Why Can't You Pick Between Conditions?

By BillyBabel, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Just out of curiosity is there any special reason why new monsters/ agents don't give you the ability to pick between 2 different abilities from base game and their respective expansion pack condition?

For instance with Bol Gorath's agent pack why not have his surge be Disease,Poison, or weaken? Why not give new monsters the ability to choose between two conditions so that people who have all the expansions aren't left with only 2 monsters that can use burn or weaken, and people who don't have the expansion packs can use the base game option.

It's honestly silly having a Bol Gorath that can't weaken, and a valyndra that can't burn.

I would see two reasons :

- Some conditions are specific to an expansion. The policy of FFG is that each expansion only needs the base game (no need to have other expansions to use one).

- The designer had his own idea about given monsters.

So, one can surley have reasons consider a design choice as "stupid" - even though that way of expression is insulting towards the designer - but it is a question of subjective appreciation.

But I agree that it would be nice to find a way to have new (or older, CK) monsters generate conditions which only appear in an expansion.

That would imply a reprinting of condition markers and cards in each product which includes them.

Why not have a "variant pack" for all the monsters who could inflict more diversified conditions ?

Just out of curiosity is there any special reason why new monsters/ agents don't give you the ability to pick between 2 different abilities from base game and their respective expansion pack condition?

For instance with Bol Gorath's agent pack why not have his surge be Disease,Poison, or weaken? Why not give new monsters the ability to choose between two conditions so that people who have all the expansions aren't left with only 2 monsters that can use burn or weaken, and people who don't have the expansion packs can use the base game option.

It's honestly silly having a Bol Gorath that can't weaken, and a valyndra that can't burn.

Edited by Silverhelm

Its the base game issue. Lets say that you have only the base game and your lieutenants. What is burn? What is weaken?

These conditions don't exist for players without those expansions. Regardless of the likelihood that most players who buy these agents already have the expansions FFG are keeping the playing field open for all descent customers.

Now the way to solve this would be to include the tokens and condition cards in the lieutenant pack (and i cant think of a reason that they didn't outside of game balance as material cost wise cardboard should be dirt cheap for them).

That's what I'm saying, why not have the options on a LT's card to read something like "+2 hearts or burn" So that ppl with base game can use the "+2 heart" and people with burn can use burn

just add the condition and use the word or.

At a guess because of all the people writing in going "wtf is burn and where do i find it?". I dont disagree with you, i think its a little counter intuitive that they don't have the ability (it makes Bol Gorath a less appealing lieutenant to summon for me)

I posted this idea way back in one of the lieutenant discussions, so I definitely feel your pain.

I think Underworld40k has the right of it, though. It can be confusing to people that don't have every expansion, and those people (casual buyers that don't participate in forum discussions) are likely the majority of their buyers.

I still think they could put a small blurb in the rules card for it though. "If combined with the Trollfens expansion, Bol'goreth has the option to use the condition from that expansion instead."

All that said, this is pretty simple to house rule.

I like the idea to choose, really. It would be cool, and a good way to be at the same time playable with the base game only, or using expansion.

For agent, from plot deck, that would be great also. Because Bol'goreth is strange in his new version of himself. without rampage, he's almost useless

All that said, this is pretty simple to house rule.

I'd be curious to see if there are any balance issues with simply using the original LT stats when you summon the agent. That's definitely the easiest way to resolve this concern, for those who own the relevant expansion.

Steve-O, i dont have my cards to hand, are there any other changes between the agent and lieutenant versions of bol gorath and valeriya?

I know there are some tweaks between the core set lieutenants and agents but im not sure about the mini expansion ones.

Steve-O, i dont have my cards to hand, are there any other changes between the agent and lieutenant versions of bol gorath and valeriya?

I don't own any of the LT packs myself, yet. I know conditions exclusive to the expansions are being stripped from the Agent versions, but I don't know if there are any other tweaks.

I'll have a quick check when i get back, i know that some f the abilities in the core set ones have been ammended slightly (i dont think Aleric needs to test might to use overpower in agent form)

Any ability that requires the lieutenant to test an attribute will have been modified because Agents do not have attributes.

Well, there we go see. Obvious answer is obvious. I'll get my coat.

Some agents are arguably better than their leiutenant counterparts!

Lets take slig for example, the leiutenant version needs to test an awareness of 2 to deflect the attack to a adjacent monster. The agent version simply can do this for free !

His other ability promotion (act2) which replaces a minion monster with a master monster respeccting group limits after testimg willpower is instead replaced with the ability of making each minion monster of his monster group get a free instant attack for the cost of 1 of spligs actions.

Agents have no stats unlike their leiutenant counterparts (which makes them easier to kill with some conditions).

I personally think playing with the original leiutenant cards is totally a viable option which will answer alot of peoples greif with the cards. Just beware... Splig will die alot easier!

This is just a thought and my own opinion but as far as conditions go...

To me, Descent is a base game that comes with a campaign to get you going. The Shadow Rune doesn't really seem like it's all that connected quest to quest but more like a fistful of playstyle examples. What the base game is to me is the base set ready for bigger things to come. Saying this, the base set should come with the base materials, whether or not they are used with the included campaign.

Conditions are one of the base effects. Monsters are going to be able to poison, disease, burn, immobilize, stun, weaken, freeze, dissolve, horrify, etc.. As fast as these expansions seem to have come out, the conditions in the expansions should have been known about beforehand and should have been included in the base game to be ready for the expansions. This would make them universal and not specific.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.