Ye Olde Inn

I like the original Quest 'A Race Against Time', especially the intro story and the sense of treachery it makes the players feel. However, the Quest name suggests a sense of urgency that is sadly lacking in the actual Quest; it just plays out like a regular game.

A small suggestion to add to the flavour; introduce Evil Wizard cards to coincide with this Quest.
Many of us use EWCs as they greatly add to Morcar/Zargons gaming experience, and stop pedantic Heroes from faffing around too much. But I feel they shouldn't be introduced at the very start of the original Quest pack as the Heroes already have enough to learn and contend with (especially if starting with the Trial).

So introduce a good deck of EWCs before this Quest and really stress to the players before the game that if they dally, Morcar now has enhanced powers to make the dungeon a lot more deadly....

an idea im toying with is blatantly stolen from the Arkham horror LCG in that each quest will build its own unique evil wizard deck. this deck would be constructed from several smaller decks, there would be one deck for orcs, one deck for goblins, one deck for fimirs etc etc, there would also be flavour decks for caves, sewers, ancient ruins, chaos fortresses, wild magic and then potentialy each expansion would add its own sub decks as well.
so, say the theme of your quest was searching an ancient ruin populated with undead, you would take the skeleton deck, the zombie deck, the mummy deck, the ancient ruin deck, the 'dead rising' deck and then shuffle them all together. at the start of the evil wizard players turn, he draws the top card from the deck and plays that card.
my evil wizard cards are in three parts: fate, destiny and chaos. fate happens, the evil wizard player follows the instructions every time, it may be to place extra monsters on the table, activate a trap or move heroes or monsters around the board, destiny has a condition, if that condition is fulfilled the effect happes, for instance if there is a certain number of zombies, replace them with a mini-boss character, if all heroes are in the same room they suffer 1 damage each, if there is only 1 skeleton in the same room as a hero, it explodes etc etc
Chaos is a spell that the evil wizard player can cast if they wish, it could buff the monsters on the board, harm the heroes on the board, shoot a fireball at a single hero etc etc. this would allow the EWP to spice up the game if they wish

In a quest like race against time, you could have a deck that reduces a timer and as soon as the timer reaches zero, the heroes fail. it 'should' add a sense of urgency as the players never know if the next card will reduce the timer or not.

Sounds great Tott. I've been toying with the idea of themed EWC decks myself, but not sure that I want to put the work in for it. That said, I'd be more than happy to act as a sounding board for any of your ideas as you build up your own decks (I'm not tech savvy enough to actually help construct nice looking cards).

I hadn't introduced the EWC since my players generally had enough to deal with (there are usually only three of them) and those cards seem like an extra complication for me and difficulty for them on top of an already expanded game. However, I like the idea of using them for certain Quests, though, if there's a story reason for them or ratchet up the pressure once in a while. Maybe have the man who leads you into the dungeon in this case be a devotee of Z/M who informs the evil wizard of the Heroes' location or have the dungeon be cursed which is why all the events happen. Something like that. I'm probably gonna use that.

Wow Tott, that's a lot of card printing.

Pancho, The Race Against Time quest would be the point I'd add the timer mechanic to using the Chaos tokens from Advanced HeroQuest. Prior to that it's only "At the start of the EW phase if no monsters were in play that turn" fits the learning curve and ramps up the game.

I use the Chaos Tokens instead of needing to create and print a deck. If you haven't seen my Chaos token mod yet. Here it is Plus a load of others on a 1 page print out. For those who've seen it before, I've recently improved the page layout at the bottom, the monster skills, it took some doing.

The Choas tokens from Advanced HeroQuest linked to a timer would be perfect for this quest. Especially how most of us will likely already have the game. Fixes Spookyhappyfuns issue, a good team will see the EW only ever getting a few, with very minimal effects. The suspense of not knowing if the Ambush token is held adds a lot of spice.

mitchiemasha wrote:Wow Tott, that's a lot of card printing.

meh, not too much, youd only need between 2 and 5 cards for each sub deck, if you used 5 or 6 sub decks for each quest you're still only looking at 20-25 cards per quest, plus most of them would be reusable. youd use the goblin sub deck for every quest that has goblins in for instance. theres a similar 'encouter deck' mechanism in the Arkham Horror LCG (great card game, highly recomend it) and it works very well for creating tension in the game, especially in the quests where theres something special hidden in the encounter deck - a boss monster, a bonus mini-boss for extra xp, a card that completley removes the location you're standing in, on occasion some quests even hide the object of your mission in the encounter deck, you have to try to burn through it as quick as you can to find your objective while trying to stay alive. it also stops you from dawdling, its not the games only mechanism to keep you moving but you really cant stay put and try to buff yourself up as you never know what the encounter deck will throw at you and you dont want to take too much damage without progressing the quest.

Spooky,
EW Cards do not really add any extra complication. The card effects are usually very simple and the benefits really outweigh any negatives in my opinion. Like I said before, I wouldn't introduce them right at the start of a newbies Heroquest experience, but adding them in half way through the Original Quest pack is about right. The good thing is that the majority of cards can be played whenever Morcar/Zargon wants too, and he doesn't have to play them at all if he doesn't want to. If the Heroes are taking a pounding I don't always play my advantage using these cards (it totally depends on the players and whether I want to kill a Hero or not!).
I've just drawn 3 cards at random as an example; 1. Chaos Champion - pick one monster on the board. It may move and attack twice this turn. 2. Lost loot - Randomly pick a Hero. That Hero loses 50 gold (from a hole in his pocket). 3. Single Combat - one of your monsters (that has more than 1 body point) challenges the Barbarian Hero to single combat. The Barbarian cannot refuse this challenge to his martial prowess. The two fighters square off and no there Heroes or monsters may intervene in the combat until it is over.

Mitchiemasha,

I have seen your PDF before and enjoyed reading it. A couple of questions for you; 1. how does the 'finish off undead' rule work? and 2. Does the timer work well in a game of HQ? I've never actually used a timer myself and would be interested to hear from someone who has.

Unfortunately I never bought Advanced Heroquest so I don't have the tokens

The finished off undead rule is in the last Quest of this pack, Mellars Stone. As is the Chaos Orb.

Undead Special
The curse on this tomb is strong. The Undead are easily reanimated and must be 'finished off'.
Undead reduced to 0BP are laid down in their square, not blocking LoS or Movement.
The Evil Wizard Roll 1Cd6 for each at the start of their turn.

Skull = Reanimated.
WS = Nothing happens.
BS = Explodes -1B to each surrounding unless defended with 1Cd6

To 'finish off' a downed monster, a Hero must move onto its square and spend their attack action.

Heroes deciding between attacking another or finishing one off can get quite comical, pure movie like moments as the skeletons rise again.

I like the timer, it works well. It's not too short to make players rush but just short enough to speed up decision making. I wouldn't use it on a fresh group.

I agree that A Race Against Time falls flat, and you're suggestion to add in Evil Wizard Cards is a good one. In another topic, this had also been suggested as a fix to specifically match the theme:

Daedalus wrote:Here's a variation for Race Against Time you could include at the beginning of the Quest Notes:

Roll a combat die every Morcar turn. When a black shield is rolled, tell the Heroes they hear rumbling as the false guide attempts to collapse the entrance! Set the spiral stairway next to the gameboard and place a rubble marker on it. Place another marker each time you again roll a black shield. If all 4 spaces are filled, swap in a blocked-square marker instead. When you reveal the exit, place the tile with any markers on it. Treat any rubble markers as found falling-block traps that may be exited but not removed.

If the Heroes press on in haste, they all should have a good chance of escape after likely facing 4 falling-block traps. Falling-block traps may be jumped per the normal game rules, but each triggered trap adds another blocked-square tile. This may result in Hero death if the exit becomes completely blocked, which is more likely the more the Heroes delay. Stone blocked-squares may only be passed with a spell. If a Hero dies exiting a falling-block tile, his equipment will be looted by the false guide if no other Hero has exited by M/Z's turn.