Yesterday Two friends and I had our first time playing Descent, what a blast!

We are instantly hooked

Now, obviously we interpreted some rules wrongly, but we managed to correct several half way through, and still have lots of fun

Still, some questions were left unanswered, so I started reading through the manual, the FAQ, and forums, but still one question bugs me:

We ran the first quest in the quest guide, and whenever the heroes opened some chests, sometimes they would receive "Curse" tokens

Appart from the OL receiving 1 threat token for each hero for each Curse token, what else does it do? Do I simply discard it?

Also, when the OL rolls surges in his monster attacks, do surges get used for anything else appart from getting 1 threat for each 2 surges? (keep in mind, in the original box rule only, nothing expanded here)

Thanks everyone!

P.S.: oh man we are so hooked! Our game lasted 9 hours haha...

"Curse" has multiple meanings in Descent. In the base game, curses show up in chests, and they give the overlord threat when the chest is opened (which can be used to play a trap card on the same chest, if you want). There are no tokens involved; the overlord just instantly gets some threat when the chest is opened, and that's it.

There are curse tokens in the Altar of Despair expansion, which have nothing to do with curses in chests. They're a totally separate and unrelated thing that happens to use the same word. The tokens are a status effect that increases the conquest value of the hero, and are received when you equip a cursed item or deal the killing blow to a monster with the Black Curse ability (also from that expansion). If you're just using the base game, you don't need to worry about them.

Antistone said:

A follow up question: Is the OL allowed also to discard OL cards at this point to gain even more threat to play a trap on a chest?

Great that you enjoyed the game. I think that the first quest was quite boring compared to the 2nd one and I can't wait to see what even the Vanilla box has in store for us!!! (Haven't read but the 1st and the 2nd quests, if someone else would like to run some quests as OL).

Hi Mordjinn,

We didnt find it boring at all, since we were always making fun of each other, laughing of some situations, and sometimes mocking the heroes or monsters themselves (yes we are 40, 45 and 26 yo, but quite childish hehe)...

From the FAQ and rules, it explains the OL may discard as many cards and whenever he wants (even during player turns, and for example, if the hero opens a chest, you collect the threat tokens from Curses, you can then stop them, declare you are discarding, get more tokens and play for example, a nasty surprise like the chest turning into a Beastman!)