Hello,

I just got Descent (base game) recently and my friends and I tried to play it last night for the first time but just couldn't figure it out. Granted we have never played a game like this before and usually play regular card games like poker, rummy, etc. I have played Dungeon Twister Prison before but that was much easier to understand. We found the Descent rulebook very confusing and not well explained.

Can someone here please explain gameplay in a simple and easy-to-understand manner?

For the "Into the Dark" quest, I have the following questions:

• What is the purpose of the doors?
• Who goes first at the beginning of the game? The overlord or the hero players?
• What exactly do the hero players do during their turn (in steps please)?
• What exactly does the overlord player do during his turn (in steps please)?
• What exactly do all those unusual dice mean? How exactly does combat work?
• What is line-of-sight, and does it really have to be used during gameplay?
• Doesn't the picture of the quest map actually show exactly what monsters are in what rooms? If so, then what is the use of the monster cards other than for stats?
• Does the overlord actually move the monsters at all? Or do they just remain stagnant?

I just need to know how to play this game with easy-to-understand simplified instructions for beginning board gamers. Even modified simpler rules would be fine if anyone here has some.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much.

I would try to help you, but there are other people on the forums who can explain better than I could. One to seek out is Antistone. His rules knowledge is vast.

I will say that the rules are organized in the standard FFG format. Start on page 7, and then read all the headings that are surrounded in black.

"The Round Sequence" will explain what the order of play is. Heroes ALWAYS start the game. From there, you will find out what each player can do on their turn. Further into the book it will explain what combat is, what the actions are, and what everything else does. That should get you started.

Doors block off areas. Heros can open them. Monsters can't. Takes 2 movement to open or close and you have to be adjacent (including diagonal).

Monsters can move. They have a movement characteristic. They can move and then attack or remain stationary and attack.

Monster cards are there for stats. That is their purpose.

Line of sight is very important in game. Determines where the overlord can spawn monsters. Determines who you can use ranged and magic attacks against. You trace line of sight from the center of one square to the center of the target square. Monsters that take up more than one square can draw line of sight from any square they occupy.

I'll let the more experienced poeple explain combat and specific turn actions.

The rulebook is kind of confusing, but Descent also has a lot of rules. There's really no getting around the fact that it's complicated.

I did once write up a sort of "crash course" in Descent rules for a game I ran; maybe you'll find that easier to understand. However, keep in mind that it's for a modified version of Descent, so a couple of things will be different from normal (like the amount of threat the overlord gets per turn, and the number of items heroes can hold in their backpack).

It also glosses over a few details (particularly set-up) because I knew that I'd be playing the overlord and would be on hand to answer any questions as they came up. And yet, it's still over 3,000 words long - so, sorry, I'm not writing you your own personalized version.

The best thing I found to do was to have me and a couple of determined players play through the first couple quests together and helping each other - all 3 of us read the rule book as best as we could - and we just simply played and looked up questions as they came.

There is SO MUCH to this game - SO MUCH - especially when you get the expansions (don't add any expansions until you get a handle on the base game - especially the campaigns!) But while there is so much - it gets a lot better and it is a TON of fun.

Don't get disheartened by the sheer number of rules - it gets better - and it is so worth fumbling through the rules - as it leads to some great fun!

As others have already mentioned, the rulebook is poorly organized. There's a lot of stuff in there and it's annoyingly difficult to find the part you need during play to answer a question. The best way to learn this game is to set aside an hour to sit down and read the rulebook. Cover to cover. Then read the FAQ found here online (under Catalog) because there are a few important changes at the top of that file. (Once it gets into direct question and answer it's mostly clearing up ambiguities, but the errata at the top are significant and you should learn them.)

While it's true that there are a lot of rules and they can be poorly laid out, once you get the hang of things it does work out, and it's a very exciting game (IMHO.) I'll try to answer your questions point by point, but my answers might not make perfect sense either, until you sit down and read. =)

viper5121 said:

Doors block line of sight and movement, and also generally divide the dungeon into Areas. The entire map is built up front, but the tokens and figures in each Area are only revealed once the heroes have line of sight into that Area (by opening the door, q.v.)

viper5121 said:

The heroes go first, having taken a moment to buy starting equipment from the town items deck (this is composed of all the double-sided cards with a price in the bottom corner - take note that there are a few extremely powerful relics that are double-sided but do NOT have a price. Those are not part of the town deck!

The heroes may act in any order, and once all of them have acted, the Overlord gets his turn. It would be best to play with 4 heroes, even if that means one or more players have multiple heroes between them. The game claims to support fewer, but just trust me for now, it's better with 4. =)

viper5121 said:

The heroes may act in any order they like each turn. Each hero, on his turn, performs the following actions:

1) Refresh any cards that were exhausted (usually shields) since last turn.

2) Free re-equip - the hero can shuffle about the gear he has equipped with what's in his bag. He can do this mid-turn as well, but it costs 2MP.

3) Declare Action (Advance, Battle, Run, Ready.) Advance means you gain MP equal to your Speed (for moving, drinking potions, etc) and may make one attack at any point during your turn. Battle means you get 2 attacks but no MP from Speed. Run means you get twice your Speed in MPs, but cannot attack. Ready means you may either attack once or gain MP equal to Speed, and you may also place one of your four Orders at some point during your turn (Guard, Aim, Dodge, Rest - I'll let you look those up in the book.)

4) Take your Turn - spend MP and make attacks according to whichever Action you declared. Some skills will give you extra bonuses based on what Action you declared. Also note that any hero may, at any point during his turn, spend 1 Fatigue for 1 MP, which can then be used as normal. This is important since it means a hero who declared a Battle can still move a little bit.

A hero may also spend 1 Fatigue to add one Black die to an attack roll. He may do this after having rolled his regular dice and seen the results, but there's a total cap of 5 black dice on any one attack roll. There are a lot of extra rules and "what ifs" associated with attacking, so I'd recommend reading up more before we go into details here on the forum.

viper5121 said:

1) Draw 2 cards.

2) Collect Threat equal to the number of heroes in the game (4 if you follow my advice above)

3) pay Threat to play Spawn or Power cards. You may only play one of each per turn (I know that's true for Spawns and my brain insists it's true for Powers.)

4) Begin activating monsters, one at a time, to attack the heroes as you see fit. Monsters can only move and attack (equivalent to an Advance action for a hero), but there are some cards that can be played to give them more options. These Event cards have a triggering condition written on them, play as appropriate.

Once you're done moving monsters and playing Events, your turn is over. Remember that you also have Trap cards, most of which trigger off of things the heroes do, so you can still play those cards when it's the heroes' turn. You may also - at any time you like - discard one or more of your cards for additional Threat. The amount of threat you gain from discarding a card is in the lower right of the card, the amount in the lower left is how much you need to pay to play the card.

viper5121 said:

The dice are used in combat. Each weapon or monster card shows a series of dice near the bottom. For heroes, you roll the dice pictured on a given Weapon card, plus black Power dice equal to the same category (shown on the hero card.) For example, a sword is a Melee weapon, so you'd roll the dice shown on the Sword card plus however many black dice your hero has in the Melee trait. Monsters only roll what dice are shown on their card. Monster card stats are also divided into white and red sections. Use the white section for normal monsters and the red section for Master monsters (which use the red figures.) Named (boss) monsters are generally treated as Masters and may have additional benefits, as described in the quest where they appear.

Each face of each die has three separate components. The first is a number, which represents range. The values of all numbers showing after a roll are combined to determine the maximum range of the attack - if this is sufficient to reach the target, it hits, otherwise it misses. Melee attacks do not count range, but must target an adjacent figure (barring special rules.) The second component is a number of hearts. Total up all the hearts showing on all dice and this is how much damage is done by the attack, assuming ti hits. Subtract the target's armor to determine how many wounds the target actually takes. The last component is a number of little lightning bolt symbols (surges.) Surges can be spent to add extra bonuses to the attack as defined by the weapon card being used for the attack.

The Red, Blue, and White dice each have a single X face. This is a miss and means the rest of the dice are ignored. Red is used for Melee attacks, Blue for Ranged and White for Magic, usually. This will be represented in the weapon or monster attack block as appropriate. (Many people say the blue die looks purple on cards, so if that's confusing you, the "purple" die is the blue die =P.)

The black Power dice have a face (actually 3 identical faces) with a number 1 and a heart separated by a slash. This means, for each such result rolled, you must choose 1 range or 1 damage to be added to the attack.

viper5121 said:

Line of Sight is a mechanic used to determine which spaces a hero can see from where he's standing. If you can draw a straight line, center to center, between the hero's space and the space in question, and if there are no figures or obstacles that block LoS blocking that line, then the hero has Line of Sight to that space. Note that I said figures . One hero will block Line of sight for another hero.

Line of sight is very important in this game. A hero or monster trying to make a Ranged or Magic attack must have line of sight to his target before he can make the attack. Also, the Overlord cannot place Spawned monsters in a space to which a hero has line of sight (important: other figures do not block line of sight for Spawning purposes. You cannot spawn monsters behind other monsters. The heroes call shenanigans.

viper5121 said:

The map does show the monsters that start in an Area when it is first revealed, however, the Overlord can also Spawn new monsters using his Spawn cards, so in play there will usually be more monsters than initially pictured. The monster cards are only used for stat reference purposes (and to wave at the heroes to show them a scary picture.) These cards are public knowledge, btw. The heroes are allowed to know what the monster's stats are.

The number in the top left corner is the number of players in the game (counting the Overlord). The stats change slightly when there are fewer heroes playing, but not generally enough to make things as easy as they should be. Hence why I suggest playing with 4 heroes (thus playing with the 5-player cards.)

viper5121 said:

Yes, as I covered above, the Overlord moves each monster on his turn. The monster's Speed is given on the stat card. There are rules for when and where the Overlord can Spawn new monsters, but once spawned these monsters behave exactly like the ones that started on the map.

Before you do anything else, I strongly recommend sitting down and reading the rulebook front to back. I skipped a bunch of nitty gritty details here (and I won't rule out the possibility that my old fool brain told me lies once or twice.) This game takes time to learn, especially if your background is in traditional gaming and not hobby gaming. You will learn it, but there's no escaping the legwork. Rest assured the game is worth taking the time to learn, though. =)

Please get your rulebook and cards out when you read this so you can reference and follow.

viper5121 said:

The doors usually separate ' areas' . They also block line-of-sight (you can't see through a door) and many effects (explosions don't go through doors, etc). Figures may not move through doors, but must first open them (a movement action costing 2 movement points (MP), pg16. Once opened, a door remains open until another figure (or card) spends 2 MP to shut the door.

Usually, when playing Descent, only one 'area' of the map is revealed at a time. Until the heroes open the door, the hidden 'areas' do not actually exist (even though the map tiles are laid out) and nothing in the hidden areas can operate or effect the game. Once the heroes open a door to a new area that area is revealed (populated with monsters, treasures etc) and becomes part of the game.

viper5121 said:

DJitD pg7
One Round Consists of:
Turn 1: First Hero Player’s Turn
Turn 2: Second Hero Player’s Turn
Turn 3: Third Hero Player’s Turn
Turn 4: Fourth Hero Player’s Turn
Turn 5: Overlord Player’s Turn

Therefore the heroes go first.

viper5121 said:

DJitD Pg8
Step 1: Refresh cards
Step 2: Equip items
Step 3: Take an action

Steps 1 and 2 are basically 'book-keeping' - resetting used cards (a few, not many, cards are 'exhausted' when used, like the iron shield. Such a card will say it is exhausted when used. Commonly exhasution is denoted by turning the card 90 degrees) and deciding which equipment the hero will 'use' this turn.
Step 3 is the meat of a hero turn. The hero first must declare which action he is doing this turn (Advance, Battle, Ready, Run, pg8). Declaring the action will give him X 'attacks', Y 'Movement Points' and Z 'order tokens' (Guard, Dodge, Aim, Rest).
Each 'attack' allows the hero to make one assault on a monster using a weapon that he is equipped with. The weapon will give him some dice to roll, and he can add extra (black) power dice according to his traits if the weapon type matches up. For example, a hero attacking with an Axe will roll 1 red dice, and one green dice. If he has Melee Traits he will also add some black dice (as indicated on his hero card) because the Axe is a Melee weapon. A hero attacking with a Crossbow will roll a Blue dice and a green dice as well as a number of black dice as indicated by that hero's Ranged trait, because the Crossbow is a Ranged weapon.
This means that heroes are mostly better off using certain types of weapons that they have the training to use. If you think of the Lord of the Rings, Gimli the Dwarf is unlikely to use a Longbow, because he is a melee specialist - he would probably have 3 dice indicated on his melee trait! Gandalf, OTOH has his staff of power, obviously a Magic weapon, and also wields a sword at times. He might have two dice indicated in his Magic Trait and 1 dice indicated in his Melee trait. He probably isn't very good with a bow!
Movement Points are generally acquired in multiples of (Hero Movement stat). For example, If the Hero(ine) Runewitch Astarra declares a Run action she will acquire 2x5=10 MP (and 0 attacks and 0 order tokens). If Landrec the Wise declares a Run action he only gets 2x3=6 MP.
MP are then used to move the hero around the map, 1 space at a time. A hero may move to any adjacent space (see pg6 diagram), usually for 1MP. However, sometimes there will be terrain or effects that means the hero must pay more than 1 MP to move to that space - for example, to move out of a pit space costs 2 MP rather than 1MP (in expansions there are a lot more similar effects , but in the base set there are not so many). Some sapces also cannot be entered - Water and rubble, for example (unless a figure has Fly ability or Acrobat Skill, which both allow to 'ignore' terrain effects).
The heroes can also use MP to do 'Movement Actions' (pg16) in their turn - additional little things that don't necessarily involve changing position, but do take up time - things like opening doors, picking up coins, opening chests, activating Glyphs of Transport. Monsters don't generalyy get to do movement actions, although they can open doors as long as doing so will not reveal an unrevealed area.

So basically the heroes use their turn to move through the dungeon, open doors, pick up treasure and attack monsters.

viper5121 said:

DJitD pg8 (explanations on pg9)
Step 1: Collect Threat and Draw Cards
Step 2: Spawn Monsters
Step 3: Activate Monsters

First, the OL collects threat token (his resource for playing cards) and draws two cards. If he has a lot of cards he may also have to discard some cards (gaining threat for doing so) down to his maximum hand size (usually 8).
Then the OL is allowed to play one Spawn card from his hand (if he has one, and can pay the cost). The spawn card will create new monsters that he may place on the map, though placement is restricted. Read pg 12 carefully for this (the most important part is that new monsters cannot spawn where the heroes can see - one of the important functions of LOS).
There are a number of other special cards that the OL can play any time up until now - cards that say 'play at the start of your turn'. These are mostly 'Powers' which are put into general play and have permanent effects' (eg Doom ) but also include the Trap Dark Charm and in expansions may also include some Events.
Step 3 is again the meat of the OL turn. The OL chooses each monster in turn and activates it, being allowed to move up to its speed and make one attack at any point during it's movement. Monster attacks roll dice according to their stat card, and usually don;t add and extra black dice (except from Doom or similar effects).

viper5121 said:

The different dice have different numbers and symbols on them. So when you figure out which dice you must roll for your attack (example, Red, Green, 3x Black for Steelhorns wielding an Axe, or White, Yellow, 2x Black for Jaes wielding a Mage Staff ) you roll all those dice and add up the different symbols etc.
That gives you (assuming no X, which is an automatic miss), some numbers (range), some hearts (damage) and some surges (~). Surges can be spent according to the weapon (example, Jaes may spent 2~ to gain +1 Damage or +1 Range with the Mage Staff (or 2 surges for +2), and Steelhorns can spend 1~ for +1 damage with the axe (or 3 surges for +3 damage etc)).
If you are using Melee you may ignore the Range result - you may only hit adjacent figures anyway, and even if your rolled range is 0 you still hit because you ignore range entirely. Otherwise, you must achieve at least as much range as the number of spaces from your figure to the target figure (target space technically). If you don;t have enough range then you miss (remembering that many weapons will allow you to buy more range with surges, and that skills like Inner Fire might give you range bonuses if using the correct type of weapon.
The black power dice have an 'enhancement' side, with a 1/heart. The slash shows that this side can be used as either a 1 or as a heart. In other words this dice can add +1 range (the 1) or +1 damage (the heart) to your attack.

Once you have played a bit, you might notice the differences in the dice. These differences allow a very subtle and comlex set of interactions with only a few variable. The Blue and Yellow dice for example, have few hearts, so don't do much damage generally. But they have good 'numbers' on them so can often hit at longer ranges like 4-5 spaces away when combined. The Red and Green dice OTOH have weak 'numbers' but many hearts, so do low range but high damage.
Generally, the Red, Blue, and White dice also signify Melee, Ranged, and Magic attacks respectively, though this is not a strict rule.
This also means that the weaponry can be differentiated by its dice as well as it's surge capabilities (and hand slots taken up). A Crossbow, with Blue and Green dice tends to do more damage but have less range than a Bow, with Blue and Yellow dice.

As a side note, you might notice here that there are two uses to the term 'range' here. One denotes a weapon type 'Ranged' and the other the portion of an attack with denotes how far that attack managed to reach, the 'range' of the attack. Magic attacks will often also have a 'range' although they are not 'Ranged' attacks.

After adding or your dice result and skill bonuses etc, you end up with an attack that has X range (unless it is a melee attack, in which case you ignore X) and Y damage. The attack may also have Z special effects (Pierce, Burn, Stun etc).
As long as the X range is enough to reach the target, that portion is then discarded (ie, 'range' denotes either enough to hit, or not enough to hit = a miss).
The damage of the attack, plus any specials, are then applied to any figure in the target space. Any affected figures may reduce the damage with their armour, and then suffer wounds . Some wounds may be prevented (eg by a Shield) and each wound that is not results in the removal of a wound token for a hero or the adding of a wound token for a monster. Heroes die (non permanently - they reappear next turn at town, but cost the team Conquest Tokens (analogous to Victory points) when they die) when they have no wound tokens left. Monsters die (permanently, though the figure may be reused later) when their wound tokens equal or exceed their health.

Pgs 9-11 cover this is detail, and might make some more sense when read with this explanation as well, I hope.

viper5121 said:

Line of sight (LOS) is what a figure can see - which spaces it can see and which are hidden from it. It is critically important in the game.

Any figure wishing to attack another figure must be able to see into its space - you can't shoot an arrow through a big pile of rubble to hit a monster of the other side - or shoot an arrow through your friend to shoot the monster on the far side of him! You must be able to draw LOS to the space you wish to attack. The LOS rules might sound slightly complicated, but they are actually a simple geometric pattern once you understand it. The trick is that you can see 'through' exact corners, but not 'through' any real part of a space. So when drawing LOS from space to space you can 'see' between objects if the 'line' of sight only goes through the corners.
Eg
ABCD
EFGH
The LOS from A to H (centre to centre) goes through B, through the exact intersection of BCGF), and through G. It does not actually pass through F or C at all. So a figure in space A will be able to trace LOS to space H even if there are intervening obstacles or figures in C or F.
Note that you don't actually check obstacles in the starting or ending space (A and H) - this isn't specified and some people occasionally dispute it, but the game irretrievably breaks down in certain circumstances unless this fundamental aspect is applied. The 'line' is from centre of space to centre of space, but the 'obstacles' which block LOS are 'between' the starting and target space.

Initially the LOS rules might feel a bit clumsy, but that is the reality of a boardgame on square spaces. In actuality it is a very good system that allows some very subtle interactions with partial obscurations and the like.

The other important use of LOS is for spawning (well, preventing spawning). The OL can use spawn cards to bring new monsters on the map, but he can't do it in places the heroes can see (monsters can spring out from places you couldn't see, but not appear from thin air right in front of you!). So for the heroes, positioning themselves to be able to 'see' all the close spots and make sure there are no nearby hidden spaces is very important.
An important note here, is that although monsters usually block LOS (you can't shoot the second one if the first one is blocking it), they do not block LOS for the purposes of spawning.

viper5121 said:

The monster cards are just stat cards.
Extra monsters may be placed on the board from Spawn cards.

viper5121 said: