The Witch Lord is Pale

[Anderas]

[This topic was moved from Board index ‹ HeroQuest Rooms ‹ HeroQuest Additions ‹ Quests and Quest Packs on 8/27/18. -edit]

I think the Witch Lord trilogy at the end of the Base Game Quest Book in no way presents the great, the horrible Witch Lord in the right way.

There is this great "Boo" moment when he arrives first in Quest 12. This is good.
But then, in Quest 14, he is just so... plain. Nothing special around him.

Look at Balur. He teleports away so the Heroes have to continue searching him.
Look at Karlen. He is... well, at least he did something!
Look at the Weather Man, the Orc Shaman or the others.

Compare to the Witch Lord. Somehow, i think he is not interesting enough.

Did you play Quest 14 exactly as written, or did you think of something interesting, new, different?

[Goblin-King]

I buffed him a bit with more BP.
The EU version with him having 1BP is insanely ridiculous.

But yeah, he could still use a little more UMPH!

[Count Mohawk]

In the EuroQuest version of "Return of the Witch Lourde", ol' Witchy could summon one Undead figure per turn, in addition to taking his normal actions.

Additionally, he is carrying the Spell Ring; therefore, the Evil Wizard Player may choose which Chaos Spell he stores in the ring. (The original notes give him two Fears, which is a terrible choice next to Summon Undead.)

Finally, he has a form of Greater Invincibility, by which the only thing that will harm him is the Spirit Blade. All other attempts to cause him harm are null. Although the book doesn't say so, this should include effects such as Tempest and Sleep.

Giving the Witch Lourde all of the above perks should go a fair way towards making him a worthy "Disc One Final Boss" for the base system's Quest Pack.

[Anderas]

Really he could summon one undead figure? Well, but that would add a bit
Also Spell Ring is new, but a superb Idea i might reuse.

The "Greater Invincibility" definitly is inside the EU rules - i will copy and paste it to my questbook for sure.

Thanks!

[Count Mohawk]

In the US Base System quest book, when the Witch Lourde is defeated, he disappears in a puff of foul-smelling smoke, and the Heroes hear the tinkling of metal skittering across the floor, which turns out to be the Spell Ring Artifact. It seems logical to assume that ol' Witchy was wearing it at the time. Thus, if he has the Spell Ring, he can use it too! (and he does - the original notes say he may cast Fear "twice", while no other figures with Chaos Spells get multiples until the Ogre Horde)

The exact wording of the summoning ability from Euro Return of the Witch Lourde is as follows:

As well as fighting he is able to summon an evil creature ONCE per turn. On each turn he may randomly pick ONE monster card to see which type of creature he may summon. If there are no available pieces for that monster type, nothing is summoned that turn. The summoned monster must be placed adjacent to the Witch Lord and may move/attack as normal this turn.

[Anderas]

So yes, the abilities can be a best of all editions. Thanks a lot.

[wallydubbs]

In the US Base System quest book, when the Witch Lourde is defeated, he disappears in a puff of foul-smelling smoke, and the Heroes hear the tinkling of metal skittering across the floor, which turns out to be the Spell Ring Artifact. It seems logical to assume that ol' Witchy was wearing it at the time. Thus, if he has the Spell Ring, he can use it too! (and he does - the original notes say he may cast Fear "twice", while no other figures with Chaos Spells get multiples until the Ogre Horde).

Technically there is a Fimir in Keller's Keep, Quest 4 Dwarven Forge that can cast the Rust spell 3 times... at least in the American version this is so.

However, I totally agree, let the Witch Lord use the Spell Ring.

This also raises questions about Grak and the Wizard's Cloak, does he get the +1 on top of his 4 defense dice?

I did, however, boost the Witch Lord with extra spells from the expansion quests, such as Mind Freeze, Mind Blast and Reanimation. The last one is critical in terms of difficulty. Imagine playing "Summon Undead" chaos spell, and then after the heroes clear them out the Witch Lord surrounds the heroes by reanimating all the undead the heroes just cleared out.

[Jalapenotrellis]

I played the +1 for Grak.

If he rolls skeletons, my heroes would laugh and sneeze them down again :/

[Spookyhappyfun]

This is full of some fantastic suggestions. I haven't actually gotten that far with my group, but I think I'm going to try to implement some of this.

Thank you all!

[Kurgan]

I wouldn't change anything, personally. The NA WL as present in the GS & ROTWL is a tough foe, plus we played through all the other quests to get to him. The only way I'd "enhance" anything of him is if I was playing his quests now with a group of "upgraded" heroes, in which case he would be upgraded too. That is to say while my "elite monster" rules typically only apply to regular monsters (not summoned or wandering monster types) I would give him a potion (as I do other evil bosses) that lets them roll blue dice in defense for the remainder of the quest except when defending against spells.

As for special gear gained from killing a boss monster... if he drops a Wizard's Cloak and rolls 4 would theoretically have only been a "3 dice" guy that gained a +1 by having the artifact. Sometimes it doesn't work out perfectly. Maybe a boss monster drops a 2 dice damage weapon but he wielded it for 3. But maybe the item was damaged or depleted in the battle reducing its effectiveness, or maybe he wielded it more skillfully than the heroes (I apply this rule for the Wizard/Alchemist's staff, where in the hands of a champion or above level Wizard/Alchemist it attacks with 2 black dice, but for anyone else it functions like an ordinary staff). Imagine if the heroes take down some epic bad guy, strip off his armor only to discover it is now full of holes and useless.