Balancing RtL for the overlord

By SkittlesAreYum, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Our first campaign came to an abrupt end on Friday.

With an hour free, we started the next one. However, I want to make a number of changes. A lot of what Immortal said has sunk in with me. Has anyone actually tried these yet?

just a quick guess from my side:

What if the Lieutenants of the Overlord interferes in the final battle. Not all at once, but maybe one per turn. This should raise the presure onto the Heroes in the final battle and the heroes are forced to use theire ressources more tactically, instead of making a single massive killingblow over 2 rounds. Or maybe scaling this encounter in more Stages. Stage 1 Avatar until 80%, <Hero Turns end/Avatar turns invincible> Stage 2 one/two Lieutenants inteferes, Stage 3 Avatar until 50%, afterwards the remaining Lt.'s interupting the turn of the Hero (like the ordertoken), then the final battle resolves

I have to admit that i never played RtL till now, because it isn't released in my language, but i know the balance issue from core-Descent, and hoped it would be fixed with RtL.

Greetings Kyomo

Dreepa said:

So true, so true. Maybe we should really rewrite the RTL rules and items to balance it all out. I know its a major task, but a fun one! On the other hand: Anyone knows of any big RTL modifications that aim to balance it? Dont wanna re invent the wheel ;)

Maybe we can create a team of willing players and draft/create/update a LivingRulebook like the BloodBowl one. We can ask Kevin to work together to settle all the present and future rules (today's and coming soon expansions). Everyone will be able to test it and contribute with comments, notes, suggestions, ideas.

All our efforts will be directed at one precise goal (instead of create zilions of near-the-same topics every day lengua.gif )

biso

haslo said:

The_Immortal, those are really nice changes. I printed them out, to have them handy when the time is right to use them happy.gif

We implemented 1 to 3 in our campaign, and even at copper level this already makes a difference (don't know about 2 yet) and it feels good.

The humanoid upgrade is pretty nasty because the OL upgraded his humanoids on copper. Whether this is to good has yet to be seen, but I am slightly feeling for a +1 per campaign level instead of per upgrade. We will continue playing with his suggestion though, and I ll blame him when I loose horribly ;-). I do agree some upgrade is needed though.

On a side note, I would love to have those tweaks you mention, The Immortal. If you read this, could you sent it to bart.descent at gmail dot com?

6. Various card number tweaks. Actually these aren't strictly pro-Overlord, as many weaker Hero skills (and Treachery cards) are buffed. The biggest changes are that Telekinesis doesn't affect Named monsters and Rapid Fire can only be used at most twice per Hero turn

A living rulebook would be perfect for Descent with its myriad permutations and possible situations. But it does need a dedicated and professional editing team I think.

Uthoroc said:

A living rulebook would be perfect for Descent with its myriad permutations and possible situations. But it does need a dedicated and professional editing team I think.

This had been tried before for games like this (Twilight Imperium comes to mind). As you read the forums here the problem for such a project shows immediatly: people don't even agree what the problems are, let alone the ways to solve them.

Most people will play by the written rules and faq, some will adopt changes from a guy who spent some serious time on it like the immortal (likethe shattered assansion rule set from TI) and everyone else will just borrow and think of stuff for what they see as problems.

So I would like a place where houserules are easily shared and where people explain why they use them, but a living rulebook is not worth the effort in my opinion.

Hi Bart,

I finally got around to answering the geekmail you sent me on Boardgame Geek, so you can find the information you asked for there. Sorry to take so long! If you'd prefer a different format or any clarification (some of my notes are fairly brief at this point), just let me know.