Tuesday Night HeroQuest!

[lucasdp]

Last night, Tangerine the barbarian and Miranda the elf were joined by two new heroes (and first time HQ players!), Lady Darwin the dwarf and Blizzard the wizard, to enter the Lair of the Orc Warlord and defeat Ulag!
Tangerine and Miranda had previously completed the Maze > the Trial > Rescue of Sir Ragnar with Shmegs the dwarf and Borgnine the wizard, but schedule conflicts prevented them from joining, so new heroes were recruited. And it was a fantastic evening. It turned out to be a pretty well-balanced game. The heroes came out strong; took some damage from some ornery Orcs; healed themselves wisely; then finished off Ulag and his Chaos Warrior. I was very impressed by my Heroes' teamwork, I must say.
My most game-changing house rule is allowing the elf and wizard a chance to re-use their spells: After casting a spell, they roll two red die; if the result is equal to or less than their MP, they keep it. Due to a series of lucky dice rolls, Blizzard was able to effectively cast Genie three times, taking out a Fimir each time.
The remaining Orcs, and an additional Wandering Monster, slowed them down a little, but not much. Very effective use of healing spells and potions kept all heroes alive, despite my efforts. And Miranda , the only character that has survived every quest so far, amassed quite a bit of gold, so she'll likely have new weapon or armor for the next quest.


Lady Darwin does not seem very amused by the Orc sneaking up behind her!

We had a blast and the new recruits definitely seem ready for more quests. Lots of high-fives around the table when finding treasure or defeating the baddies, and the heroes greatly reveled in defeating Zargon at the end. For me, the best part was bringing two new friends into this fantastic world.

[Sjeng]

Nice post man! So you actually had 2 other friends over to play HQ instead of your regular crew? What will you do now when the others can come over again? split the group?

[lucasdp]

Sheduling is an ongoing issue with my group. We haven't been able to play for almost two months, and frankly, I'm not sure if every single person from the original group will ever be able to get all together again. My girlfriend (Miranda the elf) and I were really itching to play again and it became increasingly apparent that we would either need new players, or have to wait several weeks (months...) for everyone's schedule to magically align. The way we have it now, there are six heroes and the storyline can continue whenever four of them get together. Sure, not everyone will get to play every quest, but I don't think anyone is troubled by that. Especially when I mentioned that I have at least 20 more quests (KK and RotWL) ready to go!

[lucasdp]

Blizzard the wizard sent me this pic he took. Here we see the heroes preparing to storm Ulag's chamber. I believe Miranda had just dealt damage to that Chaos Warrior, and Blizzard was preparing to deal the final blow with Ball of Flame!

[lucasdp]

I hung out with Blizzard and Lady Darwin last night, irl. Blizzard really wants to play again, so it looks like the Tuesday night thing might be ongoing. I will keep this thread going with updates of my heroes' adventures.

I also want to note that Blizzard mentioned that part of what got him so into the game was the music selection. On another thread somewhere, someone mentioned checking out the "dungeon synth" genre on Band Camp. It was there that I discovered the Russian band, Skarpseian. I purchased both their albums on Band Camp and this is now my go-to dungeon crawling music. I highly recommend checking them out.

[Sjeng]

Thanks for the tip! I'll check them out. Been listening a lot to 80's retro synthwave on bandcamp lately myself.

[lucasdp]

Well, we haven't always been playing on Tuesdays, but we have played three more times, so I'll keep this thread updated, rather than starting a new one.

Prince Magnus's Gold (first attempt): Tangerine the barbarian and Borgnine the wizard were joined Borgnine's father, in town for the holidays, who played as Gimli the dwarf. This was my first time attempting to play with only three heroes, and it wasn't too long before I realized the base quests are definitely written to be played with four heroes.
It started off badly for the heroes, as they missed thier first attacks and took damage from the two Goblins in the first room! From there, my monsters continued to whittle them down until Borgnine and Gimli were killed. Tangerine scooped up Borgnine's gold and made a quick escape back to the stairwell with two Orcs on her tail. She made it, just barely, and was able to purchase a shield and round up some more heroes to try again.

Prince Magnus's Gold (second attempt): Tangerine was joined by Blizzard the wizard, Lady Darwin the dwarf, and Sparky the elf (aka Borgnine the wizard, aka Doug who was sick of playing the wizard after dying twice), and a new player, Frawd the Dwarf. (I use Anderas's "questbook in four difficulties" to accomodate for the fifth hero: viewtopic.php?f=149&t=3070. I also changed the reward to 240 gold coins for each chest retrieved...) They came out strong and easily defeated the monsters in the first room that had given them trouble on the first go. From there, the valiant heroes had a good, successful quest, until they met Gulthor. I also took Anderas's suggestion to beef Gulthor up a bit, but with a note that he would try to grab a treasure chest and escape after taking a certain amount of damage. Well, the heroes surrounded Gulthor and pounded him down to one body point before he lashed out, killing Frawd , and made his escape. Tangerine tried to chase Gulthor down, but he was able to escape with one chest, decreasing the hero's reward.
I really enjoyed this quest and I think my homebrewing of the reward and Gulthor worked very well. Losing one hero, and one treasure chest, left the surviving heroes with a bittersweet victory.

Here we see the heroes wailing on Gulthor. Look at all those skull tiles he's got! Also Blizzard is so good with his staff he can apparently attack both diagonally and behind himself.

Melar's Maze: For this quest, Tangerine and Sparky were joined by Miranda the Elf and Nunga the dwarf (a new HQ player!). Nunga attempted to disarm the falling rock trap in the upper hallway, but failed. He jumped back to stay with his friends and leave the mummy on the other side of the rocks. (Side note: do heroes ever choose to jump forward and separate themselves from the group at this trap? I have always wanted to see that play out but, in my experience, the hero has never chosen this)
From there, it was some good, basic dungeon crawling to get to the center room. Tangerine was the first to search for treasure and found the Talisman of Lore. Despite the magic users in the group, Tangerine has decided to keep the Talisman for the time being (which might be a good choice, considering Grak, with his Fear and Sleep spells, is coming up next).
When I played this quest before as a kid, I would have the Gargoyle animate and attack when the door opened, but I see the error in that now. This time around, the Gargoyle did not animate until the Talisman was found, giving the heroes something to face on the way back. It wasn't too much of a hindrance, though. Tangerine took him out pretty easily and the heroes were able to return home successfully.

Tangerine prepares to face the Gargoyle! vs

[GimmeYerGold]

This is great, lucasdp! Keep the recaps and those nice pics coming!

(by the way that particular trap with the gargoyle animating is one of my favorites, it being triggered by entering the next room instead of by a chest etc.)

[knightkrawler]

Yeah, do not stop posting these. They are fun to read and useful, too, for those among us who are writing up their own HQ versions, like yours truly.
Like playtesting myself...

[lucasdp]

Thanks, guys! Will do.

GimmeYerGold, I totally agree. The stone Gargoyle, that becomes animated at a certain point unknown to the heroes, is a favorite of mine as well. It can build some really good suspense.