Ye Olde Inn

Hello,

I just joined the forum and look forward to many interesting HQ discussions!

My friend and I have decided to get back into the game after a long absence. While I am anxious to play, I am unsure about the best place to pick up the game. We had completed all of the original quests. We would like to perhaps delve into some of the expansion packs, but a concern that I have is that we do not have any track of the Gold/weapons/upgrades our heros rececived after the first quests. I am thinking that the heros will need at least some upgraded equipment to be competitive in the expansion quests. We don't really want to play the first quest book again. The game will probably not be too fun if the heros constantly die because they are not powerful enough for the expanded quests. Any suggestions on what would be best to do?

Also, I am interested in playing additional quests I am finding, but again, I am not sure how to tell when the heros will be competitive in a particular quest. Is there a rule of thumb or criteria that I could use?

Any suggestions on getting back into the game would be most welcome. Thank you in advance!

Welcome back.

I reckon a team of 4 fresh heroes could complete Return of the Witch Lord with a little luck. I would give them each 250 gold to spend on what they liked, you could also dish out the quest treasures from the original set.

Ask drathe about fanmade quests that are beginner level and can be played as an alternative to the game system quests.
There are a lot of them for download here.

I agree with knightkrawler that the best thing to do is start out with fresh Heroes and play 'em through fan Quests. If that proves too difficult to research or isn't your thing, I came up with a gold coin total 4,543 for all 14 introductory Quests. How I arrived at that is shown toward the bottom of this thread page. If you divide by four Heroes, each should be given 1260 gold coins to spend on weapons, armor, and equipment. You should also add in the artifacts, such as Borin's Armor and Spirit Blade.

This isn't perfectly accurate, as players will probably optimize their purchases in ways that aren't likely if they actually progressed through the 14 Quests. If you wanted to shave things down to an even 1000 gold coins per Hero, that might better represent purchases that were abandoned later in favor of an artifact or better weapon/armor.

I saw a promising Quest pack by Thrawn: here

I haven't played it, but it caught my attention because he said it was designed to replace the starter quest book because like your group, he and his friends had already played through them.

When my current party dies, I'm planning on starting them over from these adventures.

For heroes who have completed the basic system the more realistic is to have almost the best equipment they can get:

Barbarian: Spirit Blade + Borin’s Armor (in the picture it has a helmet so in my opinion you can’t wear extra helm) + Shield(100G) + Talisman of Lore (A3(4 undead)/D5/B8/M3) (talisman of lore is very important for the barbarian quest because the poison card could burn your mind)

Dwarf: Broadsword(250G) + Chain Mail(450G) +Helmet(120G) (A3/D4/B7/M3)

Elf: Crossbow(350G) + Helmet(120G) + Shield(100G) (A3/D4/B6/M4)

Wizard: Staff(100G) + Bracers(200G) + Wand of Recall(x2 spells in a round) (A2(diagonally)/D3/B4/M6)

Sum: 1790G or let’s say 450G each

Also give them 1 potion each and play it with the American rules where when you die you can drink potion of healing.

But maybe you can give them less equipment and 2 potions of healing to each player.

For “fan quests” try to start them with no items and give them maybe 1 potion each.

Other have said that when you get through the base set you are pretty much fully equipped. While that's true I think that part of the fun is finding and buying equipment.
Instead of starting the game fully equipped I say you start your heroes off "naked" but sneak in a little extra treasure in the first couple of quests to get them up to speed faster.
You could even sneak in the quest treasures; Borin's Armor, Spirit Blade etc if you feel like it.