Hi guys. As of late, with my playing mates we noticed that "the 4X Choose 1 of 3" was getting a little unsatisfying for our group. Most of the times, parties resulted absolutely overpowered, filled with unkillable tanks or monstruous characters.

Trying to fix things, I came up with a very nice method for generating parties. Just to make things clear: depending on the heroes' pool, the traditional method may surely work just fine. Simply put, my friends and I are having lots of fun using this new method and since gaming is all about fun, I just wanted to share it with the community.

The method is as follows:

1) Each player randomly draws a single hero.

2) One by one, players may choose to change their hero for another randomly drawn one. Once a hero is substituted, the player cannot get back or draw the substituted hero.

3) Each player may substitute his hero up to twice, but the third hero drawn must be used.

It may seem complex, so I'll make a brief example to make it clearer.

INITIAL DRAW:

Player 1: Astarra. Player 2: Thorn. Player 3: Sahla. Player 4: Silouette.

As you can see the draw is pretty awkward, because it lacks any melee hero, while it has 3 magic users. No fear! The player who drew Sahla is more than willing to change it for someone better!

CHANGE 1 FOR PLAYER 3:

Player 1: Astarra. Player 2: Thorn. Player 3: Ispher. Player 4: Silouette.

Now, the melee guy isn't still coming around. Certainly Ispher is the worst out of the four characters (Player 3 in our example isn't the really lucky guy...perhaps should have been the Overlord, rather than a hero), BUT switching him would mean that he would have to keep the following character NO MATTER who it is (what if he draws Red Scorpion, Lyssa, or someone along those lines?!). Hence it's better to make a change for the guys 2 changes still at their disposal. After a long quarrel, the guys decide it's time for Thorn to get away (this is just an example, I know some might not be concordant, but that's also one of the interesting aspects of this method).

CHANGE 1 FOR PLAYER 2:

Player 1: Astarra. Player 2: Lyssa. Player 3 Ispher. Player 4: Silouette.

Horror! Player 2 draws Lyssa (and he's probably whining something along the lines that "Thorn shouldn't have been changed!). Now it's really hard to get something WORSE than Lyssa (well, at least that's from my point of view, I expect other players might love the nekomimi-girl). A furious Player 2 decides he will use his second and decisive change.

CHANGE 2 FOR PLAYER 2:

Player 1: Astarra. Player 2: Landrec. Player 3 Ispher. Player 4: Silouette.

It looks like melee characters are somewhere on vacantion, and Landrec is the final character for Player 2. At least he's a nice mage. Now, since the players don't want to risk changing Ispher, they have to choose between changing either Astarra or Silouette (and those two were probably the best characters in the original draw!). Since Armor value is averall pretty low, they choose to botch Astarra.

CHANGE 1 FOR PLAYER 1:

Player 1: Tobin. Player 2: Landrec. Player 3: Ispher. Player 4: Silouette.

Ok, player one got one of the strongest tanks in the game, the allmighty Tobin, greatly enhancing the fortitude of the party, but the guys are still missing a melee fighter. The point is all about either changing Ispher (which is worse than Silouette) risking an Aurim/Red Scorpion/Eliam/something to pop-up and ruin the atmosphere or changing Silouette (obviously better than Ispher) having a re-draw in case of some bad unluck. The players choose this time the safest route and change Silouette.

CHANGE 1 FOR PLAYER 4:

Player 1: Tobin. Player 2: Landrec. Player 3: Ispher. Player 4: Nanok.

Woah! Nanok is a really powerful melee tank! Now the party doesn't lack anything. Ispher isn't the strongest guy around, but there's worse and players don't want to risk it. The party is done. It includes a under-average character, but is still very playable and enticing.

We tried several "drawings" this way and the effect is very nice. Also, split dice heroes seem to become more interesting since they can fill in roles which otherwise would be unfilled. Lindel is an absolute jolly in this method, I can swear you. If some of you would like to try this out, or comment it, I'd be very pleased. We're having fun with it, I hope someone else has the same!

This is an interesting idea. I might suggest it the next time we play Descent and see how it goes.

Personally I would have voted to change Silhouette instead of Astarra, but that's just me. Astarra has proven herself to be quite useful in our games - a competant mage who can grab glyphs from 6 (or 3) spaces away and save the runner needing to go tag it.

The biggest concern I foresee with this method is the players wanting to sit down and categorize all the heroes into definitive groups of "bad", "okay" and "awesome" so they can better predict their chances of messing up on the draw. I doubt this would be a problem with my standard group, but it might be an issue for some (still others might genuinely enjoy it.)

On the whole, I approve of this variant idea, however.

The thing I like most about the method is that although parties tend to get better with the changes, there's always a slight possibilty that some under-average character (even a bottom-tier) finds his way into the final party. This greatly balances the game in my opinion.

Right now I'm playing a campaign (as player) where we used this method for generating the party. We have a fairly strong party, but still we have our own "weak spots" and out of the first dungeon we're almost on par (xp-wise) with the Overlord, making things much more interesting than if we were pawning him. Everyone is having fun and starting with a "not so perfect" party really gives reason to try the hardest one can to improve it!

Interesting, we're starting up a campaign next week and I might suggest this selection method for the heroes, we've been experimenting with several of them to see what works best for us.