Hi, I'm a relatively new to Descent, having only played three times (everytime as the OL). All three plays were with three players (two heroes and myself). I read on the forums that Descent is too difficult with only two heroes, so we decided to go with two house rules: 1) The OL can only spawn once per area (not including starting area) and 2) The OL draws only 1 card, instead of 2. We did not use Feat cards.

The first play was the intro quest, Into the Dark. The heroes lost, we didn't even play out the last battle. I don't recall that many details from this game, however its worth noting that the players made quite a few tactical blunders and just didn't seem to grasp how Descent "worked". The second time I played was with another group. They played the same quest, we used the same house rules. The heroes won, with something like 9 or 12 conquest tokens remaining. I never stood a chance. Thinking that this was because the intro quest was designed to be especially easy on the heroes, we played again (the same group). This time we played "The Chase" (official bonus quest). The heroes won with over 15 conquest tokens remaining. My only real chance of winning was at the start of the game, but after the 2nd area the outcome was given (note: I substituted the ogre and the sorcerors for trolls and dark priests, as per the official variant).

I am not an incompetent OL, having read the forums and threads rating many of the cards in the Overlord deck. During the last play, I only managed to kill a character once (I used Dark Charm on the warrior-type, who attacked his ally with the Stone Cutter sword, a gold treasure from Tomb of Ice), although I did come close to another kill at one point. After the last game, I concluded that using both house rules crippled the OL. I'm considering another house rule when playing with 2 players; The OL draws 2 cards as per the normal rules, can spawn once per round as per the normal rules, but the heroes get to use Feat cards. I take it the basic JitD quests were not designed with Feat cards in mind, so this should give the heroes an advantage. What do you think? Also, what is your experience when it comes to scaling? What are the perfect house rules so that the game isn't too difficult for 2 heroes and likewise not too easy for 4 heroes.

Also, some other observations:

- I never get to attack with an ogre or troll, they are so slow that they are almost shot to pieces before they reach the heroes.
- My impression is that beastmen are by far the best monsters in the game. Is this true? They do A LOT of damage for 1st tier monsters. Master beastmen are just amazing.
- Razorwings suck.
- Invulnerability potions (from AoD or WoD) are very powerful. The heroes were almost always running around with such a potion active, making it difficult for me to land a killing blow (I know traps ignore armour, btw).

Any thoughts?

First thought. Play with 4 heroes. Get them to run 2 characters each. Since most of the games out there are with 4 heroes, and RtL is only for 4 heroes, you will be able to "steal" a lot of common house rules and changes.

> the players made quite a few tactical blunders and just didn't seem to grasp how Descent "worked".

Get them to read "Advice for heroes" by Kevin W. There is a knack to playing Descent. You dont have to kill everything, time is precious, etc.

> I take it the basic JitD quests were not designed with Feat cards in mind, so this should give the heroes an advantage. What do you think?

Correct. In fact, AoD / WoD also were designed not to have feats. My biggest gripe with Descent is that the expansions add new stuff which completely shifts the game balance. They should be creating expansions with are optional extras, where each optional extra is balanced itself, or some with another extra to reblance it. In ToI, the heroes get feats. They get them free, they get more for free as the game develops, and they are free to use. Sucks to be the overlord.

This either means that feats should only be used when playing ToI quests, or you need to think of some way to bring them into the base game quests without it imbalancing them.

> Also, what is your experience when it comes to scaling? What are the perfect house rules so that the game isn't too difficult for 2 heroes and likewise not too easy for 4 heroes.

As mentioned above, I'd go with 4 heroes all the time, and then tweak things as you go with that.

> I never get to attack with an ogre or troll, they are so slow that they are almost shot to pieces before they reach the heroes.
I find that in my RtL games. My party is 1 fighter with reach, 1 ranged and 2 magic. Virtually none of my melee monsters even get to roll dice.

- My impression is that beastmen are by far the best monsters in the game. Is this true? They do A LOT of damage for 1st tier monsters. Master beastmen are just amazing.
Well, on their own they are not the best. But the masters are awesome, and the spawn card gives 2 beastmen and a master, which is probably the best spawn card in the game IMO.

- Razorwings suck.
I've never had much luck with them. Apparently they are good.

- Invulnerability potions (from AoD or WoD) are very powerful. The heroes were almost always running around with such a potion active, making it difficult for me to land a killing blow (I know traps ignore armour, btw).
Not sure yet. I've just allowed 1 (only 1) in our RtL campaign to see what happens.

AFAIK, there are no accepted house rules for balancing different numbers of heroes; most people apparently just always use 4 heroes, or at least 3. I'm currently working on a complete re-balancing of the game that should address the scaling problem (among other things), but I'm still testing, it's not compatible with official quests, and it will require printing a bunch of your own cards to use.

Most of your observations sound pretty accurate. Beastmen are very good for tier 1, razorwings are very weak for tier 2, even boss monsters often die before getting a chance to attack, and reducing the number of cards the OL gets to draw and the rate at which he can spawn are both substantial handicaps.

One option you could consider is using the reinforcement marker from RtL to limit spawning. When the OL plays a spawn card, you flip the marker down. When a new area is revealed, you flip it up. If the OL wants to spawn while it's down, it costs extra threat (I recall reading some suggestion that it should cost 5/10/15 threat for a game with 2/3/4 heroes, but that sounds kind of arbitrary, so feel free to tweak).

You could also consider just starting the heroes with some extra conquest; doesn't change the gameplay at all, just moves the goal posts.

Are you using treachery? That's another addition from an expansion that shifts the balance of power, like feats, but in the opposite direction.

- I never get to attack with an ogre or troll, they are so slow that they are almost shot to pieces before they reach the heroes.

That's what some of the trash mobs like Skeletons are for. Or the Overlord cards Charge or Enraged.

- My impression is that beastmen are by far the best monsters in the game. Is this true? They do A LOT of damage for 1st tier monsters. Master beastmen are just amazing.

Masters are arguably the best, but that's just because of Command and the ability to summon them in quantity.

- Razorwings suck.

Razorwings are extremely vicious early in the game, because they roll a red die, have insane movement, and flight. This means that regardless of the heroes best efforts, a lot of times you can have Razorwings start outside the reach of the melee characters, then next turn fly over them and tear into the mages with their likely 0-1 armor. 3 Razorwings (or 2 Razorwings and a Skeleton/Sorcerer) in a hallway frequently turns into a free loss of 2 Conquest tokens. And they have a decent amount of armor, so early game non-melee weapons likely won't kill them in a single hit.

Once the mages start getting hand-me-down armors from the frontline guys, then they become just minor nuisances. But they still are far more of a threat than Hellhounds are, as they have about a 50% chance of rolling 0 damage.

- Invulnerability potions (from AoD or WoD) are very powerful. The heroes were almost always running around with such a potion active, making it difficult for me to land a killing blow (I know traps ignore armour, btw).

They have some power, but are also problematic. Firstly, you won't use it on little amounts of damage, and it doesn't work on traps, so it's pretty easy to pinprick a hero down to a very small amount of health. Then they will likely be forced to burn it on a weak attack to avoid dying, or waste it in order to drink a healing potion (as this frequently is the only option to heal). And the entire time it is in effect, they can't use Fatigue potions, which likely will slow down the march through the dungeon, allowing the Overlord to get more cards/threat without doing any real work.

I've now run the Cult of the 100 bonus quest with 2 heroes, 4 times. I've concluded that this game is pretty much impossible with 2 heroes. Here's how it went: Feats were used.

Play 1: stock rules of the quest, i.e. 5 conquest. Heroes got crushed in the second area.

Play 2: Conquest upped to 8. Heroes got crushed.

Play 3: Conquest at 8, spawn once per area, and I let the player pick 3 hero cards for each hero and pick the one he wanted to keep, RtL style. Heroes got crushed.

Play 4: same as step 3, crushed.

Of course, it didn't help that in the last 2 cases, that "one" spawn was a lone troll with aim. It wouldn't have mattered though.

Bottom line is that I believe this is the last time we will ever employ 2 heroes.

Bargle said:

Your observations are all astute. Beastmen are great, Razorwings are generally only useful for drawing fire. Ogres and trolls (and other big base monsters) can have a hard time getting itno position before being killed. There are two basic strategies that I've devised: 1) hide them until you get the OL cards you need to clobber with them - this is often hard to do as they have few places to hide. 2) use them as distractions to absorb damage while your Beastmen come in from behind.

As far as balance goes, I've found that the easiest way to maintain balance is to always play with 4 heroes and avoid house rules like the plague. Descent's rules are balanced, but very precariously. If players aren't bringing their A game (on either side) then they will suffer for it, and this can give the impression that the game is unbalanced one way or the other in a group where players who routinely play on one side are not that great. Having said that, I haven't actually played a game with ToI yet. That expansion seems to give the heroes a lot of freebies and I can't really tell from looking at things how bad they will be in play. Sure heroes get Feats for no price, but I've also been holding back on some of the nastier Treachery cards from previous expansions up until now. Maybe if I bring in Dark Relics (for example) full force it will keep us even. Maybe. Of course, that line of thinking doesn't help someone who doesn't have all the expansions.

I would be very interested in seeing a complete overhaul of the rules (Antistone, I'll be watching for updates from you!) I'd do it myself but I can never seem to find the time.

If you have trouble getting monsters close enough, use the Charge or Enrage cards. If they get cut up by Guard, send some cannon fodder in to get mauled before bringing in the big guns (a.k.a. the Troll). Large, slow monsters require special consideration, you can't treat them like Beastmen and expect to get the same results.