As buggy as the Quest Compendium sounds, I think I'll avoid it until there is a second printing.

When finding a chest in RTL you get a single treasure for each blank rolled. Not one for each party member. Likewise, if you roll 100 coins, that's 100 coins for the party as a whole, not for each hero. If you roll no blanks (no treasure) then the party gets one CT.

Yeah, I definitely need to figure out general expected cashflow over the course of the game, compare that to RTL, and adjust prices accordingly.

I haven't read the brother against brother card, but unless the effect says that it is a "lingering effect" then, even if it can happen over the course of time, it isn't a lingering. Remember, there is a section in the RTL book that lists the lingering effects of the game. If it isn't there, and isn't specified as a lingering effect, then it isn't one no matter how much similarity to one it has. If it is a lingering effect, then it would render the plot card useless.

I'll admit I was really shocked at the $100 price tag, as I'm really interested in version 3. I think the card-based format and visual aides would actually get my group to play, whereas we never played 2.0 even though two of us bought all the books. However, I bet I'll be able to get it at a 3rd party place for $15-20 cheaper after shipping, and then it isn't sooo bad. It's just something that I'm going to have to budget for instead of something I can pick up just because.

niarBaD said: Since the second they step there they get webbed and can no longer spend any movement points, but at the same time the other hero is occupying it so logic says they wouldn't be able to move past that space at all and I effectively sealed them into that corner until the hero in the front breaks free from the web or dies. Can't heroes move through each other, but just not end their movement on top of each other? But more importantly, the no diagonals on corners may make logical sense (if your thinking of the situation being as close to what would simulate reality the best), the mechanics of the game are built to allow movement in this manner, and so levels are designed accordingly. Changing that does indeed screw up this level to some degree, which is a risk that you take when changing the base rules. If everyone in your group is fine with those house-rules, then they shouldn't be too upset when they come back to bite them in the butt.

Antistone said: SamVimes said: So you won because of a lucky skill draw? I can see the level being easier with a good skill draw...but that shouldn't make it impossible without something like acrobat, shadow-soul, etc. While I certainly agree with the sentiment, it should probably be noted that you're more likely to have at least one of the many mobility-related skills (Acrobat, Shadow Soul, Skilled, Swift, Telekinesis, Tiger Tatoo, Water Pact) than none of them, at least in most parties. The party starts with quite a few skills between them. Having no good skills is an unusual case. True, having no good skills is super unlikely. And we had some good skills and a hero with a great combination of skills for shooting everything to pieces. We just didn't have a single movement skill, which did kind of blow. I just don't love the idea that without good skills the quest becomes super-ridiculously difficult. That said, I'm really looking forward to taking another crack at this level. I just don't see us winning unless we get a good movement skill.

Antistone said: If you force the heroes to finish quests with nothing higher than copper treasures, or if you let them start quests with gold treasures, you've pretty thoroughly broken the quests no matter what order you do them in. Do you have some master plan for handling that? Also, while there is some story connectedness between quests in a single box, most of them are unrelated to each other, and even most of the ones that are related are written such that you could insert other quests between them as long as you did them in the right order. So jumping back and forth between boxes a bit probably wouldn't be a problem as long as you're moderately careful about it. Well, I'm not really convinced that the quests would be "broken" due to treasure levels as the monsters are going to be RTL stats (from copper to Diamond as usual, to keep up with the heroes) and with the spawn marker the heroes should avoid being overly swamped. Yes, this will make some quests easier/harder, but the goal of the quests change from "beat the heroes" to "milk as much CT as possible" on this level. One note: There are a number of quests that end abruptly (such as the collapsing mine one), and for those I think awarding the overlord 4 CT (the general reward for killing the main baddy in a vanilla game) is appropriate for stopping the heroes. As for the story connectedness, yes, you are right that I can mesh the expansions together if I do it intelligently without disturbing the "flow" of the fairly loose narrative.

Corbon said: SamVimes said: The reason I want to know the general difficulty of the quest sets is I'm planning on making a progressive campaign somewhat similar to RTL using the quests. There's about 530-ish guaranteed CT throughout all the quests ignoring the starting CT for each quest, so 600 rounded (for chest CT) multiplied by 2 for overlord gain to give around 1200 CT. That's twice the combined CT needed to kick a RTL campaign into final battle, so doubling XP cost of everything (haven't looked at money totals yet, but I'm guessing it is fairly similar) would allow the game to be played as a hybrid style campaign. However, as the quest sets use a progressive story, I'm loath to break them up to get a totally linear difficulty curve. How will you solve the problems of no overland map to a) put time pressure on the heroes, b) restrict their training freedoms, c) give Lts something (important) to do, d) allow the OL Plot options. Further, most of the quests are already balanced with (by?) treachery. There are other issues to be aware of too, but they are much more minor and solvable. A couple of initial thoughts on those points a) Haven't thought about this yet, but as there aren't rumors/legendary areas/secret training a number of the objectives the heroes have, and therefore the need of an overlord to put time pressure on them isn't there as much. This does essentially mean that the campaign is a CT grab, with an inevitable Avatar battle at the end. b) Thinking of allowing one "week's" action between dungeons, and having skill dealt randomly if they are purchased. This does however screw with character building and can lead to some useless heroes, so admittedly a better option is for there to be some predictable manner for the heroes to gain skills. Perhaps drawing a pool of skills available to purchase/train that "week" similar to how treasure cards are already drawn. c) This is a tricky point I've been thinking of all day. A possible solution is allowing all LT's to be purchased and allow the Overlord to replace a dungeon leader with an LT he's purchased. Definitely need more time to figure this one out, but the earliest this campaign would start is in about 2 months, 3 more likely. d) This campaign wouldn't be plot driven, just an inevitable Avatar clash at the end. The 1200 CT threshold should be reached before all the standard quests are finished, and the remainder would be pure avatar power-building to lessen the un-epic final battle. This campaign is definitely more a dungeon crawl than RTL. It is true that currently the quests are balanced towards treachery, but the treasure chests also give a great deal more loot, powering up the heroes. Also, the basic objective of the quests changes from flat-out defeating the heroes and winning the quest to milk as much CT as possible during the level. This may make some quests easier, and others perhaps harder, but I don't see that as much different than drawing a hard/easy dungeon level in the first place.

The reason I want to know the general difficulty of the quest sets is I'm planning on making a progressive campaign somewhat similar to RTL using the quests. There's about 530-ish guaranteed CT throughout all the quests ignoring the starting CT for each quest, so 600 rounded (for chest CT) multiplied by 2 for overlord gain to give around 1200 CT. That's twice the combined CT needed to kick a RTL campaign into final battle, so doubling XP cost of everything (haven't looked at money totals yet, but I'm guessing it is fairly similar) would allow the game to be played as a hybrid style campaign. However, as the quest sets use a progressive story, I'm loath to break them up to get a totally linear difficulty curve.

mc-hemmer said: Its all about speed, dont worry so much about clearing a room but worry more about getting ahead. Heros are faster than monsters and eventually all the monsters trailing you will end up falling off the map. And the game i played and beat it on one of our heros had water pact so he could knock any monster that was blocking us out of the way. That skill was what got us past the ogre room. So you won because of a lucky skill draw? I can see the level being easier with a good skill draw...but that shouldn't make it impossible without something like acrobat, shadow-soul, etc.

We ran almost the whole time and only killed the monsters that were blocking the path...but the overlord played smart and crowded all his monsters to act a speed bumps instead of attacking with them. We luckily were able to diffuse 2 traps with feats that would have ended the game earlier (an ice floor and a web 'splosion). The problem with the twisty corridor is that the OL can pack it to the brim with trash that the party has to slog through. Removing LOS in area 3 is almost impossible in one turn, especially if the corridor is loaded with trash.

I'm curious what the ranking of the expansions (WoD, AoD, TOI) and JITD in terms of dungeon difficulty. Just looking through the books I'd think it would be JITD, TOI, AoD, and then WoD, but we haven't played all of them yet (or even that many. Mostly RTL), so I'd appreciate some input from more experienced players.

Last night we took a break from our campaign to play vanilla descent for a change (and so I could be a hero instead of an overlord). We played the first quest in WoD; the one that has a collapsing mine. We drew our starting heroes randomly using the RTL method, and the party ended up being Ispher (me), Mordok, Karnak, and Silhouette (whose skills of quick shot and the +2 fatigue made her a room clearing beast). We started off really well, making it to the third room by the third turn. This is where things went to hell for us. First, the overlord played the treachery kobolds for speed bumping us, which slowed us down by way to much. It took us a little over 3 turns to make it out of the room, by which time the falling mine started catching up to us. Then the next section (the long bendy section with a couple of ogres) proved to be our undoing. We ended up getting stuffed by Kobolds, Blood apes the overlord played, and an ogre stepping on top of the unactivated glyph making it so we'd have to kill him first to activate it. So...we start hacking our way through the minimum to clear a path to for me to run and hopefully kill the ogre and activate the glyph. Unfortunately, one of our characters was killed by a trap, and another fell off the map when we had no more glyphs to bring us back. Then I did something stupid. I opened a chest and got turned into a monkey, completely sealing our fate . We had a blast, but even if I hadn't been stupid I doubt we would have made it. Aside from an unfortunately unavoidable time-crunch in the room with the Ogre and bottomless pit, and me being silly at the end, we were making great time. My question is, aside from the overlord not drawing a large number spawn card (which is pure luck), and my idiotic mistake at the end (which at that point we were more than likely screwed anyways. It just took our last hope), what can the heroes do to beat this level? Get Lucky?

I believe the license that FFG has says they can't produce miniatures, only board game pieces (which are almost the same). However, as a large part of quest demands a supplemental miniatures from GW (It's basically an in-road to their core games), I'm guessing that the license prohibits FFG from making quest.

What about the other promo figures (which I believe were for the Spanish RTL)?

If the components are as nice as these for WH Quest if it comes out, I'll definitely be picking it up. However, I have little interest in Space Marines and 40k in general so this'll get a pass from me.

I'll suggest that to my group as well. It seems easy enough to me, but as I won't be reprising my role as overlord in this next campaign, and the guy who's going to be taking over has never been an overlord before, he may not be able to take full advantage. That said, I think it's a pretty good suggestion.

SoylentGreen said: 5. So the re-roll wouldn't jsut be limited to the player - but his familiar as well then? Player is different than hero, but check the wording of the beastman fetish card to make sure it does say player and not hero

SoylentGreen said: To help clarify - We played the first quest for the base game - but we have the expansions - so all the treachery and feats... etc. We ran into a couple of problems. As one might expect. when adding all the stuff from the expansions to the base game. 1. Reach vs. Ghost. So ghost is immune to melee attacks from adjacent spaces - so the question is for reach - it is a melee attack - but it isn't technically adjacent. SO - does a melee attack with reach hit a figure with Ghost? 2. Precision - "You may ignore 1 figure or obstacle when tracing line of sight for a Ranged or Magic attack." - in the first quest for the base game - in area 3 there is a pillar that has fallen over - so it makes 3 spaces of rubble. CAN a player with precision shoot through all three spaces? So: charater -----> [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] ---> monster Does precision make it through all that rubble - the piece used is technically one piece. 3. Leap vs. Guard. So the Blood Gorilla can leap - does a player with Guard active get to interrupt the leap attack (mid-flight technically) and attack before the leap would hit? 4. Furr the Spirit Wolf. Does he have a ranged attack? He technically uses the white die - and that has a modifier for range... So can Furr technically hit up to 3 spaces if you hit with the right side of the white die - all the definition says is: "Furr can attack once per turn (before, after, or during his movement), rolling 1 white die, and his attack ignores armor." 5. Furr the Spirit Wolf and Beastman Fetish. Beastman Fetish allows the player with the card to re-roll one die - can the player use Beastman Fetish to allow Furr - his familiar - a re-roll? 6. Manticore - really? Big ass wings!! No fly ability??? 1. Reach: as per the ghost rules in the TOI rulebook, reach can hit a ghost as long as the two models are not adjacent. 2. I believe it was FAQ'ed and the answer is yes, you can shoot through the rubble piece even thought it is 3 spaces. 3. Don't remember, look in the FAQ. There's a bunch of stuff on leap. 4. I'm pretty sure that Furr's attack is melee (It may be in the FAQ). He also needs to be in 5 spaces and LOS of his master to attack from the FAQ (though this could be RTL only) 5. I'd say so as I believe the Beastman Fetish says the player can re-roll one dice during his turn. 6. Same with the dragon and demon.

I didn't mean to seem insulting or make anything personal of it. I just don't think your suggestion is a very good idea, especially as I'd indicated that I'm looking for a simple fix. It doesn't need to be perfect, but I would prefer any suggestions to be simple. The rewards as if there were 4 players is a simple and interesting suggestion for example.

Captain Bones looks pretty awesome for sea battles. +25% wounds on his ships, 1 extra sail raised (whatever that means in game) and cannons that do +2 range and +1 damage. Sounds pretty awesome to me! I've been pleasantly surprised with the Demon Prince (I drew randomly) as the cheaper event card threat cost is really nice, and 10 cards in a hand is more useful (and used more often) than I'd have guessed.

TheFlatline said: SamVimes said: Right now my group is knee-deep into our first RTL game with me as overlord, but we're already talking about our next adventure. The only problem is that we have another player who wants to join (for 5 heroes). I've read a number of suggestions on how to handle 6 players (most of which turn into having a shared overlord approach which has already been rejected by the group), but nothing I have read feels right yet. An idea I had was to allow the overlord two silver at copper, two gold at silver, etc. That's it. It's simple and direct, but would it work? Nah. Go back to core Descent. Look at each of the baddies, and look at how they progress from 2-5 players. There's almost certainly a formula in this. Movement never changes, it looks like armor rarely does. Look at Beastman. HP goes from two to five players as 2, 2, 3, and tops out at 4. Looks to me like 5 heroes could bump up to 5 health, maybe 6 if they crop easier than before. Same with reds. Six player would be 4 move, six health, 3 armor. There's your copper template. Now look at the jump from copper to silver for beastman. Copper is 4, 4,2 for a common, silver is 4, 8, 3, gold is 4, 12, 4, and diamond is 4, 16, 5. See a pattern there? Add 4 health, give an extra point of armor. I'd just apply the same formula to the "new" copper, and maybe an extra single health at each level of the game if they seem too weak. Special abilities scale extremely linear, so that's not an issue. See? I just finished Beastman. Now you get to do the rest. Basically, you're going to need a spreadsheet to draw up new monsters for the entire game. It's a lot of detailed work, and some basic math/pattern recognition, but it's easily doable. I bet an afternoon with your cards, a piece of scratch paper, and Excel (or Google spreadsheet) will do the trick. Don't forget to increase the XP thresholds from copper to silver to gold by 25% since you're adding a new hero (which means what 250, 500, and 750?) since they'll be getting XP 25% faster. The OL will generate more threat, so that's not an issue. The Avatar and Lt's that you can recruit will need to be buffed, and that's the hardest thing to do. The Avatar is simply a diamond whatever with some buffs, which may need a little extra oomph due to the extra guy, but be conservative in buffing your Avatar. The Lt's are the hardest part, since they don't have any real reference to pre-existing characters. Use your judgement, and again, if you have to, err on the conservative side, and tell the players that with their help, you may be statting up any of the NPCs if they seem particularly weaker than they should be. The only other thing I could possibly think of is to throw in one extra white mob for each spawn. Otherwise there's not a lot of threat in the spawns any more. So your suggestion is to change well over 20 different things, some of which there is nothing to base those changes on, one of which seems completely random (threshhold change) and make a ton of cards useless, vs. a simpler change. While the change I suggested may not be the right one, changing that many different things all at once would almost certainly screw something up.

Antistone said: mordak5 said: sheesh, so blast can take out 8 monsters all standing round an empty square, seems a bit over powered to me. Not quite (unless you have more than 1 rank of Blast). The hero has to have LOS to the target space, which isn't possible if it's surrounded on all sides by monsters.. Not quite. There is a skill that lets a hero ignore one figure or obstacle to draw LOS to his target. It's still require the OL to make a 3X3 block of something though, which I doubt.

Right now my group is knee-deep into our first RTL game with me as overlord, but we're already talking about our next adventure. The only problem is that we have another player who wants to join (for 5 heroes). I've read a number of suggestions on how to handle 6 players (most of which turn into having a shared overlord approach which has already been rejected by the group), but nothing I have read feels right yet. An idea I had was to allow the overlord two silver at copper, two gold at silver, etc. That's it. It's simple and direct, but would it work?