Hi everyone

I am new to Descent and to the forums.

I wonder per your experience on the content of the expansions, what is the order you would say it would be better to purchase the expansions?

Some will add stand-alone content, others campaign, should i buy RtL first? Others first?

Thanks for any tips

Mestre dos Magos said:

None of the expansions require any other expansions, so it really doesn't matter which ones you buy first. If you want to buy one of the advanced campaign boxes first, that's fine. It works. I would advise you to make sure you and your friends know the base game backwards and forwards before you get into the AC, however, since it really adds a whole new layer of strategy to the game.

In terms of which expansion is "the best" I would say my two favourites are Well of Darkness and Road to Legend. Just my personal opinion, that is. They're all good, but if we're ranking them numerically, those would be my top two.

Still a relative newbie myself, but here's my five cents (and what I will do):

1.) Play the Vanilla box through once, alternating OL players if possible.

- After playing the three-four first quests figure out if either the OL or the players have "advantage" (who has been having easier time winning).

- If OL has advantage, get Tomb of Ice (heroes get feats, which tilts the balance to their side). If the heroes have the advantage get Well of Darkness (OL gets threat. If neither has the advantage get both WoD and ToI.

2.) Play 2-3 Vanilla quests using the rules from the freshly acquired expansion(s).

- Get the basic expansions (WoD, AoD, ToI) you don't own yet.

3.) Play through the rest of the Vanilla box quests with all the rules. Maybe some of the expansion ones too.

4.) Buy Road to Legend and start playing Descent for real.

This is purely theoretical thinking, since I've only played halfway through the Vanilla box second quest so far. You certainly can play Road to Legend without any other expansions, but I've understood that by having all the non-campaign expansions you add a lot of depth and new possibilities to the campaign. Also when buying the expansions one by one, you can all the time manage if your group is still interested in Descent and now blowing 200+ euros/dollars to a game which no one is excited about.

Here's an excellent point by point comparison between the expansions:

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/556885/which-vanilla-expansion-is-best

Hope this helps. Remember, Steve-O is a veteran and has helped me a lot. So when it comes to Descent always take his word over mine

Thanks guys, you helped a lot

OK, then I have a probably veeeeery stupid question. Please forgive a newbie! What is this Vanilla box thing?

Vanilla is an expression that is used for the original without no expansions or addons on it. Like vanilla doom (doom without addons), vanilla civilization... Etc....... SO in our case vanilla descent means the original box with no expansions and rules from these sets.

Drglord said:

Vanilla is also used as the term for games that are merely standalone one dungeon games rather than the Advanced Campaign which spans multiple sessions.

Drglord said:

In most cases that's how the word vanilla gets used in relation to a product, true. (And in the case of this particular thread that's exactly what we mean, since the OP doesn't have any expansions, just the base box.)

More generally, however, in the case of Descent it has changed slightly. Most people use it here to mean "not the Advanced Campaigns." ie: a game that is not using the Road to Legend or Sea of Blood expansions. Said game may still be using Well of Darkness, Altar of Despair or Tomb of Ice.

Likewise, something like D&D often uses the term "vanilla" to mean the basic campaign world described in the core books. Such a game may in fact use material from a variety of sourcebooks, but the vanilla qualifier indicates they aren't using a different campaign world (like Dark Sun, or a homebrew world the DM made up.)

Thank you very much for exhaustive answers