Today, we at FFG are pleased to release the second-to-last FAQ for Descent: Journeys in the Dark (pdf, 1.2 MB). We intend to post the game’s final FAQ two weeks from today.

That makes the next two weeks vitally important for anyone who has additional rules questions regarding this game. This thread has been created to collect these questions; please post them here.

Then check back in two weeks for the final FAQ, which will officially turn a page in the ongoing story of Descent: Journeys in the Dark.

 That's fantastic! Can't wait to read through it!

Thanks!

-SoylentGreen

Suggestion for clarification, on pg 27 in the Sea of Blood errata, it says,

"Fleeing Encounters
Players and lieutenants may only flee off of the opposite
side of the map they appeared on. They can no longer move
off the “sides” of the map, only the edge opposite from their
starting edge. Lieutenants who flee from an encounter are
now moved to their starting space on the map."

The last word "map" is ambiguous, since we were talking about the encounter map earlier in the paragraph, and now (I think) we're talking about the Overland map. Suggestion, change "moved to their starting space on the map" to "moved to their starting space on the Overland map".

-shnar

Pg 29:

"Q: May the hero party purchase more than one figurehead
during a Sea of Blood campaign?
A: No, they cannot. Once they have made their decision
for one figurehead, they will have to use it for the rest of
the campaign."

Why is this? Later on, it says if the Heroes purchase cannons and they don't have room, they have to discard cannons to make room. I would have thought the same thing for Figureheads, if the Heroes decide at some point to change the Figurehead they currently have, they could still do so, discarding (not selling) the current Figurehead and replacing it with the one they just bought.

-shnar

Pg 20 on necromancy:

"Q: Which upgrades continue to work on monsters that
are now under a hero's control as a result of using the
Necromancy skill.
A: Nothing counts. The newly animated monster does
not get any benefits from the overlord's powers, special
abilities, or upgrades of any kind. It is a monster of its
type of the current campaign level (i.e., Copper, Silver,
Gold). A necromancy-controlled Gold Beastman has the
exact stats on the “Gold Beastman” card and nothing else,
regardless of what upgrades the overlord has purchased."

The words "special abilities" makes it seem like the animated monster doesn't gain any special abilities of that monster. Is that the intent? If so, 2 questions later talks about using Dark Prayer's ability to increase range/damage, so there's a conflict. If that is not the intent, then a little clarification (probably just add change "special abilities" to "overlord's special abilities").

-shnar

One last comment, no rulings on how to use the Tentacles? :(

Otherwise, I have to thank FFG for doing this! This is excellent support, especially for a "dying" product. I've always loved FFG's support and this just makes me even more happy. Keep up the good work! :)

-shnar

I checked FAQ update.
I have a question that Divine Favor of Sea of Blood.

P27
Reversed Divine Favor said following:
"So, for every full 25 conquest tokens the
heroes’ conquest total is below the overlord’s total, the
heroes gain 1 additional conquest each time they earn
conquest."

Each time is included in Special rule of Dungeon?
For example, No.9 "The Prison" Dungeon (Road to Legend' Dungeon)
"The hero receive one conquest token for each villager who leaves the level"

In the case, the heroes have 25 conquest,and the overlord has 57 (a difference of 32).

If four villagers leaves the level, Heros earn 5 conquest instead of 4 conquest or 8 conquest instead of 4 conquest?
 

-goldkight

I agree, we need some better rulings on Tentacles.   

Otherwise, I am happy to see this project finally happening.  

 3rding the request for the rules for tentacles.  Thank you FFG :)!

If the OL plays a crushing blow after a successful attack and after that a hero plays the blocked feat card (the attack becomes a miss), how you should treat this?

Should the OL give the chance to the hero player to play a feat card and put later into play his treachery card? What happens if the ol plays his card first? The FAQ says that the active side has priority on this case. Could you explain how to play in this and other similar situations?

+1 to the request for rulings regarding tentacles.

My group have pored over the existing rulings and come up with a number of issues that could do with some clarification.

The rulings stipulate that tentacles can never move more than 3 spaces away from the controlling figure. Given that the controlling figure will activate before the tentacles it is possible that the figure could be moved to be more than 3 spaces away from a tentacle. What should happen here?

Does the tentacle get moved with the figure so that it says within range of the controlling figure?

Does the tentacle get destroyed/removed because it is too far from the controlling figure?

Does the tentacle stay where it is and on its activation move so that it ends the turn within the required 3 spaces?

The tentacles will always have at least as much movement as the controlling figure and possibly more, so getting the tentacle back in range shouldn't be an issue.

If a tentacle is grappling a hero and due to the movement of the controlling figure is out of range, does it have to move itself back in range thereby releasing the hero from the Grapple effect. Furthermore, if the tentacle needs to move just 1 space to be in range of the controlling figure, is it forced to take the movement option and forego vthe opportunity to constrict the Grappled hero.

I might be missing something, but clarification of these issues would help a great deal.

Thanks for the effort that must have gone into compiling this final FAQ and bring on Descent v 2.0.

 My apologies if this question has been asked before, or appears in the forums, but I've searched many times to try and find an answer.

I know the rules for the interaction of the overlord's Dodge card and a hero's Aimed attack (with the two canceling each other out), but how does the timing work with adding power dice (with fatigue or such)?

Must all power dice be added before the re-roll for Aim?  We have played that a power die could be added AFTER the re-roll, but these added dice could no longer be re-rolled, since the re-roll has already been done.  Then how does Dodge interact?  It seemed to me that the intent of a dodge was to force a re-roll, or in the case of Dodge v Aim, have the result that was rolled to stand.

Is the correct order to 1) roll dice, 2) add more dice if desired, 3) then use the re-roll from Aim (at which point the OL would step in and play Dodge)?  At this point, no more power dice could be added?

Thanks.

We've just finished our Sea of Blood campaign with my gaming group. We unfortunately also finished with two pages of house rules in order to make the game more balanced and playable. Here are a few suggestions I have, based on our (long) gaming experience:

There a 3 treasure cards which appear to be very problematic in a campaign environment:

Pack of Holding (copper treasure): In a campaign environment this card is totally broken. The heroes finished the game with the WHOLE deck of gold treasures in their pack. This rendered Crushing Blow totally useless and insured the heroes a constant stock of all potions available.

Suggestion: Limit the pack to 10 items in campaign environment or even better just ban it.

Amulet of Healing (Silver treasure) : This caused a problem during the final battle: Is the hero healed of his original max health or is he healed of his max health for the final battle (around 90 at that point) ? Useless to say that a 90 point health recovery during the final battle means Game Over for the Overlord even before the final battle starts.

Elven Cloak (Gold Treasure): Just too powerful. This basically divides the damage received by half. Couple this with an invisibility potion and Dodge and you have unkillable hero (which incidentally causes a certain amount of issues during the final battle also).

General suggestion: These cards should be banned during campaign play. Also I would suggest that any items destroyed during the campaign are put in the graveyard and do not go back to the treasure deck. The heroes have more than enough treasures to find/purchase during the campaign without needing to have a chance to retrieve detroyed items (I've seen that Staff of the Grave a few too many times).

Incidentally, one Crushing Blow card should be added to the basic Overlord deck in order to allow the Overlord to pursue other strategies than just going for the Event Treachery Deck at any cost (wishful thinking).

A comment on the FAQ: There are 3 trails on the Strategic Map in Sea of Blood  which do not have an encounter shield on them. Smart heroes will immediately purchase Dead Man's Compass and Elven Sails in order to practically never need to roll for encounters by using the secret trails. In a span of 40 gameplay weeks, the encounter deck was not used once (with one or two unlucky rolls from the Overlord) ! This was very unfortunate and anti-climatic.

Suggestion: add an appropriate color shield on trails where they are lacking.

As a final note, we've opted for some years now to allow the Overlord to convert two surges for 1 extra damage during attack rolls (in addition to the choice of using the two surges to gain one threat). I would strongly suggest to make this rule official as for us it has become an absolutely obvious option and helps a lot in balancing the game.

Finally our deepest thanks to FFG for making such enthralling and enjoyable games and also for taking the time to publich a final FAQ DEscent V1 !

Patmox said:

If you destroy pack of holding with a crushing blow, a hero should lose all items in it because he could not relocate/equip them. Items in the ground are lost forever, so your request does not have sense to me.

Anyway, there is no time for more changes in the game, so I think that we should take advantage of this week for important questions regarding the game, do not you think?

gran_orco said:

You have to:

1) Have purchased an event treachery in order to add Crushing Blow to your deck

2) Draw it

3) Be in a position to use it efficiently.

In the meantime the heroes are accumulating treasure. And if ever you manage to destroy the sack the items go back to their respective treasure decks and are not lost forever as the heroes can just draw them again (which happened several times in our case). This is why I also suggested that destroyed items are effectively lost forever. Thus, I would be in agreement with you that if the latter was implemented, there would be less necessity to ban or fix some items.

The thing I am getting to is that some items work well in a one dungeon environment but not in a campaign setting.

I must also admit one thing though, we house-ruled the game so that the Overlord couldn't exactly choose what treachery card he wanted (semi-random draw), so Crushing Blow had less chance to appear. I still believe though, that there is some kind of problem when the balance of a game just rests on one card drawn at random (Crushing Blow in this case).

We also just finished up a Sea of Blood campaign after two years (monthly play). It was a blast, and we will start a Road to Legend campaign in the fall. A disagree with Patmox about the changes that need to be made. The bag of holding (and everything in it) was destroyed by the overlord, as well as the Elven Cloak later on.

Here's my 2 cents after reading the document and the thread here:

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 Page 6:

"In addition, during a Road to Legend campaign, heroes may freely exchange their equipment at any time while they are on the overland map or at the beginning of any quest."