My gaming group wantet to bring in a fifth hero, I thing this will maybe make it very hard on the overlord, does anyone have any tips to balance things out?

Here's a fairly recent thread on this topic: http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/16006.page.

Some things you can do include:

Give all the monsters 1 extra armor in addition to 1 extra wound.

Have all the heroes start out with 50 fewer coins (or if this is too hard on the magic users compared to the other heroes, you can make an exception for those heroes with more dice in their magic trait than anything else).

Have the heroes still only draw treasures as though there were 4 of them, and have them choose before each draw who will be shorted.

I haven't playtested any of those, so don't take them as anything more than ideas.

There is no official support regarding having a sixth player (fifth hero), however in terms of balance I would consider the following:

1. The Overlord collects an additional threat token at the start of turn. On top of what would have been recieved. (IE. 5+1)

2. Increase the wounds of every monster by 1 on the 5 player monster stat cards.

3. When a new area is revealed, automatically upgrade one of the monsters to master level, then an additional monster if Brilliant Commander is in play.

4. Have all monsters roll an additional power die, stack with Doom's effect if it is in play.

5. If you have expansions that include treachery, increase the amount available for spawn, trap and event cards by 1 each for the related quest.

There have been several discussions re: six player games, and no suggestions have been made official by FFG. Checking out www.boardgamegeek.com forums on the topic have been very creative and, at times, excessive. Apparently people want to bring their sixth gamer into the fold. However, IMHO, all of the proposed ideas have not balanced the game. The Overlord will ALWAYS be at a disadvantage, andthe Heroes will ALWAYS be able to survive. This sounds fun to them, but to keep the game a competitive match of wits and brawn, the game has been playtested exhaustively before publication for only 5 players. Especially with RtL, the game breaks again and again if trying to add a hero. Even the mercernary idea from another topic in this forum does not account for all the extra damage and the extra turn the heroes take advantage of every round. Look this stuff up, it's very detailed and worth checking out if you are still considering playing with six. It just won't work, folks.

The main issue is that the official quests themselves were taliored for 1 to 4 heroes, in some case the quest actually states that it should be attempted by at least 2 or more heroes because they went abit over the top with the difficulty of the quest, or it has a time limit and requires the group to split apart to achieve the goal within said limit.

If you've got some background with Descent (played through a campaign or two already) and have some imagination, it might be worth making your own campaign with custom scenerios taliored to include that extra player.

I think it's better not to add another one.

If I recall correctly, you simply need to add additional wounds and armor (when playing Non RTL), and the OL would recieve 5 base threat per turn (instead of 4). Perhaps placing basic power cards in play (DOOM, Brilliant Commander) would help wing things towards the OL.

For RTL though at the diamond level, a single additional wound on a larger beast (like a dragon) is fairly meaningless. Maybe scale the wounds and armor up?

In the end, the best solution is likely one that you want, because they're arent any offical rulings about this.

Thanks for feedback, I will try some of it, but I hope we will be playing with only 4 heros most of the time.

I have been playing with mostly three players at any given time, I am sure the idea of a sixth player will come along at some point and I am going to have to face the challenge regarding this matter sooner or later. Although no offical rules are out on the subject and most people think the game will be unbalanced I think it would be a fun obstacle to find a true Overlord in. Of course you cannot play a scenario from one of the booklets true-to-word but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to accomodate the situation. Create a lengthier adventure with a stronger monster base, toss in more traps, a boss monster that can bring the house down and puts up one hell of a fight. There is enough creative freedom without needing to alter the rules to create your own dungeons, macabre traps, and tenacious monsters that this shouldn't be a problem (well not as much as people are making it out to be).

Again I haven't had this problem yet, but when the times comes around (and I am certain it will) I will undertake the challenge. In the end I can hardly say no to another player coming on board... more meat for the killing, more bones for the crushing, more dreams for the shattering.

I love the game, I've played numerous times as a Hero and as an Overlord, and I've come across this problem several times. Shortly after purchasing the game I began creating my own quests, and I find that allows for many alterations just because of house rules (ie. special physics rules or an especially tough type of monster found only in this dungeon, etc.) Other times I've added one health to each of the monsters, and I've both won and lost handily. I think the difficulty of the quest is the key, although adding health or armor is also a good idea. For instance, I'll be overlording with some friends tomorrow, and by chance there happen to be 5 heros... I'm tailoring a new quest with 5 starting areas close together, and a disadvantaged start to make it fun (their starting equipment is chosen based on the order in which they find it in their room.) Also fun things like starting with a power card out can even things out a bit. To those who say an overlord can't win against 5 heros... "Nonsense! You're only saying that because noone ever has!" Ooh! Speaking of the Proncess Bride... try tossing in some ROUS's. I wonder how that would work out... now back to editing my quest.