Hi everyone, we've just started a new campaign after quite a while and I seem to be quite rusty depending certain basic rules:

1. Large monster movement: I'm quite confused after reading some answers, rules and FAQs about that.

1. (a) Over what kind of terrain and/or obstacles can monsters move?

1. (b) Are large monsters allowed to end their movement over any type of the in 1.a. named terrains/obstacles?

1. © If a monster moves partly over a terrain (tree, table), can it choose not to pay it's movement cost and still benefit from the terrain?

1. (d) RTL: Why are some dungeons so impossibly stupid, with large monsters blocking each other without being able to move at all, since the dungeons are so **** crowded? Especially spiders are extremely weak and immensely huge.

2. Can one player leave a dungeon level through the teleporter to the next dungeon level, while the others go to town and join him on the lower level?

3. RTL: Kirga's aura: I was sure, I've read somewhere, that the range of her aura was lowered for the RTL campaign, because the dungeons are quite small. Am I mistaken there? If I AM mistaken, isn't this kinda overpowered?

4. Reinforcement marker: The rulebook states, that I can pay the costs to flip the marker DURING my turn but I can only spawn monsters at the BEGINNING of my turn. Does this mean, I can't spawn monsters the same turn I flip the marker over, so that I essentially have to wait for the next turn?

5. How do I combat a hero, that essentially has breath and pierce? My monsters don't stand a chance.

6. RTL: There are some OL cards in his deck that are essentially useless in the campaign. I know there's an Avatar upgrade for 5 points, that let you remove cards from it. I find that's unfair in many ways.

7. Balance:

7 (a) Why are there so many abilities in this game, that seem hugely overpowered, while other almost useless in comparison? What's the point in owning all those addons, if FFG can't figure out a way to balance those for the games they release? It's essentially a very cheap trick to simply remove those cards.

7 (b) Same goes for heroes. Some heroes are so weak, it's laughable. No one in it's right mind would ever play those. Can't you review those and make them at least somehow attractive? What's the point of them even being in the game at all?

7 © RTL: There's certain combinations of OL upgrades and avatars that are far superior to any other setup. NOT putting Crushing Blow into the OL deck while removing some cards borders on masochism.

1. (d) RTL: Why are some dungeons so impossibly stupid, with large monsters blocking each other without being able to move at all, since the dungeons are so **** crowded? Especially spiders are extremely weak and immensely huge.

Because the large monsters were designed for larger dungeons long before RtL came out. You're never (rarely?) forced to pick a bunch of large monsters.

2. Can one player leave a dungeon level through the teleporter to the next dungeon level, while the others go to town and join him on the lower level?

"Once a hero steps onto the portal map piece, he is removed from the board and becomes invulnerable to harm. Heroes remain thusly in transit until all of them either enter the portal or move to town, at which point all of the heroes are moved to the next level."

Yes.

4. Reinforcement marker: The rulebook states, that I can pay the costs to flip the marker DURING my turn but I can only spawn monsters at the BEGINNING of my turn. Does this mean, I can't spawn monsters the same turn I flip the marker over, so that I essentially have to wait for the next turn?

The beginning of your turn is still a part of your turn. You can flip and spawn on the same turn.

5. How do I combat a hero, that essentially has breath and pierce? My monsters don't stand a chance.

Don't bunch your monsters up. Kill him. Upgrade your monsters ASAP, espeically Eldritch as they have strong ranged attacks and don't need to be close together. Crushing Blow the breath item.

But above all, don't expect your monsters to live. They're fodder, and they will die. Only near the beginning of most tiers when your monsters just jumped in power but the heroes haven't found new gear will they be scary. Most of the time the board is going to be close to clear after every hero turn. Expect it, and don't spawn unless it matters.

6. RTL: There are some OL cards in his deck that are essentially useless in the campaign. I know there's an Avatar upgrade for 5 points, that let you remove cards from it. I find that's unfair in many ways.

You'll have to elaborate on what's unfair about it. It costs XP. It gives a minor boost.

7 (a) Why are there so many abilities in this game, that seem hugely overpowered, while other almost useless in comparison? What's the point in owning all those addons, if FFG can't figure out a way to balance those for the games they release? It's essentially a very cheap trick to simply remove those cards.

There is no such thin as balance in a complex system. Descent's overly complex and inconsistent system makes that even worse. The vast majority of things in the game came out before RtL and can't possibly have been created with an advanced campaign in mind.

7 (b) Same goes for heroes. Some heroes are so weak, it's laughable. No one in it's right mind would ever play those. Can't you review those and make them at least somehow attractive? What's the point of them even being in the game at all?

In a standard game hero draw is completely random, so while "nobody in their right mind would choose to play hero X" is true, it's a meaningless statement outside of house rules. There has to be weak heroes or the OL has no choice but consistently fight the strong ones, which means he needs better monsters in order to have a chance of winning.

7 © RTL: There's certain combinations of OL upgrades and avatars that are far superior to any other setup. NOT putting Crushing Blow into the OL deck while removing some cards borders on masochism.

This is true of almost any game out there. Out of the myriad strategies available, a few will rise to the top. House rules, errata, and new sets help to fix that but the only thing that can permanently fix it is the play group in question. If combo X is too powerful and only fun for the side that gets it, ban it.

For example, its a very solid tactical choice for the heroes to get to where they want their power level to be and then attack one another repeatedly (preferably with cursed gear) to force the campaign to go to the final battle before the OL can complete his plot or buy a lot of upgrades. However, it's diametrically opposed to the theme of the game and so obviously cheesy that our group never does more than joke about it.

Also, some of those seemingly superior upgrades are necessary to keep the balance. Above you're complaining about Breath on a hero and here you're complaining about Crushing Blow. The one answers the other.

James answered most already, so I'll leave those out...

eNTi said:

They can move through, and end their movement in, everything that does not have "Block Movement: Yes".
They still cannot enter terrain that cannot be entered. They can move through any other terrain. As long as they have at least one space not in any terrain, they may ignore all terrain effects (except blocking entry of course, because that affects you before you try to enter it). If all of their spaces are in some sort of terrain then they can choose which terrain is affecting them.
They can always claim the benefits of any terrain, even in they didn't suffer the entry effects.
This may seem advantageous, and is. OTOH they are heavily penalised in spawning, and in being blocked off easily - these small advantages don't come anywhere near to balancing the penalties they face.

eNTi said:

You are mistaken. Spiritwalker is down from 10 to 5, Astarra from 6 to 3, Kirga unchanged. Yes, it is powerful. If you see Kirga in the hero party, go for the Spider Queen (more reliance on traps than monsters) or work toward a raze/plot victory so that dungeons are less important and Lt encounters (where there is reinforcing rather than spawning) are more important.

eNTi said:

There are no useless cards, but yes, some are very weak indeed. Actually quite a lot are very weak indeed by the time you are halfway through the campaign.
The weak cards can be removed by Focus and also swapped out with Treachery once it s purchased.
I don't understand what you are complaining about really - do you expect every card the OL draws to be a killer? Weak cards can still be discarded for threat, and occasionally they are exactly the card you want (though never when they are in your hand of course!) Your Master Beastman level Leader got 5 web tokens on him while the heroes sit 2 spaces away and poke him to death with blunt sticks? Dark Balm is the answer!

eNTi said:

Balance comes from having an 'overall' evenness - both strengths and weakness on both sides.
Variety gives choice, without choice there is no point in playing any game at all.
Some choices are better than other choices. Making good choices instead of bad choices is part of 'skill' at a game and allows better players to beat worse players more often than not. If all choices were equally good then there wouldn't be any point in making any of them - just pick one at random, so again, why bother playing?

The point of having weak heroes is that so not every party will be comprised of Kirga, Tahlia, Landrec and Astarra/Nanok.

I agree that no one in their right mind would ever take Red Scorpion in an Advanced Campaign. OTOH I've seen plenty of people take Ispher or Sahla, boh of whom must have had a 'stronger' hero in their draw to pick from. Party Balance matters too. Weak heroes sometimes force the players to make interesting choices, and then develop different strategies to compensate.

I have drawn Red Scorpion for the campaign. Yea, she's weak but can be useful sometimes with her special ability.In fact, my entire party is weak:

Red Scorpion(Axe+ Cautious skill)

Ispher(Rapid Fire+Crossbow)

Andira Runehand-magic user(Staff of the Grave+Spiritwalker)

Trenole the Strong(Tiger Tattoo+Axe)

And we still have fun. We play with random treachery, randomly drawn heroes and without the "choose a fourth starting skill from any deck"

zealot12 said:

The way you write that sounds like you keep all three skills?

Ah, no, that's not what I meant. We choose one of the three starting skills.

thank you for you answers.

as for balance issues, regarding crushing blow vs. pierce+breath... curshing blow is a choice and pierce+breath is a possibility. not making that choice is almost not an option, while the heroes can't know, they will get that combo any time soon. i essentially didn't pick crushing blow, because my heroes are easily disheartened, but i also didn't calculate my odds with that kind of overly powerful combination. it seems trying to win as ol via other means, but killing the heroes in dungeons seems a little bit unfair and besides the actual game, but i'll try and see how my heroes respond.

eNTi said:

I am not sure if my English is just too bad, but this sentence does not make any sense at all to me. The complete game of the OL is about killing the heroes, either in the dungeons or during encounters. Descent is NOT an RPG, it is a competitive game between two sides, of which one WILL die. And as a hero I expect the OL to give me hell, otherwise I see not point in playing Descent against him, and we could just switch to Candyland.

totaly agreed with Corbon, without weak heroes and weak Ol card the game will be unbalanced, and not fun at all.

By the way.. weak heroes ofthen are weak only for health and damage level, but they balacet themself with their own skill and usualy are the long range kind, with more movment. So not so weak as many of the players thinks.

they should not kill many monsters, but are usualy a pain for the Ol. the typical"weake" hero of my group inflict status to my monsters, block me to paly trapcard or decrease my treat token or have enogh pierce to hit my more stronger melee monster, or have an annoyng pet. they are the "supporter" and my group know it.

3 times, before Rlt, when i've purchase the basic Descent, we 've tried randomly mission, with CHOSEN heroes. Always my player have chosen the most stronger warrior. and i've always won in less then 5 turns.

Now the basic group it's always 2 melee 1 mage and 1 long range characters. the long range and the mage player are not so happy, they should prefer to crush some golden axe into my beastman head, and continius mumbling about their pg's suck....but they're strong, and ofthen are the truly winner of a dungeon level(but they'll never admit it)

eNTi said:

One of the (more questionable) design decisions that was made for this game is that the Overlord essentially has control over everything he does, while the heroes are generated almost entirely at random.

The Overlord has to draw cards randomly from his deck, true, but he can hold a hand of cards and choose when to play them, discarding useless cards for additional threat along the way. He chooses what monsters to spawn, what traps to play and what treachery cards to include in his deck with very little chance involved in the process. The dungeon is his home turf, so this does make a certain amount of sense.

The heroes, on the other hand, are all random. Random draw for heroes, random draw for skills (except trained skills in AC), random draw for treasures - even when purchased from town! In order to make these random draws more meaningful, FFG apparently decided to make some (very) good and some (very) bad choices in each area. It probably would have been a better move to make everything roughly equal so that, while random and changing, the overall power of a hero party remained constant. That would be less exicting, I suppose, since there would be no "OMG That sword rules!" moments, which may or may not be why they did it this way.

My point here is that you are correct that the OL gets to make choices while the heroes rely on chance. Giving the heroes an equal amount of choice, however, would result in hero parties that are consistently too powerful for the Overlord to beat. Forcing the OL to an equal level of chance would likely result in the OL being too weak most of the time. The game was designed, for better or for worse, with the notion that the OL has choice and the heroes have chance. It's one of those things I'd love to fix with house rules, but doing so would probably require rewriting most of the game and I just don't have time for that anymore, so I play it like it is.

The first step in avoiding a trap is knowing that it's there, or something.

I actually don't think that forcing the Overlord to rely on chance weakens him at all. Most of the treachery cards, for instance, are powerful enough, so that each one may prove useful. Why should the OL constantly rely on an extra copy of Danger, Dance of the Monkey God, Jungle Drums, Dark Charm or Crushing Blow in his deck? Which is why I think it's best to implement random treachery. Not only does it add the element of surprise, it also lets the OL develop strategies with lesser used cards, as well as balancing him more with the heroes' side who often have to make the best of what they've drawn.

i essentially didn't pick crushing blow, because my heroes are easily disheartened, but i also didn't calculate my odds with that kind of overly powerful combination.

This then, is part of your problem. Of course the game will be unbalanced if you choose to ignore one side of the equation. Luckily you can change your treachery choices with the start of every dungeon, so if you've got any event treachery at all, or the XP to buy it, you can use CB next game week. After the powerful gear is gone, swap it back out if you want, for things that will net you kills (like Enraged or Critical Strike). Or leave it in, there's bound to be powerful gear showing up again soon.

it seems trying to win as ol via other means, but killing the heroes in dungeons seems a little bit unfair and besides the actual game, but i'll try and see how my heroes respond.

This is the other part of the problem. Descent, at its core, is a competitive game. You can make choices that won't upset the other side if you want, but you cannot then expect to win. I did it with my first RtL game, choosing the Spider Queen and then opting to never attack Tamalir because I wanted to see a final fight. I knew there was no chance of me winning, but that was my decision. You seem to have also chosen to purposefully weaken without embracing the fact that doing so means you are unlikely to win.

two more issues arose during play today:

8. Can the overlord SPAWN in the red area, where he's not allowed to place any figures during the setup?

9. Is it it possible for the overlord to target a hero itself with a breath-weapon during dark charm?

i tried to be lenient with my heroes but i'm rewarded with whining and (again) a lot of discussion if the heroes are presented by a rule change in the ol's favour. i don't know how many hours we fought over rule interpretations in this game. it's a joke really... *sigh*

8. Can the overlord SPAWN in the red area, where he's not allowed to place any figures during the setup?

Yes. Those areas only affect initial setup.

9. Is it it possible for the overlord to target a hero itself with a breath-weapon during dark charm?

If you mean the hero has a breath weapon and you want to dark charm him you effectively have two options:

1) Use the breath template as normal. You can't hit the hero that's using it, but you can hit one or more others.

2) Per the FAQ, forgo the breath template and make a single-targetted attack. This can target the hero.

i tried to be lenient with my heroes but i'm rewarded with whining and (again) a lot of discussion if the heroes are presented by a rule change in the ol's favour. i don't know how many hours we fought over rule interpretations in this game. it's a joke really... *sigh*

My advice is to play the game as written. There are some bumps in RtL's ruleset, but none that aren't either fixed by the FAQ or solvable without major conflict. Adding house rules creates ripple effects which causes things to be imbalanced, requiring further house rules, causing further ripples, etc. When taken as a whole RtL is pretty well balanced, though there are some tactics the Overlord has which are hard for the heroes to fight off (like an early Silver Tamalir rush) but that's what makes it an Advanced campaign.

Also, try not to think of them as "my heroes." This is not an RPG, the Overlord is not in a position of authority, and neither side has power over the rules without the consent of the other.

Finally, if that doesn't work, perhaps a 1 vs. many game isn't right for your group's social dynamic. Something like Arkham Horror which is All vs. the game or Runebound (all vs. all) might work better.

eNTi said:

That's what generally happens when you show lenience. The people you're going easy on forget (or don't realize) how easy they have it and start whining about other things, too. Knowing when to say "no" in a firm but fair manner is an important skill in life, not just in board games.

Descent, in particular, is full of highly illogical rules and leaves no room for mercy if you want to play to win (on either side.) If you haven't already, explain this to your group. Compare Descent to video games like Final Fantasy instead of RPGs like D&D. Descent's engine was borrowed from Doom, which was itself based on a video game, so the comparison is not entirely out of whack. It also helps to explain why treasure appears in one hero's hands when another hero opens a chest, or why no one can cross water. Play by RAW, don't give in to arguments about "what makes sense." If the other players want a game where the rules are determined by logic or fluff, put Descent away and play D&D for a while. It's not a perfect engine either, but at least the Golden Rule gives you leeway to make it work for your group.

You could also show your group this forum. Let them come here with their whiny rules questions and we'll set them straight. Then you'll all be on the same page, at least.

thanks for the advice. i'll take it. it's so frustrating explaining the rules to them every time only to be told, that "no way, i know it's the other way around". then you start searching in the rule books to show them the right section only to have them take back their turn, because they didn't know better. if only anyone else had ever read the rule books. to be fair, they've more than once rightfully disagreed with me. i've made a lot of mistakes myself. which of course makes the whole situation a little bit more complicated.

two new question arose during play yesterday:

10. my players got lord hawethorne (reach) with unmovable, which is already a sick combination, and are planning to get leadership. i'm not quite sure as to how leadership interacts with unmovable though. is it possible to have two ready actions? like guard and the one granted by leadership? the handbooks don't seem clear on the matter.

11. we've played bridge of death yesterday and i've really made up for some lost dungeons in this one. there's an overly powerful combination with the bridge+crushing block, of which i could play two while they tried to cross the bridge. is this even a legal move to push them over the edge? i didn't see any problems with this tactic unless the pits really act as obstacle, where i'm not allowed to play crushing block adjacent to.

eNTi said:

10. No.
DJitD pg14
A hero can only have one order at any one time. A hero that has already been issued an order cannot receive another order until the first order is used or removed (see below).

11. You can't play blocks beside Pits, whether they block movement or not.
FAQ pg15
Q: Which map items count as obstacles for the Crushing Block trap card?
A: Crushing Block may never be played in a space adjacent to a pit or any token (or built-in map element) that blocks movement. ...

Corbon said:

eNTi said:

There are two groups of things you can't play a CBlock beside. Pits, and 'token(s) that blocks movement'.
[...pits or any token] [that blocks movement] is incorrect because pits are tokens (with the single exception of this level where there are pits printed onto the tile).

Note also that the actual crushing block card rules out obstacles originally (which pits are), so the original rules for CBlock couldn't see them used beside pits anyway.
The reasoning is just background info as to why they changed the original and does not need to be comprehensive - its just a simple bit of explanation.

i) No, it should not be read together

ii) the list is a botch job anyway - those items are not all obstacles. It is just covering the 'things' that block movement entirely in general, because they don't have a suitable keyword to use. Note that even insta-kill pits don't necessarily block movement since you can jump them.

Corbon said:

now you got me even more confused. as you are saying, the original rules from the card disallow you the placement near any obstacles, which essentially means i can't place it next to a pit token or a pit drawn on a map tile (which did't exist at the point of the original ruling). on the other hand the new rules state pits (any) and tokens (that block movement), which essentially would mean exactly the same? so the faq ruling basically only explains the original ruling? i can't see any new information in the faq then. it clearly states, the rules where put in place, so that you can't seal off a hallway or something, so that it's impossible to get past it. since pits never block movement, you should be able to place a crushing block next to a pit, since you are allowed to play a pit next to a rubble token? what am i not getting here? is it to prevent a hero from being pushed into them or is it just another kiss rule? i think it would be easier for me to understand it, if the difference between the old and the new ruling was clear to me. is it maybe that it extends to non-obstacles (tokens that block movement)?

eNTi said:

The 'new' parts in the current FAQ (from the original rule) include a number of things that 'block movement' but are not obstacles (eg rolling boulders, crushing walls etc). So those things weren't covered by the original rule...

1. Originally, it was 'not beside any obstacle (what the card says). (That includes pits, because pits are obstacles.)

Then things were introduced which blocked movement and were not obstacles. This introduced problems because the OL now could block off passages totally and screw the game. So they had to make a change...

2. So they introduced a FAQ ruling (now out of date) which removed the not-beside-obstacles thing entirely and replaced it with 'not-beside-things-that-block-movement' instead. They also added a bit of an explanation, which might help when 'new' things-which-block-movement' items are introduced in the future. Unfortunately they still screwed this up by referring to obstacles, but they simply aren't particularly competent at rules writing - a not uncommon fault among people with a genius for creating rules.

However this made the old 'illegal' "drop them into a pit and then slam them back into it with a block when they climb out" trick 'legal', and apparently they had not intended that...

3. So they added the not-beside-pits clause back into the rule for not-beside-things-which-block-movement.

It really is quite simple and there is no need for confusion. Just read the rule (FAQ) and play as it says.
Crushing Block may never be played in a space adjacent to i) [a pit] or ii) [any token (or built-in map element) that blocks movement]. The reason for this ... the rest is just explanation and trying to make the rule clear, rather than actual rule.

i) You can't play CBlock beside a pit.
ii) You can't play CBlock beside any token or map element which blocks movement.
... you can play CBlock beside obstacles which are not pits and do not block movement (eg mud, lava etc - you couldn't originally).

EDIT: Forum software did it again - dropped the word 'drop'. That is about 6 times in the last 2-3 months. What a weird bug!

alright, thx for over-explaining. i think i needed that. i can finally sleep again. some things just go in circles in my brain.

Corbon said:

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH HA!

I've noticed that happening, too. I thought I was just going crazy. Nice to know it is the forum software and not my addled mind forgetting to type whole words. (Which is not to say my mind isn't addled, but that's a whole different can of beans.)

new questions arose today:

12. dungeon 38:

12. (a) the boss can throw rubble, that is laying around at the heroes. everyone in it's path is hit or eventually crushed/shoved aside. for lack of directions we decided to play this skill the following way: if the giant moves next to a rubble token, the ol can decide to throw it from any of the giant's adjacents spaces in a direct straight or diagonal line. is that the intention or could i possibly throw in anywhere within line of sight? in the latter case, it's difficult to decide which path the the token actually took and thus which hero would be hit, so we decided not to play it that way. on the other hand, it was pretty easy now for the heroes to avoid being hit at all.

12. (b) there is a possibilty for in this dungeon to lock the heroes out, if you throw enough rubble infront of the door or seal the starting hallway (in case the heroes die often enough). intended?

13. the rtl handbook doesn't have any extra rulings on when or where heroes can rest their fatigue. it only states at the temple, that they can rest their full health and fatigue if they choose the train action in the temple. the faq states, that the heroes are restored to full fatigue if they "finish a quest" and return to the terrinoth map. next to the fact, that there's no definition of the term "quest", that i could find, this ruling would basically make the fatigue recovery in the temple obsolete?

14. some of my players don't understand the timing of certain events during the ol's turn and constantly question me in this respect. i do have troubles explaining, as to when and why my "beginning of the overlords turn" doesn't end after i made one action i can only play at the beginning. take the following example:

# begin "start of ol's turn"

- i take threat

- i take cards

- i play dark charm and kill a hero (kirga, now his aura is gone)

- i summon skeletons

# end of "start of ol's turn"

my players don't believe me, that i can still spawn after i already killed kirga via dark charm, because that would mean, i've already "activated on of my monsters". not so in my understanding, since kirga is not really a monster. my understanding would be, that i can do all of the above in any order i see fit. what's your take on this?

15. can heroes rest their fatigue inbetween dungeon levels, if they placed an order before walking out of the dungeon level, if not, why?

12a) There are some clarifications in the FAQ regarding that level, though not all questions are covered.

b) There is nothing in the rules preventing that. But I guess if it wa included in the FAQ it would be ruled that either the OL is not allowed to seal the exit or that heros may pass through the rubble in that rare circumstance.

13) Quests are "defined" as encounters and dungeons, so after any of these the fatigue is restored to full. Yes, the temple option to restore fatigue is obsolete and useless, probably an editing relic.

14) You may do your listed actions in any order you want to. See the FAQ entry.

15) Yes. they may do so, and my heros do that routinely. The only way to interrupt the restoring of the fatigue would be by playing the Ambush card which may harm them before their first turn in the new level.