As there are 6 regular players in my group.

Does anyone know if there are rules for adding additional players to the party, or if anyone has tried this and have any idea of how the OL would need to be modified to accommodate one or two more heroes ?

Thanks for any info.

The main scaling mechanism seems to be increasing the size of monster groups. Unfortunately, that would require more plastic figures than the game comes with.

For big monsters you can scale easy you just need to say that both are red but for small units its harder cause there are more then 1 white monster on top of red one. don't know how well it scales if you got 4 red version in 5 hero game

SirSaiCo said:

Official rules? No.

And I certainly haven't played the game enough to take a shot at trying to balance the mechanics with more than four players.

Take some play testing, but off the top of my head, here are here SEPERATE ideas

1) Add one more open group, but play all groups and LT's as if a 3 hero party.

2) Add a minion to all groups (requires figure) and buff LT's by adding the avarage dif is stats from each level.

3) Add 2 health to all monsters and allow monsters to double attack.

Mrbob0069 said:

Placement of new open group from idea one can bunk up with any open group, OR be placed in an empty room. … not sure .. again top of head / needs play test

Round Robin!

One Overlord and 5 heroes.

During setup, the players decide which 4 heroes are placed on the entrance. The 5th hero is sidelined.

Whenever a hero takes a "stand up" action the sidelined hero comes into play, and takes the stand up action in the other heroes place. The hero that was knocked out is now sidelined.

Any hero who takes a rest action can swap places with the sidelined hero at he end of his turn. The New hero enters with a number of damage equal to the number damage the hero he replaced had.

Whenever a new hero enters play, that hero takes the previous heroes activation card as there own. the status of the activation card remains the same as the previous owners. ie if the privious owner has already used his action for the turn (maybe because he rested to swap place) the new hero has also used all of it's actions. If the previous hero has not yet acted this turn (a third here spent an action to revive him) then the new hero may act the round that it comes into play.

The quests remain the same and monster groups and reinforcement rules stay unchanged. Any other rules that say "equal to the number of players" takes into account the fifth player (OL's starting hand, number of shop cards, quest monster hp's, money recieved as quest rewards.)

Sure. It's easy. Just buy two copies of the game and combine them .

Thank you all for replying, there are some interesting ideas there that I will try out.

Cheers,

Lorenelif said:

Lorenelif said:

*Scratching head.

Wow, could it really be that easy!? You have to consider extra monster figurines being placed to accommodate your additional player size, for 5-8. Extra health and fatigue tokens, extra condition cards, extra dice (very useful bonus), any rulings that only measure by groups of 2-4 heroes…

You would also have to consider new spawning rules, which seem easy enough: You just see what monster sets are used for 4 players, then add on your next 1-4 heroes the same monster limit for the monster group. Normally reinforcements only spawn one monster figurine a round; I would say when dealing with groups 5-8 heroes at a time, respawn should be doubled for reinforcements.

It seems plausible, but I have my nagging doubts. Main problem is playing with 7 or 8 and how crowded that board is going to get.

Ah! Two things I considered as I got ready for work:

1). No need, thus far that I can think of, for an additional box of Descent 2e. Just when you insert an additional two to four heroes (not just an extra one, explained below), create an additional open group of monsters on the map to accommodate the additional heroes using the backs of the new monster cards. If reinforcements are allowed, you receive additional reinforcements. For example, if you are playing Encounter 1 of A Fat Goblin, reinforcements are a Goblin Archer from exit, and 1 from open group at the entrance. Additionally, the Overlord spawns 1 more Goblin Archer from exit, if able, and 1 additional figurine from the other open group at entrance. The overlord also draws additional cards at beginning for each hero as usual. Also, the overlord must place an additional treasure for every two new heroes that start on the map on squares of his choosing, so long as each square belongs to a different tile and is not exit nor entrance tiles. I'm sure someone will come up with a better suggestion, but for now this is the one that I offer as well the good note that you will not likely need to buy Descent 2e twice if you can get past being short defeat icons to place on the board, having not enough condition cards, and readily able to tally with pen and paper or separate game components beyond Descent 2e for health and fatigue.

2) If you very well must buy an additional copy, then you can have a party of five players. Substitute a white figurine for a new red one from the new box of Descent 2e when playing with a fifth party member. Also, open groups inserted as said above may instead be new figures from second box that are monsters from the current quest. Thusly, with a party of eight in First Blood, place 4 Ettins and 10 Goblin Archers on board.

Tromdial said:

4 ettins, 10 goblins and 8 heroes in same map. most be pretty crowded in there. i think you should then make it like mirror image from quest but ettins room and escape spot are connected even if they aren't by tiles

Lupin89 said:

Tell me about it, but the people have spoken, and they keep telling me they want more heroes. Honestly, I prefer just having the four but my friend wants an additional hero or two so when we have a big group wanting to play, no one would be left out. The example was a maximum limit of what you could have.

I believe the best way of handling big player games is simply just custom making your own maps, if you have the time. I'm sure it would not be hard at all. Descent 2e from what I have seen makes customization incredibly easy.

seems to me the way this game is played it would *PROBABLY* work if you just added the heroes. The overlord gets cars based on the number of heros so it should scale naturally to a point. Maybe have the overlord draw an extra card or something.

Of course, you'd have to build bigger maps or it would get pretty crowded. Might be interesting to try it.

a) Don't play the quests. Instead, create your own or adapt a standard D&D dungeon adventure. Play Descent as a standard roleplaying game, rather than an adversarial boardgame.

b) Draw more Overlord cards and/or start with more XP.

c) More monster units. The quest boards, however, are smaller than D1E quests. Perhaps you can spawn *two* monsters per turn, the second monster from a new group of monsters?