Thought I'd share the rough draft of my new Avatar and Lt for a homebrewed module I'm working on for RtL and open it up for opinions.

The Elven Commander

The Elven Commander Avatar has the same stats as a Diamond Level Master Deep Elf plus any Avatar Upgrades that were purchased (including ones that affect Deep Elves).

Keep Location : Mountains of Despair

Avatar Ability : Advanced Training: The Elven Commander may have 2 categories of monster upgraded per campaign level instead of 1.

Monster Upgrades
Beast: 25
Humanoid: 30
Eldritch: 30

Treachery Upgrades
Monster: 10
Event: 20
Trap: 15

Avatar Specific Upgrades (4)
Speed of Nazrul (5 XP)
All Deep Elves gain +1/+2/+3 Speed (Copper/Silver/Gold)

Obsidian Claws (15 XP)
All Razorwings gain the Bleed ability

Demon Breathe (10 XP)
All Hellhounds gain the Burn ability

Master Armories (15 XP)
All Humanoid type monsters gain +1/+2/+3 Armor (Copper/Silver/Gold)

Avatar Specific Lt
Weaponmaster Rek'lit
Cost: 14 XP
Card: Horde of Things
Minions: 2 Deep Elves, 2 Hellhounds, 1 Chaos Beast

Stats
Copper: Speed 6, Health 25, Armor 4
Silver: Speed 6, Health 50, Armor 6
Gold: Speed 6, Health 75, Armor 8

Weaponmaster Rek'lit has Morph and Ironskin .

Ability: For 4 Threat, Weaponmaster Rek'lit may place a Ready Action: Guard order as if he were a Hero.

Dice (? Indicate Morph dice):
Copper: ? ? Silver Black
Silver: ? ? ? Silver Silver
Gold: ? ? ? ? Gold Silver

Big Remy said:

These are really strong abilities. Particularly in copper. 55 XP, and the OL can bump to two Silver monster groups? That's huge. As hard a time as my hero's are having facing one upgrade, if I had a second they'd have no chance. You could make it an upgrade... "Inspired Leader"? i.e. for 20 XP the Avatar can buy an upgrade that allows him a 2nd monster category per level. That way the 1st is normal, but to get the 2nd one early, he'd have to sacrifice 50 XP instead (30+20). It's just an up front cost that might help keep some balance.

Burn and Bleed are really powerful too, given how plentiful Hellhounds and Razorwings are in RTL. The other Avatars get to upgrade things like Demons, Ogres, and Giants. Rare creatures.

That was kind of the point of it. This Avatar is meant to be very hard, and a challenge for experienced players.

Upon looking at it again, a better way to nerf the Avatar ability would be to just increase how much it costs to upgrade each monster category by 10XP.

Burn - Hellhounds should really have that anyways, so they aren't complete wastes of time which is why that Upgrade in in there.

Bleed on the Razorwings: This could be debated about how bad it would be. I almost made it an upgrade for Kobolds :-)

I like him alot. I think the idea looks good. As to the balance of things, it's hard to say without testing. However, you 'could' consider having some of the upgrades Silver+ only (perhaps the Razorwing at least).

edderkoppen said:

That's a strong possibility. Or I could limit it to Master Razorwings.

Looks interesting to me. I think the 10XP bump on monster upgrades is a good idea.

I'm not convinced he's actually that strong, assuming you're playing with no other house-rules.

All the other Avatars have some kind of 'immediate advantage' from their Special Ability in the Dungeons (the Sorcerer King's amazing extra Threat, the Beastman's cheap spawns, the Spider Queen's more powerful traps) - without such an ability off the bat, the Commander is actually going to have a hard time GETTING the XP necessary to upgrade two monster categories against good players. Right now, I'm playing a 'test' game as the Titan and I'm definitely finding that with his extremely marginal off-the-bat ability (+1 black die for unnamed master monsters) that it's REALLY hard to get Conquest in the early dungeons. (This is assuming good play by the Heroes of course, ie. good dungeon tactics, good party selection, running when there's the slightest whiff of trouble, making sacrifice plays where appropriate, etc... I am not terribly concerned about weak players that give the Overlord tons of conquest early on).

What's more, the Special Lieutenant you list is weak; having all 3 Monster classes (humanoid, beast, eldritch) in his retinue means he can never really have a truly frightening, fully-upgraded force; not to mention he has nothing that Soars, which is really the only thing that gives the Overlord half a chance in outdoor encounters. Cheap monster treachery is also the worst color to have for Lieutenant fights, contributing further to his weakness.

It also depends of course on how significant you plan to make the "trick" to fighting him in his final keep. If it's just "him in a big empty room," he's toast. Certainly just looking at his none-too-flashy personal upgrades, he would need something truly fearsome (on the order of "hey, here's a 400-HP buffer") to stand a chance. So if he can't win the final fight, and his Lieutenant is too weak to raze Tamalir...well, then how does he win?

Okay, by demoralizing the Heroes in the dungeons and having them quit because they don't understand what the victory conditions of the game actually are, I suppose. But again, I'm not too concerned about tactics that only work on weak players.

I'm not sure anyone would ever get the upgrade for Deep Elves, except as a boost before the final battle. There are hardly any Deep Elves in RtL, and only one two-cost Monster Treachery card.

it sounds pretty powerful, because monster upgrades are probably the most powerful upgrades a OL can buy. They're always the first thing I buy, because the extra armor, damage, and abilities really make the monsters more of a threat. One upgrade usually brings that group of monsters on par with the heroes at silver, and two at gold. Having two groups of monsters at the higher power level would really weaken the group.

With the +10xp per monster category it'd be slightly better since the OL will have lost more XP getting both monster upgrades

The_Immortal said:

I have to agree - a melee Avatar with no significant upgrades for the final fight is toast. His Lieutenant may be interesting, but, perchance, he should be able to field those Razorwings and Hellhounds the Avatar adds a buff to? Also, a more original name for the Avatar is needed.

As for upgrading a second monster category, that is quite strong indeed; though, perhaps a better way to spice up stuff would be "all your master monsters including level leaders are always upgraded to the highest possible level" for 30 XP.

I also have a better special ability in mind:

"Warmaster's Cunning": all your Master Deep Elves, Master Ferrox, Master Ogres and Master Giants gain 'Command' equal to campaign level.

As for the Lt, Brilliant Commander is more fitting for him, and his retinue should be adjusted.

See, this is why I like to post Rough Drafts , because I know half the ideas suck and need feedback

Don't get me wrong, I was not going nearly so far as to say any ideas "suck."

I was actually disagreeing with people who said he was maybe too strong. With your initial draft, I'm not sure that's the case. His lieutenant being "weak" isn't necessarily a flaw - the Sorcerer King's special lieutenant is horrible compared to most of the others, but the Avatar has many other advantages that make up for it.

My biggest comment is that he's probably going to be way too weak for the final battle, but then, all the Avatars are. And that also depends on how you plan to design his Final Battle itself. Something where he can quickly strike from the shadows and then disappear again, and the Heroes are forced to spread out looking for him and be assassinated in isolation, would be awesome.

Some other ideas for you, in no particular order.

Avatar upgrade: Cost 30. Allows you to pick any 1 other avatar specific upgrade that applies to monsters and have it be in effect for a dungeon or encounter. Can choose the specific effect at the start of the dungeon (all 3 levels get 1 pick total), or the encounter. For the legendary level and the final battle (not the entire 5th level) the overlord gets to change the previous pick. IE for the copper legendary level pick the avatar upgrade that gives dragon's unstoppable. For the final battle the upgrade that prevents hero's from spending surges.

Avatar special power: All monster upgrades only cost 20 points, there is no favorite for this avatar. Or all level leaders are automatically at one level higher than the current campaign level. This would include outdoor encounters. Please note this is not applied to all master monsters, only those with a name.

Avatar upgrade: Cost 25 For 10 threat pick one power card from your current deck (including treachery) and put it in play. This power card is treated like it came from a lieutenant reinforcing the dungeon. For Lt encounters pay 10 threat and put one non-treachery power card in play. (for this hordes of things and brilliant commander would not work as their trigger would have already happen before the overlord could play the power card)

Avatar upgrade: Cost 5 The avatar has invisability. Or for 20 points, all deep-elves have invisability.

Brian

UPDATE: So I finally had some time to work on this, or at least on just the Avatar and his upgrades. I've adjusted his cost to upgrade monsters, actually making them cheaper due to the switch in his ability. Two of the four Avatar specific upgrades affect only the Elven Commander, but the other two also affect him since they both affect Deep Elves. Most of the changes are based on suggestions made by everyone. For one of them, all the credit goes to Xandria since its pretty much a cut and paste of the suggestion so thank you.

So here's the next version:

The Elven Commander

The Elven Commander Avatar has the same stats as a Diamond Level Master Deep Elf plus any Avatar Upgrades that were purchased (including ones that affect Deep Elves).

Ability:

Advanced Training: The Elven Commander is allowed to upgrade a second Monster category per campaign level by paying an additional 10 XP to the upgrade cost of the second category.

Monster Upgrades:

Beast: 25 XP

Humanoid: 20 XP

Eldritch: 25 XP

(So for comparison, it costs the Titan 55 XP to upgrade 2 categories between Cooper and Silver. The Elven Commander can get two upgrades in Cooper for the same price. This area still needs tweaking I think so please throw some suggestions out)

Treachery Upgrades:

Monster: 10 XP (max 5)

Event: 20 XP (max 2)

Trap: 15 XP (max 2)

(I want the EC to be focused on having more difficult monsters than the other Avatars, and to have a greater access to the better spawn cards. Plus, this will factor in to the Final Battle, which I'll describe later)

Avatar Specific Upgrades (4)

Sword of Te'lindar (5 XP)
The Elven Commanders attack gains Leech and 1 surge = +3 Damage (I wanted him to actually have a weapon)

Armorof X'noium (5 XP)
The Elven Commander gains +100 Wounds (he needed some kind of armor)

Warmaster's Cunning (15XP)
All your Master Deep Elves, Master Ferrox, Master Ogres and Master Giants gain 'Command' equal to campaign level. (Thank you Xandria!)

Master Armories (15 XP)
All Humanoid type monsters gain +1/+2/+3 Armor (Copper/Silver/Gold) (I just still like this one and really wanted to keep it)

So headed into the Final Battle, if the OL has bought those four upgrades plus the other general Avatar boosting ones the Elven Commander looks like this:

Elven Commander

Speed: 6 (5 from the Diamond Deep Elf, +1 from Enchanced Speed)

Armor: 11 (7 as Deep Elf, +1 Protective Magics, +3 from Master Armories)

Wounds: 144 (29 as Deep Elf, +15 from Toughened, +100 from Armor of X'noium) ( Number of wounds has always been a problem with most Avatars, trying here to fix that)

Abilites : Frost, Pierce 10, Shadowcloak (as Deep Elf), Leech (from Sword of Te'lindar upgrade) and Command 3 (from Warmaster's Cunning)

Attack: Red Green Green Gold (as Deep Elf) plus 3 Gold dice (from Dark Strength). Damage Range: 7 - 55 damage with Pierce 10 and Leech. Average Damage (if I did the math right, rouding fractions down) is: 25 with Pierce 10.

Yes, I want him to be actually able to stand up to the Heroes. Several people felt he might be too weak in the Avatar battle, so I tried to fix that. Remember when thinking about this, that these are his stats if he buys ALL the Avatar Upgrades which might not happen on a regular basis.

As for the OL's Keep, the idea I'm looking at right now would actually look somewhat akin to the King of Mountain dungeon level, with Rune Locked Doors between some elevations. Additionally, there will be a single encounter marker on each elevation. I want his level to be sort of a running battle, even into the fight against him. Once the doors are opened, they will stay open and can't be closed.

Here is where I'm going to try to bring in the Monster Treachery he might have bought. When the Final Battle starts but before the OL puts the deck away, he can purchase Monster spawn cards using Treachery following the normal rules. These cards do not go into his hand, but rather one card is placed facedown on the side of each section of the Keep level. If the Elven Commander end his turn on an encounter marker in a section, the card is flipped face up and the monsters are spawned adjacent to the Elven Commander ignoring LOS restrictions and the encounter marker is removed.

This is really really rough I realize, but after seeing so many complaints about the Avatar battle being anticlimatic I wanted to see what I could do to change that. I realize it needs work, so please feel free to offer any constructive criticism you have.

What about the Lieutenant?

Could this fit?

Weaponmaster Rek'lit
Cost: 14 XP
Card: Brilliant Commander
Minions (Choose 3 groups): 2 Deep Elves, 2 Razorwings, 1 Ogre, 2 Hellhounds, 1 Chaos Beast

Stats
Copper: Speed 6, Health 25, Armor 5
Silver: Speed 6, Health 50, Armor 7
Gold: Speed 6, Health 75, Armor 10

Weaponmaster Rek'lit has Morph. When making an attack, he may choose one of the following: Burn, Stun, Daze, Frost.

Ability: For 4 Threat, Weaponmaster Rek'lit may place a Ready Action: Guard order as if he were a Hero.

Dice (? Indicate Morph dice):
Copper: ? ? Silver Black
Silver: ? ? ? Silver Silver
Gold: ? ? ? ? Gold Silver

Yeah haven't had a chance to work over the Lt yet, but I like those suggestions.

The idea of giving him flexible minion choices is very interesting, I don't think I would have thought to do that. I'm tempted to switch the Orgre for a Troll...mainly because I love Trolls

Big Remy said:

I'm giving very strong consideration to adding "Immune to Pierce" to this upgrade? I would do Ironskin but between that and Shadowcloak I'm not sure if it would be over kill or not.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Make it original; and have it include a tactical choice.

Xandria said:

So like for this turn, the armor has one of the following: Pierce, Choice X or Choice Y?

Indeed. Or, you can have him activate special abilities with movement points, threat gathered in the Avatar battle, or even with half-actions. An ability may even cost him hit points.

(many balance problems in Descent seem to come from some powers being -on- all the time; plus, it's more fun when one has several options, and has to choose)