I have 2 main questions:

How does D2 differ from D1?

The only thing I have figured out is that there are new defense dice, and the OL has his own goals (though what they are I do not know). I have been unable to find an actual list of changes, maybe someone can point me to one.

And does D2 work with my expansions?

I have been able to glean the fact that D2 is a new game altogether, not just a new set of rules. As such, it would need to be a separate purchase. No issue there, but I am wondering if it works with the expansions I already have (Road to Legend, Tomb of Ice, Well of Darkness, Alter of Despair). I am especially curious to know how it interacts with Road to Legend as we greatly preferred that campaign feel.

Thanks for any insight you may have.

1. D2 is a whole new game. A list of changes from D1 would be too extensive.

2. The conversion kit allows you to bring over all the old heroes and monsters, but that's it for crossover. D2 contains a campaign system in the base set, and there is no compatibility with Road to Legend or Seas of Blood.

Dashakan said:

Though the core is the same, it is very much its own game. I would suggest looking through the extensive preview articles that FFG recently released to get a handle on the changes.

Dashakan said:

You can use all your 1e plastic thanks to the Conversion Kit. Its worth noting that this includes the monsters, as 2e encounters don't have preset monsters like 1e. Instead an icon system is used allowing those 1e monsters to be included in any 2e encounter.

Changes between editions: As stated, there are many, and I won't try to hit them all.

Some of the changes that I think are noteworthy: Threat/Conquest are gone. Quests have tactical objectives. Sometimes this is still "kill monster X," but more often, it's to rescue a villager, or find a treasure, or save some grain.

Portals are gone. One-off quests have limited opportunities to acquire new gear and abilities. The built-in campaign system has a development phase in between quests where both sides get to spend XPs and the heroes can shop. There's no more porting to town from the dungeon to stock up on potions.

Related, hero defeat works totally differently. Since there's no portal to exit/enter the dungeon, there's no process for getting healed at the temple and re-entering. Defeated heroes are essentially knocked out, and revive with limited health and fatigue recovery. Other heroes can use one of their two actions to revive a hero as well.

Heroes no longer declare what action they are doing, meaning no more Commands.

Some quests no longer have only a set list of monsters. Most quests will have a certain number of standard monsters, and then often will also have one or more open group choices. The OL may select from a range of monster cards that match the icons available in that part of the quest. I don't know if it's specifically stated in the rules, but I think you're limited to one set of monsters…so if you have two open slots, you can't take double Giants, assuming you had the figures.

Is it compatible with the 1.0 expansions? No. The number of rules differences makes playing those quests questionable. There's nothing to stop you from playing 2.0 games using the 1.0 maps, although you'd have to replace all the chests with search tokens, and there's no telling whether the monsters int eh quest would be balanced or fair.

The conversion kit provides 2.0 stats for all the heroes and monsters from 2.0, however. So while it will take some work playing a 2.0 game in the Well of Darkness expansion, you can use your WoD heroes and monsters in a 2.0 game/campaign if you have the Conversion kit.

Road to Legend and Sea of Blood are incompatible with 2.0. I don't even think the lieutenants have cards included in the Conversion Kit.

kingbobb said:

No, they don't.

The Farrow siblings have stats (and new tokens) given in the 2e base game as they are reintroduced there, however, none of the other 1e LTs have 2e stats (yet.)

hooliganj said:

Extensive, yes, but they aren't all as extensive as they might first appear. The biggest change, for me, is that quests now have an actual objective on BOTH sides, rather than the heroes attempting to kill X and the Overlord attempting to stop them (which, in Road to Legend equated to throwing so much stuff at them that they eventually bottled it and ran).

Many of these quests have a 'race like' feel to them now too, in so much as 'Do X before Overlord does Y'. This has meant that the RADICALLY different 'death' mechanic (1eds teleport to town and heal up completely vs 2eds fall unconscious where you stood and you or another gets you up, generally with no where near full health) is actually there to slow heroes down rather than net the Overlord a tangible benefit.

Defense changing from a static amount to a dice roll feels like a big change, but damage output has been reduced substantially with it, so it sorta evens out. On that note, there are no black dice any more - dice purely come from the weapon you use now (a shame, I feel). Oh, and surge abilities can only be used once per roll now.

They have dramatically reduced the amount of effects out there now too. Stuff like 'burn', 'daze', 'bleed' etc are, in general, abilities that monsters have now rather than generic effects. There are only four generic effects that remain - poison, immobilise, disease and stun. This is a bonus I'd say, because there was a ludicrous amount of counter before…

One of the other significant changes is with the Overlords deck. Gone is the 60ish card DECK of cards, and it's instead been replaced with 15 far more specific cards (with additional ones you can buy with XP to add, if playing the campaign). This means playing the overlord could get a little repetitive for some (though monster choices are far better, which may appease).

And lastly, there's a campaign, and a good one, in the box, ready to go. It's not as in depth as Road to Legend was (I still hope a future expansion fleshes it out further), but it's FAR better than the weak 1ed campaign rules from the base set.

As others have said, there are numerous other changes, but these are the ones that contribute the most in terms of making it feel new. IME.

kingbobb said:

It is stated, in the Quest Guide I believe. So no taking two groups of bane spiders or beastmen, which is a bit of a shame because many plastic monster pieces will be useless in second edition. For instance, no group that I've seen feature 2 master monsters ever, most groups, against 4 heroes, will feature 3-4 normal and 1 master for the smaller critters and 1-2 normal and 1 master for the larger monsters. Half the beastmen and bane spider miniatures won't ever be needed as it is.

Columbob said:

Kobolds still do. 3 masters for a 4-hero group.

Kobolds are the exception and their split rule ensures more minis are needed.

Columbob said:

Good point, hadn't actually considered that… Thats an issue and a bit of a shame too. No more 'flooding the board' with a load of skeletons or what have you…

Hopefully this will be another thing that's addressed (the same group can be choses twice assuming you have the available miniatures - works for me).

I have been playing the dungeons from road to legend using 2E rules and it seems to run ok so far. I am setting up the maps with 3 open groups (drawn randomly), no reinforcements, and the leader as a master from 2E. Some of the dungeons ask for rolls of the old power dice, but if you have 1E, you should have these. I have been giving 3 conquest to the OL per hero death death and 3 conquest per glyph for the heroes. I have stocked the treasure by placing the number of 2E search tokens to match the number of players on the coin piles and chests from the 1E quest.

This usually ends up in a fun hack-up.

I suppose you could run a sort of campaign by having dungeons of two levels and giving 1 xp per player plus 1 xp for the winner. Havent tried this yet tho.

To be honest, I think the 2nd edition quests are better, but there are lots of levels in road to legend that are fun to play if you want something different

urskoy said:

I'm a little confused: If you're playing 2E rules, why hand out conquest at all? Conquest is absent from 2E. Are you just using the 2E monster and hero cards/rules, but using 1E Conquest/victory rules?

I am just using conquest so we can see who wins the road to legend dungeon as there are not really quest objectives like 2nd edition