Maester Benjen
United States
Findlay
Ohio
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Let me start this off by saying I am pretty much a rookie when it comes to Descent (and board gaming in general, this will be my first post here on The Geek) but I was hooked on the game from my first time playing, and it was actually my gateway to this new world I am now experiencing even though I doubt that is typical from this game.
Anyway one of the guys in my usual gaming group (which is only three of us most of the time) just got The Road to Legend, so earlier tonight we broke it in. The two of us playing heroes ended up with Steelhorns and Grey Ker for myself, and Battlemage Jaes and Mordrog for my buddy. I ended up with Swift for Ker and Weapon Mastery for Steelhorns. I know my buddy had Knight with Mordrog but I am blanking on the skill for Jaes. Needless to say we were fairly happy with our characters.
We decided to head to Starfall Forest from Tamilar for our first dungeon. We went in the first level and right away started getting hit pretty hard. The Overlord spawned a Skeleton Patrol to add to the monsters in the room and before we had killed the boss (which I believe was a Sorcerer with Aura 6 and some other goodies) three of the four of us had died once. We scooped up the remaining treasure (but managing to not roll any blanks from the copper chest) and headed to the second level where we thought we couldn't be worse off than we were in the first.
We were wrong.
The second level has the bridge to start out across with pits on either side. The boss here was a Razorwing with 8 extra wounds and knockback if we rolled a blank. Luck was not on our side and we rolled four blanks out of the seven times we were attacked by him. Needless to say we took heavy losses and he racked in lots of conquest. At the end of the second level (where we again received no copper treasure) we were looking at 14 conquest a piece to his 40. With a couple of us working early we decided to call it a night there.
The point of this session posting was to see if this is typically the case that the overlord racks up huge points early while the heroes struggle. Obviously we are way to early in to make any serious judgments yet but I was just curious to see if this trend is likely to continue for awhile.
Regardless I am very excited to continue the campaign it is promising to be a lot fun.
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Yeah, that's pretty much how it goes. In Copper, Overlord kicks ass and smart heroes will quicky learn the art of fleeing. Silver is most of the times balanced and in gold heroes will destroy almost everything in their paths, including the Overlord in the final fight.
The Overlord only have a real chance if:
- He completes his objective or destroys the main city early.
- The heroes are new to Descent and manage to get a terrible party draw. But, in that case, the Overlord will probably destroy Tamalir earlier anyway...
If you are playing RtL my advice would be: go for the ride and forget balance.
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Kris Vanhoyland
Belgium
Genk
Limburg
@RetakeME3 - We deserve a better ending!
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bugsnnuts wrote:
We decided to head to Starfall Forest from Tamilar for our first dungeon. We went in the first level and right away started getting hit pretty hard. The Overlord spawned a Skeleton Patrol to add to the monsters in the room and before we had killed the boss (which I believe was a Sorcerer with Aura 6 and some other goodies) three of the four of us had died once.
I'm familiar with that dungeon, it's called The Barracks and it's not one of the easy dungeons, the big interlocking room makes it fairly easy for the overlord to spawn monsters that can attack heroes on the same turn.
We've actually started an RtL campaign ourselves this weekend and this dungeon was the second one my heroes entered. Upon seeing the scale of it, combined with the two deep elves, they agreed to flee the dungeon immediately.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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knowing the rules are different from vanilla descent is a huge thing. the spawn marker costs 15 threat to be able to respawn in a given dungeon level. that was our first mistake, where i spawned about 3-4 times on our first run.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/325622/rtl-the-art-of-bl...
this is a great thread for beginner hero's. basically, you don't want to give up tons of CT to the OL at the beginning. it is ok to flee a dungeon. you gain 1 and the OL gains 1 CT per turn pretty much, you control how much the OL gets during the dungeon. you can go for weeks with the OL getting only 1 CT per week. once the OL gets their first monster upgrade, it is much tougher.
at 14-40 already, that is a tough beating. the saying around here is that RtL is an "ADVANCED CAMPAIGN". it is much more than just playing a game of descent, there is a lot of planning and strategic maneuvering involved, both in dungeons and on the world map.
what you decide to do is up to you, but i would try to play more of the vanilla quests first, get more experience under your belt, read up on session reports here to figure out the strategy, then play RtL. if the OL hasn't done much research either though and starts buying avatar upgrades for the final battle rather than buying monster upgrades/lieutenants/treachery, then maybe you don't have it that bad though (obviously a sign of not understanding the strategy).
good luck.
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Mike Shade
United States
Winston-Salem
North Carolina
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I would say that it sounds like your Overlord is not only very skilled and intelligent, But also quite handsome.
Anyway I'm the OL of this game. We are all the same amount of experienced with Descent, but we are muddling through the rules for RtL together right now.
To give a little overlord info, I'm playing as the Titan, and my plot is Ascension. I spent my 15 starting xp on Siege Engines, since i figured on trying to raze lots of cities, and i seriously just picked it because it sounded like a good idea. I have not even looked at 75% of the overlord upgrades. Fortunately I now have an embarrassment of riches in conquest, so I think I'll plan out some more what my next upgrades will be.
I'm looking forward to the continuation of this campaign, no matter who ends up winning.
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Bryann Turner
United States
Portland
Oregon
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No offense, you need to restart right now. It will NOT be fun if you continue. The OL has enough for a monster upgrade AND treachery, which will allow him to harass and destroy the Heroes all the more quickly.
Please, please, please teach or show your Heroes the Blitz technique. Show them strategy articles. It will only make your game better.
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Maester Benjen
United States
Findlay
Ohio
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btizo wrote: No offense, you need to restart right now. It will NOT be fun if you continue. The OL has enough for a monster upgrade AND treachery, which will allow him to harass and destroy the Heroes all the more quickly.
Please, please, please teach or show your Heroes the Blitz technique. Show them strategy articles. It will only make your game better.
Is restarting really the answer when we have not even finished a single dungeon yet? Others have said that it is often the case that the OL takes an early lead, I just feel restarting before one dungeon is even finished seems drastic, but again I do not know that much about it. We had planned on going through more of the rules and what not before we started again, I think we were just a bit anxious to get one rolling. I would not mind hearing about this Blitz technique if you care to elaborate btizo. I guess we will sit down next time and see if restarting is going to be worth it or not.
Also good to see you here Mike as I obviously did not have much information pertaining to the things you were doing as OL.
Thanks everyone for the responses I am sure we will pick more up as we go and hopefully fortune starts to favor our heroes 
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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duhtch wrote: knowing the rules are different from vanilla descent is a huge thing. the spawn marker costs 15 threat to be able to respawn in a given dungeon level. that was our first mistake, where i spawned about 3-4 times on our first run. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/325622/rtl-the-art-of-bl...this is a great thread for beginner hero's. basically, you don't want to give up tons of CT to the OL at the beginning. it is ok to flee a dungeon. you gain 1 and the OL gains 1 CT per turn pretty much, you control how much the OL gets during the dungeon. you can go for weeks with the OL getting only 1 CT per week. once the OL gets their first monster upgrade, it is much tougher. at 14-40 already, that is a tough beating. the saying around here is that RtL is an "ADVANCED CAMPAIGN". it is much more than just playing a game of descent, there is a lot of planning and strategic maneuvering involved, both in dungeons and on the world map. what you decide to do is up to you, but i would try to play more of the vanilla quests first, get more experience under your belt, read up on session reports here to figure out the strategy, then play RtL. if the OL hasn't done much research either though and starts buying avatar upgrades for the final battle rather than buying monster upgrades/lieutenants/treachery, then maybe you don't have it that bad though (obviously a sign of not understanding the strategy). good luck.
blitzing...
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Maester Benjen
United States
Findlay
Ohio
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Sorry Joel I somehow read your post and completely missed that link
 That is some great info I am about to forward it to my hero partner and hopefully we can turn some things around next time. Thanks for that sorry I decided to miss it the first time 
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Slyvanian Frog
United States
Lakeville
Minnesota
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I don't understand. The Overlord player is completely new as well. He clearly doesn't know what he is doing (not in an offensive way, he just admits that he is kind of playing this by ear, hasn't looked at all the possible upgrades, etc.).
Why would it be a good idea here to have the hero players gear way up knowledge-wise and study intensely on how to min/max their way through everything? It seems to me that is just as likely to lead to a lopsided win by the heroes (and likely a far more painful, drawn out one, as the heroes slowly get a big lead but have to grind it out through gold and the end of the full game).
I get the feeling these guys probably want to explore and bump along, maybe I'm wrong. But it strikes me that we may be accidentally advising them as though both players should understand and have all the options and skills down cold. I do understand that you want to avoid obvious errors or terrible choices that could ruin the game later, but it can also reach a point where its like telling people they shouldn't play a game of chess until they have read and studied enough to be a grand master first.
I don't know - it looks to me like they're having fun - there is something nicely innocent about a game being explored by casual play, as opposed to intense study and maximization. 
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Maester Benjen
United States
Findlay
Ohio
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I think you pretty much nailed it Sly. Since we are all in the same boat as far as things go (all have about the same play time with vanilla and this is our first campaign on RtL) we are going to have fun just picking up some of the more detailed things along the way. Not that I don't mind having a couple extra tricks up my sleeve like things learned from the blitzing post, but when things come they will come, for better or worse we are all going to enjoy it and that is what it comes down to I think.
I will probably come post some more after our next play to see if the tides turned at all, even though it may be a bit since our OL decided to skip town for a few days...
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That's the spirit I was referring to.
Chances of a balanced fight all the way through the end are very slim anyway. Blitzing helps, but it might make the game even longer to complete.
With very few exceptions, if heroes manage to avoid a Tamalir fall up to silver, they will kill the Overlord in the end - it is actually quite difficult not to do so.
Enjoy the ride - the game is not balanced.
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Joe Barrett
United States
Virginia
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I think the game is, on average, rather well balanced. It is not forgiving of errors, especially when the two sides are weak.
Initially the heros are very fragile early in the game. They can be wiped by bad luck (unfortunate out door encounters, for example) or through too much persistence in dungeons.
At the start of each dungeon the OL has relatively few resources, a fast moving party can make gains quickly but as they go deeper the OL should accumulate resources and become a serious challenger. A copper party that spots the OL a big lead will likely lose and lose badly.
The heroes grow in strength relative to the OL through the game, up to the gold stage (which my group has yet to reach because of earlier mistakes), where they typically can walk over the OL if they get that far.
Either side can make mistakes that will doom them. Serious mistakes are easier for the heroes, but the OL who is largely reacting to hero choices has options to fail as well (not upgrading to silver monsters at first opportunity leading the way).
If both sides make approximately the same level of error, either side can win, likely driven by some hot luck streaks. It's really hard for players making a lot of mistakes to make similar error levels in RtL as the heros have many more opportunities. I believe this is the root of the advice to "train" the heros. On the other hand if the group enjoys muddling along, that's a group choice (one I think that will lead to sadness).
I do think RtL is reasonably balanced; however, it is easy to tip it in either direction leading to blow outs. Sadly, combining that dynamic with a very long play time can have one side in an apparently hopeless situation for a long time.
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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SlyFrog wrote:
I don't know - it looks to me like they're having fun - there is something nicely innocent about a game being explored by casual play, as opposed to intense study and maximization. :D
That is fine for a game that finishes in 3-4 hours, or even one longer 8-10 hr session.
It isn't really fine for a game that can run for 60-100hrs, when you are still suffering from those early bumbling mistakes 50 hrs later...
Advanced Campaigns have exponential power growth jumps at various times. The most obvious is early on. If the OL can get a jump start and upgrade his monsters before the heroes have achieved significant growth (found some decent treasures and maybe even got their own set of upgrades) then the heroes will find it very hard going.
In cases where the heroes have conceded a massive head start, they've done that with rough parity. The OL is then about to roughly double in power, so hero groups that are weak enough players to get smashed that bad at power-parity are really going to feel they are up against impossible odds when the OL doubles in power!
It is also worth noting, for the noobs, that the heroes make the decisions that run the game engine, so they are the ones that make the mistakes that matter, not the OL. And, especially early on, the OL can get an enormous power boost, whereas the heroes power path is slower steady boosts. So early mistakes by the heroes really matter, whereas early mistakes by the OL are less immediately deadly, especially when both sides are inexperienced.
I would recommend to the OP that they play the next dungeon after the OL upgrades monsters, but with the understanding that the heroes can quit the campaign whenever they want - their purpose now is learn-by-playing, not playing to win. Basically, carry on for a wee while with the understanding that this is a 'practice' run.
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Michael H
United States
Alabama
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bugsnnuts wrote: Let me start this off by saying I am pretty much a rookie when it comes to Descent (and board gaming in general, this will be my first post here on The Geek) but I was hooked on the game from my first time playing, and it was actually my gateway to this new world I am now experiencing even though I doubt that is typical from this game.
Welcome to BGG!
In my experience there is a steep learning curve for the heroes in RtL. This campaign is probably over but you should still play a few more rounds. If you restarted now you would soon end up in the same spot because the hero players would still need experience. Each player should be open to "rebooting" the campaign early and often until the heroes understand how to play the game. Once the campaign tips in the overlord's favor it becomes hard for the heroes to have fun playing.
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BarrettJG wrote:
Initially the heros are very fragile early in the game. They can be wiped by bad luck (unfortunate out door encounters, for example) or through too much persistence in dungeons.
That doesn`t look like very balanced to me. But there`s more to it than just luck.
Blitzing can work, but will put the game very close to the 100- hour playtime, and, if well done, will guarantee a hero victory - once again, no balance at all.
The only way to play this game in my opinion is doing whatever you thing is fun without worring about winning or losing and trying to not min-max everything, because certain combinations of skills, heroes and strategies can be exploited to no end.
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Slyvanian Frog
United States
Lakeville
Minnesota
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zinho73 wrote: That doesn`t look like very balanced to me. But there`s more to it than just luck.
I hear you there. It strikes me that people may be saying it is balanced, but in a way that is problematic in its own right.
A game can be balanced in a pure win/loss perspective, but still be problematic if that balance consists of one side winning very early or not at all, with the remainder of the game taking a huge time to play out if the side does not win early.
Think of a random game where one player has a 41% chance to win on turn 1, and then has a 1% chance to win on turns 2-10. If turns 2-10 are long and drawn out, then it is a rather painful experience.
I'm hoping that is not really the case with Descent, and that people overstate the notion that once it gets to Gold, the heroes win. Because if that's the case, there's really no point in playing through Gold, other than to finish out the story.
I'm going to be starting a campaign myself shortly, so I'm hoping for the best.
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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SlyFrog wrote:
I'm hoping that is not really the case with Descent, and that people overstate the notion that once it gets to Gold, the heroes win. Because if that's the case, there's really no point in playing through Gold, other than to finish out the story.
They do (overstate the case).
Gold heroes can seriously kick some ass in the dungeons. Walkover is literally the truth, often. You know, hero whistles casually as he saunters down the corridor, totally ignoring the skeletons plinking ineffectual arrows off his armour and as he bites into a crisp fresh apple rests his super-crossbow over his shoulder and shoots the slavering monster leader (about to tear his head off from behind) between the eyes with a no-look, upside down shot.
But a good OL will have his Lts well supported and 'treacheried up', and those can be hard fights for the heroes, even losing fights. Heck, I've come within inches of TPKing a fully set up gold party in late gold with a non-Lt encounter - Diamond Manticores kicking some arse, and only one hero escaped entirely due to having the Wings of Regaroth and being able to fly out through the blocking monsters and over the ice.
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There was a thread in this forum in which a guy asked if an Overlord were able to beat the heroes in the final fight. By the time I stop following, only one guy had managed to do it.
Some diamond monsters are nasty, but if the Overlord has Diamond beasts, chances are that he didn't get all his upgrades and the final fight can be even easier.
That said, everything is possible in Descent. I guess that's what makes it a good dungeon crawl. I just don't like this huge swings on a 80-hour game. The concept of the campaign appeals to me, the execution not.
If you stop to think, the fight you described is note very balanced either (although it sounded exciting).
To be more precise: the heroes killing the Overlord in gold (specially if they storm the lair in their first opportunitty) is the most common outcome of a campaign. Your experience ight be an exception, but it is no doubt unusual.
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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zinho73 wrote: There was a thread in this forum in which a guy asked if an Overlord were able to beat the heroes in the final fight. By the time I stop following, only one guy had managed to do it.
Some diamond monsters are nasty, but if the Overlord has Diamond beasts, chances are that he didn't get all his upgrades and the final fight can be even easier.
That said, everything is possible in Descent. I guess that's what makes it a good dungeon crawl. I just don't like this huge swings on a 80-hour game. The concept of the campaign appeals to me, the execution not.
If you stop to think, the fight you described is note very balanced either (although it sounded exciting).
To be more precise: the heroes killing the Overlord in gold (specially if they storm the lair in their first opportunitty) is the most common outcome of a campaign. Your experience ight be an exception, but it is no doubt unusual.
If you were referring to my post, you are completely off the mark.
The only thing you said that I can agree with is that the OL has little to no chance in the final battle.
But when the campaign reaches gold, the heroes don't magically cruise through the remaining 1/3 of the game straight to the final battle. There is still a substantial portion of the map-game to play out yet. The OL still has a significant chance of winning through raze or plot victories - probably as much or more chance than he had during copper campaign level, if he is competent.
Gold level Lts, with plenty of treachery, are very hard work. The heroes can sometimes put it all together and beat them easily, but more often it is a very hard, even fight. Especially, if the Lts are present in significant numbers (and they should be) then when they mass on Tamalir they can be very difficult to stop.
And a smart OL should have Diamond monsters in early gold in his primary monster type. And lots of treachery. And probably no Avatar upgrade because he will lose if he has to use those anyway. He'll only be short of upgrades he should have if he has been upgrading extra monster types (which is mostly wasted, since silver monsters/bosses, and even many gold monsters will still get one-shotted by Gold heroes, so they are little different as speed-bumps. And they rarely get attacks in, so having much weaker attacks with copper monsters is only a small difference (and a copper monster can still Crushing Blow a gold item)).
The fight between the Manticores and the heroes was actually very tense and exciting. You made gross assumptions on no real data. All you know is that one hero escaped only because he was able to fly through the blocking monster. That doesn't tell you anything else about the rest of the encounter (except that presumably the other 3 heroes died).
Well, they did die, but they took fought hard all the way, took out all the monsters except the leader, and the first 2 waves of reinforcements. They battle forward all the way through a very long map (from ToI) and two of them died only within a turn of escaping, one of those coming within an X of killing the Leader. But after they died the last hero was the designating party runner and couldn't output the same level of long-range damage against Soarers, so wasn't able to take on the wounded leader on his own - not with a last reinforcement coming as well. So he escaped, running through the (soaring) reinforcement which had blocked the exit.
The early part of this encounter was a huge cat-and-mouse game as the heroes advanced very slowly, but relatively safely, the middle part an all-in brawl with multiple deaths and close escapes on both sides, and the end a barely managed escape by one hero, with the Manticore Leader nearly dead, only one reinforcing other Manticore remaining and the OL completely out of threat.
It was actually probably the single most fun and best balanced non-Lt encounter we've played, and was campaign defining as the almost-out-of-resources heroes made it through, entered the Gold Legendary dungeon, cruised through that and restocked their resources (especially potions, but also critical gold weapons (AoE)) and finished the dungeon to return to Tamalir and move the campaign to final Battle (600+ CT).
It was my Big Trouble attempt to stop the heroes, because if they'd stalled with a Lost or been TPKed I had a completed seige on Tamalir with heavily treacheried up Alric (diamond Beasts) and the Dragon Lt with Transport Gem ready to use meaning an auto-raze of Tamalir at the start of the next week.
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Before this derails, in my experience (and as far as I could read in the forums):
1. Most common outcome when the Overlord wins is Tamalir Raze -and usually earlier in the campaign.
2. When gold is reached it is also very common for the heroes to have an easier time.
3. The game can have huge swings of luck (usually mixed with some overpowered combination) that severely unbalances things.
Regarding your battle with the heroes, the first descrption you gave of the fight looked like very unbalanced. The words "kick ass" are more usually used when someone, well, kicks ass. But sorry if I jumped to conclusions
But I'm not disputing anything you said, because I do believe that anything can happen in this game - balanced fights included. If you add the huge ammount of random elements and groupthinking any experience is possible.
But with a quick read through the foruns you will notice that we will have more campaigns interrupted than copmpleted. The reasons are numerous: huge lead of someone, frustration, group dissolved, wrong rules, x strategy too strong, game simply too long, etc.
I just think that people are too quick to put all of this in the "playing wrong" category. To me, it is a very clear sign that the game offers an uneven experience.
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Mark McG
Australia
Penshurst
NSW
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OK, so I am in a similar boat to Brett, but with less experience.
From the discusssion here, it seems to me that there is a strong possibility that either the OL or the heroes can have a bad start and this hopelessly prejudices the game balance for the whole campaign.
That being said, I don't really want to call these things based on a few play sessions. So it seems to me that what could be desirable is campaign viability/victory level test at the transition from Copper to Silver level. I'm guessing that this could be measured in CP, and that knowing that the transition happens at 200CP, I guess the main criteria would be the heroes score in CP
So assuming that a Hero CP score of 100 is a draw, what sort of scores could be considered marginal and decisive victories for the OL & heroes and simultaneously a test of the campagn viability.
For example, would these be reasonable reflections of the score levels?
Heroes CP total
150+ CP = Decisive Hero victory and unwinnable for the OL
120+ CP = Marginal Hero win, tough for the OL to win the campaign
90+ CP = Draw
70+ CP = Marginal OL win, tough for the heroes to win campaign
50+ CP = Decisive OL victory and unwinnable for Heroes
49- CP = Crushed
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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Minedog3 wrote: OK, so I am in a similar boat to Brett, but with less experience.
From the discusssion here, it seems to me that there is a strong possibility that either the OL or the heroes can have a bad start and this hopelessly prejudices the game balance for the whole campaign.
That being said, I don't really want to call these things based on a few play sessions. So it seems to me that what could be desirable is campaign viability/victory level test at the transition from Copper to Silver level. I'm guessing that this could be measured in CP, and that knowing that the transition happens at 200CP, I guess the main criteria would be the heroes score in CP
So assuming that a Hero CP score of 100 is a draw, what sort of scores could be considered marginal and decisive victories for the OL & heroes and simultaneously a test of the campagn viability.
For example, would these be reasonable reflections of the score levels?
Heroes CP total
150+ CP = Decisive Hero victory and unwinnable for the OL
120+ CP = Marginal Hero win, tough for the OL to win the campaign
90+ CP = Draw
70+ CP = Marginal OL win, tough for the heroes to win campaign
50+ CP = Decisive OL victory and unwinnable for Heroes
49- CP = Crushed
CP doesn't tell the 'winnable/unwinnable' story particularly well. It gives more of an indication as to how tough the journey will be than the destination IMO.
With that in mind I'd answer, very roughly, that the heroes should aim for a minimum of 70-75 CP at silver level.
That will vary a little depending on Avatar etc.
More important is the mapboard situation, as this is where the game is actually won and lost. How many Lts are active? How much treachery (and what type) does the OL have? How many cities have been razed already, or are under heavy seige? Where are the Lts? What plot stuff has been done already? Did the heroes manage to get copper SM training (or be on the cusp of getting silver SM training immediately instead).
The answers to these questions are not individually critical, but form a coherent picture that say how much trouble the heroes are in and where the campaign is headed.
Eg if there are 4 Lts out already, but few cities razed and the Lts are all off in a corner somewhere without much treachery, then the heroes are a lot better off than if there are 2-3 Lts sitting on Tamalir with 3-4 treachery, upgraded monsters and enough spare XP to upgrade again immediately.
I've been behind by around 75-125 at end of copper, and only slightly better at the end of silver (around 175-225). I did eventually concede that campaign in early gold IIRC, but I was still confident of winning the final battle, and backed myself to hold Tamalir. I resigned because I had to fight the same brutal Lt fight every week (Slaggoroth, who can attack the heroes from 3 trails away) and it was painful and boring (and my opponent had conceded his first campaign early due to 'learning errors', so that just made it 1-1).
Mind you, part of the pain was due to the amount of XP the OL had had to throw into treachery and even the 20XP spider special upgrade.
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Well alot of guys will say to you that silver and gold are easier but in truth if the overlord is ahead and has saved conquest (which he will if he is even an average guy) it means he will hit 1 to 2 upgrades immediately meaning you will probably been facing gold creatures on week 1 meaning that if his LT's are on the move or if you even try dungeons to buff on on money for items you will be slaughtered. Think of gold beasts on the 2 of the 3 LT's which have primarily beasts and you can get the picture. The wound boost that the creatures get are not trully in par with the DPS boost that the heroes get and also bear in mind that the armor of the heroes does remain quite static as at best you will get 1 or 2 max more, while the damage of the creature gets high peaks at some upgrades. Try to play againt gold beasts against the spider queen or the beastman and you will feel the pain even with 3 to 4 silver weapons. If the overlord also has treachery (which he should have) even with the all needed windpact you are in for some serious pain. For me the feats on TOI kinda balance that fact especially for RTL and i think they saw that and that is why they produced that. Most guys here i think play with TOI anyway.
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bugsnnuts wrote: Let me start this off by saying I am pretty much a rookie when it comes to Descent (and board gaming in general, this will be my first post here on The Geek) but I was hooked on the game from my first time playing, and it was actually my gateway to this new world I am now experiencing even though I doubt that is typical from this game.
Anyway one of the guys in my usual gaming group (which is only three of us most of the time) just got The Road to Legend, so earlier tonight we broke it in. The two of us playing heroes ended up with Steelhorns and Grey Ker for myself, and Battlemage Jaes and Mordrog for my buddy. I ended up with Swift for Ker and Weapon Mastery for Steelhorns. I know my buddy had Knight with Mordrog but I am blanking on the skill for Jaes. Needless to say we were fairly happy with our characters.
We decided to head to Starfall Forest from Tamilar for our first dungeon. We went in the first level and right away started getting hit pretty hard. The Overlord spawned a Skeleton Patrol to add to the monsters in the room and before we had killed the boss (which I believe was a Sorcerer with Aura 6 and some other goodies) three of the four of us had died once. We scooped up the remaining treasure (but managing to not roll any blanks from the copper chest) and headed to the second level where we thought we couldn't be worse off than we were in the first.
We were wrong.
The second level has the bridge to start out across with pits on either side. The boss here was a Razorwing with 8 extra wounds and knockback if we rolled a blank. Luck was not on our side and we rolled four blanks out of the seven times we were attacked by him. Needless to say we took heavy losses and he racked in lots of conquest. At the end of the second level (where we again received no copper treasure) we were looking at 14 conquest a piece to his 40. With a couple of us working early we decided to call it a night there.
The point of this session posting was to see if this is typically the case that the overlord racks up huge points early while the heroes struggle. Obviously we are way to early in to make any serious judgments yet but I was just curious to see if this trend is likely to continue for awhile.
Regardless I am very excited to continue the campaign it is promising to be a lot fun.
As for that post a 14 to 40 CT means the heroes pushed through a slaughterhouse and thought that all dungeons should be finished to the 3rd level meaning the campaign has ended already and should only be continued as a learning curve as if you give 40 CT on the first dungeon it's bye bye. I can only think of the upgraded beasts and treachery piling up against copper and shop items...
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