Descent: Journeys in the Dark | BoardGameGeek

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

jmglidden — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:41:48 +0000

I made the VASSAL mod. I'm pretty sure that it's up to date with Mark's latest content. Is it?

I know other folks have been adding to / modifying Mark's stuff, but I've kind of been waiting for it all to settle down before making another update. I'm very pleased to see Artscow decks becoming available. If I could get the images that were used to make the decks for Artscow, it would make the VASSAL update a lot easier.

Personally, though, I think I'd rather have cards printed from Artscow than have to use the VASSAL mod. I just like real cards (as long as I don't have to make them myself).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: rtl - leutenant ?

edroz — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:15:58 +0000

by edroz

Each lieutenant gets its own action during the Overlord action phase of the week. So yes, each one may place a siege engine token.

However, there is only one raze roll with one die. The raze roll is a weekly action and occurs during step 2 of the week. It is not a Overlord action (which is step 3). Read the rules carefully and it's fairly obvious ("Then, for each city that has a number of siege tokens on it equal to its Defense rating, roll a black power die.").

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: rtl - leutenant ?

darthpilgrim — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:06:36 +0000

by darthpilgrim

If you have more than one leutenant on a location during the overlord phase - in my case I have 3 - do i get to put 3 siege engines out? Also, once the siege engines number the towns defense, do i get 3 dice to roll for a raze or still just 1.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

TheGelatinousCube — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:24:02 +0000

by TheGelatinousCube

crusher100 wrote:
100.000.000 Thanks.... Lovely Work! Finally I could play with my son together.

I have some questions about the future:

1- What is the last version of the VASSAL MODULE?
2- I don't see many of the props and tiles from expansions: Rolling Ball, trap tiles,etc. Will these be included in the future?
3- What will include the RTL add-on?

thanks again for your superb work.

I'm glad you enjoy it, thank you! To your questions...
1. The vassal module hasn't been updated in some time, to my knowledge. I didn't make it.
2. There is a dungeon card that uses the rolling boulder. Various events utilize traps.
3. The RtL add-on that I've got sitting here, waiting for me to finish it, is not a campaign. It's a different way to play Descent Quest and I'd love to tell you about it but I want to wait until it's done.

Unfortunately my real life drama is still unfolding. I will not let it die, though. :)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Znail — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:31:51 +0000

by Znail

Antistone wrote:
Ignoring surges, Blast runes do as much (or more) damage as any magic weapon of the same treasure level.

Why should we ignore surges? The shop weapon doesnt even do any Blast without surges so shouldnt we ignore that weapon totaly in this discusion? The main disadvantage of the Blast type weapons are the expense or total inability to convert surges to damage if needed. Using fatigue is a rather limited option as there is a max of 5 dice to roll.

So its quite possible to roll too little to kill the monsters wich means that unless you got a second blast attack comming, that you wont miss, so is this attack pretty much wasted as other heroes follow up attacks are likely to kill in one hit no matter if its wounded or not.

But the big effect of the lack of damage is that they are almost totaly unable to harm tough monsters. This is ofcourse not a big deal if you got other weapons for your wizard or other heroes. But that means a blast weapons is another dud if you realy need a weapon to kill a tough monster and there are quite alot of others as well, like armors and other items.

Saving 3-4 attacks only matters if you dont have 3 other heroes ready to dish out those attacks and more anyway. Even shop level weapons can kill small fries. Its ofcourse nice to save time and sometimes it might save you a hero death and the Conquest points for that. But that is the same as anything else that goes the heroes way and far from restricted to Blast. Those 3-4 attacks saved arent worth more then those 3-4 attacks saved by a good piercing weapon against a tough monster either, asuming that you didnt get unlucky and only have Blast weapons as only decent weapons and cant hurt it at all.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:40:14 +0000

by gdotbat

Heres another door idea, don't know if this one is a bit too cheesy though.

Door Troll - A troll lives above this particular door. To open and pass through this door you must pay 200g (for the entire party), if you cannot pay the gold, loose 2 conquest tokens to pass through. You may continue to pass through the door freely once the toll has been paid.

Anyone else have anymore door ideas we can use to get this deck filled out?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Descent Vassal Module

crusher100 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:45:58 +0000

by crusher100

Really Fantastic.... By the way where are the door markers?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Sessions:: Re: Quest 1: Paul's first quest

themitchells — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:57:21 +0000

by themitchells

Nice review Merric...

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

crusher100 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:24:15 +0000

by crusher100

100.000.000 Thanks.... Lovely Work! Finally I could play with my son together.

I have some questions about the future:

1- What is the last version of the VASSAL MODULE?
2- I don't see many of the props and tiles from expansions: Rolling Ball, trap tiles,etc. Will these be included in the future?
3- What will include the RTL add-on?

thanks again for your superb work.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

Sutured — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:11:34 +0000

by Sutured

Joemamma44 wrote:
I don't know if it would work well having the overlord be a bot. Half of the overlord's job is to play traps when necessary, and without a thinking person there it wouldn't happen.

Few months ago I'd agree with you. But playing Dungeon Twister, I changed my mind about what they can do in these kind of games to support solo.

You should really play DT2 to see by yourself what I am talking about.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Do you folks mix your expansions?

corbon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:38:30 +0000

by corbon

Doc Sonic wrote:
I was wondering how may of you combine treasures, characters, skills, ect from the various expansions when you play?
Do you feel this affects the game balance at all? I think it would with adding in Monsters the quest doesn't call for and I'm against this. But, how about the other stuff?

Playing with all the expansions together is to be recommended. It is a richer experience, more varied.

There are/were a few issues initially with weird or overpowered combos but these have mostly been settled by FAQ answers.

The game balance remains fine, with additional monsters and treachery options balanced by different heroes, more varied and more evenly proportioned equipment, a larger deck size for the OL and Feats for the heroes.

You don;t add in monsters that the quest doesn't call for other than spawn cards or treachery spawns, and these rarely change things significantly and provide for a much more interesting game.

As a hero it can get boring killing the same old monsters all the time!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Sessions:: Re: Quest 1: Narthak finally falls!

Echo2Omega — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:51:30 +0000

by Echo2Omega

I would give this a good read through.
http://www.descentinthedark.com/

The game balance section is particularly useful and insightful on some of the workings of the game.

The heroes and overlord tactics are also handy as well.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

crazytalk — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:54:23 +0000

by crazytalk

I've been playing with this variant http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/316935 as a two player with the Overlord automated and having a great time. Give it a try, it doesn't add very many extra rules and stays close to the original game.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

Joemamma44 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:36:08 +0000

by Joemamma44

I don't know if it would work well having the overlord be a bot. Half of the overlord's job is to play traps when necessary, and without a thinking person there it wouldn't happen. You can make it so the trap is played and next time the condition is met it takes effect, like I've seen in a variant, but that would be easy to counter as the heroes because you would know it's coming.

I'm sure that FFG could make an expansion that would incorporate a automatic overlord, or heroes, but I don't think that they will because, while there are people who like to play solo, I think the vast majority would rather play with other people.

I'm not trying to say it would be a bad idea though, but it doesn't exist yet, and I wouldn't hold my breath on it happening. The variant rules will work, it just might not be as challenging as if you were playing a real person.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

philmcd — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:25:03 +0000

by philmcd

I have no problems in playing both the overlord AND the heroes and trying to win with both. Solo is just great played that way.

Session: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Quest 1: Narthak finally falls!

MerricB — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:14:42 +0000

by MerricB

This was the third game of Descent I'd played at Good Games Ballarat, and this time I was joined by Tim, Liam and either Nash or Dillon as their three adventurers finally managed to get through the first dungeon quest successfully.

I've generally found Descent a lot easier for the heroes when there are more of them, despite the monsters being tougher. Four players (one Overlord and three heroes) is probably the sweet spot for the game, and they certainly rollicked along in this game.

Two warriors and one rogue (according to their skills) and there was a lot of damage on the table. My beastmen made early inroads, but were unable to slow the adventurers much. The group didn't linger too much, despite my fairly constant spawning of monsters behind them.

The chests were also kind to them, and soon they had a rather dangerous set of weapons. The spiders I spawned were rather useless, but the beastmen kept proving their worth, even if they were going down quickly. I managed to kill one hero, then another, but they'd gained a good stock of conquest tokens by then and weren't in danger of losing. I needed a good run of monsters!

]]>Tim and Liam

Going up the centre rather than to the side was greatly in their favour: it allowed them to get to the silver treasure quicker and that made the ogre and his minions just so much sword fodder as they grabbed the runekey to allow them to reach Narthak.

The manticores guarding Narthak did some damage, and I was hoping that when Narthak attacked all three heroes at once with his sweep attack that he'd be able to kill one or two of them. Alas, the dreaded "X" appeared on the red die and he missed them all!

The heroes didn't let him have another chance, and just surrounded and slew him.

]]>Narthak falls!

Hooray! The land is safe from the evil giant!

More quests await, though. With any luck, I should get in another game or two this weekend - if my plans of having a month of playing Descent a lot hold up!

Session: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Quest 1: Paul's first quest

MerricB — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:09:25 +0000

by MerricB

I recently bought four extra sets of Descent dice, all the better to speed games up with, so I'm trying to actually get some use from them and play a lot of Descent this month. I did ok this weekend, playing two games of Descent in addition to the other gaming I did.

The first game was on Friday afternoon against Paul, who is one of my regular Magic opponents but whom I'd never played a boardgame with. He's not entirely unfamiliar with the gameform, though, and so soon enough I was ensconced in my usual Overlord (DM) role and he was taking two heroes into the dungeon.

The part of the game that gave Paul the most trouble was the splitting of the game into actions: thus, "Advance" = Move plus Attack, "Battle" = Attack twice, "Sprint" = Move twice, and "Ready" = Move or Attack + special action. His natural inclination was to have attacks cost movement points, and so we spent a fair bit of the early game with him not quite understanding the rules - but otherwise taking down my Beastmen and Skeletons.

The primary newbie error in Descent is to not press on and get through as many rooms as possible - to stay behind and clean out all the monsters. Unfortunately for the adventurers, that just allows the Overlord to spawn new monsters and delay the heroes whilst building up ever-increasing threat token and nasty cards to play later.

So, it was no surprise to see that Paul lingered a little too long in the first room. It also wasn't helping that my Beastmen were dealing out a tremendous amount of damage, and Paul would miss every third attack.

However, it was once he reached the second room that things really started getting bad for him.

]]>

It was the Ogre, you see. It was the biggest threat on the table and Paul's rolling was dreadful: each attack was doing only one or two points of damage to it, if that!

Meanwhile, his rogue off-sider was being killed again and again by my beastmen and sorcerers. It just wasn't good for the adventurers!

His warrior died, and he had to respawn back in the village. In that time, the ogre and the beastmen managed to surround his forces again - and, with my deck exhausted and only two conquest tokens remaining, the result was, sadly, inevitable.

]]>

Paul did enjoy the game, despite his heroes suffering a horrible fate, and I hope to play another game with him soon. For now, Narthak's dungeon has been too much for the last two groups that have entered it. Will it be too much for the next group?

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Astartus — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:50:11 +0000

by Astartus

]]>

Enthusiasm of the heroes knows no bounds

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

Sutured — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:37:48 +0000

by Sutured

I still wonder why they haven't made up one.

Let's look the fresh Dungeon Twister 2: Prison. They came up with an excellant AI opponent/npc system that works perfectly. Even they difficulty levels are tremendous and its like you play vs a real opponent. In a case the wizard did a combination of actions moves that I haven't thought about thus improving my play.

Lots of extra people would buy this game if there is an official solo overlord version. They just need to invest time and money to make it.

And who knows, why not make heroes controlled by the game and you, as overlord, try to beat them.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

Petdoc — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:04:49 +0000

by Petdoc

None of the many Descent expansions do this. I don't know what they have in store, but I doubt it's in the cards as official solo expansions don't really seem like a priority for FFG. I don't know that they could do it anyway without drastically altering the game, but you can always hope ( I would love for them to do it BTW). Having said that, check out this thread http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/419643. It's a great solo variant that is a lot of fun and extremely well done.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Official solo?

DeePee — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:01:26 +0000

by DeePee

No official solo rules for Descent as far as I know. There are some variants on BGG, but I haven't tried them myself.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Official solo?

Lokertis — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:47:09 +0000

by Lokertis

Hello. I played the base game yesterday and I'd say I had a great time.

I am a solo gamer and I like playing solo home when there is noone available. So I want to ask you a question.

The base game doesn't support an Overlord played by the game itself. Is this happening with any of the expansions? Like Race for the Galaxy. The base game is 2 players minimum but the first expansion The gathering storm adds a robot opponent using a player mat and some dice. Is such a thing official done here?

Thank you

Steve

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Do you folks mix your expansions?

James McMurray — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:02:52 +0000

by James McMurray

esse_r wrote:
The only limitation I can see is the campaign expansions that will probably not mix with the rest outside the campaigns.

The campaigns mix with the expansions, just not each other.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Do you folks mix your expansions?

esse_r — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:52:26 +0000

by esse_r

I only have WoD and AoD, both quite similar, so that don't affect the balance much. It's mostly fun to have more stuff. As soon as I get ToI I'll throw it in to the mix too. The only limitation I can see is the campaign expansions that will probably not mix with the rest outside the campaigns.

As for new rules to new players, start them as heroes and they don't have to learn that many new rules with the expansions, just explain the props as they are occouring in the dungeons. For my current group we are more on the note the more rules the better (as long as they don't conflict).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Do you folks mix your expansions?

Joemamma44 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:59:54 +0000

by Joemamma44

I think it stays pretty balanced if you have expansion monsters in the base quests. I have been playing with Tomb of Ice stuff on the base game and I don't find it any more unbalanced than it was before. The expansion monsters aren't really overpowered, and neither are the treasure cards or feat cards. I think it was designed to keep game play even when adding in the extras, because both heroes and overlord get additional things. The only question is how many rules do you want to add in, because with every expansion comes more rules, and it could get overwhelming if you add on too much for players (especially if they are new).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Do you folks mix your expansions?

James McMurray — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:31:58 +0000

by James McMurray

So far we've only played the base set and Road to Legends, which is designed to be mixed. When we play a quest from a standard set we'll mix it all together. But with thse you can't really change out monsters, because the monsters aren't balanced against each other and there are no rules for swapping.

I believe the files section for one of the sets here at BGG has someone's house rules for replacing monsters on a point system, but I have no idea how balanced it is.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Do you folks mix your expansions?

Doc Sonic — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:54:55 +0000

by Doc Sonic

I was wondering how may of you combine treasures, characters, skills, ect from the various expansions when you play?
Do you feel this affects the game balance at all? I think it would with adding in Monsters the quest doesn't call for and I'm against this. But, how about the other stuff?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

Jumo — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:22:16 +0000

by Jumo

The Warp wrote:
Okay, so what do people think of having one of the Door cards simply having this on it?

And frankly, I'm kind of amused at the idea of Heroes being chased around the board by a door.

Great. Go ahead.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

philmcd — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:43:57 +0000

by philmcd

I would agree with a previous comment that you should wait and see how much you like the base game first. Unless you are going to be playing Descent EVERY week, there is more than enough to keep you going in the base game plus online scenarios. Therefore you might get better value out of an additional game once you have played vanilla Descent. You certainly don't NEED an expansion for quite a while.

If you do go on to want an expansion, I'm going to go against the grain and recommend Road to Legend. To me, a campaign system is far more important than just adding more monsters and items. But it's what is important to YOU that counts.

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

HauRuck — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:06:03 +0000

by HauRuck

]]>

My Descent Collection. Notice how well the card sorter works for this game (It even fits the larger cards!). Also some nice deeper Plano boxes that fit both the larger creatures and the bulk of the doors & smaller tiles. A plethora of extra Descent Dic

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

confi — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:32:10 +0000

by confi

I'll add my vote for Well of Darkness for your expansion. It's skewed in the Overlord's favour without being overly so, and has a fun variety of missions and monsters that deviate from the base game's fare. Also, since it was the first expansion, I believe it has the widest selection of treachery cards for the overlord to use.

If you enjoy it, I'd suggest Tomb of Ice 2nd. The quests in that one are particularly good (imo), and the feat cards help tip the balance back towards the heroes. Because of this, you may even consider getting Tomb of Ice early in order to help the heroes out in the latter base game mission or the Well of Darkness missions, depending on your group's experience.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

ellyssian — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:20:23 +0000

by ellyssian

I went with AoD as my first expansion because I noticed a bunch of places started to list it as unavailable and I wanted to snag it in case it happened to disappear...

Well, it was just a convenient excuse to get one of the expansions right at that moment... :D

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

metalface13 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:24:51 +0000

by metalface13

I would probably wait and see how much you like the game before going all out.

But if you HAVE to have an expansion, I say Well of Darkness. It adds the most store items to the game plus it has all the other goodies: Monsters, characters, traps, etc.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

corbon — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:08:37 +0000

by corbon

Albireo wrote:
People keep saying that "Tomb of Ice" is cool. That seems pretty obvious to me.

:what:

Well, yes, it's Icey cool.

ToI without either WoD or AoD is likely to be a little easy for the heroes. It adds a rather large hero boost (Feats) without much really for the OL (his new stuff is more 'interesting and varied' than 'powerful').

I would not advise getting ToI as the first expansion.

I have to admit though, I've only played ToI with both AoD and WoD also thrown in to the mix - which makes for a fairly balanced game.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

Albireo — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:33:46 +0000

by Albireo

People keep saying that "Tomb of Ice" is cool. That seems pretty obvious to me.

:what:

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

badweasel — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:54:12 +0000

by badweasel

MScrivner wrote:
My comments:

[2006] Well of Darkness - some interesting additions for the Overlord. New monsters. I really like Lord Hawthorne and the Runemaster - two of the new heroes that come with the expansion.

Crushing blow allows item destruction here as well.

[2007?] Altar of Despair - Some of the traps in this expansion are BRUTAL to the point of being almost imbalanced. The Dark Priests and the Deep Elves (new monsters) are unbelievably nasty. A master deep elf can potentially wipe out an entire party. It adds a new mechanic that can destroy hero items, which can be REALLY irritating for the players. Again, this expansion is mostly a big bump for the Overlord, and of all the ones I've played, I've enjoyed it the most as the Overlord and HATED it the most as a hero.

See comment above. But yes, this one is definitely in favor of the Overlord.

[2008] Tomb of Ice - have not played. Looks cool, though again, it seems like more nasty stuff for the Overlord and not enough balancing stuff for the heroes.

Skews it somewhat in the heroes favor. It adds Feats which more than counterbalance the new Overlord features.

As for a recommendation, I would go for Well of Darkness. The order they were released is a decent way to pick them up.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

MScrivner — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:48:10 +0000

by MScrivner

My comments:

[2006] Well of Darkness - some interesting additions for the Overlord. New monsters. I really like Lord Hawthorne and the Runemaster - two of the new heroes that come with the expansion.

[2007?] Altar of Despair - Some of the traps in this expansion are BRUTAL to the point of being almost imbalanced. The Dark Priests and the Deep Elves (new monsters) are unbelievably nasty. A master deep elf can potentially wipe out an entire party. It adds a new mechanic that can destroy hero items, which can be REALLY irritating for the players. Again, this expansion is mostly a big bump for the Overlord, and of all the ones I've played, I've enjoyed it the most as the Overlord and HATED it the most as a hero.

[2008] Tomb of Ice - have not played. Looks cool, though again, it seems like more nasty stuff for the Overlord and not enough balancing stuff for the heroes.

[2008] Road to Legend. I DO NOT like RtL. It takes a tactics-heavy dungeon crawl and turns it into a half-baked pseudo-rpg. Way too much going on, WAY too much chrome, making everything fiddly, and not enough emotional or intellectual pay-off for way is added. If you are jonesing for fantasy RPG just play D&D.

[2009] Sea of Blood - have not played but it *just* released. Looks interesting, but more for Road to Legend, which as I've noted I do not care for.

[2009] Quest Compendium - may be your best bet for your first expansion since it is a list of new scenarios. Note, however, there are apparently a few major printing errors or apparent lack of playtesting for some of those scenarios? So some have complained about problems with clarity and balance.

Hope that helps.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

Joemamma44 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:30:26 +0000

by Joemamma44

I just got my second expansion, Tomb of Ice. It adds to the game I think, but it does add on a few new rules, so I would suggest playing the base game a few times until you know the rules, or where they are quickly. Tomb of Ice is a pretty cool expansion to start with, but I hear that Road to Legend is a lot of fun if you want shorter play sessions with a longer overall game.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:23:08 +0000

by gdotbat

The Warp wrote:
Okay, so what do people think of having one of the Door cards simply having this on it?

I had considered doing a Mimic, but dismissed the idea. Then when Grant suggested it, I figured "well, clearly I'm not the only one who thinks this idea has at least some merit". And frankly, I'm kind of amused at the idea of Heroes being chased around the board by a door.

That's awesome! I love it!!

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Getting this and 1 expansion. Which expansion do you recommend first?

mstachiw — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:19:59 +0000

by mstachiw

My wife is getting me this game and one expansion for the holidays. I plan to eventually get all expansions.

Which one should I start with?

Should I play the 'base' game first and then the expansion or should I just start off with whatever expansion alone with base?

Thanks

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Bustoffson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:20:07 +0000

by Bustoffson

wytefang wrote:
Bustoffson wrote:
This is the kind of review I can't understand or endorse. Your preamble goes on about the FFG games you have and like (though not without contradictions like "It was a big hit even though it has a boring and repetitive mechanism"), and then decide to punish the game company because you didn't have a great reaction to one of their games. Illogical. The rule book? THAT was the big deal breaker for you?

And why would you buy up all the expansions to an already expensive base game if you hadn't played it and liked it. You sir, are a bit of a fool for going down this path.

I've had great times and not so great times with Descent, and I'm more happy playing it with house rules. It isn't D&D- that much you got right. It's a board game- one player vs the others.

You praise the simplicity and the Ebb and Flow. Did you like the game or not? It's a long game- long set up time. And for that you swear you'll never buy another FFG game? You should have managed your expectations a little better, my man. The blame falls as much on your own shoulders. You should punish yourself and not buy any games from anyone.

This is the kind of knee-jerk fan-response I can't understand or endorse. I think he raised very good points and had valid reasons for not liking the game. I definitely like the game despite its issues but calling someone a "fool" because they raised valid points that you simply weren't able to comprehend based on your personal tastes and such, is pretty crappy. And less you think that 31 thumbs somehow legitimizes your insulting remarks to the OP, be aware that millions of people bought Britney Spears albums. :shake:

I can agree that some of the OP's actions seem a bit silly - I would tend not to buy the extra expansions and such without testing the waters first but I can understand the assumption that he'd get a more complete game experience in doing so. I wouldn't react by placing a self-imposed ban on buying FFG games in effect over one particular game, however, as they have plenty of different GREAT games but each to his or her own.

Dude. Why bring Britney into this? You think it's easy being married to K-Fed?

In any case, I don't think you understood what it was I saying (and you do say that), so let me clarify.

I don't disagree with the issues he brings up about Descent. It is a game that has its issues, and I agree with you that he does raise very valid points about those issues.

Is it bad form to call someone a fool for doing something foolish? I call it the way I see it, brother. You yourself call it silly. I say "poTAYto poTAHto" (in my defense I said "a bit of a fool", so come on- lighten up!). The dude shelled out a keesterload of money on a game he hadn't played ever. He calls it completism, and I can buy that. I suspect though, that part of what motivated him to do it was the satisfaction he had from his complete FFG purchases of all things Arkham Horror (another long game, by the way, even without all the expansions). Of course FFG didn't make him spend all that dough, but he kind of acts like they did.

I'm just saying I can't understand or endorse a review that lays the blame everywhere but where it truly belongs. With the OP.

Since you aren't a fan of Britney, allow me to quote White Stripes:

"...if you're heading to the grave, don't blame the hearse
You're like a little girl yelling at her brother 'cause you lost his ball
You can't just take the effect and make it the cause"

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:57:40 +0000

by The Warp

Okay, so what do people think of having one of the Door cards simply having this on it?

I had considered doing a Mimic, but dismissed the idea. Then when Grant suggested it, I figured "well, clearly I'm not the only one who thinks this idea has at least some merit". And frankly, I'm kind of amused at the idea of Heroes being chased around the board by a door.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Burnham — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:00:08 +0000

by Burnham

Why should we hold games like Agricola (like it or hate it) to one standard and Descent (and its makers) to another?

Because they're completely different products. When you watch movies, do you only like the ones that are Oscar worthy........or do you also like some that don't have a shot in hell of winning any big awards but you still like them cuz they're funny/scary/contain great action scenes etc? I like A Beautiful Mind, but I also like Drag Me to Hell. They've got NOTHING in common except that they're both movies and they're both meant to entertain. I like Drag Me to Hell because it's funny and ridiculously over-the-top. I assure you that's not why I like A Beautiful Mind though.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

irondeav — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:30:18 +0000

by irondeav

Michael, I do not fully agree with your points and I think that your review is somewhat confusing, but I also believe that its somewhat contradictive and chaotic state shows very well what you feel about the game. Now, if there is still a bit of a flame for the game in you, I would like to recommend some ways to fix it.

Firstly, although I hate to advertise myself, I’d advise you to read my review. I wrote it mainly as an experienced Decent and not-so-experienced Road to Legend player, so it mainly deals with the game vanilla and with some/all of the expansions (but not Tomb of Ice). You can find my review here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/451772

If you find any of my points unacceptable, I don’t think there is anything to salvage. However, if you can adapt to the game (in short):

a) not being D&D (or an RPG, or an RPG lite even) but a ruthless tactical game pretending to be a fantasy adventure,

b) being something that needs a lot of time to play,

and

c) requiring some time and effort to learn and supply with some home rules

than there is still hope for you and Descent to be friends again. Mind you, I am a fan of the game but I bought it exactly the same way you did (basic box + 2 expansions) and quickly came to dislike it. I remember spending 30 minutes putting chits out of zip-bags, assembling the dungeon rooms and then correcting my lazy-arse players, who liked the theme but were comfortable with me knowing all the rules and constantly “stepping in” to help them out. So, I’m giving you advice on what worked for me, not as an expert but just a guy who came from what you (I believe) feel about the game to real admiration.

OK, here goes:

1. Start by organizing the game anew. My setup (standard quests) takes about 15 minutes now. Sometimes less. To achieve that, I got rid of most zip bags for chits. I keep them in handy, small plastic boxes, so I actually do not need to put them on the table, until one has to land on the dungeon tile or a hero card. I keep the Overlord boxes stacked on one another, because as the Overlord I do need them not quite as often to trash the table with all of them at once. One bigger plastic box is the “hero box”, which the hero players keep, to easily adjust their life/stamina, money and pots. (I will make pictures and install them in this post in a couple of days).

2. I keep the figures in bigger plastic box, all miniatures divided by type and size, so the Overlord can easily find them, while playing spawn cards.

3. I would recommend learning the basic rules and going through the official FAQ and play the scenarios from the basic quests book before doing anything else. Do not use Treachery (incorporate that later) and remove the cards of expansion monsters and characters (easily done, they are all marked). As you get the hang of the basic games, start adding components and rules (first expansion, some monsters and appropriate Spawn Cards and so on).

4. Use some way of sorting the dungeon tiles by type. Dividing them by size and type makes putting the dungeon together a snap. You can easily check which tiles you need just quickly take all of them out of the box and start assembling.

5. After you implement a fair share of expansion rules, you can start using one of the unified rules compendiums available here on the ‘Geek or (if you don’t want that), keep the RtL handbook close by. It has a list of all monster/character abilities and descriptions of all potions, effects and terrain tiles from the basic games and the first two expansions.

6. Start playing the game with players that are able to grasp the rules and understand (and like) the fact, that Descent is a tactical game, that rewards good cooperation and thinking ahead. I previously said, they should also be keen on learning the rules. If you only play the game with your kids, you will probably have to be the Overlord-Teacher for a long time, showing them ways to utilize line of sight and the abilities of their heroes. I am not sure if this will work, though, I never tried to play Descent with children (only lazy adults).

7. Do not start playing the RtL before you and the rest of the players are certain that you like the regular game, know all the rules and nuances and – well, basically – are all experienced enough to see that even small decisions in the campaign mode come across as meaningful.

The advice above helped me to really fall in love with the game but there still is a very important thing to remember and accept. Descent is a board game, with its own set of rules. A hero death is not a tragedy – it may end your game, but mostly it is a setback or a collateral decision. The Overlord is not a Game Master. His role is not to facilitate fun for the players, he is there to do everything the game allows to destroy the heroes. He is there to win. If you accept the above, you may yet have fun. Otherwise, skip this game altogether (and use the fabulous bits in your D&D campaign, which – I believe – make the box worth its price).

Cheers!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Timing and issue with a hero ending his turn because of an effect on top on another hero.

corbon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:10:58 +0000

by corbon

Antistone wrote:
corbon wrote:
Surely no hero party is that stupid?

There is such a thing as not knowing what overlord cards exist.

Well, the very first time you play the game, yes.

OTOH there are exploding chests that are a clue to what might happen, exploding doors etc etc.

It is one of teh earlier things you learn, not to have too many heroes crowded around a door or chest, and here we are talking about 2 heroes against the door and a third occupying the same space as the others while opening the door.
Not even many first timers could deliberately work themselves into such a bad situation.

But fair enough, it was put a bit rudely for anyone who did (note that it was a hypothetical from the poster asking).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Timing and issue with a hero ending his turn because of an effect on top on another hero.

esse_r — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:28:03 +0000

by esse_r

Thanks for the answers.

Yes, I was mixing it up with the gas trap (the case we encountered), and thus some of the questions is never an issue.
As for party stupidity, I think more on the lines of desperation and calculated risks. ;)
We have been in the gas situation, it could as well has been a welcome mat then.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Timing and issue with a hero ending his turn because of an effect on top on another hero.

Antistone — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:33:24 +0000

by Antistone

corbon wrote:
Surely no hero party is that stupid?

There is such a thing as not knowing what overlord cards exist.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Timing and issue with a hero ending his turn because of an effect on top on another hero.

corbon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:38:49 +0000

by corbon

esse_r wrote:
We had the same problem with the gas and found no rules prohibiting a hero on top of an other hero to open a door. Our solution was that the figure returned to the last legal position for ending a turn in, good to get an official ruling.

While we wasn't in the situation, what if it was the trap 'welcome mat'?

Well, firstly, Welcome Mat doesn't end the heroes turn, so there isn;t much issue.

Does all three figures take the trap damage?

Yes (each rolling to avoid the trap as usual).

Is the third figure still moved by the OL, or can he chose which to move?

He will only be moved by the OL if he is unable to avoid the trap and also unable to spend 2MP to get out of the pit.

What is the turn order for this, if one of the other figures dodged the trap and an adjacent pit space then became available (I don't have the card in front of me, but I assume it can be dodged as all other pits, moving the figure away)?

If another pit space becomes available he can move into that for 1 MP and not suffer any extra damage (pit space to adjacent pit space is not the ame as falling into a pit).

I think you are confused because the gas trap ends the heroes turn unexpectedly in an illegal position. The Pit trap does not end his turn, so after falling the same pit space as the other hero in the same space, he can continue his turn. The only difficulty is if the hero has insufficent movement left to get out of the pit and the trap as actually caught three heroes in the two spaces.
Surely no hero party is that stupid?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

corbon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:22:19 +0000

by corbon

James McMurray wrote:
He's not saying "always better range and damage." He's saying "better range or damage, and sometimes better range translates to infinitely more damage."

Exactly. Better at whatever you happen to need. Consequently they will always do more damage because if the blast runes get the range then the staves won't need it and can get more damage. And if the range is out of the blast runes reach then the staves will do less damage than usual (spending for range) but will still do infinitely more than the 0 that the blast runes have done.

It really does come down to a simple formula.
At short range the staves do more damage. At long range, the staves do more damage.
Therefore the staves have better damage and better range, in whatever proportion you need them to be. They might not have better damage when they are using that longer range, except that the blast rune is missing and doing zero damage so even reduced damage from a stave will be better than zero.

Do the math if you want. The silver blast works out at max 11 (average around 8-9 ignoring Xs and assuming no blanks on 3 black dice) damage at minimum range (avoiding self damage). The Silver staff will average around 11-12 damage, max 13 and min 10 at very low ranges (same assumptions). As range increases things get worse for the blast faster than they get worse for the staff, and the miss chance increases as well.

Against well armoured creatures (4+ or 11+W/Ar combo) that is actually a huge difference (especially in a 4 hero game, which is surely the most common).

Yes, Blast weapons are better all round, but they do significantly less damage per attack and have much shorter viable ranges, which is a pair of weaknesses the OL can take advantage of in many situations.

In general I'd still rather draw a blast weapon. That gives the mage chaff-sweeping capabilities and leaves the giant-killing (sometimes literally) to the melee heroes who have general damage dealing advantages anyway.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:36:31 +0000

by The Warp

Looking good. I will tinker some more with this tomorrow.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:13:53 +0000

by gdotbat

Ok, so here is the breakdown of the cards you currently have in the Door deck (This is more for others and myself than you Warp)

Doors with an effect when opened
Welcome Mat
Ajar
Speak Friend and Enter
Exploding Door Trick
Creeeaaak
Magic Key
Dazed
Flame Ward
Porticullis
Collapse
Now What?
Danger in the Air
Knock Knock
Pick The Lock x2
Stuck x2
Poison Gas x2
Stunned x2

Doors that open with no effect
Thank The Gods x2
Success x2
Whew! x5

So thats 17 unique cards with four of them being duplicated, making 21 "effect" cards and 9 cards that open with no "effect".

My thoughts are: We should come up with at least 3 more unique "Effect" Door cards for a total of 20, duplicate them in the deck for a total of 40 Door "Effects" and 14 "Open with no effect" cards in a 54 card deck.

Any thoughts?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:27:17 +0000

by gdotbat

The Warp wrote:
http://www.artscow.com/share/xktht11k6ell

This album does already contain a couple of duplicates (from when I was thinking about making it a full set).

It looks to me like you have enough unique cards that you could simply duplicate each card and have a full deck with 2 of each card in it. That would make for a pretty good Door deck.

Also, I cant seem to figure out how to edit these myself. I followed your instructions in the post above but they don't show up in my albums.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:49:03 +0000

by The Warp

http://www.artscow.com/share/xktht11k6ell

This album does already contain a couple of duplicates (from when I was thinking about making it a full set).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:56:59 +0000

by gdotbat

The Warp wrote:
Right now there are only 20 different door cards. So, making them into a deck of 54 makes for a lot of door cards, and I'm not sure what ratio of safe to problematic doors we're going for. I started a deck on Artscow, and duplicated a number of the safe doors on there, but I have 24 open slots at the moments.

I'm open to suggestions if folks want to brainstorm some additional door effects, or other options for it. I can share the deck as is, and people can drop the cards into a multi-purpose deck with other cards, or decide for themselves which cards they want duplicated.

Lets start off by seeing what you have so far, post the artscow deck, and anyone who is interested in contributing can submit ideas. I'm sure we could easily fill up an entire door deck with cool stuff. The more we have the better, imho, more variety and re playability(?).

Thanks Warp!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:42:05 +0000

by The Warp

Right now there are only 20 different door cards. So, making them into a deck of 54 makes for a lot of door cards, and I'm not sure what ratio of safe to problematic doors we're going for. I started a deck on Artscow, and duplicated a number of the safe doors on there, but I have 24 open slots at the moments.

I'm open to suggestions if folks want to brainstorm some additional door effects, or other options for it. I can share the deck as is, and people can drop the cards into a multi-purpose deck with other cards, or decide for themselves which cards they want duplicated.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

James McMurray — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:34:09 +0000

by James McMurray

He's not saying "always better range and damage." He's saying "better range or damage, and sometimes better range translates to infinitely more damage."

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:09:31 +0000

by Antistone

corbon wrote:
For the copper staff/blast comparison, I think that it is fair to claim that it has a range advantage as well as a damage advantage. In fact I am surprised at the disingenuity of your argument. At close range the staff will do more damage (spending surges for damage, the dice are the same). At long range it will do more damage (spending surges for range and not missing (or wasting enhancements for range)!)
It really is that simple!

Yes, so it can do more single-target damage, or it can operate at longer range, but it can't do both at the same time.

I'm not saying that the staves can't potentially hit from farther away, or that that's not an advantage. I'm saying that they've only got a 1 point advantage (of damage xor range) per surge, and nothing else. And that's assuming that Blast never provides any advantage against a single target (and we know it never inflicts a penalty against a single target, since it's optional).

corbon wrote:
You also sometimes need to add enhancements as range for blast weapons, so there is more damage missed.

corbon wrote:
Some of your statements are also flat out wrong - or at least extremely misrepresentative.

For example, at every single item level* except shop** there is a staff that deals comparative damage to the blast weapon yet has better range (often using surge options) and surge options for damage.

It certainly looks to me like you're saying that the staves can match the blast runes' single-target damage, then spend all of their surges on damage, and have a range advantage. But the math says they can't do all of those things at once; they can only pick two.

The damage + range + effective surges of the staves never exceeds that of the blast runes, so their only advantage is the set of surge abilities they have. If you're just trying to say that the ability to spend surges on damage is an advantage and that the ability to spend surges on range is an advantage, those are both true.

But you have repeatedly come across as saying that, even after we count all of the surges as bonus damage, they still have a range advantage with no downside, and that's objectively false. The first time you mentioned it, you even went so far as to say that would translate into even more bonus damage due to power enhancements that could be spent on damage instead of range, and that's definitely false.

At any range where the blast rune hits at all (even if it spends enhancements on range), the total damage advantage of a staff never exceeds the number of surges (and may be less). Even if you're Laurel of Bloodwood! And every point of extra range the staff gets comes at the cost of one point of damage.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:03:15 +0000

by gdotbat

The Warp wrote:
The Artscow deck of Dungeon Areas and Objectives is now available:

http://www.artscow.com/share/5z09rndhkfdm

I added three more objective cards, so players can make up their own special objectives. I also had extra space, so I filled it with some outdoor portions from Road to Legend and Tomb of Ice.

Thanks for the decks Warp! Did you happen to get the Door cards completed as well?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

Jumo — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:20:18 +0000

by Jumo

TheGelatinousCube wrote:
I'm sorry nothing has happened with this since I said "soon"... I've had some DEVASTATING things happen in my life these last couple of weeks. I can't focus on this right now. :(

I do hope you get things straightened out soon. Not for further expansions (ofcourse this would be an added bonus), but as sincere hope.

BTW all card decks (and of the Doom Coop) are on their way from ArtsCow for $4,99 per deck (those coupon codes I encountered here somewhere on the forums are great), transport included. Many thanks for your and Jack's effort!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

TheGelatinousCube — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:23:28 +0000

by TheGelatinousCube

I'm sorry nothing has happened with this since I said "soon"... I've had some DEVASTATING things happen in my life these last couple of weeks. I can't focus on this right now. :(

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:34:16 +0000

by The Warp

ninjadorg wrote:
Lovely work - is there anything like this for those of us with just the base game and no expansions?

:ninja:

There's a couple things you can try out. One is, if you want to order the Artscow deck, when you go into the link, instead of Adding to Cart and just ordering it, you first click on Create Your Own Stuff (or whatever it's called). Navigate your way to making a deck of cards with 54 designs. You should then have the Descent Quest deck you originally clicked on in your albums. Go into it, and add only the cards you want (possibly adding duplicates of cards that are just from the base set - the ones without icons).

The other is to use the Numbered cards from the Monster Spawn deck, and use a program for making Descent maps. Instead of adding monsters to the map, add numbers in random configurations. You'll have the whole dungeon's layout, but what is in it won't be determined until you draw a Monster Spawn card (and the Event cards).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

ninjadorg — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:33:57 +0000

by ninjadorg

Lovely work - is there anything like this for those of us with just the base game and no expansions?

:ninja:

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

corbon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:33:50 +0000

by corbon

Antistone wrote:
snip
So I'm sorry, but I don't think it's false or misrepresentative to say that the staves have no attack advantage except for the bonuses they get by spending surges differently.

I think it is. I think you are looking at the question too academically and losing some perspective as a result.
Bear in mind that we are talking single targets here. Blast runes are powerful because they hit multiple targets, but the argument (which is trifling really, in the larger scale of things) is about their weakness (relative) in doing less damage vs any single target.

Spending surges for range (or damage!) is more efficient than not being able to spend them at all. Surely that is indisputable!
It is certainly more efficient than missing due to insufficient range. Surely that is also indisputable!
Adding extra ranks of blast might be similar to adding an extra range, but it is not always possible due to friendly fire restrictions. Adding extra range will never affect friendly fire problems.

For example, although it costs you a damage to spend a surge for a range with the copper staff, that's more efficient than costing all of the damage because without that extra range you wouldn't even hit. It is also more efficient than having to spend an enhancement instead and not being able to spend that surge effectively on anything.

Experience shows that with a smart OL a mage using a blast weapon is often looking at using it to target spaces that are at fairly extreme range for that weapon or with a fairly limited desired blast radius - the bad guys are either far away or close enough to get mixed in with the good guys. That leads to a significantly increased chance of a miss on a bad roll for the long range - often with only low damage rolls being sufficient in range anyway, and a complete waste of surges at closer ranges. A staff, OTOH, in the same situation merely leads to doing slightly less damage on a bad roll and a significantly more consistent (and higher average) damage result due to bad rolls and good rolls being generally much the same (since surges can usually be spent for either range or damage, and dice often have an opposite range/damage correlation - so low range rolls have high damage and spend the surges for range, high range rolls have low damage and spend the surges for damage).

BTW, in the copy of your spreadsheet that I was using there is only Immolation and Mage Staff. Probably an o.o.d. copy I guess.

I was using Immolation as the comparison with the shop blast rune (Sunburst) - (although now you mention the Mage Staff, Immolation isn't the correct comparison, not that that matters significantly as it is still a non-blast weapon at the same level).
Immolation: WG ~~ +1 range or +1 damage
I also didn't think (from memory) that Sunburst added damage but I am obviously incorrect on that one.
Anyway, Immolation is clearly more efficient as a weapon than Sunburst against a single target, being better able to increase damage (a small advantage) or range (a huge advantage if it is needed at all)

For the copper staff/blast comparison, I think that it is fair to claim that it has a range advantage as well as a damage advantage. In fact I am surprised at the disingenuity of your argument. At close range the staff will do more damage (spending surges for damage, the dice are the same). At long range it will do more damage (spending surges for range and not missing (or wasting enhancements for range)!)
It really is that simple!

The exact same argument goes for the Silver comparison. At short range, the staff does more damage (the 2 bonus surges approximately cancel the yellow vs green dice, and you've got all the other surges being spent on damage). At long range, the staff does more damage (the blast rune often fails completely or enhancements need to be spent on range).

The same can also be said for Gold, though the special abilities muddle that comparison up somewhat.

In all cases though, this effect is increased in RtL where there are often significantly more surges on an attack that would be 'wasted' on a blast rune.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

tmredden — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:58:03 +0000

by tmredden

esse_r wrote:
I would like Descent better if their website still promoted high quality user-generated scenarios.

Are you thinking of these, http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/descent_quests.html, they are still there. :)

As for the OP, it has already been said but again:
Descent is not D&D in the same way as I don't think D&D is a RPG; it's an adventure game with RPG elements. ;)

Yes, thank you. I couldn't find them and thought they went away. I do hope they upgrade to a web-based scenario creator.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:51:19 +0000

by Antistone

corbon wrote:
**shop blast item doesn't seem to be in your Endurance Calculator spreedsheet. IIRC it is WG, ~~blast1. Which compares with Immolation at WG, ~~ for extra range or damage. That is effectively the same range because the blast is also effective adding range - though with Immolation you don't need to worry about friendly fire effects.

It should be in there, unless you have a very old version. Sunburst, WG, 3 surges for Blast 1 (it also has 3 surges for +1 damage, but that's not in the spreadsheet, because it only handles range, piercing, and 1 other surge effect).

corbon wrote:
* Gold level the blast rune has a green dice vs a yellow dice, but the staff has 2 free surges making that effectively the same. OTOH the blast rune can spend surges for Burn IIRC, which is effectively damage, so it is not quite apples with apples. Still, any gold weapon is awesome!

I don't think that Flame Strike (the gold blast rune) can spend surges for Burn, but it gets Burn automatically for free.

corbon wrote:
For example, at every single item level* except shop** there is a staff that deals comparative damage to the blast weapon yet has better range (often using surge options) and surge options for damage.

It's possible there's an error in my spreadsheet, but here's what I have written down:

Shop:
Mage Staff: WY, SS: +1 damage or +1 range
Sunburst: WG, SSS: +1 damage, SSS: Blast 1
The staff has better range, but needs about 8 surges to have better single-target damage.

Copper:
Staff of Punishment: WG, S: +1 damage or +1 range
Bane: WG, SS: Blast 1
The staff gets a damage/range advantage from the surges that it spends on those instead of Blast (as already noted), but it has no advantage other than its surge effects (and that it lets you wear heavy armor). If either weapon has to sacrifice damage to increase range, they do it at a 1:1 rate. The only advantage the staff has is whatever it chooses to spend its surges on, so if we're already counting that as a damage advantage, then I think it's unfair to claim that it also has a range advantage.

Silver:
Staff of Fire: WGY, 2 free surges, S: +1 damage or +1 range
Ice Storm: WGG, Blast 1, SS: Blast 1
Compared to copper, the staff gets a yellow die, the blast rune gains a green, and they both effectively gain 2 free surges (Ice Storm's are pre-spent). Same trade-off as copper, except that the blast got a damage boost versus the staff's equal range boost, and they're both getting more ranks of their respective surge effects (in exactly the same ratio).

Gold:
Staff of Knowledge: WGYY, 2 free surges, S: +1 damage or +1 range, SS: discard 1 threat
Flame Strike: WGGY, Blast 2, Burn, SS: Blast 1
Compared to silver, both weapons gained a yellow die. The staff gained a unique and powerful surge ability, but that doesn't directly affect attack effectiveness. The rune gained an extra free rank of Blast and the Burn ability, putting it ahead in leftover surges (by 2) and damage (by whatever Burn does).

While it's true that the staff at any level but shop can choose to end up with better range and damage, that's only because you're trading ranks of Blast for bonus damage or range at a 1:2 rate. They've got the same number of dice, and the same number of surges' worth of bonus effects (except Flame Strike, which also gets a free Burn), and spending surges for range is no more efficient than spending power enhancements.

So I'm sorry, but I don't think it's false or misrepresentative to say that the staves have no attack advantage except for the bonuses they get by spending surges differently.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

corbon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:30:05 +0000

by corbon

James McMurray wrote:
corbon wrote:
However you come across rather offensively strongly over some of the nitpicking, especially to the earlier poster who pointed out that blast weapons often don't do as much damage as others.

Corbon, meet Antistone. Antistone, Corbon. :)

:D
Oh we've met before, and often.

My side of the story is that he is almost always right, but only almost, and gets visibly annoyed when anyone disagrees for too long.
His is probably that I'm annoying and make too many mistakes.

The respect is certainly there from my side (and I hope his) though, even if it doesn't prevent disagreement.

And Enduring Evil is an outstanding game - what we have played of it so far at least. If we ever meet ftf (not very likely) the drinks will be on me...

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

James McMurray — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:02:23 +0000

by James McMurray

corbon wrote:
However you come across rather offensively strongly over some of the nitpicking, especially to the earlier poster who pointed out that blast weapons often don't do as much damage as others.

Corbon, meet Antistone. Antistone, Corbon. :)

Some of your statements are also flat out wrong - or at least extremely misrepresentative. (ok some of mine may have been misrepresentative because you can sometimes negate bad results with extra dice from fatigue or a second attack. Sometimes though, not always.)

IIRC the shop item is ~~~: Blast 1, ~~: +1 Damage. It may be the other way around. We used it for quite a while in early Copper for RtL, but it wasn't my hero carrying it so I'm not sure. I'm 98% sure that it's 3 surges for one of the effects and 2 surges for the other, with no option for adding range, so you can easily miss with it.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

corbon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:37:37 +0000

by corbon

Antistone wrote:
snip

I'm not saying that Blast weapons have no disadvantage compared to others, but I am saying that, in a typical vanilla game, you'll usually get through the dungeon with noticably fewer attacks if you have a Blast weapon than if you have any other weapon of the same level.

We agree there.
In general, blast runes are better. But they do have significant disadvantages. Some of those disadvantages can be manipulated by either or both sides to increase or lessen those disadvantages.

The rest is nitpicking over details.
However you come across rather offensively strongly over some of the nitpicking, especially to the earlier poster who pointed out that blast weapons often don't do as much damage as others.

Some of your statements are also flat out wrong - or at least extremely misrepresentative. (ok some of mine may have been misrepresentative because you can sometimes negate bad results with extra dice from fatigue or a second attack. Sometimes though, not always.)

For example, at every single item level* except shop** there is a staff that deals comparative damage to the blast weapon yet has better range (often using surge options) and surge options for damage.
* Gold level the blast rune has a green dice vs a yellow dice, but the staff has 2 free surges making that effectively the same. OTOH the blast rune can spend surges for Burn IIRC, which is effectively damage, so it is not quite apples with apples. Still, any gold weapon is awesome!
**shop blast item doesn't seem to be in your Endurance Calculator spreedsheet. IIRC it is WG, ~~blast1. Which compares with Immolation at WG, ~~ for extra range or damage. That is effectively the same range because the blast is also effective adding range - though with Immolation you don't need to worry about friendly fire effects.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:44:03 +0000

by Antistone

corbon wrote:
Drastically less can be 1 damage less if it means you failed to kill any monsters.

No, it can't. First, because that's a heinous abuse of language and an active hindrance to communication. Secondly, because you can buy an extra power die to recoup the lost damage with high probability if it happens to be important on that particular attack.

corbon wrote:
Doing 3 damage to 6 monsters is not much more valuable than doing no damage at all.

It is if you can kill all 6 of those monsters with a second attack, especially as part of the same battle action (well, unless the second attack would probably have killed them all even without that damage). In that (common) case, it is, in fact, substantially more beneficial even than doing infinity damage to a single monster.

corbon wrote:
WG dice will often roll only 3-4 damage. If you don't roll a lot of enhancements, that won't be enough to kill Beastmen or any tier 2 monster. Sometimes it is embarrassingly not enough to kill even spiders or skeletons

While the scaling in the game doesn't work, people do occasionally play with fewer than 4 heroes (especially in JitD quests), and it is worth noting that Blast weapons are even more (comparatively) awesome in smaller games, where 4-5 damage actually is enough to kill a beastman, master skeleton, or hellhound.

corbon wrote:
You also sometimes need to add enhancements as range for blast weapons, so there is more damage missed.

There are no magic weapons that convert surges into range more efficiently than into damage, so if you're short on range, the lost damage is the same in either case. There's all of one magic weapons in the game (that I can find) that deal comparable single-target damage to a Blast weapon of the same level (without surges) and have inherently better range.

I'm not saying that Blast weapons have no disadvantage compared to others, but I am saying that, in a typical vanilla game, you'll usually get through the dungeon with noticably fewer attacks if you have a Blast weapon than if you have any other weapon of the same level.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

corbon — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:07:29 +0000

by corbon

Antistone wrote:
James McMurray wrote:
Blast runes are nice, but do drastically less damage than a typical attack.

No, actually, they don't.

Ignoring surges, Blast runes do as much (or more) damage as any magic weapon of the same treasure level. Yes, that still leaves them maybe a couple damage points behind when you roll 2-4 surges and spend them on SS: Blast 1 instead of S: +1 damage, maybe even more than that if you're using a pierce rune against a high-armor target, but that doesn't even come close to making up for Blast hitting two monsters at once, let alone 3+. And even if it were big enough to compare in raw magnitude, heroes routinely overkill all sorts of monsters, which makes bonus damage worth exactly nothing in those cases.

Now, in RtL, monsters have more armor (and health), and heroes presumably get a lot more of their damage from surges, because the surges:damage ratio on power dice is way higher than on white or green, and heroes are expected to roll up to 15 power boosts instead of 2-3. So maybe the strategy's different there; I haven't played it.

But in vanilla, the blast runes are only slightly worse than the best magic weapons (and better than the worst) even if you're only hitting 1 target, which easily makes them the best all-around weapons.

Blast weapons do often do drastically less damage than comparable non blast weapons, even in Vanilla.
Drastically less can be 1 damage less if it means you failed to kill any monsters. Doing 3 damage to 6 monsters is not much more valuable than doing no damage at all.
WG dice will often roll only 3-4 damage. If you don't roll a lot of enhancements, that won't be enough to kill Beastmen or any tier 2 monster. Sometimes it is embarrassingly not enough to kill even spiders or skeletons
Landrec and Prodigy are both common choices and have 2 surges each. On average you will usually roll 1-2 extra surges from WGbbb. So that is often 4 damage missed out!
You also sometimes need to add enhancements as range for blast weapons, so there is more damage missed.

In RtL it is quite common for there to be 4-8 surges on an attack. The 2 surges skills are more common (targetable, and you know they will be very useful in gold/silver) and with more/upgraded dice (and common use of power pots as they give 5 extra dice boosts) on most attacks, a blast weapon is often doing barely more than half the damage of a non-blast weapon.
Thats still great if you are killing things, less great if you aren't.
It is also not uncommon to need to spend enhancements on range with blast weapons, further lowering their damage..

So yes, in RtL it is different, significantly different. However blast weapons are still very powerful, especially if the OL is not an Eldritch based OL. But even in vanilla, Blast weapons regularly hand out significantly less damage than non-b;ast weapons - given that daamge which doesn't kill a non-boss/tier3+ monster is effectively nil.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:29:02 +0000

by Antistone

James McMurray wrote:
Blast runes are nice, but do drastically less damage than a typical attack.

No, actually, they don't.

Ignoring surges, Blast runes do as much (or more) damage as any magic weapon of the same treasure level. Yes, that still leaves them maybe a couple damage points behind when you roll 2-4 surges and spend them on SS: Blast 1 instead of S: +1 damage, maybe even more than that if you're using a pierce rune against a high-armor target, but that doesn't even come close to making up for Blast hitting two monsters at once, let alone 3+. And even if it were big enough to compare in raw magnitude, heroes routinely overkill all sorts of monsters, which makes bonus damage worth exactly nothing in those cases.

Now, in RtL, monsters have more armor (and health), and heroes presumably get a lot more of their damage from surges, because the surges:damage ratio on power dice is way higher than on white or green, and heroes are expected to roll up to 15 power boosts instead of 2-3. So maybe the strategy's different there; I haven't played it.

But in vanilla, the blast runes are only slightly worse than the best magic weapons (and better than the worst) even if you're only hitting 1 target, which easily makes them the best all-around weapons.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

James McMurray — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:30:40 +0000

by James McMurray

Blast runes are nice, but do drastically less damage than a typical attack. As such they can be good at taking out a bunch of peons if the OL is nice enough to bunch them up for you, but that's about it.

We've been playing RtL, and the copper blast rune takes two shots to hopefully kill the silver skeletons, so it's often been just as action-efficient to just blast away twice with a normal attack.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:34:36 +0000

by The Warp

The Artscow deck of Dungeon Areas and Objectives is now available:

http://www.artscow.com/share/5z09rndhkfdm

I added three more objective cards, so players can make up their own special objectives. I also had extra space, so I filled it with some outdoor portions from Road to Legend and Tomb of Ice.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Timing and issue with a hero ending his turn because of an effect on top on another hero.

esse_r — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:24:19 +0000

by esse_r

We had the same problem with the gas and found no rules prohibiting a hero on top of an other hero to open a door. Our solution was that the figure returned to the last legal position for ending a turn in, good to get an official ruling.

While we wasn't in the situation, what if it was the trap 'welcome mat'?

Does all three figures take the trap damage?

Is the third figure still moved by the OL, or can he chose which to move?

What is the turn order for this, if one of the other figures dodged the trap and an adjacent pit space then became available (I don't have the card in front of me, but I assume it can be dodged as all other pits, moving the figure away)?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

thayek12 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:23:28 +0000

by thayek12

Antistone, thanks for the clarifications. The card, Hordes of Things was played out in advance of the heroes revealing the new area, and the monsters were placed with the other monsters when the area was revealed as the card told me to. This happened over 4 months ago and I haven't played the game since :(. As for the runes/staves, my mistake. Either way, though, the the OP's comments, the blast runes do seem quite powerful.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Weloi Avala — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:52:21 +0000

by Weloi Avala

Descent is not D&D in the same way as I don't think D&D is a RPG; it's an adventure game with RPG elements.

And I think you're wrong. D&D is an RPG. It's a game in which you role-play a character.

Rather, I'd say Descent is not D&D in the way that a carrot is not food. Oh sure, it's bright and colourful and curiously shaped; it's got a bit of crunch to it; in many ways its my favourite of its type, and lots of people swear by carrots. Nevertheless, it's very far from being a real meal.

I went into Descent not expecting it to be an RPG. I read the reviews before buying. However, I was dazzled by the quality components. I justified the expenditure by telling myself I could use the miniatures (and possibly even the tiles) in my D&D campaign. Now that I've started painting the miniatures, I like them even more.

None of this changes the fact that I simply don't think it's a very good game. Saying that, I'm open to the possibility of changing my opinion once I've had a chance to play the game with people who aren't fifteen year olds with attention spans considerably shorter than tasty, phallic-shaped yellow-orange vegetables.

-M.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

esse_r — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:56:32 +0000

by esse_r

I would like Descent better if their website still promoted high quality user-generated scenarios.

Are you thinking of these, http://app.fantasyflightgames.com/descent_quests.html, they are still there. :)

As for the OP, it has already been said but again:
Descent is not D&D in the same way as I don't think D&D is a RPG; it's an adventure game with RPG elements. ;)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:46:17 +0000

by Antistone

Just to note:

All of the Blast weapons are runes (not staves). There's one AoE staff in ToI, but it's copper level and does Breath, not Blast.

The card that lets you place extra monsters when an area is revealed is Hordes of the Things. It's a Power card, and therefore can only be played at the start of the overlord's turn; you need to play it out in advance, not just as an area is being revealed.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

thayek12 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:13:54 +0000

by thayek12

To Antistone's point, the first quest in vanilla Descent had the heroes opening the final gold chest and getting 1 weapon that did blast. They entered the final room and the battle went as follows:

They opened the door and the OL placed the creatures in there, read the blurb, then played the card that allows the OL to place extra monsters when a new area is revealed (forget what it's called).

The hero that opened the door ran in and opened the gold chest, then ran back to stand just outside the room.

The Second Hero drew a staff (I believe) that did blast. His first attack killed both manticores and 1 beastman and 1 hound and seriously wounded the other Manticore and the main boss.

Next Hero killed second Manticore.

The last Hero walked just inside the door and did a guard.

OL was out of threat and good cards, so he moved the main boss as far as he would go (3 steps if i remember right) which didn't reach the pit.

next round, hero with the staff attacked and his blast killed the boss. Quest ended :( OL lost without even so much as a strike at the heroes because of the blast weapon. If it were a pierce weapon, that would have been better for the OL as he might have gotten in an attack or 2.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Antistone — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:58:21 +0000

by Antistone

Znail wrote:
I dont find blast to be the most important to winning for the heroes. I think the diffrent weapons with lots of piercing is what makes or breakes a quest. Its pretty easy to simply kill all the small fries with any type of attacks, but you need the armor piercing for the tough opponents.

You totally don't. Piercing weapons aren't significantly better than similar weapons of their level, even against very high-armor targets.

Optimistically, having the absolutely optimal piercing weapon will maybe save you an attack or two against each of the 3 monsters in the quest that have high enough armor for it to even matter--but those monsters are going to drop in a single round regardless if the heroes focus fire. A Blast rune can easily save you 3-4 attacks per area, plus 1-2 more per typical spawn card the overlord plays, from the fact that a single attack can drop two, three, or even more monsters instead of just one.

There are seriously about four weapons of silver level or higher (in the entire game, including all expansions) that aren't reasonably good at killing high-armor targets, and almost all of those inflict status effects that will cripple the monster even if you don't kill it.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Strategy:: Re: Blast Runes: Too powerful to anyone else?

Znail — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:16:06 +0000

by Znail

I dont find blast to be the most important to winning for the heroes. I think the diffrent weapons with lots of piercing is what makes or breakes a quest. Its pretty easy to simply kill all the small fries with any type of attacks, but you need the armor piercing for the tough opponents.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

tmredden — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:00:08 +0000

by tmredden

The problem for some players with FFG games in general is that they are of a complexity that prevents complete play-testing. There is no way every complication can be tested for what to do in all events. Ergo, continual FAQs and upgrades, etc. If you are a steadfast rules junky, then your brain will hurt. I like FFG games, and don't mind working out an occasional unforeseen problem. It's the gads of high-quality, colorful and artistic bits that I yearn for.

I would like Descent better if their website still promoted high quality user-generated scenarios.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Weloi Avala — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:35:53 +0000

by Weloi Avala

Well, I'll happily admit one way in which I'm impressed by FFG: the quality of their miniatures. I've just started painting my Descent miniatures--the first time I've tried my hand at this kind of thing--and there's nothing like staring down the fine point of a paintbrush to suddenly notice all those little details they've hidden in there. Who knew that Beastmen had little teddybears pinned to their belt?

-M.

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

chasseurmic — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:00:20 +0000

by chasseurmic

]]>

Descent: game-end (2 players)

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

chasseurmic — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:54:27 +0000

by chasseurmic

]]>

Descent: game-end (2 players)

File: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules for Robot Overlord player

will565 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:25:53 +0000

by will565

Rules for Robot Overlord player for Board Game: Descent: Journeys in the Dark ]]>

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Problems with Overlord Automation

will565 — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:05:15 +0000

by will565

I created 2 pages that handle Overlord Automation. seems to play well in the 3 test plays I've done.

I've uploaded the file to BGG but it is awaiting approval.

You can get a sneak peek at http://www.gaterunner.com/files/RobotOverlordRules.doc.

feedback is welcome.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Sessions:: Re: Quest 3: Problems with Life and Death

Joemamma44 — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:01:15 +0000

by Joemamma44

I played the same quest last night as overlord. You are right about the glyphs, my heros had 15 conquest at the end, even though I killed four of them (three 3 conquest, and one 4 conquest). By the end the nagas fell in one or two hits, and they had a blast weapon, so spawning was pointless because monsters would just get blasted away.
Despite my ranting, I still enjoyed it a lot, and we tried out about half of the tomb of ice stuff which was pretty cool. The heroes were really neat at least.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Sessions:: Re: Quest 3: Problems with Life and Death

Echo2Omega — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 06:15:23 +0000

by Echo2Omega

Yeah, Not killing the heroes fast enough can be annoying, especailly when they are in the brink of death and you just cant quite push them over the edge. Its like they just don't know that they are suposed to die....repeatedly.

After playing lots of D&D over the years I forget a few things to make the heroes lives miserable.

-Spawn monsters as soon as you get them.
-Plop your monsters on and around the glyphs and chests.Especially undying monsters. Nothing is more annoying to the heroes than ...not dead....not dead....nope, still not dead yet.....
-Laugh sinisterly when you draw overlord cards. Demoralize them with some good old fasioned table talk.
-Hit em with both barrels and when they are down, reload and blast them again! Double ....double tap them!
-Tank what? Death to squishy !

I sometimes forget that I am suposed to kill the heroes somtimes.

PS. you could always 'accidently' misplace your caustion skill card.

Session: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Quest 3: Problems with Life and Death

MerricB — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:23:13 +0000

by MerricB

I don't play that much Descent, though I enjoy the game. Let's face it: when you run D&D, you've got a lot of your dungeoncrawling needs filled.

However, it's a fun game, so every so often I drag it out and play it with my friends. This game had me as the overlord (again!) and Josh, Rich and Randy playing the heroes.

There is one thing I really, really need, and that's more dice. It's such a pain to pass them around, and it means you can't just keep them in front of you with the right ones for every attack. However, as FFG has them back in stock, I've ordered four more sets, so when they arrive I hope our Descent games will go quicker than this one. It took about 3 hours!

]]>

The quest we were playing was the third in the book, "Problems of Life and Death", which I think I've played with Sarah once but never with this group or my set. The heroes were a good mix of melee and magic, and soon enough they were fighting my initial monsters and generally doing really well. As a D&D DM, I don't mind the heroes doing well, but as a competitive Descent Overlord, I was hoping to do better. What wasn't helping was the Cautious skill card, which the heroes seem to get every time I run this game!

Argh!

One fewer threat tokens per turn really hurts!

]]>

The heroes continued to stomp over my minions, but I did manage to have my revenge on Randy who was playing One-Fist: I turned him into a monkey and then killed him with a Naga. Take that! Randy was getting a little wearied of the cautious nature of Josh and Rich and began charging ahead and opening doors. Soon, the party was somewhat separated, but I wasn't able to breach their armour and take them down.

There are also an ungodly number of glyphs in this dungeon, and they were getting way too many conquest tokens.

]]>

The final room saw Josh trapped behind as Randy took on the nagas single-handedly (for a time at least). Eventually, I was able to take down Randy (hooray!) whilst reducing Rich's wizard to one health. That was annoying. He drank a potion of vitality in his turn, healing 3 wounds, and the next turn I reduced him to one health again!

Argh!

In the end, I couldn't spawn creatures fast enough - nor of a power to seriously threaten the heroes. The third naga fell, and the heroes were victorious!

]]>

Apart from not having an extra set of dice, the game was slowed by (a) me not having the table space to have all the monsters handy from the start (so there were occasionally delays as I scrambled for something) and (b) by me neglecting to create a few "cheat sheets" so I could remember what every condition and marker meant! The basic rules are horrible for remembering those things.

Still, it's a fun game and I hope it's not too long before our next game. After all, I've yet to play a scenario from Well of Darkness, and I also have Road to Legend and the Quest Compendium to play!

I also really need to learn to paint - what with unpainted Descent, BattleLore, BattleTech and other minis everywhere, it'd really improve the appearance of my games!

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Hein99 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:39:10 +0000

by Hein99

]]>

Yeah, so my Beast Men are not as good as a lot of the amazing paint jobs here but I still want to share :) This is something everyone should try. I had fun painting them (even though it takes forever!!) and they really do look a lot better than plain whit

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Leadership - is it really THIS good?

nyhotep — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:53:26 +0000

by nyhotep

James McMurray wrote:
Line of sight is not needed.

BLACKADDER: Tell me, do ever stop bullying and shouting at the lower orders?

Duke of Wellington: NEVER! There's only one way to win a campaign. Shout, shout and shout again.

Blackadder: Really? You don't think then that inspired leadership and tactical ability have anything to do with it?

Duke of Wellington: .....NO! It's all down to shouting! Maaaaaaah!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Leadership - is it really THIS good?

Joemamma44 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:05:01 +0000

by Joemamma44

This worked out really well for me and another player with quickshot, and the skill that increases fatigue by 2. We could take a whole room of monsters out with my one hit, and his 12 (when he drinks a vit potion it's all over.) The skill is very powerful, but overlord starts off pretty powerful too.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

Neil Thomson — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 09:06:23 +0000

by Neil Thomson

Wyrm please.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

KingCroc — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:47:22 +0000

by KingCroc

When did this become a general Bash / Defend Fantasy Flight Games rather than a specific discussion of Descent itself? Well, I'll join in anyway.

I like FFG. I think it's fashionable to bash FFG as the big guy on the block. I'm not really trying to defend them though because these arguments seem to come down entirely to opinion. And most of these opinions, on either side, are just recycled over and over again.

Does it really matter at all? I think not. If you like a game, buy it. If you don't, dont buy it. Seems pretty simple. I can't stand Munchkin. Think it's just a dreadful game. But on the other hand, you can't argue with the success of the game. Something about Munchkin appeals to certain gamers and to bother denying that is a waste of time.

Even better example: I hate Cosmic Encounters. I always have. I think I'd rather play Munchkin even. But just because FFG made a new addition that doesn't mean I'm going to buy it because I know I don't like Cosmic Encounters.

It's too easy to generalize. Personally, I think FFG has made some great games. I love their Starcraft boardgame, and I enjoy Arkham Horror immensely when I'm in the right mood. But have no interest in Tannhauser or Cosmic Encounters. And while I hate Munchkin and Steve Jackson Games in general, I found The Stars are Right is a pretty fun game.

We'd all do a little better if we avoid generalization and "common wisdom" because those things just aren't that reliable.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Andira Runehand`s figure

esse_r — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:44:14 +0000

by esse_r

I like how thay don't just fall into the usual standard mages and think of new ways to portray a sorceress. Her weapon is magic, so why not a flag instead of a mundane staff? As for function, I can only speculate as previous poster (besides the obvious that it's a battle standard) and add a few suggestions:

Magic in the runebound world is visual (runes) and the flag thus hold a big fat magic rune.

Magic is corrupting her mind and she is not all there and convinced that they actually are playing capture that flag. As long as she thinks the monsters are the other team the other heroes don't mind.

It's actually a staff disguised as a flag to get it through customs.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

Deefer — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:14:51 +0000

by Deefer

I think she should paint... mine!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

Darthlord — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:57:22 +0000

by Darthlord

Bane spider (gotta back up your bro', you know?).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

kronlin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:43:36 +0000

by kronlin

FFG seems to overwhelm their games with content and killer art work.

I've seen some good games with really bad art (RotH comes to mind), that turns me off despite the otherwise good game play. FFG art and quality of the components is amazing. Really, nobody does it better.

On content, FFG packs their games with large boards, lots of minis/chits/counters, and MANY cards. And the rules are dense and deep too. They still manage to make easy to read, well illustrated rule books.

Deep content comes at a cost, and that is game play and balance. With so many rules, options, and situations, it's very difficult to strike a balance in all cases. Tic-tac-toe is a very balanced game because of its lack of depth.

I think of Blizzard (who FFG is most like in the video game world). WoW is still being balanced and play tested, every patch they change class mechanics to improve balance. This is much more difficult with board games, since once you ship, no balancing (other than with expansions, but we should expect our vanilla games to be playable out of the box). And board games don't have the economy of scale video games do for play testing. I imagine one FFG game has less than 1% of the subscriber base WoW has. I really think it's amazing what they've done, and we're much better off having FFG than not.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Avianfoo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:30:45 +0000

by Avianfoo

Weloi Avala wrote:

if you love Descent, and FFG in general, fantastic! Have fun. Why would I begrudge you that? But for me, there's too many iffy things about the company and their games (the ones I've played) at the moment for me to want to deposit my cash at their doorstep; at least as long as there's so many other games and companies out there delivering the goods at a higher level of quality and care.

Huzzah! I applaud you, sir. :D Couldn't agree more. Ooh another Arkham Horror expansion.... :goo:

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

sinfreealex — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:06:55 +0000

by sinfreealex

Honestly, when my group plays, we do crap ourselves about dying. When you are only starting with 5 Conquest points and the heroes generally being worth 3 when they are killed, the games can end quickly if they are not conservative. Somewhere around our 3rd game, it ended quickly because the heroes were splitting up and letting themselves be killed without much worry. We keep those conquest tokens in a gap in the board so that we are always looking at them. Once the Overlord starts playing to zero out those points, the heroes play to maximize them, and the heroes don't focus so much on final part of the dungeon but live in the now, games become a lot of strategic fun due to the contest between a hoard VS a few strong. This game reminds me a lot of the old OGRE game by Steve Jackson. We find that the "good guys" lose a lot more than they win, like Pandemic. But when the heroes do win, it is the best feeling. Rotating the Overlord every week keeps this game fresh for us too. By the time we run through all of the basic quests and start over, someone else is always running it, this time around.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

James McMurray — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:58:01 +0000

by James McMurray

Antistone wrote:
James McMurray wrote:
We usually wait until we're dead to go shopping. :)

You lose half your coins when you die, though, so unless all your assets are tied up in items you plan to sell (as opposed to actual currency), that will seriously cut into the amount of stuff you can buy.

True, we've been playing Road to Legends lately so that part slipped my mind. In vanilla Descent we typically try to end near the glyph so we can attack and port in or rest and port in next turn, though it really depends on the situation. If the room is clear and you can run in and shop, next turn you'll be able to come out shooting.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

Gawain — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:23:51 +0000

by Gawain

And check out http://descentinthedark.com/ for quick and easy reference when you need it.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

ninjadorg — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:07:55 +0000

by ninjadorg

I think basic Descent is not the game you think it's gonna be. More like the old arcade game Gauntlet on a board, or just a straight miniatures skirmish/war game. HeroQuest had the theme down much better. Maybe play it like that - make hero death permanent and remove all spawns from the deck. Screw balance. That way players would be crapping themselves about dying . . .

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Finite length Undying

corbon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:34:23 +0000

by corbon

Styfen wrote:
Spielguy wrote:
I remember when we were willing to fight the Undead for hours on end, receiving multiple wounds and fighting until we were absolutely exhausted.

And we liked it.

Uphill. In the snow. At night. With one leg.

You had a leg?

Lucky bugger!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Finite length Undying

Styfen — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:19:25 +0000

by Styfen

Spielguy wrote:
I remember when we were willing to fight the Undead for hours on end, receiving multiple wounds and fighting until we were absolutely exhausted.

And we liked it.

Uphill. In the snow. At night. With one leg.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Finite length Undying

corbon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:07:52 +0000

by corbon

Antistone wrote:
lordocean wrote:
But don't undying things come back even less than that, because the rules say then any extra damage goes onto them. So if you killed a master skeleton with like, nine damage, and it came back to life, it just dies again straight away doesn't it? That's what the rules seem to be saying.
So the skeleton would have to come to life twice just to be around for any length of time. Is this right?

If you inflict enough damage with a single attack to kill it twice, yes, it has to make the roll twice in order to remain alive.

Except in Road to Legend, where they specifically changed that for no obvious reason.

I think the reason is that heroes can often routinely do 20+ damage per attack by mid-late silver.
So un-upgraded Master Skeletons will often be killed 3-4x over in a single attack, Master Sorcerers 3x over + and even Master Ogres can be killed twice in one blow most of the time.
That essentially makes Undying meaningless, if the odds of the creature surviving a single attack drop from 1/3 (1/9 occasionally) to 1/27 or worse most of the time.

Dropping the 'carry over' damage means that weak Undying monsters get to still keep their undying effect for the most part.

It's all about keeping the average number of attacks to kill the monsters close to similar I believe. No carry over damage makes it slightly worse all round for the heroes, but not as much worse as carry-over damage would be for the OL (particularly with un-upgraded monsters).
To balance this you have the fact that with more overall treasure draws, the heroes are far more likely to be able to find the anti-Undying weaponry (although the OL can then target these with Crushing Blow if it is a big deal).

Note: this is only a rough theory. Little to no statistical analysis has been done on this theory.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Finite length Undying

Antistone — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:24:34 +0000

by Antistone

lordocean wrote:
But don't undying things come back even less than that, because the rules say then any extra damage goes onto them. So if you killed a master skeleton with like, nine damage, and it came back to life, it just dies again straight away doesn't it? That's what the rules seem to be saying.
So the skeleton would have to come to life twice just to be around for any length of time. Is this right?

If you inflict enough damage with a single attack to kill it twice, yes, it has to make the roll twice in order to remain alive.

Except in Road to Legend, where they specifically changed that for no obvious reason.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

Antistone — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:19:53 +0000

by Antistone

James McMurray wrote:
We usually wait until we're dead to go shopping. :)

You lose half your coins when you die, though, so unless all your assets are tied up in items you plan to sell (as opposed to actual currency), that will seriously cut into the amount of stuff you can buy.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

James McMurray — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:45:42 +0000

by James McMurray

1. No.
2. Deal them seperately, trade them later.
3. 6 each.
4a. Grey Ker could declare an advance then change to an order after moving. He could declare a battle and then move after making one attack. He can't change to anything that would break the normal number of actions he's allowed (usually 2).
4b. It's a melee attack, so he gets his melee dice.
5. As long as they're spawned close enough, they'll still get some damage in. They'll also use up actions to kill them, possily buying you time to get more stuff out and cycle your deck.
6. Yeah. Once they get gold treasures the heroes are beasts. Save a mimic for that chest. :)
7. Yes, all temporary effects that don't state otherwise end when you die.
8. No.
9. If a small flying creature could move to the space, breath will reach it.
10a. Yep, any glyph.
10b. You can only ever travel via glyph once per turn. If you go into town you can't come back until your next turn. If you come back from town you can't change your mind and return.
10c. You can run in, or you can time your previous turn so that you end close enough to make an attack before stepping through (possibly using fatigue). We usually wait until we're dead to go shopping. :)

Check out the FAQ. It answers these and many others. There's a really nice diagram for question #9.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

corbon — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:38:18 +0000

by corbon

lordocean wrote:
Ok, we just played the game once, here are the immediate questions that arise after a single game. I know you guys love answering these so help a guy out ok? Some of these will be really obvious so bear with me.

Break it down:

1: Can the heroes trade money?
2: When you get treasure, do you deal the cards to the players directly, and then if you want to swap them around do you have to go through the normal passing items mechanics? Or do you draw say 4 cards fr 4 players (n average) and then deal them out to the players that need them? I guess the former, but maybe the swapping is half the game.
3: These Mata and Kata weales, do they have 6 move each or 6 move split between the 2 of them?
4a and 4b: How does Grey Kor work really? Can he run then battle? Or can he advance which comprises of a move and an attack then change to ready and place an order? Oh and when one fist attacks with his fist does he add power dice.
5: What's the point of spawning skeletons and spiders once the heroes have gold treasures?
6: The wizard blew every enemy in the final room of quest 1 up in one blast 2 move, then took the boss dwn in 2 hits, is this normal?
7: Surely yes, but if a player dies whilst transformed into a monkey, does he turn back to normal upon death?
8: Can bigger monsters like bane spiders actually fit through 1 square gaps?
9: Does Breath hit heroes behind rubble? Say I was where the master spider is in area 3 of the 1st quest, and a hell hund breathed fire from the south side of the rubble, does it go over the rubble or through that one space gap and hit me? What if there was no gap?
10a and 10b: When you come bak from town by spending the 1 move I take it you appear on any glyph space you like? Oh, and if you run into a glyph can you spend your increased move to go shopping then come out on the same turn? I heard no, but does that mean you always run into town to get the most move to travel and shop (4 move altogether?)

How's that for starters? Where's Brian the Colts Fan, seems like he only chats about arkham horror on those forums. Who's the man on these boards who will slay these easy questions?
Big up.

0. Get and read the FAQ from FFG site.

1. No.

2. Yes the former. There is a skill (Bardic Lore) that allows the latter.

3. 6 Each

4a. At all times during Grey Ker's move, his combination of movement (remembering that extra movement can be gained through fatigue), attacks and order placing must be able to have come from a legally declared Order. So he can't Advance, move, attack, then change to Ready and place an order, as that would mean he had used 1 move, 1 attack and 1 order placement which is not a legal combination (unless you have Leadership and declare a Ready action and pay the fatigue cost).
He only gets any 'declaration benefit' (eg bonus fatigue from Battle Cry) from the Order that he actually declares at the beginning, but he may change that Order (without losing or changing the benefit.
See also FAQ pg4
Q: How does Grey Ker's ability work? Can I declare a Battle action to activate my Battle Cry power, and then declare an Advance action to activate my Relentless power?
A: Grey Ker may still only declare one action per turn. His ability allows him to change what action he is taking mid-turn (provided that the new action is legal), but changing his action is not the same as declaring a new one. For example, Grey Ker could declare a Battle action (potentially triggering Battle Cry or a similar skill), spend some fatigue to move, make an attack roll, and then change to an Advance action to move his speed or to a Ready action to place an order token.

4b. Yes. It is still a melee attack so he may add power dice according to his melee trait.

5. (i) Its better than nothing.
(ii) Soak up attacks (if there are no AoE weapons) thus slowing the heroes down slightly.
(iii) Still plink away at the weakest hero with any remaining monsters.
(iv) block movement or LOS for the heroes to more important monsters.
But really, skeletons and spiders go down in one hit with Shop weapons, so there isn't much difference unless AoE weapons are drawn.

6. Yes, or at least, common. Gold weapons are very very powerful. Further, the first 4 quests are really quite easy on the heroes as they are learning. Later quests are harder, especially with the introduction of Treachery from expansions.

7. Yes. See pg18. All lingering effects (explicitly including monkeydom) are removed when a hero dies

8. No.

9. Yes. FAQ pg2
Breath Template Clarification
The flame from a Breath attack billows out and around obstacles. It usually affects all figures under the breath template, but the flame can be blocked by walls and closed doors. Essentially, if a small flying figure could trace a legal movement path from the square where the Breath attack starts to the target – while staying within the breath template – then the target is affected. See the diagram on page 3 of this FAQ for examples. Breath attacks cannot be made through staircases.
FAQ pg3 has further diagrams and examples.

10a. Yes (any activated Glyph that is).

10b. DJitD pg 17
A hero may only use a glyph once per turn—he may not use a glyph to go to town and then return, or vice versa.

10c. Yes, Running through a glyph into town in order to use the extra movement points to shop (and possibly drink a newly purchased potion) is allowed and common.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

Smoo — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:38:14 +0000

by Smoo

lordocean wrote:
How's that for starters? Where's Brian the Colts Fan, seems like he only chats about arkham horror on those forums. Who's the man on these boards who will slay these easy questions?
Big up.

Brian seems to be an all-purpose Fantasy Flight guru. I don't have the game open in front of me, but I can tackle a few of these.

1. No trading money.
2. The former. Deal separately, then trade later using in-game rules.
5. Maybe none. They might slow them down, or you might be better off using those cards for threat to power Power Cards, Events and Traps. Up to you.
8. What's the gap made of? It can walk over a 1-square gap between allies provided he doesn't end his turn on an ally. But obstacles will block him.
9. Rubble doesn't block breath. Breath goes anywhere a flying monster can go, including over rubble.
10. You can come back on any glyph you want. Each hero can only glyph travel in one direction every turn. You can go in and shop in the same turn, but you have to wait to come back out. You also can't come back from town, shoot, then pop back to town. But one hero can come back from town on the same turn that another goes to town.

I think those are right. I'd have to look at the cards in question to answer the others. And I'm not going to. Sorry.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Andira Runehand`s figure

Tegre — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:17:43 +0000

by Tegre

There are a few ways that I view "the flag"

I'd like to think she' carrying a battle standard representing the nation state of whatever area of Terrinoth she hails from. She could be the last line of battle mages and she was the one holding the standard that is supposed to help moral the troops around her.

(yeah I know...Warhammer much?) lol

It conceals movements of her hands as she waves the above standard around confusing her enemies with a dazzeling display of what first appears as brightly colored cloth only to be misdirected as she conjures up her spell.

It's just a giant cheat sheet. She failed Wizardling school and keeps the best learned secrets from Hogw...err her previous classes on the banner.

...Or maybe it's a place where if you have real steady hands you can pour your minature detail painting heart out.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Rules after the First Game - Easy to Answer for Pros!

lordocean — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:05:53 +0000

by lordocean

Ok, we just played the game once, here are the immediate questions that arise after a single game. I know you guys love answering these so help a guy out ok? Some of these will be really obvious so bear with me.

Break it down:

1: Can the heroes trade money?
2: When you get treasure, do you deal the cards to the players directly, and then if you want to swap them around do you have to go through the normal passing items mechanics? Or do you draw say 4 cards fr 4 players (n average) and then deal them out to the players that need them? I guess the former, but maybe the swapping is half the game.
3: These Mata and Kata weales, do they have 6 move each or 6 move split between the 2 of them?
4a and 4b: How does Grey Kor work really? Can he run then battle? Or can he advance which comprises of a move and an attack then change to ready and place an order? Oh and when one fist attacks with his fist does he add power dice.
5: What's the point of spawning skeletons and spiders once the heroes have gold treasures?
6: The wizard blew every enemy in the final room of quest 1 up in one blast 2 move, then took the boss dwn in 2 hits, is this normal?
7: Surely yes, but if a player dies whilst transformed into a monkey, does he turn back to normal upon death?
8: Can bigger monsters like bane spiders actually fit through 1 square gaps?
9: Does Breath hit heroes behind rubble? Say I was where the master spider is in area 3 of the 1st quest, and a hell hund breathed fire from the south side of the rubble, does it go over the rubble or through that one space gap and hit me? What if there was no gap?
10a and 10b: When you come bak from town by spending the 1 move I take it you appear on any glyph space you like? Oh, and if you run into a glyph can you spend your increased move to go shopping then come out on the same turn? I heard no, but does that mean you always run into town to get the most move to travel and shop (4 move altogether?)

How's that for starters? Where's Brian the Colts Fan, seems like he only chats about arkham horror on those forums. Who's the man on these boards who will slay these easy questions?
Big up.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Finite length Undying

lordocean — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:47:36 +0000

by lordocean

But don't undying things come back even less than that, because the rules say then any extra damage goes onto them. So if you killed a master skeleton with like, nine damage, and it came back to life, it just dies again straight away doesn't it? That's what the rules seem to be saying.
So the skeleton would have to come to life twice just to be around for any length of time. Is this right?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Andira Runehand`s figure

lordocean — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:40:59 +0000

by lordocean

Doesn't her armour look kind of like Chun Li's costume?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Weloi Avala — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:43:53 +0000

by Weloi Avala

So, I'm five or so pints in and it's probably not the best time to continue a thread I started on BBG, but what the hell. I like bitter, and it likes me, and we all like games.

Reading through the comments--and thanks to those who had something nice or good or critical to say, and phhhbt to those who think I'm a 'tard but can't be bothered to at least consider the points made--I still can't bring myself to recant the points I've made about both Descent and FFG.

I want to like Descent. In some ways, I think I do. I think with the right players I'd have a great gaming night. I mean, it's a game where you run through a dungeon slaughtering monsters; what's not to like? But even reading through the three or four new posts/threads made since starting this one--well, it seems obvious that both game and company are seriously flawed.

Forget that the actually gameplay undermines the theme, what with adventurers tossing their lives out the window to respawn safely in the temple, or charging into advantageous centrepoints in large chambers--ignoring things like sensible cover--so as to prevent monsters sneaking up on them; that's just what the game is. Problems seem to lie with things like any sense of proper scaling--judging by comments made by others--and balance; and real commitment by the company itself in creating quality new materials to support the game--as testified by the Quest Compendium, which seems to be an absolute mess... the kind of mess that really isn't acceptable from a major and professional company.

I mean, cube farming isn't for everyone. There's plenty of reasons to consider running a medieval Germanic farm as a punishment worthy of one of the circles of Dante's Hell. But there's no denying that the game, as it ships within the box, is a wonderfully self-contained, beautifully playtested and very tight piece of work. It doesn't need an expansion. The rules are comprehensive. It works.

(And the same can be said of many other games--like Conflict of Heroes (beautiful out the box, if you like tanks and the like), or Tigris and Euphrates (gorgeous, if you like abstract tile type things) or the base Race for the Galaxy: all quality games with comprehensive rule books and tight gameplay that deliver precisely what the box promises.)

Descent often doesn't. Why should we hold games like Agricola (like it or hate it) to one standard and Descent (and its makers) to another?

(Though this obviously isn't true for all of FFG. I haven't played War of the Ring nearly enough, but it's brilliant (though it's rulebook is shite) and beautiful.)

But as it gets late and as Sussex's Best makes its merry way through to my bladder, I realize that I've more or less forgotten what I set out to say, and no doubt have only managed to repeat myself. I'm sure it's something along the lines of: if you love Descent, and FFG in general, fantastic! Have fun. Why would I begrudge you that? But for me, there's too many iffy things about the company and their games (the ones I've played) at the moment for me to want to deposit my cash at their doorstep; at least as long as there's so many other games and companies out there delivering the goods at a higher level of quality and care.

-M.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

Joemamma44 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:43:32 +0000

by Joemamma44

I say #1, Shiver. I can't help voting for the underdog, also nice job on Virakas the Dead.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

wlcina — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:19:09 +0000

by wlcina

Lol Tony :-) One per person please ;-) but seems to be : spider is winning, and the Esbjorn had great idea , we will put some decoration under the spider :D

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: A poll: Choose, which figure should be painted !

Axe Wizard — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:32:19 +0000

by Axe Wizard

Bane spider for me too (can I vote multiple times to get it to 10 first?)

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

wlcina — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:39:41 +0000

by wlcina

]]>

Varikas the Dead painted by my girlfriend

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: MP cost for shopping.

James McMurray — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:05:04 +0000

by James McMurray

Per hero. i.e. if you go to town via glyph you can't come back that turn, and if you go to the dungeon you can't return to town via a glyph that turn.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: MP cost for shopping.

Trump — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:50:45 +0000

by Trump

Gawain wrote:
Also remember that you can't use the glyphs more than once each turn.

Rather than dig out my rules, I'll just ask if that's per glyph, per player, or what.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: MP cost for shopping.

Gawain — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:12:04 +0000

by Gawain

It costs three movement points to activate the shopping action/phase. Once that cost has been paid, you are free to buy/sell as much as you want that turn, and in any order you want. (sell something, buy something, then sell some more, etc)

Also remember that you can't use the glyphs more than once each turn.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: MP cost for shopping.

James McMurray — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:43:53 +0000

by James McMurray

You buy and sell as much as you want for 3MP.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: MP cost for shopping.

Igor1234 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:37:29 +0000

by Igor1234

me and my friends play that you can trade all you want for 3 MP.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: MP cost for shopping.

WiltChamberlain — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:24:52 +0000

by WiltChamberlain

When in town shopping does it cost 3 MP for each item bought or sold?
Or can you buy and sell as much as you want for that 3MP?

Thanks.

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

tebald — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:00:19 +0000

by tebald

]]>

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

tebald — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:45:29 +0000

by tebald

]]>

File: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Descent Quest template for Dungeon maps and objectives

The Warp — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:27:04 +0000

by The Warp

Descent Quest template for Dungeon maps and objectives for Board Game: Descent: Journeys in the Dark ]]>

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:42:07 +0000

by The Warp

Sarnon wrote:
I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but where can I download your alternate Monster Spawn and Dungeon Area cards if I'd like to print them myself instead of ordering from Artscow? Many thanks for your excellent work.

I have only uploaded a template for Photoshop: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/47476 This is both kinds of Monster Spawn cards.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/47168 Event card template.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/48050 Door card template.

The template for dungeon maps and objectives is still pending.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

Sarnon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:56:44 +0000

by Sarnon

I'm sure I'm missing the obvious, but where can I download your alternate Monster Spawn and Dungeon Area cards if I'd like to print them myself instead of ordering from Artscow? Many thanks for your excellent work.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

The Warp — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:24:47 +0000

by The Warp

I realize I hadn't post this yet, but here is the Artscow Monster Spawn deck. It contains both versions of spawn card (the original ones, and the kind that refers to numbered spaces)- plus a couple extra of each.

http://www.artscow.com/share/sdux34g2ap0o

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

gdotbat — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:07:51 +0000

by gdotbat

AWESOME!!!

Keep this coming guys! My main complaint with these types of games (i.e. Descent and Doom) is that you have to have one guy against the others. I LOVE this coop idea and I LOVE Jacks awesome cards he does on artscow!!

This is GREAT guys! I can't wait to give it a try!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Drakeyx — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:46:37 +0000

by Drakeyx

Avianfoo wrote:
Windjammer wrote:

Don't blame FFG - blame their fanbase. That's my verdict.

Let the tide of thumbing down commence!

Yes and no. I consider myself a Descent fan...however I refuse to buy the recently released quest compendium because it is so full of holes (maybe after a reprint). Also I do consider the base game of Descent to be complete, it is just made better with the expansions.

I agree.

I don't own Decent, but i've played it about half a dozen times. How young were the people you were playing with? You HAVE to have a long attention span to play Decent, especially since it can dominate all your game time.

We've started playing Arkham Horror, and I think this is way better than decent, simply because it overcomes many of the problems that Decent has.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: So I bought the base game, which expansion should I definitely get?

esse_r — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:38:17 +0000

by esse_r

Thanks for the reply James.

It was a lot of my thoughts too for RtL, that AoD would give more to it than ToI, so now it's even more power to the OL. The dark runes look really nasty, since you don't even have to draw or pay for them with threat, only some tretchery in the start of the game. In a game with only a few runes, as JitD quest 8 i think it is, they will possibly be devastating.

I'm thinking of letting the heroes get more conquest points each try on a dungeon after the second, to avoid being trapped in the same quest for ever (we rotate the OL between quests, and play it until the heroes are victorius). The second attempt they will have the advantage of knowing whats ahead of them, but after that an additional 2 conquest at start for each try (i.e. attempt 5 will start with 11 conquest points, if they havent managed it on four tries they will probably need them ;) ).

Is it too much, too little, too far off topic? Other balancing thoughts?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: reinventing 5 hero games

Antistone — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:24:09 +0000

by Antistone

If you want something simple that gives the heroes somewhere around a 50% chance of winning and don't care about preserving "normal" game strategy, pacing, or trade-offs, then add some arbitrary stuff to make it harder and do iterative playtesting, like you're doing. Descent has no shortage of variables you can tweak, but there's no good way to predict what changes will work, and what works for one quest or play group may not work so well for another.

If you want a nice scaling system that will produce predictable results and work similarly for variable game sizes, you need a massive rewrite. Most of the needed mechanics are already in the game, but the numbers are way off.

I've attempted just such a thing. It supports 2-5 heroes "out of the box" and leverages components from all the expansions you listed, but it requires a bunch of printing and it's not compatible with most official content (most notably quests).

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: reinventing 5 hero games

moony29 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:18:04 +0000

by moony29

one more addition
- monster stat boosts

tier 1 +1 wound, +0 armor
tier 2 +2 wounds, +1 armor
tier 3 +3 wounds +2 armor
tier 4 +4 wounds +3 armor

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Quest Compendium

moony29 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:14:31 +0000

by moony29

thanks for the heads up

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: reinventing 5 hero games

moony29 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:11:44 +0000

by moony29

We have tried a 5 player game before, but just with JitD and 5 threat per turn + evil genius in play at the start. Didn't really work out. (figured I would post that before someone suggested it).

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: reinventing 5 hero games

moony29 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:09:28 +0000

by moony29

We have been unable to trim our game down to 5 players total. So, we are coming up with the house rules necessary to make it work. We will be playing with WoD, AoD, and ToI. Here is what I have so far:

-players draw 2 heroes and pick one

-OL gets 5 threat each turn

-"Cautious" is nerfed a bit. No threat mod to OL, but the hero gets an extra die to throw for trap saves.

-(option 1) bardic lore is always in play, but heroes only get 4 items out of chests. (not 1 per hero)

-(option 2)heroes get 1 card per chest, but OL gets treachery bonus to start quest ( maybe +1+1+1, or +1 for each available chest on map in a color of OL's choosing)

We will be playtesting this on Friday, and I plan on taking some notes and writing a session report on Sunday. Any suggestions before then will be welcome.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Dipping figures

sinfreealex — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:38:49 +0000

by sinfreealex

I simply did a ring of silver around the base for regular and gold for the master monsters. Looks good.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: So I bought the base game, which expansion should I definitely get?

James McMurray — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:59:40 +0000

by James McMurray

We've been playing RtL with WoD and ToI, but not using the feats. I've heard people say the feats are needed to balance the game and others say they're too powerful. We're almost dead even on XP and about halfway through copper without the feats. I guess it depends on the play level of the group. If the OL is more tactical than the heroes, you'll need feats to balance the loss of Telekinesis and Ox Tattoo. If he's less tactical, they're overkill. If things are about even (as it is with us), you may want to get AoD instead, so you're not gettng a bunch of feats you don't need.

Also, if you're going to be OL, AOD comes with Dark Priests, which are just downright insane. ToI has a few encounters and dungeon levels that can use the monsters from it, but RtL was built with AOD in mind, so there are a lot more chances to use its critters.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Dipping figures

TheGelatinousCube — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:18:38 +0000

by TheGelatinousCube

I'm not sure that just dipping would work on the master monsters, or even the heroes due to their darker plastic. White primer would solve that problem, but then you'd have no way to differentiate the masters. You could use gray primer for the masters, I suppose.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: So I bought the base game, which expansion should I definitely get?

esse_r — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:16:49 +0000

by esse_r

I was in the same situation and bought WoD, a lot of fun, especially with the treachery and the kobold masters, get four of them out in an early unused area and the traps suddenly are dirt cheap. =)

But now is the question, do I go forward with the AoD or ToI? I like RtL idea, but want more monsters before we get there. Will the feats give too much power to the heroes or are they needed to get balance?

it was only a few weeks since I bought the game, but it's very tempting to get another expansion. ;)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

TheGelatinousCube — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:14:04 +0000

by TheGelatinousCube

The new expansion to this will launch "soon". I was actually typing the rules up last night. I've got to make some card content, and The Warp is going to actually make the cards.

One problem is that Borderlands came out yesterday. :D

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Variants:: Re: Descent + Warhammer Quest = Descent Quest

Jumo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:06:02 +0000

by Jumo

Are there any new developments?
Are the other cards also available as an Artscow deck?

Many thanks!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Avianfoo — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:49:07 +0000

by Avianfoo

Windjammer wrote:

Don't blame FFG - blame their fanbase. That's my verdict.

Let the tide of thumbing down commence!

Yes and no. I consider myself a Descent fan...however I refuse to buy the recently released quest compendium because it is so full of holes (maybe after a reprint). Also I do consider the base game of Descent to be complete, it is just made better with the expansions.

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Guantanamo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:40:14 +0000

by Guantanamo

]]>

Rygel runs Descent at Mike's Mini Meet VII

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Dipping figures

sinfreealex — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:53:54 +0000

by sinfreealex

I'd personally skip the Pinesol and go for Simple Green. On soft plastics like the ones that come with Descent, the acidity of Pinesol can warp or melt a mini.

Peep this post for dipping examples. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/441415

I would also recommend thinning something like Minwax with Mineral Spirits. 8:1 ratio, 8 being the stain.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

philmcd — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:34:17 +0000

by philmcd

As is most often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Windjammer — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:53:37 +0000

by Windjammer

To the OP: great post. Perhaps the definitive FFG review. Your observations regarding the ill-assorted rule book and the approach to "patch it with expansions" are both spot on.

But here's the problem: FFG doesn't mind this because their customers don't mind it. Case in point: just look at this thread and the reactions you got.

Bustoffson wrote:
then [you] decide to punish the game company because you didn't have a great reaction to one of their games. Illogical. The rule book? THAT was the big deal breaker for you?...

You should have managed your expectations a little better, my man. The blame falls as much on your own shoulders. You should punish yourself and not buy any games from anyone.

It's all here: the incomprehension that an inadequately produced (and inadequately playtested) ruleset could ever ruin a game for anyone anywhere. And the advice to people like you to blame yourself for this outcome (amazing - how so?) and stop buying games. Because FFG could never ever be at fault for this.

Guess what. It is this mentality which gave us shoddily produced FFG stuff like the scenario books for Descent and Tide of Iron containing scenarios that aren't even playable because they miss essential ingredients to even allow setting up the scenario. These things have demonstrably not ever seen the touch of an editor who knew, let alone played, the game. FFG has understood that the effort to playtest and carefully edit their product isn't worth the bother as their fans buy their product happily anyway.

Don't blame FFG - blame their fanbase. That's my verdict.

Let the tide of thumbing down commence!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Dipping figures

Thunder — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:47:28 +0000

by Thunder

I would suggest you go buy a cheap plastic fig at a game store or even a toy store and play with the dip first. The fig will cost you about a dollar and you can experiment to your hearts content. I don't know about the Minwax stuff but old clearcoat and pain jobs were easily removed by soaking for a few hours in Pinesol and using an old toothbrush, works great, no harsh chemicals, easy to do.

1) I would think you could jus dip and be done, this minwax stuff it very durable stuff.

2) If you are going to prime them I would also suggest you go one step futher and paint on a tiny bit of highlight on the claws, orb in hand, fangs, etc. Just to give a touch of something to draw the eye, look menacing and set those models apart from the other monsters.

3) I think this is a proportional answer, the more time and care you spend the better your results will be...I primed all mine black, then drybrushed color over them, then did a few highlights and then sealed. I did the base set in an evening. Seriously.

4) Primer colour is dependant on your eye. White for brighter colours, black for darker colours, grey for a middle ground. Some folks however use black because they use the primer to get the shadows easier. On the heroes, I kinda cheated and paid someone else to do them because I am not that good of a painter. :)

Good luck and let us know what you went with and how it turned out.

Peace

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

Avianfoo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:21:09 +0000

by Avianfoo

Joemamma44 wrote:
http://members.cox.net/shawnriordan/TileSystem304.zip
Someone posted this on BGG a little bit ago. I couldn't figure out how to use it so I'm using the editor on fantasy flight games website, but this should have the tiles from all the expansion if you can figure out how to use it.
That said, the quests in the game are pretty fun, and so far as I've played them pretty interesting. The story isn't the most original thing you'll ever experience, but it'll give you around 3-4 hours of play per quest, plus the dozens of fan created quests on ffg's site, you'll have more game play than you'll know what to do with.

Go here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/47845 and follow the instructions :)

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Dipping figures

RobertDD — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:09:23 +0000

by RobertDD

I have been thinking about "dipping" my Descent figures without painting them to bring out the detail, but I have been hessitant as I do not want to ruin a $80 game. I have a few questions.

1. Should I just dip (using Minwax Polyshade Tudor Satin which I intent to paint on rather than really dunk the figures) my figures without priming?

2. Should I sprayprimer my figures using a Krylon Fusion matte or satin base coat in the right color (either red or ivory-ish) and then dip them?

3. Will the results look good or should I not even bother?

4. Should I do the PCs as well, or should I not bother with them because their details are so much worse and they won't look right? What primer color should I use for the PCs if you recommend I primer.

After dipping I intend to spray my figs with a layer of Testors dull cote. The whole idea is to enhance the figures without spending an inordinate amount of time on them. If anyone has any advice or experience with what I am outlining here I'd love to hear it! Thank you!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Some rules questions

Hegelbj — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:18:39 +0000

by Hegelbj

Thanks!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

Joemamma44 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:29:03 +0000

by Joemamma44

http://members.cox.net/shawnriordan/TileSystem304.zip
Someone posted this on BGG a little bit ago. I couldn't figure out how to use it so I'm using the editor on fantasy flight games website, but this should have the tiles from all the expansion if you can figure out how to use it.
That said, the quests in the game are pretty fun, and so far as I've played them pretty interesting. The story isn't the most original thing you'll ever experience, but it'll give you around 3-4 hours of play per quest, plus the dozens of fan created quests on ffg's site, you'll have more game play than you'll know what to do with.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

Antistone — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:00:26 +0000

by Antistone

bsushort wrote:
It comes with 10 predefined scenarios. Each expansion (other that RtL) has an additional 10.

Actually, the base game and the Well of Darkness expansion each come with 9, and I believe the others each only have 6.

Still, I agree with the other posters that there's no need to create your own scnearios if you don't want to.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

tmredden — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:55:59 +0000

by tmredden

Descent: Quest Compedium was recently shipped with 16 treacherous scenarios. Each of the several expansions also come with several scenarios.

Is FFG ever going to upgrade and post their Flash (web based cross-platform) version of the scenario editor, with a database of uploaded fan-created scenarios like it used to be? I know descentedit.exe hasn't been reworked in ages, and poking around I couldn't find any new online source for the tons of fan-created stuff done previously.

Descent doesn't work like an RPG, multi-room events are going on all the time, so creating scenarios on-the-fly wouldn't work very well. You need to have everything created and ready to spring at the outset. The Overlord is not just an orchestrator or conductor, he is a player and needs to devote all game time to play - no time to generate ad hoc dungeons.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Some rules questions

James McMurray — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:37:11 +0000

by James McMurray

Hegelbj wrote:
Played two more games yesterday (10 hours! and I got another question:

There's an item that gives the ability: Blast 1 for two surges. If the hero uses, for example, 6 surges, he would have Blast 3? That's quite powerful for a silver item...

Blast 3 is huge. It takes a lot of teamwork to set it up and not hurt another hero. And then you've spent your surges on blast, not damage, so you may not kill everything.

Hegelbj wrote:
One of the Heroes had the divine retribution skill, so he just obliged the monsters to kill him by making them unable to pass him by, thus killing a lot of the monsters easuly for just two conquest tokens. My question is: can a large monster pass through a one square space for escaping this situation?

Large creatures can't squeeze through small space. But the OL is not obliged to kill the other character, and it takes very specific circumstance for a single hero to completely block the monsters. Divine Retribution is nice, but the OL only triggers it when he wants to, so it's not too powerful.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

Trump — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:27:30 +0000

by Trump

And there's a LOT of fan-created stuff out there. I don't think you'd ever have to design a dungeon on your own if you didn't want to. I sure don't plan on it. If I wanted to go to that much trouble, I'd play an RPG.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Some rules questions

Hegelbj — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:00:09 +0000

by Hegelbj

Played two more games yesterday (10 hours! and I got another question:

There's an item that gives the ability: Blast 1 for two surges. If the hero uses, for example, 6 surges, he would have Blast 3? That's quite powerful for a silver item...

One of the Heroes had the divine retribution skill, so he just obliged the monsters to kill him by making them unable to pass him by, thus killing a lot of the monsters easuly for just two conquest tokens. My question is: can a large monster pass through a one square space for escaping this situation?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

bsushort — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:57:26 +0000

by bsushort

tarheel wrote:
I'm thinking about investing in this game system, but one question. Does the overlord have to spend time in advance of the actual game setting up dungeon maps on paper? Obviously, the game will come with scenarios (I'd assume), but does it have the capacity to or is it typical to have randomly generated dungeon maps created as you play?

It comes with 10 predefined scenarios. Each expansion (other that RtL) has an additional 10. RtL comes with many, many more, though they are smaller and less fleshed out (and are intended to be random dungeons for us in its campaign mode.

It is not expected that the overlord take any time to design his own dungeons, although there is also nothing that prevents it. If you want to make your own scenarios, you can easily do so.

That said, there is no true random dungeon generator. Just RtL's system of 50 or so predefined small dungeons chosen at random.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Considering buying but question about dungeon design

tarheel — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:43:27 +0000

by tarheel

I'm thinking about investing in this game system, but one question. Does the overlord have to spend time in advance of the actual game setting up dungeon maps on paper? Obviously, the game will come with scenarios (I'd assume), but does it have the capacity to or is it typical to have randomly generated dungeon maps created as you play?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Leadership - is it really THIS good?

James McMurray — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:31:44 +0000

by James McMurray

Line of sight is not needed.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: Leadership - is it really THIS good?

moony29 — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 19:25:26 +0000

by moony29

We had a bit of a disagreement last night over leadership and line of sight:

When placing a ready order on another hero with leadership, does line of sight need to be established?

New Image for Descent: Journeys in the Dark

dj_doom — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:30:41 +0000

by dj_doom

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Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

GreyLord — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 02:51:08 +0000

by GreyLord

Once again, the original poster stated that he wanted "D&D lite"...despite his research and many saying it wasn't D&D. It doesn't matter if it was D&D, D&D lite, or whatever, if you go in expecting D&D...you'll probably be disappointed because as many already stated...it's not D&D.

Though on the vice side...I do have to say it does have resemblances to Warhammer Quest with RtL.

Also I might add, I can completely waste Tamalir as the OL...noticed it pretty early on after the RtL release...

However, I really dislike the base game to tell the truth, enough to GIVE IT AWAY...

But with RtL I actually really LOVE the game...

Odd isn't it.

Though I have to scale back so that it's a little bit more fun for those who aren't the OL.

Sea of Blood hopefully will even things out with it's campaign...

Though I would HIGHLY SUGGEST the original poster to NOT BUY that expansions as well.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Quest Compendium

Antistone — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 23:54:32 +0000

by Antistone

There's a giant thread on the FFG forums filled with complaints about confusing and erroneous parts of the quest guide. That may have put some people off from buying it--especially the people likely to frequent a forum to talk about it.

I haven't seen the guide, but if the reports are accurate, some of the errors sound pretty bad: quests that use more dungeon tiles (or other pieces) than come with the game (including expansions), missing areas, rune doors with no matching keys, etc. The kind of stuff that it would be almost impossible not to catch in even a cursory playtest.

KevinW posted in the thread on October 4 "I'll have a look this week and see if I can address at least some of the questions." But that will be three weeks old as of tomorrow, and I'm not aware of any answers or clarifications that have been made.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: Quest Compendium

Joemamma44 — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:29:41 +0000

by Joemamma44

I haven't yet gotten the quest compendium, but I've heard that there's a lot of quests in it that don't have very clear rules or that the text is very confusing on it, so that turned me off of it for awhile. Maybe they've fixed some of the errors, I'll check and see how it plays for you. Hope that it's better than I've heard.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Quest Compendium

Christine Biancheria — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:55:52 +0000

by Christine Biancheria

Hi, all. What posting there was on this product has trickled down to nothing. I'm hoping to get some feedback on the quests from others, and have been posting my own. Anybody out there playing any of these quests? Chime in!

Christine

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

tmredden — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:43:41 +0000

by tmredden

KingCroc wrote:
I have never had any problem with the Descent rulebook. I know it's common wisdom that Fantasy Flight rulebooks are badly written, but I've never had any problem with the games I own from them.

You'd be hard pressed to find a game (any game) on BGG that isn't overwhelmed with a huge list of game rules discussion. We are an obsessive bunch. I'm sometimes surprised that there aren't a few dozen rules clarification requests on chess, checkers, or Candyland.

This struck me too, and I haven't had the time to comment on it. I actually like the colorful and nicely laid out FFG rulebooks. Granted, they're loaded with LOTS of rules, and the more rules, the more likely corrections might need to be made. But the rules usually seem to make sense to the game, and are easily adjusted if need be. Also, FFG doesn't hesitate to make the needed corrections, and provide them in future upgrades, which I wish more companies did rather than hiding them in some FAQ on their website. FFG should be applauded for this (see the above handclappers.) Probably the most error-ridden rule book from FFG is first release Arkham Horror, which game the OP says he likes the best. (I actually enjoyed the OP's post, not because I agreed with everything stated, but it was well written and great fodder for thought.)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

philmcd — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:16:20 +0000

by philmcd

Listen Daddy-O, I was a teenager in the sixties and they are WAY cool :)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

joebelanger — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:11:26 +0000

by joebelanger

philmcd wrote:
I LIKE FFG rulebooks. I don't understand why they attract so much negative comment.

They're square, man. Get hip, will ya.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

philmcd — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:04:11 +0000

by philmcd

I LIKE FFG rulebooks. I don't understand why they attract so much negative comment.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Kelanen — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:50:36 +0000

by Kelanen

KingCroc wrote:
I have never had any problem with the Descent rulebook. I know it's common wisdom that Fantasy Flight rulebooks are badly written, but I've never had any problem with the games I own from them.

I can't really comment on Descents' various rulebooks, but FFG in general I find to be fine. Both TI3 and Game of Thrones are good rulebooks, and given the number of specific case rules to address, whilst not easy reading I think War of the Ring as as good as it could be. Warrior Knights is likewise pretty good and straightforward.

I think mostly it's a style thing (as are some Euro rulebooks) and it works for some, not others. It's not intrinsically good or bad.

I suspect the real problem ruleswise for the OP is that he's started with a base game and expansions, thrown it all together without playing any of them, and then is hard pressed to find in which of half a dozen books a component or rule is in. That's mostly a problem of not learning the game incrementally as it was intended, than with layout, or rules opaqueness.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

KingCroc — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:19:53 +0000

by KingCroc

I have never had any problem with the Descent rulebook. I know it's common wisdom that Fantasy Flight rulebooks are badly written, but I've never had any problem with the games I own from them.

You'd be hard pressed to find a game (any game) on BGG that isn't overwhelmed with a huge list of game rules discussion. We are an obsessive bunch. I'm sometimes surprised that there aren't a few dozen rules clarification requests on chess, checkers, or Candyland.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Kingdaddy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:45:22 +0000

by Kingdaddy

In the real world, yes. But this is BGG. We rehash the rules and/or the box-back and glow about the components. Now that's a review!

Meanwhile, back to this review...Neither in defense nor praise of the review, I'll just say that there are some aspects of Descent that may be surprising to the first-time player.

For example, if you read the official description of the game, you'll have no idea that you'll spend a great deal of time figuring out where your heroes will stand, so that they maximize their line-of-sight coverage of the labyrinth. That's a very boardgame-ish (almost ASL-ish) mechanic that doesn't exactly fit the motif of righteous home invasion of monster lairs.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

joebelanger — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:02:35 +0000

by joebelanger

generalpf wrote:
PerfectStorm wrote:
Wow, quite a review, although I would label it biased opinion rather then review.

Isn't that the definition of a review? An opinion?

In the real world, yes. But this is BGG. We rehash the rules and/or the box-back and glow about the components. Now that's a review!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

generalpf — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:56:32 +0000

by generalpf

PerfectStorm wrote:
Wow, quite a review, although I would label it biased opinion rather then review.

Isn't that the definition of a review? An opinion? How is the author biased? He didn't go *in to* the review hating Fantasy Flight games. In fact he points out in the first paragraph that Arkham Horror is probably the game of his that hits the table most often. So if he's biased, it's in the pro-FFG direction.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

sinfreealex — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:36:12 +0000

by sinfreealex

Sam and Max wrote:
Well, on a positive note, I do hope you use the bits for D&D. The miniatures and tiles are 25mm, and, while unpainted, are fully usable in a D&D campaign.

That is a great point and a great idea, IMHO. How does the price match up if you were buy a bunch of the D&D boosters and sets equal to the number of minis you get buying what the reviewer bought?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

PerfectStorm — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:54:34 +0000

by PerfectStorm

Wow, quite a review, although I would label it biased opinion rather then review. I won't mimic the others comments, most were spot on, but I did notice a few things that I think were the basis of your problem. Instead of critiques, I'll offer answers that I have found worked for us.

First, you need to tailor the game to the players, not the other way around. One of the best things I've found with Descent and its expansions is that it reduced the time I would normally spend prepping for a D&D campaign. It sounded like your players had more fun equipping the characters in the store then they did adventuring. You need to play off that more. The players in my group love RPG style games. I use the blank character sheets here, let them build up their characters, give them a reason to go into the dungeons and create a 5 minute back story. When a character dies, he must be carried back to the town and the party must spend half their gold to resurrect him. This gives the players lots of incentive to keep characters alive and promotes teamwork. We've also ruled that treasures cannot be bought. We use a rule that if you kill a master monster, you roll your bonus surge dice in one catagory, the overlord rolls 5 dice. If you roll more surges then the overlord you draw one bronze treasure. If not you still get the bounty. This has worked great and triples the values of chests, especially gold ones.

Second, you need to not be such a rules lawyer. Nothing bogs down a game or ruins atmosphere more then sitting for 10 minutes searching for a rule. Make a judgment call on the spot and keep the game flowing. Worry about getting the rules right after the game. Our group played Descent wrong for 3 sessions. We were limiting the total dice to 5 max instead of 5 black dice max for bonuses. The players were having such a good time that no one really cared when the issue was brought up.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

generalpf — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:45:52 +0000

by generalpf

On one hand, I think it's unsettling the way everyone is jumping on the poor OP for posting this review. Does it really matter that Descent is probably not his type of game? No, and his critiques are not sensitive to that fact either. Fact: the rulebook is ambiguous and incomplete. Fact: Descent takes a long time to play.

On the other hand, it's pretty ridiculous to never buy another game from the same publisher just because you didn't like this one.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Weloi Avala — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:48:25 +0000

by Weloi Avala

Just to clarify a few points:

1. Ebb and Flow: If the review seems a bit confused, it's because my feelings towards the game are as well. (It’s probably also because I haven’t written a review in ages.) I want to like Descent; I really do, and not just because I spent a lot of money on it. I hope that if I get a chance to sit down with the right players that I’ll discover a new side to the game. And I've got nothing against FFG; in fact, their customer service is fantastic, quickly sending out replacement bits when my War of the Ring arrived without any Rohan troops. And Arkham Horror remains one of my favourite games: a big, fundamentally silly romp through Lovecraft's purple prose.

This doesn't change the fact that FFG seem to prop up some merely decent games through expensive expansions. Why didn't the core Descent ship with Treachery? But far worse, FFG remains among the worst writers of rulebooks I've seen. It's shameful. You shouldn't have to errata earlier versions through expansion rulebooks; players shouldn't have to scour the net finding answers to questions that arise in their first 15 minutes of playing; I shouldn't have to rely on UniversalHead to play the game smoothly. As it stands, for the first time I find no temptation in what they’ve got for sale, not even for Middle-Earth Quest.

(Well, maybe I’m still a bit tempted by Battles of the Third Age.)

2. RPG vs Tactical Boardgame: Whether D&D has veered with 4e towards being a tactical boardgame rather than a true RPG is a heated argument for other forums (personally, I don't think it has). I did my research before buying. I read the reviews. I knew it wasn't an RPG. That was part of its appeal: something requiring no preparation, fast-playing and easy; D&D-lite, as it were. But it wasn't: setting-up took ages, there was more downtime than expected, and ease of play was compromised by the muddled rulebook. That being said, I don’t regret the purchase (other than Tomb of Ice): the miniatures are fantastic and I might even find a use for the tiles; it’s all well-suited for an RPG. That had been part of my justification for buying it in the first place.

3. Foolishness: absolutely. Never buy all the expansions for a game before getting to know it. The reviews told me: don’t buy it! The idiot in me said: go on. I’d like to say I learned my lesson. I’d be lying. But at the moment, I can’t see my impetuous, idiotic cash landing at FFG’s doorstep. Arkham Horror painted miniatures, really? No thanks. There’re just too many other games out there to buy: Republic of Rome, Axis and Allies 1940, Agricola: Farmers of the Moor, Space Hulk (yeah, right....)

4. To quote:

Tompy wrote:
Just wait for the next review...

Where our OP buys the $400 War of the Ring sight unseen. Plays it. And then realizes there are more than 2 pages of rules, and that he has never read the books (he thought it was a circus game and that there would be 3 rings, not just the one).

He will lament that he should have purchased the non-deluxe game first to give it a try.

And he will declare that he will never buy any boardgame ever again.

Bloody hell. 2 pages? That’s a lot of words! Maybe if I never buy another boardgame again, with all that time and money I save I can teach myself to read.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to writing my next review: Arkham Horror: or, why I love FFG.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

IKerensky — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:05:34 +0000

by IKerensky

Descent is not D&D.... they just happen to look alike nowadays.

FFG is not good at writting rules.

Descent rules are AWFULL !!!! I am an avid ASL player and like lengthy RPG and Wargames rulebooks (my wife is always joking that I have several large rulebooks by my bedtable and more in the toilets than in the gaming boxes ) but thoses are the worst written I ever read.

They aren't clear at all, they need a lot of clarification and several time on the forum you will discover that even the game designer have no clarification on the hand and need to make design choice after the game release ( SOAR and area effect ).

It also suffer from massive unbalance that could be expected due to is very modular setting.

I want also to point out that, even if it is a tactical boardgame, it is more of a race game than a really tactical simulation. The clock is running from the start and the heroes players are in deep trouble if they try to have a tactical and methodic progression (i.e. slowly and safely ). A lot of scenario looks like puzzle and it is often advantageous to sacrifice a player to gain several turn.

The use of a dedicated "Fetcher" is also vital in a lot of the dungeons.

RtL is a sorry thing that is just an totally unplayable dog right from the box. Heroes have squat chance to win against a competent OL that is really trying, Tamalir will always disappear before Silver Age, and some Avatar are plain too good (High Sorcerer with Silver Eldtritch come to mind ). After several crushing defeat I decided RtL wont hit the table before I have Tomb of Ice so the feats will help balance back the game a bit on the heroes side.

A last important advice : Switch Overlord OFTEN !!! if a player keep playing the OL he will develop tactics and skills and knowledge of his cards and monsters that will make him nearly unbeatable. As soon as he realise that the game is a race, and his monsters expandable one shoot wonders heroes player will start to accumulate losses....

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Sam and Max — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:50:48 +0000

by Sam and Max

Well, on a positive note, I do hope you use the bits for D&D. The miniatures and tiles are 25mm, and, while unpainted, are fully usable in a D&D campaign.

Some decade, I plan to write D&D stats for the creatures, but if you could do it and upload it as a file on BGG, I would *really* appreciate it!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Architeuthis — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:45:53 +0000

by Architeuthis

I liked the review. Valid points presented with decent arguments.

I do not want to carry wood to your FFG fire, but to me it sounds as if the game you should have bought would be Doom: The Boardgame and Doom: The Boardgame Expansion Set . That one handles some of your issues nicely, story(cohesive context), reward and the reaper issue to mention a few.

It would also have presented your players with something that does not associate as well with D&D as Descent does.

;)

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: spawning....

crambaza — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:33:58 +0000

by crambaza

Dungeons are just full of nooks and crannys... secret passage ways... the entrance (the heroes got in somehow)

It's just like a horror movie, the danger is always behind you!

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: Re: spawning....

Smoo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:15:23 +0000

by Smoo

Certainly.

Thread: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Rules:: spawning....

MythicalMino — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:13:33 +0000

by MythicalMino

ok...my question:

Can the Overlord spawn monsters in previously explored areas?

Ex: The Heroes have gone through Area 1, cleared out the monsters, and moved on to Area 2. Can the Overlord now spawn monsters in Area 1 (since the heroes are deep in Area 2, no line of sight into the previous area)?

Thanks

Chris

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Tompy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:53:34 +0000

by Tompy

Just wait for the next review...

Where our OP buys the $400 War of the Ring sight unseen. Plays it. And then realizes there are more than 2 pages of rules, and that he has never read the books (he thought it was a circus game and that there would be 3 rings, not just the one).

He will lament that he should have purchased the non-deluxe game first to give it a try.

And he will declare that he will never buy any boardgame ever again.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

jphien — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:32:05 +0000

by jphien

I have never played D&D but have watched a few games. Since you seem to be a DM it seems with a little imagination that many of the decent scenarios would make a decent game of D&D. Just scrap the decent rules, use D&D rules and use the maps and monsters from Descent. RTL would seem to be perfect for this. At least your money wouldn't be totally wasted.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

Greedo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:59:07 +0000

by Greedo

Weloi Avala wrote:
This was a major flaw for the kids as well; they fear death in D&D, having seen characters die in the past.

Dag, bro... you need to buy those kids a freakin BASEBALL! QUICK!

G

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: How many demons?

Joemamma44 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:46:22 +0000

by Joemamma44

I just got my copy a few weeks ago and all the pieces were put together. This must have slipped by during the inspections or something.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: How many demons?

James McMurray — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:42:48 +0000

by James McMurray

Yeah. The set we use came put together as well.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: How many demons?

Gawain — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:11:31 +0000

by Gawain

I think it was around my third read of the rules that I first noticed the part about assembling some of the minis. Mine came firmly attached. Was this something that was changed in the latest release or something?

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

wytefang — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:29:34 +0000

by wytefang

Bustoffson wrote:
This is the kind of review I can't understand or endorse. Your preamble goes on about the FFG games you have and like (though not without contradictions like "It was a big hit even though it has a boring and repetitive mechanism"), and then decide to punish the game company because you didn't have a great reaction to one of their games. Illogical. The rule book? THAT was the big deal breaker for you?

And why would you buy up all the expansions to an already expensive base game if you hadn't played it and liked it. You sir, are a bit of a fool for going down this path.

I've had great times and not so great times with Descent, and I'm more happy playing it with house rules. It isn't D&D- that much you got right. It's a board game- one player vs the others.

You praise the simplicity and the Ebb and Flow. Did you like the game or not? It's a long game- long set up time. And for that you swear you'll never buy another FFG game? You should have managed your expectations a little better, my man. The blame falls as much on your own shoulders. You should punish yourself and not buy any games from anyone.

This is the kind of knee-jerk fan-response I can't understand or endorse. I think he raised very good points and had valid reasons for not liking the game. I definitely like the game despite its issues but calling someone a "fool" because they raised valid points that you simply weren't able to comprehend based on your personal tastes and such, is pretty crappy. And less you think that 31 thumbs somehow legitimizes your insulting remarks to the OP, be aware that millions of people bought Britney Spears albums. :shake:

I can agree that some of the OP's actions seem a bit silly - I would tend not to buy the extra expansions and such without testing the waters first but I can understand the assumption that he'd get a more complete game experience in doing so. I wouldn't react by placing a self-imposed ban on buying FFG games in effect over one particular game, however, as they have plenty of different GREAT games but each to his or her own.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

KingCroc — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:04:17 +0000

by KingCroc

Just to jump on board here, I have to say anyone who buys Descent expecting it to be D&D must not have done their research. 90 percent of the complaints about this game are that it's not Dungeons and Dragons. While that was never its intention, I think that anyone with access to this site should realize this by now. Also, FFG does post the rules online, so you can even read all about the game before even trying it.

Frankly, I'm mystified that someone could go in with such misaligned expectations. Since discovering BBG, I have found my gaming purchases to be 95 percent reliable. The few times I've been disappointed with a game, I have to say it was my own fault. Either I bought a game without checking BGG or I ignored the reviews and comments I found here.

For example, I bought Tannhauser, despite having reservations and reading the reviews that made me think it might not be for me. Then when I discovered that it wasn't, I was more annoyed with myself than the game.

I recently bought Grind. You can bet I checked the rules online at Privateer Press before deciding if I was going to plunk down $75 for a game. I'm glad I did. Not only because it informed me, but because it helped me buy a game I thoroughly enjoy.

Bottom line: You'll get little sympathy from me if you spend hundreds on a game when even minimal research would've saved you the trouble.

Finally, it seems strange to me to decide not to buy more FFG games if you enjoyed others. The lesson here isn't that you shouldn't buy FFG games in the future, but that perhaps you should take advantage of the magical internet machine before making such major purchasing decisions.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: Reviews:: Re: Descent: It’s not D&D or, Why I’ll Never Buy a FFG Game Again

thr33why — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:14:38 +0000

by thr33why

Yeah, I think the problem with Descent is RTL. There is no real payoff, maybe until you get to the end. I shelved my campaign before I got there.

I think the base game is fantastic, though sometimes flawed. The tension of will we be beat this dungeon or will the overlord smash the heroes can last right up to the last dice roll... and is well worth the hours played. There is the immediate challenge of beating the puzzle, win or lose.

I think RTL dilutes this tension over to many mini rounds, and as the overlord I was quickly board. As long as I got enough conquest every level it didn't matter how everything else went... yawn. There was no immediate win or loose.

My thoughts anyway.

I have tomb of ice, and am looking forward to playing the adventures in that book.

Reply: Descent: Journeys in the Dark:: General:: Re: How many demons?

edroz — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:39:34 +0000

by edroz

Super sized Buffalo wings!