We started our first RtL campaign. Little background, then some questions on whether it's bad luck or always starts this way. We think we have a fairly balanced group - Battlemage Jaes, Kirga, Tahlia, and Landrec the Wise.

We're going against the great wurm and after 5 or so very fun hours the score is the OL 25 - Heroes 11. Everyone in our group has died atleast once and we almost lost the 2nd level of the first dungeon when 3/4 heroes were dead. I don't want to go into everything but we spent almost all our starting money on weapons/potions/armor and the 1 skill that each character has is decent enough.

So I don't want to publish too much information that's in the RTL materials, but we drew dungeon levels, 40 (A minions), 2 (D minions), and then 26. We had 2 blood apes, 1reg/1master dark priest, and some razorwings dropped on us as spawns. We manage clean out 1 and 2 dying at least once each and most of us twice. We have probably 1500 coins and 11 XP each at this point, but leave the dungeon before starting 3 as we're bleeding conquest tokens at better than 2:1.

Our 11 CT came from the first 2 leaders, 2 town portals, and a chest w/o treasure. Could I have missed something? The OL got CT for us opening chests(Great Wurm ability), 2 weeks and massive kills. Does the game always start this way with the weapons the heroes have access to being fairly inadequate for the dungeon leaders and plethora of masters that get spawned? A basic crossbow barely dents something with 12 health and 5 armor for instance. Should we go after items, skills, or dice upgrades first? We feel as if we are behind the 8 ball already as we are probably about to have a group of monsters become silver and we can barely kill the copper levels we encounter.

I mean dumb questions I'm 95% sure I know the answer to - Killing a dungeon level leader is 2 CT for the party not for each hero, right? When you open a chest and a blank is rolled you only draw 1 treasure for the party not 1 per hero right? If you have any other suggestions or observations we'd love to get it right rather than continue to make it really tough on the heroes. Playing for weeks know we are over matched won't be something we'll repeat soon.

It sounds like the problem here was that you kept going. Most experienced RTL players recommend bailing after the first level, maybe recovering the chest or the glyph from the second level if it does not risk more than one hero. This is because by the time you fight through the first two levels the OL probably has a good hand and lots of threat to through at the hero's while the hero's have used up all thier potions, and are usually fairly battered up. If the hero's instead flee the first couple of dungeons while getting some money and copper items they will be in a much better position. If instead the OL has enough conquest after the first dungeon to upgrade thier cheap catagory (beast for the Great Wyrm) then the hero's are going to be in a much more dificult position. Take a look at just how much tougher silver monsters are in general and you will see what I mean.

Good luck with the rest of the game, it does get easier for the hero's as time goes on, especially once you reach gold level.

Brian

This happened in my first campaign, the OL got to 25 CT after the first dungeon. And it was downhill from there since the heroes were not able to face the silver Beasts. Next dungeon you try you'll probly find this out.

The party you drew is outstanding. Jaes, Tahlia, Landrec, and Kirga, you could only slightly improve that, so it's not the draw. Sounds like your heroes just have to play more. It's easy for the OL to rack up conquest against a party that has not played RTL before, cuz the party wont know good tactics yet. The most important thing you have to be able to do is assess the situation and decide if you want to play the dungeon, try to grab stuff, or run altogether.

You drew dungeon 40 first. Yeah, that's a flee. An initial party is not going to be able to kill a red dragon as their first opponent - you can barely get thru the armor. Add in the Master Beastman, Razorwings, and Sorcerer, it's no surprise. I would have just fled altogether. You dont have a 5 runner in the group (perhaps the biggest weakness) so you cant even run for the gold and make it back to the glyph in one round. It would depend on the skills to be able to do this or not.

Then you drew 26, another hellish dungeon. I would have attempted this one, and tried to blitz the first room for a quick 100/2 CT for the Hellhound and 400 gold. Then run out before you have to fight the Dragon.

So I think the biggest issue is you drew two of the toughest dungeons for a brand new party to face. They should have fled and looked for something easier.

One note tho, you said We manage clean out 1 and 2... so you did beat level 2 (26)? There are 3 level leaders in that dungeon, each one of them is worth 100 gold and 2 CT. It seems in your math you didnt count that, which does help a bit. Heroes should have 15 XP, not 11. In a way it is actually a nice job to be able to beat that level and come out less awful than 2:1. My party ended up being down about 4:1 by the time they were facing Silver Beasts.

-mike

Xizindar said:

Doesn't sound like you missed anything.

You have a superb party, very difficult to improve that!

Level 40 is really tough, and probably should have been fled from. Your main issue is too many deaths, perhaps going too slowly, though it is not a fast party. Speed is life in RtL, even more than vanilla.

Did you shop while in the dungeon? There could have been a couple of handy bronze treasures available as soon as you have a little cash.

You are now massively behind the 8-ball. Massively. Beasts are about to get upgraded to SIlver, and that will hurt. Bad. I would suggest you play a few more sessions, trying out different hero strategies, then abandon this campaign as a 'learner' and start again. You just cannot allow the OL to get 24CT in the first dungeon, and when he does tip over the requirement for his first upgrade (remember the 1 at the start of the next week that he will get, hence the 24 above) finish that dungeon all they way - because its about to get much worse next week.

In general you need to get some equipment first. Get Telekinesis ASAP (no, wait, thats been removed!) Make sure you get your secret training and upgrade dice/skills if you can, but only if they are really good ones for skills (eg, Acrobat, Spiritwalker, add extra attacks skills, Leadership, Taunt, Wind Pact, Boggs, Tiger Tattoo) or synergise brilliantly with the character (eg Unmoveable for Talia, Lucky for Laurel, Mighty for One Fist, Enduring for Nanok etc etc).

Thanks for the replies guys. We aren't a group of new players per se, but probably suffered a lot from our mentality it sounds like. Typically a 1 off game you have 1 dungeon you go to the bottom or die trying. I think it sounds like that will get you killed sooner rather than later in this game. I think we also were a little scared off by the - if you flee, it's explored and gone for the rest of the game. This lead us to the "Well lets try and make it to the bottom or die trying!" Oops.

We did get two bronze treasures from town and bought one of them which gave Landrec some more armor, but the other was a melee +1 belt and Tahlia was already consistantly doing 8-9 damage. We didn't calculate CT wrong - we drew #2 as our second level and even that sorceror was a bad mofo. #26 was our 3rd level (we had 11 as we actually did manage to kill the Dragon from #40, but he did kill us all with burn tokens or outright damage!). But when I skimmed the dungeons earlier I did conclude that 40 and 26 must be towards the top end of difficulty.

Thanks again for the replies looks like we need to listen to our fight vs. flight response a little better.

Xizindar said:

If you could afford it you should probably have bought the belt.

8-9 damage becomes 9-10 damage sounds small.
Against Armour 6 though, thats up to 50% more damage!

The 'other' items that give Stat or damage (or surge) bonuses are among the most useful IMO - because they stack with the wapon you are using.

Xizindar said:

I suspect you are due at least one more conquest token for ending your party movement at an unexplored dungeon location. I forget this all the time and my players have to remind me.