I was doing some stats when it was played on the heroes last night. The lodestone has the potential to destroy 8 items. EIGHT. in one play. Nine if the hero player makes a mistake.

How you say? I shall explain.

3 items in the pack

1 Other item(if the hero had full other items)

3 potions

1 Treasure item the lodestone is replacing

The last item can be destroyed only if a hero makes a mistake by buying the removal "other" item and equipping it before trading away his remaining other item.

How could this possibly be OK? People were crying and whining about crushing blow but REALLY? 8 possibly 9 items destroyed by using the CHEAPEST dark relic? Lets not forget you can have 2 in 1 deck, then add on top the 1 crushing blow that will surely be in the deck as well.

How is this not broken?

It can be even worse if the hero has the Bag of Holding (unlimited items in the backpack), so they may basically lose the entire treasure deck if everything is concentrated in that hero´s backpack ;-)

No, I don´t think it is overpowered. The heros do know when the OL has enough treachery to buy one or even two of these cards, so they can be prepared and distribute the items to minimize their losses. Or have one hero always running around empty who can then receive all treasures from a chest, being a poor target for the OL card. And/or save appropriate Feats (Disarm traps, Preventing Evil) for these occasions.

To answer your question: No, there are no further rules regarding the lodestone, except the one in the FAQ that the part affecting the hero receiving money is not in force in RtL (which actually weakened the Lodestone in comparison with vanilla Descent).

I guess the empty pack hero will have to be the best solution.

However, I don't have the ice expansion for feats so those are out of the question.

Um... yeah, there is a rules difference for RtL to hamper the effectiveness of Dark Relics:

1) Unlike vanilla, where virtually any hero can be targeted by Dark Relic, whenever a chest is opened, in RtL, only 1 hero is required to take items from a chest.... and the heroes get to decide who that is.

2) Also, Dark Relic is vastly less powerful, where there is only about a 50% chance that any chest will even be a viable target for the card. Many a time, a hero party goes through the first level or two without even drawing a chest, meaning that if the OL draws the card, he may not even be able to play it.

3) ALSO, Road to Legend provides an extra Town Item, specifically for the removal of Dark Relics... meaning that there's even more incentive for the Overlord to avoid Dark Relics...

How much more could you neuter them...?

Sure, you just blew up 8 items. But they were 8 items which weren't useful enough to keep equipped. Sure, you can get some nice stuff if the party is hoarding gear, but whatever it is at best it's a backup weapon and a cool disposable item. If the party lets you target that person, it's their loss.

PinkTaco said:

I don't know that it's fair to complain about the item being replaced as a "loss." The heroes never owned it in the first place. That's sort of like bitching about how "unfair" it is that you didn't draw the best possible treasure the first time you rolled a treasure draw from a chest. For all anyone knows, the item that ends up getting replaced might be a POS the heroes didn't want anyway. And don't tell me that the OL can look at the card and decide not to replace it if it's crap - maybe he can do that, but in my experience as OL, a card withheld for "ideal circumstances" is a card most likely never played.

PinkTaco said:

Statistically speaking, items in the pack are usually items waiting to be sold because they're either useless or the party already has better. If a hero has 3 crucially important items sitting in his backpack, he's already playing sub-par. Either because he hasn't equipped them himself or because he hasn't given them to someone else to use if he's already better equipped himself.

There may be the odd situation where a hero loses some valueable items in the pack, but more often than not he will only lose gold from resale, and the heroes get plenty of gold from other sources, so that isn't really a huge loss.

PinkTaco said:

These two are potentially valid important losses for the hero, however, it's worth noting that potions are neither difficult nor expensive to replace. I don't think the hero party would often be forced to flee a dungeon just for having lost 3 potions, even if all sources of replacement have been drained (alchemist, dungeon pick ups, etc.)

So, of the 8 items you say that a hero could lose, only the one Other item already equipped is likely to be a serious loss for the party. There might be incidental losses from backpack items, but nothing the party can't make do without - otherwise whatever it was would've been equipped already, as James said. All in all, I'd say that's reasonably fair, cost to effect.

The ninth item you claim can be lost due to "a mistake" on the hero's part is actually false - the item you speak of would have to have been in the hero's pack before it was equipped, so the item he swaps out will go into his pack, and become one of those three lost. Even if this item was given to the hero and equipped immediately, he would need to have room in his pack for whatever he was unequipping, or else he would need to discard something of his own volition - that's hardly the fault of any dark relic if the hero tries to carry so much he starts dropping stuff.

Let me know when you actually play a game that results in the heroes single-handly losing because of this card being played on one of them - without deliberately constructing a fatal scenario in your head, mind you - and I'll believe it's a balance problem. Until then, it's just a horror story that's unlikely to ever come about in actual play.

Statistically speaking, of course.