Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

One overlord faces two to four heroes; in a two-player game, the hero player controls two separate heroes. Each hero chooses an unused class matching their archetype and takes its basic skill and starting equipment. The overlord begins with the 15 basic Overlord cards and draws one card per hero.

Each round, all heroes complete one full turn each before the overlord acts. Heroes may decide who acts next after a hero finishes. A hero resolves start effects and refreshes cards, equips items, performs up to two actions, then flips their Activation card; repeating an action is normally allowed.

A move action grants movement points equal to Speed. Entering an adjacent space, including diagonally, normally costs one point; friendly figures may be passed through but not occupied at movement end, while enemies and obstacles block passage. Heroes may suffer one fatigue per extra movement point without first taking a move action, up to Stamina. Another action may interrupt movement before it resumes.

Melee attacks normally target an adjacent enemy space; ranged attacks require line of sight. Declare weapon and target, then roll attack and defense dice. An X on the blue die misses; ranged attacks need sufficient total range, possibly supplied by an applicable surge. After surges are spent, each defense shield cancels one damage and the remainder is suffered.

Each surge result can be spent once, and each individual surge ability can trigger only once per attack. An attacking hero may spend at most one unused surge to recover one fatigue. Skill costs and voluntary extra movement cannot exceed Stamina; fatigue forced beyond Stamina by other effects becomes damage instead. Rest clears all fatigue at the end of the turn.

To search, stand on or adjacent to a search token; remove an ordinary token and draw a Search card, while unique tokens use quest instructions. Opening or closing an adjacent door costs an action. Closed doors block movement, line of sight, and adjacency across them. Equipped items are limited to two hands in total, one Armor, and two Other items.

The overlord draws one card at turn start, handles the relevant timing and refreshes cards, then activates monsters one group at a time, finishing a group before moving to another. Each monster normally gets up to two actions and at most one attack; special actions containing an attack count toward that limit, although explicit card effects can provide exceptions.

At damage equal to Health, monsters normally leave the map and heroes are knocked out. Replace a hero with a token, fill fatigue to Stamina, discard conditions, and allow the overlord to draw one card. Standing up rolls two red dice, recovering damage from damage results and fatigue from surges, then immediately ends that hero turn. An adjacent teammate may instead spend an action to revive the hero.

With exactly two heroes, FAQ v1.6 grants each hero one additional regular attack without spending an action during their Perform Actions step. It cannot be a special action containing an attack. A hero who did not perform this free attack may instead recover two damage at turn end. Knockout and stand-up restrictions still apply.

The final encounter objective determines the quest winner; finishing the first encounter need not win the quest. A campaign phase follows the complete quest: resolve search gold, cleanup, and rewards, then shop before spending experience. Normal shopping reveals five Shop Item cards. Heroes share gold but cannot transfer experience; the overlord also spends experience on new cards.