ok... so i just cracked open descent last night with a buddy of mine and played through the first quest 2 player... OL vs 2 random heroes... The heroes were the guy with the pet that adds a power die for carrying him and the chick that can force re-rolls.

I played a spawn card each turn for the 1st 3 turns (beastmen, then skeletons then sorcerers) and the game was basically a trainwreck for the heroes... I killed the chick hero twice in the exchange, dropping him from 5 conquest to 1... he barely recovered and had to buy potions to heal up while i got basically 2 free turns of him trying to rest up... then i spawned spiders, more skeletons and hit him with two traps (chest and a spiked pit)...

He ended up losing all his conquest points without ever clearing area 1.

So i've been scouring the web looking for info and i've found the following: The game is alot more difficult with only 2 heroes, while the first quest is considered to be fairly easy overall. Now, on the math, i should be spawning on average every other turn (based on the card pool) and i hit him with one each turn to start the game, before he hit a chest or picked up any gold or the potion...

I read somewhere that Kevin (I think that's the creators name) had posted something on this site about how to weaken or slow the OL in those 2 hero games...

So my questions are basically... where can I find this info? Can the game be played succesfully (through quests like 7 and 5 which i've read are the most difficult) with only 2 heroes?

Just looking for info... thanks to anyone that can help.

Ray

I'm not aware of any rules from the designers for playing with 2 heroes, other than those in the rulebook, which, of course, don't work. I believe Kevin suggested a possible house rule once to use the reinforcement marker from Road to Legend in normal games in order to limit spawning (basically the first spawn each area is normal, and every spawn card after that costs an extra 15 threat). That would probably help, insofar as it weakens the overlord, and spawning is the biggest problem for a party of 2, but it wasn't specifically for 2-hero games, and I really wouldn't recommend playing with 2 heroes even with that rule.

A few of the easier quests can be completed with 2 heroes IF the heroes are really good and have advanced knowledge of the quest. But playing the harder quests with 2 heroes without extensive house rules is really not a good idea, and learning the game with only 2 heroes is really not a good idea.

You could take a look at The Enduring Evil , if you want; it's a homebrew variant I made that, among other things, tries to address the player scaling issues. It works reasonably OK with 2 heroes. But it requires printing a bunch of your own cards, and it's only compatible with quests specifically designed for it.

But the common solution is to always play with at least 3 heroes, regardless of the number of players.

Playing with two heroes is possible if both of the hero players have a good understanding of hero tactics.

I once ran a pre-RtL campaign as the Overlord. It was concluded that unless the hero players can pick their characters they wont have a chance. So they went with two of the strongest heroes in the game. Nanok, and Brother Glyr. With both of them having a high armor, and being somewhat trained in the other two traits (ranged and magic) they could make use of all their weapons they found. Power potions were VERY strong.

It was actually pretty balanced, with their super high armor, my best shots would only do 1 or 2 wounds to them. As the Overlord, my tactics had to change.

I would invite anyone to try this out, but I did this pre-Tomb of Ice as well, so feats might make it too unbalanced.

Thanks for the responses... I'll try out the extra cost idea for spawns for 2 hero games first... if that doesn't work we'll just kick it up to 3 hero games.