Hello. I am a newb into this game. Have read a lot about it ( from the rulebook and on diffrent forums)

I have 2 questions tho. We have played descent (with some friends) 2 times untill now, and I have been the OL so far. So, there are 2 things I do not understand:

1. the dungeons are separated into 4 areas. let;s take the 2nd part of the 1st quest in the Quest book - Jurney into the dark. there should be 2 skeletons, 3 hell dogs and 1 goblin dude in that area. I am curios if the heroes would be able to see what is behind that door ? Because when we played ... they made up a strategy and immediatly after the door opened, all 4 heroes jumped on a mob and killed them all. My question would be, when do i set-up the monsters, after they open a gate? so therefore no strategy can be developed ? it;s odd for them to be able to see what is behind that door, and make a strategy before opening the door.

on the other hand, a hero could open the door, and then the strategy would be developed ... can u guys help ?

and the second question

2. where would i be able to find the PDF version ( or for that matter any kind) of the Quest Book ?

thx in advance and i hope i get some answers today, as i plan in owning them

1. The monsters and everything in an Area is set up as soon as the heros have line of sight to that area, which in most cases means that they just opened the door. Before that, the Area is completely empty, only the map layout is known to the heros.

2. Basically nowhere. On the German distributor´s site for the game, you can find the German version of the base set Quest book. Unless you can read and understand German, it is only helpful for checking the set-up of a quest or the like.

Thx for the replay man. Really helpfull. One question tho - After the hero open the door and they have line of sight - they can create a strategy to kill my minions, right ? so it sux anyways ..

Moshuromania said:

Before the area is revealed, only the map tiles should be laid out. Monsters, obstacles and treasures are only set up once a hero gains Line of Sight to at least one square in the area (typically after a door is opened.) Of course, once the door is open, nothing is to stop the heroes from considering their tactics before continuing with the game - only the hero who has started his turn in order to open the door is bound to whatever Action he declared, and the game doesn't impose a time limit on how long each player takes thinking about his turn.

White monsters will die quickly once the heroes know how to play the game. Don't waste too much effort trying to keep them alive.

Moshuromania said:

If you own the game you should have a copy of the quest book therein. FFG has deliberately removed the quests from their online PDFs because they only want people who own the game to have access to that information.

fair enough. thx and appreciate taking your time to answer.

BTW - can monsters regenerate ? Final boss ( in quest mode) or any other ones?

Moshuromania said:

Only monsters with the Undying ability, such as master skeletons.

tyvm. i will do my best to try and make the game more interesting.

how do you guys handle heroes that use the GUARD ability ? I mean, after they ready - they use the guard mode .. which let them attack my minions 1st

i'm asking for a strategy that might help with this

Moshuromania said:

When a Hero Fighter has guard up, i try and ping him with a archer or some sort of ranged damage first, because if the Hero with the Guard up takes a Wound then the guard is removed. At that point i would move in with my melee monsters.

Or if i have a wounded monster i might send him in first to die then come back with a undamaged monster attack then retreat out of reach of the melee fighter. forcing him to Advance or use fatigue to get back in range.

Try to attack from a long range (if the monster can make the shot), or use a special ability like Breath to attack from a position where the heroes can't hit you. If they interrupt with a Guard, then (if you survive) you can change your mind after they make their attack and move in closer before making yours. If they don't, then if you manage to wound them with your attack, they lose the Guard order.

But a lot of the time, the best you can do is just to move in with the least valuable monster first. Monsters are fodder; don't expect them to survive.

very very helpful. i;ve played the game last night, and i was super close in winning the game

however I have one question. If as an overlord I have (for ex.) 4 power cards in front of me ( activated) do they count as the 8 cards that i have max in my hand at any time? ( i.e - if i have 4 activated power cards - will i be able to still draw cards and have max 8 in hand? or would i be able to have 4 ?)

Power cards in play do not count against your hand limit, so you would still be allowed to have eight in your hand.

thx Parathion.

Btw, we had big fights last night about the "line of vision"... the examples in the book suck .. are there any more examples on the net ? or could someone explain it to me in more details for a better understanding plz ?

You can use this tool to check almost all cases (nice resource site in general, btw):

http://www.descentinthedark.com/_l_/line_of_sight_checker.php

There are some special cases which are not covered by this tool, but it definitely works for the majority of issues.

tyvm, wonderful tool

tundrra said:

I'm a bit confused now. My skeleton card says master skeletons have only pierce and additional range, but I can remember undying sceletons in an english version of a friend. Descentinthedark also says they have the undying ability, but I cannot find anything in rules or FAQ that they changed it.

Are my cards wrong??

Parathion said:

there's a weird situation which can happen with larger creatures. it's totally illogic (even more than in other cases) and therefor we just ignore that. in some cases, you can't trace line of sight to a figure, because another figure is blocking los, while itself can't be traced los to. this is confusing, but a large creature could actually block los to ITSELF. this is just stupid.

extraterrestrial said:

Yes, your cards are wrong if master skeletons don't have undying. Out of curiosity, you mention your version is not English, what language is it? I ask only because there was another thread where it was revealed a foreign language edition had some horrendous errors (I think it was the Italian one? Not sure.)

eNTi said:

Actually, that can't happen. A large figure may occupy several squares, but it is still one figure. If you have LoS to one space the figure occupies, then you have LoS to the figure. You can argue about whether or not you have LoS to a given space, I suppose, but you still have LoS to the figure because you have LoS to the first space, and thus you may attack it or do whatever you need LoS for.

A large figure making an attack can draw LoS from any single square it occupies, so even if it was trying to attack from one square and found that another of its own squares was in the way, it could just attack from that square instead. Unless something else (other than the figure itself) is blocking LoS, this will allow the attack to be made. If both squares are blocked at different angles by other obstacles, that's just tough luck, it's not illogical.

Besides which, there's a certain argument to be made to say that the attacking figure does not block his own LoS for an attack. Since LoS is traced from the center of the origin space to the center of the target space, if the attacker blocked his own LoS one could argue that all Ranged and Magic attacks are impossible.

I'm definitely one of the ones in the "play by RAW and everything will be fine" camp, but even so there's still a line to be drawn between following the rules and being obtuse about them. If you're finding rules that would make the game unplayable, you're probably trying too hard.

Double post, my bad.

On the contrary, since LoS is drawn center-to-center, there are plenty of situations where a large monster would block line of sight to itself. Whether or not this should be ignored is under some contention. My group plays it that you have to have clear LoS to one space occupied by a monster, and if part of a monster is protecting another part, than that's just a slight advantage it gets to even out usually being twice the target and four times as cumbersome. (There are also similar situations where a line of monsters will block LoS to each other, even though none of them are in LoS themselves.)

If one needs a thematic justification, just consider that the monster's scaly plating is arranged in such a way that only a dead-on shot has a chance of penetrating it properly.

-pw

extraterrestrial said:

Your Card is wrong.

Master sceletons have Undying, that was'nt changed on any Time.

Edit: Sorry did'nt see the second Page

Steve-O said:

Thanks. I have the german version. Interestingly I have the "updated" one where some creatures (beastmen, sceleton) and some items are corrected.

Luckily this is the only apparent error I came in contact with.

€:After reading in the german forum it seems to be a nice mess, sometimes even the replacement cards of an addon are without undying. Strange that this is not communicated clearly ... but I know it now.

phelanward said:

The Line of sight would be the center to center of each individaul tile, not the center of each monster. A attack targets a space not a monster, due to AoE attacks.

ye, line of sight is really confussing, I agree, but that tool (above) is wonderfull man.

@tundrra - yes the master skeleton have the undying ability. at least they do in descent journey into the dark

phelanward said:

I agree it is entirely possible that a hero trying to draw LoS to the monster in space X might find his LoS being blocked by the same monster in space Y. What I'm saying is that doesn't matter because the hero still has LoS to the monster he wants to attack in space Y, and may therefore attack it.

If something was further blocking his LoS to space Y, then the figure (or portion thereof) in space Y would not count as blocking his LoS to space X, as per the FAQ (or was it GLOAQ?) ruling concerning the row of beastmen hiding behind a single block. Thus, unless something else (besides space Y) was also blocking his LoS to X, he would have LoS to that space after all.

Either way, Goliath here better watch his ass, cause David has LoS.

Steve-O said:

It was GLoAQ. It's also got important ambiguities, even before arguments about whether you should read "or portion thereof" when it doesn't actually say that. And it creates a whole host of new problems under any interpretation, though it creates far fewer under the less popular and less intuitive strict reading, where monsters that aren't in generic line-of-sight stop blocking line-of-sight only for purposes of attacks, because at least then it isn't circular .