ONLINE QUEST 1 Forsaken Tunnels Of Xor-Xel

[HispaZargon]

I'm reading it as that the darkness only limits sight and searching for traps in passageways/corridors ("tunnels"). Agree or disagree?

Darkness also avoid seeing monsters inside it BUT I understand they are active and can be moved by the Evil Wizard if they are in a room with opened doors... so it means the monsters in darkness are not detected by heroes but some of them suddenly appear and attack them like a wandering monster... The Thing Below only appears if the heroes step in the cross X because such monster is in a corridor instead of a room so without such patch it would appear too earlier but the X marks where this thing can go in just only one movement and attack first.

[Kurgan]

So would you put tiddly winks on your quest map and move them around behind the screen or would you place monsters on the board and just tell the Heroes they can't target them with magic or projectiles (but CAN search for things) for those monsters that are "out of range" inside rooms?

Seems a bit more complicated, but doable if that was the intention. If we just read it as affecting corridors, it's much easier to figure out. But when you think about it, three squares away (in all directions) does cover a lot of ground. Can the monsters in the dark "see" the heroes? I guess it doesn't matter if they have no magic or projectile attacks.

The mechanic makes sense with regard to the traps inside the corridors. You have to search multiple times to find stuff as you creep along.
If there are three traps in a single corridor, then traps must be searched for three times (minimum) to find them all.

But let's just assume for the sake of argument they mean it to apply to rooms as well. So if I'm standing in the southern doorway, adjacent to the door for Room "B" then I can't see any monsters, right? But if I set one foot inside, I can now see all those undead monsters even if they haven't moved at all. Following the same logic as I approach the northernmost room from the west, as I stand adjacent to the open door I can see all the skeletons, but not the Zombie (unless he moves), until I step one square inside the room, now I can see all of them. The hero standing at the open door might not see the last row of monsters in the Tomb room, or the last row of monsters in the "secret door" room between C & D, but that's about it.

Is that how you interpret it?


It would be a little surprising, but Zargon purposely moving invisibly the monsters into the corners and shadows to avoid being seen would seem to benefit the heroes more than harm them in several cases since none of the monsters in this quest have ranged attacks of any kind even if they could see through the darkness and this would let the heroes search more. It's an interesting idea, but apart from the traps I don't see it making it all that much more difficult, just taking a little longer or if the heroes are splitting up in exploring the rooms.

[HispaZargon]

Yeah I think you are right... i interpreted it as you say, yes but i did not notice three squares of sight are enough to see most of the monsters in the rooms. The idea is cool but now I guess darkness rule will not be too much relevant in the quest except The Thing Below first attack.

[Pancho]

Yeah I think you are right... i interpretated it as you say, yes but i did not notice three squares of sight are enough to see most of the monsters in the rooms. The idea is cool but now I guess darkness rule will not be too much relevant in the quest except The Thing Below first attack.

I counted five rooms where the darkness rule will hide the monsters, and three corridors. There are also a number of rooms where the special rules will make traps more dangerous. It’s a cool quest, pretty dangerous even for players who have played through the original 14 quests. A lot of these new players will be kids, who will hopefully find the darkness rules a bit scary. People who have played through this already have reported some Hero deaths.

[lestodante]

Can anyone try to explain me note A with different words?
I don't understand the meaning of "You can just make out a table in which someone is working". Does "make out a table" mean the hero physically see or imagine a desk or is it just a way to say something else?
Thanks in advance for the answer.

[Darkfox190]

Can anyone try to explain me note A with different words?
I don't understand the meaning of "You can just make out a table in which someone is working". Does "make out a table" mean the hero physically see or imagine a desk or is it just a way to say something else?
Thanks in advance for the answer.

To be able to "just make out something" in the darkness means to be able to see it, with effort.
For example, "I found some paperwork, but I can't make out what's written on it." means the speaker can't read what's on the paper, but they can see it.
In this instance, "I found some paperwork, and I can just make out what it says." would mean the speaker can read it, but it takes some effort.

[Pancho]

Can anyone try to explain me note A with different words?
I don't understand the meaning of "You can just make out a table in which someone is working". Does "make out a table" mean the hero physically see or imagine a desk or is it just a way to say something else?
Thanks in advance for the answer.

It means that you can just about see the table in the darkness. The rest of the note doesn’t really make any sense though, because it doesn’t explain very well if there is someone sat working on the table or not.
The note would be better if it said something like;
“Your torchlight does little to illuminate the darkness in this blasted place. You can just about make out someone sat working at the table. The figure disappears into the darkness as you step into the room. However, the notes on the table make it clear that someone (or some thing) was attempting to dispel the magic that has sealed these tunnels shut for so long.”
Or even better, you only reveal that second bit of information after a treasure search.

[lestodante]

or maybe you find some notes on the desk that reveal someone was working on that?

[Kurgan]

That makes more sense as opposed to you imagine you see a desk in the distance and just happen to presume somebody was trying to do some magic there at one time.

There being invisible monsters, at best delays the surprises by one square (unless you're getting really terrible rolls.. maybe everybody has Plate Armor and the Wizard is hanging back?), although in the case of traps it means people are going to be like move, search, move search... on the first negative trap search you can be sure you've cleared the area in most cases since we're assuming a scope out of three squares from each character, right? (assuming we take rooms as being "dark" as well).

I'm assuming this is magical darkness that is really really dark, because normally torches work fine, at least in the Game System (Race Against Time I believe it was). Too bad they didn't allow enough time to play those quests where you find the "Crown of Shadows" beforehand to let one Hero cut through it automatically.

[Darkfox190]

I'm assuming this is magical darkness that is really really dark, because normally torches work fine, at least in the Game System (Race Against Time I believe it was). Too bad they didn't allow enough time to play those quests where you find the "Crown of Shadows" beforehand to let one Hero cut through it automatically.

Perhaps this is meant to serve as the introduction to this sort of darkness, which they'll use in future quests? It's always best to expose the players to something like this at least once, before giving them the chance to get the item to defeat it!