by krinndnz
My group is running a campaign and I'm the Overlord. I've been taking a look at the options for using my XP, especially for trying to buy extra overlord cards that synergize well. I have two questions that I'm contemplating and wanted to check in with the BGG gestalt about. The only mode that I've played Descent 2E in is campaign mode with four heroes, so that's a point of context about how I view these cards.Does there exist any Overlord card that is good enough to buy in every campaign?
I have a few contenders for this - the first one that comes to mind is Web Trap. As other threads here have noted, the currency of the game is actions, and Immobilize is a ridiculously good bargain when viewed through that lens. Web Trap and Tripwire would probably be encounter-winningly good if they didn't require a test, so I'm glad they're merely "about as good as they can get and still be fair." In a similar light, especially because of how fragile monsters are, I think that Blood Rage is very good - playing Blood Rage amounts to betting that the heroes would have killed the target monster next turn if you had played no card. Winning the bet about the monster's life expectancy means that you get two turns' worth of attacks from her - or a turn and a Frenzy, also a good deal. Speaking of which, if there were an extra copy of Dash or Frenzy in the Universal part of the skill tree, I'd seriously think about buying them. They too convert at a favorable rate into extra actions. I like Frenzy slightly, slightly more because heroes often have defensive items that can only be used once per turn, so extra attacks are slightly more valuable than an initial attack because you can press beyond the limits of once-per-turn defenses.
Is there a compelling reason in the general case to go for a level 3 card instead of spreading out favorable level 1 buys?
I noticed when I was going through the thought exercise above. Reinforce looks to be astonishingly good, and I think Rise Again on a high-octane master monster like a shadow dragon, an ettin, or a merriod, is a compelling play, but almost everything else is distressingly conditional or uninspiring at level 2 and 3. For the record, I don't think "the heroes kill some monsters" is particularly conditional: they'll spend most of the quests doing that because the average Overlord will be using her monsters to get in the heroes' way and to try to knock them down. However, anything that requires the heroes to test a skill is chancy to begin with, especially versus a balanced group, and only grows more so later in the campaign. At level 1, on the other hand, there's Unholy Ritual for drawing fistfuls of cards, Web Trap with the powerful immobilize effect, Blood Rage for squeezing two turns' worth of attacks out of a monster in an instant, and Dark Fortitude/Resilience for keeping lieutenants alive. It seems to me that an Overlord who'd bought all those and perhaps Schemes would be in a very solid position even in Act II.
What do you think, BGG folks - are there universally good non-basic Overlord cards, and are there better-than-they-appear level 2/3 Overlord cards?