Hello and good day!

I'll post here, with edits, the new question entries:

Post #1 (of course)

Post #7

Post #9

Post #16 (Trollfens: Food for Worms)

I have many many questions but mostly they get forgotten. I started writing them down to do some research and attempt to quell the disputes around the table. I'm pretty sure these are the newbiest of questions but I didn't want to rely on common sense and assume things.

General

1. Is there a specific way to flick the wrist for rolling the dice so I can get the most positive results?

Wildlander

2. - First Strike: Is the attack performed by the hero treated like a regular attack with regards to range and equipped weapon? For instance, Can the hero attack any monster about to be activated on the map and if the hero previously equipped something other than a bow, can a bow be used as long as it's owned?

Knight

3. - Guard: Must the melee weapon used in the attack be equipped previously or can it be any weapon owned?

4. Oath of Order: (a) Is the movement from the current knight's space to the minion count as normal movement that can be interrupted or modified by pit traps, tripwires, webs, minion abilities, etc. or is it more of a 'teleportion'?

(b) Can the hero choose any adjacent space to the minion or does it have to be nearest to the same side the hero started from or nearest to the hero that is used to activate the skill (the specific hero used that is within three spaces)?

5. Stalwart (and Berserker 's Brute): (a) I am assuming this skill adds to the maximum health of the hero and the hero receives the extra health at the beginning of the Quest, am I correct?

(b) After a hero with Stalwart (or Brute) is knocked out, they lose their use of skills resulting in the loss of the extra maximum health and obviously the extra health has already been depleted. On being revived or standing back up and gaining access to their skills again, does the hero receive the extended maximum and the extra health stated on the card? In essence, after rolling for health to stand back up and gaining access to the hero's skills again, is the maximum extended and the extra health immediately gained (2 for Stalwart and 4 for Brute)?

That concludes my current questions. I'm sure there will be many more so I hope I don't get too annoying.

Thanks all in advance!

I can't help you with dice rolling. That's just luck of the roll.

As for equipment: Whatever you have equipped at the time is all that you can use. You are supposed to put equipment not equipped face-down to show that it cannot be used. You do not have the opportunity to use that equipment until the Equip phase of your turn, in which you can switch out your equipped gear.

For First Strike: You need to have a bow equipped to use, but yes, you can use it against any target that is about to be activated in your Line of Sight. Its just like a ranged attack.

Oath of Honor: Seems like a move action to me, so would have to respect cards that affect move actions. Its still a "jump" in movement though, so tripwire would be kind of useless. (Edit: I should clarify that this isn't THE move action, but you are still moving and that is the only thing needed to trigger stuff such as Pit Trap, Web, etc. This skill does get around immobilize. )

As for the space you choose, you must choose the nearest empty space adjacent to the monster, you can't just choose any space.

Stalwart and Brute: At the beginning of the quest, you start with your maximum life, counting cards like Brute and Stalwart.

If a character with Brute or Stalwart is KO'd, then revived, they do not add the max hp bonus from those skills on recovering hp. Brute, however, does let you recover extra hp upon being revived, but that is a mechanic of the skill.

Hope this helps.

From memory, oath of honor is not a 'move action' and thus can not be effected by such cards/effects that prohibit move actions specifically. However the figure does 'move' into the empty space and can be targeted by more general cards.

Again, that's from memory.

Descent rules are actually quite complicated and interactions with different abilities is confusing. I think the rule book gives a bit of false sense because mechanics are way more confusing then you would think. That is why it is important to get rules right but usually players will just start house ruling everything and things get usually even more confusing. But I would say FFG is the worst existing company when it comes to rules and rule formatting so it is no wonder.

1. If there would a specific way it would be cheating . Just let it be random.

2. Regular attack, you can't choose any action related skills. Just check if you have a bow equipped. If you have then perform normal attack with the bow and check range and LOS.

3. Must be equipped. You could always roll just one blue die for unarmed if you have a ranged weapon equipped.

4. a . Skill is not consider as a movement. It is a "place to empty space" effect. Any card which says anything about movement can't be triggered. If card says "enters empty space" then it can be played. It is "teleportation"

b. Closest available space adjacent to the monster counting where the knight is when activating this skill. This means the skill is often used as teleportation by occupying other free spaces with other heroes.

5.a. Correct

b. Nope. Just think your Hero sheet having a number +4 written on it.

Thank you all again! This will help us a lot. We're still learning and I think we'll be in our next campaign before we even start getting it right completely. For instance, our Overlord wasn't drawing cards everytime a hero was knocked out and wasn't expanding the larger minions correctly. Thanks to other posts here, I've corrected that. Actually, I think we're playing it mostly the right way, it's just rules interpretations that are cropping up.

And that first question was just to soften you up with a smile before you had to jump the hurdles. Especially with my luck... or lack thereof.

There's a bit of conflicting info here, so I'll go over it.

1. Is there a specific way to flick the wrist for rolling the dice so I can get the most positive results?

Hold the dice in your fingers such that you are looking at the side of the die opposite that you want to roll. Without letting go of the dice, flourish your wrist in a counter-clockwise motion (clockwise if in your left hand) and press the dice onto the table without letting them escape your fingers. Then let go. ;-) (Others may complain about this or start using the same technique; you've been warned.)

C2K has the right of it on equipment. You can only change what you have equipped during the Equip Items phase of the turn.

3. - Guard: Must the melee weapon used in the attack be equipped previously or can it be any weapon owned?

You must use an equipped melee weapon. The rules for making an attack say that you choose one of your equipped weapons. Those rules, which are for general attacks, also say you may instead attack with your fist, but for the Guard skill, it specifically says "with a Melee weapon", so you CAN NOT attack with your fist as Surreal suggests when using the Guard skill.

Surreal is correct about Oath of Honor. The figure is picked up and placed in the new space. It does not enter or pass through any spaces in between.

Stalwart and Brute: At the beginning of the quest, you start with your maximum life, counting cards like Brute and Stalwart.

If a character with Brute or Stalwart is KO'd, then revived, they do not add the max hp bonus from those skills on recovering hp. Brute, however, does let you recover extra hp upon being revived, but that is a mechanic of the skill.

Skills like these don't ever disappear. They are always active, even while knocked out, and for all intents and purposes you can basically consider that you have changed the number on the hero sheet once the skill has been purchased. The only time this would change is if there was a mechanic that caused them to lose a skill. (I believe the only mechanic in the game like that belongs to a Scout, so doesn't really matter for these.) Also remember that Descent 2E doesn't track how many "remaining hit points" you have. It tracks "how much damage you currently have" and "how much damage you can have before you are knocked out". It is a subtle, but important, distinction that does make a difference for a few mechanics.

I warned ya I'd be back with annoying questions!

I didn't want to hijack a thread but the following caused me to have a few questions.

I'll jump right in...

Situation: OL traps the heroes at the entrance (or other restrictive area with a reinforcement point). The heroes keep wasting their actions on attacks to clear the minion but by the time they clear the minion, another appears to reinforce the OL in the same position. This is mainly on those quests that the entrance is directly connected to a map tile that begins the encounter/quest with a monster group. The OL places the monster group in such a way that blocks the heroes from the beginning.

For the reinforcement the rules say "If a reinforcing monster cannot be placed as indicated in this section because the tile is full, the monster is placed on the closest empty space(s) instead." Since the heroes spent their actions trying to kill the monster (Shadow Dragon), they had no actions left to move before the beginning of the next OL's turn when the monster was reinforced back into the exact same spot, which, for the entire encounter, trapped the heroes while the OL completed his task to win. This happened on a few of the encounters.

Question 6 : If the OL has other points of reinforcement, should he/she use them instead or creating a guaranteed win by stalling the heroes at the entrance or is that part of the strategy?

Or, is the monster group suppose to begin the encounter on that map tile the furthest away from the heroes? Or in the middle of the tile?

Question 7 : Resting. Is resting one action or is it both your actions. The rules seem to say resting is one action but since it also says the hero recovers all fatigue at the end of the turn it implies you must use both actions to rest.

The next couple of questions have to do with the topic I didn't want to hijack:

The way we've been playing it is:

Stand up: The hero who is standing up gets no actions this turn except to stand up. Once standing and health is acquired (and maybe fatigue recovered), this specific hero's turn is finished.

Revive: Another adjacent hero uses an action to revive another hero who is knocked out. Leaving the reviving hero with one more action (that could be done either before or after reviving the knocked out hero). The hero who is revived has one action for the rest of his or her turn since one action was waiting to be revived. We saw it as it takes two actions to revive, either both your actions to stand up yourself or an action from you and another. The same amount of health is gained and fatigue recovered as if standing up solely.

Question 8 : If a hero stands up alone, how many actions does he/she get?

The rulebook mentions: To stand up, the player rolls two red power dice, recovers damage equal to the (heart) rolled, recovers fatigue equal to the (lightning bolt) rolled, replaces his hero token with his hero figure, and then flips his activation card facedown to indicate his turn is over (he may not perform an additional action).

Question 9 : If a hero is revived by another, how many actions does he/she get?

The rulebook mentions nothing about actions after being revived.

Question 10 : How many actions does a hero have left after reviving another hero? (Just for clarification)

Playing any one of these topics the wrong way could drastically change the game.

I appreciate your insight tremendously!

6) part of the strategy, if given the option to choose you get exactly that, a choice of which point to reinforce and follow the rules governing monster placement. .

7) Rest is one action, but it could be the first action that you do. You just don't recover the stamina till the end of your turn.

8)If a hero stands up on his own he gets no other actions.

9)If a hero is revived by another hero they have both actions on their turn.

10)if a hero revives another hero it takes one action. They would have 1 left if it was the first action they did on their turn.

Thanks much. The reviving and resting clarifications will definitely change how we are playing.

And after typing all that nonsense out, I realized a strategy I hadn't thought of to get past the reinforcement, which is simply don't use all your actions to attack, soften it up for a kill next turn with actions left over.

But I remembered another question.

Question 11 : On tile #4A, There are rock piles impassable to non-flyers. Their squares have the red outlines signifying their blockage of movement and line of sight. Can a figure move diagonally between these obstacles (and is there line of sight between them, as well) or, since the red outlines intersect at the corner, is the whole line of spaces and corners blocked?

Thanks again!

Edit: Oh, and thanks Griton! Just didn't want it to look like I was unappreciative .

You can move between them on the diagonal i believe.

Edit: Oh, and thanks Griton! Just didn't want it to look like I was unappreciative .

No problem! Glad to help.

And Underworld40k nailed every question already with the right answers. ;-)

Thanks to both of you. And being able to move between those rock piles will definitely change gameplay. They were the main reason we were getting trapped at the entrance. We thought we couldn't pass between them and gave the Overlord an easy win on that encounter.

You can move between them on the diagonal i believe.

Correct. They also do not block line of sight if going on a perfect 45 degree angle between them. There is an example picture of this in the rulebook somewhere, its pretty hard to miss.

Correct. They also do not block line of sight if going on a perfect 45 degree angle between them. There is an example picture of this in the rulebook somewhere, its pretty hard to miss.

It doesn't have to be a perfect 45 degree angle, it just has to be a straight line that goes directly through the corner between those two spaces.

The reason Jain doesn't have LoS to the zombie in the example from the rulebook is because the corner of the zombie's space which she needs to use to draw this line directly through the obstacles is on the wrong side of the zombie figure. The ruling being that the zombie itself blocks LoS to that corner. Hence the widespread debate about how a zombie can block line of sight to itself.

Thats true, there are other angles that work, but not many i can think of

Hello everyone!

Yes it's me again. It's been a while and that's mainly because I try to find answers before posting. I really wish this board has a search feature.

Our games have a very rough time getting more than three of us together at any one time. Most games are two heroes and an Overlord so I know the deck is stacked against the heroes from the beginning.

I recently received the Trollfens and it was incorporated into our newest campaign run of the Shadow Rune (the only bigbox campaign I have so far). The Food for Worms rumor card came up and, excited for a try at a new quest, we jumped for it. After the set up I noticed right away a problem from the hero's perspective and it became our downfall.

So this is sort of a question and asking for opinions, as well.

The scenario went thus:

2 Heroes: Reynhart, the Berserker and Ashrian, the Disciple. We have another Leoric, the Runemaster but he was sick and stayed at the inn for this quest. Actually, he was probably just reading 'Mastering the Runes by Myrlun of Canturlot', but who am I to judge.

Hero turns: We decided to take on an elemental in the Pond to get to the carriage, thinking it would be faster than through grasping zombies in the Sunken Statue. Only wasted two actions on the elemental itself (one for each hero). But by the time we arrived at the carriage...

Overlord turns: The Overlord, seeing a way to speed up his impending victory against these over confidant peasants with delusions of grandeur, ordered Bol'goreth to jump onto the carriage and attempt to head the 'heroes' off at the fallen log with the zombies.

This caused a nine turn game to fall down to five turns. The heroes were able to get to Bol'goreth and use a total of 4 actions against him. Even if we were able to cause Bol'goreth to flee in one hero turn, the other hero would still need to jump onto the carriage and break the lock. Just doing this would end the game with an Overlord win. As heroes, we could not come up with a scenario that would create a hero win on this particular quest without having the planets aligned in some exact cosmic way (like only choosing high movement heroes, OL choosing this quest later in the Act, and in choosing the quest later giving us time to acquire a shop item or skill that has a chance of moving a monster off the carriage).

I was just wondering if we played this correctly or if there was an addendum or something. The other two players were ready right then and there to create a house rule but I wanted to get some opinions first.

Thanks in advance!

I recommend letting players play multiple heroes so you always have a party of 4 heroes. If you can't get everyone for a session, someone else can take over for them, or if someone else shows up, you can let them have the extra hero. Better balanced game too.

I recommend letting players play multiple heroes so you always have a party of 4 heroes. If you can't get everyone for a session, someone else can take over for them, or if someone else shows up, you can let them have the extra hero. Better balanced game too.

I second that, especially if you've got a running campaign and you've already started those other heroes- single quests tend to work better with 4 heroes, but the game is also not designed to have heroes have different number of XP points available to them (unless you awarded Leoric the XP anyway, even though he didn't do any work.)

Whitewing,

We have tried this but with us, it just doesn't work out well. Turns get skipped, skills get forgotten to be used, and believe it or not, player communication tends to get lost and for some reason, and turns drag longer than needed be. The experience is probably as equal to a no win situation feeling on the fun scale. That's just our consensus. But if there are others who play in the Spring. TX area...

Thanks for trying to help!

Zaltyre,

Yes, the way we have been sort of playing is that the missing player(s) get the end result of the quests that were completed. Whether it be the Overlord win or the heroes. This just keeps everyone at the same level. I mean, he was studying 'Mastering the Runes', right? But we've never had a fourth player.

Safyre,

Practice using multiple heroes. it is the best thing to help balance things out.

Even if skills are forgotten, at least you'll have an extra hero or two to soak up damage.

The best thing though, is to take the time before the game starts to reread the skill cards. This will help refresh tehir use in the player's minds.