Descent: Sea of Blood

FFG has its first Descent: Sea of Blood preview up fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=769

Promo figure in the box of the first run (oh no! how will my life be complete without one!), uses all previous expansions (hello, Tomb of Ice!) but is not compatible with Road to Legend.

Seeing as how Descent collects enough dust on my shelf, I'll have to decline this one.

Not compatible with RTL? That's a bad move. It should definitely be playable without it, but most serious DESCENT players are playing RTL, or are in the middle of standing RTL campaigns at this point.

Promo figure? Bah. Who cares.

I dunno, it takes the game into a new area, which is good, but I think a better expansion would have been one that carries forward the ideas from RTL. Or one that offers options for some shorter, faster paced scenarios. They've got a great _system_ going, there's a lot that can be done with it. But it does need to continue to build, not go off on tangents.

I'm wondering how many people have played through enough Road to Legend campaigns that they feel like they need something fresh? I haven't even been through more than 3 dungeons in an RTL campaign.

It seems pretty compatible to me -- I don't understand how they are using the word "compatible". The dungeons in RtL can be used with or interchanged with Sea of Blood. The Avatars and Lts. can also be used interchangeably. I only take it to mean that Sea of Blood is one campaign "world" while Road to Legend is another setting. Kind of like what Runebound did with its expansions.

I have played through RtL 2x and look forward to Sea of Blood. One full time through RtL gets exposure to almost all of the dungeons.

In the future, I wish they would release just some big dungeon expansions. Maybe 100 or 200 new dungeons that can be used with RtL, and apparently now, Sea of Blood.

Space Ghost wrote:

It seems pretty compatible to me -- I don't understand how they are using the word "compatible". The dungeons in RtL can be used with or interchanged with Sea of Blood. The Avatars and Lts. can also be used interchangeably. I only take it to mean that Sea of Blood is one campaign "world" while Road to Legend is another setting. Kind of like what Runebound did with its expansions.

I have played through RtL 2x and look forward to Sea of Blood. One full time through RtL gets exposure to almost all of the dungeons.

In the future, I wish they would release just some big dungeon expansions. Maybe 100 or 200 new dungeons that can be used with RtL, and apparently now, Sea of Blood.

Isn't that what the Quest Compendium is?

I don't think so. I think the quest compendium is more for Standard Descent, with 16 regular quests -- which are a little different then the RtL quests.

Space Ghost wrote:

The Avatars and Lts. can also be used interchangeably.

You sure about that? If so they must give you new locations for the avatars to live in.

I only take it to mean that Sea of Blood is one campaign "world" while Road to Legend is another setting. Kind of like what Runebound did with its expansions.

That's how I take it. The components are interchangeable (such as the dungeons) but the actual overland map bit isn't, which is fair enough.

Overall though I can't say I am that excited about it. Since they don't require you to have RTL already half the budget is going to be on repeat content from RTL, like the monster cards and holding boxes.
Also from the example it looks like it doesn't intergrate the expansions properly - just like RTL. Yeah, you have options C & D (and now maybe E) but all the leader monsters are going to be from the base game again, as well as overland encounters and stuff. I'm sick of those guys! The irony is if you proxy the minis (or if they just gave a sheet of counters to use as stand ins for those who have it) you DON'T need the expansions to use the newer monsters since you get their stat cards in this expansion (except for maybe the Tomb of Ice ones since they came in TOI).

The bonus figure is Nanok - I already have him but I'm glad they are making him more widely available - though he will still be limited :/. Anyway he is a cool hero worth having.

I might be wrong about the Avatars and specific Lts. (I thought I read that somewhere, but who the hell knows). I assume all the "farrows" and what not make the transition.

Space Ghost wrote:

I might be wrong about the Avatars and specific Lts. (I thought I read that somewhere, but who the hell knows). I assume all the "farrows" and what not make the transition.

Well even if not it wont take much effort to house rule them over.
Then again if im playing a pirate-y adventure I'd probably prefer to have a sea based avatar.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

The bonus figure is Nanok - I already have him but I'm glad they are making him more widely available - though he will still be limited :/. Anyway he is a cool hero worth having.

I think you mean Nara, Nanok was a hero in WoD.

I don't really have anybody to play an RtL style campaign with, but this looks like a cool expansion. A lot of wasted cardboard though since I already have RtL.

kookoobah wrote:

Mr Skeletor wrote:

The bonus figure is Nanok - I already have him but I'm glad they are making him more widely available - though he will still be limited :/. Anyway he is a cool hero worth having.

I think you mean Nara, Nanok was a hero in WoD.

I don't really have anybody to play an RtL style campaign with, but this looks like a cool expansion. A lot of wasted cardboard though since I already have RtL.

Of course I did. I just wanted to see who was paying attention.

kookoobah wrote:

but this looks like a cool expansion. A lot of wasted cardboard though since I already have RtL.

The problem is that they can't really make an expansion to another expansion, only to the base game.

They should just make RtL/SoB booster packs for each other type of expansion. A few cards and what not to integrate the other expansions into the game.

shryke wrote:

They should just make RtL/SoB booster packs for each other type of expansion. A few cards and what not to integrate the other expansions into the game.

I agree, I've been saying for years that Descent should get some small expansions like Runebound's.

I'm hopelessely addicted to Descent.

I have a feeling this will be a better campaign then Road to Legend since they may have possibly has some time to work at the kinks and see what worked and what didn't work in that Expansion.