Let's Play Descent: Forgotten Souls

The bloodthirsty dragon Tharn assimilates all he consumes into his ghastly army. Unfortunately for all that live, his appetite has proven insatiable.

Forgotten Souls is a new cooperative adventure, allowing up to four heroes to play a fully cooperative variant of Descent: Journeys in the Dark. In a normal game of Descent, one player takes the role of overlord, commanding monsters and the forces of evil in the game. Up to four players combat the power of the overlord by playing heroes who gain experience and new items over the course of a campaign.

Forgotten Souls changes the normal structure of Descent by emulating a mini campaign in a completely cooperative atmosphere. Although this expansion does not replace the normal game of Descent, it offers a variant for you and your friends to explore an expanding dungeon, passing tests and battling fierce monsters. Encounters and monsters are controlled by decks of cards, rather than the overlord in Forgotten Souls. You’ll also grab loot and experience as you face down a series of encounters, culminating in a battle in the heart of the dragon’s lair. Enter the darkness within Forgotten Souls!

For this LP, we'll only be using the heroes and classes from the base set.

Go here and pick out your stuff.

Forgotten Souls

Forgotten Souls is pure co-op and runs a bit differently the the normal game.

Rules

Setup

The bolded items are the only things the players need to do but I will go over all the other steps in setup.

1. Exploration Cards: The players assemble the Exploration deck and place it facedown.
2. Track Sheet: This sheet contains the overlord and loot tracks. The doom and fate tokens, as well as a fatigue token, are placed on their respective tracks.
3. Monster Cards: The monster cards corresponding to the monsters in this quest are placed in view of all players.
4. Activation Cards: The players shuffle the deck of Activation cards and place it facedown.
5. Peril Cards: The players shuffle the deck of Peril cards and place it facedown.
6. Shop Item Deck I: The Act I Shop Item deck is shuffled and placed facedown next to the loot track.
7. Shop Item Deck II: The Act II Shop Item deck is shuffled and placed facedown to the side.
8. Starting Encounter: This Exploration card is placed faceup on the table to indicate that it is active.
9. Starting Encounter Map: The starting encounter is set up as instructed by the encounter guide, leaving adequate space for expansion.
10. Hero Setup - The players can choose any hero and class from the base set. They also get 1 XP.
11. Spend XP - Players can spend the 1 XP now or save it for later.

The Track Sheet shows the heroes' current Fate and Doom, and the amount of treasure gained for killing monsters.

Fate/Doom - The Fate token starts at the topmost space and the Doom token starts on the space corresponding to the number of heroes in the game.
The players lose if the doom and fate tokens ever meet on the overlord track. Doom is an inescapable force that slowly progresses when the heroes fail encounters and in other ways. Fate, on the other hand, is a fluctuating force that the heroes affect both positively and negatively based on their progress. For example, whenever a hero is knocked out, fate advances by one, but by successfully completing a main encounter, you may be able to reset fate to its starting point.

Loot - When a hero defeats a monster, he places a number of damage tokens on the loot track equal to the number of spaces the monster figure’s base. If a hero defeats a master monster, he moves the fatigue token on the loot track up one space. This is done before he places any damage tokens on the loot track for defeating the monster.

The loot limit is influenced by the number of heroes playing and is represented on the loot track by gray silhouettes. When the number of damage tokens on the loot track equals the loot limit, the hero that last placed a damage token on the track draws a number of Shop Item cards from the current act's Shop Item deck equal to the number indicated by the fatigue token. He gives one of the Shop Item cards to any hero of his choice and places any remaining cards at the bottom of the Shop Item deck. Then, he removes all damage tokens from the loot track and moves the fatigue token back to its starting position.

The Exploration Deck - This deck contains the encounters that make up the adventure. When the players perform the Open Door action, they draw the top card of the deck, locate the encounter in the rulebook, and then set up the map.

You cannot draw from the Exploration Deck while there is an active encounter.

The top portion of the card details rules that the heroes must follow. The red portion of the card details effects that occur during the Overlord Phase.

Some Overlord effects have an hourglass symbol. When one of these effects triggers, do not resolve the corresponding text. Instead, place one fatigue token next to the symbol. After placing a fatigue token, if the number of fatigue tokens matches the number associated with the symbol, the corresponding text triggers, and all tokens are removed. Continue placing one fatigue token during each Overlord phase for as long as the Exploration card remains active.

Peril Cards - Each Peril card contains one or more effects that provide deadly surprises for the heroes. A Peril card is only drawn if there is no active encounter on the board. Players perform the following when they resolve a Peril card:

1. Draw one Peril card.
2. If the card is divided into two sections, do the following:
   � If there are no monsters on the map, resolve the effect listed onthe top half of the card.
   � If there are monsters on the map, resolve the effect listed on thebottom half of the card.
3. If the card is not divided into two sections, resolve the entire card’seffect.
4. Discard the Peril card.

Turn Summary

1. Hero Phase - Each hero takes one turn, following the normal steps of a hero turn in the base game.
   • If there is no active Exploration card, the hero can perform the open door action to explore. When a hero performs an open a door action, he draws the top card of the Exploration deck and place it faceup on the table. That Exploration card is now active.
2. Overlord Phase
   • a. Overlord Effects - Overlord effects are printed in the red boxes on the lower portion of Exploration cards (see “Exploration” on page 5). At the start of the Overlord phase, all Overlord effects on the active Exploration card trigger in order from top to bottom.
   • b. Fate (If there is no active Exploration card, advance fate by one and resolve one Peril card.)
   • c. Monster Activation - If there are any monsters on the map during this step, draw one Activation card and follow the actions listed.

There are currently 3 players. If one more would like to join, come on up.

Players

1. sraymonds
   
2. Sarcasmorator
   
3. Kalir
   

We'll only be using the heroes and classes from the base set.

Go here and choose who you want and what class you'll be. You also have 1 experience point that you can spend now or save for later.

Might wanna update the FAQ link; the linked one is a couple years old.

Updated! I've gone ahead and typed up some stuff. Give it a look! There's space for one more person if they want in.

Why not, I'll give this a try.

Hm... when I played this, there were a few more characters and roles to choose from, was that from an expansion?

(I played as Reynhart the Worthy, who was adorable)

Oh well, dibs on Runemaster Widow Tarha!

Yeah, a bunch more heroes are introduced in the expansions and the hero conversion kit.

Dammit!

OK then, I'll take Syndrael as a Berserker, and purchase Brute for 1XP.

Are we supposed to be picking heroes and classes in some sort of order, or is this a first-come-first-served thing?

First come first served. I'm going to wait for MrChris before I make a decision on hero and class.

Ah, that would have been good to know from the beginning. It's kind of a moot point, though; I don't think I really have time to get into this at the moment, so I won't be playing after all.

Ok, not a problem.

I'm choosing Avric Albright with the Disciple class.

Also duh on me for not realizing Kalir chose a class

Place your hero on one of the six spaces that make up the stairs.

Starting off with a bang, I see.

I'll enter from the top left stair space.

I should also point out that for this encounter, if any heroes enter a space that is not adjacent to another hero, they suffer 3 Fatigue.

That's bad.

I'll take the spot on the skeleton.

We each get 1 experience point to spend or save for later. Does anyone want to get an upgrade before we start?

I'm good, all the level 2 Runemaster skills look too good to wait on.

I already took Brute.

Bear with me as I try to figure out the best way to display the heroes info.

Let's start! I think the minion barghest should be our first target. Who wants to take the first swing?

I'm going to take a few swings at the minion barghest.

FYI, I'm using VASSAL to roll the dice and I'll roll the dice for all of the monsters defenses.

Attack 1:
2 damage and the surge is spent on Stun.

Barghest has 2 HP left.

Attack 2:
4 damage - 0 defense = dead Barghest.



That was definitely not a bad first turn.

Do diagonals count as adjacent? If so, I'll fire at the master barghest on my turn.

Yes, they do. The master barghest has the night stalker skill, which grants it a bonus defense die against attacks by non-adjacent heroes.

You'll have to move past us to hit the master barghest. Maybe I should move in and whack it while you shoot at the zombies?

Doh, I forgot about Line of Sight. I think it'd be a good idea for sarc to move in and attack and then you moving in to (hopefully) finish it off.

I'll take a fatigue to move one space to the right, and attack the master barghest twice.

*** Blue = [ 1 Damage, 6 Range, Surge ] ***
*** Red = [ 1 Damage ] ***

*** Grey = [ 2 Defense ] ***

Chipped Greataxe surge adds 1 wound, so MB takes 1 wound.

That's won't kill it, whatever the defense roll, so:

*** Blue = [ 1 Damage, 6 Range, Surge ] ***
*** Red = [ 3 Damage, Surge ] ***

*** Grey = [ 2 Defense ] ***

Chipped Greataxe surges add 2 wounds for 6 in all, so barghest is at 5/6, I believe, unless you want to do the defense rolls for every monster, sraymonds.

What are you using that gives you the hearts and stuff? My Vassal just gives me numbers and words.

No, y'all can roll for the monsters y'all attack.

You're going to have to run me through the math. You're saying you've reduced the barghest to 1 HP? I'm not sure what you meant by 5/6. Pretty sure you did more than 1 point of damage.

I'm using Update: Core Mod v4.1 10/17/2014

What I mean is that the barghest has 5 wounds against a total of 6 health (damage in Descent counts up toward equaling the health stat, not down toward zero, but it doesn't really matter, I suppose). First attack dealt 1 wound, (2 wounds + 1 surge wound - 2 defense), second attack did 4 (4 wounds +1 surge wound +1 surge wound - 2 defense), 5 in all.

So if I likewise take a point of fatigue to step to Elfzerker's old position, I have a clean shot at everything, right?