[Quest Pack] [8 Quests] The Book of Ages

[Tott]

This is a quest pack that I actually made years ago, I never got round to making the loot cards that go with it so didn't publish it at the time. I still haven't made the cards, they're listed as text at the back!
This quest pack is the third and final instalment of a story I started with The Spawn of Chaos and then The Shadows of Chaos - Loretome was one of the things that I always loved about HQ, this magical ancient book of Mentors that's mentioned every now and then in passing, i wanted to focus on what it was and where it came from.

Games Workshop do a few pieces under their tomb kings range that would work well with this, so I 'borrowed' some of their characters names for it.
I wanted to try something completely different for "Boss Fights" a way of giving them several abilities of varying power, have those abilities be repeatable, but make sure that the most powerful ones weren't spammed constantly. I'm quite pleased with what I came up with and I think I'll keep using it from now on. I also wanted to make the boss fights slightly more tactical than just everyone piling round and hitting each other, so on some of the fights, the Bosses targeting priorities are spelled out.

comments and criticism welcome, hope you like!

[Count Mohawk]

Old it may be, but I find the concept of this Quest Pack interesting nonetheless. Much like Mentor in the prelude text, we all assume Loretome is a complete manuscript, the full reading of which would tell the entire history of the world, past, present and future (and also doom said world to a fate worse than Chaos). Yet what secrets could be gleaned from its pages if some of them were separated from it?

Mechanically, what The Book of Ages lacks most is depth. While 8 Quests is a reasonable length for a Quest Pack, many of the Quests contained therein feel empty, and except for the boss characters, the monsters are not very strong. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the third Quest, The Valley of Shadows. Not only does the Valley only pass through seven rooms, but there are only 5 monsters in it in total.

The boss monsters themselves are well designed. What they lack, however, is minions. A boss without a few guards to back him up will die very quickly to four Heroes all attacking him at the same time. Take Imhotep as an example. Assuming the party of Heroes can generally attack with 3 combat dice (or 2 for the Wizard), his 4 Defend / 8 Body frame will die after approximately 8 attacks, which will only take the Heroes two full rounds to accomplish (although Imhotep in specific is a bad example because he can occasionally heal himself). With minions around to distract the Heroes, the bosses will live longer, which will allow you to properly show off their various special attacks.

In conclusion, The Book of Ages could benefit from an increase in both the number and the variety of normal monsters featured within the Quest Pack. Perhaps some scarabs, for example?

[ruiza97]

the occasional Gargoyle?

[Tott]

fair enough, when I was writing this I was playing WoW, Wrath of the Lich King and the current raid was the argent tournament - no trash, just boss fight after boss fight. which i really did like.
I have edited the quest above and added few monsters and a new monster type. with your example of Imhotep, its important to note that Imhoteps only attack is a ranged attack (edited to make that clearer)- he would not stay in melee range of the heroes and would use his 8 movement to put as much space between him and the heroes as possible. ive also buffed his teleport to spawn a minion as well!

[Daedalus]

This is a quest pack that I actually made years ago, I never got round to making the loot cards that go with it so didn't publish it at the time. I still haven't made the cards, they're listed as text at the back!
This quest pack is the third and final instalment of a story I started with The Spawn of Chaos and then The Shadows of Chaos...

...comments and criticism welcome, hope you like!

When I checked out the links to the other Quest Packs, I discovered you actually have created the cards! Check out the ShadowsOfChaosCards.pdf attachment found at the bottom of the top post of [Quest Pack][8 Quests] The Shadows of Chaos.

Unfortunately, my meager Wordpad had trouble with the graphics filter when downloading Spawn of Chaos and The Book of Ages. However, I did comment on Shadows of Chaos, as you provided a PDF for that Quest Pack.