Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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I'll try and stick to the format of other reports that I found to be excellent, for example by PaulGrogan and edroz (and many others I missed). And I will adopt links to www.descentinthedark.com as that makes it easier to look things up, thanks corkysru for that idea.
So (+X) indicates Conquest Tokens CT for the heroes, [+X] indicates CT for the overlord.
Red highlighted text will be used for possible rule problems we had and blue highlighted text will mark personal comments (will change color some time later due to blue being the inherent link color; ← don't think this will happen, don't have enough internet time on my hands). We're playing with Altar of Despair and Tomb of Ice.
Previously: Session 1, Session 2, Session 3, Session 4, Session 5, Session 6
We finally tackled the rumor level “Hunting the Wyrm”. It was great fun, a close battle, nice evening all around. Until my first week after the rumor… Several people might frown and think I played well but I don't agree because all of us are missing the fun.
At beginning of session:
CONQUEST TOKENS: Heroes: 104, OL: 15/71; Total: 175
Player 1 (Andira): {Quick Casting}; Cone of Fire, Wizard’s Robe, Mana Weave, Crystal of Tival, (Immolation Rune, Voodoo Doll); 1 black 2 silver dice
Player 2 (Varikas): {Able Warrior, Tiger Tattoo}; Bone Blade, Morningstar, Chain Mail, Belt of Strength, Ring of Protection (2 Iron Shields, Ripper)
Player 3 (Landrec): {Vampiric Blood, Marksman}; Staff of the Grave, Wizard’s Robe, Ring of Quickness, Ghost Armor, (Crystallize, Leather Armor)
Player 4 (Ronan): {Shadow Soul, Swift}; Dwarven Firebomb, Crystal Shield, Cloak of Deception, Bag of Holding, Archer's Charm, (Mace of Kellos, Falcon’s Claw, Backbiter, Leather Armor)
Heroes at Gate to the North. They have ca. 4600 gold, Staff of the Wild and Enchanted Ship.
OL Avatar: Demon Prince, XP: 15/71
Plot: Obsidian Shackles
OL Upgrades: Sir Alric F. (at Tamalir), Endless Hunger, Silver Eldritch, Lord Merrick F. (at Thelsvan Highway), Kar-Amag-Atoth (at Nerekhall), Event Treachery (1)
City Status:
Greyhaven razed, Nerekhall at 4 tokens
Week 16 continued
Gate to the North Level 3 – Rumor: Hunting the Wyrm
The following description will contain minor spoilers about the rumor level, so decide for yourself if you want to read it.
In the first area are five monsters (two skeletons from Hordes of Things included). Andira tries to catch most of them (all skeletons) in a Breath attack but I deny her that opportunity with a Crushing Block trap. So she attacks the shade but can't kill it. Landrec misses, Varikas kills two Skeletons and Ronan doesn't do enough damage so I get some attacks with the remaining monsters. A pleasant surprise for me. Andira and Landrec are my prime targets, as always.
On the second turn everything dies, of course and they reveal the next area. I'm almost too ashamed to tell you, I missed placing two master shades! And I was studying the level beforehand and looking forward to their pierce 5, excellent against Varikas. Something like that shouldn't happen, and for once I can't accuse my hero players of not reminding me. The area is pretty packed with monsters, lots of skeletons of course and lovely shades. The ice right behind the door hinders them to reach any monsters. I spawn beastmen (for the command only) and move into striking distance but out of easy reach. Varikas goes first, jumping the ice and trying to kill two monsters. I play Crushing Block again and push him back onto the ice, where he doesn't slip and just picks up the coin pile. But this was really rather a bait move for me as now Andira is Carried by Air and fires off two attacks up and down the corridor, catching almost all monsters. Fortunately for me she misses the second one. I fell for a trap but it was a great move. Admittedly this one time I didn't know anything since they send me out of the room to plan all this. I said earlier that I think it's easier for the OL if four people discuss their moves at length and he then knows exactly where to disrupt them. What do you think about that “mechanic”? And because of missing I can focus all attacks on her, even the wendigos from the upper room, and kill her [+3]. Landrec only needs some hits so I kill him, too [+3]. Now the heroes are mopping up this area, activating only one glyph (+3) to keep the CT low and gathering treasure (Pacify, for Andira). Then they get ready for the final area. Their biggest problem here is all the ice right behind the door again. The sight of two ice wyrms (1 normal, one master) doesn't exactly make them happy, either. But they find a great solution. Andira jumps into the room first and attacks the normal wyrm with the Pacify rune, putting a stun token on it. Her second attack hits the master wendigo also stunning him. Landrec shows his amazing firepower and attacks the master wyrm twice, spending all his fatigue on the first attack for a total of 15 wounds. His damage potential is 6-15 without any fatigue, with it he can reach 6-22! The wendigo is killed by Ronan right afterwards, so maybe Andira's second stun would have been better on the wyrm. Or not, as I saved a Dark Balm for this area (I was thinking for a counter for the web weapon, though). I spawn beastmen again (behind the rubble) and the wyrms attacks and almost kills Andira, but I need to use two skeletons to finish her [+3]. As the others stayed in the doorway, the master ice wyrm can't get close enough to swallow anyone so he just attacks. Andira comes in to stun the normal wyrm again, Ronan kills a beastman and passes the web weapon to Varikas. Varikas was pretty useless so far, too slow to reach the little monsters and ineffective against the wyrms due to them having ghost. Now he wants to guard-interrupt the master wyrm and hold it in place with a web. But all my little monsters focus on him and a skeleton manages to wound him, thus dropping the guard. The raged master wyrm then attacks him with a Critical Strike I was saving exactly for a situation like this and hurt him pretty badly down to one wound. The second attack swallows Landrec with around 5 wounds remaining. Swallow seems unnecessarily strong to the heroes, basically doing damage twice, once from the attack itself and then at the start of the heroes turn. With their biggest and only damage dealer gone for some time this could turn into a slaughter. Ronan does 8 max damage/12 with fatigue, Andira 10/14 and Varikas 12/17 (but he can't hurt the wyrm). No power potions as we don't have WoD means those max damage rolls are all one-time only. The wyrm has 6 armor and ironskin, so by no means an easy enemy for those three. Landrec doesn't really want to die and give up the CT but he is needed outside. We played he could use the MP from Ring of Quickness to drink a fatigue potion, thus buying him time in the belly by using his ghost armor. He also equipped and used the voodoo doll. Rules for swallow say he can only make one attack. And as a sidenote: Do you have to unequip your weapon to make an unarmed attack? We played he could keep his staff equipped. Him hitting from the inside allows the others to kill the wyrm (+4), he also plays the voodoo doll and discards a curse. The reward goes to Varikas, who now has Ironskin. With 5 armor (possibly 6 soon with better armor) regular silver eldritch can hardly hurt him at all (Skeletons do 6 damage max, sorcerers and shades 7). They now are scrambling to get out, Varikas and Landrec are at 1 health, Ronan at 2, Andira at 11. On their way they open the second chest (+1) and I cycle the deck [+3]. We’re now at 195 CT total, I can’t realistically push it over 200 but if I get one more kill worth 3 CT, secret training in copper will be impossible even if I fail the raze roll. I try to get Ronan but he is dodging with an invisibility potion that had stayed on him for 3-4 turns already. Therefore I miss my attacks and the heroes escape and choose to stay.
LEVEL SUMMARY: 13 turns; Heroes: +8 (112), +1550 gold, +3 potions, OL: +12 (27/83); Total: +20 (195)
DUNGEON SUMMARY: 30 hero turns, 27 OL turns; Heroes: +22 (112), ca. +4200 gold, OL: +25 (27/83); Total: +47 (195)
Week 17
[+2] (29/85) and Nerekhall stands *grrr*. Much rejoicing on the hero side. Now the fateful move: Alric sieges Tamalir +1 siege token (now at one) and Merick moves back to support him. Two lieutenants at Tamalir, heroes heavily wounded and silver level (and with it, stronger lieutenants) just looming around the corner. Right away the mood drops into a bottomless pit. I even forget to buy any upgrade. We stop our evening to swallow this bitter pill.
At end of session:
CONQUEST TOKENS: Heroes: 112, OL: 29/85; Total: 195
Player 1 (Andira): {Quick Casting}; Cone of Fire, Wizard’s Robe, Mana Weave, Crystal of Tival, (Pacify); 1 black 2 silver dice
Player 2 (Varikas): {Able Warrior, Tiger Tattoo}; Bone Blade, Morningstar, Chain Mail, Belt of Strength, Ring of Protection (2 Iron Shields)
Player 3 (Landrec): {Vampiric Blood, Marksman}; Staff of the Grave, Wizard’s Robe, Ring of Quickness, Ghost Armor, (Crystallize, Leather Armor)
Player 4 (Ronan): {Shadow Soul, Swift}; Dwarven Firebomb, Crystal Shield, Cloak of Deception, Bag of Holding, Archer's Charm, (Mace of Kellos, Falcon’s Claw, Backbiter, Ripper, Leather Armor)
Heroes at Gate to the North. They have 3950 gold, Staff of the Wild, Enchanted Ship and Kerak’s Map.
OL Avatar: Demon Prince, XP: 29/85
Plot: Obsidian Shackles
OL Upgrades: Sir Alric F. (at Tamalir), Endless Hunger, Silver Eldritch, Lord Merrick F. (at Tamalir), Kar-Amag-Atoth (at Nerekhall), Event Treachery (1)
City Status:
Greyhaven razed, Nerekhall at 4 tokens, Tamalir at 1 token
Comments:
Let me explain myself: During our sessions I was planning to use a siege on Tamalir as a distraction, basically force them to abandon secret master training to save Tamalir. I totally forgot about the silver stats of the lieutenants. Looking at them they seem really strong especially right at the beginning when the heroes don’t have any silver items yet. So instead of a distraction they now pose an almost impossible challenge and seem like a foregone campaign loss. I even wanted to move Merick to Riverwatch and Alric to Dawnsmoor to threaten multiple cities at once but the 3 failed raze in a row made my brain a little fuzzy, I guess. Anyway, that one move took all our fun we had that day away. I know that sieging Tamalir exactly at a campaign level change is a strong move by the OL. I purposely didn’t want to play that way. Winning by siege is fine, I guess, but I feel the heroes must have a fighting chance. Right now, I can barely see it. Since it’s not silver yet they have one last shot, and at full health they might even succeed, but hurt like they are… I feel it’s a road too steep for them. What are their options, please offer any ideas you might have? Do you think our lack of power potions could be crucial (corbon said somewhere that beating Kar-Amag-Atoth almost requires the use of power potions)? I’d say having only one hard-hitting hero in Landrec is not enough to take out Alric at silver, the wyrm was hard enough (although they did kill it). This lack of damage output is what discourages them the most. They are using good tactics, I think, Ronan running around fast and Varikas blocking (although he could have moved into that last room a little earlier, he was hanging back because he “couldn’t hit anything” which was, first of all, wrong and, second, is not his only purpose) but can’t put out enough focus damage to reliably kill big baddies.
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joel cuthbert
United States
fort collins
Colorado
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first i find it really weird that no one has ghost armor, on someone like landrec with a curse on him, it is really powerful.
second, i really think you hinder yourself without playing with all the expansions. not having certain potions or feats/treachery/skills/weapons can be a game changing thing. i have read other session reports with players not playing with TOI and they got slaughtered because of no feats.
lastly, they have options. they can run back to tamalir and fight one of the lieutenants before switching to silver, in fact they can fight both. remember to kill your wounded on purpose, so you are at full health for the second part. this will break into the silver level, but the campaign doesn't change until the start of the next game week. they can travel to korina's tears and do the dungeon there, flee end their movement in tamalir, and buy town wall to increase defense. this will unfortunately break into silver level. or you can house rule that a certain number of cities need to be razed before a tamalir raze, and take back your lt. movements if you really wish to prolong the campaign.
if you are using ronan as a runner and landrec/andira as firepower, what in the world is varikas doing, he is severely gimping his party? being defensive in this game doesn't really help. there have been multiple times where you have cycled through your deck, imo this shouldn't be happening. it is ok for varikas to take a run action and get in the face of some monsters. give the ring of protection to someone else, does anyone even attack varikas?
i am not sure the hero party is aloud to send the OL out so they can discuss tactics, i thought that everything is out in the open. it makes sense for the OL not to know the hero's full plans though. i did this at first, but was corrected by my OL the second time we played.
good luck
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Corbon Loughnan
Singapore
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The heroes have themselves to blame for lack of damage output. I can see only 1 upgrade (Astarra's 2 silver dice) that they have trained that focuses on damage.
Tiger Tattoo for Varikas? Really? It is an excellent skill, but you expect your melee hero to have a high damage output when he can use it and Varikas is already behind the 8-ball, lacking a dice. And that on top of his poor option taking Able Warrior in the first place.
You simply can't afford to have 2 not-combat heroes, and they have. They have chosen to have a pure runner and a pure tank - which means, especially dangerously, both of their combat heroes use the same weapon type - they will be thoroughly screwed if the OL can concentrate some Crushing Blows on Magic weapons while they draw everything else except Magic weapons from the treasure decks...
Even Landrec wasted his upgrade with Marksman (IMO). Sure, 3 extra range is nice, and can make a difference quite often, but it doesn't help the way extra damage output would against the tough stuff (which is the most important).
Swift with Ronan is obviously intended to make him an out and out runner. Yet Ronan already has Shadow Soul. The two skills have no synergy at all, and almost an anti-synergy. Shadow Soul allows a hero to get to or from unusual places or through monsters etc, and creates a different form of 'runner' - slower, but able to get into (or out of) awkward places. If the same hero is also extremely fast, then using the slower shadow soul (it can;t run, or send fatigue, so it is a strict 5 space/turn) to move forward is giving up the speed, and using it to move backward is pretty much wasted since it only happens at the start o his turn, so the OL will get a full turn at him when he exposes/isolates himself forward. Shadow Soul is best effectively turning a combat oriented hero into a semi-runner with a single skill, so Ronan would have been better advised, having taken Shadow Soul, to aim at being a combat beast. Eagle Eye or Wild Talent would have been better choices, given Shadow Soul.
I hope they are at least using Pico on the mages?
In summary, it looks very much to me like the heroes have made choices that give them tactical options at the expense of punch.
Now they need punch.
Too bad. 
They should have enough cash and XP to train at Tamalir before they take on the Lts. They can also upgrade Tamalir's defenses, which will give them more time to do another dungeon (maybe) and get some silver weapons and make sure they are well stocked with potions.
As far as I can see, they appear to be very soft, morale wise - a great fun evening with a close battle (your words) descended into a bottomless pit (your words again) just because they looked at something hard coming up and think they might lose soon? 
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Sebastian D.
Germany
Berlin
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Hmm, I can't get the spoiler tags to work, I'll just change it to a warning.
Since most of the stuff is copy-paste, I just forgot to put the Ghost Armor info in, Landrec has it. I'll even mention it in the report, go figure...
Playing with all expansions is not possible, the german WoD is out of print for about 1,5 years now. The reprint is coming, supposedly, so I'd rather not add an english version to my collection. We did talk about allowing power potions (using the token from AuD's invulnerability) but they were against using stuff we don't offically have.
duhtch wrote: lastly, they have options. they can run back to tamalir and fight one of the lieutenants before switching to silver, in fact they can fight both. remember to kill your wounded on purpose, so you are at full health for the second part. this will break into the silver level, but the campaign doesn't change until the start of the next game week. they can travel to korina's tears and do the dungeon there, flee end their movement in tamalir, and buy town wall to increase defense. this will unfortunately break into silver level. or you can house rule that a certain number of cities need to be razed before a tamalir raze, and take back your lt. movements if you really wish to prolong the campaign. I came up with that idea and already told them about going back to fight against copper lieutenants, maybe even risk an encounter before to get the wounded ones killed. After that lieutenant fight they could upgrade the walls. They couldn't do that after fleeing from Korinas Tears and as you say the lieutenants would already be silver then.
Varikas is doing some damage but as a melee he has to move a lot also. Tiger Tattoo came up in the initial draw for Varikas and was put aside as you know. After playing Tahlia with it last time, Player 2 just liked it too much and thought it would help his slowness. When training in Frostgate, they were trying to get as much out of it as the could, only Swift for Ronan seemed not enough, dice are unfortunately not an option there. Maybe Landrec would have been a better choice for Tiger Tattoo, especially because the mages decided to put Spiritwalker (once they get it) on Andira?
Landrec had the choice then between Inner Fire and Marksman and I also believe he should have taken Inner Fire.
And no, they are not using Pico on the mages, Ronan is happy to be able to kill stuff occasionally with Pico's help  . You're right, I think, it would be more efficient to let Ronan just use tactical weapons like the Falcon's Claw and not worry about damage. But that would further stress the reliance on only magic heroes for damage. There will be no danger of Crushing Blow, though, as we don't have WoD  .
corbon wrote: They should have enough cash and XP to train at Tamalir before they take on the Lts. They can also upgrade Tamalir's defenses, which will give them more time to do another dungeon (maybe) and get some silver weapons and make sure they are well stocked with potions. They do, but training will have them face silver lieutenants. Alric's unpiercable 7 armor will probably only be reliably overcome by Landrec which is not enough I think.
corbon wrote: As far as I can see, they appear to be very soft, morale wise - a great fun evening with a close battle (your words) descended into a bottomless pit (your words again) just because they looked at something hard coming up and think they might lose soon? Ahh, maybe i was overexaggerating on the "bottomless pit" part, just my way of humorously dealing with that disappointment . But maybe, and I know you should never even think like that, us playing Descent as a substitute for our pen-and-paper RPG is not always the right choice. Although we were a pretty combat-oriented group while playing RPG, meaning our battles on a hex-grid were always way more fun for all of us than a detective plot in a wilderness settlement .
Anyway, thanks for the replies so far!
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Unfortunately for your heroes, Corbon is right. By choosing almost exclusively "intelligent" (tactical) upgrades (more speed, regaining fatigue, etc.) and leaving the "dumb" (brute force enhancing) upgrades aside, they ended choosing dumbly. None of the 7 power-enhancing upgrades (Weapon Mastery, Prodigy, Master Archer, Mighty, Inner Fire, Eagle Eye and the best of them all, Blessing) have been taken, and there are only 2 dice upgraded between the whole team. On top of that, their main damage dealer is easy to kill, which is deadly in encounters with Lieutenants.
I am also playing Varikas the Dead in our current campaign (Sea of Blood), and almost fell for the same trap when choosing my starting skill. I was hesitating between Nimble and Weapon Mastery. None of us had drawn Shark Tattoo, so I was looking at the huge sea map and wondering if I should take the "bad" swim skill (Nimble) so we could do something against Lieutenants... Then I remembered I was the only Melee fighter, and when there is only one Melee fighter, his main job is to hit as hard as possible, because someone has to be able to take out the bosses in not too many hits!
So I took Weapon Mastery, and would have taken Mighty if I'd had to. But I agree that for a gamer, it is hard to take the "dumb" option, even if it is actually the wise one!
I do however think your heroes should not give up yet. Heck, we are playing Sea of Blood and are having fun, even though in that game heroes have close to 0% chance of winning! 
If you start a new campaign however, I would advise against choosing an Avatar who is close to Tamalir, because it gets really hard for the heroes if the OL plays a Tamalir rush competitively. Sorcerer King, Great Wyrm and Sorceress Queen are ok. Demon Lord and Titan are too close, as is the Beastman Lord because he has 5 Lieutenants, with Kratz coming back so quickly.
In terms of campaign balance, I think the best Avatar to play is the Great Wyrm. His ability should allow him not to fall too far behind, and the final fight can be closer than most.
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Slyvanian Frog
United States
Lakeville
Minnesota
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I would only add that you should consider playing this like a game instead of a roleplaying experience. Yes, it is nice to have the "epic" game sometimes that plays out just perfectly. But Descent is, first and foremost, a game between essentially two "players" (Heroes as a group and the Overlord).
If the Overlord razes Tamalir, congratulate each other for a good game, set it up again, and see if the Heroes can stop it from happening next time.
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Posted Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:54 pm
