The hero and monster packs also add optional quests to the game in the form of Rumor Cards. You place it in the play area, and the heroes can choose to go on what amounts to a side quest. If they choose to do so in Act I, there will be a second one available in Act II. The expansions add heroes, character classes, monsters, new conditions, and shop items to the game. You can add those to the pool of available stuff, even if you don't play the included quest chain. Also, if I remember right,with the small box expansions (NOT Nerekhall or Labrynth) you can use rumor cards to run 2 of the expansion quests during a run through the main campaign. One last option to expand content is the Conversion Kit. It includes updated versions of all the 1st Ed. heroes and monsters. However, there are no figures included. Lastly, they re-balanced a lot of the Conversion Kit monsters and heroes when the re-released them as part of the Hero and Monster Packs. General consensus is that Nerekhall is the best big box expansion in terms of content, plus there is a Nerekhall specific quest for the Road to Legend app.

This is awesome idea IT worked out pretty well. And on the next campaign we ran, one of the guys who usually plays a warrior achetype decided to stick with being a mage.

Knowing that maybe 10% of all cards are clearly better than the other 90%, you need high numbers to build more variation into the game (if you don't deliberately make sub-optimal choices). It's like releasing two new Overlord class decks with cards vastly inferior to -say- Web Trap, no matter what is being released and how many of them, cards would still be sitting the box if there´s no incentive for selecting them compared to the old ones Some people solved that problem by various methods of random hero draws. It adds quite a bit to the challenge and strategic aspects when you can't min max the system. What we've done in the past is put a blue (healer), red (warrior), yellow (mage), and green (scout) die in a box. The players blindly pick a die, and have to choose a hero of that archetype. The last time we did this, through sheer luck, everyone ended up playing a hero that was totally against type. We decided to run CtR as a mini campaign, and I forced them to use all four of the hybrid classes.

I have 4 Sterlite file boxes, set up like so: Box 1: Map pieces. I have hanging file folders that fit into the box, each folder has map tiles arranged by 10s. 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, etc All of the end pieces, connectors, doors, and stand fit in the top part. Box 2: Monsters. I have a zip loc with the act I cards, and a zip loc with the act II cards. Then I have quart bags full of monsters. I sorted them alphabetically, and have about 6-8 groups per bag, and 8 bags. Box 3: Currently in use. Tiles for the current map, monsters in use for the encounter, objective tokens, fatigue tokens, health tokens, search cards, search tokens, NPC tokens, condition cards, active lieutenants, dice, dice box etc etc. Also, each hero has their own bag with their class and shop cards in it. Box 4. Crap I don't use. Condition tokens, plot decks, extra figures, alternate OL deck, rumor cards, secret rooms, unused heroes, unused lieutenants. Everything, and I mean everything, is in a small zip loc with a label on it. I got a pack of 100 small bags from a craft store, and a box of Avery address labels from staples. Each sheet of label paper has 30 labels, I think I used around 10 sheets, maybe 15. With this setup, I only have to mess with one box, until we start a new encounter, but even then, the only thing that changes are the monsters. I'll set up the map while the heroes get their stuff arranged. Total time to setup is about 15 minutes; teardown takes about 20. Pictures are below, minus the box of extra. http://imgur.com/a/Oh1OR