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Indalecio

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Posts posted by Indalecio

  1. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    My playgroup normally clears a whole quest in one play session of 2-3 hours, being two small encounters or one big one (although usually rounding up after 2 hours in that case), including the campaign phase. Some encounters take even less time to complete. These sessions are still full of discussions between the heroes for addresing both the heroes' overall strategy to win the quest, and the decisions required to cope with a particular event. My players are all experienced, they can evaluate a sequence of plays based on their sole knowledge of the game, and that surely makes up for faster games. We sometimes have to stop for 5 minutes to address rules discussions, otherwise the game flows pretty well. Obviously you have a few critical situations potentially determining the winner, where you would want to take a bit more time before deciding, but even these are quite short breaks.

     

    Overthinking your moves is highly overrated in my opinion. Even on the Overlord side. It has to be simple or it is doomed to failure. You can't rely on a complex chain of events where both dices and card draw are involved. You should still be able to evaluate whether your next sequence of actions would be optimal or not, this is a mental exercice you need to carry out every time you take your turn, but past that point you surely wouldn't know.

     

    My second playgroup for instance used to think so much ahead so that our encounters were taking forever. Counting spaces between the heroes and their destination, and predicting each move 4 rounds ahead... Hero A runs to objective, heroes B and C take on the monsters, hero D does some searching etc. Thing is, the heroes were forced to start from scratch every round because hero B died in combat, leaving hero A alone, hero D got trapped, and hero A was so fatigued up that she couldn't fulfill her objective in time. The answer is flexibility. You identify the primary task for the round and decide who is going to do it, with a backup plan (typically "you try first, and if you fail I try after you"). The rest of your actions depend on what's close to you or not. When in doubt, just kill a monster. You need healing, then you heal. No need to take 15 minutes to decide on that. D2E proposes a vast array of possible actions especially after you´ve skilled up a little bit, but if you know what each of these actions do then it shouldn't take much time to identify which of these are actual for the round.

     

    2-3 hours for a full quest is all it should take you, assuming you don't have to go through all rules or setting up the game for too long.

     

    My advice to you is not to despair :) Keep your heroes well informed and things will come naturally.

    Ceasarsalad101 reacted to this

  2. Posted

    I concur, as I´ve been called up on some rules points before, where my "common sense" ruling was suddenly challenged by a more or less (although more recent) official ruling. I must say that I also find very easy to categorize abilities or triggers in "groups" and then assume that anything affecting one element of that group must be automatically affecting any other member of the group in the exact same way. That's what I would want to believe ona normal basis, but in this game it has proven to be a dangerous assumption to make.

     

    But sure, Atom's understanding is very plausible, and it covers Shadow as well. My only complaint is that thes rules themselves are not even remotely formulated close to that interpretation.

    Ceasarsalad101 reacted to this

  3. Posted

    There are surge abilities you can use after an attack has been concluded and is not a miss (like recovering fatigue) and there are surge abilities you can use while an attack is in progress.

    These abilities you can use to turn a possible miss into a hit, like using a surge for extra range

     

    I understand that part, but that distinction is nowhere to be found in the rules.

  5. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    Thanks Felin,

     

    Well it really looks like there has been some confusion around that, but this latest reply from Justin is still very confusing to me.

     

    If FFG means surges can ONLY be spent to increase range until range is attained (and only then other abilities/surges could be spent to do something else), then why not stating it plainly? Nowhere I could find does it say that spending a surge to increase range - and thus making an attack not becoming a miss -  as being an exception to the rule. On the contrary, the rules either state that you can spend surges, or not at all. The paragraph stating the possibility to increase range with a surge ability does not mark that ability as being the only one you can play.

     

    Saying that a missed attack cannot spend surges is contradictory with the fact you can use surges to increase range.

     

    I don't think I´m being picky here :)

  6. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    The rulesbook doesn't exactly state that you cannot spend surges if the attack is a miss, but it clearly says that getting the X means you must ignore all other results, which I understand as being all the other dices including the surge symbol. Thus you cannot spend surges as they are ignored. That is known to everybody.

     

    Now missing due to range requirements does not have that clause (of ignoring all other results like for getting the X), as you can still increase your range by spending surges. But the rules don't say you are restricted to spending surges to increase range. I find it nowhere on the rules or on the FAQ. Who ruled this differently?

     

    I mean, FFG could have stated: "If the attacker rolls the X, the attack is a miss. If a ranged attack does not roll enough range, including surges spent to increase that range, then this attack is a miss. An attack that is a miss deals no damage, and eventual surges on that attack cannot be spent other than for increasing the range of a ranged attack."

     

    I feel the same responsability to my players and also the same awkwardness when I have to tell them that we´ve been playing something wrong. Honestly though, I cannot verify every single point of rule beforehand, and some information on the internet cannot be considered as completely reliable anyway.

  10. Posted

    Just wondering if some of the euros here got their Kyndrithul LP?

    I heard that this LP still hadn't hit distribution in Europe (or at least the Germany hub), which makes me confused as the other 2 have been available for more than a week now?

  12. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

     

    I still can't help but feel the dice system could be more elegant than it currently is. I think the difference between a bad roll and a good roll is in most cases smaller than the difference between a bad roll a complete miss. For example, if a bad roll doesn't do any damage you can still spend the surges. Maybe this is because the effect of the X is concentrated on a single die. 

     

     

    Not sure exactly about your definition of "elegant" in that context, but the dice system in D2E is quite rich in my opinion. Besides the obvious effect of getting the cross, you can still miss an attack due to range requirements or better defense roll and still be able to do something (like writing off a fatigue token). Damage is the expected "product" of an attack, but not always (conditions), and I´ve seen heroes firing off an attack hoping they would get a surge to get enough stamina to launch a second action for a skill requiring that extra fatigue. That cross is the element that forces you to re-think your sequence of actions. You have tons of abilities allowing you to reroll it, and I personally consider most of these to be quite powerful. Being able to ensure an attack will connect opens many doors tactically.

     

    Rat Swarms don't roll the Blue die, and that makes them very interesting to both sides. The presence of the Blue die throws a doubt in every action you take relying on it and one of the things that makes the game thrilling and tense in my opinion.

     

    This is also "amerithrash", you roll dices and dices can screw you up. It's random by definition. I have another game, a children's one, with a D6 and three possible values on it: 1, 2 and 3. These are movement points, but whatever. I find that dice completely flat because there is only a marginal difference between the 1 and the 3. While not being "fun" directly to implement a "0" face (nobody likes to do nothing on his turn), having a "-2" side would have been more interesting, as the guy keeping getting these 2s/3s could potentially be caught up by the guy getting 1s. Not sure if that's the perfect example here, but maybe you got my point.

  13. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    Despite the common hatred against that cross, I think it does provide an important element to the game, which is that you cannot guarantee that an attack will automatically connect, regardless of how strong the attack is. Considering it as a blank seriously boosts attacks like RRB where the damage on the blue dice is irrelevant compared to what you get on the red dice. It's just an example.

    Your seasoned hero may be missing his blow because the goblin was fast enough, or because he got blinded by some light. Even an expert in arms makes mistakes if you get my meaning.

    I think the rule you suggested is interesting but it would have a very strong negative impact on the game overall.

    I also hate that quests resolve around that cross, but the problem resides elsewhere in my opinion. The big issue is combat in general. You need actions to spend in order to fulfill your objective, but you cannot spend these actions if you re defeated in combat. Therefore combat stirs the game, and the cross has a huge impact on the game in these critical moments when you have planned a sequence of actions and are suddenly unable to carry out that plan.

    Gridash reacted to this

  14. Posted

    This is slightly off-topic, but when looking at pictures showing an on-going encounter, I see that the tiles barely show any sign of damage after all these plays. That's surprising because despite I do take care of my Descent games (although I´m not pedantic at all and still consider them being "things"), most of them show some signs of weariness. Rounded corners, connectors are slightly damaged. the tiles lost some of their color contrast etc. Yours are in pristine quality in comparison! Obviously the core game tiles are most prone for this.

  15. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    Believe it or not, there is a even worse dice in the world of gaming, I tell you. Try playing Dead of Winter... It's a D12 so you only have 1:12 chance of getting bitten. Don't worry, you won't roll bitten during the whole game..., until that very moment where you fight at the colony, or rolling for that crucial kill.THEN you get it. Always, like a predator waiting for it prey. And then? Yeah, bitten = you die immediately beyond salvation, and the next guy at same location chooses to either die which stops the infection (you lose two morale in the process, you start at 5-6, at 0 you lose, lol) or roll the dice and get a 1/2 chance to die and carry on infecting the next guy, losing lore morale in the process. We've lost once on turn 1 as some dude got bitten when trying to move and killed every other character at the colony.

    The cross in Descent is a Gummi Bear compared to that, lol. Try googling up the DoW exposure dice unbalance and look at all the threads :D

  16. Posted · Edited by Indalecio

    We once played an encounter where maybe one out of two attack rolls gave the cross. From both sides. Combat was just ridiculous. We play with an extra dice set and kept swapping all the time, but nothing worked. I looked around and thought I saw agent Mulder looking through the window but nobody believed me.

    Note I am notoriously unlucky on the dice roll. I'm the guy missing 5 attacks from goblin archers in the same turn, lol. On the other side we have the guy playing the scout and somehow he keeps getting the treasure chest card. It is ALWAYS in the top three cards. It's insane as I'm shuffling that deck myself as the overlord. We're all pragmatic people with scientific background and beliefs, but we actually believe in curses, damnation and paranormal activities the time of a game session every week!

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