The Unkillable Party

[Parzival]

Update on Party Status:

Reviewing the PoT final quests which I completed, and after which I know I did not visit the Armory, I find that the group should have 850 gold (at a minimum), three Minor Potions of Healing (2 BP each), a Water of Healing scroll (with two castings available), and, as the final reward, each hero has a Ring of Fortitude for +1 BP each.

So mod stats accordingly:
B= 9BP
D= 8BP
E= 7BP
W= 5BP

I shall probably purchase some Chain Mail for the Elf, improving her defense to 5.

I have never seen the value of the Plate Mail. +2 defense is great, but that 1 red die movement roll sucks!!! I would never give up speed for such a relatively minor defense boost. Get there first and chop its head off is the best defense in the game— either that, or run like Heck. And for either, you need two red dice.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I posted some suggestions on the other topic: Power Creep and Retiring Heroes one of which was a way around the movement penalty for plate which everyone hates!

[Parzival]

I posted some suggestions on the other topic: Power Creep and Retiring Heroes one of which was a way around the movement penalty for plate which everyone hates!

Given that the Knight’s special ability is to wear any armor with no movement restrictions, I’d be inclined to just say that Plate Armor subtracts 3 from the two dice rolled, but always allows a minimum move of 1. So you end up with a top speed of 9, and a most likely move of 4. (With one die there is no “most likely” result— all results are equally likely.) If you want to be more generous, make it a 2 point penalty, so a top speed of 10, 5 as the most likely… which isn’t great, but doesn’t feel as killer as the one die rule. The drawback is the loss of simplicity, but I think it’s minimal.

[Parzival]

I will make one observation on the App’s tactical AI: It actually plays like you’d expect a Chaos army to conduct itself— send all the worthless one-hit-wonders in first, while the “important” heavies stay back and wait to mop up. It’s pure attrition “goblin wave” tactics worthy of a Napoleonic era General Highfalutin-Nobletwitsmythe. Who cares if the little guys die? We’ve got plenty of ‘em. Pass the brandy snifter, Suh!

Smart tactics? No. Human-like? Oh, yeah.

[wallydubbs]

Spirit Queen's Torment is a cakewalk. You can practically run this quest pack with an alternate group of heroes with no equipment and the heroes could build up just fine. This quest pack has all the same artifacts from the game system except for the Spirit Blade. So if your group wants to try out a completely different group this would be the quest pack to do it.

The Game System recommends the Elf to use Earth Spells, but I totally agree with our Grail seeking friend, Parzival, that Elven spells thematically relate to feminine elements (Air & Water). If she were a Dark Elf, I'd totally concur on using Earth. Who knows, maybe the Elf was meant to be half dark, the reason for his white hair.
Anyhow the Earth spells are merely recommendations because the Earth spells are all self-serving (they can all be cast on the hero holding them). The Wizard needs to be a little more advantageous on casting his spell on who and when.

[Parzival]

I’m playing through SQT right now against the HQC App, and just finished The Perilous Escape. This is one of the few times when I thought my party might purchase the proverbial agricultural homestead. This one is relentless; I’ve never seen so much green on the board! I gave up using minis and just tracked it all on the app. I had to pull off some clever tactical movements as I did a “backwards” retreat (meaning I was moving into unexplored areas while protecting the party’s rear). Fortunately, I had some spell scrolls which helped me get around, especially when I found two ceiling traps in my path. Using Pass Through Rock (I had two copies available) I moved the Wizard and an ally around the traps, and found the exit as well as the second necessary element needed to fulfill the quest’s goal. I then disarmed one of the ceiling traps, jumped the remaining one, and let a fully healed Barbarian trigger the second one, blocking off the pursuing monsters. The party escaped with only one hero above half BP, and honestly, if this had been a less well-supplied party (and the AI a little smarter), I’m pretty certain they’d have been hauling out a corpse or two— or not escaped at all.

So, yes, a “from scratch” group would find this more challenging. But my Unkillable Party almost lost their moniker!
For the record, somewhere along the way I either failed to find or lost Orc’s Bane. I was missing it for this “orc”slaught of a quest!