Like some others I have the problem of having 6 people that want to play RtL. I've come up with a solution and I would love to get some feedback from people who have played RtL a few times on how my plan may playout over the course of the campaign. This is my first campaign so I have no idea how this is going to affect the game.

Each player has their own hero but only 4 participate in a dungeon at a time. When somebody is killed they are replaced by the hero that is sitting out. Conquest is collected the same way, but the heroes get 25% more money rounded down than they normally would. When in towns all five can participate in the town actions. Only 4 will be involved in the Encounters, and I am not sure how to deal with the final battle if we make it to that point.

I know there are still some issues with items and skills that might hurt the heroes but it's also made them a little more flexible. I'd love to hear what people think of this and what problems we may run into.

Hi,

I'm not sure whether this would be fun for the hero sitting out, but depending on the players involved, maybe it would be okay (he can still discuss strategy I guess). It also could harm tactical party combat though, especially when it comes to skill distribution. Normally, you distribute skills so that the heroes complement each other and your party works together perfectly, and have a certain routine in combat. Now if suddenly the Acrobat Grappler sits out, or that mage with the Staff of the Grave when battling that undying end monster that rolls two black dice for its undying roll...it requires a lot of flexibility for all involved.

We play with six players as well, using the following rules (copied and pasted from my campaign diary, link is in my signature):

* The heroes start with 25% more gold, so that the extra hero can also be outfitted.
* The Overlord gets 5 threat per turn (instead of 4). This one seems obvious, as you get one threat per hero.
* All lieutenants, named monsters and the overlord avatar have 25% more hitpoints. This tries to account for the extra damage the heroes will do. We might decide to apply this rule to dungeon level bosses as well later on, but want to try it out without first.
* The overlord has always the power cards "Hordes of Things" and "Brilliant Commander" on the table, not counting against the power card limit. Again, the extra two monsters and master monster will be needed to deal with the additional damage the extra hero will be able to dish out. As a side effect, the overlord will run through his deck one turn earlier, paying for this with the inability to discard the two power cards for threat (5 each!).
* When opening a treasure chest, still only four dice will be rolled. The fictional fifth die for the fifth hero will be assumed to have rolled gold as a result. This means the chance for treasure will be the same as with four heroes, spreading the equipment a little bit thinner among the heroes. As most treasures will be bought instead of found, this effect is only minimal, though.
* Boggs the Rat will be removed from the game. This accounts for the extra line of sight the party will have.

So far, this worked nicely. Note however that some dungeon levels will break with five heroes - levels like "Two by Two" rely with their twist on the fact that only four heroes are present. But apart from that it's fun, although we are only at silver level at the moment.

Regardless of which rules you play with, I hope you will tell us about your experience!

-Kylearan

Great post... We've actually adopted a similar thing, but for different reason. We have a hard time getting a set group of 5 together, so instead we play with 5 heroes, tho only 4 of them will make any particular game session. Since players get attached to their heroes, they dont want other people playing them. This way the party is always a bit different... as the other guy said above, it makes it so that the heroes cant optimize a party, cuz you need to deal with whoever is there that day, and forces the heroes to have to play creatively, instead of repeating an established pattern in every dungeon. If the guy with the Staff isn't in this game, you have to come up with other ways to play. And when he is there, maybe there's one less tank to cover him. It's fun. No gameplay changes are necessary (like the brilliant commander or horde cards), all that needs happen is the gold and treasure be alotted extra, so that when that player comes back to play, he isnt at a lower level. Players earn extra gold and treasure in every case where things are "per hero" like chests and gold piles, and they earn the stock amount for killing leaders. Chests are rolled separately for the absent person, so that the heroes playing cant usurp all the treasure items for themselves. If the absent player draws a treasure, it's just noted, and next time he plays, he'll draw it. Also if the party spends any "train" days in a town, the players who missed out are allowed to use those trains (if he wishes) when he plays.

It makes gathering 5 players more repeatable.