I hate doors!

By Igrevion, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

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We were playing the Castle Daerion first encounter with me as the overlord and the whole door mechanic destroyed me. Players and villager npcs would constantly close the door on me so that I'd have to waste one of my precious actions opening the doors, and getting beat down when I ran out of movement points, then they would close the door on me again. I couldn't get any attacks off because my actions would always be wasted opening doors and attempting to move through them.
Is there any way I can break the door down so that they can't reclose it? Certainly a huge Merriod can break down a door with its tentacles with ease. Is there an option to do such a thing? So far the game seems a bit unbalanced in the heroes favor because of little mechanics like this (and the fact that most of the monsters move very slowly). Any tips would be helpful, we've played 3 quests and I haven't won a single one yet.
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1st) keep in mind that especially in Castle Dearion even if you loose the first encounter, u still have a good shot in killing Sir Palamon in Encounter 2. Just spawn some shadow dragons with sir alric and some ettins 2 keep the heroes busy in the hallway and its easy as cake. Some Encounters favor the Heroes, some the Overlord. It can be frustrating sometimes.

2nd) U can Always block a door with a large tile monster. maybe an Ettin with some good Defense roles.

3rd) if entering doesnt work, try 2 Disengage the team. maybe dash an ettin, open the door and throw e hero out. Even heroes dont like spending precious Actions vor moving.

4th) keep in mind, that large tile monsters in fact do have a larger moving radius then written. whilst moving a large tile monster, u can name any occupied tile, count the movementpoints from that and "respawn" the monster on that tile. but it has not 2 be the same place (left frontleg for example) as before, so a shadowdragon may move up to 2 points wider then his speed.

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Krawallbürste said:

1st) keep in mind that especially in Castle Dearion even if you loose the first encounter, u still have a good shot in killing Sir Palamon in Encounter 2. Just spawn some shadow dragons with sir alric and some ettins 2 keep the heroes busy in the hallway and its easy as cake. Some Encounters favor the Heroes, some the Overlord. It can be frustrating sometimes.

Can't pick Shadow Dragons in E2 of Daerion, but other than that, any OL worth his name should have stocked up on cards from E1 (especially Word of Misery) that will see Palamon dead in two turns. Master Ettin uses throw, Alric does double Overpower for some heavy damage (due to WoM), etc.

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Igrevion said:

Is there any way I can break the door down so that they can't reclose it? Certainly a huge Merriod can break down a door with its tentacles with ease. Is there an option to do such a thing? So far the game seems a bit unbalanced in the heroes favor because of little mechanics like this (and the fact that most of the monsters move very slowly). Any tips would be helpful, we've played 3 quests and I haven't won a single one yet.

There is no option to break down doors unless the quest specifically allows it (and I think there is at least one quest where you can.)

There are tactics to get around this sort of chicanery, though. Firstly, monsters can double-move to get places faster (the rules only prevent them attacking more than once per turn.) Large monsters can play games with their base position - starting off moving using a space at the "front" of their base and then ending their move with the "rear" part of their base in the "moving space" and so on. Good use of Dash and Rage(?) cards can get you extra move/attack actions when you need them.

Large monsters are useful for blocking corridors and slowing down the heroes, but if you're playing an encounter where you're the one who needs to go places and the heroes are blocking you, you might want to consider picking smaller, faster monsters for your open groups instead. Always think about what your objective is when picking monsters for an encounter.