Hi Guys,

Really noddy question.

When you buy the expansions for Descent, do you only add the content when you use that particular expansion? Or can you go ahead and add all the shop cards etc to which ever main campaign you\re playing without actually using the expansion?

The reason I ask is that each expansion comes with expansion specific stuff, like relics etc that obviously stay in the box if the expansion isn't being used. However, a lot of the stuff is generic, such as monsters, shop cards and the afflications, so can you just add them all and use them all regardless of what combination of campaign and expansion you're playing?

Thanks for your help!

Up to you really. I believe most people (myself included) add all the shop cards/classes/monsters/travel cards/overlord cards to the game even if they don't play any of the quests. Adds to the variety.

I think that you are quite free to do as you feel.

Quite like with the Conversion Kit : you can integrate - or not - its heroes and monsters to your quests.

For generic stuff, I personally mix the cards together (including condition cards which are generated by monsters of an expansion that I could want to make part of quests that allow their type in other expansions.

Ninja'd !

The rules generally say that if you are going to play with an expansion that you should add all materials for each expansion together. This is almost always detailed in the rulebook for the expansion on the first few pages under "Using This Expansion"

That said, you can play with an expansion without necessarily playing through the campaign or specific quests that come with that expansion. For example, I can play with the Labyrinth of Ruin expansion, but run my heroes through a Shadow Rune campaign. In this case:

• The 4 heroes and 4 classes would be available to the hero players if they choose (but they aren't required to)
• The Shop Item and Travel Event cards would be mixed in with those from the core set
• The Overlord Basic II and new Universal cards could be selected by the overlord if they choose (but they aren't required to)
• The new monsters could be used as Open Groups (but they won't appear specifically in any of the quests)

The rest of the material (Relics, Lieutenants, Allies, and Map Tiles) would technically be "mixed in" as available options, but because these are ONLY referenced in specific quests, which you won't be playing through, they just won't ever show up, so from a practical perspective, you can leave them aside.

Another thing to note: you should always add either everything or nothing from a given set. (e.g. Don't just add shop cards and heroes but not monsters and rumor cards). It should also be done at the beginning of a campaign (before players choose roles) so that the Overlord doesn't get the benefit of new monsters when the hero players didn't get the benefit of being able to choose heroes/classes from that expansion and are stuck with what they have.

Yeah, I'd just go ahead and mix it all in.

It won't unbalance anything, just add more options.

i also just add everything together, much more on the options side of things and doesn't repeat itself to often

I'm having a similiar situation at the moment, where we're adding more and more expanions to the base game. A possible downside for the heroes when adding all shop cards, monsters, etc. is that the number of cards you can 'shop' during the shop step increases, thus decreasing the odds you'll get that one card you're looking for in the shop; when playing with 4 heroes, only 5 items will be available in the shop each time, and the more cards are available, the less chance there is that you'd get that weapon/armor/helmet/etc that would really boost your character.

On 2/24/2017 at 3:01 AM, liquidsnake1989 said:

I'm having a similiar situation at the moment, where we're adding more and more expanions to the base game. A possible downside for the heroes when adding all shop cards, monsters, etc. is that the number of cards you can 'shop' during the shop step increases, thus decreasing the odds you'll get that one card you're looking for in the shop; when playing with 4 heroes, only 5 items will be available in the shop each time, and the more cards are available, the less chance there is that you'd get that weapon/armor/helmet/etc that would really boost your character.

The fix they did for this is in the errata, after the interlude the players get to look at all the phase one items and freely spend their coin any they want before the first treasure deck is put away.

As rules are written in the rule book of each expansion

"when you own this expansion, all all cards, figures, tokens to their respectives supply"

So, you add it all for all the games you're going to do since