Poor Overlord (heroes OP?)

By DocPanic, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Plot cards come with the Lieutenant packs - and are not yet translated from English.

And what do they do?

Does the OL finally gets a Bonus he does not need to draw?

I don't quite know.

The OL earns threat points each time he KOs a hero. He then can make a lieutenant enter a quest in the place of some monsters and he can buy special cards that give that lieutenant additional powers.

I actually am waiting for the French version of those mini expansions.

The OL can now use abilities without the use of OL cards. They still have to be bought and to use them often require another cost in the shape of Threat Tokens. Threat Tokens can take work to collect, and when you use them it can give the heroes a boon. Depending on how many fortune tokens are being used at once and when the heroes decide to use them can determine how powerful the fortune token will be for the heroes (or the one using them).

Plot deck puts a huge spin on how the OL might play the game. Some Plot decks require the OL to have a particular deck while other Plot decks encourage the build of a class. Each have their own play style and will encourage the OL to play according to the flavor of each deck.

I have played a little bit of Balthir, Zachareth and Merick. Each one plays VERY different from the other and will require the OL to bend to that style. It will, without doubt, put the game on a different level. I would not recommend it to anyone unless they have been playing descent for a while. It puts a different kind of push on the plays, heroes and OL.

I have been playing against my daughter with Lady Eliza Farrow. Her deck has added an extra dimension to the game thus far, being able to heal monsters and summon Lady Eliza to a encounter.

She summoned Lady Eliza and with well played Overlord cards beat me on Castle Daeron.

All of them have different strengths with different playing styles. I recommend getting one if you feel the OL is underpowered.

I have been playing against my daughter with Lady Eliza Farrow. Her deck has added an extra dimension to the game thus far, being able to heal monsters and summon Lady Eliza to a encounter.

She summoned Lady Eliza and with well played Overlord cards beat me on Castle Daeron.

All of them have different strengths with different playing styles. I recommend getting one if you feel the OL is underpowered.

You know my opinion.

I just ordered a pack. Lets see, perhaps I suprise the heroes next time. *Muhahahaha* <- evil laughter

Edit: unfortunate double post.

Edited by DocPanic

I'm OLing a campaign (my first) that's just getting into Act II, playing a competitive game against a bunch of very clever and experienced power-gamers. Every game has been a taxing uphill struggle....but so far I've won all of them. Usually only by the skin of my teeth (or a single square), but a win nonetheless. Being OL is difficult, but so far I can't say that the heroes seem overpowered in comparison.

Whether I'll still think this once the players get the Act II weapons remains to be seen, however. I just hope I've limited their resources enough. :unsure:

The best advice I can give to a struggling OL is that, yes, you will spend most of each game feeding your lovely monsters into an angry, dwarf-shaped meatgrinder. But most of the time, it doesn't matter. Mobility and completing objectives wins games, not kills. It's not the angry dwarf that'll save the heroes, it's that blasted Wildlander hiding at the back rushing out to complete the objective.

So play to this. Don't bother charging the heroes with your monsters, just fill the corridors with a wall of solid, howling Barghests (Do I ever love Barghests). Run your master spider right into the middle of the heroes. He'll die, but the heroes are either wasting activations killing him, or wasting stamina escaping his web. Save your dash cards for whichever monster needs to escape from the board carrying the MacGuffin.

And most important of all: Abuse the hell out of the saboteur cards. Make no mistake - Web trap is a game winner, especially since the faster a hero is, the less likely they are to be strong enough to resist it. Also, the look on the angry dwarf players face as he tries to rush to the rescue, only to fall down a pit trap every 5 feet is priceless. :D

So play to this. Don't bother charging the heroes with your monsters, just fill the corridors with a wall of solid, howling Barghests (Do I ever love Barghests). Run your master spider right into the middle of the heroes. He'll die, but the heroes are either wasting activations killing him, or wasting stamina escaping his web. Save your dash cards for whichever monster needs to escape from the board carrying the MacGuffin.

And most important of all: Abuse the hell out of the saboteur cards. Make no mistake - Web trap is a game winner, especially since the faster a hero is, the less likely they are to be strong enough to resist it. Also, the look on the angry dwarf players face as he tries to rush to the rescue, only to fall down a pit trap every 5 feet is priceless. :D

All of this is solid gold for struggling OLs. Read it. Learn it.

The one thing I would add it to try to play the players whenever you can, assuming you know your friends well enough. If there's a particular type of monster they hate and always spend time killing, pick those monsters when you can and use them to lure the tank out of position. If there's an OL card they're always worried about (like Dark Charm, perhaps), make a point of talking about all the great opportunities you can see to play it. Even if you don't have the card in your hand, just talking about playing it will keep them on edge.

In short, anything you can do to prevent the heroes from advancing their objective, or make it easier to advance your own.

Barghests are my favorite monster so far. Everytime I can them I do. They're strong, they Howl, they take 2 squares and you get lots of them.

Spiders are great too. Awesome nuisance for the Heroes and quite the tool for the OL. The red spidey is great when you need movement control.

I've been enjoying the goblin witchers lately. They're fun to play with and have a good array of abilities.