Lair of the Orc Warlord

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Secondly, around spells requiring a physical aspect, the concept of spells and casting within HQ as mentioned before is Vancian and that specifically precludes Spell Casters taking their spell books into Dungeon and similar environments and precludes the need for them to be carrying them in order to cast spells, if you change this then it would raise a lot of questions that would need answering in the context of HQ

In the case of this quest in HQ we can assume that since the heroes have probably been in the cell for a while, and each spellbook (or parchment or Elven amulet inscribed with poetic magical rhymes or whatever) has been nicked by the Orcs, the Elf and Wizard are unable to re-memorise the spells they presumably used up while fighting against their captors during the capture.

Fair enough, and that would explain why they start with no spells, but also in that Quest they regain their spells as soon as they find their equipment, so if spells can be "stored in their mind ready for casting in an instant" and they carry their spell books into dungeons, then why can spell casters only cast a particular spell once per quest, surely cast once, forget, open spell book, rememorize/reload, cast again?

If the Wizard on his first Quest selects Fire, Earth and Air spell cards, then presumably he has them in his spell book and can use them in the Quest, all good, but then for the next Quest, he selects Fire, Earth and Water spell cards, then presumably he adds Water spells to his spell book between quests, then why can't he use Air spells in that Quest?

This opens up some simple ways to add new spells into the game: all the Wizard and Elf need to do is find or buy a new spellbook somewhere, in order to gain access to a whole range of new spell decks.

That could still be done in HQ, although the 'learning and loading' would have to be 'Between Quests', and the limits to how many spells a caster can 'load' would remain in place (although that could be based on starting MP)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Thirdly, on Quest Design

And life would be dull if we all thought the same.

In this case, there are two factors that mean it's fine (in my opinion) that the room isn't on the critical path:

1) Mentor's parchment text says "you must find your equipment and escape". Strictly speaking, finding your equipment is the goal of the Quest and it's not completed unless you do it. If the heroes just leave then it would count as a fail. It's like those NA quests in Kellar's Keep that specifically say the heroes MUST find the piece of the stone map before leaving.

Of course, this can be ignored--and I would probably ignore it because it's more fun to let the players decide whether to just flee or not.

If we choose a strict interpretation here that both finding your equipment and escaping are objectives and must be achieved then the equipment room is, and by definition must be, on the critical path as the critical path is the shortest route from start to end including rooms that must be visited to achieve your objective(s). If you take that interpretation (and many don't for good reasons) then the issue becomes how you handle a Quest with 2 objectives where 1 has been achieved and 1 has not as that isn't covered in the rules (although it is relatively single to resolve). Heroes could ask to replay the Quest as they failed (one of) the objective(s) - and they want their equipment back - and this is correct from a rules point of view, failed quest - try again, but not from a narrative point of view - how exactly do they go about accidentally being caught in an ambush and recaptured so that they can escape again and this time remember to collect their gear as they pass 'GO'?

On a looser interpretation, this does again boil down to our usual difference in approach around ramping up, as you say

If you're rebalancing the base game so that it properly scales up in difficulty as you play through the campaign, this will obviously become a problem ... but I don't think it was too big an issue in the original design, precisely because the base game didn't scale up in difficulty as fast as the heroes levelled up.

I agree with that statement, but I think that the main reason why the original Quests didn't really ramp up (accepting your analysis and that there are other reasons), was down to the assumption of competition between players, as the designers themselves pointed out, if players learn to work together after the first Quest or two, then the game is too easy. My solution is to assume that the players will learn to work together more as the Quests progress and that ramping up the difficulty (without going overboard) both encourages this co-operation by making it necessary for success and indeed survival, and keeps the game more challenging and more interesting as you progress.

As you have said previously if you keep the difficulty flatter then that allows individual heroes to become relatively stronger than their opponents, giving them the opportunity (and the chance to survive) to operate and explore on their own rather than as a team, which is true, but for me that isn't really the desired outcome of HQ, the Heroes are intended to balance each others weakness and generally stick together (or at least in pairs) most of the time, if the intention of the designers was that Heroes would be able to explore a dungeon as individuals then you would have a 2-player game (1 hero, 1 evil wizard) with more-rounded hero types. Which on the whole is not what we have with HQ, obviously solo quests are the exception (but they are the EXCEPTION so not the general rule) but in those Quests there have to be changes from the standard to make them playable in this way (bonus artefacts that compensate for their specific weaknesses as these cannot be balanced by other members of a more or less functioning team, changes to Yeti hug rules and falling into chasms rules so they are survivable by a single hero)

In practice I think players would just get those heroes killed as fast as possible in order to replace them with fresh ones. Foreseeing this, it would be easy enough to rule that the Elf and Wizard get their spells back for the next quest (having found replacement spellbooks or whatever in town).

Yes but this = miffed Barbarian. So the Wizard "finds replacement spellbooks...in town" so why can't I "finds a replacement battleaxe and chainmail...in town"?

And I've just realised that it is "Legacy of the Orc Warlord" where the heroes start with no gear not "Lair of the Orc Warlord" unless that is an EA-NA difference!

I guess what it boils down to is

I've mentioned before that, in my view, one of the great joys of Heroquest is the exploration. For this reason I've disagreed with you elsewhere about the necessity of a 'critical path' and argued that there should be multiple routes to the objective, as well as bonus side branches and the like.

I think we are both agreed that either extreme, a purely linear map or a completely non-linear sprawling map, are both problematic (although for different reasons), where we are differing is where along that spectrum is the sweet spot, mainly due to different opinions on the point below.

I've also argued that the EU base game (though not necessarily the expansions) was designed to let the players wander off on their own, or in pairs, if they wanted to compete or explore, instead of being so difficult they had to stick together all the time.

I agree that the EA base game was designed to accommodate heroes wandering off on their own (actually that is not true for all the Quests, as some are entirely linear, and not true for the Trial, but that aside) and being able to survive at least in the initial quests but where we disagree is that I don't think it was designed to encourage and reward this behaviour, I think it was designed to allow for it, to accommodate and accept that it would happen, but for me the ultimate intention was that players would learn to co-operate, stick together much of the time, perhaps sometimes splitting into pairs, for part of a Quest, and reuniting for the finale, but generally sticking fairly close together, complimenting each other’s strengths and weaknesses, as Quests progressed and the difficulty ramps up.

If the ultimate intention was for individual heroes to be able to stand on their own 2 feet and act independently to the rest of the group then:
• Why are some Quests entirely linear?

• Why is the game designed around four heroes with complimentary strengths and weaknesses, that clearly work better as a team?, if individual exploration was the ultimate aim then a 2-player, one more fully rounded hero + one EWP design would have worked far better to achieve that?

• Why replace the Maze with the Trial, which has the alleged purpose of strongly encouraging the heroes to work together right from the start, if the ultimate aim was for them to work independently?

• Why are later Quests very hard even when working as a group and practically impossible when working independently, why encourage player to play individually and then later sack them for it?