Make sure you have Okaluk and Rakash, get the skill "taunt", and also have one other hero with Leadership.

With the stealth ability, O & R can avoid an additional 1/3 of all attacks. Adding taunt, the OL is forced to attack them (unless legally cannot target them), then to top it off, have the other hero place a dodge order on them (or they could place it themselves using a ready action).

I just conceded (after only one dungeon) when at the start of level 3, the injured heros simply kept restocking for hit points (they were very close to death in level 2), as my copper beastman war party was simply unable to get through the stealth, and subsequent dodge rolls. When one considers the attack die, with only a single X, but the stealth die with two "x's", using a dodge order along with that is exceptionally difficult. I have read different opinions on the math of such possibilities, so give it the 67% that seems to be predominant. Though it would seem that this lessens when being forced to roll a 2nd time (dodge), it instead increases by having to risk the 16 and 26 "x" results on both rolls.

Result: Game over, the OL cannot win if this comes up early in the AdvCamp.

There are those that will point out that with TOI, the OL has monsters with the stealth ability, but they only come around on occasion, as opposed to the full-time play of a member of the hero party.

Though I am fairly new to Descent, I am an experienced board gamer, and it seems to me as if this combination of heros might not have been fully thought out. Still, I defy any OL to allow the heroes to create this party (customized) at campaign start, and see if this OL can even last through copper levels.

For my play, we are looking into a house rule to change the design effects of stealth, else we are losing willing players. Eitehr we play without TOI as a whole, or create a new mod that would address this overbalance. Until FFG recognizes that this combination is death for the OL, though I recommend Descent as a game, I cannot recommend TOI as an expansion.

Phloyd113 said:

This is alarmist and inaccurate.

Taunt is trivially easy to avoid (it has relatively little effect on melee monsters for example), or at least reduce it's effect into something extremely minor, thought Leadership is a very nice skill and combo's very well with O&R.
You may, or may not, be making a relatively common mistake with Taunt that comes from not reading it properly.
The OL is never forced to attack a Taunting hero. Never. However, if he chooses to attack, and that attack is capable of hitting the Taunting monster (and originates within 5 spaces) at that time then his attack must target the Taunter.
So melee monsters simply don't declare attacks when adjacent to the Taunter, they move to another position and attack from a different location. And ranged (including Magic) attacks simply need to have a LOS obstruction between them and the Taunter. That's easy enough to arrange, as monsters can move before and/or after they attack. They simply move to a location where they can't see the taunter, but can see another target, attack, then move away to let the next monster repeat.

An O&R with Taunt is actually a good thing for the OL - it means he has wasted a skill slot that could have been much more usefully spent on Acrobat, Tiger Tattoo, Ox Tattoo, Swift or even a combat skill.

In general, O&R is a good hero, especially if another hero can give him dodges with Leadership. But he has weaknesses too - that lack of fatigue is crippling until it can be significantly boosted (he needs 5+ as a runner) and his damage output is low. It is also very dangerous to have your runner as a melee hero because you become especially vulnerable to monsters that melee heroes struggle with. Like Soaring monster outdoors, or Shades with Ghost. In particular, outdoor encounters, especially with Lts that have Soarers, can become extremely dangerous, and that is where the game is truly won or lost.

I'd back my chance as OL of winning the whole campaign, let alone lasting through copper (note that the heroes can only win in copper if the OL concedes, so my definition of 'lasting' here is being around even or ahead in CT), if giving the heroes Okalak with Taunt and another hero with Leadership. For one, it means the heroes are inexperienced, since any experienced player knows that Taunt can be dealt with easily, for two they are giving up a useful skill slot on a weak skill, in a game that can be tight, and for a third they are likely to have a vulnerable party, with a melee strong runner (or a tank that can't fight, if that is how they use O&R), and at least two skills and one special ability that do not improve their damage dealing capabilities.
Leadership is a great skill, but it isn't worth that much disadvantage!

The way you state it makes it seem as if we have been playing anumber of other things incorrectly, but I wouldn't know where. I don't have the specific details, but I was faced, in the very first dungeon, the lowest AC was 3 (O & R), and the party had an AC 6, with 2 AC 4's. Not that it changes things much, but to ignore O & R was just as deadly as trying to get past the stealth and dodge rolls.

Some of this stems from the magical ability for chest items to traverse through mid-air so to be equipped by any hero in the level, regardless of location relative to the chest itself. When faced with a party full of sprinters, it doesn't take much for them to become financially well off, as well as equipped with weapons and armor in their 1st or 2nd turn. Once there, the OL is already reeling with the incoming damage, losing his minions far faster than they can be replaced.

You seem to make it sound easy to avoid O & R, though that isn't always the case. An experienced party would make sure that in the two-square wide halls of the dungeon, that O & R is in the front, making it nearly impossible for the OL to avoid being forced to attack them (as long as they remain at least 1 square removed from the next open area, this is forced upon the OL). The party can truly just stand there while the OL's monsters get whittled away by the only other hero in the front, until there are no longer any OL monsters present.

Further, when it comes to ranged attacks, though I made my best effort to move my monsters so that they did not have LOS to O & R, this is further complicated when having the Sorcerer KIng with the upgrade "snipers", which grants the skeletons the ability to ignore one figure or obstacle. In this case, it becomes even MORE difficult for the OL to position his forces such that these archers are unable to trace a valid line of sight to O & R, thus triggering the "taunt" ability.

To sum it up, it is as if you have never been put in this position before, and I maintain my position that the described combination ought not to be permitted, or instead, have stealth modified for all (including OL monsters) in some way. I will add the misery that this very same party went through when they (unfortunately) had a trail encounter immediately upon leaving Tamiril for the first time. This encounter was with Windigos, one of the two monsters with stealth, in an area which was easily blocked by the Master, in a tree, and resulted in a TPK. Though this indicates that it goes both ways, I remind the reader that the OL only gets these monsters on occasion, but the heros are there in every case.

Other than removing entirely the TOI expansion while playing AdvCamps, I can only invent house rules that impact the skill of stealth itself, and I have not read anything in this forum that suggest one. My ideas are to roll the dice as per the rules, but the stealth skill then requires a "confirmation" re-roll of the stealth die, and then, only with a second "X" result, does the initial shot miss. This could be applied to the OL monsters as well.

Again, I will not permit the combination in the future as the OL, nor will I play the game as a hero when the same thing could happen.

Without specifics, but to sum up this horrible experience. I gained 7 XP in the encounter (yes, I let two heros slip trhough with the hope of having them turn around and help the two remaining, so I only got half of the XP for the TPK). After the first (and only dungeon), the OL was behind by about 28-19, keeping mind that the OL had 7 XP even before entering the first dungeon. Thus, without a convenient and nasty encounter, the OL would have been behind 28-12, and well behind in the first stages of a copper campaign, at a time when the OL should be even or gaining ground.

All due respect, but I haven't read anything that would have me play an AdvCamp with the TOI heroes and skills again.

Phloyd113 said:

Actually the only thing I in any way intimated regarding playing rules wrong was that you might, and I did say might, have been making a common mistake regarding not reading Taunt properly. Most people who complain about it are.

I am guessing that you are counting shields in your above armour values, since without shields your totals are extremely improbably. Heck, that's pretty improbable even with shields, so likely includes multiple defensive copper items - another extreme improbability in the first dungeon. Or you are using some badly imbalanced custom heroes or something. But it's hard to tell without proper details.
Do not that shields (Skull Shield aside) don't actually add AC - though they do greatly improve effective toughness.

A party that 'tough' usually has significant weaknesses elsewhere too - like damage dealing potential for example.

OTOH some parties are simply better than others.

Phloyd113 said:

1. You can block people sprinting through for chests by placing a monster on them. It won;t slow them down for long, but at least they'll need to actually use an attack before just clearing all the loot.
2. Chests usually have very little treasure in them. In fact on average, they only have 2/3 of a single treasure for the whole party combined. Is that something else you are doing wrong?

Phloyd113 said:

Well, you knew they had Taunt before you chose Snipers, so it isn't very fair to complain if you shot yourself in the foot!
You could always (well, often) use the extraordinary long range that snipers allows to prevent your skeletons from being Taunted! Taunt only works within 5 spaces remember, and Sniperised copper skeletons have an auto +3 Range (+4 masters), and another +1 when you get your first monster upgrade.

Phloyd113 said:

To sum it up I've played an awful lot with and against a wide variety of combinations and what you describe is not particularly powerful. I've played an entire campaign with (as opposed to against) O&R, with another hero having Leadership, sometimes to the OL's great frustration (particularly when the dice were running against him) but it was a very close thing overall and O&R didn't dominate in any way. There are significantly better heroes.
To be fair, I dont have a lot of campaign experience with Taunt. The reason? Because both myself and my opponent are completely familiar with it and know that it is not a particularly powerful skill against an experienced OL, so don't take it.

FWIW we (my small group) expect the heroes to take a lead early in copper, until the OL can get his first monster upgrade. Noob groups often blunder around and their heroes fall behind, but competently played heroes should be able to get 40+XP before the OL can buy a monster upgrade. So at 28-19 (ish) you are actually pretty much exactly on our usual track - bearing in mind that an awful lot depends on what dungeon levels get pulled, and when.

With all due respect, you've admitted yourself that you are inexperienced with Descent, let alone an Advanced Campaign. I submit to you, that regardless of what any one person tells you (meaning me for now, regardless of what I actually say about the game...), you ought to play a bit more, learn a bit more about the game's tactics and strategies and get a bit more experience before you start telling the community what's wrong with it.
You could have started by stating that you had this problem and didn't have a clue what to do, and asked for help. For example. You would have (and still will, if you give more details about the party, equipment, draws etc and the dungeon levels drawn) gotten a lot of help here.

Thanks for that. I wasn't trying to infer that you said I was playing something wrong, those were my words, not yours.

I understand taunt, and was aware of the 5 range limit. On that note, I didn't actually state that, in this case, I was using the Sorcerer King, but I had that Avatar on my previous campaign (we used RTL and WoD, not having any other expansions), and I placed that there in my horror as to how bad it might have been had that been the choice. This is the first time we played with ToI, and also, AoD with it. Perhaps we might have had a better time of it if we had waited on ToI until we had played an AdvCamp with the previous two expansions (we have not ever played SoD).

Yes, the values given were with shields, of course. Bad luck on early market draws bringing out some of the (new) armor with +3 conditions, coupled with the stock +2 chain, and the one hero managed an early +3 armor also (thus the +6).

Two of the hero players are experienced, and their third (one doubles up) usually does what his teammates tell him to do, so I count that as an equally prepared player (I am ALSO aware that the recommendation is for the most experienced player should be the OL, but I am no dummy). In our previous campaign, these players showed themselves to choose sprinters, and I handed them their throats, which they conceded just as the campaign went to silver (the CT were about 115-85 in favor of the OL). Still, in now four plays (3 with our reduced set, and this short trip with the two new ones), and collectively we haven't seen silver yet (as per other readings I have come across here, the OL wins, until this new campaign. I don't mind losing, but this showed me how ludicrous it was to continue).

So, I see no way out of this but to either stop playing the game, or strive to find a compromise with my other players (this is difficult, as they naturally want to win the campaign themselves, but I think they too understand the futility of playing 60-100 hours in a fruitless cause, which is why I resigned this time), but not finding anyone else with this issue, I now have to question if we are playing the game correctly on the whole (clearly, we cannot go through every nuance here, though one can point out that there are an awful lot of questions which are brought forward).

Though we can struggle through with the mystical transportation of chest items through walls, over monsters, and into the waiting hands of a hero (and others), this still makes this expansion unplayable in my eye, without removing permanently the O & R hero, which without removing the monsters that use stealth, is unbalanced also. Thus the only way out I see is to remove ToI entirely, and play without it, save creating (yet another) house rule to adjust the stealth die (I will recommend to adopt the idea that I put forth previously; if the stealth die shows an "X", it must be rolled again, with an "X", in order to finally miss a stealth figure. Other, to instead add just another attack die, or use a standard D6, and only one result would be the miss for the stealth die). I didn't want to take this up in the house rules forum, as we haven't tried it here yet. But I will assure my playing partners still that, ToI stealth will be moderated, or removed, if we are to continue playing. As I see it, even with your points, that combination is lethal to the OL, assuming skilled hero players.

By the way, don't let my inexperience steer your thoughts. I have played much more complex games than this over my years. I was playing high level Avalon Hill games at age 15 (we wont speak of the year....lol). Does the name Advanced Squad Leader ring a bell? Or more currently, Hearts of Iron? You made no mentioned of the complexity in this collection, but I wanted to dispel any thought one might have that I am unable to fathom complex games.

Lastly, thanks again, and if you have the authority, you may remove this thread in its entirety.

Phloyd113 said:

Wait, you guys quit because one side was up by less than 30%?
CT is not VP. It is also not expected to be 'even' at all times. This game has swings and roundabouts, and if it stays even all the way the OL is probably screwed!

It seems your main problem is in how much challenge you will accept, not the actual game. I don't mean that in a personal way, even thouh it might sound like it (sorry). This game can be tough , but that just makes coming out the other side all the sweeter (and means you don't get bored so fast on repeats!)

Phloyd113 said:

I did not in any way imply you (or your players) weren't experienced gamers in general, or capable of playing complex games.
But that very experience (especially ASL) should lead you to understand my point here. You are playing a new game that you haven't learnt the complexities of, and further, you are playing the Advanced version. It isn't really a surprise when you run into seemingly unsurmountable difficulties, but you sound experienced enough in gaming in general to understand that your difficulties are not necessarily related to the game itself but could easily (and in this case almost certainly are) be related instead to your relative inexperience with this particular game.
I'll beat you didn't jump into the most advanced and complex ASL scenarios straight off, but built up to them by playing simpler scenarios - probably starting with just squad weapons and over time adding in support weapons and vehicles.

Like I said. I'll give you an O&R with Taunt, even with a Leadership attached to another hero, with pleasure and hand-rubbing glee. It has it's uses, but it is simply a sub-standard combination in terms of the entire game. IMO.
It most certainly is not game-breakingly overpowered though!

Oh, and BTW. ToI is the biggest boost for heroes since the original set. Feats are simply a one-sided power boost. With 3-1 in favour of the OL already, you'd be made to chuck ToI...

Now I am a bit offended. The very best games (IMO) are those that come down to the final possibility. I dislike routs from either side. For RTL, my best would be to see the party get to the Avatar, get down to one remaining hero with 1 HP, and the Avatar in the boat, then the final die roll is the end. From that perspective, I wouldn't care which side I were on, and that's what I'm shooting for here. In ASL, even with overwhelming odds, I would strive to find that one last gasp of effort to have my one remaining half-squad in possibly the right place, to ****** victory. If it doesn't happen, at least we can toss about the what if's.

That being said, yes, I gave up because I saw what was going to take place, and that was the OL was going to continue to face the same thing repeatedly, until the heroes won. The choices are slim when facing this kind of party.

A. Use and upgrade humanoids so that you can hit harder. Well, your Beastmen, Kobolds, and Ferrox cannot keep up with sprinters, that is ruled out.

B. Eldritch. Great, they have speed, and with the pierce of the skeletons, they can do more damage than some would think just by looking at their card, but these are easily killed.

C. Beasts? Sure, but again, many of those are very slow, and can be easily outran, while those with speed are very weak. A possibility here lies with the Razorwings, who can target specific heroes and more easily avoid O & R, but they can be shot down with wizards using guard actions.

Of course, when talking about monster upgrades, what difference does that make if so many shots are misses?

Keep in mind that, as long as the heroes continue to force the OL monsters to attack O & R, the other heroes will tear you to shreds.

Traps? Might be the best bet, since the stealth ability has no effect on traps. But that threat expenditure will find you out of monsters (not spawning) quickly enough as well. All the time any one hero that gets down in HP can run to a glyph, pop to the surface, and restock, repeated as needed (lol)..

In review, I had 2 beastmen, and a Master beastman attacking O & R exclusively (the other heroes were doing the "as needed" things), so we were alone. After three rounds, I had inflicted no wounds (O & R only had 4 left), and merely by stroke of luck did I finally manage two straight rolls without an "X" somewhere, AND with enough damage to kill them. Of course, they come right down the ladder again fully healed.

Have we been overlooking that when a dodge is applied, that usually the best damage dice are being thrown again, usually to a lessor result (thus perhaps no longer penetrating armor)?

I agree that the heros needed some boost, even with my inexperience. Reading here it is a popular opinion that the heroes lose more often than win, and that held true in my few campaigns also (incidentally, I gave them 5 sets of 3 heros to choose from, allowing a bit of trading from them to help them out, so on that note, I am not into winning handily every time myself. I want good games, not overwhelming ones)

Maybe you could do better, but from what I saw in my travesty, I just can't imagine how. So, instead of playing this over and over again, for endless hours with the same result, I simply cannot accept those combinations, else there is no point in playing the game. And yes, I still view this as poorly play-tested (not to mention that the rule books themselves could use some serious re-writing). Play testing takes considerable time, particularly when play testing a full campaign, I understand how this can be cut short. Even at that, play testing is an art in itself, in that the testers must know enough about the game so that they can quickly create the most powerful combinations that they can in order to determine if such may be overpowering.

Thank you again, but this is not helping me much. I will maintain my position as OL that my heroes simply cannot use the ToI, or we create another house rule as to how the stealth die works. However, without O & R with taunt and the inevitable dodge, I believe that ToI is a good add-on BECAUSE of the feats for the heroes.

I will offer my suggestion to my players that the stealth die be rolled twice, if the first roll results in an "X", the second "X" confirms the miss (regardless of if this is O & R, or one of the OL Monsters, since they saw it in both applications, devastating in both directions).

Phloyd113 said:

This statement is certainly true, however, it presupposes that Taunt is forcing you to attack O&R with most of your attacks. That should not be happening. If you're playing taunt properly and you know your way around it, you can, as Corbon has said, avoid being baited into attacking the taunting hero with most monsters.

The fact that you are being trapped by this card is an indication that you should play a few vanilla games to get the hang of things before jumping in the deep end with the AC.

Phloyd113 said:

In this game, the heroes need to keep moving to stay alive. If they run back to town to heal every time they suffer a decent hit, that means they're wasting time that you can and should be capitalizing on. You may not be earning CT from killing heroes, but you're still running through your deck, and fewer heroes on desk means more room to spawn stuff. I can understand how it might be hard to see how you can do that, especially on the smaller AC dungeon maps, but that's yet another reason to be familiar with the original game before moving into AC.

Phloyd113 said:

This is a perfect example of how you're falling prey to taunt, either because you're misinterpreting the rule or because you're leaving yourself open. Beastmen are melee monsters. All they have to do to avoid being taunted is not stand beside the hero with taunt when they declare their attack. Taunt does not force them to move (even if they have the MP remaining), it only forces them to change the target of the attack they just declared they were making, if able.

There are relatively few chokepoints where your beastmen would be forced to stand adjacent to any one hero in order to attack another, and even if the dungeon level you're playing has such a chokepoint, just keep your beastmen far, far away. The heroes cannot (should not) be able to afford waiting there for you to come to them.

Phloyd113 said:

I would be surprised if you were doing the dodge re-roll incorrectly. You and your group sound like you have a fairly firm grasp of probabilities and dice rolls, and I'm sure you're aware of which faces on the dice are the "good" ones that should be re-rolled. Understand, no one here is trying to insult your ability to play games in general. But Descent in particular has a number of "interesting" rules that involve non-intuitive tactics to best exploit. Once you get used to it, it's easy enough to play, but getting used to it is rarely as straightforward as most new players tend to assume.

Phloyd113 said:

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that the heroes lose more often than they win. That is certainly the case at first since a large amount of the non-intuitive tactics I was reffering to are on the hero side of the board. New hero players often make mistakes like trying to kill every monster on the board before advancing, or splitting up to maximize treasure gain. That results in them losing. Once the heroes learn the basics of what not to do, they start gaining ground rapidly. The OL player needs to be pretty ruthless to put down an experienced hero group, and that's where the tables start turning. A lot of OL players see themselves as some sort of "DM" and are thus reluctant to actually go full bore, so once the heroes aren't making rookie mistakes anymore, they start to win more often. Unless their OL is a heartless bastard, in which case things stay about even (give or take some statistical variance.)

Phloyd113 said:

I won't argue that the game was poorly playtested, or that the rulebook is poorly organized. Those things are definitely true. Quest difficulty is all over the map in vanilla, and I agree that it's a little disappointing that the OL needs to go for an early victory if he wants to stand a decent chance of winning at all. I think the game would be ten times better if it could be neck-and-neck all the way to the end.

That said, it's also true that the intended game design is different from what a lot of people expect out of a game like this. Approaching it from the wrong perspective can only compound the impression of poor design. Understanding the AC, in particular, involves recognizing that it is, in fact, two games merged together. The dungeon game is pretty much the same as vanilla, except in tighter quarters (which only makes it that much more brutal), whereas the Overland game is a more strategic, "big picture" game. If you haven't played vanilla extensively, you'll tend to get caught up in the dungeon action when, in reality, the dungeons are just a quick money run to fuel the advancement of the larger Overland game.

If you want the game to properly hinge on your performance (or the heroes' performance) inside the dungeon, then you should be playing vanilla quests. If you continue to play the AC with the same expectation, you're just going to keep ragequitting because things look dour after one or two dungeons. Yes, the action is repetitive, and yes, it will mostly be the same every time. In the AC, it isn't about beating the heroes in any single dungeon - unless they draw an unusually hard dungeon level in early copper or otherwise run into an uncommon obstruction, they're probably going to complete every dungeon they walk into (or leave voluntarily if they figure out the Dungeon Blitz tactic.) The only question is how much CT you milk out of them before they do so.

My most sincere advice to you is that you go back and play vanilla quests for a bit. Rotate who plays OL every other dungeon or so (it will make things much more enjoyable if everyone knows both sides of the game.) Maybe you're insulted by the idea of playing the "basic" game, but the fact is that the basic game isn't that basic. It's a complex game in its own right and the AC game only adds more layers on top of it. Come back to AC once you're confident in your ability to put down an above average hero party in vanilla and see how things go from there. Also, make sure you're up to snuff on the FAQ.

Of course, you're free to do whatever you want, but I highly doubt your experiences with the game will improve if you keep going the way you have been. You came here for advice, we're giving it to you. Take it or leave it.

I have to agree with the people who are saying that Taunt isn't that big of a deal. It looks incredibly powerful at first, and until you've got a handle on it it'll be incredibly powerful. But line of sight is a funny beast in Descent, and it's pretty easy to manipulate it to your benefit, especially when you've got as many critters as the OL can have out (6 skeletons in a single Legions of the Dead wreaks havoc with LOS).

For example, a single figure placed diagonally from the taunting hero block the adjacent square's LOS t the taunter but not to things that are behind him, so a solitary kobold can clear the firing line for any number of skeletons (who have the range and the speed to get the shot off) or any other small ranged monster. Just be sure to count the movement so everyone can move-shoot-move until the last guy has gone.

I was going to use the online LOS checker, but it doesn't include the rule that figures you don't have LOS to don't block LOS, so I'll try it in text.

M X X

X B X

X T X

X H X

X - empty square

M - the monster doing the shooting

B - the monster acting as blocker

T - the hero with Taunt

H - The hero you want to kill

M has line of sight to H, but he does not have Line of Sight to T, so Taunt cannot work. As long as M has enough movement to get to that square and shoot, then move again, he clears the way for another M to move up and shoot. Skeletons (without Sniper) are by far your best weapon against Taunt because of their high speed, range, and how many you get with a single spawn or at the start of a dungeon. Other monsters are good too though. Shades have the pierce to make their shots count and the maneuverability to make up for lower speed (so they're not tripping over each other). Sorcerers are more likely to be stuck in the spot when they fire, but if the target isn't heavily armored they'll do more damage than a skeleton or shade.

Also, you said something about wanting a campaign where the final result hinged on the last die roll of the Final Fight. If that, or even anything resembling it, is what it takes for you to enjoy the game, then Road to Legend isn't for you. The Final Fight is a joke for the most part, and if the OL hasn't won by then he's not going to come close. That's how it should be though, as the OL has several other paths to victory so giving him a 50/50 shot in the final battle would be unfair to the heroes, who can only win it there.

Thanks again, but now it seems as though the point is moot. It seems that the game (for us) is being shelved, and not to be played further.

Phloyd113 said:

That's such a shame. All the time and money put into the game for it to be sitting on a shelf collecting dust, but I guess you gotta do what you feel you have to do.

I didn't read this thread, because I honestly am very interested in getting Tomb of Ice right now, and don't want it spoiled. But if you found some balancing issues, you can always bar/restrict the broken combination via houserules

There are some options in the game that favor one side too much; for instance, dark glyphs are pretty **** powerful and can be annoying for heroes. Depending on the setup of the dungeon, we sometimes bar them from play to give each side a more even shot at victory.

We also view hand-picking treachery cards as being unfair and limiting, so we always choose them in random.

What makes the game fun is that there's a great diversity of tactical options That some are more effective than others is obvious, but it doesn't mean you have to exploit them constantly for easier wins.

zealot12 said:

That's exactly what he said he was going to do. 90% of this thread has been us trying to explain why doing so was really not necessary.

Sounds like he and his friends have decided to give the game a break for a while anyway.

Hm I thought building your strategy around the a custom party's abilities and play style was half the fun of the overlord.

Sure winning combos can be discouraging, but I really don't think you gave yourself much of a chance giving up so early.

Phloyd113 said:

Just because you are an experienced gamer doesn't mean you are good at Descent. Now you are going to pack up and not play the game because it doesn't align with how you think how things should work.

"Though we can struggle through with the mystical transportation of chest items through walls, over monsters, and into the waiting hands of a hero"

You aren't playing by the rules, you aren't even using the terms correctly. AC...is not used in Descent. In fact in my recent campaigns, I am playing with 2 very well experienced D & D players and in fact it imo it has pigeon holed them into being so-so Descent players for the advanced campaign. This game has had many people playing it, you play it once, and you cry for ToI to not even be used, because once again, you don't understand the rules.

Once you learn to grow up (yes, your years out date the moon itself), you may actually like to play this game, but I don't see that happening any time soon. This is a great game, obviously not for everybody though. Good luck with your endeavors, but if you do ever come back to the game, please play all the base game dungeons before jumping into an advanced campaign and have no clue what you are doing.

First of all stealth and taunt is definetely not game breaking and if you think so you are a poor OL. I will take stealth and taunt over a armor 8 nanuk with taunt at copper level any day and any time. Missing 1 to 3 attacks is nothing compared to not be able to deal no damage at all. The OL has tons of way of getting around taunt and can also cause damage with traps which can prove demolishing with trapmaster. Anyway the one thing that is heavily unbalanced is the feat cards. I read some of them and i got mind blown. This expansion with that addition that does nothing to balance it with giving additional resources to the overlord proves one thing though. Either the advanced campaign pre TOI was favoring the OL heavily and it got balanced or it wan't favoring and is now favoring heavily the heroes. That is a fact and you can't argue on that so i wonder what was the idea? Was people complaining about balance? I have read from the heroes are killing everything and i can't do nothing to our OL wins everytime by the campaign hits 100 CT.

My point of view is though that the person that plays the game matters heavily. If you are good or bad matters heavily especially if you are the OL.

Seeing also what you have read to continue that the players conceded a campaign because they were 115 to 85 behind is just plain funny and you also conceding after a single dungeon is also funny and i think alot of guys around here will agree. I have had bad days and good days and in copper level you should be demolishing your players even with powerfull combos. I mean i play as an OL against a group that has 2 +6 characters and one of them is TAHLIA with TAUNT i mean if i don't find that broken then certainly you can't complain for a guy with low armor that just has stealth. I can only guess at the wrong tactics being employed in that game to make you think that a guy with close to zero armor that has stealth and taunt will handicap you so much. (Not to mention taunt on a fast guy is simply bad decision making from the players) since he will be far away from the group most times. Anyway that is my poor judge after about 120 hours of RTL and on the way for the 3rd campaign. With this game you have to be patient something i am trying to teach my players as they tend to get dischearted thinking that if you fall behind in CT it's game over.