Hello fellow dungeon dwellers. My group and I are faced with a problem and would like some ideas and/or feedback on how to go about fixing it, but first

off let me set the scene. Our group has successfully completed 3 campaigns so far with at least another campaigns worth of quests as one offs and epic

variants. We have just finished the first ActII quest in our fourth campaign. I have the LotW expansion, conversion kit and most of the 1 ^st edition miniatures

minus a few promos. We enjoyed the 1 ^st edition right up to its inevitable end, and dove head first into 2 ^nd edition with child like enthusiasm. So to say the

least our group comes with no shortage of experience. Although some of us are better at OL than others. I as OL play not just to win but to completely

destroy, decimate and demoralize the heroes. When the quest is over I want them to feel as if they just got leveled by a meteor never again to rise from the

ash of their humility and shame. With that said we are all long time friends and everything is taken with a grain of salt, nothing is personal and we always

have a ridiculous amount of fun. All of us have played overlord more than a few times and we collectively agree that the OL definitely plays with his back

against the wall, has very little margin for error and is hard pressed to win. With this in mind we have started to feel that we may need to make some minor

adjustments/tweaks to help out our old friend the OL,as with making the quests a little more challenging to the heroes. We have discussed this at our table

and have come up with a few ideas of our own, but would like to bounce them of this great resource that is the descent community. Keeping in mind that

we just want to tilt the balance as it stands now to give the OL a bit more of a fighting chance. Now we understand all the basic strategies i.e. hold on to

cards for 2 ^nd encounter, taking actions from heroes, pick on the weakest hero yadda yadda yadda. There's more but strategy is not the issue here. We

also understand that the monsters are no more than “speed bumps” as the community lovingly calls them. As the heroes grow in power with items and

skills the monsters seem less like speed bumps and more like pea gravel. So we feel if the speed bumps were actually doing their job that it would be a

step in the right direction. Now I'm not suggesting they become some iron cock of a beast but it'd be nice if 1 or 2 could survive the brutal onslaught of the

heroes initial engagement to return fire at least once. So we've kicked around a couple ideas about minor adjustments and here they are in no particular

order.

1. 
   
2. 
   

   
   adding a brown die to all monster dice pool. or some kind of universal upgrade where all dice go up one tier. i.e. brown to grey, grey to black and so on.

   
   
   
3. 
   

   
   giving them one auto shield per roll

   
   
   
4. 
   

   
   or making the OL a custom universal card that does either 1 or 2

   
   
   

the card could be played like a power from the 1st edition were once played its permanent until the quests end.

Again just spit balling here. We definitely don't want to alter to much and fine tune each individual monster and have to keep track of all the separate stat

changes or make a ton of custom cards. We are looking for a minor universal change that can be easily applied or taken away. Who knows maybe we

looking at this wrong and the monsters aren't the easiest or right place to start. We thought about a initiative roll except for the quests that specifically

state which side goes first. All I know is the OL needs some TLC and I hope it comes in this next expansion but from the looks of some of these new

heroes I know I'm going to cringe when I open the box.

oh wow, that looks like crap….lol sorry guys dont hurt me..

Adding defense dice is one way to go, but it relies on random elements to have an impact. That means sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't.

Granting auto-shields is more consistent, though you would have to fine-tune how many shields a monster gets for free. Too few and it won't make a difference, too many and monsters become nigh-invincible, which I suspect is also unwelcome.

Another idea might be to give monsters more wounds. ie: all monsters can take up to double their listed Health rating before they are defeated. This would provide a consistent effect on the game since it's non-random and it avoids messing with the combat mechanics directly, which can be a house of cards in my experience. Monsters will simply stay on the board longer.

If double health doesn't work out well, you can play with the modifer. x1.5, x3, +X, etc.

Your group may differ on this, but my personal preference would be to come up with a simple, consistent mechanical house rule that doesn't require printing new components and can be applied easily "on the fly" during play.

We thought about the adding of more health but as a group we didn't like it. I wasn't necessarily opposed to it but we as a group decided not to go that route.

What we decided to try was the auto shields but they are still generated through rolling dice. Each color of defensive dice has one or more blank side(s) that I replaced with a number.

Black Die's Blank side is now a number 2

the blank side on both gray dice are now a number 2

and replace the 3 blank sides of the brown die with a 2,1,1

I made the numbers deliberately so you can easily decipher when rolling for the heroes or attribute tests to ignore the numbers and just count shields. The numbers only apply to an OL defense roll. Now the OL gets his auto-shields no need to remember how many shields just add the numbers to the shields voila slightly tougher monsters. I can also tweak this as play goes on and adjust it as we see fit.

As we play I'll keep track of the group's opinion on which way we should adjust more or less. But wont have a real good idea on how much this effects till we see some scenarios in action. If the monsters are buffed to much it would take to many actions to kill and not enough left for completing the objectives.

I'm actual excited to see how this plays out. I just want to take a little pressure of the OL and apply it to the heroes. And it feels like im on the right track.