I was having a discussion about Descent in general with a friend, and we were trying to agree upon (read: arguing about) what were the best/worst things in Descent. Here were our nominations (We only have original+Altar mind you):

Best/Worst Hero: Varikas the Dead / Lyssa. Varikas consistently destroys in my games because he can always spend at least one fatigue to do something a little extra. Lyssa, well, her reroll ability doesn't cause misses and her stats are pretty shoddy to boot.

Best/Worst Skill Card: Tiger Tattoo / Mata and Kata. The bonus move AND fatigue are a great combo, and the pit immunity is just icing. Mata and Kata have always just been a royal pain in the ass to use.

Best/Worst Treasure: Scarab of Death / Mace of Kellos. One person has (more than once) soloed a boss just by taking one battle action with Scarab. Pretty overpowered, IMO, considering they can still run around with a shield. Mace of Kellos isn't BAD per se, but all it offers over the shop axe is knockback, which is pretty irrelevant considering most regular monsters die in one hit from a melee fighter anyway....

Best/Worst Monster: Master Dark Priest / Standard Hellhound. The Master Dark Priest pays for his summon in two attacks usually, and is capable of halving just about any hero's life in one solid attack. The regular Hellhound has never really done anything useful in my games; at best, it has done a piddling 1-2 damage to a ranged or magic hero before getting stomped.

Best/Worst Trap: Poison Spikes / Paralyzing Gas. Was going to put Monkey Dance on here as best, but its cost is VERY prohibitive. Poison Spikes are cheap, hard to avoid, and hard to shake (thanks, poison!). Paralyzing Gas just sucks for us. One stun token and ending the hero's turn does squat, considering the players ALWAYS have the door-opener go first.

Best/Worst OL Card: Gluttony / Gust of Wind. Gluttony is a great power because it severely hampers the heroes. Every turn they are either wasting potions or taking a hit. This combined with Evil Genius and Urgency makes for a very compelling pressure game. Gust of Wind got worst because, well, it sucks.

What are you guys' picks?

The “best” OL card is pretty tricky. I think Dark charm is usually great for downing one hero while Trapmaster is excellent for putting the serious hurt on over time. Pound for pound, any of the beastmen or ferox spawn cards are just devastating, while a well times crushing blow can make an entire party crap their pants.

The “worst” OL card in my opinion is Dark Balm. I’ve played Gust of Wind in conjunction with ranged monster spawn cards to tremendous benefit. I have YET to be in a situation where Dark Balm has come in handy LET ALONE been worth playing in lue of other cards.

I don't undestand how you can think that taking away one and a half hero actions right at the start of a big combat for a piddly 5 threat can possibly be a bad card. I suppose my perspective may be slightly skewed by the fact that I do not always play with maximum heroes, unlike some people apparently do, but I consider Paralyzing Gas to be the most important trap card in the deck.

In retrospect, I agree with you on Dark Balm, it is by far the worst. As for Paralyzing Gas, it just has never performed well in my uses of it. My players ALWAYS send the first person to open the door. So, assuming it even hits, the first guy loses his turn, then the next three usually just use battle actions (using fatigue to move) to wipe out everything in the room, making the loss of one turn pretty nominal. Cloud of Gas is another story, though (mwahaha).

Well, yes, of course the door's going to be opened by whichever hero goes first unless you give them a good reason to do otherwise (like spawning every single turn until they give up and open the door anyway). But the remaining heroes shouldn't actually be able to wipe out everything in the room on the first turn, which means stopping one hero is likely 1-3 additional monsters that survive long enough to attack. Then you supplement with a spawn card and make it difficult for the heroes (one of which is now stunned) to clear the board even on the second turn.

Monsters in Descent die absurdly fast, but my games still don't generally involve the heroes killing every single monster in a big new area on the turn that it's revealed. Is your experience different?

Well, I'm still new to the game (only play a dozen times or so, only on the first three quests) but for the most part, yeah. The heroes go in guns blazing and they usually manage to wipe out everything that matters (the occasional miss will save maybe one monster). The few times I've played Paralyzing Gas, it never seemed to do enough to slow them down. I've had much more success with explosive door, because the damage usually causes them to retreat for healing or waste a turn dodging. That and they expect it so they space out from the door, which makes them waste range/move to get near the monsters. The only times I really use Paralyzing Gas is if it's the only door trap I have or if I need to save on threat (it's cost is pretty nice).

Paralyzing Gas works great in RtL. When a hero is running for the portal with some monsters on his tail it's pretty great to stop him in his tracks just short of the portal.

Quests 1 and 2 are both very easy for heroes and not representative. On quest 3, I'm surprised if heroes can consistently kill everything in most areas on the turn entered, especially with one hero out of commission. IIRC, area 1 features 7 monsters, 2 of which have undying and one of which is behind rubble; area 2 features 5 higher-level monsters, two of which are masters and very hard to reach on the turn the heroes enter the room.

Admittedly, I've only played it with 2-3 heroes, but even with 4, I don't see how you could clear either of those rooms in a single turn without some excellent draws or a lot of luck. Even area 1 would take at least 7 of your maximum 8 attacks even if movement is not an issue, you never miss, everything dies in one hit, and the undying monsters never revive, unless you've got AoE or action-granting skills. And quest 3 is really only moderately difficult for the heroes; you'll probably find quests 4 and 5 significantly harder.

Out of curiosity, do you ever win as the overlord? It sounds like you're playing games that are kind of stacked against you.

Well, the first couple times we played, only three heroes were being used, so I won those (quest 1). After the first couple times, we played with 4 heroes and 2 players (two heroes per person), and since then I haven't won a game. The two main heroes have been Runewitch (Quick Casting, Willpower, Bardic Lore) and Mordrog (Brawny, Berserker, Parry). They have been switching around the other two heroes which have been Kirga (Pickpocket, Crack Shot, Master Archer), Bogran (Shadow Soul, Swift, something else I can't remember), and Landrec (Prodigy, Divine Retribution, Marksman). The best I've ever managed to get was bring them down to 2 conquest tokens, though they've never finished a game with more than 5 or 6.

Are you letting the players choose their heroes and skills or something?

incarna said:

I used to think the same, UNTIL ...

... the adventurers I am overlording in RtL started focusing on weapons which handed out webs or stuns (to occur only have to do at least 1 damage before armour is applied). Being able to remove that web/stun can totally stuff up the adventurers' plans!

well certainly interesting to talk about. But so many of these issues are situational, I think its hard to be absolute.

I do not have cards in front of me so bear with me on my comments.

I agree that the undead dude is great, BUT as an often overlord I will call Nanokk the blade more annoying to me. Not only dues he get tougher AS he gets stronger, but he ALSO frees up treasure armour for other players, as you tank needs no armour, the great armours are available for other heros. I also think That girl that gets to move on a guard order attck is pretty kick ass. She allows the party to play caustous and smart, and yet still move forward with a little agression. I wonder how this factors when conquest value is given up? Some of the 3 conquest heros that are a little tougher are a great buy too.

I can't comment on treasure as I play overlord most of the time these days. I KNOW a lot of great iteams, but they do not jump into my memory as to which are what. I play with good guys and they just tell me the effects of the weapons and I lose track of names.

Simple put the best overlord card is the card that net you th most conquest on a given turn! Over all I would have to say evil genius. If you get it out before the heros are 1/3 through a dungeon, you are assured flipping your deck AT LEAST once for 3 conquest, not unlikely more, and not to mention the extra card/threat generated for the future. Sure it is slow to "pay" for itself cause of how high its cost is, but extra cards is extra options, and you can't put a price on that. Also I will argue that evil genius increases the chances that the RIGHT card is in your hand when needed, and that is what makes this card trump all others IMO.

I have to agree about dark balm being useless. Gust of wind is not great, BUt I have used it to spawn, and those spawns have gotten kills, so I can't call it useless. Also even if I feel I will not need it, I keep it in my deck because its worth three threat, and that to me is worth something.

I consider paralizing gas VERY powerfull, even with a full party, and them being carefull, I find that one guy being delayed an action is one extra monster living most of the time, and I love it when the party makes all kinds of detailed plans about how to take on a room, and I just sit back pretending to be interested in there plotting, even offering a word or two, and then watching the plan fall apart case the door opener can't play there part. I consideer mimic a pretty weak trap, even though it can be fun to use when the heros through someone into harms way to open achest, only to have it wack them and run off! a lot of fun, but not really usefull IMO. I liky consider it the weaker trap.

Ilike hell hounds, not as much as many other things, but the pierceis nice and the breath, they do not kill anything, but a little damage spread arround can waste moves drinking potions and set up future options. I consider lava beatles weaker.

I know many like the spawn troll, and I have certainly watched even tanks fall to aimed, raged troll spawns. On the other hand for consistant uglyness I like the blood apes, and better yet the blood ape masters. You pull them out round a corner when the heros are in a line. My players are smart and out of habit rarely level there hero's in a long line, but its rare I can;t get two of them on one leap attack. also they are tough, and there are two of them, so its not terribely uncommon to have one of them live to throw out one last attack. The lone manticore can be nice too, as if you spanw him behind the party, and rage him, those 4 shots are ussaly plenty to take out that mage trailing behind the front line.

Dark priests are VERY nice, in RTL I often will spawn them if I figure I only have time for one spawn on an easy dungeon, as I am wanting them for threat generation and to drop curses on heroes, but I prefer the two blood apes over any other spawn most often.

I let them choose their heroes, they got their skills randomly.