[WIP] Serving the Empire [9 quests]

[lestodante]

I think the crossed off door is a yeoldeinn invention for the play by post games.
It's fairly standard but not everybody knows it yet, for that we will have to take over the world first.

Open doors are used in Return of the Witch Lord questbook, quest "The Forbidden City" at pages 20/21. I just noticed there are no open doors in the US version, renamed "The Forbidden Cavern".

[wallydubbs]

Open doors are used in Return of the Witch Lord questbook, quest "The Forbidden City" at pages 20/21. I just noticed there are no open doors in the US version, renamed "The Forbidden Cavern".

Oh cool, I thought Lost Wizard/Stone Hunter was the only quest name changed. I actually like Fotbidden City better.
But it makes sense why I didn't know that a slash through the door means it's open.

[wallydubbs]

So this was a very frustrating quest for the Barbarian, he was constantly being jaded by turn order and very rarely rolled higher then 1 in his attacks.

It started off with running out into the hall and stumbling into a pit trap. attempted to help by attacking the diagonally, but he flopped. tried to crossbow the but he flopped too. selfishly searched for Treasure finding a gem and a boot.
defended well against the and 2 s, despite being in the pit he killed the . successfully killed a this time. The and decided to go to the adjacent room. The merely wounded the . tried to finish the job but only rolled 1 , which was blocked. attacked and defended from and . This whole game the would roll exceptionally well on defense. He and the would clear out the room in the next 2 turns.

killed the other in the hall while used a dexterity potion to jump the pit trap and attack the but he failed. The struck back, hitting the with . wanted nothing more then to search for traps but because the fighting the was in view he couldn't and just skipped his turn. finally took out the . searched on his next turn and spotted the spear and pit traps all the way at the end but was too far to do anything about it. However had a tool kit, but as soon as he passed the middle hall it alerted the and in that corridor. then retreated and cast Rock Skin on himself. Unfortunately when the caught up to him the extra defense dice did nothing and it was wasted, taking him down to 1BP. He would then kill the , run from the before it could catch up to him, jump the pit trap and catch up to , who was searching the northern hall for traps. They would continue down this hall, but the rolled higher and saw the first,he tried to run away but it was no use, so he cast Ball of Flame, rolled in defense. being first turn was unable to do anything while the attacked . Though the flopped, the fought back with his Wizards Staff and killed the . 's next attack would be against the other while cast Fire of Wrath on an . The other would attack the and bring him down to 0BP, but he drank his Potion of Healing, rolling .


and worked on taking out and 4 s. took one with a crossbow shot, killed one standing beside the pit, but he was swarmed by the other 2 and a . Despite being surrounded he only lost 1BP. shot down another while got 1 hit on . After adjusting positions the attacked the and went after . took a step back on his next turn and used one of Lord Lane' quarrels, rolling , this killed the orc, but the despite only defending with 3 rolled , blocking both! But would finish him off on his next turn. searched for traps, disarmed the pit, picked a Hazard from the Treasure deck. Nobody looked for secret doors in that room so the by the Torture rack was never found. By the time they left that room and rejoing and there was only 1 orc left. The from the middle hall came creeping around for and attack, but the and took him out. cleared our Room A, but not before the was taken down to 1BP. searched for Traps, found the book/lever... and here they rolled crappy. and got to the middle corridor first,saw the pit traps, but the and were the only that could disarm them. They had to wait, but only rolled and couldn't make it to the spear trap. disarmed one but said screw it and tried to jump it. He failed but it missed him. Then there was the other pit and spear trap in the first hall. disarmed the spear trap, jumped the pit trap, made it to the corner, took out the 2 's with the last of Lord Lane's quarrels and saw the door close, just as it's been 5 turns when the tried to disarm the pit trap, but rolled and fell in.

was frustrated with the , earlier the used Heal Body on himself while was down to 3 BP, had cast Water of Healing on , so ordered to go back and pull the lever. As he did this triggered the trap in Room B.

pulled the lever, and headed back, casting Swift Wind on himself, rolling . , and cleared out the 3 s.
rolled short and wasn't able to get to the in the next room, but got a head shot. spotted the spear traps. went back to Scout the central hall, but he didn't go all the way to the end and thus didn't see the door into the central Chamber. When searched for Treasure he drew a hazard pit trap, but was standing in the doorway, she all heroes had to jump if they wished to cross.

was rolling very poorly, he only killed 1 after the had killed the and . When they got to the 2 s cast Courage on . Desite this, he never rolled higher then , but when he did get 3, the blacked 2. One withstood 2 complete turn orders from all 4 heroes attacking him. He did little damage to them himself, but made great defense against their poor rolls. got a Wandering monster from the deck, the actually did some damage to him, but the got another head shot.

ran into the Necromancer's room and rolled , which was blocked. He then cast Summon Undead and rolled getting 2 s and 2 s. They surrounded the , a blocked off the door into that room and try as they might the and couldn't kill it. was having issues killing a Mummy as well, so he used Holy Water on his next turn. Gegel cast Command on , which had no effect. The heroes managed to take out a but Gegel Summoned mor undead, this time rolling and getting 4 s. It took a while to clear them all out. cast Tempest on Gedel and cast Veil of Mist on do he could bypass the undead and kill the Necromancer before he could cast any more spells. landed 2 hits, and targeted the undead and the got a diagonal attack on Gegel, rolling , getting the kill. and finished the last of the s and searched the chest.

The heroes just though they were done wondering where the Spirit Blade was as the had missed the central Chamber door earlier, so the plan was to send someone with Pass Through Rock back to open Door C again. But on his way back to that room the saw the door. He opened the door and let out a shot that immediately took out a , but his allies were too far behind and the doorway was swarmed with undead. cast Pass Through Rock on to get him into that room.
passed through the Rock and attacked a but it was blocked. used his Veil of Mist spell scroll to get the into the room, he took out a . made a diagonal attack, killing a . had no luck with the rolling poorly again. cast Genie on the other but only got , which was blocked by the . tried a sleep spell and that failed too. Eventually the heroes got some good rolls and cleared the room. It was actually a somewhat difficult quest, there was enough traps and monsters to be threatening to the heroes, not bad.

However speaking of a slash through the door, I'm thinking Room D could be open. It's possible to kill him before he even gets a turn in. If the Dwarf hadn't barged in and the heroes took a proper turn order against him he could've died before getting a chance to cast a spell.

[Pancho]

Gegel the sorcerer could also be beefed up to 4 or 5 Body points.

[Anderas]

Don't know where I left this topic... I continue with Quest 4:
This is a nicely balanced quest for a 3.5 dice group, most of the damage of course comes from Room A and the center room.

Quest 5, Disappearing of Sir Senet:
Ramps up the difficulty a little bit, this is a good quest for a fully equipped hero group.
The Chaos Warrior support really is visible; also that room with 2 Goblins 2 Fimirs and 1 Orc adds nicely.

The quiver certainly helps removing some BP extra from some of the monsters, so the estimation is off by a little bit here. Always that creativity! I like that it uses up slowly.

Sir Senet is very likely in the last room the heroes would open; so that Sir Ragnar scenario with alert sounding and people come rushing in is not doable.


Quest 6, Domain of the Beast.
I tried to incorporate the quiver by having more attacks on hero side in the north corridor, the east center spoke and in the room South-East with the alchemist bench and B.
Those extra quiver attacks reduced the BP loss for a fully equipped group from 21 BP to 20 BP but still it is a lot what they have to take in! Wallydubbs said that he rolled an alarming number of Black Shields, but I think he played not unusual; maybe he was even lucky off.

I like that there are two group separating falling rocks. Generally that's a mechanic I like, just cutting someone off and then see what happens.


Quest 7, Hunting the Chaos Warlord
First simulation, I thought 'that can't be, it's so easy!' Then I read the questnotes and rearranged the skeletons and chaos warriors around the center room as if they belong to the same room and fight all at the same time. Now the difficulty came up a little bit, but still being in the lower area of "normal".

Mekis however, that's a nice one. Fencing master as he is, he is protected from sorcery, cool stuff! However, also in my simulation he dies rather quickly. I would give him one BP more and the Chaos Sorcerer can have soothe.




After the respiratory pause they had in Quest 7, the heroes get to work hard for their survival in Quest 8 Saving the Spirit Blade.
There are four places with hard fights; Gegel being not the strongest by far.
First comes the center room. Here, door blocking is a plausible strategy... entering the room, the heroes lose nearly 7 BP, blocking the door they lose just 1.3

Much less difficult are the rooms in the southwest corner, the north double hallway and the weapons rack room. Again, except for the double hallway, door blocking works fine to reduce the difficulty. Changing everything to door-blocking heroes, the difficulty is totally in a normal range.

If someone is playing this quest with evil wizard cards, I would put 2 potions of healings somewhere. Without, and door blocking heroes no need for that.

You can't doorblock Gegel, his undead army will surround you if he survives turn 1.
If the heroes were exploring the other rooms, especially the center room before, they will have less potions and spells to unleash on Gegel and he might survive the first turn. I would rather make sure. Remove one Mummy from the center room and give Gegel 2 BP more, ore one Skeleton blocking the door, or both so that the heroes have at least one little action to spend before they enter.


Quest 9 Into Your Mind
I was first shaking my head, simulating this... it looks big yes, but most skeletons and zombies are alone and easy victims. Wandering monster? Not there. Even the Gargoyles, alone, without traps looked to be easy victims of a 4-head-group pointing all their weapons simultaneously... but wait... traps... quest note B... oh! All the gargoyles are fought by a single hero!
Repeating the simulation, I was expecting some very bad results, but no.
With the lonely fight rule, the quest appears to be very balanced for a fully equipped group!
Cool stuff, the disappearing doors really have something dreamlike. love it! *hands over to Wallydubbs test for testing*

[wallydubbs]

Quest not B for Quest 9 says all the heroes get teleported back to room A after one kills a gargoyle and gets the stone... I think this was made under the assumption that the heroes would be sticking together. If you've been reading my playtested you'll notice this is not always the case. They often split up but find a way to regroup afterwards.
Suppose the Barbarian and Wizard are off one way and the Dwarf and Elf go another... if the Barbarian kills a Gargoyle and this impedes the progress of the Elf and Dwarf... do they all really have to go back?

[lestodante]

In quest 9 I opted for the teleport solution to avoid Heroes wandering up and down around the dungeon or it could become very very long.
It also avoids the evil wizard player to run out of doors and secret passages.
Am I missing something or I never heard Wallydubbs about the use of the Restoration Gem? Also did they find Gegel's special key?
A couple of times Wallydubbs missed some quest notes but the players was able to beat the evil forces but with some difficulties anyway. For example Mekis was killed too early because of this but he is much thougher instead.
The same happened with that open door in quest 6.
When I talked with Wally I gave him instructions to use the US Monsters cards; Heroes are supposed to come right after the Game-System, so they only have standard equipment and the most famous artifacts.
In addition, Wally is using an expanded treasures deck. And I noticed his Heroes split in two groups very often, almost as a standard action! This for sure make the quests end faster but increases a bit the difficulty level in my opinion. They do not sift each room and often proceed with impetus, leaving some areas unexplored. But I guess is more funny to play like this, I remember my group followed a standard routine with "clean the room, search 1, search 2", planning their position every time they were in front of a new door. But itwas also more boring and repetitive. So I like so much to read his battle reports and I grin when they fall into certain traps

As for Gegel I like the idea that a wizard is not a strong fighter so I didn't assign him too much BP. And an open door can be a free way for a crossbow.

[Pancho]

And I noticed his Heroes split in two groups very often, almost as a standard action! This for sure make the quests end faster but increases a bit the difficulty level in my opinion. They do not sift each room and often proceed with impetus, leaving some areas unexplored. But I guess is more funny to play like this, I remember my group followed a standard routine with "clean the room, search 1, search 2", planning their position every time they were in front of a new door. But itwas also more boring and repetitive.

This is interesting to me because both my groups are doing the same thing, i.e. splitting into two groups of two, almost as standard and pretty much as soon as they get the first chance to do so. We've only just started using Evil Wizard cards so that can't be the whole reason. I did play some quests with some of these guys before, with me as a Hero player, and my style of playing is much as you described above, so maybe they are following my lead. Maybe its because some of us have kids now and want to get through as many quests as we can in short time. Whatever the reason, I agree it really does make the quests much more interesting and quicker. They seem to be gaining confidence with every game and have the courage to just go for it now. I really hope it continues even when the Quest difficulty goes up.

Anyway, good work on this pack so far guys, it seems to be coming together nicely. We're doing Kellar's Keep next but I'm tempted to insert this one in there somehow, after they get out of Karak Varn.

[wallydubbs]

In quest 9 I opted for the teleport solution to avoid Heroes wandering up and down around the dungeon or it could become very very long.
It also avoids the evil wizard player to run out of doors and secret passages.
Am I missing something or I never heard Wallydubbs about the use of the Restoration Gem? Also did they find Gegel's special key?
A couple of times Wallydubbs missed some quest notes but the players was able to beat the evil forces but with some difficulties anyway. For example Mekis was killed too early because of this but he is much thougher instead.
The same happened with that open door in quest 6.
When I talked with Wally I gave him instructions to use the US Monsters cards; Heroes are supposed to come right after the Game-System, so they only have standard equipment and the most famous artifacts.
In addition, Wally is using an expanded treasures deck. And I noticed his Heroes split in two groups very often, almost as a standard action! This for sure make the quests end faster but increases a bit the difficulty level in my opinion. They do not sift each room and often proceed with impetus, leaving some areas unexplored. But I guess is more funny to play like this, I remember my group followed a standard routine with "clean the room, search 1, search 2", planning their position every time they were in front of a new door. But itwas also more boring and repetitive. So I like so much to read his battle reports and I grin when they fall into certain traps

I forgot to meantion before I playtested Quest 9 I went back and and redid some dice rolls to simulate a more proper battle with Mekis. The heroes had 4BP, 3BP, 5BP, 3BP:
Dwarf attacked Mekis, they both rolled and the has 2 , Mekis took 1 1BP damage. Mekis's next attack was blocked by the and all the s swarmed.
attacked Mekis, they rolled off and both rolled 2 s. No damage to either?
took out a .
crossbowed a .
decided to take out the last .
Mekis attacked abd did 1 damage.
and Mekis rolled off: 3 s, Mekis 2.
/Mekis roll off, Wizard 1 , Mekis 3, takes 1 damage.
fired a crossbow at Mekis, only rolling 1 , Mekis caught the arrow in the air, rolling .
and Mekis had a roll off: for the Dwarf, for Mekis. Mekis dies.

Although I see that Mekis's ability had potential, it didn't change so much here.

Yes, the Barbarian did find the key, the Potion of Rage and the 120 gold. However I misread the key and only thought it worked on Room E. Happy accident as they probably would have missed the door to the central room otherwise. (The Gem of Restoration was found in the previous quest, they have yet to use it).
After they cleared out the center room the found the secret door, set off the spear trap and took a damage and they all waited until the could get there with the key and all were sucked in by the vortex going for the Spirit Blade.
I must've accidentally deleted that last portion...

[wallydubbs]

And I noticed his Heroes split in two groups very often, almost as a standard action! This for sure make the quests end faster but increases a bit the difficulty level in my opinion. They do not sift each room and often proceed with impetus, leaving some areas unexplored. But I guess is more funny to play like this, I remember my group followed a standard routine with "clean the room, search 1, search 2", planning their position every time they were in front of a new door. But itwas also more boring and repetitive.

This is interesting to me because both my groups are doing the same thing, i.e. splitting into two groups of two, almost as standard and pretty much as soon as they get the first chance to do so. We've only just started using Evil Wizard cards so that can't be the whole reason. I did play some quests with some of these guys before, with me as a Hero player, and my style of playing is much as you described above, so maybe they are following my lead. Maybe its because some of us have kids now and want to get through as many quests as we can in short time. Whatever the reason, I agree it really does make the quests much more interesting and quicker. They seem to be gaining confidence with every game and have the courage to just go for it now. I really hope it continues even when the Quest difficulty goes up.

Asides from the Wizard, splitting up doesn't really seem that dangerous for maxed out heroes. They cover more ground and don't get in each other's way with bad rolls. Skeletons, Zombies and Goblins are too weak to do any substantial damage and Orcs die too quickly to be considered a potential threat.
Plus if the heroes split up they do so complimentarily the Wizard best sticks with a Barbarian or Dwarf for spell support while the Elf can cast spells or pick off monsters at a distance with a crossbow while the other hero does the melee attacks.
I find it more interesting when the heroes are separated because it also shows off their limitations:
The Wizard and Barbariango off together, "This hallway is full of traps and where the hell is the Dwarf?!"

While the Dwarf and Elf cone to a room full of really big monsters.
"I could really use a Courage spell right about now."
"Have you ever known me to use Fire spells?"