Overlord Preview

By Unclechawie, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Proto Persona said:

kerred said:

Well in the 1st Edition, you couldn't just waste turn after turn resting, shopping, and re-arranging before opening the next door.

It's looking like there's no chance for heroes to really do any of that often in second edition. It's looking like the town has been completely phased out, as well as buying equipment or skills with gold. And it looks like the rest order has become a possible skill since i didn't see any mention of all heroes being able to do it.

It's on the hero turn summary. If heroes couldn't rest, how could they ever make use of their skills? If what you say were to be true, the "rest" skill card would be the first purchase for every hero!

Bleached Lizard said:

Proto Persona said:

kerred said:

Well in the 1st Edition, you couldn't just waste turn after turn resting, shopping, and re-arranging before opening the next door.

It's looking like there's no chance for heroes to really do any of that often in second edition. It's looking like the town has been completely phased out, as well as buying equipment or skills with gold. And it looks like the rest order has become a possible skill since i didn't see any mention of all heroes being able to do it.

It's on the hero turn summary. If heroes couldn't rest, how could they ever make use of their skills? If what you say were to be true, the "rest" skill card would be the first purchase for every hero!

Ah, I did miss that bit about Rest. Sorry about that.

Is there a - "I'll rest when I'm dead card?" gui%C3%B1o.gif

Old Blue said:

Is there a - "I'll rest when I'm dead card?" gui%C3%B1o.gif

There totally should be. Maybe the designer can rename something at the last minute? ^_^

kerred: Remember, the overlord not only gets a new card every turn, he/she gets new monsters every turn (well, he/she does in A Fat Goblin, and I assume that's the case elsewhere). Thus, if the heroes dally, the overlord will just send endless waves of monsters after them (or other important things, like the crops).

Incidentally: I've gotten used to peering very closely at cards shown in FFG previews, but even I can't read the text from the adventure. Could someone who's deciphered it post it?

You forget about monster group limits :)

Jafix said:

You forget about monster group limits :)

As well as physical minis limits, just like in the first edition.

Yeah, but the only way for the heroes to take advantage of these limits is to leave all of the monsters alive, and when they're all attacking you, that's not such a great idea.

Walk said:

kerred: Remember, the overlord not only gets a new card every turn, he/she gets new monsters every turn (well, he/she does in A Fat Goblin, and I assume that's the case elsewhere). Thus, if the heroes dally, the overlord will just send endless waves of monsters after them (or other important things, like the crops).

Incidentally: I've gotten used to peering very closely at cards shown in FFG previews, but even I can't read the text from the adventure. Could someone who's deciphered it post it?

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/796438/the-overlords-objectives

Ah, thank you. You have to wonder whether the extremely small text isn't just another ploy to get people talking.

I have to say I'm a bit concerned with the "new" overlord.

The fact that you can no longer spawn monsters in waves means that heroes can deal with monsters in a nice and steady stream – the worst nightmare for any 1E overlord. I'm not sure how they want to handle this properly, especially since healers may be able to just outheal the damage reinforcements do and then rest back up.

There are also concerns with the new overlord cards. It does give the overlord a more consistent game because there will no longer be any such ridiculous situations like when a hero is lucky enough to draw the threat reduction feat or the overlord just drawing too expensive/terrible cards for too long. But it also removes a lot of depth it seems to me.

Still hopeful, though! No one has played it yet, I just want this game to turn out as good as it can be.

I tend to agree with you about the Overlord. I am not too excited about the limited number of monsters available. In the first scenario, you have a group of goblin archers and one open group of monsters.

The question I have is does the open group have to be all the same? For example, can I pick four unique monsters with the wilderness trait to form a complex group or am I stuck with picking one monster such as skeletons and having four of them in my group. If this is the case, I am now limited to only goblin archers and skeletons that spawn at specific points in the first scenario.

Any smart group of heroes will figure spawn patterns and group composition pretty quickly and be able to plan their tactics out far in advance.
This is all speculation at this point since we have only seen one scenario, but I just hope the Overlord's tactical options are not as limited as they appear.

gforce200 said:

I tend to agree with you about the Overlord. I am not too excited about the limited number of monsters available. In the first scenario, you have a group of goblin archers and one open group of monsters.

The question I have is does the open group have to be all the same? For example, can I pick four unique monsters with the wilderness trait to form a complex group or am I stuck with picking one monster such as skeletons and having four of them in my group. If this is the case, I am now limited to only goblin archers and skeletons that spawn at specific points in the first scenario.

Any smart group of heroes will figure spawn patterns and group composition pretty quickly and be able to plan their tactics out far in advance.
This is all speculation at this point since we have only seen one scenario, but I just hope the Overlord's tactical options are not as limited as they appear.

How far in advance? A scenario is supposed to last less than an hour!

According to the box, the game is supposed to last 1 to 2 hours not less than an hour, and a good group will have it figured out after the first turn since the open group will be populated by then.

So after the first turn, the heroes know:

What monsters are in play and their abilities

What the reinforcement limits are

Where the monsters will spawn from

If I had this information as a hero, I know I could create a good plan of attack for the scenario without much effort.

Again, this is one scenario so not exactly a large sample size to theorize from, but then again it is the only one we have seen so far.

Don't forget that respawned monsters are ready to kill right away, so it may be painful to wait for them on respawn points.

Each quest is supposed to be two hours, but each quest is made up of two encounters. Each encounter is a separate map, so about 1 hour per map.