These were dropped from RtL because they are too good. Whilst they do look good, what is it exactly about them which makes them so broken that they removed them from the game.

Would they work if their effect was reduced to +5 armour? (or less)

I haven't experienced it but I guess it's due to making the final battle too easy. Heroes could just suck down Invulnerability potions, and then the Avatar can't hit them. That's no fun.

The reasoning as some playtester described it, was that there are times in RtL when the heroes take on a single, powerful monster and these battles were becoming non-events.

My personal take on it is that we make Invulnerability potionsw available but rare. They are still available with the treasure caches, and a couple of unique situations (some of the house-ruled dungeons, Alchemist and Grazius). Hasn't been a problem for us yet. Goes without saying they are banned from the Final Battle.

From and Overlord perspective I really don't see this as adding balance to the game. From a Hero's perspective the idea sounds like it might be fun but there are plenty of TANK type characters in the game where there doesn't need to be Invulnerability potions.

Short lived invisibility potions - cool, and would add strategy overall.

Based on the reasonings for not including them above, I came up with the following mod:

Any hero may drink one of the Invulnerability Potions they have equipped by spending one movement point. A hero who drinks an Invulnerability Potion places the potion marker on top of their hero's portrait on their hero sheet. Any time the hero is struck by an enemy attack which does not originate from a named monster, they may discard the Invulnerability Potion from their hero sheet portrait after the attack roll is made in order to gain +5 Armour against that attack. The potion marker is discarded for no effect if the Hero drinks another potion, dies, or the week ends, but otherwise remains in effect until used.

Of course, this would still need play-testing if there are any voulenteers.

inle_badger said:

Is that your house rule for adding invul potions ? cause as far as I know you remove those treasure caches at the begginging of the game campaign.

Slev said:

Seems like a good idea, though I do have a problem with the fact that you can 'wait' until an attack hits, thus increasing it's power tremendously. I have tried to introduce it as well, and modified it so you had to discard it 'before' dice were rolled. I think that makes it in line with the invisibility potions, in that you now have a potion that is good against hordes, and one that is good against a single attack but neither is bulletproof.

.c

Would another option just be limiting where you could buy the potions? Say they were only available in Nerkhal or something.

edderkoppen said:

The wording was from the original actually. I simply reduced the bonus, limited the time, and removed the effect from Named Monsters.

StarBurn said:

Sorry, that's right. Our house rule for including them as a rarity.

Random interjection from someone who doesn't play RtL:

Once you've got ridiculous fatigue upgrades, is there any reason one hero wouldn't grab the Ghost Armor and pretend that vitality potions are invulnerability potions?

I realize there's only one Ghost Armor and it's a rune, so the whole party can't do that, just thought it might make food for thought.

Antistone said:

Welcome to the world of Nanok MCHammer (can't touch thissss).

More seriously, usually there are better uses for that fatigue. Speed is life, even more in RtL than non-RtL IME (though I would be interested to play avery slow very heavily armoured party for a change). Occasionally being able to keep one hero invulnerable is great, but usually the OL will jsut focus on the others...

If the fatigue is more useful than the invulnerability, then why are invulnerability potions an issue in the first place?

I'm assuming that being able to duplicate the effects of a banned item would be desirable under some circumstances, else it would not be banned. Keeping the option open just costs the party 150 gold if you don't already have 8-9 useful permanent "Other" items choking your equippable slots (I can barely even name that many across all expansions and treasure levels, if I remember correctly about the healing runes being removed from RtL), and maybe it'll scare away the OL from attacking an otherwise lightly-armored hero.

Unless I'm missing something. As I said, I've never played RtL. And maybe invulnerability potions are really only useful if you can apply them to the entire party at once, I don't know.

Antistone said:

Because they are useable by any hero at any time with very little cost? Whereas Ghost armour can't be used with most heavier armours (which make runes not work and can only be used by one party member at any one time. Further, to be quite as effective as an Invulnerability potion, the ghost armour needs to be combined with several upgrades (so at least mid Silver level and considerable time and expense) and cost substantially more in dungeoneering terms (ie lots of fatigue, rather than 1 fatigue/MP and 50gp).

Fatigue is more useful 'generally', but not always. And there is a significant in-dungeon cost in using large amounts of it (although Leadership heavily reduces that cost). A single potion OTOH may be a non-renewable resource but is very cheap to use in terms of in-dungeon costs.

Invulnerability potions allow any hero to avoid a powerful attack with almost no cost. Ghost armour and high fatigue allows one particular hero (so planning can work this for the heroes, or avoid this for the OL) to avoid a powerful attack with a significant cost.

Is there some reason that vitality potions are more expensive or harder to acquire than invulnerability potions would hypothetically be if they were allowed? Because other than the one-time cost of having the Ghost Armor, I don't see how replenishing your fatigue bar is going to be more expensive than drinking the invulnerability potion. There are more ways to do it (rest orders, death), and it seems probable that you're going to be carrying a lot more vitality potions than invulnerability potions--especially since, with the ghost armor, you can buy all one type of potion rather than guessing how many of each you're going to use and splitting your stock.

If a single invulnerability potion blocks more damage than your entire fatigue bar, then I guess you could describe that as the fatigue option being more expensive, but I was under the impression that it was possible to get 10+ fatigue in RtL, and the average damage actually blocked by an invulnerability potion is probably much less than 10, unless monsters routinely one-shot you from maximum health (in which case the exact amount blocked may not even matter). With the ghost armor, you only spend exactly as much as you need, and you can split the effect across multiple attacks or even across multiple turns, and if the OL decides not to attack you (or if he misses) then you're left with a full fatigue bar instead of an empty bar and an invulnerability potion marker. Additionally, if you don't normally walk around with zero fatigue, you have an emergency buffer against surprise attacks that makes it less likely the OL can take you out with a lucky roll or a spawn or whatever (assuming that spending your remaining fatigue is preferable to death--and if it's not, you can choose to die).

The fact that it can't be combined with heavy armor seems like it's probably a non-issue, since heavy-armor heroes are probably the ones that least need the extra protection, and you've only got one Ghost Armor anyway. Surely "pick on whatever hero is weakest relative to the others" is still the OL's watchword?

Antistone said:

1. True. Individually, if your fatigue is high enough, ghost armour will always be better than an Invulnerability Pot.

2. Again, Ghost armour is individually better in most cases. Fatigue above 7-8 is possible but unlikely. AT that point you can do just about everything you need to anyway, and 4 extra wounds become of greater value than 2 extra fatigue most of the time. And yes, in RtL there are quite a lot of monsters that will routinely do 10+ damage.
Silver: Master Beastmen, (wounded) Master Blood Apes, Master Naga's, Master Demons (ok, so only the Beastman are all that common, but thats just Silver level)
Gold: Normal Beastmen in Command Range, Master Beastmen, (wounded) Master Blood Apes, Nagas, Master Naga's, Master Demons
Diamond: Lots, not just Masters.
Add in most Dark Elves, Dragons if you include Pierce (which you might as well if they are already high damage).
Add in almost every other Master of Gold or Diamond level, and a few more Silvers, if their Gold dice come up damage (1/2).
Add in some more monsters with specials from certain Avatars.
10+ damage is far from uncommon in RtL dungeons after bronze level.

The main point of Ghost armour is that only one character can benefit from it - so the OL can avoid that character if necessary (or the heroes can specifically use that and only that character for the truly dangerous jobs). Invulnerability pots give every character this capability for minimal cost - and I think that this last point is the key.

3. Nope, Heavy Armour heroes are usually (always?) worth a lot more CT. And heavy armour is usually around the 5 (common) to 7 (rare) mark. So an attack that does 10+ and could potentially do 12-15 can be a very attractive option on the Heavies rather than the lights - while it might finish off the lights, the payoff is lower and the attack is not achieving anything that can't already be achieved. Hitting the Heavy for 7-10 damage in one fit will often bring him low enough that he can be finished of by pinpricks and or traps, for double the CT reward. It is all of course situational. But thats the extreme power of Invulnerability potions - they can be used by any hero is any situation to nullify the 'big' attack.
If you can combine the Ghost armour with a heavily armoured hero, then you get can one guy that can go anywhere and do anything - see the 'answer' to my Slaggorath problem. If you can chuck in Invulnerabilty potion to the mix then you give almost everyone a limited amount of that capability - without the massive training and building up costs.

Corbon said:

Not that I've got RtL stats to check against, but is that 10+ damage or 10+ wounds? Because any damage that was already blocked by your base armor doesn't count for considering what effect an invulnerability potion or ghost armor has; you won't take that damage with or without the extra defenses.

Antistone said:

That was 10+ damage. It couldn't be wounds because armour values of the hero are independent of the monster. However that is average damage for an attack, not max or high-but-reasonably-common damage. IME it is rare in RtL, at least until Gold level, to have more than 1 Hero with 5+ armour, and there is almost always at least one hero with only 2-3 armour.
Some (far from exhaustive, and far from the most powerful) examples (all roughed from UH's Summary):
Silver Master Naga WGGAg Com1 Sorc3 = possibly 15 damage (12-13 quite common) which is 9 damage even vs Armour 6, which is 'very high' armour IME.
Silver Master Deep Elf RGAg Pierce6 = possibly (easily) 9 damage through almost any armour
Gold Master Sorceror WGYAu Sorc5 = possible 15 damage
Gold Beastman (receiving Command from Gold Master Beastman) RG +3Dam +2Com = possibly 12 damage
Gold Dragon BGGY Pierce 4 Burn = 9 damage pierce 4 (so 8-9 damage nearly always, + the Burn)
Gold Dark Priest WAuAuBl = 11 damage easily (because surges are also damage)
Even a Gold Master Skeleton is BGYAu Pierce 3 = 9 pierce 3

None of these examples (bar the beastman) include bonus damage from other sources of Command, Doom, Elevation, Avatar specials, Level specials etc etc. While all of them are max damage, most will often be within 1-2 points of this - the most variable dice is usually the Trait dice which is +2/+3 damage or nothing, 50/50.

Most of the time, most of the heroes have 2-4 armour, usually one will have 5-6, occasionally 2 will be that high and very occasionally one will be 7+. So a fair number of the above attacks (and many others), given more than one target, will be hitting for at least 6, probably 8-12 damage after armour.

With smaller dungeon levels, fewer spawns and faster, better equipped heroes smiting harder and more often than in base Descent, the OL needs these powerful attacks to be capable of taking 1/2 to all of a heroes wounds out (enough so that there is some chance to finish off the hero with traps or smaller attacks). Smart heroes will very quickly have upgraded Tamalir's Temple to Cathedral and can glyph back to town to heal 7 wounds per turn for 25gp. The OL needs these attacks to actually have some chance of hurting the heroes badly enough to get kills. Freely available Invulnerability potions limit that severely. Ghost armour merely changes the target (if at full affect).

Bear also in mind that many of the monsters delivering these high damage attacks will only get one shot.

I see my hopes of RtL moving game balance away from rocket launcher tag may have been misplaced.