Questions from a new player

By JasonTaylor20, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Hey everyone, I haven't ever been a big board game player but I recently decided to pick this up and I am incredibly glad that I did. This game is awesome! Some friends and i started a campaign and I have a few questions. I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere but a cursory search revealed nothing that answered the questions I have.

1. Regarding search tokens. So when searched the gold icon on the card reveals how much gold is recieved when they perform a search in the bottom right hand corner or is this the amount they recieve when they sell the item? Or do they recieve that much gold and can they then can sell the item after use as well. For instance Fire Flask has 50 gold attached to it. Do they immediately get 50 gold? Do they sell the remaining flask when they get to town for 50 gold? Or do they get 50 gold and are then able to sell it for half value gaining an additional 25 gold when they get to town? I looked through the rulebook and though it was addressed i was not clear on this.

2. Inscribe Rune-Runemaster ability: What is the purpose of this ability? Is it simply so a runemaster can equip a sword and shield effectively becoming a tank i.e. in the case of Leoric using this and ghost armor? What exactly is a rune trait as specified on the inscribe rune card. My guess would be that it simply applies the trait allowing Leoric to use all of his later abilities while carrying a one handed weapon. Does the rune trait grant range to all weapons or as I'm guessing would a Runemaster with this ability still need to be adjacent to a monster to attack it? My friends and I had a disagreement over its ability.

Any help anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated!

1. Regarding search tokens. So when searched the gold icon on the card reveals how much gold is recieved when they perform a search in the bottom right hand corner or is this the amount they recieve when they sell the item? Or do they recieve that much gold and can they then can sell the item after use as well. For instance Fire Flask has 50 gold attached to it. Do they immediately get 50 gold? Do they sell the remaining flask when they get to town for 50 gold? Or do they get 50 gold and are then able to sell it for half value gaining an additional 25 gold when they get to town? I looked through the rulebook and though it was addressed i was not clear on this.

(You don't get gold for search cards until after a quest, during the campaign phase when you sell them. You get the value shown on the search card in gold. If you sell previously purchased shop items at the same time, you get half the value of the original purchase price, rounded down to the nearest value divisible by 25. For example, original shop item costs 100 gold, you get 50. Original item cost 75, you get 25.)

2. Inscribe Rune-Runemaster ability: What is the purpose of this ability? Is it simply so a runemaster can equip a sword and shield effectively becoming a tank i.e. in the case of Leoric using this and ghost armor? What exactly is a rune trait as specified on the inscribe rune card. My guess would be that it simply applies the trait allowing Leoric to use all of his later abilities while carrying a one handed weapon. Does the rune trait grant range to all weapons or as I'm guessing would a Runemaster with this ability still need to be adjacent to a monster to attack it? My friends and I had a disagreement over its ability.

(Can't help you on this one. Not at home to look at the game or card.)

1. Regarding search tokens. So when searched the gold icon on the card reveals how much gold is recieved when they perform a search in the bottom right hand corner or is this the amount they recieve when they sell the item?

The heroes receive the listed amount of gold at the end of the quest. They receive gold for ALL search items found during the quest, whether they used the item or not. They MUST sell all search items at the end of the quest, they cannot hold on to them for later quests.

2. Inscribe Rune-Runemaster ability: What is the purpose of this ability? Is it simply so a runemaster can equip a sword and shield effectively becoming a tank i.e. in the case of Leoric

There's nothing stopping Leoric (or any other mage) from equipping sword and shield if they want to. Those items usually don't synergize as well as staves or runes for their abilities, but there's nothing against it.

Inscribe Rune adds the Rune keyword to any weapon the Runemaster has equipped. This combines with other skills like, for example, Exploding Rune. Exploding Rune says use an Action to make an attack with a Rune weapon, and that attack gains Blast . So with Exploding Rune and Inscribe Rune, the Runemaster can add Blast to any weapon by using ER instead of making a basic attack action. It also combines with you starting skill, Runic Knowledge, in a similar fashion. There are quite a few Runemaster skills that build off the Rune keyword.

You can do funny things with Inscribe and Exploding Rune. Here's an example:

1. Runemaster has both skills. Equips a Crossbow.

2. Runemaster fires his exploding crossbow at a group of enemies, and is able to not only do damage to all/most of them but also gets to move figures around using the Crossbow's special ability.

Just be careful with inscribe rune and exploding rune combo on melee weapons.

While it is still cool to use crossbow with inscribe I do not think it works quite like you state. The cross bow only allows the target to be moved not all monsters affected by the attack via blast. There is a subtle difference between targeted and affected .