[WIP] Serving the Empire [9 quests]

[wallydubbs]

Ah, I did not realize that the line through the door was symbolic for an open door. I will keep note of that. The probably would've promoted the Wizard to cast Courage even sooner.
Yeah, I noted that Lord Lane's Crossbow would've been useful on those orcs, but the Elf was taking the long way around at that point.
I also messed up on the falling block outside of Room B on Quest 1... had I played that right the secret door would've been relevant.

Both quests are still doable.

[Anderas]

Ok, so that's a feedback.
Quest note to repair it?

[lestodante]

What do you mean Anderas? I didn't get it

[wallydubbs]

So this one was pretty decent yet frustrating for the heroes when they have the wrong key or get stunted on movement, which happened many times to ths Barbarian when playing this one.

Ok, we started off with making a trap search, followed by the looking for Treasure and getta Potion of Speed. Next the Elf decided to go through the East door, which in turned opened all the other ones. A skeleton with a Chaos Warrior behind it seemed like a good chance to use another one of Lord Lane's quarrels: he rolled , although it killed the the survived with 1BP remaining. took the opportunity to defend the southern door and killed the .
But as soon as the 3 s and last got into the it played out like a severe ambush. The delt 1 damage to , hit for 1, hit for 2 and the other knocked 3 off the 's body points. The , not happy about having his beard trimmed, drank his Potion of Counter-Attack and killed the .
only got 1 but it was blocked, formally destroyed the and the scurried away, firing off a crossbow shot, finishing off the . ran to help the rolling , but the blocked both. Hs then attacked again, doing another point of damage. All heroes made an attack on the next turn, but he blocked every rolled his way. It took another turn order to finally end him.
Here is where the heroes started to split up: went out the east door but found no traps, he forgot to search for secret doors and went to check the southern hall, spotting the Falling block trap, but thought that alcove looked suspicious and wanted to search for secret doors there.
and all went north, but the decided to circle the main hall and go down the western corridor, despite not looking for traps there were none. But and dis disarm the two spear traps in their hall.
In the Northern most hall the spotted the but both were too far to attack eachother that turn, so took him out with Fire of Wrath. would collect the key rolling . Noticing the Wandering off on his own, would cast Swift Wind on so he could catch up to the on his next turn... however those plans had to change on short notice. ended his last turn outside the room with the 3 skeletons without opening the door. On this turn, he opened the door, fired the crossbow at one of , missed and rolled for movement: . then maximixed his movement opportunity, went 2 spaces left, alerted the in that corridor and ran back the way he came towards the central Chamber, all the while loading Lord Lane's quarrel into the crossbow.
Had ran to assist the he would ruin his chance to use the quarrel effectively so chose to follow the . had already spotted the traps in the Northern most hall he disarmed the spear trap while went, now with the on his heels to disarm the pit trap.

The played it smart, noticing the undead swarm out of the room to chase down the decided not to join them (Undead are unpredictable and might even attack hkm). fired Lord Lane's quarrel taking out all 3 s in one shot!

went back to check on room 2, but he only had they key for Room 1. Failing to open it he decided to go help the , who after killing all the s couldn't get distance between himself and the to fire a shot.

After killing the 2 s in the north eastern 4x4 room searchex for Treasure but was attacked by a Wandering Monster. killed it and rolled for the key. He and the didn't look for secret doors there either and then proceed to room 3, not knowing they had the wrong key, but annoyingly kept rolling short on his movement, leaving the to handle the in that last hall. He rolled when picking up the key.

finally got a shot on the and the collected the key, rolling . They went back to Room 2 and neither key worked. So they then headed to the other northern room.

When got to Room 3 and found that their key didn't work, an unusual thing happened: cast Pass Through Rock on himself just to check, he rolled on movement... because of his positioning on the board he found an opportune moment to scout 4 possible rooms, the 1 above and 1 below him as well as the two above and below the (See picture below). 2 of these rooms were only accessible through secret doors, both of which the heroes failed to search for! Despite using Pass Through Rock the did not stay in Room 3, he would only be locked in there and can find a better use for his Genie spell, besides one of the 's keys must surely work on it.
So and worked their way back being extra careful to search for Secret Doors.

Meanwhile the entered the room face off against the undead, but upon doing so he immediately fell into a pit trap. Despite being in the pit and having 1 less defense dice he rolled excellent defence against the undead's attack. rolled short to come to his aid, however when it was hit turn he did manage 1 , but the had good defense, so the backed out the door.


I wasn't sure what to do in this situation... there was a pit trap between the undead and the Dwarf... should they try to jump the pit or just fall in take damage or not? I had a mental vision of the undead in Game of Thrones throwing themselves off a cliff and getting back up. This seemed reasonable but I was still going to limit their offense and defense dice. It was too easy for the , chopping them one at a time. The finally made it to him. They went off to find Room 1 and open it. searching for Treasure picked Holy Water from the Treasure deck. went back down to the room that had the 3 s, he had never gotten to search in there. He drew a Wandering Monster from the deck, helped him kill it and rolled another .
gave the the key to room 3 and the went off on his own.

and found the door leading to the , cast Courage on , but 's first attack was a near flop. He also had Rock Skin cast on him earlier, which actually helped keep him from taking any damage in the fight. Eventually and cleared the room, he then found 25 gold from the Treasure deck.

While the went to unlock Room 3, , and went back to find the other secret door and defeat the , and . was taken down to 1 BP, so cast Heal Body on him. After a search for Treasure a arrow shot out of the wall hitting the .

The heroes all regrouped, heading back to the room with the pit trap, the offered to use his newly found Stone Dust Spell Scroll to avoid trying to jump the pit and just break a wall down, but they all had at least 1 dexterity potion. They made quick work of the undead in Room C and searched for traps, revealing the secret door.
decided to go in and at first was going to Fire a crossbow but when he saw the Chaos Sorcerer he thought it best to get rid of him first and cast Veil of Mist on the to get behind the s and attack the sorcerer before he could cast spells. It was then that they found out spells wouldn't work in the room. couldn't attack the sorcerer so he attacked Mekis instead, so he drank a Potion of Strength, mightily swing his battle Axe, rolled . Metis only rolled 1 but had 3 body points, so he died rather quickly. The next few turns were all the other heroes trying to take out the sorcerer while killed all the . Despite the Genie not working it was who beat the sorcerer to death with his staff.

Not a bad quest, a little frustrating at times, though I had a few minute questions along the way:
Suppose a hero searches for traps in Room C but they're standing in front of the Alchemist bench. Yes, yes I'll just move the heroes instead.
So it's possible that some of the lock doors won't be accessible to heroes since it's dependent on die rolls, they may never find the key to room 3?
What do you usually do if an undead falm into pit traps?
Would Stone Dust work on a normal wall and I can just use a Broken Wall tile from Wizards of Morcar?
Could the Wizard cast Rock Skin one monster and then use Rock dust on him?

[lestodante]

wait wait... I've read something strange this time. Mekis should not roll defense dice... when he's attacked the rules for the combat change.
"He is so skilled in combat that he can take advantage of every attack struck against him: when an adjacent Hero attacks him, both Mekis and the Hero will roll their attack dice; the one who rolls more skulls will inflict 1 BP of damage to the opponent. A Hero attacked by Mekis must defend normally."
So when the Dwarf attacked him rolling 4 skulls, Mekis should roll hiss attack dice too.
In this way if he lost the roll he can't lose more than 1 BP per fight, unless he is attacked by spells or ranged weapons.
Anyway your team was lucky they teamed up again right before entering into Mekis room.

Also when you say "the offered to use his newly found Stone Dust Spell Scroll to avoid trying to jump the pit and just break a wall down" did he really use the scroll to avoid a pit? I hope he didn't! It was intended to be used in a later quest especially against Gargoyles (you'll see how many of them in quest 9!!).

Not a bad quest, a little frustrating at times, though I had a few minute questions along the way:
Suppose a hero searches for traps in Room C but they're standing in front of the Alchemist bench. Yes, yes I'll just move the heroes instead.
So it's possible that some of the lock doors won't be accessible to heroes since it's dependent on die rolls, they may never find the key to room 3?
What do you usually do if an undead falm into pit traps?
Would Stone Dust work on a normal wall and I can just use a Broken Wall tile from Wizards of Morcar?
Could the Wizard cast Rock Skin one monster and then use Rock dust on him?

In room C: there is no mechanism that move the alchemist's bench automatically, it is supposed the Heroes are moving it manually so you can give it any direction or move away any miniature that is blocking it.
Locked doors: yes it is possible they will not find the key. they can still use Genie to open the door. Anyway the artifact is not of vital importance, but would be good to own it for quest 9 (better if the Wizard owns it in my opinion).
Being the master, I will not move a monster miniature into a pit.
YES! Stone Dust can be used to open a breach in a standard wall.
Nice idea to combine Rock Skin and Stone Dust together to instantly kill a normal monster! I don't see any reason to deny this.

[wallydubbs]

wait wait... I've read something strange this time. Mekis should not roll defense dice... when he's attacked the rules for the combat change.
"He is so skilled in combat that he can take advantage of every attack struck against him: when an adjacent Hero attacks him, both Mekis and the Hero will roll their attack dice; the one who rolls more skulls will inflict 1 BP of damage to the opponent. A Hero attacked by Mekis must defend normally."
So when the Dwarf attacked him rolling 4 skulls, Mekis should roll hiss attack dice too.
In this way if he lost the roll he can't lose more than 1 BP per fight, unless he is attacked by spells or ranged weapons.

Also when you say "the offered to use his newly found Stone Dust Spell Scroll to avoid trying to jump the pit and just break a wall down" did he really use the scroll to avoid a pit trap

Oh dear, yes you're right. Another error on my part. I do recall reading that now but when I got down to that room i was more overrun by the no spell use and i completely forgot about Mekis' counterattack ability. It probably would've take the heroes a couple turns to kill him, but they all had a Potion of Healing and the Elf had yet to use Water of Healing, so I don't really think it would've changed the outcome of the quest.

The Elf offered but it was decided that they could find better used for this 1-time spell then just avoiding a pit trap. So no, he did not use it.

[wallydubbs]

Does Mekis get the counterattack against diagonal attacks?

If a hero drinks a Potion of Counterattack when facing Mekis would they just keep going back and forth? Or Would it only apply on Mekis's attack phase. Would Mekis get to perform his counter on a counterattack from the hero?

[lestodante]

I didn't think about diagonal attack, but I would say yes anyway.
- If a Hero attacks Mekis, Mekis will use his special skill and counterattack potion is of no use in this situation.
- If Mekis attacks a Hero and the Hero has already drunk the Counterattack Potion he can strike an attack back to Mekis but in this case Mekis will defend against the attack so he will again use his special skill and the Hero risk to suffer another damage.
I can imagine as an example an Aikido master! When he defends he uses the enemy attack strenght and can give it back against his opponent. But he's defending, not attacking.

PS: in quest 6 I didn't put any note about the open door (central room) because that icon (door with "/" symbol) is a standard icon from some other questpack (Yes Anderas I get it know what you meant!).

[Anderas]

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.

[Pancho]

I see you’ve added more orcs to the quest, that’s good.
For note F, you could say that if Stone Dust is ever used on a wall, the damaged wall tile marker is placed there to show it can be moved through. If you can’t fit this info on the actual card, that is.