Playing the pack without visiting the armory...

[torilen]

Hey all, I know this has come up before, but I cannot remember where all of the discussion took place. I didn't see
a thread here, so if anyone knows where else this talk was, please throw a link in here so we don't repeat a lot of
already stated material.

Kellar's Keep is, in essence, one big quest, for the most part. Does anyone play it as such, without allowing the
heroes to go visit the armory or town or potion shop, whatever it is you call it?

I think this idea of playing straight through is what led someone to suggest having a bit of a role playing
encounter deep in the quest pack, where some goblin or orc or someone has a shop that the heroes can visit.

[Pancho]

I can’t remember what thread it was but it was me who suggested that the Heroes run into a party of dwarves half way through Kellars Keep, allowing them full access to the armoury to spend what they have looted so far.
For me immersion in the story is very important, so I really don’t like the idea of allowing trips to the armoury after every quest in packs like KK, RotWL or AtOH, when the heroes are supposed to be far away from help. But I reasoned that there might be an odd party of Dwarves exploring the caverns below Karak Varn for their own reasons.

[wallydubbs]

It is a lovely little house rule that I've also adopted (it may have been from reading Pancho's post). It seems unreasonable that the heroes would bear 1 quest, go back to town, go back to the same place they were... etc. "Coming up for air" someone once said.
So I've adopted this method of game play for Keller's Keep, Return of the Witch Lord, Against the Ogre Horde, Frozen Horror and the last 4 Quests of Mage of the Mirror. This does become problematic for Frozen Horror, which I'll get to.

This rule was first implemented and only officially implemented in Against the Ogre Horde. Although I do agree with that rule; the not replenishing Body Points between quests is too great of a hindrance, which was also introduced in Against the Ogre Horde.

Although I've never added the Dwarvish merchants in Keller's Keep, I like having the heroes stock up on potions before the next big adventure. For this reason I play The Trial much later in the Game System and adopted the European reward of 500 gold once achieving Champion status. The Trial is the most difficult quest in the Game system, so it's the heroes Trial to becoming Champions. This reward or dowry should give the heroes enough gold to stock up.
In like manner Return of the Witch Lord doesn't offer a reward before moving onto Against the Ogre Horde (unless you count the 500 gold under his throne. To which I felt the need to give the heroes some type of reward. The majority of the gold earned in RotWL is in the first 5 quests, but if you're playing through without going to the armory, all that gold is essentially stolen between quests 5 and 6. So for this reason I add up how much the heroes had stolen from them and that is what the Emperor will pay them once they beat RotWL. This is enough to stock up for AtOH.

So much gold could be found in Against the Ogre Horde, but it seems obscene that the heroes are essentially carrying 7,000 accumulated gold around with them by the last quest. So I just give them half of what's in each chest. The rest is offered as a reward. I really don't like how they did away with rewards in AtOH and WoM.

Then we have the Frozen Horror. This quest pack is much too difficult to do without the hire of Mercenaries. Rather then let the heroes back track to get some mercenaries, I first add a 5th hero (Female Barbarian, playing through a modified version of the 3 solo quests). But then along the way I also add mercenaries found in between quests. As there are Dark Company warriors working for Chaos, these mercenaries can reveal to the heroes that they were once part of a larger group, but some have defected to serve Chaos.
Apparently before resorting to send his prized Champions to assist the Northern Tribes, the Emperor had sent a whole army into White Mountain to face this threat and since they never returned the Champions go up and find that some were stranded up there (whome they can hire) and others have defected.

[Kurgan]

I don't think we were ever that strict. But we played I believe GS, then ROTWL then KK, so by that time all the surviving heroes were fully tricked out. But it made sense for a new hero to be able to buy stuff. It's been awhile though, but I don't think we every passed up a chance to visit the Armory if we had gold to spend.

If you play it that way, unless you have a town portal scroll mod thingy, or a monster merchant or whatever, you're not going to be doing much shopping if you play it that way. Use your imagination to make it happen if you need it.

"Good thing Mentor gave us these air drops!" "Oh look, another cache left behind by rangers/dwarves/uncle wilmer!"

[Daedalus]

My thoughts are in this post. drathe and others also had related comments in Kellar's Keep... so hard to get through....

[Kurgan]

Too bad Grumplestilskin got killed back there, but I see the new recruit was able to not only take our comrade's body back for a proper burial but also purchased us some much needed supplies, welcome to the team!

These magical potion vending machines are strange... there's a warning label on here written in ancient runes not to tip it to try to get free potions!

[lestodante]

playing without being able to buy weapons beetween quests would make the story more realistic in KK.
Otherwise you can occasionally let Mentor or the Empire send some kind of seller from a near friendly village being able to keep few weapons and potions for the heroes!

[Kurgan]

If you don't want to allow the Heroes to buy stuff between quests, to make it harder and "more realistic," then just don't... that's up to you of course. If you want clever ways to make it seem like they can still do it without ruining suspension of disbelief too much, there are ways.

I played ATOH (using NA rules) with BP/MP being restored between quests and instead of visits to the Armory/Alchemist shops, you had the suggested "big" healing potions (restore Heroes to full). I figure some similar kind of compensation would be warranted if you're going to prevent any and all shopping once the first quest begins until they complete quest 10!

If you cut off shopping completely, you'll greatly increase the difficulty of the Quest pack, and you should give fair warning so they can stock up before setting out.

The "you don't get to heal in between" is an explicit rule only in "multi-part quests" which occur in the EQP/BQP and the EU exclusive "Dark Company" and possibly one other quest involving the Heroes being captured (?) but I forget which. However even those multi-part quests provide opportunities to regain spells (or at least find spell scrolls in the NA ones) and get healed other ways.

Of course you say the Heroes rest in between, regaining their body and mind points, camping out in the passages... and if you want to, you can just put a staircase next to the "exit door" that leads all the way back to a friendly shop (meaning they went back up the stairs and through the door the next time). Clean, neat solution. Now it's not always the case that you go through the exit door, but you can switch it up, if they normally would use the stairs (and you don't have a secondary stair tile), just use the "exit door" for the same purpose.

Using the homebrew "Lone Monster" deck provides an opportunity for a "Monster Merchant" to randomly give you some sales, but I think the "stairway next to the exit door" is a pretty clean solution that doesn't require crafting anything new if you want a plausible excuse to shop in between.

[bleugh]

first run through - make it relativley easy.
second run through, introduce harder stuff
third - go nuts!

Keeps things fresh really , dont' buy weapons, don't allow health topups (but introduce more potions) etc

[jace]

I completed a run through without visiting the armory, alchemist, and holding all treasure cards till the end to cash in.