[Quest Pack Series] [27 Quests] - AlterQuest

[Count Mohawk]

Not just a series of Quests, but a series of Quest Packs, it's AlterQuest - an epic adventure fit for Heroes of all strengths and types!

AlterQuest Compatibility Mode has been enabled!
Download the Quest Books from here!
Download the cards needed to play!
Get the tiles, so you don't have to hunt them down!
Also, there's an Alchemist's Shop!

AlterQuest: Maximum Complexity Mode! Play the Quests in their original, unreadable format! Note: Colored combat dice are required to use these.
*this space for rent*

First, "The Trials": a Quest Pack designed as an alternative starting point for new Heroes just starting on the road to greatness. Mentor's trainees are sent out on a number of expeditions, first against Orcs and then back to the capital to thwart a book heist from the Emperor's personal library, before finally facing their last trial against the Gargoyle Verag!

Second, "Rise of the Valkyries": Civil war in the Empire is looming, all because the Order of the Paladins weren't careful enough with their stash of dark relics! It will take the Heroes 10 Quests to sort out this mess, kill the "Dark Emperor" and defeat Morcar's plans for a full-scale insurrection.

Third, "Shadow of the Darkdelve": An ancient horror sealed in a remote island cave network stirs from its slumber! Over the course of 10 Quests, the Heroes will need to enter the dark prison and collect the five relics originally used to seal the Shadow away, then march into the heart of the cave system and banish it again, lest it escape.

(Heralds of Chaos can then be played as #4 in this series, although it was originally designed as a stand-alone and thus has its own thread.)

Quest Pack #1, "The Trials", primarily uses materials from the base systen, except for two Coffins in Quests 3 and 6 and the Sun Eye Room in quest 7, which are easily printed from this very site. You may also want a Paladin figure to represent Sir Bram in quest 4, and a Valkyrie figure for Marston in quest 5, although the Chaos Sorcerer can be used for each of them in a pinch.
Fortunately, this Quest Pack only uses materials from the base system, except for the Sun Eye room in Quest 1-7 which is easily printed from this very site.

Quest Pack #2, “Rise of the Valkyries”, requires the following additional materials, in addition to the cards which I have zipped below:
4 Chaos Marauder figures, 4 Valkyrie figures, 4 Paladin figures, 2 Orc Boss figures and one figure for the Emperor’s Son. These I leave for you to decide on; I have no predetermined miniatures that “should” be used for these things.
The “Prison Cell” tile from Frozen Horror; one of the 5 x 10 tiles from Advanced Hero Quest, trimmed to 5 x 8; Dewayne Agin’s 6 x 8 Room tile; two 1 x 5 Stairway tiles from Kellar’s Keep; the Sun Eye room again; the Cloud of Chaos tile and a 5 x 9 Throne Room tile, which is unfortunately one of Ron Shirtz’s premium tiles. I have loaded all of the above tiles into the Tiles ZIP folder.

Quest Pack #3, “Shadow of the Darkdelve”, requires the following additional materials, in addition to the cards which I have zipped below:
4 Chaos Marauder figures, 4 Valkyrie figures, 4 Paladin figures, 2 Orc Boss figures, 3 additional Chaos Sorcerer figures (one of which should be marked as ‘special’, 1 extra Gargoyle figure, 3 Wights, 3 Chaos Furies and 3 Skeleton Knights. …Good god, that is a lot of figures; I didn’t realize I had so many in use until I typed this out.
The 5 x 4 Battle Room, most of the rooms from the Frozen Horror, five 1 x 8 Frozen Rivers, two 1 x 3 Frozen Rivers, Rob Capper’s 7 x 8 Bridge tile, the 4 x 5 Bridge tile from the Artchives, the 5 x 4 Bridge tile from Against the Ogre Horde, some Bottomless Corridor Shafts (one 1 x 5, two 1 x 3) from Rob Capper, two Dwarven Forges, five 1 x 1 Altars and the Pit of Chaos.

For posterity, I leave Neo-Daedalus’s edits, just in case I missed something. I do, however, leave them in smaller font so they don’t take up as much space.

Additional components needed: 4 Chaos Marauders, 1 Dark Emperor, 1 Emperor's Son, 4 Imperial Paladins, 2 Orc Bosses, 4 Valkyries
6 Broken Wall Tiles (from WoM), Cage Room Tile (from FH), 2 Closed and 2 Open Double Door (from Ye Olde Inn), Cloud of Chaos Tile (from KK), 2 Coffin Tiles (from RotWL), 10 Crate Tiles (from Agin's Inn Archive), 5x8 Gathering Hall Tile (from Advanced Heroquest), 1 Iron Entrance and 1 Wooden Exit Door, 2 Long Stairway Tiles (from KK), +2 Open Doors, 1 Portcullis (from HQ:aMWS or MotM), 6-Square Wide Rooms Tile* (from Ye Olde Inn ), 4 Stone Doors (from AtOH or WoM), Sun-Eye Room Tile (from AtOH), Throne Room Tile* (from Ye Old Inn), 5 Trap Door Tiles (from KK, MotM, or RotWL),
[size=150]*this tile must be shortened to match the map
Dowsing Lens and Morning Glory (from this post), Fire Ring (from KK), Magical Throwing Dagger (from KK or RotWL), Mirror Ring and Thunder Ray (from this post), Spell Scroll Cards
NA Chaos Spells, Necromancer Spells (from WoM), Skate Spell (from FH) -edit][/size]

[Anderas]

Hey Count,
did you use the calculations to equalize the Quests versus the Heroes a little bit?

I am about to test it in my pbp game "the experiment"; and the overall results are astonishingly close to the calculated ones. First I was a little bit shy to put all the monsters (and these high amounts of high strength monsters) into one room, but it plays out well.

[Count Mohawk]

I used the calculations on a general scale to make sure that each Quest would be more slightly challenging than the previous one, by summing the MSC values of all monsters featured in each Quest. Even at base level, the Heroes shouldn't be getting into any trouble until about Quest 4 or 5, although they'll probably be challenged by #7 unless they buy some armor and weaponry. Thankfully, this set of Quests is not played as a series, so there are plenty of chances to shop.

How would you recommend properly testing a Quest, though - doing calculations one room at a time? It's been a while since I looked at those threads; time for a bit of archive panic!

[Anderas]

After all that i have calculated, i know that high BP Monsters are more reliable than low BP Monsters (closer to the average);
and then it comes all down to the number of Heroes vs Monsters.

1 Hero vs 1 Monster: MSC counts as calculated. (Applicable if you seperate the Heroes)
2 Heroes Vs 1 Monster: The MSC is halved (like in a small aisle; one Hero attacks, moves back, one other comes and attacks)
3 Heroes Vs 1 Monster: The MSC is divided by three (If all Heroes are available)

1 Hero vs 2 Monsters: The MSC of the two Monsters is doubled.

Then, you have 24 Life points in the Group plus two Healing Spells; so 32 Life points.
The average damage can easily be doubled if the heroes have some bad rounds, or reduced down to zero; so rather be careful.

32 Life points, plan to remove half of them, then the result is open: If you remove double by accident or player stupidity, you have a total party wipe.
If they work together in an intelligent way, use their spells as advised and everything, they should survive.

The only disadvantage is that it has to be adapted to the current player stats or it will not work. It is a really huge difference if they have 2 or 3 defence dice, for example; and the difference between 2 or 3 attack dice is even bigger.


Bah, now i am thinking about if it really fits here or better in the other thread

[Count Mohawk]

It's fine if it's just the one time, since I asked directly. Further inquiries or discoveries should probably go there, though.

In any case, I plan to work something out for actually play-testing this series at some point. I have three options to do so: rope my brother into another marathon of Questing, set up a play-by-post or figure out where the HeroQuest Vassal thing is and construct a 1-player option.

[Anderas]

Ask your brother.

Play by post is immensely slow and a huge amount of work. Better to have a game or two in personal contact. It is more fun, faster and it is less work.

[Count Mohawk]

I've written up a second Quest Pack, "Rise of the Valkyries", which follows immediately after The Trials. Civil war in the Empire is looming, all because the Order of the Paladins weren't careful enough with their stash of dark relics! It will take the Heroes 10 Quests to sort out this mess, kill the "Dark Emperor" and defeat Morcar's plans for a full-scale insurrection.

Download the v0.2 Quest Book here from my Dropbox! PDF DOCX
Also download the cards used to play it!

[Gold Bearer]

Nice looking cards.

Had a quick look at the quests, I’ll look properly later. In The Desecrated Tombs do those stairs go up or down? If they go up the room to the north should be left until they’re actually in the room, if they go down then it should be set up with the stairs.

[Count Mohawk]

In that Quest the Heroes are going down the stairs. I suspect you missed the existence of the iron entrance door on the north side of the board, by the way.

[Gold Bearer]

Yes. Never mind.