First time poster. I just wanted to share some thoughts about the Wildlander skill card Danger Sense (1 xp cost, 2 fatigue to exhaust card to force overlord to discard one overlord card from his hand at random).

I am the overlord in a campagin my group is in the middle of. We have a wildlander who right away picked Danger Sense (being an experienced TCG player he saw right away hand control is powerful). At first I felt it was a fairly balanced skill because it requires the Wildlander (a very mobile source of damage for the heroes) to give up an action/move to cause me to discard a card. At face vaule it is not a big deal because this means one of my monsters has one less hero attack to survive, thus potentially extending my map persence longer than otherwise.

But as our campagin continued after a couple games, I realized the majority of the time I am playing without a hand. Within the first couple turns in the first encounter of a quest I lose my entire hand. Knowing I need to use what I got while I have it, espically to avoid losing a game changing card to the RANDOM requirement of Danger Sense. I ended up having to totally adjust my play style and deck building, no longer using trap cards beacuse the Wildlander always goes first when the heroes see I still have any amount of cards in my hand. Running traps or other cards that are played during hero turns became a waste of deck space. But of course the heroes picked up on this and now never worry about traps because they are reasonably sure I am running none. I have tried to switch back to running them to surprise the heroes, but nothing is worse than having no hand, drawing a trap card which is unusable during my turn and knowing the wildlander will go first to make me discard it.

All of this would be fine, a well played move on the heroes part and as the overlord I do actually like the challenge. What bothers me is the fact that overlord cards are the ONLY way I level and advance alongside the heroes. It makes winning quests and recieving XP kind of pointless (other than keeping the heroes from gaining any bonus rewards). This is the main problem I have with Danger Sense and other card discard ablities/skills. Hits the overlord in the heart of his/her source of progression to a point where that progression is almost stifled to non-exsistance.

BUT to be fair . I am in a positive win ratio over the heroes. 2:1 overlord victories. So card discard is not in practice out of balance. I just really feel gyped knowing my XP is only able to be spent on cards I am seriously gimped in getting a chance to use.

I've also played against danger sence, and while annoying, I am not convinced it is overpowered. To look at in another way, if you had a card that forced a hero to suffer 2 fatigue and lose an action, it would be great! That is what this card is doing. It is almost like playing against 1 less hero, since out of 4 of his actions, 2 will be danger sense and 1 will be rest to get back the fatigue. And 1 less card per turn in return for 1 less hero opponent is a fair trade.

Also, spending your hand is the wrong way to do things. Never play cards in the first encounter unless it will get you a kill or massively mess with the heroes. Then in the important 2nd encounter you can still have at lest 3 cards in your hand (for a 4 hero game), which is plently to keep them guessing. Keep traps. They may be discarded, but they might not be. As long as the heroes can't be sure that they picked the right card randomly from your hand, then they'll have to be careful. Nothing destroys the heroes' plans like a well played rage / charge / pit trap.

One more thing is that there are many ways to spend XP to counter danger sense. There are several buys you can get that let you draw extra cards, either by giving up monster actions or after killing a hero. Get these and with 1 play you can gain 4 cards for your hand, which is plenty enough that even if you have to discard many of them you'll have plenty of great ways to win.

Imagin a heroes grup with:

Elder Mok as spiritspeaker

Truthseer Kel as necromancer

A wildlander with danger sense

and a bersek, nanok the blade for example…

1º turn you heroes see your hand and discard your best card (mok), later kel look for your deck and discart the best of your next 5 cards…and finally you lose another card with danger sense…so you start the encounter 1 with 4 cards and in your first turn you are going to have 2 in your hand and your best card of next 5 back of your deck…and again in next encounter…heroes look again your hand, discart the best….

That must be terrifying….