So I am brand new to Descent and I apologize if this is a redundant or ignorant question. But starting out with just the initial intro quest where the heroes need to kill Ettins and fight Goblin archers I was immediately struck with a question that I have not been able to find the answer to.

The Overlord obviously knows where the heroes are and can just start moving the monsters to engage from all over the encounter map. But are there any rules to prevent that such as monsters having to hear something or notice something first?

In more complex quests with multiple rooms and doors how do you handle such issues? I could find no mention of it in the instructions.

There are no rules for monster awareness. The Overlord can move them all freely however he likes, from the beginning.

There are some quests where some monsters may be "locked" until the heroes perform a specific action. But in cases like that, it will be mentioned in the quest's specific rules.

Otherwise, you are free to move your monsters as you like, regardless if your monsters have "seen" the heroes or not.

In First Blood, if the OL wants to swarm the heroes to "kill" (= KO) them, he will loose even faster than usual.

The heroes move first in this one and will have eliminated one or two goblins before the OL even had the possibility to react.

Afterwards, his objective is to exit five gobs, not to kill heroes. If he uses his fragile gobs to attack the heroes (remeber that monsters are only allowed one attack action per turn), they won't ever be able to scamper away.

Descent has more diverse tactical objectives than the classical "kill'em all and loot" thing.

And First Blood is just an introductory scenario, which heavily favours the heroes.

(...) which heavily favours the heroes.

Really?

I've only played First Blood once, but the OL (me) won extremely easy!

(...) which heavily favours the heroes.

Really?

I've only played First Blood once, but the OL (me) won extremely easy

We have found everytime the OL always wins first time, then the heroes do onwards - it's uncanny. It's always due to the speed from the goblins using scamper and the heroes not being ready for it I think.

Really?

I've only played First Blood once, but the OL (me) won extremely easy!

This depends very heavily on the number of heroes. With a full party, the Overlord starts with lots of goblins, and if the heroes ignore them, he can win in just a couple of turns. But with only 2 or 3 heroes, the Overlord has to get at least one goblin out the exit before he can reinforce the fifth one that he needs, which is at least a 2 turn delay.

It also only takes the heroes sending one person in to knock out a couple goblins to delay the Overlord enough to usually secure a victory.

(...) which heavily favours the heroes.

Really?

I've only played First Blood once, but the OL (me) won extremely easy

We have found everytime the OL always wins first time, then the heroes do onwards - it's uncanny. It's always due to the speed from the goblins using scamper and the heroes not being ready for it I think.

Huh, we'll have to try the quest a couple of more times then - it really did seem unfair to the heroes, but maybe they just weren't ready for the speedy goblins.

Really?

I've only played First Blood once, but the OL (me) won extremely easy!

This depends very heavily on the number of heroes. With a full party, the Overlord starts with lots of goblins, and if the heroes ignore them, he can win in just a couple of turns. But with only 2 or 3 heroes, the Overlord has to get at least one goblin out the exit before he can reinforce the fifth one that he needs, which is at least a 2 turn delay.

It also only takes the heroes sending one person in to knock out a couple goblins to delay the Overlord enough to usually secure a victory.

We played with 3 heroes, so yea I had to get that one goblin out the exit before reinforcing it again - which did give me a semi delay, but nothing that really mattered. On my last turn I managed to get two goblins out the exit, earning me the fifth, and a sixth fatigue token. It never really felt like the heroes had a chance - they were nowhere near slaying the Ettin. But we'll start a campaign tonight, with me playing the heroes (I'll control 3 heroes), so we'll see how it goes! (:

Your heroes really must have played extremely badly.

Did they place one hero in the direction of the exit to hit the rare goblin which managed to survive the slaughter accomplished by the other heroes?

Did you reinforce the goblins at the END of the OL's turn?

Your heroes really must have played extremely badly.

Did they place one hero in the direction of the exit to hit the rare goblin which managed to survive the slaughter accomplished by the other heroes?

Did you reinforce the goblins at the END of the OL's turn?

No, the hero player didn't place a hero in the direction of the exit, and yes I reinforced the goblins at the end of my turn.

To the hero players defense: it was our very first game of Descent, so none of us really knew how to operate our groups of either heroes or monsters (although it was rather obvious what to do with the goblins.), aaaand the heroes rolled really really bad on the few attacks they managed to make, at the limited time it took for me to win.

The hero player didn't really find it very fun to lose ever single encounter (we played the first three), so tonight we'll switch it up, so I'll play heroes - though not sure if that ensures me losing any more, than playing OL?

To the hero players defense: it was our very first game of Descent, so none of us really knew how to operate our groups of either heroes or monsters (although it was rather obvious what to do with the goblins.), aaaand the heroes rolled really really bad on the few attacks they managed to make, at the limited time it took for me to win.

What's great about this game, you can have the best tactics and do everything right, but you can always get hammered by the dice rolls!

The heroes should really be trying to get all the search tokens on this quest anyhow as there are no rewards for winning.

The heroes should really be trying to get all the search tokens on this quest anyhow as there are no rewards for winning.

This, this and this one more time. If you are playing the campaign, always try to loot every search token on the introductory mission, as there is no special reward for winning, other than the overlord selecting the first quest from first act.

If heroes see that they are loosing, it's hard decision - rush for the victory or rush for the search tokens.

Remember, these search tokens are very important and if they don't gear up properly, heroes will be loosing most of the time.

other than the overlord selecting the first quest from first act.

Don't underestimate the power of this. If the heroes didn't get much good gear from the shopping phase, the OL is likely to pick a quest that gives him a Relic if he wins as the first quest since that's when he's most likely to win.

If the heroes win, they can push the Relic quests back to the 2nd or 3rd quests in the Act where they have a higher chance of winning.