Kylearan said: Hi, Sausageman said: How people aren't doing damage with the Skeletons is beyond me. Even in the very first dungeon level, while the skeletons were still copper, I killed the tank with ease A skeleton has a 11% chance to do 1(!) point of damage against a hero with armor 5, which a tank usually has. In other words, it needs approximately 108 skeletons to kill a tank with 12 wounds. So what is beyond me is how anybody kills a tank using skeletons with ease? -Kylearan Why are people hating on the poor skelly's? Sure, it takes luck with skeletons to bring down the 5 armor tank when using copper level skeletons. Of course, everyone in the party would have to have 5 armor to make that matter, unless the overlord has some sort of obsession with only killing the toughest hero. And the master skeletons with the added pierce and the added power die dramatically increase the damage to the tank. And the tank can't reach the skeletons because they move too fast for his wittle feetsies. And the added time it takes the hero's to backtrack and kill skeletons which get behind them, adding spawn time to otherr monsters. Often, when I'm playing overlord, I don't even bother touching the hero(s) with the highest armor. I pleasently ignore the four conquest value and stick with the 2-3 chars. Then when the tank gives the ring of protection to the 3 cp chars, I might go after the now slightly less armored tank. Did I mention the power of crushing blow from skeletons? Cheap spawn, range shot, little extra xp to get rid of that annoying plate mail = dead tank. Skeleton's are clearly better at killing hero's and annoying hero's than Kylearan is letting on. -Puer

I think its more fun to go straight random, not even picking from three. But that's just me, not the rules.

Ah yes, Your answer is correct for RtL, the treasure drawn is distributed as if the party already had bardic lore, and bardic lore is one of the skills which is not used in RtL. I was thinking base descent, so I guess we just weren't communicating. My bad.

That's not quite correct Obaewan. When a chest is opened, and it says for example that there's one treasure, then one treasure is dealt face down to each hero. The hero's do not get to look at the treasures and decide who gets what. There is a skill called bardic lore that specifically allows that hero to look at all treasures before they are distributed and decide who gets what, but still has the requirement that all hero's get the same amount of treasure from each chest. So, lacking bardic lore, player's will most likely have to swap items after a chest is opened. However, you are perfectly correct in that when a hero receives an item they can equip it immediately, rearranging items as necessary. How and when the player received the item does not really matter.

I used to be on the "two melee" bandwagon, but having played descent many times, mostly as a hero, I have found that 1 melee character is more than sufficient, even in basic descent. Having more than one melee character tends to slow down the party, as the melee characters tend to have the lower speed. This can be countered with treasures, but this is always a tossup as to whether you will get the needed treasures. Also, since we play random hero groups in basic descent, we sometimes end up with groups that have no melee characters at all. These groups do just fine, and can often outperform traditonal 2melee, 1range, 1magic groups. The added speed of the party from dumping melee chars, and the added subterfuge skills can seriously enhance a partys ability to blast through a dungeon before the OL draws really good cards. Finnally, the fighting style in descent does not require a tank to take the hits. Often, unless the tank has bear tattoo or taunt, and usually even if he does, monsters tend to go after the weaker characters and leave the tank alone, making that nice high armor value you have instead of speed just about useless. A party made up of weaker characters which are fairly fast can stay out of touch of most monsters and kill most before they can get close enough to be effective. (An exception to this would be fighting a sorceror king with snipers. Trying to stay out of range of those skelly's will most likely prove impossible). Overall, I don't recommend not having any melee characters in a group. After all, you need someone to wield that wicked good two hander when you draw it.

I would play the feat cards on a per dungeon basis. I get the impression that the feat cards are meant as kind of an overlord deck for the hero's. So feats should not be used in outdoor encounters, just like the overlord deck is not used. For dungeons, the hero's draw feats just as if playing basic descent, and at the end of the three level dungeon, unused feats are shuffled back into the deck for the next dungeon. This will probably bump up hero power substantially, but overlords can get some downright mean treachery cards to deal with the hero's. I say let them use the feats, and show them no mercy.

The sentence was probably put in there to clarify that invulnerability potions can be purchased in basic descent. The altar of despair rules neglected to metion that the potions could be purchased in town and for what price. So this sentence clarify's basic descent, but does not change the RtL rules regarding non-use of the potions.

Gotta be, 1) Bogran the shadow, aka bogran the assassin, aka bogran the hotness with a bow 2) Varikas the Dead, aka the fatigue generating machine 3) Laurel of Bloodwood, aka, Laurel of head shots

1) Skeleton 2) Master Beastmen/Master Naga's 3) Master Bane spiders Skeleton's get a ton of kills, often able to spawn behind the hero's, and with range and piercing, hard for the hero's to deal with the constant drain on health. The command ability is the best ability for the overlord hands down as far as I am concerned. Add Command to those skeletons and they become even better. Last on the list is the web masters. Nothing like sniping a webbed hero with those pesky skeleton's. Also, as a side note, I do not own the TOI expansion, and have yet to play test those monsters.

I concur, hope to see the answered and unanswered sticky transfered over