Going to play HQ this weekend.

[cynthialee]

So...
oh, my Goddess that went south so bad. Didn't take a picture. Didn't see a reason:

To start the game the heroes are given an impressive allotment of heal scrolls, heal potions and anti venom, then the were issued all the best artifacts. So far so good.
They enter the dungeon and they get to the first room, they can go left, right or through the impressive double doors in front of them. They chose to go left.
Inside this huge room the discover 3 ork Fighter/Mages teaching 9 orc teens the principles of potion creation. It is a school for wannabe ork shamans.
Well the barbarian runs into the room and immediately slays one of the children. This causes the other kids to freak and panic. The ork adults go ballistic and try to kill the barbarian. They are enraged and I am rolling an additional attack dice. So the other players look at Mikey and get very pissed at him. WTF!? Why did you kill a child when you could have slain the orks!?
So the children orks do a mad dash for the stairwell and the rest of the heroes let them pass. The heroes clear the orks and have to heal the barbarian. Then they start to explore and while they are looting the room one of the ork children brings back the tribes shaman. (the original idea was the children run away and a pair of basic ork warriors show up, but with the report of child murder the shaman himself shows up.
So I drop a summons Orks spell, roll a fat 6 orks and then run the shaman away from the room and straight to the Manna Well (replenish one recently cast spell). So my next turn I cast Vengeful Spirit on the Barbarian and almost kill him again. Meanwhile the orks I summoned are tearing bark on the heroes. So the heroes have to spend every potion and heal on keeping the barbarian alive.
Eventually they clear the orks, track down the Shaman who is getting ready to cast Vengeful Spirit again, but he dies....
So now they are down to 1 heal potion and no heal spells or scrolls left in the party. Mentor contacts the Wizard via message spells and says "bug out, you can no longer hope to survive in this stronghold, you have insufficient healing spells".
Well the players ignore this admonition from Mentor and try to keep going. Soon they open the door to the right and inside is a trapped statue. I kill two heroes in a row and the two remaining make for the stairwell and bug the hell out.

The funny thing is...the first handful of rooms in the dungeon were designed to be relatively easy. However there is no accounting for dumb luck. I had all the awesome dice rolls and the heroes couldn't catch a lucky break at all. Then add in the murder of the orc teen and the response of the Shaman....yeah

[cynthialee]

So post game weekend thoughts:

I should really test the Luck Rule in HQ next time. I had planed on doing so for the third quest, but I forgot. The heroes could really use such a mechanic if I plan on playing the game on "difficult mode" so to speak.
The cards got extensive use. That was fun getting so much extra stuff into play, thus the cards saw use and the players had a good time. Normally a few good cards may be in play, but the majority of them sit in the game box gathering dust.

The players need more game time. They gave Borins armor and later when it was found, the battle ax to the Dwarf, gave the helmet, shield and Long Sword (when it was found) to the Amazon. All the barbarian had going for him was Talisman of the North, a heal potion and Orks Bane. Which about half the time he forgot the Orks Bane extra attack against Orks....derp derp
The Wizard was basically turned into a high level Cleric with the extra scroll spells he was issued before the game started. {mainly heal and courage scrolls} But the dude couldn't keep the Barbarian healthy due to their misguided allocation of resources. Imagine if they had given the Battle Ax and Borins armor to the Barbarian then follow up with buffs....But they are kind of green so they have not figured out the best way to allocate gear yet.

We played with facing being important the entire time. Anyone attacking a target from behind was allocated an extra attack dice. My sweetie, playing the Wizard with the Wizards Staff got wise real fast and was using this knowledge to great effect on a few orks and a goblin. The other players took awhile to wise up and not leave themselves in a position where a monster could attack them from behind. Which is fun, as it adds a tactical element and changes some of the movement and placement dynamics I normally see in HQ play. As no one wants to leave their back open they almost always move.

One of my thoughts on playing it how we did is that although they had allot of prime gear, the fact that it wasn't always the same gear {except in the case of the sorry Wizzard who was given the staff and cloak every time} and they did not have piles of gold to purchase prime gear we were able to have high level challenges not simply be a chainmail, crossbow and long-sword fest. They were very stoked to see a Long Sword come up in loot. When the battle ax was discovered I was so very surprised to see the barbarian not get it.

[cynthialee]

And we played a traditional style RPG yesterday!
4 game days in a week! I must be in heaven. LOL

{the only thing that makes this even remotely related to HQ is that we use the HQ mini's and furniture when we play RPG's.}

[cynthialee]

I forgot to add this:
In the room with all the students there were two large workbenches. On bench one was the stuff to make allot of potions. There was enough ingredients to make 6 different potion types and up to a D6 of each potion attempted to concoct. On bench two was 6 almost finished scrolls.
For the wizard to concoct potions he needed to roll his Mind Points and roll a Black Shield. Each Black Shield would count as one potion of type created. However if the Wizard failed to roll a Black Shield and rolled 4 or more Skulls there was a reagent explosion and the Wizard would take a Body Point and ruin all the tables ingredients.
So the Wizard of course sets to making Healing Potions and fails bad enough to cause an explosion.
Ok...they didn't get the potions, surely they will get the scrolls. I say roll Mind Points looking for a Black Shield to complete all 6 scrolls, if no Black Shield is rolled and 4 or more Skulls are rolled BOOM! Declare the scroll being created before rolling. So don't you know it the Wizard goes to make 6 Healing Scrolls and he botches this roll also. BOOM! Take a Body Point and all the tables contents are ruined.

The failure to create these potions and scrolls was the downfall of the heroes. I mean come on now! the Wizard rolls 7 dice with each dice having a 1 chance in 6 of rolling a Black Shield. So this is 7 chances to get a 1 in 6 shot. This is damn near a give me roll. Then to have the same thing happen at the scroll table was brutal. This means that the wizard rolled 14 Dice and he did not roll a single Black Shield. The odds on that are not very good. I wouldn't have bet against the Wiz'.

[Daedalus]

...The exit was perfectly placed in regards to the final challenge. Although only 1 hero made it out in time, there was sufficient amount of time to get to the exit provided the heroes got average movement rolls. The fact that 3 of the heroes rolled bum rolls for movement two times in a row is not my fault. The fact Ambers Dwarf made it out of the dungeon with an awesome roll, one bum roll and an average roll demonstrates the challenge was fair. If the heroes would have had an average roll of 5-7 points per roll they would have made it out alive.

This is an awesome way to finish with a bang. Too bad so many died, but that's random rolls for ya. It reminds me of the rolling boulder trap from KK. Which got me thinking...

Bad rolls aren't the players' fault either, so I'd make a collapsing deathtrap that spread out the pain. For instance, on the first turn after the trigger, everybody rolls a combat die--a skull causes 1 BP of damage. The second turn everybody rolls 2 combat dice, the third turn requires 3 combat dice, and so on. That way movement rolls can be further averaged in with damage rolls.

Another fun detail could be to substitute or add in a number of falling-block traps that are only active and searchable after the triggering event. When the Heroes dash for the exit, the trap causes its damage to all Heroes that spring it. However, a falling block trap tile isn't placed until the ceiling fully collapses on M/Z's turn. I'd make sure the first trap/traps were in a double corridor so the Heroes had an idea what they were up against. rumble......Rumble......RUMBLE......

[cynthialee]

We played a game of HQ today.
The Heroes were on patrol along the borderlands and they spotted a couple of ork entering a cave. As all good intrepid heroes would, they followed into the dungeon.
It is a warren of rooms that they only partially explored. Inside they found a mummy that had killed the previously mentioned orks and he was waiting for the heroes. Was looking like he would kill a hero, but it wasn't to be.
Eventually they come across a room with a couple fimir. One died immediately after discovery. The surviving fimir cast summons ork. 4 orks. 3 stay to fight. 1 runs to the stairwell for reinforcements.
The orks kill a henchman scout and the barbarian. Before they get killed and the fimir dies.
The Dwarf and Wizard barely made it out of the dungeon before the ork returned with reinforcements.
The players had a blast in spite of needing to flee and loosing half the party.

[Anderas]

How come they were losing so badly against a mummy and a Fimir? Were they special or did the heroes this time not get enough equipment?

[cynthialee]

combination of factors
1) Less gear.
2) Champion Monsters
3) My wife could not get a good dice roll to save their life last night.
4) Wizard got screwed. Every time a flame spell was cast...I rolled 5's and 6's. When sleep was tried, I rolled a 6 out the gate. Lots of spell failures.
5) The Fimir cast Firestorm after the crew had been beaten previously.
6) I was rolling very well.

[cynthialee]

Also working against them:
The player who usually plays the spell caster was playing warriors, and my warrior player was playing a scout and a mage...
They kind of set themselves up for failure.

Edit to add: I forgot to mention the 4 Goblin Archers they encountered early on. (2 attack, 1 defend, 1 body, 1 mind) I didn't do allot of damage with them, but it slowed the party down, forced them to back track to catch the archers, the few points that the archers did inflict added to the total damage they sustained, and due to it being a ranged problem, the wizard had to use some spells up early on.

[Anderas]

Also working against them:
The player who usually plays the spell caster was playing warriors, and my warrior player was playing a scout and a mage...
They kind of set themselves up for failure.

Edit to add: I forgot to mention the 4 Goblin Archers they encountered early on. (2 attack, 1 defend, 1 body, 1 mind) I didn't do allot of damage with them, but it slowed the party down, forced them to back track to catch the archers, the few points that the archers did inflict added to the total damage they sustained, and due to it being a ranged problem, the wizard had to use some spells up early on.

As it should be
Good End Monster preparation means sucking potions and spells out of them early on... that way an end monster lives more than half a turn.