Flaw in rules ? stamina and movement

By Rasiel, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I think part of the original point was lost, its not a matter of which is the best tactic but the fact that a hero can move further with stamina then with normal movement. The ring of power gives +1 sta so if they need to carry or escort something off the board then they can move beyond the OL mobs easily and there are only so many pit traps in the deck. Mind you they get to roll awareness to be affected by it.

I just completed the interlude as the OL and had the rogue with 6 sta (5 plus ring of power), he also had two stamina potions on the character. So did the following:

1. spend an action to swim over from the river bank to the stream, use stamina to move to edge of waterfall (cost of 6 fatigue) as there was a mob on each side of the stream (yes I should have had on in it but they didnt have the move to get there), no action required to swill a sta pot and thus gets all sta back

2. uses second action to leap over waterfall taking 3 damage, spends 6 fatigue to move out of waterfall towards exit, swill 2nd sta pot (remember it does not state on the stat pot card that it takes an action) and then burns sta to exit off the board with casket to win the day.

On movement points would not have gotten close, so in total burnt 17 stat.

The first edition states only one pot per turn, is there anything in the 2nd edition that states that?

Regards

Tusslefoot

There are limitations on surge abilities & OL cards, but I can't find anything explicit in the rules regarding potions. You could house rule that if you really think it is OP.

Rules, page 13: "Each surge ability may only be triggered once per attack."

Rules, page 16: "Two Overlord cards with the same name cannot be played on the same target in response to the same triggering condition."

On the other hand, you are describing a very limited case -- a certain hero with a specific shop item who happens to have 2 search items that can only be found during a quest, and can't be stockpiled. The OL can pull similar tricks by saving up certain cards & unleashing them all at once. We had a giant take our whole party from full health to half dead & mostly stunned, and with better rolls & other cards it could have been much worse.

Velos said:

Sure the heroes can easily and summarily use a rest action to get back stamina… But more often than not, actions are a commodity and one spent constantly each turn to recover stamina is not usually the best option in the heat of battle (and is terribly inefficient!)

Quoted for Truth. This statement may not seem like much at first blush, but it is a very important (and very true) thing to keep in mind. How well the heroes spend their actions will make a big difference in how well they perform.

Sure, some heroes may be able to move farther with fatigue than with a Move, but then they're out of fatigue so they can't use any of their more powerful skills to attack or anything. OL effects that inflict stamina loss will instead inflict wound loss (if the OL can bring them to bear in time,) and if the hero is using a Rest action to immediately recover that fatigue, that means he's only attacking once or else not attacking at all in order to do a special quest-related action. As far as the OL is concerned that's still one action spent on moving. He managed to squeeze out an extra MP or two by sacrificing his ability to use any cool powers that cost fatigue to trigger.

Granted, I don't think attacking as a specific action is as important in 2E and it was in 1E, but the point remains the same. Your hero is still using half of his turn, and he's burning all his fatigue in a predictable manner to boot. It shouldn't be difficult for a seasoned OL to work around this tactic, one way or another, so I don't see it as being particularly cheesy.

Sure, there's the occasional corner case, such as the story of the scout with two fatigue potions running all the way off the map, but keep in mind the variables that had to come together for that to happen:

1) a hero with relatively high stamina (and carrying an item that boosts stamina on top of that)

2) this same hero managed to pull two stamina potions out of searching early in the encounter (the interludes only have one encounter per quest, so it's not like he got them in E1 and used them in E2.)

3) the OL failed to block off the waterways before the scout began his run. (if the blocked door isn't enough to slow the heroes down, the OL can place his open group on the river's edge to block the hallways leading into that tile - they can be in position from setup, so moving isn't really an issue.)

TLDR;

Moving with fatigue and then using a Rest action is a valid tactic. It's not as powerful as it sounds, except perhaps in scenarios constructed to show off how powerful it could be under ideal circumstances.

The OL can save his tripwires for heroes who are actually using Move actions, and if ALL the heroes are doing this fatigue/rest thing, then he can tailor his deck to deal stamina damage while they're empty. Remember, the OL is allowed to remove cards from his deck , down to a minimum of 15 cards, before each quest begins. He can throw out cards that the heroes have found ways to be immune to so they don't clutter his deck and he'll have fewer cards to burn through before drawing something nasty.

All that being said, if you still think it's too powerful, I would start by reintroducing the "one potion per turn" rule as a house rule. Given the havoc it caused in 1E, I'm rather surprised that FFG didn't make this a core rule in 2E right off the bat.

Thanks for the feed back guys, I am trying to make it tough yet fair-ish without overkill haha considering that I am th OL then perhaps that means gloves off! Yes, I was quite interested why the rules didn't include the one pot per turn rule but hey perhaps that is one that got past the keeper. I was one movement point short of having a big mob sit in the stream when they pulled the move so again if he had been there that would not have been an issue.

There are a few scenarios where escorting or taking things off the board or to a set locaiton are involved so that two extra movement points would be handy, especially if as OL you don't have the extra move card up and ready! I am going to work on the fact that one card per mob group as OL can translate to something similar with the other characters

Cheers and thanks again :-)

YOU CAN'T USE FATIGUE TO MOVE WITHOUT A MOVE ACTION.

FATIGUE CAN ONLY BE SPENT TO ADD EXTRA MOVE POINT TO A MOVE ACTION

check the rulebook, under movement action and extra movement

Actually the rules say the opposite of that. Page 8 under ADDITIONAL MOVEMENT. It's even in bold. "A hero player is not required to perform a move action in order to suffer fatigue to move." Unless it's in the FAQ or listed somewhere else in the rulebook that says otherwise that I'm not aware of.

damnzd,ypu are right.i like my houserule then :)