First quest: The Maze or The Trial?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

First quest I ran was "The Trial" and they all died, fortunately they did get together again and succeed on a second attempt (large amount of luck involved), so far the next few quests have been a bit of a let down as they are so much easier...certainly seems a little unbalanced!

What rules do you guys play in terms of searching for treasure and furniture, one search does them all, or additional separate searches for furniture and if so what counts as searchable furniture?

[The Admiral]

The Maze definitely. I would play the Trial as the final quest. A sort of final mission to prove the Heroes are worthy to go on. in my opinion playing the Trial first makes the rest of the quests feel slightly disappointing, whereas having a grand finale is must more exciting.

If you still need an answer, Furniture has no effect on treasure searches, except for chests, which will always have specific text related to them, even if that is to tell you it is empty. Some furniture will have text that goes with it, but most won't. If there is no text associated with a piece of furniture it is just for show and of course for blocking movement and line of sight. If there is no text then it is the same as searching in a room as if there was no furniture.

[Fullork345]

With the trial, is it just killing the gargoyle or is it taking out the mummy too?

[knightkrawler]

It's in the wording.

[Daedalus]

With the trial, is it just killing the gargoyle or is it taking out the mummy too?

From the Parchment Text: "...You must first enter the catacombs which contain Fellmarg's Tomb. You must seek out and destroy Verag, a foul Gargoyle who hides in the catacombs...."

Entering the catacombs which contain Fellmarg's Tomb doesn't require taking out the Guardian of Fellmarg's Tomb, the mummy you mentioned. The only thing required to successfully complete the Quest is to destroy Verag the Gargoyle who hides in the catacombs--specifically the central chamber.

On p.10 of the instruction Booklet, A GLIMPSE INTO THE WORLD OF HERO QUEST also describes the goal: "...Heroes, you will begin your journey with Quest 1--The Trial from the Quest Book. Your goal is to seek out and destroy Verag, a foul Gargoyle who hides in the catacombs...."

As mentioned earlier, it could be a short and easy Quest if the Heroes travel directly to Verag. I don't think this happens much due to Hero-player inexperience in this introductory Quest, however.

[slev]

For what it's worth, I made Sir Ragnar Quest 1, and The Trial Quest 11. This basically become a "final exam" before the players become Champions.

[fijigus]

Just getting back in we played the first quest as is, then found the maze and played that (now guys, there weren't any traps or secret doors, but this time there might be. okay guys there are no traps. okay guys there are secret doors....) and then played Sir Ragnor. With just a trap or two it was perfect so going forward now they should know they have to team up, they should know they have to search for both as they go, and they might die, be ready for it.

[wallydubbs]

I actually like the Maze, it's a very rare quest where the heroes get to compete against eachother. It's a race to the center and as the heroes don't know where they're going they often forget to search for secret doors.

My crew generally work very well as a team, they were magnificent in the Rescue of Sir Ragnar. They did the Maze first, however, and surpringly 2 of them died! While each hero starts off on a different quadrant of the board they can't really help one another. Everyone was looking for treasure but the Elf always got the Wandering Monster and ended up dying (as he chose Air and had no healing spells). He and the Wizard were on the same side of the board, but the Wizard got too occupied with his searches to cast a healing spell; so this wandering orc chased down the Wizard, who was caught between 2 orcs at the last door, but he used Veil of Mist to escape and be the first out of the maze.
On the other side of the board the Dwarf felt compelled to search every possible room for treasure, so when the Barbarian found his way out the door was open and remaining orcs on the other side hunted down the Dwarf and killed him.

The Trial, however I found much too difficult for heroes with no equipment or healing spells, so I think it's a mistake to make this their first quest. I know the history if the Trial, that the Maze originally had bad reviews, so they added a quest with every conceivable monster using every piece of furniture. Even though there are no traps, I felt that this quest was too revealing and too difficult for the heroes to play first. So I decided that they'd play the Maze first and I'd add the Trial between the 9th and 10th quest. The Gargoyle is an intimidating and unique and unique villian, so it doesn't feel right to reveal him in the first quest either. So we played it later, I changed the storyline, and added an artifact and a few traps to keep it interesting.

[wallydubbs]

I'm just curious; I've played The Trial with 2 different groups. The first time all the heroes died.

The 2nd group I had play The Maze before the Trial so they can maybe get some potions to help. I had to bend the rules (cast spells without line of sight, pass potions even though monsters are adjacent) just to crawl away from it.
Although there are no traps this map has the 2nd highest total of monsters then any in the Original Quest Book and it's got quite a few heavy hitters (3 Chaos Warriors, 1 Gargoyle, the guardian of Fellmarg's Tomb). Maybe it's easy enough in the European edition...

I'm just wondering how many other people feel the Trial should not be played first, or had all the heroes die at the first chance.

[knightkrawler]

This topic has an existing thread.
I am one of the few proponents of playing the Trial right after The Maze
BECAUSE it will show the heroes death and difficulty.
It's that simple to me. Players should man up and they can learn a few tactics during The Trial.
Having said that, I DO allow spellcasting.