So i have been reading the forums about how unbalanced lieutenants are in combat, and i have come up with a house rule to make them balanced, as well as make the game a little more entertaining

when i play, the Leiutenants only regenerate health and minions if either they have won a combat, or when the game is upgraded to silver or gold difficulties.

this means that if the lieutenants are badly damaged, not only do they not regenerate, but it becomes advantageous for the heroes to hunt them down before the game advances to the next difficulty level, and the OL is more likely to take risks with them in combat when they are at full health to avoid such a situation.

thoughts?

sethderain said:

RtL is already ncely balanced for Lt fights, generally. Lts are easy to beat at certain times and very difficult (but not impossible) to beat at other times. They are the main (effectively only) source of the OL's chance to win the game. IMO your idea is both unnecessary and bad, but that is only my feeling.
With a few exceptions, most of the 'Lts are unbalanced' complaints come from people who aren't playing well or preparing properly.

SoB the problem is not the fights, its the running away and coming straight back. The heroes are lucky to even get an attack in against a Lt.

Corbon said:

I agree (no offense to the OP.)

LTs don't come back after they die, at least not most of them, so allowing them to remain wounded greatly increases the odds of the heroes killing them. It makes sieging a city tactically improbable unless the heroes are somehow prevented from reaching the location until it's done. And if all the OL's LTs get killed, he's basically neutered on the Overland map. At that point it's just a question of how much power the heroes accumulate before the final battle starts. An experienced hero party can take efforts to minimize how much XP the OL gets from killing them in dungeons, further increasing the imbalance in CT levels as the campaign progresses.

On the flip-side, heroes DO come back after dying, so being asked to track their health as a constant resource is not such a big penalty. However, allowing LTs to respawn (and perhaps providing the Heroes some CT for killing them) may not be the wisest response to this either, since I'm uncertain what effects respawning LTs might have on the OL's options for his Plot or for sieges.

Another house rule that has been suggested for SoB is to force LTs to return to the OL's Keep after fleeing. I'm not sure how well that works since I haven't tried it myself, but it seems like a more reasonable idea to me since it directly addresses the main problem of LTs not being set back as badly after fleeing. RtL doesn't really need anything along these lines, as Corbon said.

For SoB we are currently testing the folowing house-rule:

If a Lieutenant flees he actually flees from the map, so his token is altogether removed. At the beginning of hs turn, the Overlord rolls a dice, on Power Enhancement (or Surge, but that could be quite harsh on the Overlord), the Lieutenant comes back into play at his starting location.

This house rule gives a chance for the heroes to do something else besides just chasing the Lieutenants around the map, generally to no avail.

Other important house rules that my group are using are as follows:

This one actually come from another person on these forums. Couldn't find his name, but all credit goes to him:

During a sea encounter (involving a Lieutenant or not). The Revenge can only leave the map on the opposite side of its point of entrance (not sideways, not backwards). This actually gives some sense to encounters. We've tested this; fantastic idea, it changes the whole feeling of the game.

Also during a sea encounter involving a lieutenant, if the Revenge exits the map, the heroes have fled. The lieutenant is then "stunned" for one round, meaning he cannot move or attack (he is recovering from the disgrace of being unable to stop the heroes). This helps to avoid useles multiple sea battles and chases around the board.

Concerning sieges: When the heroes attack a Lieutenant besieging a city, if they survive the encounter (and thus exit on the other side of the map), the heroes break the siege. Which means that all siege engines are removed from the curernt location (but the lieutenant remains if not killed). Again, this was succesfully tested and gives the heroes interesting strategic possibilities.

FInally, concerning the game mechanics, we've been using the possibility for the Overlord to either convert 2 surges to 1 threat or convert 2 surges to 1 damage during a monster's attack. Best rule ever, it actually makes gold an silver dice useful for the overlord and makes for some very interesting and intense battles.

Patmox said:

Hmm, maybe I will try these houserules, as they provide some differences

Strongly recommended to all :-)

Here are the rest of the house rules we are successfully using:

During Sea battles the Revenge is, as a general rule, Elevated 1 . Forecastle and aftcastle (I think that is what one calls the elevated rear section of the boat) however are Elevated 2 . Also it generally costs 2 MP to climb aboard the Revenge and 3 MP to climb directly from the sea onto the forecastle or aftcastle.

All of this adds flavour and interesting tactical elements to the game.

We are also considering as a general rule that the Revenge hosts a transport glyph (as it is present on island level maps there's no reason why it shouldn't always be there, even during sea battles). However, the transport glyph is only active if the Revenge is not moving (anchor down).

As a thematic house rule, we decided that during the game the heroes can only acquire the type of skills as allowed on their character sheet. This gives the characters more specificity; e.g. a pure mage will not be able to acquire melee skills. On thte other hand, weaker characters like Red Scorpion, whois allowed to the three types of skills, get more choices and flexibity.

Last but not least, we use the semi-random treachery rule: At the beginning of a dungeon, the Overlord draws 8 treachery cards of the given type for every point of treachery he possesses and chooses his card(s) amonst this limited pool of cards.

This really adds a lot of variety and also avoids having to ban or limit some treachery cards.

In our opinion all of these rules actively contribute to making Sea of Bllod (Road to Legend, when applicable) playable, tense and interesting as it should have been designed in the first place.

We are now really having a blast with the game. And the outcome of the campaign, which at first seemed to point to a final Overlord crushing victory, is now much less obvious.