[Quest pack] [13 Quests] - Champion de l'Empire

[knightkrawler]

Two things spring to mind as you mention the 4 AD/7 DD overpowerment.
We should make the plate helmet much more expensive. And I mean much. 550 gold or so. Think of it as the last puzzle piece for ultimate protection, even after plate armor.
Second thing is, the Warhammer should probably be two-handed. If it's one-handed, it's a mace, anyway, strictly speaking.
I think nothing with more than 3 AD should be one-handed, except maybe a specialist weapon for the warrior class/Barbarian.

I don't know if ghan would be agreeing. I guess he's on a very extended hiatus.
We could go on and change bits here and there, and as soon as he comes back, he could be asked. Or write up two versions from the get-go.
I'm starting to see it this way: The first HQ edition in Europe had its flaws, so they changed it for the American market. It's still the same game in essence, but plays differently.

[Daedalus]

The 3 AD limit on a weapon and shield combo makes a lot of sense, but the war hammer shouldn't be just another battle axe . Upping the plate helmet cost could work, as a Rust spell can make that balance pay again and again.

Thought of some other war hammer and plate helmet nerfs. The heavy theme could be kept, but stacking would require rerolls by adding a line to each of the entries.

Plate helmet: "May be combined with plate mail and a war hammer, but you must roll an extra red die for movement and keep the lower result."
War hammer: "May be combined with plate mail and a plate helmet, but you must roll an extra red die for movement and keep the lower result."

I hope it's clear enough that combining all three would require 3 red dice rolls and keeping the worst. A Hero could go 4 AD and 7 DD, but he'd have a tough time attacking monsters with an average movement of 2 or 3 squares. Costs wouldn't need to change.

A different war hammer nerf would be to swap this line for the red die penalty:

"The war hammer is so heavy that your attack takes place after any monsters."

Alternately, it could be worded as this:

"The war hammer is so heavy that you may not move and attack in the same turn."

Both of these are tough, as a monster may simply attack and move away.

[knightkrawler]

I'm having a thought.
With the Champion of Light and dark theme and rule mechanics, I think ghan had something speicla in mind, and it has nagged on me since the inception:
This quest pack is to be played out of succession, standing alone.
Like, if you have a regular group playing through all the original quest pack campaigns, but you have another group on hand that doesn't come together as often. With that one you play CotE. I thas occurred to me that it is not a difficult quest pack and could be played right after the game system quests, or after the Japanese localization from bastianbux, and through the Hero development it stands alone in theme and mechanics. I also get the impression that CotE is a "learning" pack, containing RPG elements, equipment tryouts, and more.

Maybe ghan wants this all as he wrote it, including 4AD/7DD. He claims that the pack has been playtested.
However, if I want to use this pack in a campaign with my group, I'll have to heavily edit it if we don't do that now.
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I basically like your rolling extra dice and keeping the worst idea, BECAUSE the average would be most likely a 2.
I WOULD WANT a Hero that megalomaniacal to be punished in exactly that way. The other heroes will also be in his hair about it, so he's gonna drop at least one of these pieces of equipment.

[knightkrawler]

So, ghan posted on OldScratch's because he couldn't connect today:

Bonjour knightkrawler and daedelus!!!
what a good job!!!! thank you!!

i see yours news post on ye old inn ( i can't connect it^^)

In fact, plate helmet is perhaps less expensive however a player use it with plate armor. 550 coins could be good price. ;D
Player become an iron behemot...so good when he is white champion barabrian protector!!
1 red dice to move is a big disavantage, and my players never use plate armor.
with the conbination of plate armor and plate helmet, my player was interressed to buy it, moreover they move with 1 dice.

Empire's champion is build with is globality, and in fact melee roules is very powerfull when zargon move lot of monsters. So 4D/7D configuration was really useless for equilibrate.

I see subjet about one handed warhammer.
I realised news equipement not with "weapons reality" but more than "new object ocnfiguration".
Original's weapons forgot 3 combinations
3 white dice, twohanded and diagonaly ...so i create helbard
2 white dice throw weapons...so i created bow
4 white dice and 1 red roll to move...so i created Warhammer

in fact, heroquest's weapon have all differente config like diagonaly, heavy..ect
I don't write limitation like " use with equipement with unkwnow equipement"....so you could hade new equipement with other questpack.

For magic amunition and bow....limitation
Only barbarian/elfes could use bow
Only Dwraf/elfes could use magic amunition...
SOOOOOO....only elves could use enchantend bow with magic amunition...
Elves could have easily a powerfull throw weapons..not barbarian and dwarf...because arbalest is very expensive

this is just my opinion, but has i already said...my quest pack is totaly free concept so you can modify has you like


So, according to him 550 gold for the plate helmet is a good price.
As I should have known, he has no problem with the 4 AD/7 DD tankbarian, but it should be expensive. My thoughts exactly. In his experience - and in mine, and, as I'll wager my ass, in everone's experience no Hero wears plate for long, anyway, because of the restirctions not only on that one Hero, but on each of them.
On the other hand, CotE is more of a run through of easy to medium quests that are not required to play cooperatively. Heroes are almost encouraged to split up, which reflects in their career choices, too. So, a Hero tanking up like a Space Marine Cybot can play his test - either it works or it doesn't, but it WILL make for more variety if these things are tried out.
For the Warhammer, ghan did not invent weapon, make stats as logical reflections of real life, but rather he saw the mechanics the game already had (the stats and special rules of weapons) and filled in the blanks. The game does already have a 4AD two-handed weapon, so he made a 4AD one-handed weapon, that nonetheless did have a serious disadvantage instead of the two-handedness. I knew this, but out of some reason I sitched back into my realism-mode that stands in my way every so often and suggested a two-handed warhammer. To hell with that!
And last but not least...
For magic amunition and bow....limitation
Only barbarian/elfes could use bow
Only Dwraf/elfes could use magic amunition...
SOOOOOO....only elves could use enchantend bow with magic amunition...
Elves could have easily a powerfull throw weapons..not barbarian and dwarf...because crossbow is very expensive

That does make perfect sense for me and was in fact never in question with me, too. It is very similar to my way of limiting weapon choices for certain Hero types, catering to their strengths, playing styles, and fantasy clichés in other ways.
Yet, he encourages us to change whatever we want, which I nevertheless wouldn't do without any limitation.
We should stay true to the whole idea of this being played standalone instead of trying to pry it into succession with existing quest packs.

[Daedalus]

Perhaps such advice might be merited in the Quest introduction--a line or two should do the trick.

[knightkrawler]

Perhaps such advice might be merited in the Quest introduction--a line or two should do the trick.

That's a welcome idea, yes.

[knightkrawler]

Any more interest from anyone?
ghan poked us over at OldScratch's. Obviously he's still interested in seeing progress.

[clmckay]

I have NA versions of the cards/new spell backs. Need those?

[knightkrawler]

Of course I do. Didn't even know or did I forget?
Anyhoo, post them here, please.

[clmckay]

Here's the cards I made.

No promises on quality, I'm not that skilled. I remember using translations from somewhere in this thread.

I had to make it into 2 zip files. The original was too big an upload (14MB!?)

I had at one time hoped to redo a quest book for this, since the posted one is in abysmally low DPI (72), but just couldn't bring myself to remaking something someone had already made.

Let me know if I can help with something. I'd still like to use the QP at some point in time with my group.