The Cardinal's Plight, Seems impossible for heros

By Neffer, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Hi

Just finished playing a 2 player game on the cardinals plight quest.

Heros:

Dwarf - Knight

widow - Necromancer

I as the OL had my open group of undead wolves waiting behind the rocks.

Turn 1:

Heros charge in and damage one wolf.

OL attacks with wolves does some damage and howls with both players failing attribute test. Merik moves and raises one zombie. Flesh moulders move round (23A) the corner and attack for minor damage.

Turn 2:

Heros raise reanimate and charge the flesh moulders killing one and damaging the other.

OL wolves give chase and attack minor damage flesh moulder gets strong hit on widow (5 damage and 0 save) taking her to 1hp left (after all the minor damage taken). zombie moves off board 1pt to OL Merik moves and raises 2nd zombie

Turn 3:

Heros: Dwarf hacks down last flesh moulder and a wolf with 2nd attack, reanimate damages 2nd wolf, widow moves (9a) searches and finds random.

OL moves zombie off board 2pts to OL and moves and raises 3rd

Turn 4

Heros: Reanimate finishes off final wolf and and widow moves and searches and find relic. portal down dwarf moves x2 towards Objective and is next to zombie no.3

OL moves raises 4th zombie and 3rd zombie moves towards exit

Turn 5

Heros: widow moves dow to hallway 23A takes a long range attack and hits and damages. dwarf moves and cuts down zombie,

OL moves final zombie off map so 3 zombies off the map.

Encounter 2

was over by 3rd (5-8min) turn shadow dragon in the chapel and 4 zombies ripped the cardinal to pieces. Can see no way the 2nd encounter is possible even if only 2 zombies had made it off the map in E1 by the time the heros had delt with the shadow dragon chasing them or not having one player standing at the alter and leaving one of them to go search for the key, the amount of time just makes it impossible. Its too easy for Merik in E1 to raise a zombie and no matter what 2 zombies will have made it off the map by the time the portal is down unless merik gets some bad dice rolls.

Am I doing anything wrong. I know zombies can't move twice in a turn but they can still attack twice in a turn?

No rulebook specifically says that monsters cannot attack twice a turn. Only move twice a turn.

Pg. 10: He may perform up to two actions with each monster he activates. Each monster may only perform one attack action per activation.

Thanks! That will buy some time. Will go back see how it pans out.

Also, it looks like you were waiting for the raised zombie to move on its next turn (after being raised) which is fine.

The major thing here is that it sounds like your dice roles were all in your favor for raising zombies. I know when I played that encounter, I missed raising a zombie two or three times as they heroes rushed to find the key to open the portal.

Was the overlord when this quest was played with 2 heroes.

I think one problem is having only the two and not a full party and secondly I assume if you attack the monsters in the first room when playing encounter one and not ignoring everything while rushing to the caravan you can not stop the zombies.

To raise a zombie you have to make a skill check on four.

The chance to miss this check is 1 miss in 6 rolls.

Also when playing the second encounter you are in a serious disadvantage when healing the cardinal with only 2 heroes, because you may successfully heal him once per turn, which is less of a burden when having 8 actions and not only 4.

Same problem with the relic and search tokens, less heroes mean less actions which results more turn till you can finish.

Overall I think the quest is balanced for experienced players or it just does not scale very well.

Maybe the check to raise zombies should scale with heroes or maybe the armor of the cardinal.

well a 2nd attempt with a rules correction from wooters did atleast see some progress.

The hero's ran round the shadow dragon (i made no attempt to "Block" the hallway) and the dwarf stuck by the alter and repeatedly used actions to activated it. By this time the cardinal had taken around 7 damage. Widow had ran down the left hall way and opened the door and got hacked down to 1 hp by goblins who were in placed after she had opened the door, luckily she had found a health potion in the chapel. Running past the goblins she searched and found nothing (bad luck). Mean while the dwarf fended off the the dragon who missed two attacks in a row! but despite passing attribute test every round and healing the cardinal for are 3 hp every time the damage from the 4 zombie was averaging 4 damage a round and with him failing to activate the alter ment the cardinals demise.

We agreed how ever even if widow had found key to unlock the door they would still have to charge into the room and fend off 4 zombies with a shadow dragon and a group of goblins from the rear.

KingLZ

I agree its far to easy for Merik to raise zombies. Yes i feel that this quest does'nt scale well.

We 1st played The fat Goblin and despite the OL (me) getting lucky and the 1st prisoner interrogated was the one needed the 2 Heros simply blocked the hallway and hacked everything down.

Technically, you don't have to fend off any zombies thanks to Shamble. However, the quest does not scale well simply because the only decent chance of getting to the cardinal in time with two heros is if you find the key on your first search. With four heros you will be able to search both within a turn of each other and have a third hero in the hall to relay the key to the door (one hero, of course, is always triggering the shrine - preferably the one with the highest attribute). I think a quick fix would be to scale the health gained by the Cardinal from the shrine activations based on hero count. But its still a fun quest IMO.

In reference to the Fat Goblin scenario I find it hard to believe that two heros blocked your exit. Splig has a throw ability and any OL knowing the conditions of the quest would certainly hold their Dash cards for encounter 2. Not to mention Dark Charm which lets you control a hero allowing you to move one out of your way.

Rico said:

However, the quest does not scale well simply because the only decent chance of getting to the cardinal in time with two heros is if you find the key on your first search.

2 heroes, 5 zombies, cardinal is dead when the heroes arrive at the altar…

Okay they fought the Shadow Dragon first, maybe their fault ?

Oh definitely, you can't initiate any fighting in this encounter. To do so would surely be the death of the Cardinal. It's all about speed, which again does not work in a 2 hero game since you don't have anyone to kite whatever monsters are blocking your route.

Also, I highly recommend you play your individual quests with the Advanced or Expert rules to give your heros some much needed skills and gear. Especially if it's just two heros.

HI Rico

This is my 1st play through with my Dad who is more of a Carcassone/Dominion kind of guy. just getting practice in before I play with my regular group. I may have over looked a few thing on "fat goblin" and I'll now go back and have a read through.

On the subject of "The cardinals plight" quest after the rules clarification about monster attack the 2nd game was much more enjoyable. Although id still see the zombies as a threat with the shadow dragon blocking the exit they would soon catch up as well as the 2nd wave monsters coming in. This is ofc from a 2 player perspective.

Maybe a house rule of the cardinal could fight back in 2 player with maybe just a blue dice and ofc zombie only oll 1 brown def dice? this might help to thin the zombies a little.

Neffer said:

Although id still see the zombies as a threat with the shadow dragon blocking the exit they would soon catch up as well as the 2nd wave monsters coming in.