The monsters have different stats for different numbers of players so it sort of evens out. Later on I would definitely add in a third for no othger reason than it makes spawning monsters more difficult for the OL.

Two or three heroes for a single player is quite manageable. Maybe not in your first game, but Descent scales relatively well.

In Scenario 1, two heroes make the game doable but very challenging and therefore very fun.

In Scenarios 2, 3 and 5, use a total of 3 heroes to achieve that same effect. In Scenarios 4 and 6-9, use a full party of 4 heroes and good luck.

I think the best variant posted for playing with only two heroes is: the Overlord draws only one card per turn. I would also add: remove the "Evil Genius" card in your first games.

I would go 3. even though it is scaleable, it is really tough for one hero. The monsters are weakest and curses least, but you are only getting 2 actions per turn with the same amount of monsters. any misses by you will be really critical. 3 heroes would let you take the optimum team, one mage, archer and fighter, so you can make use of all treasures.

My group had an easy time of scenarios 4 and 6, but they haven't been able to crack 5 or 7 yet.

Thanks to everyone for the hints - particularly to Christine for her very practical advice.

I gather that the answer to my basic question is that there is no need to restrict the number of Heroes controlled by a single player to just 2. So even with a two-player game, you can have one Overlord and one player controlling however many Heroes are needed to make the game "doable but very challenging".

I prefer playing this game two player, with one player controlling 3 (for the base game) or 4 (with expansions) heroes by himself. I find this not only maintains a balance level I prefer, but also keeps the game going quickly. The more players on the hero side you have, the more negotiation takes place in regards to how to approach the turn. One player can need not argue with himself.

-MMM

The only difference for the monsters is that their HP increase with 1 for each extra hero. If a monster has 4 health with 2 heroes (2 or 3 players) it will have 5 health with 3 heroes, and 6 health with 4 heroes, that's all.

As many people have pointed out: Don't stare yourself blind on what the mission says. If you find it too hard for the players, adapt. If the overlord has a too hard time, adapt. This game is one extremely difficult to balance, and I can't see the increased health of monsters and increased number of Threat tokens doing a perfect 100% balancing work here, especially not with all the heroes, skills, and different special abilities.

I'm not meaning this is a bad thing, what I mean is that you shouldn't expect the heroes and OL having the same chances to win the game, no matter the number of heroes. One single skill can change the whole thing. I played overlord once on scenario 2 when one of the characters had "activate any glyph 6 spaces away" as a special ability. The heroes ended the game with 20 Conquest tokens, I didn't have the slightest chance to stop them. Why? Let me explain:

The whole idea of this scenario is that the heroes have to defeat 2 master ogres in order to get a treasure with which they can kill the 2 bosses. And the catch is that in order to get these treasures, they first have to find the runes, which are situated behind the (unkillable) bosses. So, they have to enter boss room so boss spawns, run past it, get key, run to locked door, enter treasure room with ogre, get treasure so they can kill boss. During all this, the slow boss will hunt them and hopefully kill one or two of them.

The problem (for me) was that nearby all these keys and treasures, there was a glyph. Glyphs are basically a teleportation rune into/out of town. So what they did was: Put a hardy tank in town, run straight through the corridor with the glyph-activating chara, activate the glyph in the room (behind the boss/ogre) and run back. No monster cound reach them. The tank then promptly entered the dungeon via this newly activated glyph (behind the boss/ogre) took the key/treasure and went back. Sure, he had to withstand one or two hits from the mobs (you can't use glyphs 2 times the same turn), but the treasure was taken. When a treasure is taken in Descent, it's taken for ALL charas. Even if the tank took the key, the other guys immediately have it, and can thus run in to activate next glyph…

My point? This single skill, this single glyph-stealing guy totally unbalanced the whole scenario. I could have doubled the HP for all monsters and I still wouldn't have stood a chance. Was it boring? No, it was fun. But it wasn't balanced. For other scenarios it probably wouldn't have been as disastrous, but in this specific scenario, it was.

Point of whole post? Like I said first: Don't expect everything to be perfectly balanced. Adapt. Use 3 heroes for 1 hero player. Or 4. Have 2 hero players play 2 heroes each. Increase/decrease Threat tokens, monster HP, boss Fear… Do whatever you deem fit, because the game can't balance everything perfectly.

i ofthen play alone whit my brother. how many heroes for two players? Quest 5 was really hard (and heroes lost) whit only 2 heroes. But quest 4 got quit simple whit 3 heroes.

How many heroes for a 2-3 player game? when should you use random draw? and when should the players shoes their heroes? (up until now, if 2 heroes, not random, if more than 3 heroes, random draw. as random draw can kill a small hero team)

Well, if you use just the base game 3 heroes seems to be best. Use 4 heroes if you have either expansion. If you are using random draw with 3-4 heroes there is less chance of getting an unusable party. I'm of the mind letting the player choose the heroes limits the variety of the game, and the hero players tend to rut themselves into the same line of tactics over and over again. They become better players when forced to think outside their preferred box.

When using 3-4 heroes you should also use the harder monsters right?, as if we where more players? and we play whit the overlord only draws 1 kard whit 2 heroes, should i take 2 now that the heroes increase+ (sounds likly, or else they get a uneaven advantage )

The numbers on the monster stat cards are equal to the number of heroes plus 1 (the OL player). So for 4 heroes, use the card with a 5 in the corner, and so on.

I also play where the OL draws a number of cards equal to the number of heroes minus 1, but it was too much power after adding in the expansions and stopped using it.

Man, that's too much power even without expansions… Three cards for four heroes even without the Evil Genius played out? The heroes'll get mashed.

Seems this game is a mish mash of "It's impossible to beat the OL!!!11one" and "It's impossible to win as the OL!!!111one" posts… let's just realise that some combinations of mission/heroes/skills can break the game balance.

Drawing 3 cards without Evil Genius is powerful, but keep in mind as the OL using only the base game, 4 heroes would generally steam roll the OL without him having a chance to stop them.

The game does indeed suffer from balance issues for the reasons you list. There is simply too many factors going on in each game session to truly get it "right". If a game has such conditions, it's not unreasonable to expect people to use house rules in an effort to balance the game in a way they feel is fair. It's all up to the individual play group.

Precisely.

However, the only time I played with 4 heroes, the OL won. I found, with Evil Genius out, that I got so much Threat that I could whack the weakest with traps, blitz attacks and God knows what. Bu I won't say I steamrolled them. It was a close call and a lucky gamble in a weak situation.