I have a question about the rules. Now I know when the heroes open the door, the Overlord needs to reveal all the monsters that are already in the area. Now let's say it's a partciularly LARGE area, and some of the monsters already in the room are out of the LoS of the heroes by the door. So what happens? Does the overlord reveal all the monsters in the entire area, or does he only reveal the ones viewable by hero LoS and reveals as he goes? Thanks guys!

You reveal the entire area as soon as the heroes have LoS to any part of the area (generally when they open a door). All monsters in the area are placed on the board immediately and can act on the OL's turn, even if the heroes don't have LoS to them.

Well, at least it's what you'll do if you play strictly by the rules. Descent however goes well with "house rules", so if your players agree and you want to play a little more like an RPG, you can reveal only those monters the heroes have LoS to, and then state they hear some noise coming from the dark corridor to the left (for example) to let them know there are more monsters.

Be aware thought that doing so will make the life of your heroes more difficult. If they are an experianced group and win regularly it might be an interesting alternative, but if they rarely survive the game, i wouldn't recommand it.

There might also be the possibility to use the "Questionmark"-Markers.

So the Heroes will know that there is a monster but don't know wich ;-)

Reminds me on good old Space Crusade.

Guess I'll try that

But thats Houseruling too of course. The offical way is to reveal them all, like it was said before.

Hedgehamster said:

Hah, yeah or Space Hulk! Since my players are new, I'll follow the rulebook and pocket the other idea till later.

Bob-Morane said:

I'd say it's actually a disadvantage to the overlord. The heroes would only have to deal with the monsters they see, not all monsters. They could just kill those monsters, walk around the corner, kill those monsters, walk around the corner, etc.

Also, it raises some annoying rules questions. What if the OL runs his monsters out of LOS - do they vanish, or can the heroes still see them for some reason? What about spawns? What if the OL runs his monsters onto or spawns on squares occupied by "invisible" monsters?