[Card Game]: Dungeoneer: Lair of the Lich Lord & Dungeoneer: Vault of the Fiends, reviewed by Robert J. Hahn (4/4)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10032.phtml

Robert J. Hahn's Summary:

A wonderful distillation of the whole RPG dungeon delve experience that makes you fogive its minor faults once the dice start rolling.

Go to the full review for more information.

Post originally by Robert A. Rodger at 2004-01-21 07:46:33
Converted from Phorums BB System

Coincidentally, this weekend a friend brought over the Vault game and we gave it a shot. I was very pleased with it. I enjoy the peril mechanic, and think it would be great in a multiplayer game to prevent people fom ganging up on one player and removing him from the game completely.

All in all, I had a lot of fun in a couple hours and look forward to trying it again.

One thing I would like to try with additional sets is a sort of campaign game. Each player chooses one character from all the sets and then you go through sets in sequence. Once someone has completed three quests that game ends and you move to the next one with all your equipment, peril and level but reset to maximum health.

Post originally by Citizen Q at 2004-01-21 13:51:45
Converted from Phorums BB System

I'm not sure I like this one. I played the dwarf, and though I had all kinds of melee ability, I NEVER fought a melee monster. Players would rather discard a melee monster rather than give me the glory for defeating it.My buddy played the elf, and he never fought magic monsters. He also tried to cycle through the deck to get boons (he could hold only one magic item) to help him with melee. There was only one in the deck I think, and I used it on myself. I hope I'm playing it wrong, because I like the components. Can you play monsters on yourself?

Post originally by Brian at 2004-01-22 10:02:16
Converted from Phorums BB System

I've played a couple mixed-deck games and a couple single-deck games. They both worked just fine. The mixed-deck games gave six players room to spread out around the map.

We did notice that the Gnome Illusionist's special ability is noticeably more powerful than several of the others, but not enough to clinch a victory.

Post originally by Brian at 2004-01-22 10:05:08
Converted from Phorums BB System

You can never spend your own peril. The game does collapse a bit with only two players. I enjoyed it much more with 4-6.

There are several melee-boosting treasures and boons. Your character *did* get an advantage from his high melee ability, though: he never got hurt by a melee monster.

The only brokenly-powerful items we found were the Boots of Speed. An extra action is very, very powerful. Granting +1 to Spd checks would be more reasonable.

Post originally by tldenmark at 2004-01-27 14:39:16
Converted from Phorums BB System

One of the most frequent comments on the game was not enough Map cards - but we've playtested it enough to know the perfect mix!

I personally feel 20 Maps is just right (which is how many a set has), when you get more the play begins to slow, and at 40 Maps (mixing 2 sets) you can feel it.

I recommend using the Revealed map rule to lay out the entire map in the beginning of the game, or picking and choosing the Maps you want in your game when combining sets - just be sure to have the Maps necessary for the Quests!

Happy Dungeoneering,
tldenmark