Grubsnik said:

If the heroes are fast enough, or have the right mix of skills and kit, they can get around this. A hammer attack will clear a chest and an acrobat or flyer will collect coinpiles and activate glyphs regardless of monsters.
I'm sure these guys are at least following these very basic tactics. But they only go so far.

One advantage of having ToI is the ability to always choose shades (can't be hit melee, and therefore most knockback, unless Reaching) to place on chests when they are on offer.

Heh. Reading threads like these, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. My hero group is behind the OL 59-92 after three sessions. The OL is the Sorcerer King and had silver eldritch upgraded (with Snipers) after week 2.

We did just get Taunt for Trenloe at Dawnsmoor, so maybe that will help even things out a bit, but I have never even seen the possibility of clearing a dungeon level in a single turn. Usually, it takes at least 4, usually closer to 6-7. Maybe we're still playing tactically incorrectly. (I know that my fellow hero players insisted on spending enough turns in the Mine dungeon to reach every Mine encounter marker, for example.)

I agree that movement is critical, but I hardly think that the ability to spend fatigue for movement is gamebreaking. The OL would be even further out ahead of us if we didn't have the ability to close with and Battle her silver skeleton Snipers quickly.

Gramarye said:

the reason it takes you 4 turns is most likely because you don't have a high speed/fatigue group. would you mind sharing your group and skills? lastly i would highly suggest not getting taunt, as it will most likely not help you vs. a competent OL.

good luck though.

Subject to the potential retcon of that amateurish skill purchase in the other thread that you noticed, our party and their starting skills and current kit:

• Trenloe w/ Knight, sword, Plate Mail, and Crystal Shield;
• Karnon w/ Cleaving, Dragonbone Hammer, chainmail, and Ring of Quickness;
• Tetherys w/ Eagle Eye, Backbiter, and chainmail;
• Andira Runehand w/ Spiritwalker, Staff of the Grave, Mana Weave, and wizard's cloak.

No speed 5 characters, true. (The one that nearly made it in was Laurel; that player took Tetherys instead. Until this past session, however, that character was the mostly-useless Red Scorpion.) Trenloe is definitely low speed & fatigue, but the others seem at least average on both fronts.

I'm also skeptical when people talk about often clearing a dungeon level in one or two turns.

There are simply so many dungeons where this isn't remotely possible. In last campaign I started, the first level I drew was King of the Mountain–– a map that requires a minimum of 6 turns, if everything goes exactly according to plan. My next level was the SoB one with the 5-Armor, Fear 2, ~15 Wound master hellhound, a boss that is simply impossible for a beginning party to defeat quickly.

Paging through the RTL quest book seems like too much of a spoiler, but as far as I can recall, most dungeon levels require a minimum of 3-4 turns, and this can easily be lengthened with the right draw of overlord cards. There are certainly a few that can be finished quickly-- for example, Divide and Conquer (if you never roll a miss, and the boss never comes back to life) or The Mine (If you ignore all the coins and chest). But I think these are an extreme minority, maybe 10%, or 15% with SoB)

Here are some more off the top of my head that definitely require 3-4 turns in the best of circumstances, and likely longer–– The Prison, Wed of Lives, Fire and Ice, Trial by Fire, The Barracks, Two by Two, Downward Spiral, The Graveyard, The Gauntlet, The Fountain of Life, Opera of the Forsaken, The Tower, The Snake-Charmer's Den, Down the Drain. When newer player talks about heroes clearing out levels quickly, I tend to assume that they're missing some fundamental rule, or that the Overlord player doesn't understand the mechanics of his or her position.

That being said, Gramarye-- your hero selection is one of the weakest parties I've ever seen.

-pw

So what should we have done to make it stronger?

FWIW, we didn't draw a single 3-die ranged attacker in our starting draw of 12. Our options were:

Trenloe the Strong
Sir Valadir
Bogran the Shadow
Mordrog
Tetherys
Andira Runehand
Laurel of Bloodwood
Mad Carthos
Sahla
Red Scorpion
Karnon
Zyla

I understand now that taking two melee attackers is generally considered a bad idea, of course. The only 3-die attacker we ignored, though, was Mad Carthos.

ETA: I know we should probably have also taken someone with 5 base movement; I couldn't convince anyone else in my group of that.

ETA2: I'm willing to keep posting information about our group's decisions, which likely means putting out information about all our mistakes, since this is our first ever campaign, but if you're going to laugh at those mistakes, I'd sincerely appreciate advice on what those mistakes actually were and how to avoid them. Trust me, given how far behind we are, I'm quite willing to accept that the party is weak.

Gramarye said:

basically for advanced campaigns, the line of thought is 1 of each type (melee, ranged, magic) and a runner. yes taking the 2 melee attackers was very bad idea. i love me some zyla. she is an amazing runner.

i would have easily picked zyla, mad carthos and laurel. take your pick of tanks and go from there. you would have had an awesome group, especially with the skills you picked up.

my group has made plenty of mistakes when we first started, but none that involved character selection, because we did our research. no worries though, you will get better over time. i encourage you to keep with your current campaign, do a few LT and encounter battles, get that under your belt, so you understand how the overland map works, then if your group see's no light at the end of the tunnel, start over. there is no shame in that.

Mordrog

Mad Carthos

Zyla

Laurel of Bloodwood.

This is a powerful, diverse party, and one which will only get stronger as they get stat upgrades. For me, it's hard to justify ever not taking Zyla. If you're apprehensive about take three 8-wound characters (I wouldn't be, given the difference in conquest) then you could sub out Andira or Sahla for for Carthos.

Outside of promo characters, there are only three heroes with 3 ranged dice (plus Ronan). You should not expect to draw one most of the time.

What does ETA stand for?

-pw

phelanward said:

+1

phelanward said:

Not surprised to see the love for Laurel; I tried to convince two different players to take her for our ranged attacker and was rebuffed both times. (We had one person leave the group as Red Scorpion, who I could tell at one look was probably a bad choice; the new entrant replaced her with Tetherys, with me again lobbying unsuccessfully for Laurel.)

I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see the love for Zyla (speaking as someone who owns only the base game and RTL, though, and therefore has never had a chance to play with any of the expansion characters from WOD, AOD, or TOI), considering her low health and 1/1/1 trait distribution. Obviously, the low conquest value and Fly are selling points, but I was thinking that if it came down to a fight with the Avatar at the end, she wouldn't be much help. (Also, I figured that the Sorcerer King's Snipers would be making mincemeat of her every turn.)

I understand the argument for Mad Carthos.

Why Mordrog (especially given where this particular thread began, regarding speed)? He's every bit as slow as Trenloe (3 speed, 3 fatigue), and if our existing game is any indication, the tanks often don't even get targeted. Just about the only thing the OL targets Trenloe with are traps.

ETA: "ETA" stands for "Edited to Add" ... everything preceding was the original post.

I'm actually not a huge fan of Laurel, but I think your pickins be slim, and the extra damage can be really nice in a pinch.

Trenloe is just an awful hero. Some people are in favor of always including a 3-speed character in an RtL party, so you can make use of heavy armor. I don't always accept that, but I see the point. Your choices for melee heroes are pretty shady, but given the choice between Trenloe and Mordrog, I'd be inclined to go with the latter-- Trenloe's ability is very roughly equal to +1 damage, but only if you're not rolling max damage with the applicable dice. Mordrog has one more trait die, which could be considered to equal that. So, then you have the question-- is Mordrog's ability more valuable than the fact that Trenloe is easier to train? My answer would be yes. I would probably rather take Karnon over Trenloe, myself.

Zyla is amazing, because she's only 1 conquest and flies. Basically... she breaks the game, as RtL is set up. She allows the heroes to acquire resources with virtually no investment, and can do so by circumventing the overlord's only normal methods for stopping them. A 1-conquest hero would still be amazing, without flying, ghost, or fatigue 5. As she is set up, Zyla would be a first-tier pick if she had double the conquest value, and might still even be justifiable at 3 conquest. An RtL party with Zyla actually has to play badly on purpose just to keep the game fun for everyone, because it's usually the best course of action simply to send her ahead to grab stuff, while the rest of the heroes sit back or shop. If she dies (which certainly isn't a guarantee), no big deal, and if she doesn't, she's the hero best-equipped to escape.

Personally, I'm in favor if house-ruling to make her 2-conquest.

Not quite sure why you're thinking about Avatar battles during hero selection– the heroes' abilities will be so very different at that point, there's no way to anticipate how they will do. Rolling 1 fewer dice than the other starters really doesn't mean much by gold level.

-pw

also, the players should choose their heroes and get their skills first, then the OL gets to pick his avatar.

at some point during reading this, i noted someone saying that one or two heroes not being able to cover a dungeon would go back to town while the other heroes would enter the portal to the next dungeon and "end" the dungeon level. i'm hoping you understand that ALL heroes must enter the portal to move to the next dungeon. (sorry i can't find it it to quote it.)

also there is a finite number of potions they can buy each week from an alchemist. once these potions are sold (an average of 3) no one can by more potions till the next week. that is all three levels of the dungeon.

players start with 1200 coin, even if all characters bought 3 fatigue potions each @50 gold each that is HALF their starting money, leaving them very unequiped and easy to kill.

don't spread out your attacks, target one character till they are dead. i will find ways to target a single character with every single monster possible during a turn, only attacking other characters if i have no way to hit the primary character i have chosen.

use traps on low life characters to finish them off, killing a player on their turn is better for you, since they wont be able to respawn until after the OLs next turn.

monsters can open and close doors too. Named monsters can open and close rune locked doors. doors are your friend. (oh, and command works through doors. yay!)

the Power card Gluttony (2 trap treachery) is great for potion loving groups and for groups low on potions as they have to discard a potion every turn or roll a power die and risk taking a wound (that ignores armor.)

having a dark glyph (green or purple) is very nice since it will always be the unactivated glyph in a dungeon level (since most only have one unactivated glyph.) the green makes it so it is worth only 1 xp and cant be used to move to or from town. the purple allows the overlord to draw two cards (discarding one for threat) when it is activated an anytime it is used by a player. (although there is no errata on this as to if you get one per level of dungeon or can only place it once per dungeon.)

if you are having trouble with gaining threat, add the power card Pride to your deck (2 event treachery.) you gain 4 threat every time a hero places an order.

power cards, your threat, your hand, and your discard, persist through dungeon levels. so if you don't know this and are reshuffling every level, stop doing it.

if you are using a low treachery cost avatar, spend your first 15 points on a treachery upgrade. if not, spend it on the upgrade that reduces all city defenses by one (can't remember the name atm.)

if a hero places a rest order, hit them if you can, it disrupts the rest order.

don't try to stop heroes from making it through a dungeon, just try and kill them as much as possible.

crushing blow (1 event treachery) is great for getting rid of a party's hard won equipment, so is Frost.

upgrade a type of monster best suited for you as soon as possible (i usually choose beasts.)

your avatar upgrades are worthless till endgame. don't bother with them unless you cant upgrade monsters. and upgrade all your monster types when you can (save some xp) having one all powerful type is actually bad.

during copper, i typically get an average of 35xp per dungeon. my last campaign i ran (not the one i just started this week, both SoB) i was over 50xp ahead of my players before hitting silver (they had 46, i had 98 after two dungeons.) only during the first RtL i ran did players come close to me, and i was still running a minimum of 10xp ahead of them each dungeon and sieging three cities (actually rolling for raze) before we exited copper. I was the noob, they were all vets.

one decent tactic i find is not to waste my threat in the first levels of the dungeon. i build up my power. since players actually get something for finishing dungeons in SoB, they are more prone to try to finish all three levels. early in the game Brilliant Commander is a wonderful card if you get it out before the third level, doom is also very nice, but trap master is better (since they can't cancel the damage from trap master.) i have summoned as many as 8 times in the third dungeon level. i tend not to was my time playing cards like aim or dodge, but i will play rage if i can.but i tend to want to get pride and gluttony into my deck and into play once i can get the treachery for them (or two crushing blows if the heroes are getting too strong.)

Some of this advice is good. Most is very generic. Much is simply bad or wrong.

Not every hero needs to enter the portal; only one does. The level changes when all heroes are either through the portal or in town.

Very, very few levels have doors, and even fewer have doors that are useful to close. I'm not sure what the thinking is there.

Most of your advice depends on already having a lot of XP, so I don't think that's much help to original poster. Yes, Sundered Glyphs and Crushing Blow are nice, if you can get them. So are Gold Weapons and Nanok, if you can get them.

Sorry, but Doom is a terrible card. Actually, that's incorrect. Doom is a great card, because it's discardable for 5 threat. It is a terrible card to pay for. Most power cards are terrible, though some can be justifiably added because they're a poor man's Danger. The only one I would ever consider actually playing would be Evil Genius. There are a few that can be very situationally useful-–

Trapmaster (if I already had a handful of traps)

Brilliant Commander (if it was a rumor level or a legendary area. Sometimes the upgrade can be extremely nice, but this is quite uncommon.)

Unholy Swiftness (In the rare circumstance that I have upgraded Humanoids)

Gluttony (if half the party had at least two 8-wound heroes)

Guiding Force and All-Concealing Shadows seem potentially, good, though I've never used them-- maybe someone else can report on whether or not they're worthwhile. They certainly seem stronger in RtL than in vanilla.

Other than that, you will never make up for the threat spent, when it could have been spent on a second spawn.

-pw

Torin Negatia said:

i generally disagree with everything this guy said, not just what i quoted. especially the first paragraph i quoted above, you are wrong. this might be a good reason there is such a huge range in CT gain. often this is from people not playing by the rules, like this guy i quoted. again, don't listen to this guy, it is all garbage.

the second paragraph is terrible too. save up all your threat until you get a power card or for next dungeon level? what happens when a group uses the blitz tactic? it is quite obvious he is playing against extremely inept heroes that kill every monster and get every treasure for all 3 levels.

so yes i was wrong. the ppl i originally started playing with told me that and i never re-read that part of the rules myself. i stand corrected, but you could be a little nicer about it.

duhtch said:

also if you noted i've been playing SoB not RtL, blitz doesn't work as well in SoB (but can still be done) as well as the heroes have an incentive to actually try and finish all three level of the dungeon (gaining a treasure map piece.) it is also much harder to flee from encounters and the dungeon levels are constructed a bit better.