Coldmoonrising said:

Warning: Math!

By my estimation there are 5P3=20 ways to do act 1, times 2 interludes, times act 2, times 2 for endings.  Act 2 is a little complicated as there are 10 scenarios, of which 3 are chosen, but only 5 are actually available so it's not just 10P3.  Since there are 5 scenarios with 2 options each, call it 5P3*2^3=160 possibilities for act 2.

So total ways to play out the campaign are 20*2*160*2=12800 ways, but most of them would be barely distinguishable(differening from another only by 1 scenario).  A more useful way to look at it is that it will take at least 4 full campaigns to even see all the scenarios, as you see only 3 of the ten act 2 scenarios every campaign.

 Well, I think this preview all but confirms that the $110 I spend on Road to Legend and Sea of Blood are useless.  I was really hoping that there would be a way to use some of the materials from the two campaign modules.  :(

Maybe some homebrew conversions?

Philipopotamus said:

Actually, that's why I'm a little disappointed in this map versus what was provided in the Road to Legend expansion to the 1st edition.  Nice big map with the addition of strategic gameplay as the Overlord could lay siege to cities forcing the party of heroes to decide between going on a dungeon raid or lifting a siege.  I'm definitely going to have to find a way to combine 2nd edition gameplay with 1st edition campaign.  *ponders*

So, now that we've got some more information, anyone care to speculate on the quests?  If A Fat Goblin, the lieutenants are going to be tied to particular quests, and the heroes' objective for the Act I quest is to kill them (which means that the Act II quest for overlord victory will probably include them and the one for hero victory will not).  Belthir will almost certainly appear in Death on the Wing.  Zachareth is a little harder to figure out, but since his description portrays him as an "undercover" villain (and a member of high society), my money's on The Masquerade Ball, although it could be either of the remaining two as well.  Based on the placement of the two finale quests, the one for the heroes winning more quests in Act II is Gryvorn Unleashed.  That's rather odd; when it was first mentioned that you played one finale or the other, I assumed that the overlord winning more quests would allow him to complete some ritual and unleash Gryvorn (whoever that may be), whereas the heroes winning more would mean they would merely have to contend with the guy attempting the ritual (the Overlord himself?).  But it appears that it's the other way around.  So Gryvorn must be a sort of back-up plan.  Based on the standard fantasy tropes, I would assume Gryvorn is a dragon, although he/she/it might be a demon as well.

Stop….

please….. for the love of…

stop….

this is unbearable….

….

….

Whoa. I must say that the campaign system is spot on for our group. Not too deep and not too shallow. Spot on. It is ingenious system and I sure hope the quests will live up to the expectations.

My big big HUGE wish is that there is also some narrative between the quests to give hero players an idea of what to expect as a reward. And even sweeter if there's some "if you saved sir Galahad on the interlude, then you he helps you like this and this in the following quest".

I'm soooooo glad my game store is participating in the preview weekend. Can't wait to see this one in action and get to test it out.

Coldmoonrising said:

I could care less about combinations. A quest is a quest in any order. 20 total quests is 20 quests.

While the core set only had 10 quests IIRC, at least those 10 quests were "vast". Not simple, small areas.

I never played first edition but do you guys think it will be easy to implement or creat our own quests/campaign after we played the base campaign of the core set?

My guess and hope are yes, but i'll have to see!

Reminds me of Warhammer Quest when I was younger.  I bought it with my brother and we played the hell out of it, already starting with the advanced rules and campaign play.  We had a blast and he even create a huge campaign that spun over 30-40 objectives and quests.

This same brother is trilled to play the Overlord and i'm effing psyched that he wants to play that role.  I love the Hero side and it'll remind us the good ol' days!

FFG, bring this baby out, PUSH-PUSH-PUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Royaldoy said:

It's not the size, it's what you do with it that counts.  ;)

Royaldoy: And remember, the quests (well, most of them) have two separate encounters, which are more or less separate quests, seeing as they have completely different maps and objectives.

RedcrossReborn said:

I'm reasonably certain that SOMEBODY will make homebrew conversions for basically everything in 1e that doesn't get officially ported to 2e.

That said, you really should've known the 1e AC expansions wouldn't have any official carry over. FFG made it quite clear that the conversion kit only applied to figures, and there are no figures in the AC boxes (except Nara, technically.) As for the base game, did you really expect the base box for 2e to be in any way dependent on anything from 1e? Sort of defeats the purpose of calling it "second edition" no? =P

SolennelBern said:

I expect it will be fairly easy to make homebrew quests and campaigns.  The new rules for monster placement seem to have more of an emphasis on the maximum number of monsters you can put on the board for the number of heroes playing (rather than the 1e method of trying to keep the same number of monsters and just scale their health and armor values.)  This means that all you really need to do is keep in mind how many heroes you expect to play each quest and not exceed the corresponding number of monsters for a starting compliment (this is assuming that there are still X monsters on the map to start with, which may not actually be the case.)  The swingiest part of quest design will be quest-specific special rules, which is to be expected, really.

Now, trying to build a campaign in the same format as the official one (with an Act I, Act II and interludes et al) might be a fair bit of work.  Making enough maps to fill out the sheet would be a lot of work.  However, I don't see any reason why homebrew campaigns need to follow the same format if you don't want to do it that way.  You could make a more linear storyline where one quest leads naturally into the next, or you could come up with some other branching mechanism that suits your needs.  The character advancement mechanics we've seen seem to be relatively self-contained (although I don't believe they've yet explained how heroes earn XP - or perhaps I've forgotten), and they should be adaptable to any means for linking quests toegether that you might like.

All in all, I'm fairly impressed with what I've seen of 2e.  It's smooth and the different aspects of the game are decoupled from one another, which is good for homebrew projects.  Take what you like, leave what you don't.  The only thing I've not 100% sure about right now is the new line of sight rules, but that's easy enough to house rule if I decide I don't like it.

Don't foget about the rumor cards, outdoor encounter cards and the dungen cards( the one's with the cave picture, their are 74 of those quest) from RtL and SoB.  Very easy to make some side quests if you want to to countinue to questing.  I'm only worry is if you do contiue with questing How much higher can your hero and OL go up in levels/ skills.  One thing a OL can do is use the generic OL upgrade cards for the LT.  u just need to find a way to pay for it Xp/ or what not.  

I'm also preety sure that they are working a some parts of their 1st expation on this.  You know the stuff they left out of the starter box because it would make to game to pricey.  just saying  

One last thing. I've been buy from FFG for over 10 years now and I've learned that once you start seeing the treads of a game come up, you see the game in store with in a week after the rules are posted.  So my guess is the game is already on the boat and almost here. 

PBnJ said:

Well the obvious limiting factor to how high you can level your heroes would be "once you've bought all the cards in your class deck."  Whether the game would still be balanced approaching that limit is unclear.  (I expect you'd need to make at least a couple more power boosts akin to the Act I -> Act II boost in the base campaign.  Hopefully that process will be fairly linear and easy enough to extend beyond the official rules.

PBnJ said:

I'm sure there will be something in expansions to "continue the adventure" beyond  the top of the base campaign power level.  If the power curve is linear (both for heroes and monsters) that would be ideal, especially considering FFG's tendency to want each expansion to be independent of others - if the power level rise sin a linear fashion, expansions could be played in any order, or starting fresh.  All that would be required is for the rules to allow you to begin "in the middle," with a certain amount of XP.  One of the previews already released has even suggested such a mechanic does exist!

PBnJ said:

In general that is true, however, FFG appears to be advertising a "Descent 2e Preview Event" kit that store owners can buy which would be made available in the first week of July.  You can't very well hold a "preview event" after the game is already released, so this suggests that 2e won't be out until mid to late July.

I'm surprised they started the previews so early, that being the case.  Maybe there are a lot of previews to keep us occupied though! =D

Walk said:

I suppose that offers a bit of solace. ;)

@Bleach: Tell that to my wife. lol