that the best way for her to go is with a shield, to try and keep her health at the max. And if she got an Elven Cloak like armor with Ghost Armour that could be a very good combo. Carrying around health potions for her would be mandantory the way vitality ones are for most heroes. By the way how would her ability interact with the Elven Cloak style of armors? Would she make two seperate sets of rolls for her wounds?

Still, despite the interesting ability I don't think I'd want her over most other dedicated melee heroes. She's the only pure melee hero who is 3 conquest besides Steelhorns though. And Steelhorn's most attractive feature is his lower conquest value. However I would rather have Steelhorns than her; I think she'd just be a magnet for traps and other troubles since after that first wound it could get ugly very fast. Still there is a guy in my group who seems to always have better than average luck with any kind of dice rolling....so I'm sure he'd be interested, lol.

I believe Aria should be noticably harder to kill than the typical 12/1 hero worth 3 conquest. I suspect she's almost as tough to kill as Steelhorns, between the higher armor and her hero ability (if they both wear Chainmail, it looks like Aria's ability needs to cancel about 2-3 wounds per life to give them equal combat survivability, depending on the monsters they face), and she benefits significantly more from healing potions (both due to her ability, and higher base armor). She's also up a point of fatigue compared to Steelhorns, though lacks his charge ability.

If Aria is wounded while at full health and wearing the Elven Cloak, she rolls one black die for each wound and cancels one for each enhancement rolled, then rolls one black die for each remaining wound and cancels one for each enhancement rolled, resulting in an independent 75% chance to cancel each received wound. If her armor cancels on another result (e.g. a blank), it doesn't matter (statistically) which one you roll first.

I think this hero would be really good in the advanced campaign. Once you get to a secret training and increase the max wounds to 12, this hero would be VERY strong. Less likely to die to random traps and bleed tokens.

The hero is well balanced otherwise. Good job Antistone!

I also like this hero a lot. I copied it immediately in the Log of my Herogen v2.3! Absolutely nice!

Roderick the Render

Roderick's ability allows him to stop a strategic play by the overlord, such as finishing off a wounded hero with a trap, spawning at a particularly nasty time, or playing a Dark Relic on the last chest of the game. The overlord doesn't lose any cards or threat, so it's only worth using if delaying the card will make it significantly less effective. The best use is probably to spoil a multi-card combo (e.g. spawn + charge), a highly specific set-up (such as Rolling Boulder when the heroes are grouped together and have all taken their turns) or to block a powerful card with a rare triggering condition (such as Dark Relic, or a good chest trap).

Even just the threat of blocking a card may force the overlord to alter his plans, so be sure to keep some fatigue around whenever possible. And don't use the ability too aggressively, or you may be baited into using up your fatigue on a "decoy" card.

EDIT: I was waffling between two designs for Roderick, and changed my mind at the last minute.

An extremely good character. In the hands of a wise party, he'd definitely be a top-tier. His ability is a real pain for the Overlord. On top of that, he begins with 4 Power dice, making him a good damage dealer from the very beginning. The two things together make so that he'll be a primary target from the Overlord and he confers only 2 CT. Very good.

As a side note, I believe his ability should work only while in the Dungeon. At least the Overlord might be able to play cards more freely when he's not around. I believe it would balance the ability, but that's just my opinion, after all.

I am really on the fence about this Hero. On one hand, his stats are really weak, except for his power dice and he is really slow. The five fatigue makes up for that but you would want to save that for when the OL plays cards. On the other hand, the ability JUST powerful enough to make the rest of the hero balanced. I would like to see this hero played in a game on one of the harder maps. The ability to cancel a card for several turns could be brutal for the OL, and just might make the map playable.

I would be curious to know what the first edit of the hero looked like. Can you share?

Jonny WS said:

He had +1 speed and +1 subterfuge skill at the cost of -1 fatigue and -1 trait die. He just seemed kind of generic to me.

Yes, I have to agree. Would have been very bland if you went with the original version. The 4 trait dice and 2 skill cards is most unique

Knox

Knox is a weak attacker, but excellent at running and tactical positioning. His ability can be used to bypass monsters that would get in his way, group enemies for an AoE attack, or boost his allies' mobility (kind of like a limited version of Telekinesis). His excellent fatigue is useful both for sprints and for tactical use of his ability, and also helps make up for his low trait dice by buying more when necessary.

I like the concept of Knox. Its a very weak TK, but could be very useful in the right circumstance.

I would actually like to see Knox with a higher speed. Perhaps lose the armor and increase the speed by 2. Do you have the BP to do it?

However, a 2CT hero with 1 armor is pretty awesome. I would like to see the speed increase just because then it really would feel like the hero is "pushing" everything around the dungeon. Obviously, I see this character as a dwarf.

8 wounds, 1 armor, and 2 conquest is relatively common package (Lyssa, Aurim, Carthos, Bogran), and in my opinion a bit weaker overall than 12/0 ct2 (and therefore costs less in my editor).

In terms of BP, reducing armor would give you BP to raise speed to 5 with a bit to spare (but not enough to have both speed and fatigue at 6), but 8/0 and 2 conquest is really rather squishy, so I wouldn't recommend it, especially in light armor.

You could also just swap his speed and fatigue, if you wanted. But that pretty much removes Chainmail as an option, and I think high fatigue encourages him to use his ability for minor positioning changes in battle (instead of just for clearing a path when running) and helps offset his low trait dice.

Antistone said:

+1
I think this is one of the cooler new characters I've seen offered by anybody.

Really interesting design, extremely tactical. Deserves to be seen in action with a party. I also believe he's got very strong potential in AC.

PS - Corbon, when you have time would you mind to comment the heroes I posted using the Herogen v2.3? Also Antistone's opinion would be appreciated, as well as that of everyone else.

Krypta Blackspark

Naturally, Krypta is suited to sniping normal (white) monsters; she's comparatively weak against master and named monsters, but still strong enough to pose a threat if she's got nothing better to do. She's also slower and tougher than many ranged heroes, lending herself to occupying a central position while making long-range attacks. Krypta may actually want to start the game with a Bow from the shop, as unusual as that is; she still needs to penetrate armor, but doesn't need a lot of damage (against normal monsters), and the range may be a boon for her.

Krypta's ability may seem excessively powerful, but keep in mind that it doesn't work against the targets you'd really like to instagib, and lots of monsters tend to die in one hit anyway. Against tier 1 normal monsters in a 4-hero game, Krypta's attack should have a similar kill percentage to Mad Carthos' attack (he has to inflict 4 wounds to her 1, but gets an extra die and +2 damage); Mad Carthos is strong, but generally accepted as balanced. Krypta really shines when she can snipe high-tier normal monsters, like ogres or dragons, but there are typically only a few of those in any quest, and the overlord can potentially counter with Brilliant Commander. And, naturally, Krypta's ability becomes less important as the heroes acquire stronger weapons.

Hopefully, the end result is that Krypta, like most balanced heroes, feels unusually good when you play to her strengths and handicapped when the overlord exploits her weaknesses, but makes a solid contribution to the party in all games.

I'd say there's an unusually high probability that she's unbalanced in an advanced campaign, though I'll leave it to those who actually play advanced campaigns to judge.

Krypta could actually be a bit too powerful in Advanced Campaign, but I like her "ranged tank" design (somehow similar to Tobin and mind I'm only referring to the statline, since Tobin is an absolute top tier). I don't believe in advanced campaign she should suffer too much against bosses (after all, she just begins with 1 less power die than a top tier shooter), but may be devastating in many dungeon levels/outside encounters/leutenant encounters). Her only downside might be her ability is useless against Lts themselves and the Avatar, but the same might be said about many abilities in the game, including those of top tiers like Astarra. Her real power is when the Overlord potentiates a monster category. Usually heroes remain able to wound monsters from the category, but cannot kill them until the upgrade equipment/skills. This character can keep killing even upgraded (normal) monsters with relative ease, making it harder for the Overlord to slow down the party. Also her ability is very strong because she's a "ranged" character, having access to skills and equipment that make all attacks aimed (or that allow to re-roll dice), which is simply outrageously owerful on her. As a side effect, I like her, because she is possibly the only character who can really make a good use of all those treasure ranged weapons that allow to re-roll dice but not to spend surges. Those items become very good on her, since she doesn't need to spend surges to add damage and only needs to roll enough to make 1 wound.

Yeah, she's pretty much a house in Advanced Campaign, but otherwise she's a pretty decent character and a very nice and original design.

Lilly Lightningstep

Lilly has no trait dice, but has the Bleed ability, which adds the same average damage as 2 trait dice when a surge is worth a damage. Of course, it's still generally much worse than two trait dice; it's more variable, it can't add range, it won't help you to immediately remove a monster that's in your way, and you won't know that you're one damage short of a kill until it's far too late to buy more dice with fatigue. Still, it means she can dish out respectable damage with any attack type.

Her main ability is a sort of inversion of a Rest order; while a Rest allows one to spend a half-action on the current turn to (maybe) refill fatigue on the next turn, Lilly can refill her fatigue immediately at the cost of (maybe, if she lives) losing a half-action on her next turn. If she uses it every round, she can effectively "Advance" with a "speed" of 7, the option to carry excess movement into her next turn (or spend it on power dice) and an effective immunity to being stunned (since multiple tokens only increases the duration). That's pretty impressive, but it costs her the option of attacking twice in a turn; she's probably better off planning ahead and avoiding its use on some rounds (particularly before revealing a new area) so that she can take a full action occasionally.

Lilly has also given up the option of using vitality potions to refill her fatigue, but her unusual traits mean that power potions are actually pretty good for her, adding a full 5 power dice (on top of her Bleed) with any attack type. And with her fatigue-restoring ability, she can still potentially move 20 spaces in a single turn - even while wearing heavy armor, and without using up potions. Compared to other runners, she's pretty expensive to lose, but also exceptionally well-armored; with Plate Mail and a Ring of Protection (6 armor total), she might be able to simply ignore the attacks of many monsters.

(From a point-buy perspective, she could keep the ability to use vitality potions if she reduced her fatigue by one; I suspect that build is actually a bit better overall, but less interesting.)

That's really some nice design you threw in here. An incredibly interesting character. I also believe that the 6 fatigue version with no restriction would be "better",but far less interesting.

That's what I call thinking outside of the box. Very neat character, I quite like her, great job Antistone. Do you see her in any given role? (Melee, ranged, magic?)

Kerrigan said:

The advantage of having equal traits is that you can change depending on conditions. She might be pushed towards a particular attack type if she draws skills that only work with that type, or if the party draws more good weapons of that type than the other heroes can make use of. She may want to avoid runes in order to wear heavy armor, of course, though that's no reason not to use a good staff if the party draws one.

At the start of the quest, I suppose I'd probably lean towards melee with her, mostly because it's cheaper than other shop options. In fact, if all the Chainmail is already taken by other heroes, you could consider starting her with Ghost Armor + Leather + melee, since she doesn't rely on vitality potions.

Wendell the Wall

Wendell's role is obvious: his strong defenses and low conquest value make him an unappealing target for the overlord, but his abilities make it hard to target anyone behind him. In a 2- or 3-space wide area, he can completely screen allies standing behind him from (normal) attacks and force any enemy determined to push past him to take 3 Aura damage to get a clear shot.

In exchange, he gives up a trait die and a skill. That leaves him offensively weak, but melee weapons tend to do the most damage, so he should still be able to kill things. He faces a hard choice between starting with an Axe (for maximum damage, to offset his missing die and skill), a Walking Stick (to offset his low speed and maximize his positioning options) or a shield (to maximize his damage-soaking ability).

You should already know how much I love tank design...and this one is a hell of a Tank (CT3, wounderful!). I don't know for Vanilla Descent, but for Advanced Campaign he should definitely choose the Shield and with due time skills increasing his endurance (Ox Tattoo, Unmovable...) and/or mobility (Tiger Tattoo?). Unless he was the only melee fighter in the party, I'd make him full-tank, while leaving the role of melee damage dealer to a second melee-oriented character.

As always, Antistone offers us very unpredictable and exciting characters!

BtW, Antistone, could you suggest us some good pictures for the characters you've posted so far? I believe you have some "picture" of them on your mind, don't you?

I just want to say that I love your creations. All very tactical, with extraodinary, interesting skills and very carefully designed and balanced. They will be the first custom hero's I play with

Channeler Vorad

Vorad has strong traits and skills, at expense of his speed and fatigue. However, his ability helps with his mobility, providing an economical way to get extra movement points - six per potion, on average. With infinite money, he'd still gain more per turn by using the vitality potions normally, but it's a reasonable compromise between movement and cost, especially for someone with low fatigue to begin with.