VERSION 0.

3 BETA

No Overlord Rules for

Descent: Journeys In The
Dark (2nd edition)
By: Markus N.
Contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1. Overview of the Game ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1. Victory condition ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.2. Failure condition ........................................................................................................................ 1
1.2. New terms ......................................................................................................................................... 1
2. General Setup ............................................................................................................................................ 2
2.1. Map Setup ......................................................................................................................................... 3
2.2. Hero Setup ......................................................................................................................................... 4
3. Playing the Game....................................................................................................................................... 4
3.1. Hero Phase......................................................................................................................................... 5
3.2. Threat Phase ...................................................................................................................................... 5
3.3. Monster Phase................................................................................................................................... 5
4. Advanced Rules ......................................................................................................................................... 6
4.1. Exploration......................................................................................................................................... 6
4.2. Playing an Overlord card ................................................................................................................... 8
4.3. Summoning Monsters ....................................................................................................................... 9
4.3.1. Threat Pool has 16 or more Threat Tokens. .............................................................................. 9
4.3.2. A Room is explored .................................................................................................................. 10
4.3.3. An Objective Room is explored ............................................................................................... 10
4.4. Monsters.......................................................................................................................................... 10
4.4.1 Activating Monsters........................................................................................................................ 10
4.4.2 Defeating Monsters ........................................................................................................................ 11
4.4.3 Melee Monster Flowchart .............................................................................................................. 12
4.4.4. Ranged Monster Flowchart ........................................................................................................... 13
5. Design notes and ideas ............................................................................................................................ 14
5.1. Ideas for campaign play ................................................................................................................... 14
 1. Introduction
This document has a variant rule set for Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Edition). These rules enable
players to play the game without an Overlord. The heroes may be played either solo with one player or as
co-op with more players. The rules for both are mostly the same.

Text written in red refers to rules when using Lair of the Wyrm Expansion. Text written in green refers to
clarifications or comments.

These rules were written with the goal to try to change as few things as possible from the base game, while
still providing interesting gaming decisions. Therefore most of the core rules are exactly the same as in the
base game and this document mainly describes any changes to the base game. The main challenge of
course is to provide an AI for the monsters and overlord cards that is not 100% predictable and that has just
the right difficulty range.

My current goal now, for version 0.3 Beta, is to try to balance the gameplay in a single encounter. Future
plans include implementing campaign play and more interesting Objective Room encounters (like adding
lieutenants and different winning/losing conditions).

The rules have gone through only little playtesting, so there may be some serious flaws and balance issues.
If you have any comments or improvements to these rules, please send me a message (to Markus_N) at
Boardgamegeek. I would be very grateful to receive any comments on playtests with different party and
monster compositions.

1.1. Overview of the Game

These rules assume that you start playing with new heroes. The players play an encounter with a random
map. The heroes will explore new map tiles and add them to the existing map until they reach an Objective
Room. During the encounter new monsters appear on the board and Overlord Cards may harm the heroes.

1.1.1. Victory condition

The players win the encounter immediately if they have revealed the Objective Room to the map and no
monsters exist on the map. If this happens during the Hero Phase, do not continue to the next phase.

If the players win the encounter, each hero gains 1 experience point. Every hero which did not get knocked
out during the encounter gains an additional experience point (2 experience points in total).

Please note that campaign rules have not been implemented yet. This means that having more XP and
items only makes the following encounters easier.

1.1.2. Failure condition

If at any time all of the heroes are knocked out at the same time, the encounter ends immediately and the
players have lost.

If the players fail the encounter, no hero gains any experience points. They may however keep any items
successfully searched.

1.2. New terms

Current Hero: Hero who is currently having a turn. Not the same as First Hero!

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First Hero: Hero, who holds the First Hero token. The First Hero changes every round. Not the same as
Current Hero!

Objective Room: Last room of the encounter. When the Objective Room is added to the map, no other
map tiles may be added anymore (any further exploration produces dead end tiles) and the players win the
encounter if they defeat all remaining monsters on the map.

Open Edge: All map tiles have initially at least one Open Edge. This is the “jigsaw part” of the tile used for
connecting the tile to other tiles. If this part has no other tiles attached to it, it is called an Open Edge. As
soon as another map tile is connected to it, the edge is no longer considered an Open Edge. See section 4.1.
and Figure 1 for more details.

Party: Refers to the whole group of heroes. The Party can consist of 2-4 heroes.

Summoning monsters: Monsters now enter the play when the Threat Level is high enough or a room tile is
explored.

Threat: Threat is represented by 18 Threat Tokens (the Objective and Villager tokens are used for this
purpose) that accumulate over multiple rounds.

Threat Pool: The amount of Threat Tokens that the Party shares. All gained Threat Tokens are placed in the
Threat Pool. The amount of Threat Tokens in the Threat Pool may never be lower than 0 or higher than 18.
Ignore any game effect that would make the amount of threat go outside these limits.

2. General Setup
Before playing, set up the game as follows:

1. Prepare Tokens: Sort all tokens into piles by type and place each pile within easy reach of all
players. Place Doors and Plastic Stands back in the box, these are not used. All (total of 18 pieces)
of the Objective Tokens and Villager Tokens are used as “Threat Tokens”, which all have the same
function regardless of their color or image.
2. Prepare Map Tiles: Place the entrance map tile on the play area. The Players may freely choose or
randomly determine to use either outdoors (A) or indoors (B) side. The whole encounter is then
played with the selected side. For faster play, sort all the numbered map tiles in three piles in an
ascending numerical order, i.e. with the lowest numbered tile on the bottom and the highest
numbered tile on top of the pile. First pile has tiles numbered from 1 to 7. Second pile has tiles
from 8 to 15. Third pile has tiles from 16 to 30. Place all expansion map tiles in a separate pile.
3. Choose Player Roles: Players choose the roles of the heroes. A total of 2-4 heroes may be chosen.
If playing with multiple players, randomly assign a First Hero. The player controlling this hero takes
a First Hero Token (any distinguishable token will do) and places it in his personal play area. If a
player plays with multiple heroes the First Hero Token is assigned to a specific hero and when
instructed it is passed forward to the next hero in clockwise order (which may be controlled by the
same player).
4. Assemble the Overlord Deck: Assemble a deck with the following Overlord cards. Basic: 2x Dark
Might, 2x Frenzy, 1x Poison Dart, 2x Dash, 1x Word of Misery, 1x Critical Blow, 1x Pit Trap, 2x
Tripwire. Magus: 2x Word of Pain, 1x Word of Despair. Saboteur: 2x Web Trap, 2x Explosive Runes,

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 1x Uthuk Demon Trap. Warlord: 2x Dark Fortitude, 2x Blood Rage, 1x Expert Blow, 1x Reinforce.
Punisher: 1x Exploit Weakness, 1x Blood Bargaining.
Shuffle this deck thoroughly and place it in the common play area. Place all other Overlord cards
back in the box.
5. Assemble Monster Deck: Assemble a deck with all of the Act I Monster Cards (do not add
Lieutenant Cards). Shuffle this deck thoroughly. Place all other Monster Cards back in the box.
6. Follow through Map Setup and Hero Setup as described below.
7. Have a pen and a small piece of paper ready. This will help to memorize the latest map tile number
during setup and exploration.

2.1. Map Setup

Player controlling the First Hero connects a random map tile to the entrance tile:

1. Roll one black and one grey die. Add up the number of shields rolled. If you roll a total of 0 shields,
roll again until you have a total of shields greater than 0.
2. Deduct this number of shields from number 31.
3. Take the map tile with the corresponding number and connect it to the entrance tile. You may
freely connect the tile in any possible orientation. i.e. If the player rolled a total of 4 shields, he
takes the tile number 27 and connects it to the entrance tile.

Remove a random amount of map tiles from the game:

1. Roll one black and one grey die. Add up the number of shields rolled. If you roll a total of 0 shields,
roll again until you have a total of shields greater than 0.
2. Deduct this number of shields from the number of the previously determined map tile. (For the first
time, use the number of the tile just connected to the entrance tile).
3. Find the map tile with the corresponding number and remove it from the game. Place this map tile
back in the box. Write down all the removed map tile numbers on a piece of paper. This will be
important during the game.
4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 until you would have to remove a tile with a number from 1 to 7 (these are
Objective room tiles). Do not remove this tile from the game, instead the Map Setup is now
complete.

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Example of Map Setup: The players have so far only placed the entrance tile on the play area. The
player controlling the First Hero takes one black and one grey die and rolls them.

He gets a total of 0 shields. Since he has to get at least one shield in total, he rolls again. This time he
gets 4 shields.

He deducts this number from 31 and gets number 27. He then finds the tile number 27 and connects
it to the entrance tile (in any orientation he chooses). He then writes down this number on a piece of
paper for easier reference in future.

Next it is time to remove tiles from the game. The player controlling the First Hero rolls again the
grey and the black dice. This time he gets a total of 3 shields. He deducts this number from the
previously selected tile (number 27) and gets number 24. He finds the tile number 24 and removes it
from the game by putting it back to the box. He also writes down this number.

He repeats this process and removes tiles with numbers 23, 19, 13, 12 and 8 (and writes down the
numbers). For his next roll he rolls a total of 5 shields. This would make him remove tile number 3.
Since this a number from 1 to 7, he doesn’t remove it, but instead ends the Map Setup immediately.
The players may now move to Hero Setup.

2.2. Hero Setup

Follow the rules of normal Hero Setup found in page 5 of the rulebook of the base game. Finally place the
hero figures on the entrance map tile which was placed on the play area during setup.

3. Playing the Game

The game is played over a number of game rounds. During each round each hero gets a turn, the threat
conditions change, and finally any existing monsters get a turn. In case of any ties, disambiguate rules,
disagreements between players, etc. the player controlling the First Hero always makes the final decision. A
round consists of three different phases:

1. Hero Phase, during which each hero has one turn. Each hero must complete his entire turn before
another hero begins his turn. During each Hero Phase the players decide as a group in which order
they wish to act. After all heroes have completed their turns the First Hero passes the First Hero
Token to the player sitting to his left. If a player is playing with multiple heroes the token is hero
specific and is passed to the next hero in clockwise order (which may be controlled by the same
player). i.e. The token must pass through all other heroes before it can be assigned back again to
the same hero, but the same player can control the First Hero multiple times in a row. After this
continue to the Threat Phase.
2. Threat Phase, during which the threat conditions change, a new Overlord card is revealed and
monsters may appear.
3. Monster Phase, any monsters existing in the map may move and/or attack.

After going through all of these Phases, if the players have not achieved the Victory or Failure condition,
start a new round.

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 3.1. Hero Phase
During the Hero Phase each hero gets one turn. The hero turn follows the rules of the base game with the
following additions and changes:

 When a hero is located on a square next to an Open Edge of a map tile he may spend one
movement point to explore a new map tile. The hero does not have to perform a move action and
may instead suffer a fatigue to do this. After spending the movement point he connects a new map
tile to the Open Edge he is next to. See section 4.1 for details.
 Every time a hero performs an action, place one Threat Token to the Threat Pool. This means that
typically the Threat Pool gets two Threat Tokens per hero per turn. Heroes may choose to not
perform actions in order to accumulate less threat. However the Party must perform a combined
amount of actions of at least the number of heroes in play every Hero Phase. Heroes that are
knocked out at the beginning of the Hero Phase do not count as being in play for this purpose. E.g.
when playing with 3 Heroes the Party must perform at least 3 actions during the Hero Phase. If one
of the Heroes is knocked out at the beginning of the Hero Phase, the Party must perform at least 2
actions during the Hero Phase.
 When a hero defeats a monster remove one Threat Token from the Threat Pool. When a hero
defeats a master monster remove two Threat Tokens from the Threat Pool.
 Any time a monster group is defeated (i.e. the last monster of a single group is defeated), if there
are any search tokens on the map, remove one search token. In case of multiple search tokens, the
First Hero chooses.
 Any time a hero is defeated add one Threat Token to the Threat Pool.
 Heroes may NOT perform the Stand Up action. If a Hero is knocked out only other heroes may
revive him by performing the Revive action.

If the Victory condition has been met (see section 1.1.1) the encounter ends immediately. If not, after all
heroes have had a turn, continue to the Threat Phase.

3.2. Threat Phase

During Threat Phase the First Hero goes through the following steps:

1. Draw an Overlord card: Draw the top card from the Overlord deck and reveal it. Discard Threat
Tokens from the Threat Pool equal to the number on the bottom right of the card. The amount of
Threat Tokens may never go below 0 in the Threat Pool. Ignore any reduction that would lower the
threat below 0.
2. Check for monsters: If there are 16 or more Threat Tokens in the Threat Pool, discard all Threat
Tokens from the Threat Pool and Summon Monsters. See section 4.2 for more details.
3. Play the effects of the Overlord card if able. See section 4.2. for more details.

3.3. Monster Phase

During this phase all monster groups on the map tiles are activated once. All monster groups must be
activated before the Monster Phase ends. See section 4.4 for more details.

If the Victory or Losing condition has been met, end the encounter immediately. If not, once all monster
groups have been activated, a new game round begins.

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 4. Advanced Rules
This section explains additional rules that were not covered in the basic turn structure.

4.1. Exploration
When a Hero stands next to an open edge of a map tile (i.e. on a square next to a “jigsaw section” with no
map tile connected to it, see Figure 1 below), he may spend one movement point to Explore. The Hero does
not have to use the move action and may instead suffer a fatigue to do this. By using the movement point
the Hero may attach a new map tile to the open edge he is standing next to.
1
Figure 1: Demonstrating Open Edges with tiles 26B and 30B connected

Exploration goes through the following steps:

1. Spend a movement point.

2. Roll one black die and one grey die. Add up the number of shields rolled. This is the Exploration
Number. If you roll a total of 0 shields, roll again until you have a number that is greater than 0.
OPTIONAL RULE: If you roll a total of 0 shields take the highest numbered map tile from the Lair of
the Wyrm expansion (if there are any left), and then go to Step 5. In Step 6 use section b (Number
between 8 and 15). If all of the map tiles of the expansion are already on the map, roll the dice
again until you have a result greater than 0.
3. Deduct the Exploration Number from the number of the last explored tile number (This is either
number 31 or the number on tile most previously connected to the map). For the first exploration
in the game use the number of the tile connected to the entrance tile. Write down the number of
all added map tiles for easy reference.
4. Find the map tile with this number:
a. If this map tile has already been added to the map or removed during setup, go back to
step 2 and add the new dice roll result to the previous Exploration Number. (i.e. the
Exploration Number accumulates every time a specific numbered map tile has already
added to the map).

1
I know… I’m not an artist.

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 b. If this map tile has not been added to the map yet and was not removed during the setup,
go to the next step.
5. Connect the map tile on the open edge next to the hero. The player commanding the hero can
connect the new map tile in any orientation that fits (i.e. the new map tile cannot overlap with any
existing map tile). The player must place the tile if there is at least one possible orientation
available. IMPORTANT: If the map tile cannot fit in any orientation to the open edge, the hero
must instead place a dead end tile to the Open Edge. The previously selected map tile is placed
back to its pile (and can be used later in the game). This ends the exploration immediately and
the heroes have to find a new Open Edge in order to explore further. In the rare case that there
are no Open Edges left in the map and the heroes have not Explored an Objective Room, the
encounter ends immediately and the players have lost.
6. Look at the number on the placed map tile and do one of the following steps:
a. Number between 16 and 30: Hallway, no monsters are summoned. This map tile number
will be used as “the last explored tile number” for the next exploration. Write it down on
the piece of paper.
b. Number between 8 and 15: Room, Summon Monsters, see section 4.3. Use number 31 as
“the last explored tile number” for the next exploration. Write it down on a piece of paper.
c. Number between 1 and 7: Objective Room, Summon Monsters, see section 4.3. If there
are any Open Edges remaining in the Objective Room, place a dead end tile to each of
them. Any further exploration anywhere else in the map adds a dead end tile to the Open
Edge from now on. Once the players defeat all the monsters on the map they win the
encounter.

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Example of Exploration: Using the Figure 1 as an example. Tomble Burrowell starts his turn on a
square next to an Open Edge of map tile 30B, which was the last explored tile.

1. He decides to take one fatigue in order to spend a movement point to Explore a new map tile. This
way he does not waste a move action.

2. He takes 1 grey and 1 black die and throws them. He gets a total of 0 shields, so he rolls again. This
time he gets a total of 4 shields, this is his Exploration Number.

3. He deducts the Exploration Number from number 30 (which was the last explored tile number) and
gets number 26.

4. He looks at the map and sees that tile number 26 is already on the board. He takes the dice and
rolls again, getting a result of 3 shields in total. He adds this to the previous Exploration Number (4),
which means that his new Exploration Number is 7.

He deducts the new Exploration Number from number 30, getting number 23. A tile with this number
is not on the map and was not removed from the game during setup, so he takes it from the unused
map tiles pile.

5. He connects tile number 23 to the Open Edge he is standing next to. This tile has three Open Edges
and can be connected in three different orientations. All of them fit into the map, so he decides to
connect it from the “middle” Open Edge.

6. The tile number is 23, which falls between 16 and 30, so the tile is a Hallway and no monsters are
summoned. The player writes down number 23 on a piece of paper to remind that this was the last
explored tile number.

The exploration is now complete and Tomble has still 2 actions left. Since Tomble has a movement of
4 and the next Open Edge is only 3 squares away, he moves there and uses the last movement point
from his move action to do another Exploration. This time he uses number 23 as the last explored tile
number.

If the Exploration had resulted in placing a Room tile, Tomble could have used his actions to attack
the monsters immediately after summoning. (Also the player would have noted number 31 as the last
explored tile number to be used for the next exploration).

4.2. Playing an Overlord card

Overlord cards are played during the Threat Phase. Each turn a new Overlord card is revealed and the
effects of the cards are in play immediately at the end of the Threat Phase.

With any Overlord card, ignore the “Play this card when…” section. Instead the card is considered to be in
effect immediately when played and continues to be useable until discarded by the card effect or by a new
Overlord card.

1. If the card instructs the heroes to test an attribute, the test is done immediately.

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 2. If the card has a condition which triggers an effect (such as “…when a hero enters an empty
space…”), the effect is triggered immediately the first opportunity when the condition is met. If the
condition targets a monster, it is used as soon as an eligible monster is activated (in some cases the
First Hero may be able to decide which monster gets the effect).
3. If the card instructs to choose one hero, the First Hero is always targeted (even if the effect would
be useless against him).
4. After going through an effect of an Overlord card, discard it immediately unless it has an effect that
triggers with words: “…each time a hero…”. In this special case the card remains in play until the
next Threat Phase when a new Overlord card is drawn.

If the Overlord deck ever runs out, shuffle the discard pile and make it into a new deck.

Many times the Overlord card effect can be fully avoided as the players can see the card. This is acceptable
and the players are encouraged to plan how to best avoid negative effects of the card.

4.3. Summoning Monsters

Monsters are summoned to the map on three occasions:

1. The Threat Pool has 16 or more Threat Tokens after drawing an Overlord card.
2. A Room is explored.
3. An Objective Room is explored.

Monster Summoning happens once one of these conditions is met. This means that a Summoning may
interrupt the Phase. Play continues normally after Summoning is complete. In the case that there are no
squares in the map where a given monster figure can be summoned, the remaining monsters are not
placed on the map and the Summoning is complete (this may also happen due to no Open Edges remaining
on the map). Players must place monsters so that as many monsters can be placed as possible.

In the rare case that all Monster Cards are already in use2, there is no Monster Summoning and no
(possible) search tokens are placed on the map. In case of Summoning happening due to Threat Tokens, the
Threat Pool is still emptied.

Remember that heroes may lower threat by defeating monsters.

4.3.1. Threat Pool has 16 or more Threat Tokens.

If the Threat Pool has 16 or more Threat Tokens after an Overlord card has been drawn, the player
controlling the First Hero removes all Threat Tokens in the Threat Pool. He then shuffles the Monster Deck
and draws one random Monster Card. He then takes as many monsters as indicated in the hero number at
the back of the drawn Monster Card and places them on the map:

1. Find the nearest Open Edge to the First Hero’s figure (counting the least amount of squares needed
to move there). In case of a tie, you may freely choose whichever. If there are no Open Edges
remaining on the map, no monsters are summoned, but the Threat Pool is still emptied.
2. Starting with the (possible) master monster, place all selected monsters touching either the
selected Open Edge or another monster in the same monster group. You may place the monsters in
any way you wish provided that these rules are followed. If for some reason these conditions

2
…and the players are against all odds still alive!

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 cannot be met, you must place the remaining monsters as near as possible to a square that would
fulfill the conditions. In case of ties, use common sense.

4.3.2. A Room is explored

The player controlling the Current Hero shuffles the Monster Deck and draws one random Monster Card.
He then takes as many monsters as indicated in the hero number at the back of the drawn Monster Card
and places them on the map:

1. Take one Search Token and place it within the newly explored Room map tile on a square as far
away as possible from the Current Hero’s figure (counting the largest amount of squares needed to
move there). In case of a tie, the Current Hero may freely choose whichever.
2. Starting with the (possible) master monster, place all selected monsters either on top of the Search
Token, or touching another monster in the same monster group. You may place the monsters in
any way you wish provided that these rules are followed. If for some reason these conditions
cannot be met, you must place the remaining monsters as near as possible to a square that would
fulfill the conditions.

4.3.3. An Objective Room is explored

The player controlling the Current Hero shuffles the Monster Deck and draws two random Monster Cards.
He then takes as many monsters as indicated in the hero number at the back of the drawn Monster Cards
and places them on the map:

1. Randomly select one of the Monster groups.

2. Take two Search Tokens. Place the first one within the Objective Room map tile on a square as far
away as possible from the hero figure of Current Hero (counting the largest amount of squares
needed to move there). In case of a tie, the Current Hero may freely choose whichever. Place the
second Search Token with the same rule as the first one, but at least 4 squares away from the first
Search Token.
3. Starting with the (possible) master monster, place a monster on one of the Search Tokens in the
Objective Room. Place all the remaining monsters touching a monster from the same Monster
Group. You may place the monsters in any way you wish provided that these rules are followed. If
for some reason these conditions cannot be met, you must place the remaining monsters as near
as possible to a square that would fulfill the conditions.
4. Do step 3 with the remaining Monster Group, placing the first monster on the second Search
Token.

4.4. Monsters
4.4.1 Activating Monsters
During the Monster Phase all monster groups have to be activated. If there are multiple monster groups
existing on the map at the same time, the player controlling First Hero randomly selects in which order the
groups are activated (for example by shuffling the cards and picking one card at a time at random). Each
monster group has to end all of its actions before the next monster group can be activated.

When a group has been selected the First Hero chooses a single monster in that group which is the closest
to any hero figure. In case of a tie the First Hero may freely choose whichever. He then follows the correct
monster flowchart pictured below for the individual monster. After one monster has done its actions the

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First Hero repeats this process with the next closest monster in the group. After all of the monsters in a
single group have been activated, the First Hero repeats the process with the next randomly selected
monster group.

If at any time during the activation process the monster has more than one equally valid option to choose,
the First Hero decides which one the monster takes. In unclear situations try to use common sense.

As per base rules, all monsters have two actions and only one of them can be an attack (unless otherwise
noted), each monster can also activate a single special action only once. When reading the flowchart, go
carefully through all possible special abilities of the monster (for example a monster with reach ability can
attack a hero even when standing two squares away from him and thus does not need to move).

When moving monsters, use as many movement points as possible from a single move action. However do
not use more movement points than is sensible for the monster. Stop the movement if additional moves
would prevent the monster from attacking a hero or using a useful action. This means for example that
monsters always try to “circle around” the heroes if it is possible. This rule is made mainly to reduce the
amount of monsters blocking other monsters. Use common sense in the movement and try to avoid
moving monsters in spaces which cause unnecessary problems for other monsters and prevent them from
attacking. Try to also orient the monster bases so that as many monsters as possible can attack.

4.4.2 Defeating Monsters

When a hero defeats a monster remove one Threat Token from the Threat Pool. When a hero defeats a
master monster remove two Threat Tokens from the Threat Pool. Remember that the amount of threat in a
Threat Pool can never go below 0.

Any time a monster group is defeated (i.e. the last monster of a single group is defeated), if there are any
search tokens on the map, remove one search token. This means that Heroes have to try to reach the
search tokens before defeating monsters guarding them.

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4.4.3 Melee Monster Flowchart
If the monster is a melee monster (having an axe symbol in the card), follow this flowchart.

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4.4.4. Ranged Monster Flowchart
If the monster is a ranged monster (having a bow symbol in the card), follow this flowchart. This flowchart
is more difficult to use than the melee flowchart due to possible blocking of line of sight. Again, try to use
common sense and avoid spending movement points when it would prevent another monster from
attacking.

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 5. Design notes and ideas
Making a good co-op is quite challenging and many of the design features have been implemented with the
goal of giving players meaningful options during the gameplay. The game should also be rather too difficult
than too easy, so that it does not get boring. While this rule set may look complex, I’ve tried to make the
rules and flowcharts intuitive and easy to remember after a couple of times using them. I hope I have
succeeded in this.

The Threat Pool acts as a method to create pressure and uncertainty for the encounter. The players have to
weigh the benefit of performing any action. Also the Threat Pool, combined with the Overlord cards, makes
sure that monster summoning is predictable but never 100% certain.

There may be some difficult balance issues with different party sizes. If you feel that difficulty is way off, try
tweaking the Threat Pool. Lowering the maximum Threat Pool size and Monster Summoning trigger limit
makes the game harder (just remember that since Overlord Cards have a number value between 0-3 the
trigger limit should be within 2 of the max pool size, otherwise there are situations where you can predict
Monster Summoning with 100% certainty). Having Overlord cards to remove more threat per Threat Phase,
or having the monster summon trigger closer to max pool size, makes the game easier. You can also try
using a different hero number in monster cards in each summoning for varying the difficulty.

For the exploration I’ve tried to bring uncertainty with the dice rolling mechanic where you jump over all
dice results you have already rolled. This means that the dungeon will always be different, but also that the
overall length is unpredictable. If you are lucky you may get to the Objective Room really quickly, but then
again you may sometimes have to go through almost all of the tiles. Also, since the rooms are logically
numbered in the base game, this means that you will always get at least one normal Room before getting
to the Objective Room. The frequency of getting a normal Room should also increase towards the end of
the encounter (not mathematically proven, but my gut feeling says so), which builds up the tension.

For the search token mechanic, I’ve tried to create a situation where players have to choose between killing
the monsters quickly and searching the item. This may not make thematic sense, but it should somewhat
break the “find a monster, kill a monster” repetitive process and create more valid options to the players.
So far from playtesting it seems to create some tension, but maybe this also needs some more tweaking.

Creating good monster AI is very difficult and I am not sure how well this implementation works in the long
run. During the first playtests it has been ok, but maybe it becomes too predictable and boring. Having
unique flow charts for different monsters may be a solution, but it can also slow down the gameplay too
much if players have to constantly check the reference sheet. Having no LOS blocking from friendly
monsters could make ranged monsters feel more natural (but maybe too powerful).

5.1. Ideas for campaign play

Ideas that have not been tested at all.

 Ramping up the difficulty

o After each encounter -2 to max. Threat Pool Size and -2 to triggering monster summoning
o Do this 3 times, then go to Act II and back to 18 Threat Pool Size and 16 to triggering
monster summoning. Have 3 Act II encounters (with decreasing threat limits) and the
campaign is over.

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 o Introduce at some point 2 Overlord cards per turn (and only deduct the lower number from
the threat)
 Introducing Lieutenants
o In final encounter of Act I and Act II have also a random Lieutenant (or a couple of them) in
the Objective room
o Introduce special items if certain special objectives are met
 Implement travel events with a chart with incrementally longer travel locations for each encounter
o Ignore all events that would be impossible to do without an Overlord
 An interesting option could be that some of the Heroes have an incentive to abandon the knocked
out Heroes and flee the encounter. Then the player would have to choose a new Hero for the next
encounter.
 Have pre-scripted Objective Room specific events and stories to create variety (maybe even
multiple different events per Objective Room)

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