In my experience (6 campains played, all with 4 heroes) The OL only has the distinction of being "OP" in the begining.

I've noticed that the majority of the "OL is OP" are still playing in there 1st or second campain.

Once the heroes have figured the game out, what skills work and which ones to avoid, the heroes become OP.

Again I've noticed that the majority of the "Heroes are OP" have played multiple campians.

It comes down to this.

My group has put this game on the shelf for one reason.

No one wants to play the Overlord.

It's an uphill struggle to win at best, and it's nowhere close to as fun or easy as playing a hero.

I saw a fun idea. Heroes pick archetype at random and then their character at random. This forces them to reevaluate how they go about the game. They can't pre plan synergy.You are forced to rediscover the game.

In my experience (6 campains played, all with 4 heroes) The OL only has the distinction of being "OP" in the begining.

I've noticed that the majority of the "OL is OP" are still playing in there 1st or second campain.

Once the heroes have figured the game out, what skills work and which ones to avoid, the heroes become OP.

Again I've noticed that the majority of the "Heroes are OP" have played multiple campians.

It comes down to this.

My group has put this game on the shelf for one reason.

No one wants to play the Overlord.

It's an uphill struggle to win at best, and it's nowhere close to as fun or easy as playing a hero.

I saw a fun idea. Heroes pick archetype at random and then their character at random. This forces them to reevaluate how they go about the game. They can't pre plan synergy.You are forced to rediscover the game.

This problem wouldn't exist if people would just play the game

Sorry i'm at it again

In my experience (6 campains played, all with 4 heroes) The OL only has the distinction of being "OP" in the begining.

I've noticed that the majority of the "OL is OP" are still playing in there 1st or second campain.

Once the heroes have figured the game out, what skills work and which ones to avoid, the heroes become OP.

Again I've noticed that the majority of the "Heroes are OP" have played multiple campians.

It comes down to this.

My group has put this game on the shelf for one reason.

No one wants to play the Overlord.

It's an uphill struggle to win at best, and it's nowhere close to as fun or easy as playing a hero.

I saw a fun idea. Heroes pick archetype at random and then their character at random. This forces them to reevaluate how they go about the game. They can't pre plan synergy.You are forced to rediscover the game.

This problem wouldn't exist if people would just play the game

Sorry i'm at it again

Aw Man!

Come on.

If you just play the game and don't want to win, to really kick some evil/hero ass, where is the fun. This is a dicussion threat about the game balance. Please don't just say: "Just ignore that there are problems and have fun with them."

Some of us are discussing here, to get FFG listening and releasing a nice Add On which solves some flaws in the game.

Sorry, if this post sounds too harsh.

@Kunzite:

I have played several campaigns with very intelligent (strategic) people and they did not get slowed down much, by using this. Even WITHOUT any healer they are very very powerful.

In the end, they might loose the final due to not having a healer (they did win), but it is not very funny for the OL to constantly are being bashed.

Does your group has a OL with really likes the game? Besides sitting alone and are not able to plan with anyone always only gets small rewards and very, very, very few loot.

Some of us are discussing here, to get FFG listening and releasing a nice Add On which solves some flaws in the game.

Sorry, if this post sounds too harsh.

It is not harsh.

It is preposterous not to speak of "possible" flaws,

There may be flaws, of course - and there have been (cf. the Castle Daerion was flawed before the FAQ corrected).

But who - including me - has the final word about alledged flaws, when the opinions of different. experienced players, differ?

Opinion is not fact.

And a fact is not decisive if it is isolated from others, so as to build a theory without taking all factors into account.

Now FFG are certainly "listening", but they won't just obey every players' whims and whines about the game, without analyzing the global picture.

Sorry if this post sounds too harsh - I just don't think that absolute convictions are possible here and that some statements should be marked by the idea that they are not expressed by infaillible people.

@Kunzite:

I have played several campaigns with very intelligent (strategic) people and they did not get slowed down much, by using this. Even WITHOUT any healer they are very very powerful.

In the end, they might loose the final due to not having a healer (they did win), but it is not very funny for the OL to constantly are being bashed.

Does your group has a OL with really likes the game? Besides sitting alone and are not able to plan with anyone always only gets small rewards and very, very, very few loot.

I am the OL. I love the game so much that I cut time out of my busy work week to plan and to draw illustrations as a visual journal of our campaign. I get stepped on, sure, but I do a great deal of stomping as well.

@DocPanic:

I think you should change your attitude and dont' assume FFG needs to change something. Instead try to learn in your group how to play overlord.

Here is the quick list of mistakes I have seen you made:

1) You assume that OL does not progress. You tend to underestimate the cards and say that these depend on your luck of the draw.

Some key thoughts that you should consider:

* OL cards have no value at all if you can't use them. When I see an overlord playing a card in the wrong moment, I know I'm going to win as a hero no matter what. It is KEY to winning as an OL. Example: Dark Fortune in Masqarade Ball is needed at the end. Dark Charm in Fat Goblin is needed in order to escape with Splig. The point is: you need to recognize the cards that you must not play during the scenario, cards that are worthless in given scenario and can be used as a "distraction".

* The more cards you have on your hand, the less luck you need in your card draw. Assume a theoretical situation, where you have 15 cards in hand. You will then play 1 BEST card every turn. 2 BEST cards if this turn you knock down a hero. More if you down more heroes and more if you have card draw on your hand. The power of the good Overlord with entire deck on hand is several times greater than the power of Overlord with just half of the deck on hand. You start with 4 cards, on your first turn you draw 1. You have several options to draw 2 from up to 5 cards and discard the rest. Every downed hero gives you 1 card. 15 is realistic, believe me.

* Without first 2 points, buying additional cards for OL makes no sense. They will clutter your deck and make you worse than you are without them. However if you know how to play, and what cards to choose, you are progressing.

* Always start playing with 15 cards, never add more. If you add cards, remove some. For the reasons above.

* Learn combos in all OL cards. Learn how to use each card in every scenario. Not easy, but it is hard to beat heroes without some great combos.

* Heroes will never get more than 1 skill-point. Overlord if is winning, gets 2 points for his cards and that gives a lot more options to build a deck for a final encounter.

2) I think you underestimate relics.

* Bones of Woe help you tremendously with having 15 cards on hand. (see above).

* Each relic gives you more power and is progressing you just like items are progressing heroes.

* Even if you can only give 1 relic to 1 lieutenant, you have a lot of lieutenants in the Finale and that makes you stronger, thus giving you reward for winning previous quests.

I guess this is a matter of taste and if you don't like this way of progress and prefer playing a hero, I understand you. I personally think that OL plays better as you get more options and need to control situation, while playing a hero feels like depending on dice rolls or having just 1 good option all the time.

[EDIT: Removed false statements that appeared here due to my misinterpretation of the rules.]

3) You think of your monsters as figures with equal level to heroes.

* Heroes are better. Deal with it. Don't expect your monster being able to tank heroes. Even if it has more HP and some defense, heroes improve their damage dealing potential a lot and are soon able to crush your monsters.

* However, you have a large number of possible monsters for each scenario. Each monster has different abilities. Using right monsters for right encounters and hero group is another KEY aspect of winning as an OL. 1 Wrong monster group choice can change your easy win to a game where heroes just steamroll through everything and gain tons of gold + win.

* You need to have a plan for each group of monsters. You need to know how much the monster will last against that group of heroes and how many actions heroes will waste to go past that monster. You need to know when and what to use in order to block paths, and when it is more important to run away or try to stay behind heroes/lure them.

* Loosing monsters are not always bad. Just learn to spend them when it is benefitial for you to waste hero actions.

* Reinforcement rules are very important. You play differently with monsters that can't be reinforced.

* Pay attention to monster group sizes. Large monsters block paths easier, but it is harder for them to move. It is easy to reinforce large monsters and they usually last longer, but their damage as a group is lower.

* Monster value changes with hero progress.

4) You don't know how to split heroes.

I'll list some ideas that are effective:

* Ettin with Throw can toss a hero behind himself in a blocked passage for other monsters to beat him up and down him.

* Zachareth can move and immobilize hero.

* Dark Charm hero (While being Dark Charmed hero can move past your mosnters)

* You can use doors (close them).

* Tripwire/Web trap hero that was left behind (is performing movement last).

All these situations will leave a heroes with tough choice: Waste a turn as a team but stay in one place, or leave somebody behind. It is win-win situation for the OL because you got yourself entire turn OR you got yourself a card draw farm.

5) You underestimate the power of knocking down hero.

* Knocking down hero at the wrong time will be a gift from the OL to the heroes and essentialy a surrender. This is what probably left you in belief that it makes no sense or is too weak.

* Here is the list of benefits you get from downing a hero:

• Card Draw
• 0-4 Actions Wasted for the hero (Yes, good down can give you 4 actions! For example: poison.)
• Hero unable to use skills (unless very lucky) until rests which is an additional action. Skills are key to winning as heroes.
• Hero is beaten and has 2-6 hp left. Easy next down target.

* Downing a hero is not worth it in every scenario. There are scenarios where is is bad to down heroes as well as there are scenarios where it is a requirement for winning. Learn to down heroes, not only one by one but also as an entire group.

* yes, it is possible to down the entire group of 4 heroes in one turn from full hp to 0. Try to invent combos that can do that and keep them in mind. Currently I know of at least 3. 2 of them don't require additional Overlord cards.

----

To sum up I think you and your group needs to pick scenarios one by one. Start with the ones that you don't know how to win with Overlord. Take basic heroes and basic overlord deck and try to win as an Overord each scenario. Discuss the mistakes that the overlord made. Experiment with different monster groups. Then you might want to try EPIC variant. Only then you are ready to take on the campaign, because if as an OL you loose every scenario in the campaign, why would you expect to win the Final encounter? Campaign is only fun when both sides know how to play and are well balanced.

I think this game has a lot of potential because of how many options there are. You pick 2 out of x heroes, give each of them 1 out of y classes and then you choose some skills and items for it. A lot of choices, and every choice matters. Then, for the OL he has 60 cards from which he will choose just few. He has monster groups choices for each scenario. Finally the campaign is just 6 out of 15 scenarios. And then, there are expansion packs.

Will it be perfectly balanced? I don't think so, but I don't feel a need for that, because of the auto-balance mechanism that game has. This is the ability for the Overlord to counter the unbalanced hero setups.

So, if you want to whine, go ahead I will not stop you.

However if you want to have fun from playing and make your games more balanced, I think your group needs to develop an Overlord. I'll try to help if I can, but you need to post specific situations, like first adventure of Act I. Maybe me and others on this forum will have some useful tips or we can at least list mistakes that were made during the encounter.

I hope you'll love the game as I do when you get to know it better.

Wow.

For the least this thread offers very interesting tactical insights about the game.

Thank you, DeeJay507 for that wonderfull post !

Who said that Descent 2 was a overly simple, no brainer game ?

I think another disadvantage the OL has that really can't be fixed is just the one versus many system of the game. When you are the OL and forget a rule, miss an opurtunity to capitalize on a player mistake, make a bad move with a monster or just aren't great with planning no one is going to help you. However with players before every turn you can be sure there is a mini-powwow to determine who is doing what and what isn't a good idea and "hey make sure you use fatigue BEFORE moving this turn, the overlord probably has Pit Trap." There's not much you can do to change that but I do think it can be a big factor.

The "one mind against four" factor can also have some advantages for the OL.

He can hear the debates and understand the decisions taken by his opponents - whilst they cannot read his mind.

Collective thought can be efficient - as you explain, for not missing some important elements of the game - but it also can be flawed by misunderstandings and clumsy moves, where the OL does not have too much difficulties understanding himself.

There also can be "hierarchical" conflicts between heroes, when one of them tries to be the leader or when opposed ideas of solving a tactical problem cannot find an agreement.

I cannot really tell who is advantaged here.

It is quite linked to the group dynamics and the "psychological/gaming profiles" of all participants.

I think another disadvantage the OL has that really can't be fixed is just the one versus many system of the game. When you are the OL and forget a rule, miss an opurtunity to capitalize on a player mistake, make a bad move with a monster or just aren't great with planning no one is going to help you. However with players before every turn you can be sure there is a mini-powwow to determine who is doing what and what isn't a good idea and "hey make sure you use fatigue BEFORE moving this turn, the overlord probably has Pit Trap." There's not much you can do to change that but I do think it can be a big factor.

Yea, this depends on the group attitude. My group is civilized and we have following rule:

As long as no dice has been rolled and no new information was revealed that would give you advantage, you are allowed to reverse your move.

AND both heroes and overlord are pointing obvious mistakes to each other. I try to tell heroes that I could have this and that card so they better be carefull. This might work as well against them, but I want them to make conscious and well-thought decisions so that I could win due to good play on my side, not bad play on heroes side.

This is for several reasons:

1) I believe that the victory only gives satisfaction if it was not due to luck or opponent missing some obvious thing.

2) We learn much faster

I don't like when somebody is acting like:

Is it an end of your turn?

I think so.

HA! You forgot to move with your open group, buahahaha! Now we will crush you!!!

There is a thin line between this and secretly removing damage tokens from your character when OL is not looking

The strategic duel that OL and heros go thru during 9 quest is fun. But my problem with the game is the flaw at end of it. So you are awesome with your OL cards, perfect with placing your monsters ect. Through out the game that's good, even easy. The problem is the final it doesn't really matter at the end how awesome a hero or how awesome a OL is at the end game, it doesn't even matter how many quest you won vs OL. At the end of the day it's your loot (heros) vs OL's cards. And let me tell you if you played against rich heros your going to have a hard time with your immobilizing Zachareth, and Dragonlord Gryvorn. Especially if you play with heros who know each quest, know each monster, know OL cards, and found some nasty combinations with hero loot! Lol 4 brains is better. Sure your going to beat a lot of quest during a session and sometimes all I've done it before! Just to loose at very end.

What I think is problem with game is....

#1 quest leading to end game offer no help to that player who scored the most wins.

#2 because a lot of my games seem to be find the search token. I think search tokens should be further from heros 1/2 of them are within there reach. (Once you find a group of heroes who love the game and adapted to everything OL your in for some OL suffering). This literally breaks the game itself in my opinion.

#3 damaging conditions are useless at act 2 and beyond( good hero choices will strip OL clean from this). I don't even waste time getting that condition card out for it when I know it will be removed next turn unless I was lucky enough to KO the healer which in my exsperianced is not an easy task when playing with heroes who know who needs what. In the end game if the healer has Aurium Mail,Prayer of Healing,passive(depending on hero),and a stick of death. This guy is always the last man standing in my games. If you got to win a beginning quest win the one that offers the Relic mail!

#4 game balance is impossible for any game. Lets say quest maker designs a game says this many monsters are allowed ok that's fine but who is to say 4 groups or 3 groups is fair between each made quest? Answer you can't. To many veriables tile design,search tokens,search token locations ect. Can go on and on.

Well I almost KO Alvric tonight. It was almost laggit the heroes actually forgot to heal once grr sucks if it wasn't for that it would of been a real KO! Alvric player was rolling bad defense die all blanks couldn't help but laugh. Had my Merriod,Ettins, and I used the Sentinals on Dawn Blade. Had to Bragg about my almost KO victory.

Alvric w/ Mace of Aver, Aurium Mail

@ DeeJay:

Thanks for the long post. But I really would like to know your combos for OL. Nevertheless, thanks for the answer.

Perhaps I miss something. I always thought, that Relics could only do to the specified lieutnants.

@Silverhelm:

What do you mean with Sentinels on Dawn Blade? The Hybrid Sentinels with a Relic (dont know the Dawn Blade, since playing the German version).

Perhaps I miss something. I always thought, that Relics could only do to the specified lieutnants.

It depends. Bones of Woe and Staff of Shadows are always in play. You don't need leutenant to use them. And so they give you advantage in every scenario. Shield of the Dark God may be used only by Leutenant (Any). So since you always have some leutenant, this is also usefull. Shadow Rune can be used by Zachareth, and so it helps you in the Finale only. But since it is the only truly important scenario, that means a lot. Besides with Shadow Rune, you are denying a first Act II weapon that heroes can have access to, making first Act II scenario a lot easier.

[EDIT: It turns out I was misplaying this and you are right. Even Bones of Woe and Staff of Shadows needs lieutenant and they only stay to the first defeat of lieutenant, after which then no longer have any effect.

Even so, the relics are still strong and you can still use them a lot in the Finale and that is the huge reason to have them.]

But I really would like to know your combos for OL.

1) Red Dragon + Frenzy + Dark Might + Dark Fortune + Critical Blow. Blood Rage is additional help but not needed. Red dragon can trace the dragon's breath through 4 fields. This means that if heroes are close (and I usually use dragons in tight places to block paths) you can touch all of them. Note that you can trace the breath in any way you like, it doesn't have to be straight line. Since dragon rolls blue+red, it is not always possible to get the surge for the breath attack. This is where Dark Mights come in. They give you guaranteed breath. Dark Fortune prevents misses or pumps up damage in case you roll 1 on red die. Critical Blow makes up for lack of damage bonus on Red Dragons. Of couse it requires surge, because you need two. You have 1/3 chance to get surge on blue and onlly 1/6 on red, but combined this gives you around 44% of having at least 1 surge. And you have 2 tries, due to Frenzy. You can get as high as 8 damage per attack, giving you unlikely 16 damage this turn and very unlikely 32 damage if you use blood rage. You can alwasy throw Word of Misery to the mix for additional 2 damage if heroes have no stamina left, but that is not needed. Anyway, this shows the power of gathering cards. Of course you need to be careful and do not base your strategy on this, because this is not reliable way of dawning entire party of heroes. But attempting to do this doesn't cost you anything. This is because you first roll dice and then decide if you want to play your cards. Play them if you rolled high enough to cause devastating effects.

2) Barghests. Howl can be activated twice per turn per barghest. In perfect situation this can affect all heroes. This gives you 8x Howls for a possible 8 damage to every hero that fails his will tests. It depends on group composition, but few heroes have high will so you can count on around 6 damage. If you combine that ability with some large monster group like goblins/spiders and maybe some OL cards that deal damage like Word of Misery and Word of Pain and Diabolic Power or Word of Despair.

Again situational, but you need to be prepared to do this and plan for it so that heroes do not kill your barghests and so that you have range to all heroes without moving barghests.

3) Dark Charm. Dark charming a hero and moving him through your large path blocker straight to the chamber full of your monsters is a guaranteed down without heroes being able to rez him, giving you an easy farm of cards until heroes join the victim and kill your monsters.

4) Magus. Word of Pain + Word of Misery + Diabolic Power is a possible 3 damage + 2 fatigue (maybe 5 damage to some heroes) to every hero and every NPC on the map. Diabolic Power will give you 1 card, so the combo costs you 2 cards. If you down 1 hero with it, you get 1 card back. If you had no cards in deck and no cards in discard it means you receive the cards you have just casted. Counting 1 draw at the begining of your next turn (And possibly 2 with Bones of Woe), you can do this every turn. This doesn't require any monsters on the map. Add Word of Despair if you can afford it (due to your card draw) and you get additional 2 fatigue, going up to 3 dmg + 4 fatigue or 7 damage. And you usually have some monsters on the map.

5) Explosive Runes + Dragons behind a Door. Since dragons have just one attack action the last dragon that attacks can close the door. This means explosive runes on the next turn too. Of course the assumption is you draw them again due to having only them in your discard pile after playing and no cards in your deck.

6) Double Ettin Throw + Double Zechareth Dominion + Lava. No comment. Rise again for Ettin makes it easier to position him nicely (Adjacent to both heroes which are in rage of lava).

Usually this is a mix of the above techniques as the game is very dynamic and situation changes very often. However keep these ways in mind if you for some reason need to knock down all heroes at once. Also keep in mind that usually if you have enough monsters on the map and all 4 heroes are downed, you won. Because they have to skip their entire turn and end up with 2-6 hp left and up to 2 stamina (usually 0 though). No stamina means vulnerability to howls or word of misery. I had no game where heroes were able to recover from such situation. It gives me unlimited number of turns to achieve victory and no more treasures for the heroes. Once they know your possibilities they will start to be afraid of what you can do and will play more carefuly thus giving you more time to finish your objectives and draw more cards.

Anyway keep in mind that every OL card you play before you have drawn your deck is moving you away from the possibility of doing this.

I used a few combo cards last night combining card draw with warlord beat down last night. I ever used a little physiological actions all spoke on this forum. Guess what? It worked amazing and I won a quest I was sure was fated to the heroes.

Thanks guys!

While strategy is great, I feel you can't do well if you don't play to have fun. I know it can be a nail biter sometimes (thus why I stand, looming over the board, while playing. It's a nice effect beyond me needing the sway back and forth to keep myself calm), but in the end we need to have a good time. Even if the heroes rip the win right out from under us.

The strategic duel that OL and heros go thru during 9 quest is fun. But my problem with the game is the flaw at end of it. So you are awesome with your OL cards, perfect with placing your monsters ect. Through out the game that's good, even easy. The problem is the final it doesn't really matter at the end how awesome a hero or how awesome a OL is at the end game, it doesn't even matter how many quest you won vs OL. At the end of the day it's your loot (heros) vs OL's cards. And let me tell you if you played against rich heros your going to have a hard time with your immobilizing Zachareth, and Dragonlord Gryvorn. Especially if you play with heros who know each quest, know each monster, know OL cards, and found some nasty combinations with hero loot! Lol 4 brains is better. Sure your going to beat a lot of quest during a session and sometimes all I've done it before! Just to loose at very end.

What I think is problem with game is....

#1 quest leading to end game offer no help to that player who scored the most wins.

#2 because a lot of my games seem to be find the search token. I think search tokens should be further from heros 1/2 of them are within there reach. (Once you find a group of heroes who love the game and adapted to everything OL your in for some OL suffering). This literally breaks the game itself in my opinion.

#3 damaging conditions are useless at act 2 and beyond( good hero choices will strip OL clean from this). I don't even waste time getting that condition card out for it when I know it will be removed next turn unless I was lucky enough to KO the healer which in my exsperianced is not an easy task when playing with heroes who know who needs what. In the end game if the healer has Aurium Mail,Prayer of Healing,passive(depending on hero),and a stick of death. This guy is always the last man standing in my games. If you got to win a beginning quest win the one that offers the Relic mail!

#4 game balance is impossible for any game. Lets say quest maker designs a game says this many monsters are allowed ok that's fine but who is to say 4 groups or 3 groups is fair between each made quest? Answer you can't. To many veriables tile design,search tokens,search token locations ect. Can go on and on.

Note: I don't yet play with Lair of the Wyrm expansion.

At 1) I dont' agree. It does. For example you get big adventage as an OL when you had Shadow Rune. Bones of Woe still give you a lot, as well as Staff of Shadows, or any weapon/equipment Zachareth has.

At 2) Never had this problem. Heroes already have hard times searching all tokens on the map. If they don't react to what I'm doing I'll finish the quest before they have a chance to pick up treasures. If heroes can afford searching it means the OL is not doing his job. They will get some search tokens, but It only happened to me once that they took everything, because I made a serious error. And they were winning side of that quest so they could afford this.

From my experience quest are built in a way that you can block path with monsters. Heroes have a choice: do we attack or do we pick up treasures? If they do both, they could be too slow to even reach all treasures not to mention winning the scenario. Without winning scenarios they don't get bonus gold and relic items. You do, and these relics are with you at the final encounter.

At 3) I don't know how much condi removal your heroes have, but if you are talking about Cleansing Touch consider this:

• Works only once per turn and removes only 1 condition and costs 1 fatigue (So, 1/4 of action)
• Only Disciple have it, so it means hero starts very weak since his damage is miserable at the begining.
• Only adjacent heroes are affected.
• Divine Fury and Healing can potentially be wasted if condition is on someone with full hp.

Be smart when giving conditions. Deal conditions to heroes that are away from Disciple. Split them. Or deal multiple conditions to more than 1 hero. Merriods for example can immobilize 2 heroes that are not adjacent. Merriods and Zachareth can immobilize up to 4 heroes. Web trap immobilizes a hero during his turn and so it will work even with condi removal if played on non Disciple hero.

There are other ways of giving fatigue to heroes besides downing them.

4) Nobody said the balance of such games is easy. Perfect balance can only be achieved if both sides have exactly the same possibilities, which for descent that is an assymetric game is not possible. You can still live with small balance errors due to the luck factor inside dice. Big balance errors are fixed in FAQ. And the result is very good in my opinion because I have yet to find a scenario where the side that makes more errors wins.

Besides it is easier to balance descent than you might think. Since there is math inside. The basic resource in the game is ACTION. Loss of health and fatigue can also be re-calculated into ACTIONS. Then there are some basic things you can do with ACTION -> Deal Damage to enemy (thus taking away his ACTION by wasting your ACTION), search (your ACTION is then converted to an average of 30 gold, which gives you item that will save you ACTIONs in the future.), move and perform some scenario specific ACTION leading to victory. Victory in each scenario is given to the side that uses its ACTIONS in more efficient way. Now if only the item/combo or anything doesn't generate too many actions it is balanced.

So if for example your Arcane Bolt deals 1,88 dmg on average, which measn you will need 2,13 actions to kill Barghest, and you can buy Immolation for 150 gold, which is equal to 5 actions, but your avg damage is now 3,14, it means to kill the same Barghest you need 1,27 actions. You saved 0,86 action per Barghest. You would need to kill 6 to be even. After that there is gain. However there is act II where your damage against Barghest drops to 2.45 again and now you need 2,44 actions to kill it. Game re-balanced itself.

So any way, I just wanted to point out that if you go under the surface, there are numbers inside that are easy to work with, and they let the developers invent new cool items but still keep them in-balance by calculating the action gain.

The real problem are the combos that are sometimes hard to predict or find out and that are found during testing or after release, and for these you have FAQ.

I wouldn't worry about balance.

Understand as OL you can slow down heros from getting tokens is true heroes can also use this tactic to get tokens. Jain for example can move on in and grab the back few, or Tomble can be effective as well either way you don't absolutely as a hero player get all 4 coins. Why? Because if they get the prized chest card they get free act1 or act2 loot good deal for the search token hunt. And there's a tresure Hunter who can be used probably to good effect aswell. And they love the secret room that's even more search tokens.

You can't stop the heros from getting the coins. The only thing that will stop them is ending the quests. Dawn blade for example I can't end the quests until the beam of light gets there, I can't dash it there lol.

I had a Ettin throwing heros behind him so Merriod can finish/immobilized them worked great! But Jain had already grabbed the tokens.

Relics for Lit. Are ok but you don't always get a Lit. And on page 22 of rule book Lieutenants are only allowed one relic So pick wisely.

I haven't read all the above commits all the through I'm at work. But I will later.

The stats of Gryvorn is good but just one hero can be better then the stats and abilities of this guy. 4 heros even better! Up to this point quest winning made a deference. Now it's how well did heros do in there loot hunt? Heros can equip up to 4 or 5 gear items (depending on two-handers). Place four heroes down on a table and equip them with the best loot configurations you can come up with for act 2. Now compair that with Zachareth and Dragonlord Gryvorn.( and OL cards)

If my life was on the line and I had to choose and win I will certainly pick heroes over OL. No calculator is needed just look at the damage these heroes can do vs Gryvorn.

Strangely it's still fun we keep playing it. You can't stop them from getting every coin and focusing on quests at same time you just don't have the resources to fight on two fronts most of the time. When I play I try to win as fast as possible in the best way possible. There going to beat you if they want the coins this is my exsperiance. Again this hasn't taken any fun away from the game for me or them. If you play with the same players again and again they will eventually go after your coins and you may not like this play style but it really is still fun. It's a whole new ball game when they do.

Lets say you have the perfect monster blocking, perfect OL cards in hand to block said coin. Lets say you even knocked out hero he still will eventually either kill the monster or take your coin anyway. All that KO did was slow him down, all that block did was slow him down at best. and for what ?how's your quest part of game going at what price to yourself did that cost? There are four coins and sometimes four heros you can't block all of them!

@Deejay You clearly understand the role of OL but do understand the role of the heroes? In my opinion the scout is the most important hero of them all. Because he has 3 roles his first role is to get tokens,his second role is to destract the OL,and finally to help with quests and revives. If your spending your time bothering with this guy then your giving into hero strategy in your games. He's the money maker and a decoy.

[...]

I wouldn't worry about balance.

Sorry, I cant agree with this part. Since I am worrying. I want to talk about it here, so FFG can have some feedback for balancing making the game better.

[...]

I wouldn't worry about balance.

Sorry, I cant agree with this part. Since I am worrying. I want to talk about it here, so FFG can have some feedback for balancing making the game better.

They are. ^.^ have you taken in the account of the newest campaign? In Shadow Rune, as the OL, I could always tell which quests would be best for me to win. In LoR, it looks to be a little harder for me to know. Honestly, I feel they really aimed for improvement with this one. Maybe not the perfectly balanced game you are looking for, but better then SR.There is allot more verity as well in LoR.

I must add that I was wrong about relics. Turns out that Bones of Woe and Staff of Shadows also need to be used by lieutenants and you can only use 1 relic per lieutenant. Also when the lieutenant is defeated, the relic can't be used until the end of quest (so if your lieutenant is killed in Encounter 1, even if it appears in encounter 2, it will appear without relics.

As much as I'm fond of Descent 2 (it alone is responsible for me returning to the boardgame hobby after a 20 year absence) ;

I have found that the individual sessions are never really balanced.

Every single encounter is massively skewed in favour of either the PCs or the OL.

Either the PCs will get into a death spiral of "Stand-up Action: that's all I can do > Overlord Turn: I've knocked out your Characters again MWAHAHAHAHA > repeat ad nausiem"

OR

The overlord gets into a death spiral "OL: Ok - I get one reinforcement this turn > PC: It's dead, and we can continue on our mission with impunity"

I've yet to have a 'Balanced' game, where it felt like the tide could turn either way. Each time, from the off, it's been clear who has the advantage, and "surprise, surprise", the one with advantage wins.

Sure, maybe over the course of a campaign, it's balanced overall, when all sessions are taken together... but each individual session feels incredibly unbalanced.

My regular game group is getting pretty tired of it as well.

I don't know.... is it just me and my mates? or has anyone else found this?

Why not try to design more balanced quests on the Quest Vault?

It is a nice place to be innovative.

While I do have a creative streak, I'm not interested in spending my time plotting and planning, testing, refining, editing and revising a mission myself.

For one, there's no guarantee that what I come up with would be in anyway balanced.

And secondly, is it too much to ask that the game itself comes with balanced missions?

I don't know... maybe the dice are to blame.

Perfect balance is perhaps a quite unreachable aim.

You seem to think that quests always are heavily unbalanced in favour of the OL or the heroes.

How is it, then, that players have opposed opinions about the (un)balance of some quests?

There certainly are quests which favour one or the other side, but some seem quite balanced, after what I have seen, either by having different results myself, or by what I read on the forums about them.

There are a lot of factors which enter in the result of a quest.

Not only luck, but players competence, hero group size and composition, moment the quest is played during a campaign, the choice of the monsters involved, etc.

I have doubts about blanket statements about the unbalance of all the quests.