Drawing for Encounters

By PASTORJK2, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

I was wondering what the consensus is on drawing for encounters, locations, and dungeon levels. I know that Paul Hogan has stated in one thread that he shuffles all of his card decks (except the OL deck) and fans them out each time there is a draw. I am wondering if most of you play by shuffling, drawing, and discarding the encounter/location/dungeon level to a discard pile. Thus, making sure that you don't draw the same encounters, locations, and dungeon levels in a campaign. If you run out of cards in one or more decks, do you then reshuffle all back in? I started playing by reshuffling everything back in each time, but lately I have switched to a discard pile for each of my decks. This seems more fun because you do not have to worry about playing the same locations/encounters/dungeon levels over and over. If I run out of a deck, then and only then do I reshuffle the cards back in. I do this for treasure chests, too. Obviously, the location deck will have to be reshuffled a few times in a campaign since their are fewer cards in that deck as compared to the rest.

I looked through the encounter deck and found only one Lost encounter. The encounter is a little ambiguous to me, so I play that the heroes week ends after that encounter. The heroes return to their last location. However, I am wondering if that is one card that I should put back in, each time I draw it. I know it is a house rule, but I think it is quite possible for the heroes to get lost more than once in a campaign. This would obviously help the OL more playing the encounter the way I interpret it. What is everyone's thoughts?

I always shuffle the full enounter deck each time. I would hate to deprive the heroes of a second chance at a partciularly nasty encounter that they just barely managed to scrape through the first time. :)

Encounters and Locations - Shuffle back in each time.

Dungeon levels - remove the ones that have been done from the deck and keep in a discard pile. Reshuffle once done.

Encounters, Locations and Dungeons are all discarded to the Graeyard after use. Once a deck is empty, it is fished out of the Graveyard and we start again.

Big Remy said:

Encounters and Locations - Shuffle back in each time.

Dungeon levels - remove the ones that have been done from the deck and keep in a discard pile. Reshuffle once done.

+1

PastorJK said:

I know that Paul Hogan has stated in one thread

I'm not from Australia, I dont wear a bit hat, nor do I carry a large knife. Dont worry, you're not the first to accidentally call me that :)

Seriously though, I'm with Big Remy. Dungeons I use once and then graveyard them. The others, I just shuffle back in to the deck when used.

Treasures we shuffle between sessions.
Dungeons we shuffle everytime we add a new expansion.
Locations and Encounters every session.

-shnar

Paul Grogan said:

I'm not from Australia, I dont wear a bit hat, nor do I carry a large knife. Dont worry, you're not the first to accidentally call me that :)

I humbly apologize, sir. I feel like a dunce. sorpresa.gif

Paul Grogan said:

PastorJK said:

I know that Paul Hogan has stated in one thread

I'm not from Australia, I dont wear a bit hat, nor do I carry a large knife. Dont worry, you're not the first to accidentally call me that :)

AHAHHAHAHHAAHAAHAHAHA!!!

Well, there goes my mental image of the guy on the other end of the screen. That's actually totally what I had always thought, plus you were wrestling an alligator.

edroz said:

Big Remy said:

Encounters and Locations - Shuffle back in each time.

Dungeon levels - remove the ones that have been done from the deck and keep in a discard pile. Reshuffle once done.

+1

+ another 1

Except my $@#^%w$ Hero player, who relies very heavily on Rapid Fire and the Silver Blast Rune, has drawn Ancient Grove in every single important encounter. 3/3 for Lts and 1/1 for a critical encounter with Diamond level critters when he pulled the Twins (he has never pulled any other rumour in 2 campaigns, 2/2 Twins) straight after I juggled a decision between Gold Lt who auto razes* and Ironskin for Avatar - chose the Dragon and didn't leave enough in the next turn for the Avatar upgrade, he promptly pulls Twins, places it within movement range and moves to it before I can upgrade.

Ancient Groves makes trees impassable, so there is no protection (Shadowcloak) for my critters from his AoE (fires three times with Quickshot for average 12-15 damage each) and Ranged (fires 6-8 times with Rapid Fires with average 14-17 Pierce 3 damage each) weapons and I can't get many attacks in against him.

So I'm leaning very heavily into discarding locations as well! Mostly from sheer frustration...

* My only real chance of a win is a Tamalir Raze to be honest.

Wait, I'm not sure you understand ShadowCloak. The only way that a model who is ShadowCloaked is if the attack originated from a space adjacent to the model. So the AOE attacks don't really mean anything, the attacker still has to be right next to the defender to damage him (unless that rune ignores ShadowCloak?).

Also, check out the latest FAQ. I drew that location with the Twins too and thought it was really silly that the trees were impassible since the Ogres got stuck real quick. The latest FAQ though changes that location so that large models CAN pass through these trees.

-shnar

Which to me is a very contrary ruling considering the rules for Large Monsters and Terrain in my mind.

A monster receives a penalty if any of its squares move into a space that has a penalty ie mud. Yet in this encounter trees don't block the movement of large monsters, only single square monsters. So, even though Large monsters need to pay a movement penalty for entering a tree space, they are actually at an advantage for moving in that encounter now over single square monsters.

Am I thinking about that wrong? I really really wish they had listened to us and gotten rid of that ruling. It makes no sense whatsoever is a lot less confusing than merely saying "A monster is only affected by terrain if all of its base is on that terrain."

shnar said:

Wait, I'm not sure you understand ShadowCloak. The only way that a model who is ShadowCloaked is if the attack originated from a space adjacent to the model. So the AOE attacks don't really mean anything, the attacker still has to be right next to the defender to damage him (unless that rune ignores ShadowCloak?).

Also, check out the latest FAQ. I drew that location with the Twins too and thought it was really silly that the trees were impassible since the Ogres got stuck real quick. The latest FAQ though changes that location so that large models CAN pass through these trees.

-shnar

Oh I understand Shadowcloak all right. But Ancient Grove makes the trees impassable (at least to single space monsters) so my monsters can't get into them and therefore can't get Shadowcloak benefits . Given that my opponent basically uses the Rapid Firing Archer and a Blasting, Quickshotting (Spiritwalking) Mage to kill everything, not being allowed in the trees is really important. Especially for Lts (single space), and Lava Beetles (single space, the diamond encounter).