To those who have it:

How does it change the game? I am under the impession that it allows the game to be played in smaller chunks, and that characters get to progress from one session to another. Is this a fair assessment?

willco said:

The standard dungeon crawling of the vanilla game is still there but now the players can travel over land using the map and having encounters as they travel from place to place. It also makes flying critters even more dangerous than if they were stuck in a dungeon. I really like it personally and think it takes Descent to the next step in its ongoing evolution. And due to the epic nature of the campaign it does allow you to play the game in smaller sessions with some nice tuck boxes for current items and a book of adventure sheets to keep track of where you have been. So that is really handy. Also you heroes start out weaker than they do in vanilla Descent so there is some nice character building and thus lives up to the heroes living up to the namesake of Road to Legend. The Overlord also gets some new tricks up his sleeve as well as having a true identity as one of the Avatars in the game. The Overlord also gets some lieutenant(s) to run about and cause mayhem on the overland map by raising key locations where the players can go to upgrade themselves. I know I am being rather brief here but you can also checkout the PDF of the rules (if they are up on the new site) and it will tell you whether Road to Legend is for you.

The best way to see the difference is to download the rules off this web site.

The best feature of RTL is that you can save your game after just playing for say an hour and continue next time. Or you can play all day!!!!

Road to Legend is regarded by the majority of people as a good thing. CanadianPittbull described it fairly well.

I would also add that the dungeons in RtL are more fun than the ones in JitD. Each particular one is divided into three "levels", and each level has its own unique challenges/features. I sometimes felt in JitD that I was really doing the same things over, and over, and over again from turn to turn (and sometimes even from dungeon to dungeon). RtL fixed that problem nicely. The dungeons are unique, interesting, and ensure that a new unique challenge comes right after the previous one.

There are some problems with the game (such as heroes steamrolling everything in Gold level of the campaign), so you may need/want to iron things out with houserules. But if you don't mind a few houserules, or you just like playing against a tough challenge, then that shouldn't stop you.

I greatly prefer RtL over vanilla Descent, probably because I played RtL before I ever played vanilla Descent. Going from RtL to vanilla Descent for me kind of felt like I was stepping into a different world.

I love having an Avatar to fight against, having to plan out your overland trips turns in advance to anticipate what the OL is going to do, Hero progression and the way the dungeons are done. Plus, the way it is currently set up its pretty much infinitely expandable especially if they were to add another board onto the side with more locations.

Vanilla Decent is very much a "one shot" kind of gig. As I understand vanilla progression, you stomp around in a big dungeon, pick up some small stuff, then better stuff, then totally crazy stuff, then beat up the big bad. then you go to the next dungoen and start completely over again from scratch.

RtL gives a very definitive line of progression, where stats increase, loot is kept, and the baddies get progressively tougher. There's a demand for strategic thinking, such as deciding if the Skill or Wound upgrade is worth leaving a city to be destroyed, if you should pursue the rumor or the Lieutenant, should you trek to certain towns to pick up skills knowing that it takes you far out of the way of the OL's plans for conquest.

You can't just plow through the dungeons and expect to win.

RTL offers a much stronger improvement over the original campaign rules (in vanilla Descent), and overall its a much better game for it.

Reglar Descent (and the non-RTL expansions) offer a reasonable stand alone dungeon crawler. There, you only have a (relatively) short game to worry about. The heroes you pick/end up with dont grow that much during the dungeon, and you cant even keep the gear you got from the last dungeon (if playng two or more dugeons). In RTL you have to worry about literally dozens of dungeon levels, plus your heroes start off MUCH weaker. But towards the end of RTL, your heroes will be much much stronger than starting heroes from regular descent. Which hero you start with in RTL is much less important as how you upgrade them, and how you counter the damage the OL does on the Overworld map.

The Primary problems that most seem to encounter in RTL is a difficult starting game, along with several OL strategies that are annoying/mean to play on the heroes. Should your group make it to the final parts of the game (gold+final dungeon), you will find its errilie easy to beat the OL.

In all though, it will add a lot to your regular descent core game.

Wel It add a small thing and that is the game on the world map. Here you get a very small strategic tough by defending your cities and killing luitenants of the overlord.

The rest is a bit vanila descent but smaller makes it more fun when you do not have that much time to play and still see your characters grow in experience.

In light with what all of us have said to this point. Road To Legend gives a lot of mileage to the Descent franchise,

CanadianPittbull said:

That's great, just the kind of information I was looking for. Let's see, it's smaller sessions, gives the players some control of where they want to go in the world, starts characters out with lesser power and lets them build up over time, and gives you all the tools you need to keep track of what's happening between sessions.

Based on that, I'm thinking that this is a must-have if I am going to get my game night buddies on board.

Thanks!

eWabbie said:

Roger that. I'll check out the rules, but I really wanted first-hand impressions. The tools to keep track of where the game is are great; is there anything keeping you from tracking this stuff with the base game? Sounds like some charts and some tuckboxes, stuff we can all make in a pinch. Is there more to it than that?

Joram said:

Very interesting. This is the first time I've heard of the adventures/dungeons themselves being so much better and offering so much more to the players. I'll keep my eye open for that, and I'll be sure to remain aware of the Gold Level problem you describe.

Thanks for the feedback!

Big Remy said:

Okay, I definitely need to read the rules, then. Sounds like there is a lot more there than I realized, such as an overland board.

Are avatars the big bad defaults in the dungeons?

ColdStone said:

This is exactly my present understanding as well, that RtL gives you campaign play while Original Descent gives you power-ramping one-shots (which is still cool, especially if you only get to play every one in a while).

It sounds like there's much more to it than I thought, which was, well, Vanilla Descent with the ability to keep tabs between adventures so you got to keep your character progression. You make it sound a lot more interesting, which is good considering that I was already willing to jump in with RtL when I thought it was much simpler .

quesodog said:

Thanks for the reply, Quesodog.

Yeah, I was looking at the 'campaign' rules in the core set, and well, they suck . Nice of them to put something in there, but, come on...you can't use the word 'campaign' with gamers like us and then put that weak house rule in there. No, sir. And that's *exactly* why RtL got on my map in the first place. I like the fact that the starting game is difficult for the players, while the end game is a little easier; sounds a lot like D&D to me (although 4Edition changed that), which is great, because most people in my group have that as a frame of reference when looking at dungeon crawls and character progressions.

Especially intersting is the Overworld map to me right now. I need to grok it and then get back with any questions.

Several people have mentioned a tough time for the OL in the end game, and some have mentioned house rules to help out with that. What are those house rules?

Baron Sengir said:

Thank you for the reply, Baron.

Aside from the campaign nature of playing, I think that my favorite thing I've heard is that you can, indeed, play in smaller doses if you need to. My group plays on a weeknight, so we can't stay up a few extra hours if the game runs long. We have 3 hours most nights, with some people really sticking to the cut-off time.

CanadianPittbull said:

Abso-freaking-lutely

No, the Avatars are the representation of the Overlord. They grant the Overlord player new powers and upgrades specific to the Avatar, like the Titan allowing all unnamed Master mosters to roll an extra power dice.

This is a very good expansion, and I had a hard time getting my family to play before this. It adds a purpose to the game that allows you to feel like the heroes are progressing and building up, without feeling like you're restarting everytime. Though, it needs to be said that it greatly increases the time required to get though a full game... you're looking at a good 40+ hours of play time to complete one campaign.