RTL: Fatique used for movement is game breaking and other observations

By Cyberon, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I have read the forum with interest, and honestly having played the game and lately RTL several times with 2 fellow expert gamers, both i and my team simply don't understand why some many players see the OL being able to match and even exceed the Heroes in XP, because our overall conclusion is the following:

Focusing on fatique and focusing on using fatique for movement is severly gamebreaking, allowing the heroes to cover the relative small dungeons/encounters in a single round, effectively preventing the OL from spawning new monsters, and effectively managing to keep enough distance so the heroes can decide when to engage in melee combat or keeping distance to ranged monsted, keeping the overlord from engaging the heroes and dealing any serious damage.

Lieutenants are only scary to the Heroes at the beginning at each campaign level. As soon as the heroes begin bulking up on treasure and skills/dice for the level they can dispatch the lieutantant within 2-3 rounds of an encounter, provided they have focused on fatique for movement. This basicly means that unless the Lieutenants have monsters who are upgraded, he must hide with the OL until next campaign lvl.

The overlord must focus all his points on gaining an monster upgrade as FAST as posible, ignoring all other upgrades until that goal is achieved, because very quickly these monsters will be the only monsters who can threaten the heroes and who do not get one shoot killed. This means when the RTL campaign shift lvl, the OL must have enough XP to as his first action upgrade a monster group to a lvl above the campaign level, i.e a silver on copper, a gold in silver etc.

But basicly after trying many tactics and many encounters, our overall conclusion is that there is something gamebreaking in the use af fatique for movement and something must be done, to allow the game to be balanced. To all the heroes out there who get their butt kicked by the OL, forget focusing on damage, focus on movement and that means favoring fatique, items and skills cards that grant movement, Do NOT move around slowly in the dungeons/encounters move fast and quickly through a dungeon, who cares how powerfull the monsters are if they can't reach you, but you can reach them and kill them before they get to damage you. Who cares if the OL have ranged monsters if he in the small dungeons can't get them far away enough to prevent your fast moving heroes to stay out of reach and still move in for the kill.

Worst scenario we played was a lieutenant encounter where all monsters was placed to form the best posible baricade to stop the heroes and the lieutenant was placed to be able to run away in the first round. This scenario played out in the end of the copper lvl.

Round 1 (Heroes) - Melee and Ranged heroes clean house with the closest monsters.

Round 2 (OL) - Remaning monsters attempt to take out weakest hero and then move to baricade again. Lieutenant opt to stay but out of reach. Hoping to bring in a silver monster using his treachery card (monster), His "bonus" was 15 threats, so he plays reinforcement with a Lone Master Troll (Silver)

Round 3 (Heroes) - Ranged heroes take out the baricade so the melee heroes can close in on the lieutenat and decimate him, encounter ends in hero victory.

This is something I tried to bring up with one of my players the other day. We had sat down to play a game of Vanilla Descent, one of the original levels during which the four of them had played high movement/high fatigue heroes. They easily won the level, no issues. So when one of my players offered to one on one me in a game (him playing the OL and me playing three heroes) I thought, sure, this will be a great opportunity to show how diffferent it is when one of the characters is slow with no way to boost speed. I drew my heroes, chose out Astara, Crenloe and Bogran. Obviously it was a mistake to go with three heroes and have one of them be slow, I ended up losing as the hero party.

After I tried to have a discussion with him about the difference in the Tank he is playing (Nanok: 4 Fatigue, 4 Movement) and the one I was (Crenloe: 3 Fatigue, 3 Movement). He continuously argued that oh, I have one movement more than you, that's soooo gamebreaking. So I said no, this is the difference.

Crenloe can move 3+3+2+3 (if he declares a run action, has full fatigue and a stamina potion). This means he can move a maximum of 11 and has no attacks or orders available.

If I want to attack, I can do either an advance (3+2+3, again drinking a stamina) for a maximum of 8 movement and an attack. Or I can do a Battle for 5 movement and an attack (this is of course if I start with max fatigue and have a stamina potion).

Nanok can move 4+4+3+4 (again, run action, full fatigue and one stamina potion). Doesn't seem that different. Till you do the math, Maximum of 15 movement in this case.

If he wants to attack, he can either do an advance (4+3+4, again drinking a stamina potion) for a maximum of 11 movement and one attack, or 7 movement and two attacks.

Running Nanok can cover four additional movement than Crenloe, not that much, or at least it doesn't seem like it.

Advancing Nanok can cover 3 additonal spaces of movement than Crenloe, again, not that much or at least doesn't seem like it.

Battling Nanuck can move 2 further spaces of movement than Crenloe, again, not that much or at least it doesn't seem like it.

What happened. Crenloe could close the distance with opponents but could never attack. Or he could advance or ready and sit unused and useless for the entire turn. The OL avoided my tank after the first room and other than one guard order later on he never managed to attack anything let alone kill it. The other two heroes I chose were high speed damage dealers, sure they couldn't take alot of hits but they could move fast and do large amounts of damage to anything.

What happened with them. Nanok always waited till all the other heroes went first (best plan for a tank, plays it like I do, since this is how I tried to play Crenloe) then after seeing where they might be vulnerable he moves to close the gap on that spot. Worse he drew Bear Tattoo both times he played Nanok (Vanilla version of course). This meant I couldn't even get monsters past him to get to the other more vulnerable heroes. In both of these games with Nanok all the other heroes were 4-5 movement and 4-6 fatigue, meaning they could dance around and kill things and still easily pull behind Nanoks movement allowing him to guard and protect them.

Instead of it breaking down into intelligent conversation he still insists that it's the way I play OL compared to him. Which is exactly the same as I play OL, same tactics, same holding back till the right moments, same counting movement possibilities before spawning monsters etc.

Fortuneatly we are playing Vanilla again this Tuesday, Him playing OL again and me and another player playing two heroes each. I'm going to make sure the other player works with me to pick a high move and fatigue group to show him how much Fatigue throws the game in the heroes favor, especially with four players and especially when combined with high movement. I would prefer he tried the same level though it's not one of my fav's as he seems to think it was his strategy (three heroes compared to four meant I couldn't cover as many LoS as I wanted to, bad idea).

When it comes to RtL I find fatigue is the game breaker. I thought Ltn's were at least a little challenge, something to make the players go wow, that was tough, even if they did win. It figured that only on the last Lt and only after I had gotten some treachery (2x Rage/2x Beastman Patrol) that the heroes finally had a little bit of a challenge. In fact I was winning, pretty much had two of them down to 2 wounds and one dead. The tank was still full but with the other heroes gone it would have been easy to pick him off.

Guess what did me in. Fatigue and one little miscalculation on my part. If I had moved one more space and shadowcloaked my Lt in a tree he might have lived. But I sat there and calculated out various possible methods they could reach me and attack (they were retreating and regrouping by that point). I was completely confident he was safe out of attack reach. Nope, Grey Ker used all his Fatigue to completely close to LoS and declared a Battle, fired twice into the Lt. Runemaster Thorn used a few fatigue to move, teleported to LoS and unleashed three attacks into the Lt. (by this point it was four hits and one miss). I was unprepared and surprised and suddenly had a very wounded Lt on my hands (basically I had 2 wounds left). Ah well no problem, there's no way the tank can get to me and attack so I'll have another round to...

Using Fatigue, and a Feat card that gave him extra movement Nanok closed point blank with the Lt and finished him in one hit.

We are now on the Gold level. The closest I came to killing a hero yesterday playing in a normal dungeon (no rumor) was at the very end when one opened a chest and I played Mimic on him. Yay X's, he survived, my turn, I miss again. My one opportunity before they fled the dungeon to get in a kill (actually two or three since killing him would have made both Silhouette and Grey Ker vulnerable to a Beastman Spawn I had. It was the one time their tank wasn't about, and still three of them easily covered all LoS otherwise preventing spawning.

Sadly the only part of all that that pissed me off... It took them four hours to do three simple easy, walkthrough and pretend the monsters aren't there levels of dungeon. They know they can easily kick my ass throughout the rest of the Gold Campaign, they know that unless they roll the dreaded X's when they try to assault my monsters that they will easily get away with breezing through each dungeon. We should have been able to play both that dungeon and the Rumor Dungeon they had coming up during that session. But they still play like they are starter copper heroes and worry over every little tiny thing I might do to the point that I am almost ready to throw up my hands and capitulate, not because they are winning but because with their movement and fatigue they should be doing the "go in, kick ass, and move on" strategy. Instead they move through the dungeon fast, but take so long on their turns trying to think of everything I might do to them and covering every possible angle. Seriously, at this point, who cares if I get one kill of 2 CT in a dungeon because one player missed one tiny thing.

Fatigue is pretty much ruining OL'ing for me. I'm sure in Vanilla it has it's uses to keep balance for the Heroes. But in RtL I'm finding it to be a game breaker. I can see why Grapple which prevents monster movement and Telekinesis which allows players to move monsters or themselves around were removed. I allowed Grapple in my game because I hadn't had the FaQ by then. It was played long enough that after a discussion with the player I decided to let it stay (my choice, my mistake and I'm so paying for it). With an invulnerable Tank (Ironskin, Taunt, Grapple, 8 armor against ranged and magic, 11 against melee), that blocks movement to the more vulnerable heroes, this has pretty much just been a training game for them to learn RtL. Now that I know myself why Grapple was removed having allowed it's play against me. It will never be used in RtL again.

I use an overrun tactic to try to flow past Nanok using monsters to fill Grapple spaces to prevent Grapple from affecting the monsters passing over, but it only works if none of the heroes has a guard order up. Usually if they do, one or two monster kills prevents the monsters who can move over the grappled monsters from living long eneogh to try and hit the heroes.

I'm almost at the point of just letting everything stand where it is and let them kill it avoiding spawning or traps just to get them to the final OL battle and end the game. Grapple is affecting my game, but fatigue for movement is what's killing it.

Woops... in all cases I typed out Crenloe, it was in reference to the Hero Trenloe

For those of you who don't see the math between Trenloe and Nanok being different, consider on an Advance action, Nanok can move just as far as Trenloe can on a Run action, and still do an attack, or guard, or rest, or...

When choosing out your heroes for your group, paying any attention to life, armor or special abilities seems to lack any real importance and fall to a much lower secondary requirement than grabbing a hero with high fatigue and movement. There are a handful of hero choices which seem to grant you good secondary reasons for choosing the character, but overall, its pretty much just fatigue and movement that you'll need more than anything else, especially in RtL.

Note that there are only 24 fatigue tokens.
Yes, that is quite a lot and means the heroes will average 5-7 fatigue each. But it does mean there are limits on how much the heroes can do, even if the limits are high.
Don't allow the hero players to think they can substitute other markers for fatigue and all have 8+ fatigue.

But wounds do count too. The game is won or lost in encounters, and heroes lost in encounters don't get to come back. Upgraded monsters can be very hard hitting, and particularly the 'lighter' heroes will often have 12 wounds and only 2-3 armour well into gold level (assuming a concentration on fatigue upgrades initially), so they can go down in just one or two good hits by hard hitting monsters.

The OL needs to plan well, and position carefully. And have good quantities of treachery.
The use of trees and soar (especially very tough upgraded soarers) can make all the difference, despite high hero fatigue and damage output. Cards from treachery also make a lot of difference. Treachery spawns are very very nasty - they will be the very best monsters, hand selected, and often multiple master monsters. They also can't be attacked before their first turn, so if they are fast then they can almost guarantee getting in at least one attack.
A Rage card can mean that just one monster that can get through can have the effect of two. An Enraged can turn an ignored monster (who can't get into position to do anything useful) into a death machine.
A Dark Charm card will force the heroes to not use guard - or kill a hero on its own.
A Crushing Blow can leave a hero vulnerably armourless at a critical time, or more often take out a powerful weapon, reducing a hero's effectiveness considerably.
Space traps can mess hero movement.
Some upgraded monsters are devastatingly fast and/or long ranged and can hit from just about anywhere. Gold Razorwings have 10/12 movement and RGG/Au damage and are tough and difficult to hit. Gold Manticores move 5, ignore terrain, attack twice with BGYY/Au (so very good range) and Pierce 3/4. Gold Master Skeletons have move 7, minimum range 7+, average 5 Pierce3 damage. Humanoids and the slower Eldritch hit really hard, if you can get one in with a Charge/Enraged. And you always have the option of an extra space or two or movement, or an extra dice attack to get that last wound or two, with threat. Any or all of these can easily kill off a weak hero on their own, very quickly stripping down a hero party's ability to control the encounter.

The point is, overall, that the OL has option available to him, if he planned well from the start of the game and purchased wisely. Most of the time encounters can be very closely balanced, tricky for either side and turning on a single critically timed X. The right choices by the OL can make things very tough for even top of the line heroes.

I've managed to almost put down a late-gold, well equipped and resourced, high end hero party with a non-Lt encounter! Only one hero escaped, and only due to having the gold flying cloak whatsit which enabled him to flee through my blocking monster and gave him the extra MP to get off the board when all the other heroes had been killed.
Admittedly that was by using Big Trouble and having a decent selection of encounters and locations (a Lost would have won me the game). I used Diamond Manticores on a long frozen location. With even the non-master (reinforcible) manticores capable of taking out a 12W 4Ar hero on their own in a single round with only average rolls, and a single soaring 28W/5Ar normal manticore entirely blocking the ice-covered and tree-sparse route while being immune to the melee hero and very diffcult to signficantly affect for the runner hero, the heroes had to proceed unusually cautiously. In the end, only the Runner (Jaes) managed to get away after the other three heroes were picked off after a long game of cat and mouse.
I've also suffered from a Enraged Master Medusa who killed one and would have killed two full strength heroes in a single turn on her own but for the last attack being an X, despite starting 8+ spaces away from the heroes in the third rank of monsters behind several gold ogres who were being stalled by an Ox Tattooed (no knockback) dodging stealthy hero with double crystal shields blocking their corridor. If she'd got that second kill the heroes would have been butchered badly. As it was they stll lost another hero and had one badly battered when they finally escaped that encounter (and used Wind Pact on the Medusa in the replay!).

The point is that although the heroes have powerful options available to them late in the game, so does the OL - if he has been smart about his purchasing.
And yes, it can feel like things are impossible for the OL late in the game, especially in dungeons, but the heroes have weathered that feeling in reverse at times, so its only fair turnabout. And the game isn't won in dungeons.

Heck, if hero fatigue is a huge problem for you, play the Spider Queen. She can trap heroes to death without even using monsters. Slaggoroth (Trapmaster + Spider Queen special means +3 damage and -2 threat cost for traps) with a handful of treachery can do something over 30 points of damage to heroes just from space traps, before the heroes even see a monster! And do this week after week after week.

The problem with limiting fatigue based on the 24 allowed is that it never seems to come up, three heroes rely heavily on their upgraded fatigue (frankly I'm surprised the OL isn't granted more ways to hit the heroes in this department, like a "drain fatigue" card. So three heroes use up all the fatigue tokens, the fourth does a Ready/move/guard order and maybe one or two fatigue if needed.

Limiting the fatigue is fine if all four heroes heavily rely on it, but all it takes is one who never needs any and it's a useless point to add. Add in fatigue potions and it's not even worth mentioning (my hero players have only had a shortage of potions on rare occasions, very rare).

I am glad that since this is a "learning" campaign for me and my group that getting my ass kicked was because I chose not to over pressure the players till I was sure they had a handle on the new rules. Future games I will plan well ahead for, and I've been reading into strategies on the BBG forums as to how possibly to deal with them (Titan is my next OL Avatar choice, that or The Great Wyrm). I am hoping the outcome will be drastically different. My heroes never needed to flee a dungeon and got really lucky on card draws for starter levels. In fact, outside of one Rumor dungeon level which had insta kill abilities, I've been behind them in CT in every dungeon since the beginning. I plan on blowing most of what I have left of upgrades from CT on spawn treachery ( maybe get one additonal point at this time before the last battle comes along)

Be better prepared? I am sorry what?!? Purchase some treachery etc... i am sorry but that actually means you need to earn XP, and the entire point is that a highly mobile hero team simply will prevent the OL from ever gaining enough XP.

Let us do the math. First of all in RTL the OL starts with 15 points, which only have a limited use, there really aren't any avatar upgrades available for the first 15 points who can severely hurt the heroes, there are some nice ones, but nothing that gives a serious upper hand.

First dungeon the heroes enter will usually contain new 2 glyphs pr. level giving them 18 Xp + 1 Xp for entering the dungeon. Usually there are 1 treasure chest and at least 1 pile of gold perharps 2, usually you will encounter 2 master monsters, and 1 leader pr. level. So 1 run through a dungeon should give the heroes around 20-28 Xp (factoring in not getting any treasue in a chest giving 1 Xp and maybe only 1 glyph in a dungeon lvl) and most likely 3000 gold posibly more.

A Total party kill will most likely gain the OL 15 xp i can't remember all the characters but they go from 3-5 in value if i remember correctly, to get his first monster upgrade it means that on average the OL will need to achieve 2 total party kills before the heroes enter another dungeon just to keep on the same XP lvl as the heroes, and after the first dungeon visit the heroes will have gotten some good copper equipment (if they opt to return to Tamalir after the dungeon they get to go through the market in their next turn)

Playing RTL with 2 very experienced friends our overall conclusion is that as soon as the heroes get some of the better copper equipment, and as long as they opt for mobility, the monsters will seize to be a serious threat after the first dungeon with the overlord usually only getting 1-2 hero kills if any at all pr. an entire 3 level dungeon, and usually only at the last level, and after the second dungeon getting a monster upgrade is the only way for the OL to get back in the game.

If it was posible to play this game over the internet proberly i would love to pitch me and my 2 friends friends against any OL who claims what i am saying about mobility isn't a problem, no houserules for hero draw. Just so at least we either can prove our point or finaly meet someone who can prove us being mistaken.

Yups Cyberon, that's about how it happened to me, for pretty much all of the last half of Copper and the entire Silver levels I was only getting CT for weeks going by (+1 raze) . or if I managed to kill one or two of the heroes, I steadily fell behind one dungeon after another, as they got stronger I struggled to be a challenge, things have since landslided in the heroes favor. Now in Gold, I can't even seem to get a kill in, and the occasional CT I was getting for going through my deck once, well lets just say no dungeon lasts for more than about half my deck now, all three levels.

Nothing about my hero group is extra~orrdinary, though several are experienced players, I'm pretty much on a par with them when it comes to strategy and tactics, and all of us have gamed in many things over many years, like so many here.

What I've found is I started off ok, and once my hero group realized spawn was really the only threat (maybe the occasional trap), they go out of their way to prevent it, now that most of them are well trained with mulitiple additional attacks they have become a high mobility strike team. I play each dungeon level out trying to find some way to do something, but I've only got about four or five weeks left, the heroes will pretty much earn the last of the conquest, breaching 400, and I'll be lucky to make 200 at this rate, current total is 488, Heroes: 311, Overlord: 177, it was 175 at the start of last week with one dungeon in between. The rumor dungeon they just entered starts with Mask of the Monster (at least it's a humanoid and beast favored room, but at the start of drawing for the OL deck my hopes aren't high, especially since it looks like another three moves room unless I can get in a kill. It ends with Rumor #1 The Twins, I like the floor trap in this one, though I doubt the heroes will do alot of damage to themselves when it triggers unless they are complete idiots in the moment (the half the dungeon lights up part gives it away). I think I will be able to get in at least one or two kills this dungeon (still not sure what I'll draw for the mid level), but already looking at the two maps of this dungeon, the heroes will be able to quickly block LoS in the first one (and get off a round of attacks in the first round whether I split up my forces or keep them all at the end of the dungeon). I love little things like one has the ability to open chests and doors using one MP, since one of her skills is rapid fire she likes to move in, grab treasure then empty out her fatigue share taking down monsters, maybe drinking down a potion to add more attacks or prep for defence.

I recommend anyone who disagrees with this assessment sit down, grab a group of high movement, high fatigue heroes and try it out, no matter which Avatar you use, you'll quickly see what we mean.

Veritech said:

The rumor dungeon they just entered starts with Mask of the Monster (at least it's a humanoid and beast favored room

That was supposed to be " Beastman favored room "

Starting heroes are quite weak and not terribly mobile - only one skill, no bonus fatigue yet and if their skills and abilities are mobility focused they will really struggle against upgraded monsters or tough Leaders. The OL does have opportunity to score kills.

If the heroes get a particularly strong team, particularly good skills, particularly good dungeon draws and the OL particularly weak card draws in early dungeons then yes, they can make it difficult for the OL to keep up with them initially. Its even worse in reverse. But such good luck cannot last forever if the OL is moderately competent. Silver monsters will come, and then the heroes are outclassed until they have multiple upgrades.

OLs who continue to struggle to score anything, even when heroes progress all the way through a dungeon regularly in copper level, are either outliers or just not very competent. Possibly they are playing a particular style which doesn't work against that sort of party.

Total Party Kills should be a rarity, barely worth a mention. Instead you should be hammering one weaker hero consistently, only attacking the others when you can't do anything else productive. The heroes have potential countermeasures to this, and the OL has potential counter-countermeasures. Its all part of the game.

Its possible, with good combos, decent resources, good play, and a little luck, to gut levels with no losses as the heroes. I've proven as much with one (OL) turn (without significant monsters left at the start of it) level-stripping gameplay examples. But you can't always do that, and you can't do it indefinitely. Especially, you can't do it repeatedly in the same dungeon.

Typically a decent blitz strategy can net the heroes 10-3 ish CT each week for 3-4 weeks. But sooner or later they have to start going deeper, and they do that once after and the OL should be able to afford silver monster upgrade. By then the heroes should have trained once, hopefully, and they still need another couple of trainings and decent kit to be consistantly one-shotting silver monsters. The OL should then have several cheap upgrades (get those other Farrows out and stirring) which are acheivable almost weekly and start to put map/time-pressure on the heroes, which forces them to come deeper into dungeons more often, and should earn the OL more CT when combined with silver monsters.

Eventually the heroes will be on top of even most silver monsters, but unless you are silly enough to play humanoids (too slow and melee focused so your spawns never get to attack, let alone kill) you just have to be patient waiting for spawns as your spanws can get kills on their own, or close enough to finish off with traps. Sometimes you wait several levels with nothing, then get multiple kills all together as you disrupt the heroes momentum and get some payback.

Then the level switches and you should have saved enough to immediately have gold monsters, which puts the heat back on the heroes for a while, until they upgrade more and get good silver kit.
Its basically cyclical, except the gold kit cycle doesn't work so well due to gold kit matching with multiply upgraded heroes being too powerful.

But if you miss out somehow and miss 'your' cycle, then you may well never catch back up enough to be ahead of the game. This can happen as an outlier, or with a weak OL player.

As for sitting down and working it out, we have played it. Multiple times. Enough to go through the 'speed is king' phase and out the other side to 'some toughness/wounds matters too and damage output is also very important'.
A lot depends on the avatar chosen and the playstyle used.

Humanoids are weak though, and really do resemble many of the complaints in this thread. Primarily because the spawns/monsters are so easy for the heroes to prevent attacking at all - that really does make it hard to earn kills.
But eldritch are very offensive in dungeons, able to do damaging attacks at long range and often combined with decent movement. And beasts have a variety of options and are very dangerous outdoors.

Veritech said:

400, and I'll be lucky to make 200 at this rate, current total is 488, Heroes: 311, Overlord: 177, it was 175 at the start of last week with one dungeon in between.

Well, for your 177 CT you could have one monster type at Diamond (25x3), both Farrows (2x5) and a selection of treachery (3x10, 2x15, 1x20) with some left over (total 165 so far).

That is enough to give any hero party serious difficulty even in late gold if used wisely.
Although Humanoids will still be weak due to a general inability to land their blows.

Corbon said:

OLs who continue to struggle to score anything, even when heroes progress all the way through a dungeon regularly in copper level, are either outliers or just not very competent. Possibly they are playing a particular style which doesn't work against that sort of party.

Interessething comment. now the game we play is an open game, which means strategies are disgused, each session ends with us going over where a fault occured. Being an outlier.. no. being outmatched by mobility most defenently. Every comment i hear in conjunction with mobility is not an issue is just upgrade... but to upgrade you need Xp and as an OL that comes from hero kills and if you can't kill the heroes because they are able to stay out of reach due to mobility it is kind of a moot point. The heroes aren't even that though, so if i get to hit on them they go down, but when i don't get to hit them because they move so fast around it is an imposible task. When they move around in their first dungeon they use fatique exclusively including the fatique potion to quickly clear out and prevent new spawns. In the beginning the best strategies usually only brings about 1 hero kill, perhaps 2 if the dice and cards where with the OL.

Please if you are so confident, please enlighten us, what strategies do you have against a full mobility hero party, you have just started the game, this is the first game week, no upgrades except the initial first 15 xp. The dungeon was just layed out and you have your first 3 cards in hand and no threat tokens. The heroes are about to cover half the dungeon if you don't do something with the placement of you monsters.

How much XP do they net in a single dungeon (3 levels)?

Glyphs - There is an overweight of 1 glyph dungeons so the most likely conquest income is 12 Xp (2 with 1 and 1 with 2)

Leaders - That is simple 2x2 + 1x4, income is 8 Xp, gold comes to 450 gold

Entering the dungeon is 1 Xp

Treasure - Usually at 3 treasures, on average it should net them 3 copper treasures, 1 potion and 250 coins

Gold - Usually 6 gold piles (some dungeons have more than 2 a few has 1) this gives 2400 gold.

Grand total: 21 Xp and 3100 gold not to forget they might have an encounter on the way they gain rougly 400 gold and 2 xp in that one.

That is 1 single game week. To follow that the OL would need to have made roughly 5-6 hero kills.

while i do agree that it is quite possible to have a starting RtL group do the first 3 levels of a dungeon on the first week without the OL getting a single conquest from kills or the deck being cycled, i think that doesn't happen very often.

personally all i do hear from you is waah waah waah! seriously cry more. the few times i have played OL i have decimated the heroes to the point where they just wanted to quit and start over. this usually was because they had no plan and didn't fully grasp the concept of the AC. it also depends on what you pick as your avatar too.

i would agree with corbon, that a competent over time should not be falling too far behind the heroes. this is mainly because the heroes only have access to blitz a select few dungeons for the first few weeks.

Corbon said:

Veritech said:

400, and I'll be lucky to make 200 at this rate, current total is 488, Heroes: 311, Overlord: 177, it was 175 at the start of last week with one dungeon in between.

Well, for your 177 CT you could have one monster type at Diamond (25x3), both Farrows (2x5) and a selection of treachery (3x10, 2x15, 1x20) with some left over (total 165 so far).

That is enough to give any hero party serious difficulty even in late gold if used wisely.
Although Humanoids will still be weak due to a general inability to land their blows.

Corbon said:

Veritech said:

400, and I'll be lucky to make 200 at this rate, current total is 488, Heroes: 311, Overlord: 177, it was 175 at the start of last week with one dungeon in between.

Well, for your 177 CT you could have one monster type at Diamond (25x3), both Farrows (2x5) and a selection of treachery (3x10, 2x15, 1x20) with some left over (total 165 so far).

That is enough to give any hero party serious difficulty even in late gold if used wisely.
Although Humanoids will still be weak due to a general inability to land their blows.

I can see the difference in how you thought out your Conquest and how I ended up thinking out mine. Having "The Twins" rumor come up twice made me end up spending to save Shadow Clones when my players changed their minds about that rumor and ended up tossing it back in replacing it with another they bought (nothing I could do, can't go back in time and undo my purchase). They buy and toss Rumors like they are nothing so it easily came back around again (Rumor is one of the few decks I don't shuffle). It is coming up again so I spent to save two more avatar upgrades before they could be destroyed by the heroes (Wraithform and Toughened) by that point those two together were all I could afford before the dungeon came up.

This cost me my most recent upgrade plans for Treachery. At this point I have 4 CT left to spend. I didn't upgrade Humanoid to Platinum, a potential mistake, instead upgrading Eldritch to gold (only realizing after there's not much point in advancing Eldritch past Silver unless it's your main, even beast would have been better).

I had both Farrows, the heroes hunted all three down and except for the last one had a field day butchering them easily. I did the flee tactic, but by the time I got to where I could siege the heroes were already there taking their turn to pounce the Lt.

Something that doesn't seem to come up in these (heroes with super movement killing dungeons) conversations is that there are several cards that boost players speed that come from Feat cards, items that increase speed, and in my game a teleporting mage who yes, is vulnerable, and yes has pretty much been the sole source of my CT from the heroes (2 for Thorn, plus 3 for going through the deck, plus 2 or 3 if I killed someone else).

As you mentioned it appears to be a game of luck. Well, about 80 percent of my hits either don't do damage (or niggle at them, not that I complain about a wound or two of damage, adds up), or roll X's (so many of these I have to wonder if one of my hero players is using slight of hand to exchange dice on me. I play trap cards, if they don't roll blanks and the hero gets in trouble, then I end up with a feat card dumped on me cancelling them out. They can't always have Feat cards you say? Well they always seem to, and it's only if a player forgets they have it that I get lucky. Added Crushing Blow to my deck, it's best feature, it keeps the mage from ever spending his "Preventing Evil" card now that he knows I have it. Which of course means if I use Crushing Blow there's a good chance of it's destruction on casting.

If I had added the appropriate Treachery you have listed there (instead of trying to save my avatar upgrades because they are pretty much pointless anyway) I might be giving my heroes a challenge.

Hell it's gotten to a point where I had one hero use all of his attacks and not retreat just because he had 2 health left and it was easier for him to die and come back full than waste time healing. His comment on doing so... "Why bother, it's a free fillup and all you'll get is 2 CT" which was the first CT I got on the third level of the dungeon right before they killed the leader, grabbed all the loot and left.

I am not an Outlier, I discuss the game constantly with my group to insure fluid gameplay, other than what is hidden by the rules, nothing is hidden otherwise. My players admit that when I can actually use them, my strategies are exactly what they would have used, oh and guess what, most of the ones I use are the ones listed here and on Boardgamegeek. Amusingly alot of them by yourself Corbon. The key word in all of that is WHEN I can actually use them.

Since you have pointed out Spawning is the weakest point in this game I can see clearly where I made my mistakes. I will just have to play out with the mistakes I've made and see where it goes from there which means mostly just setting up dungeons until they win so I have a chance at playing again.

duhtch said:

while i do agree that it is quite possible to have a starting RtL group do the first 3 levels of a dungeon on the first week without the OL getting a single conquest from kills or the deck being cycled, i think that doesn't happen very often.

personally all i do hear from you is waah waah waah! seriously cry more. the few times i have played OL i have decimated the heroes to the point where they just wanted to quit and start over. this usually was because they had no plan and didn't fully grasp the concept of the AC. it also depends on what you pick as your avatar too.

i would agree with corbon, that a competent over time should not be falling too far behind the heroes. this is mainly because the heroes only have access to blitz a select few dungeons for the first few weeks.

And what about heroes who never blitzed a dungeon once, and never had any issues getting through a dungeon (all three levels) and always managed to be ahead of the OL in CT till they were so powerful that even with upgrades I couldn't even things out. A hero group that moves so fast that once they learned the tactics of blocking LoS pretty much killed most spawning in dungeons, a group that has been playing with Rumors since the first half of Copper and other than one Instakill dungeon admit that nothing has seemed that hard. A group that has a Teleporter on top of all that that likes to zing in and kill Ltn's or Leaders with Power Pots (why bother grabbing health when Power pots can kill anything with an otherwise weak Breath attack).

Fatigue and movement aren't killing my game, they killed it early on. I think my favorite dungeon was one hero zinged across to kill the Leader opening the portal door, a fatigue later was safe in the portal, two of the others raced across the dungeon level using fatigue and movement to grab all the treasures and hit the portal, and the third went back to town since he couldn't cross the dungeon.

Boom setup next level...

My problem isn't the blitz tactic, it was apparently choosing my Avatar before the heroes chose their group.

Veritech said:

My problem isn't the blitz tactic, it was apparently choosing my Avatar before the heroes chose their group.

well, there you have it. i mean, if you want to purposefully gimp yourself, by all means, go ahead, but don't blame the game, blame yourself.

as i stated before, there will be games were with the right group make up and skill selection, it is possible that they clear all 3 levels on the first week.

Cyberon, if the dungeons in the game are not providing enough of a challenge for your heroes, then you may want to consider another option. Over on boardgame geek, I uploaded a file that lets you create your own RtL dungeon levels. With the cards, you can easily set the difficulty to any level that you desire. For example, the rules state that each dungeon will be 7 ssections, if this is not large enough, make the dungeons eight or more. Also, you can adjust the number of minions to increaes the challenge if necessary. Once you understand the system, it only takes about five minutes to create a level. The link is here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/61438/road-to-legend-encounter-cards

If you check them out and you have any questions let me know.

Thanks

Dan Howell

duhtch said:

Veritech said:

My problem isn't the blitz tactic, it was apparently choosing my Avatar before the heroes chose their group.

well, there you have it. i mean, if you want to purposefully gimp yourself, by all means, go ahead, but don't blame the game, blame yourself.

as i stated before, there will be games were with the right group make up and skill selection, it is possible that they clear all 3 levels on the first week.

Lol it was more of an accidental gimp but yes, I totally did. If I had realized that Beasts would have been a far better main than Humanoids I'd have swung that way.

From what I am picking up from all of this, if the hero group is low in movement and fatigue and you don't want to trounce them, go with Humanoid as your main, either Beast or Eldritch could be lethal as a secondary so either is fine.

If the group is made up of high fatigue and speed go with Eldritch or Beast, since one will deal with them at range and the other will deal with them using high movement.

I did not notice in the rules for setup that the heroes choose their group before the OL. In trying to get the game ready and setup for play so we could all start learning it I chose out my avatar and upgrades. Honestly I avoided some of the bigger avatars because I thought they would be too overpowered for a starter group. I just didn't realize how fast my heroes would pick up on the game. I am looking forward to a restart, and have pretty much memorized all the info pertaining to each Avatar so choosing out one quickly after the heroes choose their group will make it easier to grant the game balance.

It seems the balance in this game mostly comes from sportsmanship, the OL choosing out an Avatar that will be a balanced opponent. Makes sense now why the OL waits till after the heroes choose their group before choosing out what plot and avatar to go with.

I do understand why high fatigue and movement will not always come up, and not always be an issue, but when they are there, and you have no choice but to face them, what options do you suggest? Mostly you've just sat there and criticized those of us who OL and notice an incredible difficulty getting around these two stats being high. Rather than suggest ideas or strategies that fellow OL's might use to break or at least match these when the obvious (you should have started with a better Avatar) options aren't available.

Stop being an ass and either share your uber great tactical knowledge or if you have none, just stop being an ass. I realize most forums are hostile since arguements spring up all the time. You and Corbon have both admitted that a high move/fatigue group is very powerful and hard to get around, what would either of you do if you found yourselves in a similar position. Or did you never find strategies that worked and now just rely on the start of the game to insure those strategies never need to be brought up?

Veritech said:

I do understand why high fatigue and movement will not always come up, and not always be an issue, but when they are there, and you have no choice but to face them, what options do you suggest? Mostly you've just sat there and criticized those of us who OL and notice an incredible difficulty getting around these two stats being high. Rather than suggest ideas or strategies that fellow OL's might use to break or at least match these when the obvious (you should have started with a better Avatar) options aren't available.

Stop being an ass and either share your uber great tactical knowledge or if you have none, just stop being an ass. I realize most forums are hostile since arguements spring up all the time. You and Corbon have both admitted that a high move/fatigue group is very powerful and hard to get around, what would either of you do if you found yourselves in a similar position. Or did you never find strategies that worked and now just rely on the start of the game to insure those strategies never need to be brought up?

The game is ever evolving. Every group is different, every dungeon is as well. A friend of mine was trying to make characters and all I told him is that I wanted a character that has 5 movement, 12 wounds 3 attack dice, worth no more than 3 CT and whatever the highest fatigue I can get, with no special abilities. The reason being is, once you pass 5, a Fatigue Potion is usually greater than a power potion even. When I play, I always favor high fatigue characters because of the versatility that it brings on so many levels.

The way I play as OL against heroes with high fatigue is from my experience they tend to overextend and max out every single space they can get. Quite often you can see them counting off the spaces before they make their "actual" move. One little trap can throw a wrench in the whole teams turn. Which in turn nets you more attacks, more cards, more time. Again there is a lot of difference with the people you are playing with too.

I think the problem that I have seen is that the rich keep getting richer. So for instance, if the heroes start with the blitzing tactic, and they net 10-15 CT/week to the OL's 1-3 CT/week, they severely interrupt an OL's progression by limiting his CT gain for upgrades in the near future. Sometimes it will take a good 5-10 weeks before you can get your first monster upgrade. Once the heroes get a certain amount of upgrades, it just makes them exponentially better over time, meanwhile the OL is still hurting to reach his first 25 points for a monster upgrade. This is why we implemented the SoB house rule that helps with CT gain so the game doesn't have a huge imbalance in CT. I know Corbon doesn't like it, and while his points I agree with, this just works best for our group. It is more a mental thing for players to look at CT counts, and say to themselves, either we can still get into this or we have no chance. It is hilarious actually how this works.

Veritech said:

I do understand why high fatigue and movement will not always come up, and not always be an issue, but when they are there, and you have no choice but to face them, what options do you suggest? Mostly you've just sat there and criticized those of us who OL and notice an incredible difficulty getting around these two stats being high. Rather than suggest ideas or strategies that fellow OL's might use to break or at least match these when the obvious (you should have started with a better Avatar) options aren't available.

And sometimes the hole you have dug for yourself is just too deep already.
I wouldn't touch the Beastman Lord with a barge pole, but any other Avatar has decent options available to them. Sorry, but the Beastman Lord is that simple.
BTW, a couple of notes I picked up on, I think, from other comments.
First, when the heroes complete a rumour it is either removed from the game or kept by them. A completed rumour never returns to the rumour deck. So you shouldn't be worrying about losing another pair of upgrades to the Twins rumour (although I'm not sure they completed it, or just bluffed you into wasted XP).
Second, you need to pick whether you will aim to fight the final battle or not. If not, then you are aiming to win by plot or tamalir raze, and Avatar upgrades are a total waste of CT. If you are, then you don't need anything except Avatar upgrades, though monster upgrades will of course be necessary to earn CT and cheap Lts will put map pressure of the heroes. A single Event treachery so you can get off the occasional crushing blow to limit the heroes more devastating kit, but otherwise treachery can't be used in the final battle, so why buy it? Nor can Lts, nor upgrades like Focused or Seige Engines. Have a plan and stick to it. Only spend outside your plan if you are ahead of the plan and have excess resources.
And you don't want more than one type of monster upgraded unless you have an excess of XP to spend. Only heavily upgraded monsters will do enough to heroes to be useful, and you only need to spawn your best type of monsters. Yes, sometimes you won't draw the 'right' spawns, but it isn't necessarily worth the extra cost to upgrade the other types of monster. Note that your Avatar is always based on a Diamond monster even if that monster type is still at copper level.

Veritech said:

Stop being an ass and either share your uber great tactical knowledge or if you have none, just stop being an ass. I realize most forums are hostile since arguements spring up all the time. You and Corbon have both admitted that a high move/fatigue group is very powerful and hard to get around, what would either of you do if you found yourselves in a similar position. Or did you never find strategies that worked and now just rely on the start of the game to insure those strategies never need to be brought up?

Tactics vary greatly according to the exact situation so it isn't easy to just spout off tactical tips.
But one already mentioned is the use of traps, especially held until late in a hero's movement. These can create additional spawning opportunities as well as disrupt hero turns and plans.
Another is patience, and timing.
A saw the complaint where an entire level was cleared and emptied without the OL even getting a turn. Yup, its happened to me too, and worse. But, for example, the next level the heroes can't do that as they have just used up 3/4 of their fatigue and 3 potions.
Just wait 'til they get the Staff of Knowledge as well, and are stripping out all of your threat every turn, so you have nothing but cards. Yes, sometimes entire dungeons go by without a card even getting played by the OL, or a monster being activated - though it is rarely quite that bad. But when you get a chance, you can make them pay. An X on a piddling copper skeleton crushing blows a heavily used item. Then a spawn with a charge/rage kills one of the heroes. But at this stage you are living on scraps and crumbs and the 2-3CT /wk you should have from razing a few cities.
Heroes that are heavily concentrated on speed are also more vulnerable in encounters. Yes, you screwed up early and lost your Lts, so you can't take adantage of their weakness. Error compounds error compounds woe. Nonetheless, it is a weakness. Another time you will be able to use that.
There are two things that can negate great speed. Great toughness - if the heroes have neglected firepower in favour of manouver, the really tough stuff can be too hard to handle for them, and great speed/range/manouverability of your own - being able to hit, and hit hard, from the small places that the heroes neglected or couldn't quite cut of entirely.

Your problems (Avatar choice aside) mostly stem from doing far too poorly during the OL's 'time' in mid copper and early silver. You weren't able to make hay while the sun shone, and now it is cold and gray and there is no hay to be made. And you lost several of your Lts. And you didn't have a coherent upgrade plan. And whatever other things you haven't mentioned. Sometimes you screw up enough things you just got to take what's coming to you. Them's the lumps.
What you sound like is a chess player down to his king and a couple of pawns while his opponent still has half a dozen major pieces. And you are demanding "show me a way out of this mess". Sorry, it might just be that it isn't possible.

Thanks, those ideas are considerably more useful. And it isn't so much a thing of I want to quit or have a way shown out, I have already mentioned before I have lost this one and it's obvious, however what I am seeking for is a way to at least bring challenge, and cause havoc. Considering everything you have mentioned I'm playing it pretty much the same, and as best I can and it seems the dice aren't playing in my favor, and being light handed early on with an Avatar that is considered weak when I should have been heavy.

My plan of upgrades (other than the disasterous waste of 15 starter on the extra die for Beastmen) was pull the Farrows, upgrade a level of monsters and buy treachery, then upgrade again in the same class of monsters, then add more treachery. Pulling Ltn's additionally if I needed too. I was not aware of the drastic differences in the classes chosen and assumed that FF had bothered to make all of them a challenge and interesting. I upgraded humanoids to silver within the copper level, and straight to gold as soon as silver passed over, the obvious weakness being their rare draws in dungeons.

What I am looking for is a way to make it a little more fun and interesting for my heroes than (place hero here, here here and here, next level, repeat). But I suppose we are at that point where this is the norm. I will spend on treachery, maybe one or two other things and see if I can at least provide them with a little threat here and there.

Veritech said:

Thanks, those ideas are considerably more useful. And it isn't so much a thing of I want to quit or have a way shown out, I have already mentioned before I have lost this one and it's obvious, however what I am seeking for is a way to at least bring challenge, and cause havoc. Considering everything you have mentioned I'm playing it pretty much the same, and as best I can and it seems the dice aren't playing in my favor, and being light handed early on with an Avatar that is considered weak when I should have been heavy.

My plan of upgrades (other than the disasterous waste of 15 starter on the extra die for Beastmen) was pull the Farrows, upgrade a level of monsters and buy treachery, then upgrade again in the same class of monsters, then add more treachery. Pulling Ltn's additionally if I needed too. I was not aware of the drastic differences in the classes chosen and assumed that FF had bothered to make all of them a challenge and interesting. I upgraded humanoids to silver within the copper level, and straight to gold as soon as silver passed over, the obvious weakness being their rare draws in dungeons.

What I am looking for is a way to make it a little more fun and interesting for my heroes than (place hero here, here here and here, next level, repeat). But I suppose we are at that point where this is the norm. I will spend on treachery, maybe one or two other things and see if I can at least provide them with a little threat here and there.

Try swapping the monster upgrade types. It will at least create some interesting variations and give both sides a look at other options.

Of course it would have cost differently to upgrade differently, but that is only an arbitrary difference in order to add flavour to Avatars anyway.

Humanoids are much better with SoB dungeon levels as they have lots of obstructions which block LOS and make it much more difficult for the heroes to shut down spawning.
Humanoids are crap because although they have the highest theoretical damage output, their lack of speed and reliance on melee means that they never get to use their strength.

Veritech said:

Fatigue and movement aren't killing my game, they killed it early on. I think my favorite dungeon was one hero zinged across to kill the Leader opening the portal door, a fatigue later was safe in the portal, two of the others raced across the dungeon level using fatigue and movement to grab all the treasures and hit the portal, and the third went back to town since he couldn't cross the dungeon.

What i'm reading from this is:

You don't plant monsters on chests, goldpiles and glyphs?

You don't screen the leader (depends on the level though)?

Sorry, previous post came around a bit harsh, was mainly meant as questions, not accusations.

i would definitely add in the SoB dungeon levels if you have them or have access to them. that will help your spawning problem.

i am not sure you read what corbon wrote. so if you are planning on going to the final battle and you want to have a chance, stop doing upgrades that don't matter. upgrade your avatar.

btw, i think the black dice to beastmen is a good 15 point investment at the start. you just chose the wrong avatar against a team that has great movement potential.