Schmiegel said:

Interesting. Does that include the "bonus quests" The Aerie of Death , The Chase , and Cult of the 100 ?

Schmiegel said:

I think they could realistically have been expected to fix a lot of the reported problems before publication. Based on descriptions I saw posted, a lot of them should have been obvious from any honest playtest with a standard game set (like not having enough map pieces, missing the rune key for a door, etc.).

Releasing errata is certainly better than simply NOT releasing errata, but in my personal opinion, any major errata for a quest means it needs to be completely reprinted. A separate errata document is OK for rules, because you're ultimately going to memorize them anyway, and all players can work together to double-check each other; but for a quest, where only one person is allowed to see the document and they're probably reading it for the first time while they play, needing to cross-reference a separate errata sheet is unacceptable. If I had bought the Quest Compendium, I would probably create my own merged quest documents incorporating the errata and print them at my own expense rather than trying to play with the actual book I had bought, and that seems a pretty solid indication that the product is defective.

Of course, I wouldn't have bought the Quest Compendium even if it was perfect, firstly because I'm nowhere near to running out of vanilla quests, and secondly because I'm playing Enduring Evil anyway so I can't even make use of vanilla quests, but the problems with the compendium would constitute a third sufficient reason for me to not buy it.

I also saw some complaints that some of the "fixes" involved simply removing interesting-but-problematic parts rather than balancing them, though having never seen the originals I can't comment on that.

First off, yes, it does include the Aerie of Death, The Chase and Cult of the 100. Those were all enjoyable, and for me, probably in that order. I wonder why it has been so long since the last one (Cult of the 100) was posted. It seems like it would be a really nice service to offer additional quests along those lines from time to time. It would help fill in some of the interminable voids such as the one we are in now....when the Descent starship is apparently somewhere between here and a nearly inconceivably distant galaxy. Hopefully the vessel hasn't been lost.

No question it would have been preferable for the Quest Compendium to have been better play tested prior to release. My point is that since it wasn't, I at least appreciated that they made a pretty significant attempt to correct it, and I didn't get some of the continuing complaining after that point. Since I haven't actually tried any of those quests yet, I can't really report on the quality of the experience as far as trying to integrate the corrected rule set or whatever into the original. It sounds like people have had positive results though.

When in doubt, I've never been hesitant to just throw in a house rule to rectify a problem with something, but I know a lot of people hate having to do that. I don't doubt that the original was defective, prior to the 10-page FAQ. Logistically, I don't know what all goes into recalling a defective product and replacing it with one where the problems have been resolved, from a business standpoint etc. Ideally that would have happened, yes....but I don't know if it's a realistic expectation or not, only that it didn't happen.

For those who may not know, the Enduring Evil quests are absolutely top notch, and I continue to look forward to playing them when it finally comes together for me. Actually I may well turn to them prior to the Quest Compendium, the more I think about it.

Drglord said:

Zangara?!?

-shnar

Drglord, I was meaning to get back to your question about what is wrong with SOB sooner, sorry.. There are a couple of things, at the least. First and foremost, in my opinion, is that the lieutenant encounters are flawed. There was a discussion about this a while back, and I tried to find it to try to refer you to it, but couldn't.

The Kraken is a complete mess, as far as the rules for movement etc. I would just leave it out of the mix for the moment if you start to play a campaign, or make up your own house rules for it, otherwise it's too frustrating. But more than that, the way lieutenant encounters in general are set up is broken.

Here is an experience that I had with the Siren...in a sea encounter. She just lurked around the peripheral edges of the map, and let her special ability (the siren song) do its work, but never attacked directly or put herself in harm's way as there was no incentive to do that on her end. When the Revenge reached the southern edge of the map (and the encounter ends when the Revenge sails on off the southern edge of the map), the only viable option for defeating the Siren was to anchor and send heroes after her. (Bear in mind also that she can store up threat and spend it on extra movement or attack enhancement, and that once a hero dies in an encounter he/she is off the map for the duration of the encounter.)

While I did have Zyla (with Fly), she didn't stand much chance on her own. (Maybe if I had powered her way up earlier in the campaign it could have been different, but I didn't..). I had Tahlia with Shark Tatoo (swim), but there are sharks in the waters. The other two heroes would have had to swim after the Siren, without the Swim ability.....forget that. Meanwhile the Siren was able to stay out of range of cannons and other ranged weapons fairly easily and just wait it out.

In short, there was little to no chance of defeating the Siren. If you don't defeat her, she just continues to hang around and do her damage (in this case the OL was using the Leviathan plot and the Siren could just hang out and siege and raze one of the 5 binding tokens and then move on to the next (when all 5 binding tokens are razed, the OL wins the campaign). There seems to be a certain inevitability to that happening since all the Siren has to do is hold serve and not be routed from her present sieging position.

How do you get rid of her if you can never get to her as she just hides on the edge of the map? (Maybe with a powerful Runemaster Thorn or powered up Zyla, but what if you don't have either?)

Someone (and I forget the name) posted some house rules for fixing lieutenant encounters in SOB. I saved them and will send them to you if you like, or maybe you can find them on this forum. (But I went back all the way to early October and couldn't find that conversation.)

Then, I think Divine Favor is a poor idea as well. That is to say, it's a good idea for re-balancing SOB if you start from the premise that it's horribly unbalanced in favor of the OL (which it is). I get a sense that the designers threw Divine Favor in as an afterthought after concluding, too late, that SOB is badly out of balance in favor of the OL. Kind of a desperation move. But we hate Divine Favor, and don't use it. (I'd rather lose as the heroes than win by Divine Favor.)

So Lieutenant encounters, Divine Favor and The Kraken are all flawed in SOB, in my opinion, and in need of correction. Also, FFG hasn't provided any FAQ support for it in forever, and even when they did it was minimal. You get a sense they no longer want to touch it with a ten foot pole and just want to forget about it.

Too bad, too, because in so many ways it has so much promise. So much in fact, that I'm just planning to incorporate some fixes and kind of re-tool it to some extent to make it playable. Sorry for the lengthy post!

One last thing, it has nothing to do with the Skill cards. That's easy to fix anyway, even if it were. Just keep them all in play, and ignore what FFG tells you to do with the skill cards in SOB. Why not? Why follow their advice for the inclusion or not with specific skill cards when they haven't even demonstrated the ability to orchestrate a decent lieutenant encounter play engine?

We've contemplated using the SoB rule set but scrapping the sea map and replacing encounters with overland encounters. We'd have to do something with the Ghost ship and avoid Captain Bones, but I don't see any immediate problems with it and it avoids the biggest pile of poo in the SoB rules: sea battles. Alternatively, just cutting the encounter maps in half might go a long way towards making the lieutenants no longer be immortal without luck on the heroes' part.

Steve-O said:

Lol, wow you read my mind Steve-O. I also would not be disappointed at all with a 2nd edition, and I also actively tried to avoid buying SoB and the Quest Compendium but caved in the end and got both (I have no willpower ). I do think they'd be wise to try and keep as much compatible as possible (such as the scale like you mentioned), but I do think making a 2nd edition with some serious play testing and revision would really be the best next step for the game.

Another vanilla expansion as poorly made as the Sea of Blood one could really wreck the game....especially if it's for vanilla and includes loads of weird or imbalanced heroes, cards, monsters or other things that may be implemented into a normal game *shudder*.

*Edit* I had to log in before I could type this and got a weird message from FFG telling me not to ask rules questions in the forums and instead use their "Customer Service Site". Which is completely ridiculous since I've asked about 30 questions on various games there and gotten like 2 replies.......Anyone else seen something similar or think that it seems a little strange?

Kartigan said:

Yeah I saw the same thing a few weeks ago. I'm not entirely sure what motivated it (especially considering how sporadic the responses are to officially submitted questions, based on what I've heard other people saying.) I think they were mainly just trying to remind people that the forums are populated by fans, not by FFG representatives, and that anything said here may or may not be supported by the staff.

That's certainly a good thing to keep in mind, although I think if people actually stopped asking rules questions in the forums, this place would shrivel up pretty quickly.

OK, what about new game mechanic... I would change one thing that is always bugging me. It's rule that every player can wear every type of armor. I can understand that characters have a different base (printed) armor, i love to think that was hero toughness (muscular body, lighting reflexes etc.). So i'm OK with this, it makes sense!!! But what's about grandpa wizard in plate mail armor??? After 15 years of D&D this little thing is annoying me a lot! So here is my idea...

I would make a 3 different armor value: melee, ranged & magic! Heroes who are magic users would be use cloth only! They usually have base (printed) armor value of 0, so one example of cloth robe would be : melee=0, ranged=1, magic=3 (some base cloth robe). Ranged heroes would wear both cloth & leather armor. Leather armor would have some better value against ranged attack so base armor you can buy at start would be melee=1, ranged=3, magic=0! Knight would use plate/chain mail with value of melee=3, ranged=1, magic=0!

This way you will always keep your magic users behind in melee monster situations and push them to the front line if Sorcerers come around the corner. Also this way you get around one of the most GAME BRAKING things (for me) when one tank warrior has 6 armor value and 16-20 HP, who's almost Terminator amongst little children (mine one-shot wonders monsters)! That way warrior will keep out from Overlords pesky magic users trough whole game... Keeping intense is one of rare things that this game sometimes doesn't deliver! Also this way OL doesn't always need picking/swarming little mage with 12 HP and armor of 3/4 just to make sure that he would get some conquest (playing weak ranged hero myself really was a game breaker for me. OL was all over me the whole game)!

So what you think about this change? It is theme & game play change that change a simplicity of base rules and brings some flavor to the game... Now you can pick weak old wizard (or any weak ranged hero a.k.a. "Jack of all trades") and don't be scared to be crushed by OL! Didn't try it. but i think that this new rules won't brake game balance. I would also include those 3 types of armor value to the monsters, so some monsters would take less damage in melee, but more in range or magic & vice versa!

Also i would put some weight value to the items, so heroes would need to pick to wear some really heavy plate armor and bad ass two-handed axe and become flat footed or use a lighter armor with those axe, or maybe instead of axe use one handed sword etc. This would bring some decisions making by players to the game. When here is flat footed he can't for example use skill cards & moves slower. This item weight would be in 3 variation: high value by melee, middle value for ranged heroes and lowest for magic users!

These rules is for people who's (just like me) want some more realism in fantasy world of Descent!!!!

After 15 years of D&D this little thing is annoying me a lot! So here is my idea...

These rules is for people who's (just like me) want some more realism in fantasy world of Descent!!!!

D&D is not about realism and neither is Descent

Weight is already handled by the heavy armour reducing your speed, what is wrong with the current system?

The game balance you say that your looking for already exists and item selection is also encouraged towards your predilection by restriction on rune use and speed reduction.

Mages have strong attacks at middle range but suffer from low hit points and armour

Melee characters are tough and strong but suffer from the need to be adjacent and generally lower movement

Ranged characters have have high movement, fatigue and range but suffer from low damage and middling hp and armour.

Changing all armour to have 3 different types would seriously screw with game balance and I think Melee character would become useless. A rock paper scissors system would be more a lot more abuse-able by the overlord.

apbevan said:

OK, you have a point there...

but i would make some additional rules to the game... i would add 'em in house rules and play 'em with my D&D crew, who want to make Descent some more than just a board game....

Those amount of great game tiles and figures just look larger then life for me... they need a more micromanagement to full enjoyment! Some D&D/Descent cohesion über prototype boardgame! Hmmm, maybe it's just me!

Jocinetu said:

OK, I could wax poetic about how your implication that every fantasy game should use the same concepts and mechanics is offensive and destructive. I could argue at length that Descent's current system achieves a lot more verisimilitude than what you're proposing, and how it handles edge cases elegantly rather than requiring everyone to fit neatly into a contrived and abstract taxonomy to avoid breaking. I could explain how Descent's creators undoubtedly thought of (and rejected) very similar ideas when the game was being designed, and that Descent's mechanics already satisfy a lot of the same high-level goals. I could criticize your suggestions for numerous and severe obstacles to balance that I'm not sure they can overcome, and question whether you even understand the tactics used in Descent now.

But that's really all academic, because even if this were the coolest idea since sliced bread, there's simply no way it's happening. You're suggesting a massive shift in tactics that would probably ruin the balance of pretty much all published quests and dungeons, as well as demanding new information appear on heroes and armors that would require reprinting them all even if they don't need to be completely redesigned. In short, you're invalidating most of what's already been published and throwing away a massive amount of finished work.

Using this idea may have been workable if you decided on it early in the development process of a new game, but applying it as a retrofit to an existing game is just not a realistic option. It's like if I suggested that The Enduring Evil should be the next Descent expansion; you're talking a whole new edition, at minimum.

Antistone said:

sometimes i just love the stuff you write. i experience arguments like this from my group that has D&D experience and it really makes me want to pull my hair out.

Jocinetu said:

Would this be a bad time to point out that the current edition of D&D also allows wizards to wear plate mail if they want to? Assuming they're willing to spend the feats to get proficiency, there's no other penalty to spellcasting in heavy armor anymore.

If this is a flavour thing you want to do, that's cool. The way Descent is written as is, there IS an encouragement for casters not wearing heavy armor in the form of most heavy armors preventing the use of Runes (which as a caster''s bread and butter) but if you want to restrict it even more, that's your business.

However, fantasy settings in general don't necessarily uphold the same strictures that D&D used to. Even LotR, arguably the quintessensial source of inspiration for D&D showed wizards like Gandalf swinging swords and occasionally wearing breastplates of metal. It's an affectation that wziards can't wear heavy armor, not a Law of All Fantasy.

Steve-O said:

but but, he is old, how can he swing a sword?!?! arguing with D&D'ers is pretty much pointless. D&D 4.0 is for nubs, 3.0 is what the real hard cores play...

pppftttt

duhtch said:

X2 we play 3.5 edition Pathfinder