Ye Olde Inn

Over the years I often read people claiming that Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord is a quest pack that must be played as a series. In a series, each quest in the pack follows the other and Heroes cannot go back to the shops between quests to purchase items. Although it seems logical in a real-world situation as the Heroes are deep within the Mountain in Kellar's Keep, or venturing through a far away land in pursuit of the Witch Lord in his stronghold within the ruins of Kalos, they would not have time to go all the way back to town between each quest. In a fantasy-board-game setting, they can. However, this rule does not exist in these quest packs. It was not until the release of Against the Ogre Horde, and only in Ogre Horde that his method is mentioned. (At least in the English editions) It is also given as an optional method of play, rather than a mandatory one.

I'm curious to know, how many people use this optional rule in Against the Ogre Horde, and/or extend it to other Quest Packs?
How do your Heroes fair in a series quest pack?

Looking for feedback from those who have actually played them this way, but all are welcome to post their thoughts and comments.

My group is allowed to buy anything before they start a quest pack. Not in between the quests. They seem to be fine with that rule

I'm actually planning on playing through AtOH as a play by post game using the series rule if I can find enough players. So hopefully you'll be able to see how it goes

In AtOH the Heroes are each given 5 healing potions that heal all of up to their maximum BP at the beginning of the quest pack. I wonder how many of these potions you would need to get through Kellar's Keep or Return of the Witch Lord?

I'd give them the same amount of potions in KK and RotWL. There's more quests but they're easier. Can you buy equipment between quests in the US expansions?

The Road Warrior wrote:I'm actually planning on playing through AtOH as a play by post game using the series rule if I can find enough players. So hopefully you'll be able to see how it goes

Custom heroes? I can only vaguely remember AtOH. I know there were a crapload of errors in the quest book so you'll have to sort them out first. I know somewhere there's a virtually garanteed place where the heroes get trapped forever, but there's loads of mistakes. Must have been rushed to make a deadline.

I would look at each quest pack before starting play, and decide, as the Game Master, at which points
the heroes can be at a town to purchase things. Depending on whether we are using an actual, fleshed
out setting or not, there might be restrictions on what is available at various times, as well. It would
depend a lot on how big of a settlement can be gotten to with a descent amount of time...village,
town, or city.

That said...I would probably say that there would be NO going back during Kellar's Keep. I'd have to look
at RotWL again to see about that one. Although, I might offer a "teleportation" spell - or some other way
to allow them to get back to a town, if the all get into a safe room together.

Way back when, we had made a custom ring...I think it was an artifact, that was used *between quests* to go to the town and shop or whatever. In exchange for this the Zargon player got a spell to give to a monster that would destroy an artifact. I can't remember for sure how it was determined if Zargon could have the spell for a quest, I think it was with a simple die roll. Anyway, I remember about halfway through RotWL it was destroyed, so there was no more going back. It got substantially harder then. Of course, that was ages ago and we (heroes) didn't work well together.

As I had mentioned about this topic in another thread, we played KK without Armory visits between Quests, then RotWL the same way. We didn't know about AtOH, so there were no bonus healing potions. We did renew spells, Body Points, and Mind Points between Quests, as the introductory page instructed. I remember buying a lot of potions and daggers for the Wizard with his gold before each expansion. I believe other Heroes bought daggers. We had an involved discussion about the strategy of opportunity buying vs. saving gold before starting KK. I believe our Zargon player counciled buying over saving. We managed alright.

Gold Bearer wrote:I'd give them the same amount of potions in KK and RotWL. There's more quests but they're easier. Can you buy equipment between quests in the US expansions?

The linked thread above covers that ground for KK and RotWL, though I'd start in with HeroQuestFrance's post. Both the EQP and the BQP generally allow for shopping at the Armory and Alchemist's Shop, but between the linked Quests 9 and 10 of both expansions this isn't possible. As those last two Quests share connecting rooms, they are basically treated as a single Quest in regards to replenishing resources and successful completion. You'd have to return through the entrance of Quest 9 to shop, and this would reset the Quest with new monsters (as would any unsuccessfully completed Quest.)

Gold Bearer wrote:Can you buy equipment between quests in the US expansions?

I have two groups playing either the EU or NA quests / rules as printed. Only the EU group have started an expansion being KK but neither say that you can't visit the shop in between.
The only thing they mention about playing in a series is;
- EU says the quests fit together like the last three in the original quest book (it also says you may pick new spells - this is something we don't do)
- NA says it is important to play them in order

So I allow store purchases between quests (even though it doesn't seem particularly logical). Because we're playing these games as printed, we'll play them as Game System + Expansion not applying all rules from 'future' expansions. These heroes will carry across as they are so by the time they finish the first two expansions, I don't think they'll need to visit the shop between quests during AtOH so I guess that means we're essentially playing as it's written already. Maybe I should implement 'Iron HeroQuest' rules where they reset between quest packs

It's odd that AtOH says that the treasure cards are to be shuffled between quests when this should be happening before a treasure card is drawn.

When I get around to writing my own quest packs, my rules state that the quest notes shall determine whether you can visit a store between quests and if so, what it stocks.

Redav wrote:It's odd that AtOH says that the treasure cards are to be shuffled between quests when this should be happening before a treasure card is drawn.

???

I only shuffle it at the start of a quest. Treasure is discarded when drawn, traps and other negative effects are either put back on the bottom or shuffled back in. I don't shuffle before EACH draw, what's the point?

It's in the rules and Redav mentioned that they play RAW.