Who is the best in the game?

There isn't one. Which one is the most powerful depends a lot on the map, whether you're playing a campaign, and your play style.

Runewitch Astarra has been a crowd pleaser around our table (less so in the Advanced Campaign.) Her hero ability reduces the load on the runner and allows that character (if it isn't her anyway) to focus on chests and coins, or to avoid over-exposing him/herself in risky areas.

In terms of "best," the debate can go many ways. Lots of heroes are powerful in the right circumstances. But I'd say Astarra has probably received the most amount of attention in terms of "hey, she's useful!" remarks and such.

My personal favorite is Runemaster Thorn. I'm a fan of mages and his hero ability of spending five movement points to teleport to any space in his line of sight is both extremely helpful at times and very cool. In addition, he has three magic trait dice, three magic skills and is only worth 2 conquest points if he gets killed.

I know my reply is basically lame but... All of the characters are equally my 'favorite'. Like the first reply indicated, each character has their place and I have reasons for taking each. I will say that my favorite familiar/companion is Pico. Can't go wrong with a little 'pet' that adds an additional die to attack rolls.

That being said, my brother in-law believes that the best character in the game is Runemaster Thorn due to his teleporting anywhere within line of sight.

Nanok: His statline is just insane, just like is the fact he can improve both offense and defense...getting to ARM7 (which is only possible for Brother Glyr, if he wears the Dragonscale Armor!), WHILE having 5 melee trait dice is amazing and with Speed and Fatigue 4, he's just insanely broken fast moving tank/damage dealer. As far as melee characters go, also Talhia is a pretty much a monster, by the way, thanks to her enormous damage potential and high mobility. Other good picks are Lord Hawthorne due to the ever useful Reach, Varikas, which is a strong tank and very tactical character, and Nara, which combines decent survivability, high mobility and pretty good damage potential. I also believe that if well used Krutzbeck and Glyr have pretty nice potential and of course Corbin is a very good tank, especially in AC where you can buy him extra HP.

For ranged there's only 1 name and that's Tobin. Nothing's as much powerful as him at ranged attacks and his tank chassis makes him survivable. The only "problem" is he definitely can't be the runner, so you'll need someone else to take on that position (which is usually pertaining to the Ranged Attack character). Very close to him is Kirga, thanks to his extremely useful ability, combined with nice survivability and high damage potential. I also believe Tatianna is incredibly powerful runner, though and of course Laurel (highest damage potential amongst all and Silouette are very close.

There are a lot of powerful mages. Astarra of course is a classic broken character, but Thorn and Kel are both incredibly powerful too and I believe that for 3CT also Brother Gherinn is absolutely a powerhouse. Another nice pick is Challara, since her familiar if well used can clear monster-packed areas, but her 3CT is very limiting.

Worth mentioning is Zyla. Can become a monstruous runner if well built. Give her those armors giving high Arm against Ranged/Magic, since she's almost immune to melee attacks (not entirely, remember), so she can even carry more Other Items and increase her movement/damage potential. Buy her some dice and see the OL struggle to destroy a 1CT worth being. Nice, very nice.

Elric of Melniboné said:

Just out of curiosity, why do you say Astarra is broken?

She has three magic trait dice, just as all the best characters have 3 trait dice in a single category, and her ability is undeniably useful but I wouldn't say it breaks the game. Likewise for Thorn, sure he's a powerful mage but I wouldn't call him broken.

Kel, you may have a point about her. We haven't drawn her yet, but I kind of fear the day we do.

I don't know that Astarra is broken but in vanilla Descent opening glyphs at 6 range is very handy. In RtL the range is only 3 so I don't know that she is all that great. Her stats are still good though.

I would put Landrec the Wise on the powerfull mage list as runes have the widest array of abilities to spend surges on.

Battle Mage Jaes for advanced campaigns is good as your not limited to the 2 mage dice and an armored mage is a great help.

I consider Astarra a bit broken because of her very good statline combined with concentrated dice and skill sets, very handful ability and CT2. She's definitely beyond the curve. That's all and I believe a brief note on "broken" should be made by me:

I don't believe broken characters are unbreakable or make the game swing definitely one way. I belive strong strategy, gameplay and luck make the difference over slightly overpowered characters in this game.

Definitely Landrec and Jaes are pretty good mages, although I don't like too much Jaes overall for the reason that most armors that negate using runes also reduce speed to 3, so he won't be happy wearing treasure heavy armors. For "hard mages" I prefer Gherinn, which for 12HP and 2Armor gives only 3CT instead of 4...and whose ability is very powerful. Sure thing he's slow, but the same goes with Landrec and once you have Spiritwalker it really makes no difference any longer. Anyway, the only really awful mage in Descent is Sahla to me. All other mages can fill their role pretty decently on my opinion.

Another very good party pick is Lindel. Not overpowered on any particular aspect, but can fill in any role the party needs, which is cool.

Also Hugo is slow, but with 20HP and 2 Armor he really tanks against anything, just don't expect to deal too much damage...he's made to absorb.

My fave is by far Landrec the Wise! I just think he looks cool and is fun to play!

Nanok is probably the best hero so far. A party with Nanok has good chances to win the game.

Torbin Farslayer is the best archer in the Descent universe, and probably too much powerful. If he gets the line of sight from the distance...his target is pretty cooked!

Most people hate Karnon , but I like him: huge melee power (the most powerful basic melee attack in the game), good stamina, a great "first-line" in the frozen lands...why don't love him?

As fourth member of an ideal party I'd like to found a mage. Astarra would be a good choice.

Obviously, the skills and feats are too important, and they may actually change the power of your character. So, in the end, the ultimate character in Descent can't never exist.

TheHunterBoy said:

Because his extra 2 trait dice come at the cost of a skill - roughly the same value, except the hero with eth extra skill and use fatige/potions to attack just as powerully as Karnon when need anyway!
Eg, for the same stat line and CT cost you could have Hawthorne - with Reach vs ignore Fear and Ice, and extra skill + ability to be just as good in combat when needed vs 2 trait dice, lost flexibility.
Or Nanok - better armoured, an extra skill and can still get a 5 dice attack when needed .

He is also NOT great first-line. 16-1 for 4CT is expensive, even more so when using heavy armour is discouraged. There are numerous 16/2s for the same cost, and quite a lot of them are happier using heavy armour as well.

And in ACs, while he no longer 'loses a skill' (instead getting a reduced pick), the flexibility lost in not being able to add extra dice (including gold dice) when an attack almost kills a monster is highly significant.

In short, he in fact has less melee power on average than many melee heroes (loss of a skill, weak ability, other heroes can easily match the trait dice on the few attacks when it matters) and is weaker than average for a melee hero on defence.
What's to like? Nothing, unless you are playing with lots of Ice and Fear - both relatively rare for most Descent games?

My favourite characters are those that are most fun to play.

But what makes a character fun to play? Here are the qualities that make them fun (at least to me):

- High action potential (lots of speed and fatigue)

- Having a good tactical ability that can be used often

- Attacking more often (because attacking is fun!)

- Being resistant (high HP and armor values), because dying is no fun

- Having lots of dice to roll when attacking, because rolling loads of dice is fun.

Following this list, my favourite characters (not counting promos) would be: Silhouette, Runemaster Thorn, Runewitch Astarra (high action potential, good tactical ability, lots of dice), Tahlia (resistant, good tactical ability, lots of dice), One Fist (the only character to have an additional attack).

I also like Varikas the Dead because I'm playing him in our current campaign (recovering 1 fatigue a turn is a very useful ability too, and 16/4/2/3 are above average stats for a tank).

Elric of Melniboné said:

Corbin can get there too pretty easily on one attack, due to his natural -1 damage. Stick him with the Crystal Shield, Plate Mail, Ring of Protectionhe's at Armor NINE with just Copper gear! Armor 7 after the shield is exhausted. In our campaign, he's the tank of the group

In Sea of Blood, Runemaster Thorn has to be by far the biggest thorn in my side. His teleport ability, coupled with some AOE attacks, makes him exceptionally dangerous, porting just about anywheredestroying everything in sight.

-shnar

I'm really surprised no one has mentioned the hobbit/warg rider (can never remember their names, Okuluksomething). Their speed is so high,with the inherit stealth ability, is there a better runner?

-shnar

shnar said:

Many.

The very low Fatigue stat (2) makes him a lot less useful as a runner than his speed 6 would appear to indicate. He's still good, but not great as a dedicated runner. Astarra (5M5F, great special for running), Silhouette (5F5M, nice little dodge->rest ++ special)Zyla (6F4M, Fly, Ghost) are all a lot better runners,there are quite a lot of others than can make as goodbetter running options than Okaluk (Thorn, Nanok, One Fist, Jaes for example).
In AC campaigns in particular, it is better if your runner doubles as a RangedMagic user rather than a melee user too, which is another small strike against Okaluk.

I've never played an AC game,only played a few games since getting ToI. But I'd have to go with Landrec as the more powerful, provided you have the expansion with the town blast rune. As has been stated many times around here, being able to hhit multiple enemies in a turn usually means getting to kill multiple enemies in a turn,Landrec only needs to roll 1 surge to get Blast 1 every time with this sucker. IIRC, LandrecOne Fist are the only characters that can reliably hit more than 2 enemies a turn with town equipment regardless of skills drawn, but Landrec's count can go far higher, both because of the mechanic he uses to do it,because it is not melee-range. If he happens to draw the skill that gives 2 more surges, you may as well not even bother playingjust redraw heroes to start a new game, since he will usually only leave 1-2 enemies for the rest of his team to mop up immediately after opening each door.

That seems pretty harsh to give up just because they drew 1 good hero with a good skill. In RtL you can bet that Landrec will get Prodigy regardless of the skill he starts with so what do you do then?

apbevan said:

I agree.

Landrec is definitely a powerful character, Landrec with Prodigy even moreso, but giving up on playing just because of one (exceptionally) good hero set up is kinda drastic. Cheap, even. Everything the heroes get is randomly generated in vanilla, I'd be pissed if the OL refused to play just because I finally got a lucky draw.

I don't think there's any single hero+skill combination that would make me want to give up as OL. Even a full party of awesome draws I'd still at least play it out. Fair's fair after all. Besides, if there's one thing I've learned about the OL's seat, it's that you play the players as much as you play the game. No matter what heroes are drawn, you can play your friends' fears against them and make it work for you.

It isn't that the OL refuses. We played it once, no one had any fun (because every room was Player 1 opens door and attacks biggest thing in room, Landrec Battles and kills everything or near everything, Player 3 is runner and mop-up duty, and Player 4 half the time has nothing useful to do and just does a Guard near the just-opened door to protect against spawned creatures). Even the Landrec player was bored after 3 rooms. And this was even back when we were under the false belief that attacks had to target a figure; knowing the real rule, Landrec would have been even more overpowered. Bascially, the only way to beat that party is to get Dark Charm and the threat to play it by about turn 5; after that, they'll still have enoguh Conquest to survive a near-full Party Wipe, so even it isn't much of a danger to them. So after that game, we collectively agreed (unanimously) to never play that combo again. I'd argue its as powerful as the Manticore + Quick Shot combo, but Landrec gets to do it every turn. We debated having the next game be Landrec + Prodigy, and have his other skills, as well as all three other heroes and their skills be hand-picked by the overlord, (or even try the first map with Landrec + Prodigy and no other skills, and just one other hero on the first base game map), just to see exactly how mmuch power he has. We guessed he could easily make up for being short an entire hero on any map.

In an AC, I can see it being a different story entirely, because you can upgrade your monsters to where at least some of them can survive such a blast. But in Vanilla, your only damage will come from traps and immediately spawned monsters, and even then, only if the heroes don't have ranged characters using Guards to protect against spawns.

Immolation rolls White and green which does not give much range and requires 3 surges for extra damage or blast. Landrec with prodigy gets 1 free blast or 1 free damage, how is he clearing entire rooms every single time? Honestly I think something is not being played right or your Overlord needs to get better.

You can house rule and adjust the game to suit your current needs, Descent works great like that, but its not a balance issue in the game.

The first map is an introductory dungeon and is easier than the other maps.

With 5 dice to roll, though, there's a better than 50/50 shot on each roll for him to get Blast 2. 1 Blast 2 attack + 1 Blast 1 attack can hit pretty much every space in any room in the game except the final room (which is almost always the biggest on a map). Boom Boom, everything dies; all he has to do is spend fatigue to get into the room. And I'm pretty sure this was on map 5 of the original game, but it has been a while.

Rajamic said:

Don't forget that Landrec himself is subject to the Blast area. With a Blast 2 attack it has to be at least range 3 away from him for him not to get caught in the blast. Range 3+ means either the white die rolled low damage or you are using enhancements for range instead of damage. Basically, your damage drops to about 5-6 (with all 5 power dice, less with only 3) - great for clearing chaff, but not worth so much against the better monsters.

But I agree. Landrec with Prodigy is powerful enough in vanilla to introduce a lot more boredom into the game.
But play some more quests, harder ones (the first couple and maybe the third are easy introductory quests for the heroes), especially ones from expansions, and its a bit less of a problem.

As Overlord, I prefer to play no character.

My son likes Steelhorns, a total tank with some awesome skills. The charge ability is nice. Combine some good skills with a decent weapon and he's pretty much mowing right through all the monsters I can throw at him. Sucks for me!