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ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook

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22 Mar 2008 01:11 - 22 Mar 2008 01:15 #4348 by Lagduf
Replied by Lagduf on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
Starting the Campaign this Saturday.

I am the Overlord, playing as the Beastman Avatar and i chose the Eternal Night Plot.

The heroes i'll be up against are the Battlemage, Red Scorpion, Nanok, and Lord Hawthorne.

I cannot state enough my burning, thirsting, hatred for Nanok of the Blade. I'm confident though that i'll be able to crush him, especially if the heroes make it to the final encounter. I took a sneak peak at the Beastman's keep and let's just say I felt pretty good about my chances of winning that battle.

Let the world descend in to night!
Last edit: 22 Mar 2008 01:15 by Lagduf.

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22 Mar 2008 18:47 #4352 by Mr Skeletor
billyz wrote:
'Kay, then what? Do you have a deadline? Are certain goals expected to met?

Seriously, I'm intrigued.[/quote]

You have a form with a bunch of questions and scores. You fill in the scores and comments based on players feedback for each game you play and send them in. You are expected to play at least one game a week, though towards the end of a playtest you may have to submit more.

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23 Mar 2008 02:02 #4355 by metalface13
So I just got RtL yesterday, and though we couldn't round up everyone that plans on campaigning, my buddy and I decided to start up a campaign (knowing full well this one wouldn't count) just to see how things played out.

I was OL and he was the heroes. He picked two melee fighters and two ranger types for his party. I had the Great Wyrm for my avatar and was doing the Obsidian Shackles plot. For my upgrades I choose the one that gives other dragons the Unstoppable ability. They went to the first dungeon and no outdoor encounters were rolled.

We played through the first level of the dungeon. The dungeon level one leader was a master dragon with 4 extra wounds. The minions I chose were 1 hellhound, 1 master hellhoud and 2 nagas. I also spawned a dark priest and a master dark priest on my first turn. That was the only spawn card played.

How did it play out? Pretty evenly. At the end of the first level the heroes had 6 conquest and the OL had 6 today.

Here's the tally for the heroes:
1 conquest for exploring the dungeon
3 conquest for activating a glyp
2 conquest for killing the dungeon leader

Tally for overlord:
1 conquest at beginning of week
1 conquest for heroes opening a chest (Great Wyrm's ability)
3 conquest for killing a hero

How did gameplay feel? A bit different than your normal game of Descent. Heroes only having one skill really makes them weaker. I never realized how powerful having lots of skills is. I know at least some monsters have been tweaked, but I haven't done an analysis from RtL cards vs. base game cards. So the monsters lasted longer than the usual one-hit wonders that they are. But in turn, I wasn't able to play as many spawn cards due to lots of line of sight for the heroes and the new reinforcement counter. The heroes were able to kill the dungeon leader in a couple of turns. It was no big deal.

Granted this was only one dungeon level, but my initial impression of RtL is that it's pretty balanced. I can't wait to get our official campaign going!

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23 Mar 2008 10:04 #4356 by Jarvis
Replied by Jarvis on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
I agree with you. We played two dungeons this weekend and everything seemed pretty balanced when we played. We completed one random dungeon type level and one of the new rumor missions. These two took a while to play, but we completely went through two dungeons and had terrible dice rolling against undying monsters.

I loved playing it yesterday though. It's an early assessment, but so far this is my favorite way to play descent.

Jeff

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23 Mar 2008 16:09 #4360 by metalface13
I really enjoyed that we got set up and a dungeon level done in the time it took everyone else that was over to watch Labyrinth, in which David Bowie is a most excellent Overlord.

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24 Mar 2008 03:12 - 24 Mar 2008 03:18 #4367 by Lagduf
Replied by Lagduf on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
Nanok of the Blade continues to be the bane of my existence.

He has GRAPPLE.

Do you know how annoying this is?

Not to mention he has 5 armor, which is pretty hard for my crap monsters to crack.

The Battlemage has Spiritwalker too, which is so annoying.

It's just the combo of Nanok rushing in and killing everything he can, then grappling everything else so they can't run away, while The Battlemage spiritwalks and does a Battle Action from Nanok's position all the while hiding the maximum distance away. Silhouette isn't too bad, i've killed her like 3 or 4 times, but only because she has 2 armor and 12 wounds. Lord Hawthorne isn't that annoying, he doesn't have any particularly good skills, but sometimes Reach is annoying.

I really need to upgrade my Humanoid monsters to silver, which is probably what i'll do next. So far I have all the Farrow Lieutenants out, and just played my Second Plot card (which cost 10XP).

Any overlords notice notice that cards that sucked in regular dungeons have now become good? My new favorite card is Gust of Wind.

I only rarely used this is Regular Descent since I hardly ever had a problem with spawning, especially with multiple areas. Now, it's almost a prerequisite to in RtL since the areas are so small.

Oh well, I still delight in thinking of Clever ways to kill the heroes. I just need to learn to be more patient with regard to my cards. I especially need to think a little harder about using my traps. Today I held a Dark Charm for so many turns...not until the moment was right did I use it to have Lord Hawthorne destroy Silhouette. Now I just need to get some treachery and slip the other dark charm in...or better yet: Animate Weapons.

Did I mention this expansion is kick ass?
Last edit: 24 Mar 2008 03:18 by Lagduf.

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24 Mar 2008 22:47 #4385 by Merkles
Replied by Merkles on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
OK, thought not technically a rulebook question, I will ask it here anyways: If I've just gotten Descent base game and played through the first dungeon with my 12 year old son (and we both loved it) is it worth it to get Road to Legend yet for two people ( One OL and one controlling the heroes)? We won't have another expansion--but it might help us do it in slightly smaller chunks (yes, not fast, as Mr Skeletor pointed out) and the idea of advancing slowly with perhaps more story to the context. Or will running four characters be a bit too hard?

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26 Mar 2008 16:27 #4406 by fook
Replied by fook on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
if your son has the attention span to manage 4 heroes and can keep their equipment and skills straight, then by all means pick RTL up. As it's been said before, it really adds a narrative to the thing, making all the work you do in a dungeon really mean something rather than that empty level-up-to-bossfight feel that base descent has(imo).

The BIG benefit is the ability to break it down into smaller bite-sized chunks, playable in an hr or two- I can actually finagle my wife into playing this nightly now, and with her managing 4 heroes, no less!

The thing i'm actually MOST impressed with are the dungeon cards themselves. There are some 40 individual dungeon levels, and every single one of them has an interesting gimmick or mechanic to that particular level. That means 3 interesting challenges for the heroes to develop solutions for during every full dungeon run. I would say that you'd only see one "cool gimmick room" in the base Descent missions, with 2-3 dull beat-em-up empty rooms preceding it. A big improvement in my mind.

Now, If someone explain to me how the little round counters for Fire, Water, Fig-leaf and Pigeon are used, i could rest easy...

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26 Mar 2008 16:41 - 26 Mar 2008 16:42 #4407 by Lagduf
Replied by Lagduf on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook

fook wrote:

Now, If someone explain to me how the little round counters for Fire, Water, Fig-leaf and Pigeon are used, i could rest easy...


This is a potential spoiler for those who aren't playing the Overlord:

They are quest items having to do with one of the plots. Same with the scrolls and meteor tokens.
Last edit: 26 Mar 2008 16:42 by Lagduf.

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26 Mar 2008 17:10 #4408 by fook
Replied by fook on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
I'll go back and read read them again- thanks! i understood how the sun, scrolls, shackles and meteors are used.. the others, not so much. Figured they're buried in a quest somewhere.

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26 Mar 2008 17:23 #4409 by Lagduf
Replied by Lagduf on topic Re:ROAD TO LEGEND rulebook
fook wrote:

I'll go back and read read them again- thanks! i understood how the sun, scrolls, shackles and meteors are used.. the others, not so much. Figured they're buried in a quest somewhere.


I don't think any of them actually do anything.

It's just "collect X number of items to enact evil plot card Y"

at least for the Eternal Night plot.

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08 Apr 2008 01:02 - 08 Apr 2008 01:06 #4804 by metalface13
So Road to Legend has been out for a couple of weeks now. How are your campaigns going? I keep reading these horror stories on BGG and the FFG boards about people playing campaigns where in the first dungeon the heroes just get slaughtered and finish with the OL having like 50 something Conquest to the heroes 8 or something ridiculous.

In my campaign we finally finished our first game week. The heroes made it all the way through the Starfall Forest dungeon. The total was Heroes: 26 conquest, OL: 11. The two guys I play with have done very good at staying alive (Bogran the Shadow was under 5 health the entire dungeon but I was never able to kill him!) and staying focused. They're general strategy is to focus on taking out the leader, dealing with his cronies and then picking up treasure and opening chests after everything is dead.

I on the other hand am learning on how to best set up my monsters. I notice I'm not taking advantage of placing blood apes in a narrow corridor, keeping my skeletons apart when they have blast, etc. But still, I wouldn't call it a blowout on either side so far.
Last edit: 08 Apr 2008 01:06 by metalface13.

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08 Apr 2008 12:41 #4819 by Michael Barnes
I'm running two campaigns, one has had a couple of wilderness encounters and some town stuff and is about to go into their first dungeon, the other is one floor into their first after a couple of really brutal wilderness attacks (Hammer Brothers gonna fuck you up!).

In one I'm the Beastlord with Obsidian Shackles, the other Sorceror King with Ascension. Skeleton snipers, yikes!

I've noticed that having smaller dungeons and fewer spawns makes a HUGE difference on the pace of the game, which is one of the things it really needed to overhaul. It's a lot quicker, but all of the tactical stuff is there. Setup is still kind of a bear, and I'm not completely convinced that there's any point in completely fighting out a battle where the leader/master has been killed and all that's left are weak, hopeless monsters. There should be a way to automate results after leader death- like the players roll some power dice based on the remaining monsters to see how many hits they take between them. There's just no incentive to kill every monster since the regulars don't dole out experience or money.

These blowout games sound like a case where the Overlord player is being a dick and just completely setting out to destroy the players. Which is not fun. The Overlord is like a DM, and as such I see it as my responsibility to provide challenge, fun, and difficulty without just annihilating them- even if I can. When it comes down to the final showdown, or if I start to pull significantly ahead, then yeah- no quarter. But starting out, what the hell fun is it just to slaughter weak Copper-level characters with a skill a piece and a town store-bought sword?

But still- it is hard to resist that Dark Charm card when a character with a cursed weapon is standing right next to Steelhorns with weapon mastery and a hot new magic axe. 15 damage and Tethys goes down. That's when it's fun to kill 'em off, but they also learn a valuable lesson.

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09 Apr 2008 00:01 #4838 by Mr Skeletor
My capaign is still stuck on a fucking tugboat somewhere.

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09 Apr 2008 01:09 #4842 by metalface13
I think it's important to play the level out because as OL you can still try to finish off the injured heroes via traps or another spawn if you can manage. Plus it takes what, another 10 minutes to finish?

We haven't had any outdoor encounters yet or LT showdowns yet. But my LT is setting siege to Neckerhall (I think). I chose the demon prince with the ascension plot, so the town was real close, but it's only accessible to the heroes if they have the boat. So they bought the boat and a rumor which the placed nearby, so they plan on sailing up the river to send the LT packing and then hop on over to get the rumor. We'll see how it goes for them.

I agree the pacing is totally different. Heroes can't clear rooms in one turn anymore, so they have to figure out new and different approaches to handling each level.

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