MasterBeastman said:

It was my one big worry too - that upgrades (whether hero or overlord) weren't all that.  Gone are the dice upgrades, the monster upgrades, etc.  I would actually like to see a bit more customisation get added in expansions (or in an 'Advanced Campaign' should one come out in the future…)

Having played a lot of Descent 1e over the years, from the half-dozen games of 2e I enjoyed over the preview weekend I would say that 2e is a much more tactical game for the overlord. This time around everyone's favorite villain has to deal with a very limited pool of resources (much fewer monsters and cards, no threat or conquest), more complicated goals (as opposed to 'kill all heroes!'), and a limited amount of time in which to accomplish them (i.e. before the heroes reach their objective). All of these factors conspire to make the overlord's job harder than ever, especially if that player is used to 1e's model of making the overlord a more antagonistic DM.

Over the weekend I saw 6 games played - 3 rounds of First Blood, and 3 from various other Act 1 quests. I agree with the assessment that First Blood is weighted toward the heroes - the overlord has to be very lucky to save the gobs - but as an introduction it makes sense. For the other quests, 2 of them also went to the heroes, both for the same reason - the overlord kept trying to fight them rather than advancing the objective. The only game the overlord won that weekend was the last, where some fighting did occur, but he remained focused on the goal the entire time - and that game was a landslide.

So for now my conclusion is that overlord players will need to relearn their role in the game. It's no longer about killing the intrepid heroes, because they're now more intrepid than ever. With the limited pool of resources, the overlord needs to spend those resources accomplishing their goal, or they will eventually fail and the heroes will win. In my opinion this makes playing the overlord more of a game than before, and I had a lot of fun when I sat in that chair - more than I ever really had overlording in 1e.

hooliganj said:

Well said, I've played a few Act I quests now and I agree, now the Overlord feels more like playing the game to win rather than just trying to make the heroes lose.

jjcole said:

I concur.  Everything about the way the overlord acts in 2e seems to make it more fun for the whole table, and as an added bonus your hero players don't vehemently hate you by the end of the night :D.

Here are a couple of things for the OL to learn:

1.) Know your monsters- Our OL had no clue how powerful some of his monsters can be if used properly.  He stuck with the monsters that he felt comfortable with instead of picking ones more suited for the level.  He was all focused on hurting us that he forgot that his flesh molders could heal his units instead of attacking.  The monsters have to play their parts just like the heroes playing theirs. 

2.) Know thy enemy- As OL you should know at all times what you are up against.  If you keep grouping your monsters together against someone with blast you deserve to lose.  You should also have the appropriate monster to fight certain heroes.  Never fight a ranged hero with ranged units if you can't help it.  The Ettin's should throw the melee heroes out of their way to make a move against the scout/caster classes since they are weaker in the health department.

3.) Follow the plan- Listen to the winning conditions, and follow them the best you can.  Take your time and don't make any hasty moves.  Otherwise you are going to eat some humble pie.  Especially, don't waste the movement of your more important monsters.  Our OL had his shadow dragons opening doors to have goblin archers come at us… The dragons were a much greater threat, so they should be the ones attacking.  When I'm going to play as OL I know that I will follow the plan, but I will make sure to at least KO one hero instead of letting them all limp around causing me pain.  If you can finish someone off you should always do it. 

I don't want to give anymore away.  Otherwise you other hero players might hate me, but I thought I should give the OL players a little help.  I love a challenge. 

Bitterboy said:

Just in case this wasn't answered, pg 15 in the "Knocked Out" section reads,

"When a hero is defeated, he immediately suffers fatigue up to his Stamina,
damage up to his Health (if defeated by some other effect), and the
controlling player removes his figure from the map, replacing it with
one of his hero tokens. The hero player discards any Condition cards he
has and the overlord player may immediately draw one Overlord card.
A hero cannot use skills or abilities while knocked out, unless an effect
specifically allows it."

(emphasis added)

-shnar

My birthday is near and I know who bought it for me as a present and I know when he's going to get the box at the FLGS and I know where he lives…

I have now played First Blood 5 (4 times as OL, once as hero) times, and it is absolutely slanted in favor of the heroes.  But since there's no real reward for the winner, that's fine.

I have also played every quest in Act One (except Death on the Wing) once, and have played Fat Goblin twice, and Castle Daerion twice.

If anything, I would actually say that the game favors the Overlord just a bit.  Most quests come down to: okay, this is what the OL's goal is; try to stop him.  If the OL focuses on his/her objective rather than just blindly attacking heroes (often using monster to block their progress), things become much more challenging for the heroes.

Half way through a campaign and the overlord hasn't won yet. Just my two cents.

IronRavenstorm said:

My 8 year old son knows better than to play overlord like that.  Not hyperbole,

Anyway, to contribute: I'm Overlording for our first run through of the game and we're about halfway through Act II.  I've managed a single win.  It's not like I'm playing incorrectly either, or don't understand tactics.  This same group won't play tactical games with me any more because I've been munching on them for years in Advanced Squad Leader and other wargames.  They're playing pretty casually and just blasting through the game while I'm sweating to get a marginal loss.  Hope FFG puts out the V2 equivalent of Well of Darkness, or some kind of Errata or optional rules to beef up encounter difficulty or this is not going to be a keeper.

hairballs said:

I find it very interesting the differences OLs are reporting here.

I did neglect to mention, but in all of those games that I've played (not counting First Blood), I've only seen player victory three times.  Twice on Fat Goblin with me as OL (each against 4 players), and once on Masqurade Ball with me as sole player.

Perhaps the balance of the game, rather that being with the OL or the Players, sides with a certain style of play.  And, of course, there's always the luck factor.  I'm sure the players would have had a better chance during The Cardinal's Plight if the Cardinal's defense rolls hadn't let me kill him in two and a half turns (and that includes two successful activations of the altar).

Steve-O said:

But I think that's the point; you can't really get a sense of what players of the game as a whole think by reading forums; there are huge biases in opinions expressed in forums (not least, as Antistone points out, that no one complains when they're happy). 

I for one have no interest in campaign play and vastly prefer the one-shot adventure style. Certainly there were (are) a lot of people who wanted campaign play, but I don't think anyone really knows whether it was a majority. 

After having played twice First Blood, the first half of The Cardinal's Plight, and A Fat Goblin, I would argue thus far the game favors the Overlord for my group. Having read about how its near impossible to win First Blood, I was surprised to have won it on my first try on the second round. One heroes missed attack, a cut off using my Ettins to block the path and my goblin archers cutting right across conquered my first game. I then selected Cardinal's Plight and I managed also to get all four zombies off the map. Albeit, my Lieutenant only had 1hp left when the last guy walked.

Afterward when the rest of the friends had to go home, my friend hosting at his place and I restarted with our own separate campaign. The second try at First Blood felt like I was rowing up-river. Clearly my opponent learned what had happened from last time. He chose A Fat Goblin as his victory quest, which the first encounter resolved as a tie of me gaining 2 crops while he protected 2. While he was doing this, I concentrated greatly on killing his weakest guys so I could continue to draw cards, which paid off big next encounter. With great loathing from my opponent about my luck, I found the unique prisoner on my first try. I then dashed Splig and his archer crew fast as the adventurers lay dying from a master spider and two dragons.

I believe why many groups have such divergent success rates is because the possibility that the game rewards the victors and handicaps the losers one quest at a time. If the Overlord wins his first major quest, he gains bonuses that help him build his deck and the campaign for later; on top of this, he then chooses his next item of conquest and prepares himself for that victory. If he continues to dominate, he earns more rewards while the gap of xp between the losing heroes and the victorious overlord enlarges. My friend and I were debating whether it really matters or not that the heroes or overlord continuously win to reap more benefits while the other side becomes more and more hopeless.

Does anyone else feel the distance of a few experience and a relic or two on one side's favor over the other will seal the fate of the game?

One other question: when a search is committed and the hero finds gold along with his item, is the gold shared by the party or does it need to be multiplied to account for how many heroes are playing?

 ive not played game yet but if overlord is a bit weaker, could that impact 2 player options? for e/g could both players play as a hero and share overlord? or one player as a hero plus overlord then the other player as a single hero?

One thing that I think players consistently missed in D1e (and based on this thread, several people seem to be missing in 2e as well) is that Descent is a competitive game.  What I mean by that is that both OL and heroes have a fair shot at winning, mechanically speaking, so who ends up ACTUALLY winning a given quest will often boil down to who tries harder and/or makes fewer mistakes.

If the hero players are coasting through the game with the expectation that they will win (because they mistakenly think Descent is an RPG), then a serious OL player who is actually trying to beat them will make it look like the game is weighted towards the OL.  It isn't, it's just that the hero players are behaving as though the OL shouldn't be able to put up a fight.

Likewise, if the OL player is inexperienced or perhaps more interested in the story and "having a good time," then he might not be trying as hard as he could to defeat the heroes, and this will end up making the game look like it's weighted toward the heroes.  It should be noted that people who are used to playing OL in 1e might also fall into this category, as several of the reviews I've read make it sound like the OL needs to try much harder in 2e, where he could generally just coast by and burn cards to stay competitive in 1e.  It will probably take 1e OLs a few games of 2e to figure out the new playing style, and that might make the first few games look skewed toward the heroes.

I have little doubt that the "First Blood" introductory scenario is weighted towards the heroes, at least a little, but many of the reviews I've read mention other quests being down to the wire until the last turn (which is good news, to me.)  If both sides accept that this is a down-and-out brawl where either side could come out on top, and assuming all players are equally skilled, I think the game will be relatively evenly matched.  That was my general experience in 1e, despite all the crazy rulings and poorly defined mechanical interactions, so I should hope that will also be the case in 2e, with all it's streamlined goodness.

Tromdial said:

Perhaps I'm forgetting something, but I thought all gold was tracked on the campaign sheet as a single pool.  Are there any references at all in 2e to "multiplying rewards by the number of heroes?"  Frankly, I was glad nothing like that jumped out at me when I was reading the rulebook, but perhaps I missed a passage somewhere.