Just curious, but, as Descent 2E basically allows you to choose your hero (with agreement from the other players), has anyone tried playing games with randomly selected heros and how did it affect your game? I would think it might make the game a little more difficult (depending on the heroes you draw) because you can't tailor your party to take advantage of their particular abilities.

some french friends tried it, and it's now a way to play. The choice is less longer.

For me, it's blasphemaltical. I bought the plenty game to have the choice, not a partical choice

We have played random heroes many times. What we have found is that it was far more important to properly match the correct class for a particular hero's abilities (Hero Ability, Heroic Feat, Speed, Hearts, Stamina, Defense). When done in this fashion, even random heroes could put up a good fight, and sometimes even win.

Poorly matched classes/skill cards to heroes is a very quick way to failure. This is true even if you select a specific team of heroes.

I thought of an idea, but haven't tried it, yet: Shuffle archetypes into different stacks, and allow players to take the top card from an archetype stack of their choice. This way, players would get to choose an archetype that matches their playstyle, but they wouldn't know what specific hero they would get.

Any thoughts?

best option is still draw 3 from your favorite archetype and select 1 to play. - leaves options in to compose a working team and is fun.

Morthai said:

If you are just playing with the base game, I wouldn't limit the hero choices. If you are playing with the conversion kit, then having the player choose an archetype and giving him 3 random choices can expedite the selection process. It can also foster more variety in hero choices, rather than always picking a favorite and/or the best heroes. If doing so, I think it's only fair to put the Overlord under the same constraint with open groups.

Morthai said:

I concur. And having the Conversion Kit to play with, I think this is how we will play going forward. The player still gets to choose his archetype (before drawing a hero) and his class (after drawin a hero), so he still has control to develop his hero in a way that synergizes with the hero's abilities, and the party as a whole still has control to assemble a set of archetypes that will work the way they want. This merely alleviates the tedium of always seeing the same four heroes on the table while the other 40+ collect dust in the box.

Triu said:

I'm not so sure that this follows logically from the random hero thing. Monsters can't be customized the same way heroes can, so forcing the OL to pick monsters at random for open groups could serious mess with his ability to put up a good fight versus the hero party he's arrayed against.

I'd be willing to try it at least once to see how it goes, but I think this idea adds a significant amount of randomness to the Overlord's tactical capabilities, whereas drawing a random hero (with chosen archetype and class) does not make quite so large a splash. The random hero thing will impact what "awesome combos" can be built by the party, but their general tactical capability remains under their control. Random open groups could have a serious impact on the OL's ability to fight effectively at all. This would be the polar opposite of the 1E set up where heroes were mostly random (sometimes they rocked and sometimes they sucked) and the OL had a largely controlled pool of options with only some minor random factors, and therefore generally performed at a level average, subject to player skill.

It also might get annoying having to separate out all the monster cards the OL is allowed to pick for each encounter so that he can draw randomly for his open groups. But like I said, I'd be willing to try it at least once.

Steve-O said:

The hero is stuck with the choice for the duration of the campaign; the OL only for a single encounter. I've heard complaints about CK monsters unbalancing some scenarios. Limiting the OL to a subset of all the monster choices also forces some variety. I haven't played this rule as OL, but it has been used in the BoardGameGeek PBF forum.

Steve-O said:

A spreadsheet, or one of the data sheets available in the BGG files section, are your friend. If you won't have a computer handy, just print out a reference sheet of monsters by trait, tuck it in the quest book, & use dice to pick a random selection for the OL to choose from.

I made a deal with the other players. They choose 3 heroes from an archetype and then pick the one they want from the 3. The overlord does the same from the available monsters for his open groups. So far it has worked out fairly well so far. setup time is shortened, and the overlord doesn't pick the same monsters all the time. He still has enough variety to pick. its also fun seeing new strategies form from picking monsters that wouldnt normally be a first choice for an encounter.

For instance, I ended up with sorcerer's for the fat goblin encounter 1. Normally I would have picked good blocking monsters like golems to slow the heroes down. The master sorcerer was essentially ignored since the heroes had to kill him twice and then hed just rsdoawn the next turn. The best part was I ended up using the sorcerers to chain summon a goblin that was nowhere close to the crops, and he managed to grab them and make a break for it. The heroes never saw it coming.

AnimalKDR said:

Interesting variation. I know from 1E that "draw 3 pick 1" generally worked out well for building a well-balanced hero party. In 2E where you can further define your options by archetype and class non-randomly, that rule should only be made stronger. Applying the same theory to OL monster groups is admittedly something I hadn't thought of, but I'm glad to hear it's working out well for you.

I think this could be a very reasonable compromise for people looking for more variety on both sides of the fence. =)