Overview
On the cover, Road to Legend (RTL) looks like any other expansion to Descent. The box art depicts a lone female hero with bow facing off against a red dragon under a blue sky. Under a blue sky? Descent, the dungeon crawling game, using an outside scene? This is the first indication that RTL is Something Different.
Opening the box, another difference is noted: this is the plastic-free expansion. There are no new heroes or monsters, and no new figures. But, this is a Fantasy Flight game, so there are still lots of goodies inside. The stapled manuals of the previous games have been replaced by an 84 page square bound rules book. A board depicting the land of Terrinoth makes it clear that the game is no longer limited to a single dungeon. Some of the cardboard pieces confirm this, depicting outdoor areas on one side and dungeon tile on the other. Other cardboard pieces provide dungeon dressings such as beds, tables and thrones. Ten dice, gold and silver, represent improved versions of the basic game’s black power dice. Over two hundred cards provide dungeon information, outside encounters and locations, monster stats, and upgrades for the Overlord. Finally, and most importantly for campaign play, there is a pad of campaign sheets for tracking progress and six boxes for storing characters between sessions.
Campaign Rules
From the first page, the rules make it clear that the focus of RTL is on the campaign rules, or rather, the Advanced Campaign. The original Descent rules contained some very bare bones rules for a campaign: as quests were successfully completed, the players could choose to start the next adventure with more starting gold (as opposed to starting from scratch again), while the Overlord received some bonus threat and cards. RTL rightly ignores those and sets out to make a true campaign in the RPG-sense, where the heroes will grow in power from session to session, while the Overlord also grows in power.
The position of the Overlord (OL) changes in RTL. Where once the OL was the faceless opposition, represented by cards and monsters, RTL turns the OL into a fifth character, complete with a character sheet depicting his or her avatar. The Demon Prince, the Great Wyrm, the Spider Queen, the Titan, the Sorcerer King, and the Beastman Lord are the six avatars included. Each has a special power to affect the dungeons, as well as differing costs for upgrading monsters and buying treachery.
Over the course of the campaign, the heroes explore dungeons searching for magical treasure and gaining experience (represented by the conquest tokens) by activating glyphs and defeating dungeon leaders. The OL also can gain experience, mostly by killing heroes (an activity that previously reduced the conquest tokens of the party but now adds to the OL’s total instead). Both heroes and the OL have several options for spending their conquest.
The campaign progresses through stages. Initially in the copper stage, once 200 conquest have been amassed between the heroes and the OL, the campaign moves on to silver, and then gold at 400. As the campaign level changes, greater rewards become available for the heroes, but the OL is given more options for strengthening his monsters. After the gold stage ends at 600 conquest, the heroes are able to enter the Overlord’s Keep, a five level dungeon ending in a dungeon floor unique to the avatar, where the heroes will battle the avatar to determine who wins.
While the heroes are busy pillaging dungeons, the Overlord is also active, trying to complete one of three plots. Ascension involves destroying cities to build temples (devoted to the four elements, of couse) to summon a comet. Eternal Night has the OL’s minions racing against the heroes to find three scrolls and the Sun Stone. Success at either of these plots brings an early victory to the OL. The third plot, Obsidian Shackles, has no early ending. Instead, it provides several opportunities to mess with the players and a chance to control one of the heroes during the final battle.
The Heroes
Whereas basic Descent is set up for two to four heroes (which then ran into balance issues of being too hard for two and too easy for four), RTL is specifically for four heroes. If you have less than four hero players, some people are going to need to play more than one. Hero selection is random, but now each player is supposed to draw three characters and pick one, increasing the chance of a balanced party, and increasing the chance that the player will get to use someone they like.
Starting heroes are slightly less powerful than in vanilla Descent. Skills are drawn as per what’s listed on the character sheet plus one from any deck, but only one of these skills is kept. To make up for this, upgrading characters is significantly easier and no longer random. Buying a new skill in Descent meant paying a large amount of gold and drawing the top card from the deck, so you never knew if your ranged character was drawing Master Archer (2 free surges for ranged attacks) or Ambidextrous (bonus when using two weapons in melee). Gold is now held in a party fund (and no longer lost on death) and the skills are taught in the various cities, so you know exactly what you’re getting.
Besides skills, heroes are able to upgrade the power dice in their traits. As in vanilla Descent, you can buy more black dice (still limit of five), but you can now upgrade any black dice to silver and gold (still limit of five total, and further restricted by campaign level). The silver dice have double the value of the black, with two surges on a face or two range/damage power enhancements, while gold are triple value. These dice can also be accessed during combat by spending fatigue: one point of fatigue will buy (for one attack) one extra black die, or upgrade a black or silver die one stage.
There is one more type of training available to heroes: secret training. The secret trainers are off the beaten path, but to those willing to make the journey, they not only offer training in all traits and a selection of some of the best skills in the game, they also give the opportunity to increase a hero’s maximum health or fatigue. Once per campaign level, a hero can train to receive either four more health or two more fatigue.
There are no new treasure cards for the game, but there are some new shop cards, all of which provide some bonus on the overland map.
The Map
The map board is about half the size of a standard boardgame board (like Monopoly or Risk). Two thirds of the board depict the land of Terrinoth, filled with eight cities, two secret trainers, three legendary areas, and thirty random dungeons. Between each location, the paths are marked with encounter shields that list the number of power dice rolled and the symbol needed for an overland encounter to occur.
All cities are rated on Defense, Market, and Temple, showing how hard it is to siege the city, how many magic items are available each week, and how many health a hero can recover in a visit. Some towns also feature an alchemist for potions. Each town also has a unique feature; Forge, a dwarven stronghold, always has a weapon or armor as the first item at the market, while the great market of Riverwatch never suffers a market shortage. The city of Tamalir is the hometown of the campaign; any town visits during dungeons are to Tamalir, and the heroes have the option of upgrading the town. If Tamalir is razed, it counts as an automatic win for the Overlord.
The temples are a new feature of RTL, finally providing a source of healing outside of potions and the magic healing runes (which are removed for the Advanced Campaign). A character visiting a temple may spend 25 gold to heal a number of wounds equal to the temple rating. For those requiring more than that, a week’s stay at the temple costs 50 gold but completely restores the character’s health.
The bottom third of the board contains a map key, a summary of how each game week proceeds, and the areas characters can visit in town (including a separation between the buildings characters can visit from a dungeon, and those only available when the party moves to the town.
Besides being functional, the map looks great. Each city has a small illustration, and the rest of the map is covered with forests and mountains. I’m tempted to put it to use as the campaign area for a D&D game at some point. Monsters
One major problem with Descent was the monsters never became more powerful. Although they might pose a threat against heroes in store-bought gear, they were quickly dispatched with even copper items, and silver and gold weapons could kill anything in one or two hits, right up to the enhanced dungeon boss. With the great potential for advancement of heroes in RTL, stock monsters would be pushovers. So, RTL provides a solution.
Monsters all start out at copper level, which is approximately their level in vanilla Descent (a few monsters have gained a slight power up, while several are less powerful). For a set cost, the Overlord can advance a type of monster (divided into Humanoids, Beasts, and Eldritch, with each avatar receiving a discount to improve one category)), increasing the power of all monsters. From copper, the monsters will advance to silver, gold, and finally to diamond. The level of monsters is limited by the campaign level, with one category allowed to be one level higher. As monsters improve, their health and armor increases as do their attack dice. Most special abilities also increase in potency, and some monsters gain additional speed (there’s nothing quite like a gold razorwing with 10 movement to frustrate the party with hit and run attacks)
Improving the monsters helps them keep pace with the heroes and their magic weapons, although advancing all monster categories can be prohibitively expensive. In my game, I focused on Eldritch, with Humanoids as a secondary. I ended up having to put one upgrade into Beasts so that encounters with them were actually worth the time to dig them out. On the other hand, the higher level category can prove very dangerous to the heroes, particularly if they’re upgraded at the start of a campaign level (ie, campaign level shifts to silver, Overlord’s first act is to advance Eldritch to gold).
Monsters are evenly distributed between the categories (with the top tier monsters of giant, dragon, and demon in separate categories) provided one is using both expansions. Without the expansions, Beasts is the largest group, with six of the seven monsters coming from the original set. Humanoids have only three of seven as core, and Eldritch have only three of six. To make up for this, Humanoids seem to turn up in the dungeons more often, while Eldritch have an edge in dungeon bosses.
In addition to the standard monsters, RTL introduces lieutenants, special servants of the OL. Three lieutenants are available to all Overlords and each OL have one unique lieutenant (except the Beastman Lord with two). The lieutenants are able to travel around the overland map, collecting quest items or besieging cities. If one is near a dungeon the heroes explore, the lieutenant can fortify the dungeon with a certain power card.
If the heroes and a lieutenant meet, either side can initiate an encounter. All lieutenants come with a set of minions. They also receive stats that automatically increase with the campaign level; these stats tend to place them on par with named dungeon monsters, and they’ll sometimes have unique abilities. Additionally, the lieutenants can choose to take two move or two attack actions instead of the standard move and attack of monsters. Although powerful, if a lieutenant is slain in combat, it is sent to the graveyard, never to return.
The addition of the monster levels fixes the problem of monsters becoming irrelevant once the heroes had stronger weapons. Monsters are now a danger all the way to the end of the campaign. The lieutenants are a great addition, allowing the OL to be active instead of just reactive. Every encounter my players have had with a lieutenant has been a thrilling fight, difficult but not impossible. My only complaint here is that the lack of plastic means lieutenants are represented by cardboard pieces instead of plastic figures.
Dungeons
The massive dungeons of vanilla Descent are not used in RTL. Forty dungeon cards replace them. Each card lists any special rules for the dungeon as well as the stats for the dungeon leader. The cards reference a map in the rulebook. These dungeon levels are about the size of an area in a vanilla Descent dungeon. Most of the dungeons provide four options for monsters to place in the dungeon.
A typical dungeon consists of three of these cards. Rumor dungeons (available through Rumor cards at the tavern) use two random cards plus a specific dungeon for the rumor. The legendary areas (one per campaign level) use three random levels plus a specific map for the final level. The Overlord’s Keep, the final dungeon, is the longest with four random levels and a final floor unique to each Avatar. The final floors for these dungeons are larger than the random card levels, but still smaller than a full vanilla Descent quest.
An issue that sometimes occurred in vanilla Descent was that there would be too many monsters. With the right cards, the OL could flood a dungeon with monsters. Even if the monsters weren’t a credible threat, they would still slow down the heroes. To limit the monster flood, RTL introduces the reinforcement marker. After the OL spawns a group of monsters, the marker is turned upside down, indicating no more spawns can be played. The marker is flipped right side up each time the heroes enter a new dungeon level, or the OL can turn it over by playing 15 threat.
Related to the Dungeons are Encounters. For every path the heroes travel, they run the risk of an encounter. A few of these are benign, but most involve one or more monsters. If an encounter takes place, a Location card is drawn, providing an outside map and any special rules. The heroes may choose to face whatever monsters show up in hopes of gaining gold and conquest, or they can try to escape through one of the exit routes indicated on the map. During an encounter, the OL draws no cards, but may use threat to increase movement or dice rolled, as heroes use fatigue. Heroes slain during an encounter are out until the end of the encounter; if all characters are kill, they return to Tamalir, but if at least one character survives or escapes, the party stays in their present location.
Compatibility
The first two expansions required only the basic game and did not reference each other at all. RTL can also be played with just the base game, requiring only a few cards that reference the expansions to be removed. If either or both of the expansions are available, they can easily be added in. The rules summary at the back of the book contain all abilities that have been introduced and all obstacles and props for easy reference. The third and fourth options for monsters on dungeon levels will typically include monsters from the expansions.
In an effort that owners of only one expansion are not penalized, RTL does a poor job of combing them. Never will the monster selection for a dungeon contain both a Well of Darkness ferrox and an Altar of Despair dark priest. Additionally, prolonged actions, introduced in Altar of Despair, are left completely out of RTL. I can understand the reasoning behind both decision, but at least I would have liked to see a fifth option for dungeons where monsters from both expansions could be placed. Still, this is only a flaw because I own the earlier expansions; for someone with only RTL and the base set, I’m sure it’s a relief that they don’t need to buy anything else.
So, RTL mostly works with the two existing expansions, but what about future expansions (at the time of writing, the next expansion is at the printers)? From what the designer has posted, all future expansions will stand on their own, but will also have elements to bolster RTL. Any new monsters will have stats for playing vanilla Descent with two, three, or four heroes, as well as copper, silver, gold, and diamond stats for RTL. We might even get options for using the expansion monsters in the existing RTL dungeons (similar to how treachery values for the original dungeons were included in the expansions). There should also be new Dungeon, Rumor, and Encounter cards in the expansions, and perhaps even some new map tiles depicting outside areas.
Time
Whenever someone asks for opinions on Descent, I feel obligated to point out the time issue. Descent is not a short game, with most of the original and expansion dungeons taking three to four hours, if not more. My group likes spending an entire evening or afternoon on a board game. Titan, Talisman, Britannia and Axis & Allies are on our frequent play list. Even being used to long games, Descent can drag. The fun factor has taken a hit on occasion when we just want to finish or someone has to go soon and we’re trying to reach the end. And if you start your game night with less than four hours available, chances are you’ll be frustrated because time will run out before the dungeon’s end.
Does RTL solve the time problem? Yes and no, but mostly yes. Playing through an entire campaign will take a long time- the rules suggest four to five dungeons will be needed to advance through each campaign level, and that matches my own experience. However, each session should take far less time than in vanilla Descent. I’ve found that, with small dungeons and fewer spawns, my group can get through a dungeon level in 45-60 minutes, including set-up time. Even if schedules leave us only an hour or two to play, we can still make it though a dungeon level or two. With vanilla Descent, two hours might not even be enough time to pick a winner.
Between dungeons and dungeon levels, the progress in the game can be saved. A campaign log tracks conquest gained by the heroes and the Overlord, status of cities, dungeons explored, and the location of lieutenants and rumors. If in a dungeon, the OL also has room to record threat and cards remaining in the draw pile. There are six fold-together boxes, large enough to hold a hero or avatar character sheet, along with any cards; the sixth box is the Graveyard, for storing anything permanently removed from the game. At the next session, each person takes their box and has everything needed for playing right there.
Recommendation
Road to Legend is the best kind of expansion. It fixes the major problems of the base game and improves the game (to recap: shorter but still worthwhile sessions, meaningful and lasting advancement, and monsters that remain a threat without filling the dungeon). My group enjoyed Descent before RTL; now we look forward to every session. The six avatars and three plots also go a ways towards increasing the replay value, along with the random dungeons, encounters, and rumors (our first campaign saw just over half of the 40 dungeon areas, less than half the encounters, and only one of a dozen rumor dungeons).
My only complaints are minor ones. As mentioned earlier, it would have been nice to have plastic figures for the lieutenants (and perhaps for the avatars, who use master versions of one of the monster types), but the cardboard tokens are functional. There are a few errors in the rule book, and a few places where the rules could be clearer, though Fantasy Flight Games has already updated the Descent FAQ with errata and clarification for most points.
If you enjoyed Descent, then I think you’ll find Road to Legend to be well worth your gaming dollar.
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