I've never played this sort of game before so I've totally got no idea as to how it's gonna be like when playing. However I'm a fan of the world of magic and sword, and I'm fond of PC RPG games as well, so probably I think I'd enjoy this game as well.

If I buy this one, I will buy it with 'Road to Legend' expansion together because I heard someone saying that expansion is a must-have. I also read all the negative comments on BoardGameGeek, and they mentioned about some issues like imbalance, etc. I know that no game is perfect, so I want to ask you guys' advice: Do these flaws really matter compared to what I can get for my purchase? Better, if you can tell me a little bit what's the part of the game you like best.

Thank you guys.

No game is perfect, you're right. Descent's balance isn't really as bad as some people seem to think it is. That catch is that in order to maintain proper balance, you need to be playing the game correctly, and for whatever reason there are a lot of people who get at least a couple things wrong when they first start playing. The rules are sneaky that way.

There are also a lot of "illogical" things that can happen in the game (ie: heroes are allowed to jump over pits but not over water.) Many people are inclined to make house rules to "fix" these issues, but in doing so they end up changing the game balance in ways they perhaps had not anticipated. This is probably the biggest disappointment for new players who thought they were basically getting D&D in a board game.

The adventure Descent provides is truly epic, but it's light on story and heavy on mechanics. You say you're a fan of PC RPGs, which is probably a good thing since Descent seems to have more in common with games like Diablo than with pen and paper RPGs like D&D. If that's the kind of game you want to play, I expect you'd like Descent just fine.

One last thing: Descent second edition has recently been announced, with a forecasted release date of "early 2012." First edition has recently (and quite suddenly, IMHO) gone out of print as a result. If you want to buy first edition and Road to Legend, you might want to do it quickly. Especially if the store you're planning to buy from actually has the Road to Legend expansion, which seems to be pretty hard to find according to reports I've read. Alternatively, you can wait for second edition, which will have its own "campaign mode" in the base game. Of course, we don't have too many details about 2e just yet.

Thank you Steve. Your answer is very detailed. I really appreciate that.

Another question: Just asked the store. Seems they sold out the 'Road to Legend' expansion. In this case, I can only get the base game. Saw some people say 'Don't play Descent without RtL expansion...'. Is this really the truth?

ktei2008 said:

Not at all. In fact, I would say, despite being a big fan of the Advanced Campaigns, get at least one, preferably all, the other expansions first. The ACs really lose significantly if you don't have treachery options I think, and Treachery comes from the earlier expansions, not the original game.

Basically, the original game and the three basic expansions work on a 'quest' mechanic. Each game is a separate event unrelated to any other game and the heroes do a sort of mini levelling-up within each game (mostly based on kit). So each game lasts 3-8 hours depending on your play style, familiarity, success, etc. and then you pack everything away and bring it out entirely afresh next time. You are even better using different heroes next time rather than the same ones, ie truely start completely afresh, as that will provide you with a wider game experience and greater appreciation of different tactics and capabilities.

The Advanced Campaigns however take a very different tack. The heroes start significantly weaker and over 40-100hrs of game play grow vastly stronger than 'vanilla' heroes ever get, but you stick with the same 4 heroes the whole game. The game is really a strategic map-based game, but with the dungeoneering tactical side (almost the same as vanilla quests) being the base mechanics that take up most of the actual playing time.
Note that although the ACs take tens of hours to play, they are designed to be break-up-able into smaller gaming sessions than even most vanilla quests, often an hour or so, more if you want.

The main reason I say don't get ACs without having one or more extra expansions is that these are Advanced Campaigns. You need to have played the basic game enough so that you can handle the basic dungeoneering tactics easily enough that you can keep your focus on the strategic requirements even as you battle tactically through a dungeon. Your Tactical decisions are informed heavily by your Strategic situation.
And mistakes can get punished heavily. Really heavily, so that you are still 'feeling the pain' 20 or more hours later.
At certain times too, the power curves have an exponential aspect, so if you screw up and get behind at the wrong time, you start falling further and further behind more and more rapidly. It's actually fairly well balanced overall, but it can easily look extremely unbalanced over a particular section of the game.

The past two points are why many people basically couldn't handle ACs. They couldn't (in many cases wouldn't, despite advice) adapt their playing styles and choices to strategic realities of the game or they just weren't good enough players, and they game quickly became horribly unbalanced for them .
But if you can up your game to meet the challenges, its probably one of the more rewarding games around IMO.

Hey, Corbon, thank you very much, truly. Your reply is simply much much more useful than those negative comments and overrated comments on BoardGameGeek forum. I'm afraid I can only get the base game at the moment, because perhaps the earlier expansions are already sold out. But I've decided to buy the base game and try it out anyway. I've never played this kind of game before so I'm pretty excited.

I've been playing just the base game, and am enjoying it. We have some expansion material, but are just playing the base quests with no treachery, no feats, basically just vanilla.

Balance so far seems better than Talisman, but still a little wonky. The right hero with a lucky combination of talent cards can sometime solo an entire dungeon, while the wrong hero with an unlucky combination can be next to useless. What we do is allow players to pick their chosen heroes but then draw their skill cards randomly, with one exchange for another random draw. So you might pick Brother Glyr and randomly draw Marksman, which is pretty useless for him, and exchange it for the chance to get something more useful to him like Pickpocket or Cautious.

We've also started going through each quest and re-balancing them. The first quest, for example, is too easy for a competent group - but treating the PCs as lvl 2, with +100 gp each but +1 OL card and +1 threat per player every turn? That'll keep them on their toes a bit more.

I recommend getting and testing out the base game before going on to expansions. WoD and AoD both add some nice things, and RtL makes it a whole different (and pretty awesome) experience, but taking it one step at a time is probably the best way to learn.

sonofzeal said:

Note that Quest 1 is suppose dto be easy - its a training quest for noobs. Quest 2 is also extremely easy (once you learn the tactic) as it is designed to teach the non-intuitive base tactic of 'Runners'.

Also note that the levelling rules (which are pretty much worthless anyway) don't actually work they way you seem to be saying.
It is +1 card and +1 threat per player at the start only, not each turn IIRC (not that I've ever used them, but others have made the same error and its been discussed before).

Worth re-reading that bit very very carefully...

Corbon said:

Well, we found that giving the overlord an extra card and some threat every turn helped make Quest 1 a challenge again. We ended up running that one a lot, just because it was set up on a spare table and nobody bothered to change it. We even tried beating it with a single hero, allowing full choice of skills. Most didn't make it out of the first room, but Nanok did it with Enduring, Tiger Tattoo, and Cautious. It's kind of cheating to enter the first room with 6 armor though...