I'm running our first RtL campaign, and I'm afraid that I'm way ahead of the players. We've reached 190ish CT, and I've got 154 of them. They aren't playing badly, they just have some of the more fragile characters and are having terrible luck with loot. They've completely explored 2 Dungeons, completing one Rumor in the process. The star of the party is the Hero that can spend 3 Fatigue and Sweep, with a Shillelagh (reach) and Telekenises. He runs into the fray, TK's everyone into Reach/Sweep, then destroys the monsters, burning lots of wounds in the process making sure he can 1-shot them all.

I caught a lucky break in their rumor being the one from ToI, so it was full of Ghost monsters. The party has 1 Magic/Ranged guy with a crappy weapon, so he wasn't putting out much damage, and the sweep hero being so fragile he was only getting to attack everyother turn pretty much because I kept killing him. The other two melee heroes were taking turns mopping up my spawns and trying to get swallowed to get a few punches in. I think I collected close to 40 CT in that dungeon level alone.

Am I too far ahead? Will the heroes catch up once they get some silver level loot?

Keep the pressure on, it may actually result in a balanced endgame, though unlikely. Keep encouraging your players that at the end they will catch up. Because most likely they will catch a break or two and start to tip things the other way quickly in silver/gold.

Once they get to the silver level they should try and spend some time in Riverwatch to get some new items. The heroes in my campaign were hurting bad until they bought 9 of 10 treasures in Riverwatch. I'm a little afraid now.

Is that crushing blow coming on a white steed in your rescue?!

StarBurn said:

Perhaps

Tell the hero's not go give up. AND don't fall into the trap of being too easy on them because you are doing well. It will turn arround and turn arround FAST.And when that happens you will no longer feel sorrey for them at all.

I was at a simaler point edge in a campaign, and the heroes were wanted to restart just before the start of silver. There will be that one treasure haul and abaility upgrade that turns the game arround 100%. You will drop to about 2-3 kills per dungeon, and they will be clearing out levels in 4-5 turns and killing every monster in sight before you can do anything.

It may not get THAT bad.

But conquest for the heroes is overrated, they can;t spend it fast enough. Traits and iteams are the keys for the heroes/ Tell your heroes to keep heart, there is still loads of time for it to turn for them.

Thats good to know. I figured things would work out, because I keep hearing so much about a huge power switch.

What is usually best for the players to upgrade? Dice? Skill Cards? When I was explaining the Training ground spaces, they didn't seem too excited about them at all, but they seem really good to me, especially the fatigue upgrades with as much as they like to upgrade their dice.

Good thread. Speaks to a concern I had. We had our first RtL campaign session tonight and we just got to completing the 2nd level of the first dungeon. OL 31 to Heroes 11. I thought I was dominating too much but it sounds like I gotta' actually pick up the pace.

The players I played with started several campaigns, and kept quiting and starting again cause of those types of numbers. 3-1 OL to heroes was common.

I looked over the game, and came to the conclusion that conquest score was an indicator, BUT not near as important as they were making off it. I convinced them to let me run the OL and play a party to conclusion to see how it worked out. About 1/2 way through silver they saw the turn around. I still out scored them in the last dungeon, but it was a struggle, and I can tell with there new gear and traits, that I will struggle to even get kills as they zoom through dungeons.

Those special training areas are big, I feel the heroes in my group are negelating it too much. How many times do you kill an over lord on your very last attack? Those easy kill guys should get the health upgrades, and the guys that are surving more should get fatigue.

That being said IME traits and iteams are of greater importance. Its the treasure and traits that will boost the heroes into dungeon commando's.

For all that others have said, if you have odds worse than 2-1 in CT for either side, then I would seriously recommend people go read various advice threads, on here or BGG.

IMO, after multiple campaigns played as both sides, if the difference is greater than 2-1 then someone is just not very good at the game. It could be 2-1 either way, heros or OL up, but it shouldn't be that far apart. It seems to me that if greater than 2-1 you have a mismatch of capabilities between teams. Either someone needs to learn to play better, or you might need to mix things up a bit and have different people play OL.

That said, especially in your first campaign or two, silly mistakes or flawed playstyles can really really bite, and throw the balance out considerably. Taht doesn't mean it won't necessarily be fun, just that the balance won't hold. Mind you, it can get not-fun pretty quick if either side is too mercilessly good at the game. Heroes getting repeatedly smashed by a far-advanced OL is demoralising. OL watching heroes go through entire dungeons in less than 10 turns without even wounding a hero enough for him to bother healing is demoralising.

LogantheBard said:

One of our RtL campaigns had the overlord beating the heroes by at least 150 conquest by the final battle. It wasn't even close; we killed his avatar in less than three turns. Conquest is a poor indicator of how the game is going, especially by the end. Or, I should say that you shouldn't expect a 1:1 ratio. If you have a 1:1 ratio by gold then the overlord is royally screwed.

If you are the overlord, get Crushing Blow and kill *everything* good they have. It's really your only chance. Our overlord didn't do that and by the end I was doing 35+ damage with Longspear on Lord Hawthorne.

For the heroes, they should definitely get the fatigue upgrade for all levels. If they aren't excited about more fatigue then they have a lot of learning to do. As far as dice vs skill cards, just look at what will give the greatest improvement. Usually I think we get skills first and then dice later in the game, but that's not a hard and fast rule. It depends if there are any skills that will help you more than dice at that point in time.

150-44 is a crushing advantage even against rookie Heroes.

That said, the Heroes shouldn't "give up" because if you don't USE your advantage to seal the deal and win (by razing Tamalir), they can still beat the final Avatar without much trouble. The Avatar fights are so vastly in the Heroes favor they pretty much can't lose if they can get that far. That said, with a lead like that driving the nail in the coffin SHOULD be no problem. Upgrade the monsters on your best Lieutenant, buy as much Treachery as you can and go to Tamalir for the win.

Indeed, no sense in dragging it out. Get gold critters, pile the Lieutenants on Tamalir, raze it, start new campaign.