I already mentioned the existence of my modified OL Deck and a more balanced version of the skill decks in some other topics, but now I am ready to share them with you.

Any comments are helpfull, since different people have different views on why cards suck or rock and I can always use input to get it better & make the game more fun. I won't explain everything yet, because I don't want to influence people with my particular view until after I have had some comments.

I put the pdf's on my website www.student.tue.nl/h/b.t.hermans/

Thanks already if you take the time to view and/or discuss them!

As I've commented elsewhere, there are a number of systemic balance problems in Descent, and so certain kinds of cards may not really be entirely balancable without addressing other parts of the game. That said, here's my initial reactions:

OL Cards

Brilliant Commander: I tend to regard this as the weakest power card in the normal game, and other commentators I've read agree, yet you seem to have increased its cost.

Spawns: You seem to be using the guideline that 1 tier 3 monster = 2 tier 2 = 2 normal + 1 master tier 1. This is consistent with the JitD spawn cards, but I don't think that monsters within a "tier" are actually consistent in power, nor do I think that going up a tier always results in more powerful monsters. Additionally, I think spawn cards tend to be the strongest cards in JitD, especially in a game with a small number of heroes, and you seem to have erred on the side of making the costs lower , so I think these are probably much too good. I'm also curious how you decided that Chaos Beasts and Ice Wyrms were tier 3--there's admittedly no official label, and the number of figurines is consistent with tier 3, but I thought the stats and spawn cards were more consistent with them being tier 4.

Paralyzing Gas: I don't think you changed this at all, but in my personal opinion, it could stand a nerf, if for no other reason than that it becomes very powerful in a game with fewer heroes.

Skills

There are quite a few minor spelling/grammar errors that you may want to go back and clean up.

The "twice per round" skills and the "if you met some weird condition last round" skills seem like they might be hard to keep track of.

I'm not sure about RtL, but in vanilla Descent, and especially in small games, extra actions are very, very valuable compared to other effects. 1 fatigue to get an extra half-action usable in a wide variety of circumstances (e.g. Leadership, Able Warrior, Knight, Unmovable) is probably much better than most of the other skills in this set.

Furr the Spirit Wolf: You probably want to say that his attack ignores armor.

Able Warrior vs. Unmovable: Comparing one extra attack on an advance to a free guard and +1 armor on a battle, I'm having a hard time believing those are eqully powerful. Also note that unmovable is actually much better for a ranged or magic hero than a melee hero, so having this in the combat deck may produce interesting results.

Sprint: This is perhaps excessively specialized. It's tremendously powerful for a runner (two fatigue for two extra half-actions, both of which are extremely useful for runners), but looks pretty much worthless for anything else. Seems like that could either be a waste of a skill or completely break the game depending on who gets it and what quest you're playing. And it's in the combat deck?

Born to the Bow: If you happen to draw two-handed ranged weapons, this is good, perhaps a little on the powerful side (a 17% boost in attack efficiency even if you only ever reroll an X, which isn't too far from an extra half-action when you battle, and there's no fatigue cost). If you happen not to, then it's worthless. Another big-swing card.

Block: Now you're in trouble if you do draw two-handed weapons. Why not call it "Evasion" and eliminate the requirement of equipping two different hand items? Seems more thematically appropriate for a subterfuge card and less arbitrary.

Acrobat: Listing the things you can't ignore means you may have to reprint it every expansion. Also, I'm not sure that list includes everything you want it to. I suggest you say that it works like Fly except that you can't perform any action while in a space you couldn't otherwise occupy (or just say you can't attack if you really want acrobats opening chests that monsters are standing on and stuff like that).

Pickpocket: Cheaper item purchases will result in heroes transferring items they don't want to the pickpocket so that she can sell them and buy more stuff with the gold than otherwise possible, which seems annoying and unthematic. Maybe grant bonus gold every time you receive a treasure from a chest instead?

Air Pact: Note that this will allow a hero with a blast or breath weapon to rearrange an entire roomful of monsters with one attack. That's not necessarily a problem, area attacks get increased benefits from lots of stuff, just pointing it out.

Blessing: This would be almost as powerful as Inner Fire or Eagle Eye (and more flexible) even if it only applied to you. When you're granting the bonus to every hero in a party of four, this is crazily good. It's also inherently better in larger parties than smaller ones, which is problematic given that larger parties already have an easier time in Descent.

Fire Shield: This is absolutely terrible. 1 extra damage on a monster usually doesn't even matter, because lots of monsters die in one hit anyway, and even if they don't, attacks generally inflict a lot more than that. On top of that, it won't finish off wounded monsters (since they'll anticipate it and attack someone else), and since this is a wizardry skill, it's probably on a back-row character, which means it'll only damage melee monsters, and then only when they manage to do something (get within range of your squishy mage) that you've been trying hard to prevent them from doing. There's a hero in ToI that has Aura 4 during the OL's turn as an inherent ability; giving one-quarter of that on a skill card is insulting. And yes, I know there's a JitD skill that's exactly the same as yours for purposes of vanilla, but it's still insulting.

My memory may be a bit off here, but your Born to the Bow and Blessing weren't changed from vanilla Descent were they?

I know in my group Born to the Bow is chosen 100% of the time.

I like Descent as it is. I actually don't see the need for most of your rebalancing. Most of the skill cards seem to be re-worded but unchanged, which is confusing. The original text is pretty clear to me.

As a side note, spawning is very powerful; you need to use the eyes from RtL to balance the expansions.

Reply to Antistone.

First of all I would like to say that I never play with fewer than 4 four heroes, since it is as much fun to play 2 characters with 1 person and balancing is really a problem, since most monsters are killed in one action any way, and you half the available actions. I agree where you say that some cards are too powerfull with less than 4 heroes, but I forgot to mention that this was not a consideration.

Brilliant Commander: I tend to regard this as the weakest power card in the normal game, and other commentators I've read agree, yet you seem to have increased its cost.
In my opinion it is one of the stronger cards, especially if you can upgrade a beastman or tier 3 monster (see also the increased treachery cost for some masters in my red deck). But since it is indeed pretty situational I ll look into this again and gather some more opinions.

Spawns: You seem to be using the guideline that 1 tier 3 monster = 2 tier 2 = 2 normal + 1 master tier 1. This is consistent with the JitD spawn cards, but I don't think that monsters within a "tier" are actually consistent in power, nor do I think that going up a tier always results in more powerful monsters.
This is consistent with both JitD as well as most treachery cards from the expansions. Making all cards cost the same (4 threat) was based on the last expansion, where the tier 2 spawn also just cost 4 threat. Since I wanted to make choice cards this made the implementation more easy. What I have seen is that a tier upgrade with this number conversions most of the time results in a bit less damage for the spawn, but a larger survivability, hence the choice.
Additionally, I think spawn cards tend to be the strongest cards in JitD, especially in a game with a small number of heroes, and you seem to have erred on the side of making the costs lower, so I think these are probably much too good.
Even though I dont have the <4 heroes consideration this is indeed a moot point. If the OL is too strong I might change all costs to 5 threat. But as you said yourself: 2 tier 2 monsters are hardly ever better than 2 tier 1 monsters with a master monster, and those costs already were 4, which I took as basis for the current cost.
I'm also curious how you decided that Chaos Beasts and Ice Wyrms were tier 3--there's admittedly no official label, and the number of figurines is consistent with tier 3, but I thought the stats and spawn cards were more consistent with them being tier 4.
As you might have noticed did I already changed the Blood Apes from tier 2 to tier 3 (regarding figure count) since they really have way too much armor and health to legimate a spawn with 2 normals (again the damage vs. survivability offset I made before). It is good to see that you have a problem with the same 2 monsters as I do. Until 2 weeks ago I ruled the chaos beasts as tier 4 monsters, since they have the same armor/health as other tier 4's. The reason to shift them back to 3 was not the figure count (though it helped with reconsidering), but the fact that their damage output is very low in comparison to a deamon, and they don't have other defensive abilities like fear or aura.
The same goes for Ice Wyrms: They have the same health/armor as dragons but just a single attack instead of breath, and no fear. The swallow ability is a joke since the other 3 players will always go first and kill the wyrm, so heroes will hardly ever start their turn in the wyrm.
I have spawned 2 chaos beasts so far, and neither I nor the heroes considered it overpowered, since it is just 1 figure that can be killed with a battle and a copper weapon with a bit of pierce.

There are quite a few minor spelling/grammar errors that you may want to go back and clean up.
*Ashamed*. I ll look over it again.

The "twice per round" skills and the "if you met some weird condition last round" skills seem like they might be hard to keep track of.
Twice per round is easy, you exhaust them the first time and turn them over the second time you use them. And most twice per round skills trigger during the overlords turn, and remembering how much you used them for 5 to 10 minutes has not been a problem yet.
I agree with the condition skills, though the problem does not seem to be to keep track of the condition, but to remember that you have a skill that might trigger at the start of the turn. Do you have suggestions for skills with a similar effect (regain health (fast healer) and regain fatigue (earth pact) are the only ones) that don't become overpowered or useless?

I'm not sure about RtL, but in vanilla Descent, and especially in small games, extra actions are very, very valuable compared to other effects. 1 fatigue to get an extra half-action usable in a wide variety of circumstances (e.g. Leadership, Able Warrior, Knight, Unmovable) is probably much better than most of the other skills in this set.
Knight : Knight has stayed the same, but is indeed very strong. I might start a topic about this skill, since the other skills have partly been balanced to this one.
Able Warrior : Has been changed from 2 to 1 fatigue, because the 2 fatigue edition is both bad when compared to Knight and completely worthless on a 3-movement warrior. It is not worth a skill slot to reduce the fatigue cost of 2 attacks and 3 movement by 1. Especially if you need 2 fatigue to start with, instead of 1 with whom you can drink a fatigue potion. Which brings the point that extra action skills need to be compared to the 50 coins cost of Fatigue potions. Most players battle 1 action in 3, and move completely on fatigue to gain those extra actions.
Leadership : This is the current version, but I might remove the "play at some one else part" since this is a complete bonus and pretty strong. It is not worth 2 fatigue for the same reason as able warrior though.
Sprint : The idea comes from Doom, and the cost balance is that of able warrior. You gain a bit more than 1 extra action, so it costs 2 fatigue. I agree with the runner problem you mention a bit later. I ll consider tuning it down and/or puting it in the subterfuge deck (I put it in combat since all "Action Declare Cards" were there originally, but that is not a balancing descision of course).
Unmovable : Would it be worth one fatigue if you only got the guard order? I don't know since you wont move at all in that case, unless you are a fatigue heavy dwarf. Balance wise I would say 'skip the +1 armor'. Making it 2 fatigue since you get more than one half action would kill the skill for sure since heroes need to keep moving all the time. Still in doubt since the original skill did all of this without the fatigue cost.
So in short I can say that I share your concerns. But since the skills need to be good on 3 movement warriors, since they will get the skills most of the time, while not being overpowered on 5 movement chars balancing is difficult.
One last thing I would like to add is that quick casting and rapid fire give an additional attack for 2 fatigue, after you have seen the results of the first attack so you might opt not to spent them. This would make them both considerably better than able warrior for 2 fatigue, since you might not even need that extra attack.

Furr the Spirit Wolf: You probably want to say that his attack ignores armor.
Oops, I do. Thanks for pointing this out.

Block: Now you're in trouble if you do draw two-handed weapons. Why not call it "Evasion" and eliminate the requirement of equipping two different hand items? Seems more thematically appropriate for a subterfuge card and less arbitrary.
This is why I love it if other people look at my ideas. The card wont be overpowered and is never wasted!

Acrobat: Listing the things you can't ignore means you may have to reprint it every expansion. Also, I'm not sure that list includes everything you want it to. I suggest you say that it works like Fly except that you can't perform any action while in a space you couldn't otherwise occupy (or just say you can't attack if you really want acrobats opening chests that monsters are standing on and stuff like that).
I dont want them to be able to do that, and I like your general despription that is basically a catch all. They still can activate runes (since that is not an action) but opening doors, chests etc (what breaks the skill) won't be possible any more. I am going to try it!

Pickpocket: Cheaper item purchases will result in heroes transferring items they don't want to the pickpocket so that she can sell them and buy more stuff with the gold than otherwise possible, which seems annoying and unthematic. Maybe grant bonus gold every time you receive a treasure from a chest instead?
The transferring has never occurred in my group, so I was not aware of this exploit. I like the fact that he gains gold when chests are opened. Do you think 100 coins is a nice number?

Born to the Bow: If you happen to draw two-handed ranged weapons, this is good, perhaps a little on the powerful side (a 17% boost in attack efficiency even if you only ever reroll an X, which isn't too far from an extra half-action when you battle, and there's no fatigue cost). If you happen not to, then it's worthless. Another big-swing card.
Idea: Spent 1 fatigue after declaring but before rolling dice to make the attack an aimed attack. Works on all ranged weapons. Would this make the card of a good power level?

Air Pact: Note that this will allow a hero with a blast or breath weapon to rearrange an entire roomful of monsters with one attack. That's not necessarily a problem, area attacks get increased benefits from lots of stuff, just pointing it out.
This was noted by me as well, but I cannot honestly say whether this is a problem or not until after I have seen it happen. Play testing will tell, again...

Blessing: This would be almost as powerful as Inner Fire or Eagle Eye (and more flexible) even if it only applied to you. When you're granting the bonus to every hero in a party of four, this is crazily good. It's also inherently better in larger parties than smaller ones, which is problematic given that larger parties already have an easier time in Descent.
Why oh why have I never compared this skill to inner fire and skills like that. Increasing it to command 2 at gold level (just like beastmen and naga's) sounds like a bad idea after all. I don't know what to do with this yet.

Fire Shield: This is absolutely terrible. 1 extra damage on a monster usually doesn't even matter, because lots of monsters die in one hit anyway, and even if they don't, attacks generally inflict a lot more than that. On top of that, it won't finish off wounded monsters (since they'll anticipate it and attack someone else), and since this is a wizardry skill, it's probably on a back-row character, which means it'll only damage melee monsters, and then only when they manage to do something (get within range of your squishy mage) that you've been trying hard to prevent them from doing. There's a hero in ToI that has Aura 4 during the OL's turn as an inherent ability; giving one-quarter of that on a skill card is insulting. And yes, I know there's a JitD skill that's exactly the same as yours for purposes of vanilla, but it's still insulting.
Aura is a strange ability that hardly ever does anything.Originally I had the skill at aura 2/4/6, but this would be as good as grapple on most monsters, and grapple is overpowered (put the skill on the tank, and most monsters that walk 2 or 3 spaces adjacent to him will die.
The other reason to put it back to one was that the ability was drawn by the Aura 4 hero, instantly killing all master beastman, razorwings, ferrox' etcetera as well.
Sounds to me that it is an all or nothing skill again that needs to be replaced after all :-(

Thanks for the great feedback, it is really appreciated!

Reply to MasterBeastman

My memory may be a bit off here, but your Born to the Bow and Blessing weren't changed from vanilla Descent were they?
I know in my group Born to the Bow is chosen 100% of the time.
It is a great skill, but it restricts the usefulness of loot you find as well as limiting a character to NOT using a shield, which might be hurtful since most rangers are 3 conquest. Take a look at my suggestion in my reply to Antistone, I think it might take the sting out of the card (while keeping it good).

I like Descent as it is. I actually don't see the need for most of your rebalancing. Most of the skill cards seem to be re-worded but unchanged, which is confusing. The original text is pretty clear to me.
About 50% of the skills are changed, and some rewording actually has influence during game play. But if you don't deem it necessary please don't change too much. House rules are just cumbersome if they don't enhance your joy in playing the game.

As a side note, spawning is very powerful; you need to use the eyes from RtL to balance the expansions.
I used to do this, but the 15 extra threat is way to much and I even lost all WoD scenario's, which are considered to be the hardest scenario's. With the new deck the overlord has won 2 scenario's out of 6. If this ratio holds I dont think the eyes will come back to none RTL games, since they broke the game in favor of the heroes.

Thanks for taking the time to read the cards!

On the skills of Parry, Deflect Missile and Mage Shield you might want to consider a different scalling option. For the primary have it be the same +1/+2/+2 but for the secondary have it be +0/+1/+1 and for the attack type you did not list make it +0/+0/+1. This way the primary is always better than the other two, you keep the difference between the secondary and the third gets a little help at the very end of the game.

By the way I do like the splitting of the skill so that there is a little benifit for other types of attacks without getting to strong overall.

Brian

Forum screwed up all the tags on this post, and trying to edit only makes them worse. Going to try again in another reply.

EDIT: Crappy forum blah blah hopeless mess of quote tags blah blah re-edited entire post to use as few actual forum features as possible blah blah organizing elite strike team to exact vengeance blah blah blood oath blah.

"Brilliant Commander: ...In my opinion it is one of the stronger cards, especially if you can upgrade a beastman or tier 3 monster (see also the increased treachery cost for some masters in my red deck). But since it is indeed pretty situational I ll look into this again and gather some more opinions."

The issues with it are: the new master will often die before it gets a chance to act, upgrading high-tier monsters is often impossible due to figure limits, and the overall additions to your monster ranks is less than you'd get by spending an equivalent amount of threat on spawn cards, even under near-ideal conditions.

"Knight: Knight has stayed the same, but is indeed very strong. I might start a topic about this skill, since the other skills have partly been balanced to this one."

Actually, you made it substantially weaker than a literal reading of the original card, but there's a high probability that the wording on the original card was erroneous (and it was certainly unnecessarily confusing). But the original, if you read it carefully, actually gives you the extra attack whether you spend fatigue or not.

"Able Warrior: Has been changed from 2 to 1 fatigue, because the 2 fatigue edition is both bad when compared to Knight and completely worthless on a 3-movement warrior. It is not worth a skill slot to reduce the fatigue cost of 2 attacks and 3 movement by 1. Especially if you need 2 fatigue to start with, instead of 1 with whom you can drink a fatigue potion. Which brings the point that extra action skills need to be compared to the 50 coins cost of Fatigue potions. Most players battle 1 action in 3, and move completely on fatigue to gain those extra actions."

No, it should not be compared to the cost of vitality potions, because (a) heroes can use vitality potions as well, and (b) vitality potions are limited primarily by inventory space and the 1 potion/turn rule, not by the 50 coin cost.

As far as the 3 speed issue, I suggest that you move the skill to another deck, rather than balancing the card to be powerful even in a worst-case scenario. If a hero with 3 speed draws it, he can always redraw. If a hero with 5 speed draws it, we don't want the game to break.

"Unmovable: Would it be worth one fatigue if you only got the guard order?"

Easily.

"Born to the Bow: ...Idea: Spent 1 fatigue after declaring but before rolling dice to make the attack an aimed attack. Works on all ranged weapons. Would this make the card of a good power level?"

I did something very similar to that.

It occurs to me that you might be interested in/draw inspiration from some of the skills I'm working on for my Descent mod. Keep in mind that this mod also involves fighting a smaller number of harder-to-kill monsters and various other structural changes that affect balance, but this might still give you some ideas.

Combat Skills
Duelist : +1 damage and 1 free surge on melee attacks
Ambidextrous : When wielding two melee weapons, you receive off-hand bonuses from both, rather than just one. When wielding a shield, exhaust to cancel one received wound that does not ignore armor.
Tough : +4 max wounds
Shield Master : You may equip 1 shield without using a hand slot.
Hold the Line : When you declare a Battle action, you receive +1 armor until the start of your next turn
Imperturbable : You do not lose a placed order as a result of taking damage. You are immune to Daze and Knockback.
Brawler : You have Entrap 3 and Resilience. You are immune to Entrap and Grapple.
Endurance : You receive 1 extra movement point each turn, and you ignore speed maximums on armor.
Relentless : Recover 2 fatigue when you declare an Advance action.
Battle Cry : Recover 2 fatigue when you declare a Battle action.
Charge : When you declare a Run action, immediately spend 1 fatigue to make an extra attack during your turn.
Leadership : When you declare a Ready action, immediately spend 2 fatigue to place an order on another hero (in addition to your action).
Bloodlust : When you deal the killing blow to a monster, exhaust and spend 1 fatigue to immediately make another attack.
Aggressive : When a monster moves so that it is adjacent to you, spend 2 fatigue and exhaust to make an interrupt attack against it.

Subterfuge Skills
Assasssin : +1 damage and 1 free surge on all ranged attacks
Lucky : Power enhancements count as both range and damage. Also, after making an attack roll, you may opt to subtract 1 range and add 1 damage, or vice versa.
Eagle Eye : Exhaust after making an attack roll to reroll one die showing an X (miss result). Cannot be used if the attack is aimed or dodged.
Evasion : Exhaust after any attack roll to grant yourself Deflection 2 against that attack.
Burglar : You do not spend movement points to open doors or chests. Traps played in response to your actions cost 2 additional threat.
Agility : Spend 2 fatigue to place a Dodge order on yourself during your turn.
Barrage : When you declare a Battle action, immediately spend 2 fatigue to make an extra attack during your turn.
Versatile : When you declare a Ready action, immediately spend 2 fatigue to take both movement and attack half-actions during your turn (in addition to placing an order), instead of one or the other.
Vigilance : When a monster declares an attack targeting you, spend 2 fatigue to make an interrupt attack targeting that monster.
Sleepwalker : When you declare a Run action, your fatigue is restored to maximum, and you may place a Rest order on yourself.

Wizardry Skills
Prodigy : +1 damage and 1 free surge on all magic attacks
Wild Talent: You have Sorcery 1. When making an attack roll, you may convert any surges you roll on power dice into power enhancements, or vice versa.
Stormborn : You have Arcing 1 and Aura 1.
Shadow Weaponry : When you attack, you may choose to use the equipped weapon(s) and trait dice of another hero instead of your own.
Veil of Winds : You have Deflection 1. You are immune to Burn and Freeze.
Concentration : Recover 1 fatigue when you declare a Ready action.
Vampiric Blood : Recover 1 fatigue whenever a figure within your line-of-sight dies.
Oracle : During your turn, spend 1 fatigue to look at the Overlord's hand.
Prestidigitation : You do not spend movement points to trade items or re-equip. During your turn, you may take items from adjacent heroes (with their permission).
Focus : Exhaust and spend 1 fatigue during your turn to place an Aim order on yourself.
Haste : When you declare an Advance action, immediately spend 2 fatigue to make an extra attack during your turn.
Echo : When you make an attack that does not roll an X (miss result), immediately exhaust and spend 2 fatigue to make another attack with the same weapon against the same target.
Channeling : When you make an interrupt attack with a Guard order, exhaust and spend 2 fatigue to retain the order.

Not-Yet-Categorized Skills
Anticipation : You have +1 armor and Deflection 1 while there is an order on you.
Flair : Exhaust after an attack roll to give yourself Fear 1 against that attack.
Flurry : Before making an attack, spend 1 fatigue and exhaust to make 2 attacks instead. You cannot do anything between the attacks, and both attacks are automatically dodged (Overlord chooses which dice to reroll, even if someone else also dodges them).
Alchemy : You cannot drink potions. Spend 1 fatigue and exhaust during your turn to gain the benefits of drinking a potion of a type of your choice.

I'm still finalizing the list, and I've omitted a bunch of skills that are very similar to the originals, but you can probably see the general direction: less restrictions on when skills can be used, splitting up powerful skills and combining weaker ones, and putting skills in decks where they're more likely to be useful.

You'll also notice some custom abilities being used:

Arcing : After making an attack, roll 1 black die for each rank of Arcing. For each surge rolled, the attack affects one additional figure of your choice that has line-of-sight to another affected figure and whose distance from that figure is not more than one plus the number of power enhancements rolled.
Deflection : A figure with Deflection X is not affected by any attack unless the attack has at least X more range than would otherwise be required to hit.
Entrap : When adjacent to an enemy figure with Entrap X, a figure must expend X additional movement points to leave its current space. Large figures may ignore one rank of Entrap for each space they occupy beyond the first.
Freeze : Status effect that reduces armor.
Resilience : When a figure with Resilience rolls power dice to remove effect tokens at the start of its turn, it removes one token for each power enhancement rolled, rather than for each surge rolled.