Ye Olde Inn

I noticed the quest tells the Zargon player to remove all the healing potions from the treasure deck, and those are what Mentor uses to heal the heroes.

So they are unable to find any while searching for treasure, and I didn’t see any additional healing potions mentioned in the quest notes.

Right, I mean its a bit easier, but its ensuring that the autosaves are done every time (well at least for the first three times a hero dies) whereas normally they might not find the potion before one of them gets killed in order to use it to save themselves. Five death saves (potentially) sounds pretty decent for a quest, but yeah it's certainly stacked against the good guys harder than the Trial.

I have this sneaking suspicion though that Baker didn't remember (or wasn't told) that the Potions were 1d6, rather than +4 automatic (like they were in the EU edition he probably had the most input into originally). Recall that at the time they even had a photo of the Potion of Healing treasure card and it clearly used the +4 body points wording from the european versions rather than the familiar "one red die" that eventually came to print to match the NA edition of 1990 it is based upon. What difference does it make? Not a lot if you're coming back from Zero (the wizard only has 4 BP, after all; Elf could have six, and the Barbarian and Dwarf wouldn't be at maximum even with 6) but that red die might come up with LESS than 4, after all. At least Water of Healing and Heal Body which either the Wizard and/or Elf will have, automatically restore 4 BP each to yourself or another hero you can see (witness the controversy about saving yourself from death if it's not your turn though, even if you haven't technically used an action and have one of these potentially life saving magics!).

amazing >.<

Having since just played this I have a query...

At the end it says that any Heroes that died are restored to full Body Points. But, do they lose their equipment? I would imagine not since they are not fully dead but some clarification would be nice.



Stoner81.

You would be correct. I was like a bad dream for that player.

Does Gor-Garak cast a spell every turn on just in his first turn?

I assumed it was his first turn only... but that will certainly increase the difficulty multi-fold if you choose to interpret it as EVERY turn. Do the spells get used up in that case? Again, Zargon can make it next to impossible if he wishes (want a "Firestorm" or "Cloud of Dread" every turn? Go for it!).

Still no Rogar's Hall in the App.

Ive changed this quest to a "real one" where those halls are like a sacred temple dedicated to Rogar, first king of the Realm. The heroes have visited the place before, they can pray and donate in the temple to try to rise his body point by 1 paying 500 coins. Dwarf and Barbarian rolls 4 combat dices, Elf and Wizard 3. If a player rolls two white shields they get it. Only one +1 per character, the cant stack it.
The story is that the halls have been invaded by Zargons minions and they have to cleanse it. The gargoyle can cast a dread spell every turn.

Yeah the original point of the quest seems just to teach the heroes a little humility and get them to work together with the final gold reward being the only thing they are striving for (in the unlikely event they actually win). Otherwise after their (likely) failure, it's off to "the Trial" in the original plan (a difficult, but much more forgiving experience where their actions really DO matter). Then later they seem to have realized how tough and even demoralizing it can be for players that are not hardcore like us (who don't really need such an introduction to begin with) so they shied away from it in favor of Doug Hopkins' "New Beginnings" instead. I can have some sympathy for Stephen Baker here not only because he was away from the game for 30 years and was invited back as a guest writer on the revival, and not only because he was more familiar (I'm sure) with the European rules of the game from back then, but also because at the time there was no promise that the game would come to retail, and for all he knew, the people who would be playing Rogar's Hall (which was like a preview or teaser to get people pumped for the release) would probably be middle aged hardcore HeroQuest fans like us, not wimply little kids who those grumpy adults are trying to introduce to fantasy tabletop gaming with their old favorite.


STILL, out of respect for Mr. Baker and his legacy to HeroQuest, as well as historical interest, I hope they do put it into the Companion App, even if it would require incorporating the new mechanic over the "death save" treasure cards. It would seem fairly simple (I don't code) to just have the system put up a screen when the hero dies (similar to the "stuck inside solid rock/undo" feature that was recently introduced) IN THAT QUEST ONLY like saying "Zargon should take one of the Healing Potions and immediately use it on the hero. There could be a screen that has three check boxes for each of the three potions of healing. Before the quest begins one of the pop ups should remind Zargon to remove the three Potions of Healing from the Treasure Deck and set them aside for when a hero dies (without a death save). It must not be a high priority on their list that they haven't added it so far, but then again look how long it took to add the Guardian Knight (they were probably still smarting from that apology they had to make and maybe wanted to wait until it was a sure thing that the character was coming back in a future retail release... the Mythic heroes were in there from day one which is a nice courtesy to Haslab backers but removing them at a later stage would have surely upset them even if they wanted to remove the sting of reminding the majority of users that they missed the Mythic set's extras).

Here is how I see it happening in the hypothetical app update in the "Hasbro Pulse" section: Maybe Quest 00 or "quest X"?


"The hero has died. If they have an unused Healing Spell and have not yet taken an action on their turn, they may use it now to restore 4 lost Body Points to escape death. Otherwise Zargon should take one of the Potions of Healing cards and use it to revive the hero and then this card should be discarded." and then you could click to check off one of the potions or click undo (or "save") for the hero to be alive if it was the case of a spell. For all they know you could be playing this with the Rogue, Knight, Warlock and Bard or Druid...

A possible tweak would be to have the three healing potions just automatically restore 4 BP, but played as written it should prompt you to roll 1 red die to see how many Body Points the "dead" hero gets back (1-6, and not over maximum). Rolling a 1 is going to be a bad day!

The random spells thing is kind of already taken care of with the Frozen Horror who has a variety of spells (though some spells he never seems to use) whether its the first time only (probably) or every turn. Natcha Goblins isn't a big deal since we've seen special monsters with special rules before, though not usually as wandering monsters (MOTM had werewolves in one quest as WM, and the GS had Uller's ghost as a non-standard character for WM).

The lack of continuity with other quests doesn't matter because the App doesn't "remember" what treasure you have at the end of a quest, that's up to you to keep track of. As for losing your equipment if you die in an area with no heroes (but monsters later enter; or always in the case of a Total Party Kill), I would assume that is the case. But you get your "Starting equipment" back on the next quest, because this was intended for basic heroes and it "didn't really happen" (it's a magical illusion, despite giving you bumps and bruises, just not real fatalities!). The only thing that matters playing "Rogar's Hall" is the journey.... and the reward is just a nice bonus if you happen to make it through.

I wouldn't mind at all trying to play this quest on the Stream one of these days, just to show people what can happen, if they didn't know already from reading this thread.

PS: I have often wondered if perhaps they won't just slip a printed copy of Rogar's Hall into Prophecy of Telor (it rounds out the set to the number 14 just like the game system booklet, right?). But if they do this, you miss out on the "added value" of having the free Rogar's Hall quest being out there that is not present in the book so you can get it and enjoy it whether you choose to buy that or not. After all the only special feature was the Mentor figure which nobody will have even with Prophecy of Telor (right? or maybe we'll get on there too, even if an alternate sculpt since that was supposed to be an "exclusive") which the App prompts you to just substitute the Dread Sorcerer figure (just like you would Sir Ragnar or the Witch Lord later on) for if that miniature isn't available. At the very least I think making the link to find Rogar's Hall should be made more prominent so it's easier to find for those who want to run that quest as Zargon for their hero players.

We played this on the stream last night and it went very well! As usual our streams allow the twitch chat to "purchase" items for the heroes (using the free gold that accumulates by lurking on stream). I didn't emphasize the body points of the heroes on camera this time as I didn't want the entire challenge to be taken away, but here are the details...

-the four heroes found themselves in Rogar's Hall talking with Mentor (represented by the Chaos Warlock figure) with only their basic starting gear. The Elf choose Water spells and the Wizard got the rest. Turn order was Barbarian, Elf, Dwarf, Wizard. Three human players took control, each an experienced HeroQest player.
-As GM, I used the standard HeroQuest NA treasure deck (no extra cards EXCEPT one Potion of Speed and one Holy Water).
-I allowed unthreatened movement (2d6 = 12 squares) when no monsters on the board. I also granted a few uncommon feats (50% chance of success.... big swing of the axe against two foes at once for example), and made multi-attacks with the heroic brew against a single target normally one large dice roll. Crossbow rule applied that the surrounding 8 squares can't be shot at, only the squares out from there.
-We allowed "wrestling moves" (rolling 3+ white shields grants an automatic 1 BP damage to the opponent... we did the same for bad guys rolling 3+ black shields, so it balanced out).
-early in the quest, the chat generated an elite Chaos Warrior, that gave the heroes some trouble
-I allowed the weapons rack to provide a piece of equipment when searched... additionally the chat ordered some gear for the heroes so the Dwarf upgraded to a broadsword then a battle axe near the end, while the Elf got a crossbow and the Wizard got a staff.
-the random artifacts found (here I made sure the stack only contained the classic NA artifacts, none of the new ones from the remake) included the Wizard's Staff and Wizard's cloak as well as the Elixir of Life.
-I was going to allow Gor-Gorak to use a random Chaos spell before EVERY one of this turns (with the cards getting used up from the standard GS bad guy spell deck) but the Barbarian got lucky and one shotted him (that was an heroic effort!)
-I removed one stone block near the end thinking it would save unnecessary backtracking (it was a very long session and I didn't want to have to do a second part) but it ended up not being needed)
-I interpreted the Healing Potions from the treasure deck to be d6 rolls. One hero needed one and came back with only 2 BP. I also chose to interpret it that these potions "go away" once (spoiler) Mentor leaves. However I didn't think it was fair to discard the cards so I put the unused ones back into the Treasure deck. However, one hero did die "for real" at this later stage.
-when chatters cashed in bonus potions I limited it to the potions that existed within the treasure deck (they got a copy of it rather than exhausting it). we didn't use the Combat Cards or Evil Wizard Deck ("Zargon Threat Cards")... those would be applied to the next MOTM session.
-Bonus (safe) treasure searches were cashed in a few times, so heroes got to draw cards in a couple of empty corridors. Of course gold didn't really matter in this quest.
-I allowed the Elf and Wizard to each search a Sorcerer's table to restore a lost spell (but these extra spells ended up not being needed).
-the last Chaos Warrior activated the room next to him which contained 3 more slaves to darkness, and the heroes made a break for it with the final treasure.
-unfortunately the Barbarian was slain, but rather than guarantee the reward, his surviving comrades in arms used the Elixir of life (one of the artifacts) to restore him.
-I applied the old plot twist I wanted all along, which is that it was a mental trap by Zargon, and Mentor made sure for their virtue in the face of this challenge they received a real (and much bigger) reward of 500 gold.

The "real" adventure would continue back in the land of Elethorn (Mage of the Mirror) in about a week's time...


My conclusion is that Rogar's Hall is actually NOT a bad quest and I feel a little bad for the way I kind of trashed it back in the day. Hard to believe it has been three years since we first saw it! But after all this time I finally play it and it's fine, but I had plenty of time to think about how it should be run.

I guess the real problem with it is if you assume it is for brand new players. Like sending a young child or player new to tabletop gaming into the solo quests of BQP/EQP is a mistake, so too would it be to have this be someone's very first adventure and experience of the game. Sure, maybe if they are with a party of experienced heroes who will guide them but not an inexperienced party. Instead, this is a "challenge for the greatest heroes" which can work in terms of gear (fully equipped for an adventure by previous quests) OR (as in this case) experienced players who will work together and try hard to survive and complete the mission, being seasoned with the game. So I am even more convinced that it be put into the Companion App officially... but maybe drop the "training quest" bit, as that can be misleading, like it's an easy quest meant for beginners when it is actually anything but... and still a nice side adventure or stand alone challenge (and tougher than the Trial I would say).