Greetings, Dear Community!

So i recently bought this amazing large and heavy box named "Descent: Journeys in the Dark" (core set only). In my life it's a first board game of such type and genre. We tried our best with my friend and learned rulebook (as it was possible to us) but still, for instance, when game time comes, we are starting to face little and large questions that are actually disturbing the process of our game.

This topic is made to post and ask a list of question and situations that occurs through our "Descent:" questing. I will be very grateful to anyone, who will help us to solve our issues, even if they'll look noobish and funny. We never had a chance to play such game earlier, and never had any experience of such board gaming - so sometimes we don't have even a thought about in-game mechanics or chain rules.

I plan to post new questions in this topic, as they will appear through our game experience. I hope someone, like us, will find this topic useful and interesting. Also, I hope and pray that some real "Descent" masters will find a bit time, and check this topic to give us a piece of their "enlightenment" and share their knowledge of this epic board game

PS: yes, I know well, that any or even all of my questions are "buried" in the tones of topics posts and messages of another players. And yes, I know that I can spent a week and find all my answers. But I am just asking you, my colleagues somehow, and i will be very grateful for your answers detouched to topic. No answers "search yourself" / "you **** noob" / "this is so easy"... Thank you for your understanding and attention!

And, here is my 1st pack of questions (as we came that far in our questing):

1. Skill "Leadership". What, actually or basic this skill means and gives to its owner?

2. Monsters Spawn. Something really hardly understandable to us. So I tried to divide this topic in some direct questions:

2.1. It's said, that Overlord can spawn monsters according to his spawning card and if he has figures of needed monsters AVAILABLE. What exactly this availability means? Does it mean, that available figures, are the ones that are strictly used in the exact quest that is played? Or available ones are all the figures that left from quest, somehow - all figures in the game box (packaging arrangement)?

2.2 When Overlord is spawning monsters - can he use (activate) them (move/attack) in this turn (immediately), exactly after spawning, or only on next overlord's turn?

2.3 Where exactly Overlord can spawn monsters? Ok, it's understandable - that only in the place, that is explored and opened by heroes and behind heroes line of sight. But what exact place can be used? Can it be a room, already explored by heroes and which they left some time ago? Can it be a far corridor, that was for some moment in the line of sight of the hero, but now is behind it? Actually, while playing first quest we found ourselves in situation - that heroes can't leave the room, because Overlord is spawning and spawning new monsters, that stops them.

2.4 If the monster is spawned in the previous room, behind the line of the heroes sight, Overlord have to put them on map tiles or not (showing their exact location somehow)? Or just play the card, and mysteriously smile?

3. What exactly "Crack Shot" skill means? Does it mean, that a hero with ranged/magic attack can perform such attack from any place (cell) that is adjacent to his position? Like a "shot from-behind the corner"? Looks like real cheat The exact situation - hero has this skill + "Knight" skill. So, Overlord founds himself in a situation, when all spawned monsters are quickly shot from the place, they can't even see a hero.

4. "Surge" is used only on abilities/skills/weapons by hero, and x2 surges = x1 threat overlord token? Can anyone just convert surge in +1 DMG?

5. Can a hero perform a ranged/magic attack if has no magic weapon (staff, rune) / ranged weapon (bow, crossbow) equipped?

6. How actually shield works? A hero can defend himself every time someone attacks him, or just once per his/overlord's turn?

7. Overlord is using dices only when performing attack by his monsters, or any other situation? So only in this case he can immediately draw a threat token, for every x2 power surges that are dropped?

8. To take anything from the ground - hero must stand on it, or just be adjacent to the location of the item?

9. If one hero grabs treasure (gold) counter, every hero in the game receives 100 coins. But what exactly the mechanics is, when hero is opening treasure chest? He receives all the treasures himself or can divide/share it with any other hero? Or all treasure is multiplied by the quantity of heroes in the game?

10. Can monsters just stand on items like chests, potions, runes, treasures, etc?

11. Can heroes exchange gold with each other?

That you for your attention!

1)It allows you to take Two Half actions and Place an Order action. A half action is: move your speed, or attack, or place an order. however, with leadership you may not place an order with the two half actions because you basicly get a free one.

2.1) Available means the figures that come with the set. for example there are 6 beastmen (i think) that come with the base set. if you have all 6 in play already, and you play Beastman War Party (spawn 2 beastmen and 1 master beastman) you could only spawn the master beastman because you do not have anymore beastman figures. this is done intentionally.

2.2) yes

2.3)the overlord may spawn the a monster ANYWHERE in the dungeon he wants as long as a)the area has been revealed, b)the heroes have no Line of Sight to any space the figure would occupy when it is spawned.

2.4)no, once an area is revealed, the players always know what is there. you must place the monster on the board.

3) yup, thats basically how it works, crack shot is powerful.

4) no

5) no, but it may perform an unarmed melee attack if it has no weapon equiped, rolling 1 red die and any melee trait the hero has.

6) once you use an item that "exhausts" it cannot be used again until the beginning of that players next turn.

7) the OL only recieves surges from an attack made by one of his monsters. Also, this must be a legal attack. a Legal attack is defined as hitting at least one figure with the attack.

8) a hero must stand on a token to interact with it.

9) the party receives 1 treasure for each hero in the game. this treasure can be divided up anyway the party sees fit (even if all of it goes to one hero.) the party is also aloud to immediately equip any treasure they find for free at the the time they receive it.

10) yes. however a monster cannot end its turn on an activated glyph.

11) no

many of these questions are answered in the FAQ. please be sure to cunsult the fact before posting a question here.

wow, my spelling suks

LEXagon said:

Available means you have a plastic figure from the box that you can place on the map. Furthermore, if all the monsters of a given type (ie: white beastmen) are already on the map, you have the option of removing one of those to place a new one with the spawn card. However, if you do not want to remove figures on the map and don't have any others in the box, you can't spawn those figures. This may result in you only spawning part of what the card would normally give you.

LEXagon said:

Yes, he can activate them immediately after spawning them. You will find that once the heroes know what they're doing and have silver or gold items, it's usually pretty easy to clear the monsters that begin in a room before they have a chance to attack. If spawned monsters had to wait a turn before activating, the Overlord would be largely helpless to stop the heroes.

LEXagon said:

The Overlord can place monsters in any empty space that the heroes currently do not have line of sight to. This might be a space in a room the heroes have passed by. It might be a space ahead of the heroes that they have never drawn line of sight to, as long as it is part of an area that has already been revealed. It can be a space behind a door that has been closed to shut down line of sight (though remember that the spawn card must be played before activating any monsters this turn, so the door would need to have been closed last turn, or by the heroes.) Learning how to manage the oncoming waves of monsters and not let them stop up the party is one of the more important hero tactics to get down. It might take a few games.

LEXagon said:

Spawned monsters must be placed on the board. So are all objects and monsters in a newly revealed Area, even if the heroes don't have line of sight to the particular place those objects/monsters are right away. There is no hidden placement or hidden movement in this game.

LEXagon said:

Yes, that's how it works.

LEXagon said:

You cannot convert a surge into anything unless the item you are attacking with says so. If you have two weapons equipped you must choose which one you are making the attack with each time you attack, and may only spend surges on the one you chose. The other may or may not provide an "offhand bonus," but that is the only benefit the second weapon will provide.

The Overlord's ability to spend 2 surges for 1 threat is the only effect that isn't written directly on a card.

LEXagon said:

No. Not unless he has a skill or hero ability that says otherwise (I don't think there are any of those, btw.) The ability to make an unarmed melee attack is a specific rule. There is no counterpart for ranged or magic attacks.

LEXagon said:

The shield is exhausted when used. It cannot be used again until it is refreshed. Items normally refresh at the start of a hero's turn. So, generally speaking, just once per turn.

LEXagon said:

The Overlord's ability to gain 1 threat for 2 surges only applies to attack rolls he makes with monsters. More specifically, attack rolls he makes that have a chance to hit at least one hero. Your monsters can't go around clawing the walls to gain threat. Even if he is rolling dice for some other reason, this ability would not apply.

LEXagon said:

Generally he must be standing on the item to pick it up. Quest-specific rules might say differently for certain items, mind you.

LEXagon said:

The same as the gold pile. Each hero immediately receives treasure and money as listed for the chest. No matter where they are standing. Cards are dealt in turn to each hero and if they want to trade items they need to do it with MP.

LEXagon said:

Yes, with the notable exception of activated glyphs. Monsters may not end movement on an activated glyph and must move off as soon as able if it somehow gets activated beneath them. Also note that a hero with Acrobat can pick up most items even with a monster standing on them. He can't open a chest with a monster on top of it, though.

Additionally, standing on an item is not the same thing as spawning on an item. The space(s) a monster is spawned into must be completely empty of tokens in addition to being out of line of sight.

LEXagon said:

No. They can trade items before selling them to control who gets the money from the sale, but that's about the best they can do.

Torin Negatia and Steve-O, thank you very much!

The information you had given, is really useful and exact!

Though, still I have a little more precise to ask:

*1. Skill "Leadership". Due to it's definition and answer given by Torin, we are still confused what exactly it give to a hero? Probably we stucked in definition of half-action. As we understand, hero can 1.Run/2.Battle/3.Advance/4.Ready every turn. To which exact action type/s this skill belongs? Can one, just basicaly show us an in-game example, how hero plays without this skill and, in comparison, how he plays with it.

*9.1 Treasures. So here I received a bit contradictory answers. Torin says, that whole treasure from chest, while received, can be divided in any proportions between heroes. Steve-O says that each hero receives equal parts of it in order form. So which rule is correct?

*9.2 Treasures. Please look at the example, and correspond if it's correct:

Due to quest and chest marker (copper 2), hero opens a chest with (quest text):

- 1 Conquest Tokens

- 100 coins

- 1 Copper Treasure

There are 3 heroes playing this quest on the board. So EACH of them receives x100 coins + x1 copper treasure? What about Conquest Tokens? Will they receive only 1CQ or 3CQ according to a number of heroes?

Thank you guys for your help and time !

PS: Steve-O said:

Sounds extra cool XD

LEXagon said:

A half action is moving your Speed, making an attack, or placing an order token. Normally, when a hero declares a Ready action he must choose to either move his Speed OR make an attack, and then he may place an order token with the other half action (note, he can place the order first if he wants.) With Leadership, when the hero declares a Ready action he may BOTH move and attack as well as placing an order. He may also place his order on another hero if he likes (normally you can only place an order on yourself.) Keep in mind that any single hero can only have one order on them at a time.

The original Leadership card (which is probably the one you have) reads "When a hero declares a Ready Action he may move and attack and then place an order." The Altar of Despair expansion introduced a re-worded card that said "When a hero declares a Ready Action, he may take a total of 3 half actions, one of which must be to place an order." The FAQ further clarified that each half action used by Leadership must be different, ie: you can't attack twice or move twice or place more than one order. The reason the card was re-worded was because the Altar of Despair introduces a new "extended action" half action that was used in a few quests, and they wanted to open the door for the possibility of using that half action with Leadership, too.

LEXagon said:

From page 18 of the base rulebook:

"Copper Treasure: Each hero draws one card from the
copper treasure deck and may either keep it or immediately
discard it and receive its money value instead."

Emphasis mine. Each hero draws his own cards when a chest is opened. There are similar passages for silver and gold treasures in the same section.

There is a skill in one of the expansion sets (Bardic Lore) that allows one hero to collect all the treasures drawn and redistribute them among the heroes as he sees fit. Otherwise, cards are drawn in order and need to be traded around using MP.

Please note, the option to immediately sell the treasure for full cash value was later removed in errata, see the FAQ document.

LEXagon said:

Coins and treasures are awarded to each hero, CT is awarded as a lump sum to the party's CT pool (not multiplied by number of heroes.) If the chest gives out curses, the Overlord gets 1 threat per curse per hero . The threat generated by these curses CAN be used to pay for a trap card on the chest being opened, and if that trap delays the opening of the chest somehow, the remainder of the treasure is not distributed until later.