So I had two homerules I wanted to toss out and get some feedback on.

The first one is designed specifically to counter an issue my group had with RtL in the past: My min/max-mad players spent more time trying to decide where to go to train than they did in dungeons. To counter this, I've agreed to try a variant where players can train any Trait or Skill in any town (with the exception of Health and Fatigue upgrades). I figure the towns will feel different enough with their different Building Ratings and special abilities that I don't need to limit what they train, as well. I did notice, though, that some of the Skills my players are likely to rush for are typically only trained at the Secret Masters, and I might keep those Skills alone limited to the Masters.

The second rule addresses a concern of mine. I was looking at playing the Sorcerer King Avatar, but I have serious concerns about his Upgrades. I mean, he already has eight mirrors protecting him at 30 Wounds w/Ironskin apiece. And then I can tack 100 extra wounds and Surge-negation onto the Avatar proper for a measly 10 XP? That seems ridiculously overpowered to me, and I'm the one playing him! I was wondering if this stuff had been errata'd at some point, and I'm just not seeing it anywhere?

If it hasn't been, I was looking at going with one of two ideas: Replacing the 100 extra Wounds effect with an effect that grants Undying was my first thought. My second thought was more involved: I basically want to mod the Beastman Lord's Final Battle, and combine specific cards from the two upgrade decks into a custom deck:

• Gata the White Death
• Snipers
• Arcane Energies
• Shadow Clones (and, in this case, no mirrors in his final battle)
• Wraithform

Any thoughts or referrals on either of these ideas would be appreciated.

Arkade said:

1) If your players are taking too long on the overworld map, tell them you want to play too. It gets boring when they discuss things for too long. I know, it happened in my group when they were first learning RtL. If they persist, start setting time limits on their discussions. After they've played more, the map is almost second nature.

I personally think that each town is unique because they each have different skills available, not because of their stats or town ability. If you take away the skills, then there isn't much reason for the heroes to go to the farther towns on the map. They intentionally put skills like Leadership away from Tamalir. To give the heroes the option of getting those skills quickly is a big mistake I think. Time is the Overlord's friend and if you take that away, you won't stand much of a chance. Also, remember your keep is in an out of the way place if you're playing the Sorcerer King. They'll have more time to get the upgrades they want.

2) It's not overpowered. A Ranged hero with Rapid Fire, 3 Fatigue upgrades (2 is probably enough) and a fatigue potion can take out the mirrors before any other hero goes. That hero could also take pot shots at the Sorcerer King and deal some damage. Then the other heroes go and wipe the floor with his robes. It goes that quickly. At least it did when my goup got to that point, and I bought the avatar upgrades your worried about. The SK might get one turn to battle, two if he's lucky, but's that's usually it. It happens that way to most avatars in RtL.

When I looked at the Beastman Lord and saw he could have 3 of himself (Shadow Clones) with Fly, Ironskin, and Unstoppable (Wraithform) while rolling 4 gold dice and a black with a Beastman's diamond level damage output coupled with global shadowcloak on all monster on his final level (including the avatar), I saw it as overpowered too. Having done other avatar battles, I don't think it is anymore. Sadly, the one time I played the Beastman Lord, the heroes conceded in mid-silver because I kept pulling further and further ahead. They didn't see anyway to stop my onslaught. Thus, I never got to truly test that final battle.

Also, Gata the White looks cool on paper, but being alone is such a huge disadvantage that he doesn't have enough to make up for it really. It doesn't help that the heroes get to go first even on an ambush so that they can all wake up and lay waste to him. My group never feared him. They feared a Beastman War Party spawn, or a Kobold spawn, more.

Ultimately, my suggestion is leave the upgrades alone. They also make each avatar different to play. Once you've played with the SK with his original set, then think about changing it.

The Sorcerer King becomes the Lich King when you get his phylactery. They don't say it, but that's what happens. Though others may disagree on that.

Arkade said:

I don't think you'll break anything with this one. If it helps your game run smoother, do it. I would, however, suggest making skill draws random again if they can train any skill in any town. Let the secret master skills be pulled out of the deck non-randomly if you like. The reason I suggest that is because the OL has a very legitimate tactic in razing specific cities to get rid of specific skills. If all skills are available everywhere, the OL should get something in return (ie: the knowledge that heroes cannot freely pick and choose the ideal skills they need while camping out in Tamalir.) Other than that I think this rule sounds fine.

Arkade said:

I haven't played the Sorcerer King myself (let alone all the way to final battle.) I know he is considered by many to be the strongest avatar in RtL. On top of everything you said, he also gets Eldritch monsters for cheap, which are arguably the best monsters to upgrade first.

Arkade said:

Well giving him Undying would be pointless. He has the stats of a diamond master sorcerer, which means he already has Undying.

I would recommend playing out a final battle with him first to see how it goes before making any big changes. Don't play the entire campaign, just use the rules for "starting at Gold" and then boost yourself and the heroes a bit more to account for skipping the Gold campaign level. You could do a solo "practice run" to see how it works out, but it might be better to get at least one or two friends in as the heroes. That way you can see how they might surprise you with unconventional strategies or picking apart weaknesses in the SK's defenses you didn't foresee.

Everything at that stage of the game is pretty powerful. I mean, sure the SK looks cool on paper, but remember that he'll be facing four (nearly) tricked out heroes with gold dice and gold weapons, probably 5 hand-picked skills each and who knows what benefits from rumours they completed along the way.

Doesn't he have all the normal stats except undying? Anyway, I would advice against nerfing the Sorcerer King. He is probably the only Avatar that has even the slightest chance to win in the final, and thats only if the OL has dominated the Heroes in general. It might seem a lot to have 100 extra wounds, but it really isn't. The damage output of end-gold heroes is enormous.

To give some perspective on that matter. In Sea of Blood, assuming the campaign has been even, the Avatar gets 600 extra wounds. The Heroes also get some extra, but nowhere near that much. I don't know exactly how the balance is in those fights, but it does show that FFG realized that even the strongest avatar in RtL didn't stand much of a chance in the final battle.

I just want to chime in as well to say that the sorcerer king is far from overpowered. In our first RtL campaign, it took the heores two rounds to kill him, which includes killing the mirrors. Even without surges, a gold level melee character can hit for 25+ per attack. My heores weren't even remotely optimized either; we're talking only one secret training upgrade, maybe 3-4 skills each, and 2 gold dice, tops. If you play the SK, plan to win on the overworld map. The final battle is a gimme to the heroes.

Huh, I actually asked to get this thread deleted and moved it over to the Homebrew board. It got no replies there. So thanks for the input.

I actually had the same problem someone else mentioned, before: Playing the Beastman Lord, I pulled so far ahead in the Silver level of the campaign that my players grew very demoralized. Twice. I thought if they could have an easier time getting the skills they wanted or needed (including picking their starting skill), it might do something to even things out. But now I see everyone saying that the player's problem might've been more their fault than the fault of game imbalance?

Maybe I'll just write the names of the towns the players can learn their skills in directly on the cards, and encourage them to pull the skills they want from the decks ahead of time, so they have a visual of where they need to go. I can see a valid argument in the idea that I shouldn't be the one making up for the fact that the players would rather make moving to a series of four towns a priority over exploring the dungeons between them. But if the town names are written on the cards and the cards they want are in front of them, the players can just train the skill as they pass through the town on whatever other business.

And I was actually looking to mod the Avatar more for my own tastes than anything else. I like the Beastman Lord's flavor, abilities and final battle, more than anything else. Maybe I'll just give up on that, or see if the players will let me play one of the homebrew Avatars.

If you really want to change the avatar cards, don't let us stop you. It's your game. People here are more about leaving the game as is than changing it. At least when it's the first time doing something. Just let your players know what you are changing so they can plan accordingly.

In regards to your players. Are they using the blitz tactic or are they always pushing to go to the bottom no matter what. When my group played the Beastman Lord, it was their first time playing RtL and they were inexperienced. They kept pushing and pushing so I kept getting further ahead. Eventually I was over 2:1 in the lead at mid-silver. I told them what I felt they were doing wrong during the campaign (pushing too far), but they didn't listen until we started the next one. Since then, it's been more even.

Writing on the cards is probably a bad idea if you ever plan on getting Sea of Blood. They use a bunch of the existing skill cards you have (and some new ones) so the towns won't be correct. I usually just give them the book and let them look. They usually have a sheet of paper so that they can write stuff down, like what skills they want and where they are, what they plan on doing next, stuff like that so they remember between sessions.

Solairflaire said:

Also get their approval of any changes. The OL is not a DM, he can't make arbitrary changes to the rules. If everyone at the table is agreeable to using a given house rule, that's fine, but if the OL is just making stuff up to suit his fancy, that's cheating. =P

I'm just posting here beacause I don't see a reason to make a new tread with similar content.

Right now I'm playing RtL with my friends, but since I have SoB, we decided to apply some rules from SoB to RtL and I wanted an opinion from thecommunity.

First we decided to apply the Divine Favor rule from SoB, rising or decreasing the CT of heroes if the difference in CT between heroes and OL gets too high. I believe it goes more to the heroes advantage but still, it's a fair balancing rule. Actually, when the heroes are too weak, they still get the experience from dungeons (it's not like the overlord can really make so that they don't activate glyphs and kill bosses), while the overlord starts to get far less xp from killing. On the other end, when the heroes become BIG they keep gaining the same experience, but since they become much more difficult to kill, the Overlord will really have a hard time even with an extra xp per kill. Still I like this rule, what do you thing.

Another rule from SoB we decided to use in RtL is the final battle HP assignation. In RtL the heroes and Overlord gain extra HP only based on the outcome of the exploration of the Overlord's Keep, while with this method they gain extra HP based on the outcome of the entire campaign. I think its more fair, encouraging players to do play bettere during the whole campaign, giving as few xp in dungeons as possible, since these xp result in extra HP for the Avatar. It also gives a chance of winning to the weeniest of Avatars. What do you think of it?

Finally, I allow the buying of SoB skills on the Terrinoth map, with some restrictions. First, SoB skills cannot be drawn during character creation. They can be bought in cities (of course I made so that different skills can be bought in different cities on the map, as per RtL skills). By the way, when a hero buys a SoB skill, the OL earns 1XP plus an additional XP for each skill from SoB the hero already has (e.g. - Buying a skill from SoB gives the OL 1 XP if he hero hasn't any SoB skill yet, if the hero has already a skill from SoB, the OL gets 2XP and so on). I also decided the way to acquire SoB skills in RtL without giving any XP to the Overlord is as a reward for the Silver Campaign Legendary Area. After all, if the party is entering that dungeon, it means things are bad for the party already.

About this last rule I wanted some opinion for 1 thing. I beliveve that some SoB and RtL skills may mix to give combos which shouldn't be allowed. Now I already decided you can't buy any "Mark" from SoB along with the Earth Pact. Does anyone notice any other killer combo? If you did, I'd really appreciate if you pointed them out to me.

Thanks for reading and for future comments.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Just commenting on this part because I think the rest is fine. You'll need to house rule the Beastman Lord further if you plan on playing him (or whoever your overlord will be). He has an upgrade card that gives 2 clones of himself, wounds and all except Command (imagine Command 9 for the fight). Assuming the Overlord is perfectly average and ends up at 300 conquest, heroes at 300. This would mean that the heroes need to go through 1800 (300 * 2 = 600 * 3 clones = 1800) wounds to deal the killing blow. No other avatar can even come close to that number. He may or may not need that many wounds to be a challenge, but it's something to think about.

Yeah, I know that The Beastmen Lord's Shadow Clones are pretty much of a problem, expecially with a damage output such as his...

It might be faqed by having the two shadow clones get additional HP like in RTL (based on the Overlord's Keep xp) while only the real Avatar gets bonus HP as per SoB. Like this he remains probably one of the toughest Avatar-fights in RtL, but he should be killable nevertheless and since The Beastmen Lord isn't very powerful during the dungeons (better on the map, but if the party is maneuvered with efficience, this advantage may be overcome), he should get to the final battle with less than 300 xp, until the heroes played a very bad campaign...and if they did, I see no reason why should they win the final fight after all!

Thanks for the reply, it was useful!

Elric of Melniboné said:

Koll's Mark and Saj's Mark with any skill that gives extra attacks or attack bonuses - Knight, Spiritwalker etc.

Nimble/Spry with Swift/Skilled.

Keen Sight/Dead Eye with Rapid Fire.

Runner with Acrobat.

Not so many are actively broken, but there are good reasons why some skills were removed from RtL and I really wouldn't recommend mixing the two skill sets. Basically you are just massively magnify the opportunity for extremely powerful combos, as well as increasing a few super-powerful combos.

A runner with Swift, Nimble, Acrobat and Runner ... can kill the monster on the chest and loot everything in the dungeon in a single turn. then use Leadership on a nother hero to give him a dodge or to 'rest' him before his next turn.

A ranger with Dead Eye, Rapid Fire, Keen Sight, Precision and a couple of fatigue upgrades... Rapid Fire has been removed because it overcompensated for Ranegd attacks' low damage dealing, and in return ranged attacks were given more actual combat boosts.

A mage with Spiritwalker, Kolls Mark, Saj's Mark and Prodigy... The first three heroes run in a starburst, then this hero advances to the cntre and kills everything in three different directions from three different spiritwalks. One hero really can cover the entire dungeon - and have extremely powerful attacks while doing so!

Honestly, I would just save the SoB skills for SoB. So when you play it, you have new things to explore and test instead of the same old skills and combos.

Thanks Corbon, your comments are as useful as always.

I don't think I'll limit the combining of movement boosts...combining all of them means making a pure runner character, meaning the guy won't be good for much more...so be it. For the same reason I won't limit combining ranged boosts. Rangers are most often both ranged attackers AND runners of the group, meaning they'll be asked to buy skills from both "sets". An overspecialized character is extremely powerful, but somehow it also leaves an "hole" in the party's balance. Let's say that a perfect runner shall be very useful during campaign but almost useless during the final battle, the perfect sniper shall be somwhat the opposite.

On the other hand I'll limit the other skills by allowing characters to get skills that give extra attacks and extra surges only from 1 expansion (no Koll's Mark AND Quick Casting, no Prodigy AND Saj's Mark). The reason is that Mages are usually VERY specialized characters who just tend to buy whatever allows them to deal more damage. A Mage with Spiritwalker and Koll's Mark can make 1 more attack per turn than a Mage with Quick Casting (and has to pay 4 HP to do so, which is pretty worse than paying 2 fatigue), so it's a bit more powerful, but not absolutely broken and as a side effect more vulnerable. If a mage completely built wth RtL has Knight+Quick Casting, by paying 4 Fatigue, it can obtain the same number of attacks. The important thing is not allowing surges and additional attacks to stack more than is allowed by the original game.

Allowing "+X damage buffs" to stack is ok, because they are just what they are, but surges and attacks are something that gets exponentially better with the advancing of campaign and equipped weapons (better surge efficience and better power dice), so they should be somehow limited.

Besides having the Avatar with hundreds HP should also balance the game's outcome with a reasonably mighty final battle.

I'll wait for other replies.

Elric of Melniboné said:

There are 4 base roles - melee warrior, ranged specialist, magic specialist and runner. It is not 'leaving a hole' to have a pure runner. In fact it is poor party design (though there may be little choice due to heroes or skills drawn) to have your ranged specialist double as a runner. The runner should be a specialist who backs up in a very much secondary capacity to another hero - in any of Ranged, Magic or Melee areas.
In fact the very best ' pure speed' runners are Astarra and Thorn (both decent magic specialists) and the best 'really tough' runners are Jaes (because he can combine heavier armour with decent speed and fatigue and Ghost Armour), One Fist (because he gets a free attack with the Hook even when running) and Nanok (heavy armour, high wounds and good speed and fatigue).
Also very high on the 'runner' category are Zyla (because she flies) and Okaluk (very high speed, good wounds and Stealth).
Decent Rangers, although they often have good speed and fatigue, actually come in fairly low on the 'runners' list. Only Silhouette (5F5M and special ability lets her dodge -> rest) is actually one of the 'good' runners.

In short, the pure runner and the perfect sniper are two separate heroes and should not be attempted to be combined into one hero.
IMO the perfect party has a specialist melee hero, a specialist ranged hero, a specialist magic hero and a specialist runner that backs up one other category as a very much secondary string to his bow - preferably magic, then melee, then ranged.

The final battle is invariably relatively one-sided and having one hero be at roughly half the pure combat power of the others (skills go to running, dice upgrades still help in combat and the runner should still have gold weapons) is not generally much of a loss. Particularly if the runner is able to do something like use the Mace of Kellos to Knockback the Avatar into a useful position, or use up Avatar Guard orders, or stand in the front line with a dodge order/invisibility potion protecting other heroes etc - ie if the damage the runner does is incidental to his other efforts even in the final battle.

Elric of Melniboné said:

You realise that Prodigy and Saj's Mark are both in SoB?

Aside from being simply wrong, you flat out mistake the important point. It isn't that ability to pile on surges (or even attacks) - that can be done anyway. It is the flexibility of use, and the total 'strike' (in a combination of pure firepower, number of attacks and ability to direct those attacks to suitable targets) available on a single hero's turn.

Also note that Koll's Mark and Quick Casting are incomparable - Quick casting has a major, major restriction in that it must be used immediately after another attack. Kolls mark can be used at any time during a hero's turn independent of any other actions the hero is taking.

It is also dubious to claim that 4W is worse than 2 fatigue.
Wounds are nearly always 'available' (and useable). Fatigue is far more restricted.
Wounds only have one purpose - to keep a hero alive. So spending them on extra attacks, which invariable means less damage to the hero (or another hero), is using them for their purpose. Fatigue has multiple uses so using it on extra attacks, while good, is also an opportunity loss on other uses.
Further, a wound cost can be used in addition to using the fatigue (for dice or MP), making it far more flexible and giving the hero a much greater 'strike' capacity.

Yes, I know that potions are invariably worth 3W vs 4+ fatigue. However potions are also a limited resource, yet the temple is a much less limited (and less costly in terms of cash/potions, though more costly in terms of time) resource.

I also realise that SM training equates 4W with 1F in SoB after 2F was too good in RtL. That just indicates that 4W is less valuable than 2F, so the price of paying 4W is more affordable than paying 2F.
It also makes the W cost of of the Marks 'less valuable'. Each hero is more likely to have wound upgrades, to the extent where mages with 20+ wounds are relatively common, making the cost of the Marks fairly trivial.

And Mages are no more specialised than any other hero type. A Melee hero tends to have only skills that give extra damage/surges or extra attacks. A Ranged hero tends to have only skills that give extra damage, range or some special ability for the attack. Mages are no different, no more or less specialised intrinsically (and given the location of the balance of 'generically useful' skills, perhaps more likely to be less specialised than ranged or melee heroes - Boggs, Necromancy, Vamipiric Blood, Ran's Mark, Mage Cloak vs Shark Tattoo, Defender, Captain and Cautious, Trickster, Evasion).

Quite interesting points, you make. I don't actually know if the final battle is so one-sided, maybe it is using RtL rules (it goes greatly to the heroe's advantage), while using SoB rules it should be more interesting.

I too believe that Koll's Mark is better than Quick Casting, since the latter has that restriction. The "discussion" about spending wounds being better than spending fatigue is very interesting. I believe both things may be good or bad depending on the character. As an attacking tool there's no doubt that spending wounds is better, but it leaves more vulnerable to the Overlord's assassination runs.

Since I've only read SoB twice or so I didn't actually remember that Prodigy and other surge boosting skills were there...if they are, I guess I can do nothing but allow them to stack. Perhaps, apart from not allowing Koll's Mark to stack with "additional attacks skills" it would be better if I didn't allow a few big damage dealing skills from SoB to stack with RtL big utilities like Spiritwalker (perhaps I'll find more).

As for perfect party creation, I prefer parties with two heavy melee fighters, one specialized in dealing damage and one specialized in absorbing damage. The runner is useful, but if the party is really beefy it doesn't require it (a really beefy party can allow the Overlord to get 3XP per dungeon for cycling the deck in trade for not allowing easy kills). Besides there's something else that limits the power of pure shooters, that is the fact that the specialist sniper is usually bound to buy Pickpocket. I mean, that skill is great in campaign and in our experience it's best given to the shooter, since he's the one battling the most and his firepower is more than sufficient to kill the lesser monsters that roam the dungeons. This means shooters will nevertheless often have 1 less available skill.

There's another rule we're playing in Advanced Campaign that I forgot to mention but that means a lot in terms of gameplay: we allow heroes to buy only skill of the types they can have when beginning the campaign. This makes heroes with split skills more flexible, even if they begin with a worse skill more often than the others. It's working very fine till now and we're enjoing the game like this.

Elric of Melniboné said:

That's ...interesting.

Pickpocket earns you cash, but does nothing else. It also costs you cash. You have to kill an enormous amount of monsters with a pickpocket (more than 60 in most cases) just to break even and make it's 'cost/benefit' 0 .

And in your analysis this is a useful and favoured skill?

I'm not surprised that we have very different analysis of what makes up a competent party!
I'm also not sure if the games we play bear much relation to each other.

I guess our gaming groups have pretty different gamestyles. A character can kill about 10 monsters during a single dungeon without exagerating, that means that (without taking into account kills on outside encounters and Lt encounters), within 4 dungeons (if Pick Pocket was bought as the first skill, 6 if it was bought as the second), you'll get back the full cost (in cash, at least) of the skill...than you have on average access to an additional Copper Item per dungeon or half Silver or 1/3 Gold. Since cash is the most limitating resource for heroes (at least in my experience), additional cash is always welcome and really an advantage. Of course, if you already have three skills (which usually happens when you're somewhere in the middle of the Silver Campaign), buying Pickpocket for 2000 coins isn't really worth it, since the economical gain is very far and very little (I won't even take in consideration buying it when you already have 4 skills...you simply won't ever kill enough to get back the money). Pickpocket is a real killer skill if it's drawn as an initial skill and may still be very good if bought as second. Still convinient as third. Otherwise a waste.

That's my experiene with it, of course, but try starting a campaign with Pickpocket or try to buy it early-on...you should discover it really turns the outcome in favor of the group.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Every time you buy a further skill, it's cost is made more expensive by the existing pickpocket skill, so the 'cost' of pickpocket is actually the cost of the last skill you purchased. If pickpocket is your starting skill, then your first trained skill should really have been free (it is your first 'real' skill), but actually cost you 1000. When you buy a second trained skill it costs you 1500 when it should have cost you 1000, so what pickpocket cost you is really 1000+500, and so on and so forth. As you managed to realise already, it isn't actually worth it. You'll almost never even manage to break even, at which stage your expenses have matched your profits, but you have one less skill than you could have had and have been through practically an entire campaign with a weaker than normal hero.

Do the math, properly. Even aside from the fact that you have significantly weakened a hero for your whole campaign, the Pickpocket skill is worse than useless.
Unless you are happy to sell your first skill away entirely in return for a dribble repayment spread over the entire campaign.

Since you obviously haven't understand what is happening with pickpocket, I'll try and explain it another way.

Your hero party starts with Pickpocket (which is clearly the best time to have it as any time later means less overall return). You have three heroes with a skill, and one hero with no skill at all , but a tiny dribble income.

The first time you upgrade with skills, you have 3 heroes with 2 skills each and one hero with just one skill, which cost him 1000 coins. He has to have killed 40 monsters already ( and killed them lacking a skill , that is 4 complete dungeons, or about 1 campaign level), to have paid for the skill he should have started with . If he has killed 40 monsters already, then he is even financially, but is as weak as a starting hero when every other hero is stronger.
That is just awful any way you look at it, and doesn't even consider the game cost of making a party weaker at it's weakest time (through early copper).

The second time you upgrade with skills you have three heroes with 3 skills each, and 1 hero with just two skills that he has paid 1000+1500 for, when he should have paid just 1000. So he is 1500 cash short. If he has killed 60 monsters then he will have financially broken even, but he is now half way through a campaign and has been a whole skill weaker than the other heroes for the entire time.

The third time you upgrade with skills you have 3 heroes with 4 skills each and 1 hero with three skill that he has paid 1000+1500+2000 for, when they should have cost him 1000+1500. He has to have killed 80 monsters to have broken even financially, and is still a weaker hero by an entire skill than he could have been.
In order to make a tiny financial profit some time in late gold level of the campaign you are weaker the entire time!

You give me the control of your asset (though you retain the paper ownership) - say a hotel, and in return I'll provide you with a trickle income. Of course since you already hold one large paper asset, your taxes will be higher each time you buy another asset, but don't worry, that trickle income I'm providing you with will probably cover it. Meanwhile you are not seeing any actual profits from your asset, just the trickle income, which goes on the extra taxes. (I'm keeping the profits!). At the end of our game you will find you paper asset utterly worthless leaving you just your other assets, the taxes on which have chewed up most, if not all, the income I provided you with.
The net effect is that you have whatever remnants of the income I paid you are left after the additional taxes, have no other profits from your asset, and are short by one worthless asset.

I have a bridge to sell you...

Your point might be right IF you don't consider having "liquid money" a utility. If the character was playing alone, sure thing he should invest in some proficient skill, but for the party, having an income (which I believe isn't so small, since my party made big money with Pickpocket) is a great advantage. It allows you to buy the Party Upgrades earlier, for an instance, and allows to upgrade the equipment more quickly (and upgrading the equipment is often more proficient than buying a new skill, in the short term, and becoming stronger in the short term may often result useful in the long term, since it allows to build an advantage over the Overlord). Having liquid money also allows to heal at temples and buy more potions. As an Overlord, I'd even be in doubt if summoning sometimes when facing an opponent with Pickpocket. A Kobold summon can bring 250 coins to the party with relative ease. I can see the party I'm confronting now has much more problems with buying what they need than the party I was in and it's mostly because my previous party had tons of extra income.

PS - No need for a bridge, thanks...

For the first time, I'm gonna have to completely agree with Corbon. Pickpocket is an average skill in Vanilla, acceptable if you have to spend your trade-in getting rid of Fire Pact, or Mata and Kata. But in the campaign, where 1) you're regularly buying new skills, and 2) the cost of each skill is dependent on the number of previous skills, it's really just awful. I will concede that, at first glance, it's not immediately obvious as awful, but it's remarkably difficult to break even with it. The only situation that I would use it is, well, if my other starting skills were even worse. But just because a skill doesn't bring you literal coinage doesn't mean that it doesn't improve your income. if you've got a character with Mighty, Inner Fire, or Acrobat, any of these will dramatically increase your chances of getting into the second level of a dungeon in good shape, which will open up a huge bonus income.

-pw

I suppose neither of you tested it...

Anyway, since it's quite common feature of many games that different "places" have completely different gameplays and strategies, perhaps Descent isn't an exception. It's actually very common (for example) in strategy games that strategies (and army lists) used in different continents differ greatly, so it might be the same for this game.