Last Friday we finished our first campaign, with the Overlord wiping us out without mercy. He destroyed Tamalir and we couldn't do anything about it because at Gold Level his Lieutenants were too tough for us. We decided to start a second campaign right away, hopeful that our experience will allow us heroes to play better, and the OL was king enough to allow us to choose our characters from a wider pool than the usual three draws.

In the end we got:

1. Nanok of the Blade

2. Sir Valadir

3. Battlemage Jaes

4. Ronan of the Wild (whom we intend to use as our runner)

What do you guys think about this party? Is it good enough?

Valadir is a weak hero, although he might be good for you in this situation, since (1) his ability is made stronger in RtL, and (2) it can be used to boost his attack strength in traits that your party is somewhat deficient in. Since RtL parties need a bit more ranged and magic options to deal with soarers, it could work out just fine. I would encourage you to not upgrade him in ways which boost a single attack type (focus on stats and general skills, rather than traits and damage skills).

The other three heroes are decent. The party suffers from wanting 3 chainmails. Jaes's ability is slightly weaker in RtL, since he will generally have more armor options available over the course of the entire campaign.

What skills they start with is almost as important as the heroes themselves You should list those.

-pw

They start with:

Nanok: Tiger Tatoo

Sir Valadir: Ox Tatoo

Ronan: Appraiser

Jaes: Relentless (the two magic skills were the one that gives you Aura 1 and Divine Retribution, which the party didn't like)

It's not the strongest party, but it's far from the weakest. I actually like Sir Valadir a lot in the campaigns, though only theoretically as I've never seen him in action. Right out of the gate he can be rolling 3 gold and 2 silver dice on a single attack (3 fatigue + a power pot + his base 2 melee). He's also a good guy to hand extra weapons to, as he can pump up his dice on those rare occasions when he'll need them (such as vs. soar). Get him a fatigue upgrade ASAP.

Nanok is strong, though not as much so with his nerfed ability in RtL. Still, he's fast, tough, and tiger Tatto makes that even more true.

Depending on which ones you pull, you might have a hard time in encounters. Soaring creatures will be tough to deal with when you've only got Jaes and Ronan as your primary ranged characters. But get Valadir a magic weapon and you should again do fine.

Who is the avatar?

When and how was Nanok nerfed for RtL? I am only aware of his reduced armor for SoB.

Sorry, got my campaigns confused.

In RtL you get your skill cards listed on your character plus 1 more of your choice then pick one and discard the rest.

The SoB manual states the Nanoks ability changes when doing an advanced campaign, both RtL and SoB are advanced campaign. If your heroes are having problems play Nanok as is.

Sir Validir is the best melee character priced at 3 conquest and some good points were made about him being versatile with other weapons. Keep in mind you can't roll more than 2 silver die in copper and 2 gold dice in silver.

Give Ronin an Axe until you get a good ranged weapon.

The party only needs 2 chainmail not 3 so this is good.

Your party looks good, Nanok and Jaes are 2 of the strongest characters and Validir and Ronin are decent.

When you run your first dungeon try to remember that you don't have to complete all 3 floors, you can run away at any time. Heck if you draw a crapy first floor leave and go somewhere else.

Fighting lieutenants is hardest at the begining of each campaign level and easiest before the switch because you have the best treasure your going to get before the lieutenants get stronger. Power potions are best for fighting them.

apbevan said:

This is incorrect. The limit is on how many dice you can upgrade via training. The only limit on dice upgraded via fatigue or power potions is that you can't roll more than 5 power dice. Note that the limit you mention is in the section on Trait Upgrades. The section discussing fatigue upgrades specifically states "a hero may do this as often as he likes."

Ok thanks for the clarification, that makes things even better.

James McMurray said:

The Spider Queen.

apbevan said:

That's exactly what we are planning to do. In our first campaign we insisted in playing through every level and in doing so the OL had plenty of chances to kill us and make points. We'll try to avoid being so stubborn this time

Oh, another question while I'm at it!

Our Overlord has a doubt: given that we're playing with both WoD and AoD, and without considering eventual treachery, must he add every OL card added by those expansion to his deck or is there a fixed number of cards for the OL deck and he must choose which cards put in and which leave outside?

It's not the party I would have chosen, but still a nice party. If I could choose my characters for an AC, I'd probably go for (only original characters mentioned):

Nanok (exceptional Tank, with very good stats all around)

Talhia (very good DPS with exceptional ability) OR Hawthorne (nice Melee DPS thanks to very useful ability)

Tobin (if allowed, best Ranged ever, good DPS and high survivability) OR Laurel (best Ranged DPS and nice Runner) OR Kirga (exceptional Ranged DPS with great ability and survivability) OR Tatianna (very good Ranged DPS, good Runner with great ability)

Brother Gherinn (heavy Magic DPS with great survivability), OR Landrec (another nice heavy Magic DPS), OR Kel (very sweet ability and nice stats/traits all around), OR Astarra (very useful ability, extraordinary stats/traits, good Runner)

I also like very much in AC: Brother Glyr (has very nice build with a few skills...), Corbin (may compete with Nanok for the Tank position), Varikas (always efficient), Nara (another very very nice DPS with extremely nice statline), Buldar (highest damage output in the game), Krutzbeck (very nice damage output and interesting survivability for a mere 2CT), Hugo (another very hard Tank), Silouette (her statline/traits are simply too good to ignore her), Jaes (always trustworthy), and Thorn (very nice mage).

Anyway, both Valadir and Trenloe are much more interesting in AC and I'm curious about using them myself. I've tested Jaes and he's ok...overestimated on my opinion, but still very strong. As for Ronan...I like Skye, so I believe he can perform very well in any party.

AndreaDraco83 said:

Every card without a treachery cost goes into the OL deck. It means he's less likely to cycle through the deck. But don't worry, Dark Priests more than make up for that.

apbevan said:

This can only refer to the SoB Advanced Campaign. How is a player owning RtL only supposed to know that? There is a FAQ answer, that all FAQ rulings for SoB also apply to RtL, but I am not aware that this is valid for all SoB rules as well.

I never said they were supposed to know nor did I say they have to play it like that. Just because something is in the FAQ does not mean im supposed to know it either.

All I simply said was that in SoB they say Nanok's ability changes when playing an advanced campaign, is RtL not an Advanced campaign?

Descent is a great game for playing and adjusting the game play for your group and you can play Nanok however you choose.

The question was asked where does it say Nanoks ability changed and I replied.

AndreaDraco83 said:

To be perfectly honest I think that this is a very bad party. I may be a little off the mark due to recent experiences being mainly SoB, but I think that the same principles also apply to RtL for the most part.

Nanok, Jaes and Ronan are very good heroes, Valadir is an acceptable one. But they combine poorly (well, Ronan helps) and the skills are terrible starting skills with the exception of Tiger Tattoo.
This party is very much less than the sum of it's parts I think. Each member is useful-good-great , but has a small weakness (damage dealing) which should be covered by the rest of the party - instead they combine all together to make it a giant weakness!

1. How are you going to kill things ? You need 3 'combat' heroes at least, and 2 of them at least need to be magic/ranged (especially with Beasts as the OL's priority upgrade - this party has next to no chance vs soarers, which includes Alric's band).
You have zero combat abilities, zero combat skills, every combat hero is down at least one dice and if you focus Ronan as a runner instead of a Ranged expert then you have only 1 non-melee combat hero. Even with Pico, this is the most combat-deficient party I've ever seen.

2. Valadir is a useable hero, but he just doesn't fit into this mix. His ability works 'later', when he has a decent number of fatigue. It simply isn't enough to compensate early in the campaign though.

3. Who is going to wear the really heavy armours (ones that slow you to 3) - even though you have overdone melee, you still don't have anyone who doesn't lose significantly when wearing these.

4. Ox tattoo is an adequate (barely) skill for a specialist runner, and not worth it in the slightest for anyone else. Weak party with a skill slot wasted...
Appraiser is a weak skill, especially for this party. It might help a little early on in each level, by improving which treasures you get, but you'll get virtually all of the good treasures at some stage anyway. Meanwhile, you have 'lost' an entire skill slot that should be helping you do more damage, have more attacks, or move faster on the board. Weak party with a skill slot wasted...
Relentless is an average skill at best. I understand you got a bad draw, but you missed the fourth skill card draw... It is at least not as bad as Aura and Divine Retribution, true.

This party really needs two things that will turn it into a 'good, solid' or even 'great' party.
i) Sir Valadir needs to be replaced by a 3 dice specialist in either Ranged or Magic. Preferably one with a combat related special ability, or who makes an even better runner than Ronan. Landrec, Carthos, Andira, Thorn, Astarra, Kirga, Vyrah (even with 2 dice due to Skye's -1 Armour ability) or Bogran are the likely candidates. Sahla would do at a pinch if you have the expansion with Cursed Items (Staff of the Grave) as would Grey Kerr, Silhouette or even <gulp> Laurel - yes, you need it that bad.
ii) better skills (at least two skills improving damage, adding pierce or increasing attacks) for all except Nanok and a revision of the party philosophy (depending on if you change SIr Valadir). Nanok becomes the runner. Jaes and Ronan/new party member focus on combat - probably Jaes uses Pico most of the time, but don't forget the capability to pass this little companion around.

I think this could be a very strong party in gold level. I just don't think it will make it much out of copper if the OL makes any effort. Upgrade beasts and send Alric to Tamalir. Spend anything else available on treachery. This party can't stop Alric and won't be able to for a long time.