Kaare D
United States
Washington
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I have recently been given a 50 dollar gift certificate to B&N, and am trying to decide what to purchase. I only own (and have played) the core game. If it's a choice between Sea of Blood, or Tomb of Ice, which expansion should I get, and why?
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Tor Sverre Lund
Norway
Trondheim
Sør-Trøndelag
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Sea of Blood is an advanced campaign expansion, like Road to Legend, which totally changes the way the game is played. It has no new monsters, heroes, etc. It makes the overall game time a loooot longer, but lets you divide it up into several smaller pieces. Also, it must be played with 4 heroes, so your usual number of players might make the choice for you.
Tomb of Ice is more what you would expect from an expansion. It "just" expands the base game with more quests, monsters, heroes, treasures, props, etc. It also introduces a new game element, Feats, that the heroes have. So if your heroes are struggling, the consensus is that ToI is THE expansion to get that helps the heroes the most (while the two first expansions tilts it slightly more in the OL's favour).
So pick whichever you want based on that. I must mention how "broken" Sea of Blood is, though. If you read up a little about it in its forum, you will find many complaints about stuff just not working. Hopefully, this will be addressed in the final FAQ they're working on, so it's not all hopeless. (YMMV)
Also, there are tons of other threads on the "what expansion should I buy" subject:
Expansions summary
I'm going to buy more expansion can anyone suggest
Expansions
Which expansions are the best for relatively new players?
What is the best expansion?
What expansions should I get?
Which expansion?
What to buy.
Best Expansions? [POLL]
And so on, and so forth ...
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Chris Schafer
United States
Upper Brookville
New York
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ToI
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Bryce K. Nielsen
United States
Elk Ridge
Utah
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Tomb of Ice.
I really like SoB but it makes the game soooo long that you'll probably never play it. ToI is, in my opinion, the best "vanilla" expansion: the Heroes are creative, the level designs are great, the monsters interesting (a dragon that swallows heroes whole?) and you get a new nifty invisibility die, and I haven't even mentioned Feats. It's a great expansion.
-shnar
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Patrick Grogan
United States
Renfrew
Pennsylvania
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals." Agent K. Oh my what he would think of people had he known about what the internet would become.....
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Both.
Because it is descent and you need it all.
That being said:
Does your group like campaign games? Sea of blood has its issues but since they are apparently going to do one more iteration of the FAQ (or just intelligently house rule some of the problems until then) SoB is just awesome. It introduces some neat mechanics(I'm on a boat!) and just some neat dungeons and such.
TOI is a fun expansion. But it is just that; an expansion. SoB is more of a 3rd base game.(2nd being RTL which I highly recommend once the price drops).
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Adam Tucker
United States
Warren
Michigan
A game is a series of decisions; a good game is a series of interesting decisions
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corkysru wrote: Does your group like campaign games?
I like the concept of campaign games very much, but feel it has not yet been at all well done (playtested, executed, or errata'd/fixed) with Descent.
Given that the OP states that they only own (and have only played) the base game, I would never recommend Sea of Blood or Road to Legend over Well of Darkness, Altar of Despair, or Tomb of Ice.
This advice would only be more pronounced given the upcoming 2nd Edition (which claims a stated design goal of having campaign play be much easier to achieve).
corkysru wrote: Sea of blood has its issues but since they are apparently going to do one more iteration of the FAQ (or just intelligently house rule some of the problems until then) SoB is just awesome.
I thought that the most recent word on this was that they were scrapping the updated FAQ for 1st, in no small part due to the release of 2nd.
If at all possible (which is unlikely, given the upcoming 2nd Edition), I would look for WoD, or at least AoD instead of ToI.
ToI introduces Ice, Stealth (stealth die), and Ghost, all of which (especially combined) serve to make Descent longer - which it really doesn't need. Feats are indeed a good edition to the game, but on the whole, WoD and AoD give better bang for the buck.
Additionally, unless there is a time restriction on your gift certificate, you could wait until 2nd Edition comes out, catch some reviews, and make your decision then (when the additional option of picking up 2nd Edition and possibly the upgrade kit would become available).
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Jan Tuijp
Netherlands
Volendam
Noord-Holland
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tuckerotl wrote: I thought that the most recent word on this was that they were scrapping the updated FAQ for 1st, in no small part due to the release of 2nd.
Apparently the whining here on BGG helped. See this thread.
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Martin Plourde
Canada
Sherbrooke
Quebec
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At the moment, even though I have not played in a long time, I still keep up to date with material/expansions for this game, simply because I love it. I must say that I was impressed by the components of Tomb of Ice. The miniatures are gorgeous. The new monsters are varied, and the new heroes are really interesting. I would like to try the new quest. The overall them revolve around 'a tomb of ice' (doh) and it shows with the new tiles, monster types and heroes wich are themed according. IMO, it is the expansion that fit the closest to it's theme. I do not own Sea of blod yet, will probably snatch a copy soon before it is completely out of print forever, but I don't think I will have the chance to play it for a long time, unless I wait for my kids to grow up, or convice my wife to play (I'm sure she would make a cruel overlord).
Personnaly I would go for both, but if I had to choose just one, I would buy Tomb of Ice. The new material and feat cards just refresh the experience enough and is well worth the money.
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Lukasz Biernat
Poland
Dabrowa Gornicza
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ToI, stay away from those campaign bugfeats
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Kaare D
United States
Washington
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Argh! I ended up going with both!
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Bryce K. Nielsen
United States
Elk Ridge
Utah
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Oktoberkid wrote: Argh! I ended up going with both!
Congratz on your wise decision. Have some 
-shnar
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Butlerian Atreides
Netherlands
UP THE IRONS!
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Oktoberkid wrote: Argh! I ended up going with both!
Didn't we all!?
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