Chaos Spells in AtOH?!?

[Kurgan]

In one quest I allowed the Heroes to recover their comrade (hiding him in the middle of the Maze) who had been transformed into a Zombie in the previous quest, by jabbing him with anti-poison quills (roll a skull to hit). The victim had to roll 1 combat die in defense (black shield meant he was still a zombie). Due to unlucky rolls it was actually very hard to do but they eventually accomplished it and he was able to heal and recover his equipment that the other Heroes had saved.

It does seem like more explanation should have been given for this rule since it seems pretty dire!

[wallydubbs]

It does seem like more explanation should have been given for this rule since it seems pretty dire!

I think it comes down to lack of playtesting. The further away you get from the original game there appears to be more and more "glitches"
Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord have a minimum, but when you get to Against the Ogre Horde the whole concept of Chaos Spells weren't put together so well, relying on tokens and glitches there are no contingencies for. The Ogre Body Points chart is messed up in some quests, Flight to the Surface isn't beatable playing by the stated rules, and I really doubt anyone play tested the idea of body Points not recovering between quests.

Wizard's of Morcar has a slight glitch in regards to finances in Crypt of the Necromancer (doesn't give a whole lot of gold to but mercenaries); the new spell decks are nowhere near up to par with the original elemental spells; and there's all those unmarked chests in the Final Conflict. Plus there's no ending in the quest book!

Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror obviously had evenness time to play test. There's artifact cards that don't make an appearance anywhere in the quest books, spells that are not entirely clear on their ramifications, additional furniture, monsters with body points that have never been put to the test, etc, etc.

[Jalapenotrellis]

Where does it say you don't recover body points between quests even if you play as a series? My understanding is the only downside is you can't go sell and buy.

[Kurgan]

I think it comes down to lack of playtesting. The further away you get from the original game there appears to be more and more "glitches"
Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord have a minimum, but when you get to Against the Ogre Horde the whole concept of Chaos Spells weren't put together so well, relying on tokens and glitches there are no contingencies for.

The Ogre Body Points chart is messed up in some quests,

Flight to the Surface isn't beatable playing by the stated rules,

and I really doubt anyone play tested the idea of body Points not recovering between quests.

Wizard's of Morcar has a slight glitch in regards to finances in Crypt of the Necromancer (doesn't give a whole lot of gold to but mercenaries); the new spell decks are nowhere near up to par with the original elemental spells; and there's all those unmarked chests in the Final Conflict. Plus there's no ending in the quest book!

Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror obviously had evenness time to play test. There's artifact cards that don't make an appearance anywhere in the quest books, spells that are not entirely clear on their ramifications, additional furniture, monsters with body points that have never been put to the test, etc, etc.

Some of these things I hadn't heard of and I'd like to see expanded upon (can you give more details)?

The idea of Body Points not recovering between quests seems off to me. Only a few quests actually say they don't restore in between (I recall a discussion where it was asserted this was the case with ATOH hence the reason for the big potions, but I never read it that way). The way I interpret the rules is that you always assume the Instruction Booklet/Rules of Play are in effect, and the cards/Armory board and then the Quest map notes provide the exceptions.

Not allowing the Heroes to do things between quests that they normally are able to do, is something usually brought up as a "realism problem" rather than a hard rule. It's been awhile, but is it really that strict here?

Sure, there are going to be issues when we're switching between rule sets for expansions not originally intended for each other (and each expansion is not going to assume you have all the other expansions, only the game system) and that's a big part of the forums, smoothing out those differences to bring the various parts of the Hero Quest world together. I'm not saying there are no glitches in the official quest books as written, but some of these I'm a little vague on.

I agree with you in terms of the WOM extra spell sets seeming weak compared to the GS spells for the heroes, the unmarked chests being annoying (and the unused artifacts in BQP/EQP), and a couple of well known oddities here and there but the rest I'm not so sure about. Not arguing with the basic premise of "they should have play tested this more" but wanting to know more about some of these specific criticisms.

I don't have a problem with the use of tokens. The other way to do it would just to have three cards and say "keep track of how many times he uses it" (since normally a bad guy only gets one use of a spell, though there are exceptions).

Crypt of the Necromancer has 11 searchable rooms (if you skip the stairway room), plus 300 gold in the chest room, that's not enough? There's also the chance of getting the Potion of Charm at some point to save money. Granted I haven't played this far but that didn't strike me as too impossible as far as mercenary hires (we're assuming in EU rules you can't sell stuff back, with the exception of the Potion of Alchemy having been used during the previous quest). I agree the lack of a satisfying end text makes it feel incomplete, whether you consider that the "end" of the entire Hero Quest campaign or just the ending of a brief but difficult adventure!

So, again, not trying to derail this thread with the minutia, I could spend the day searching the forums for each of these points, but if you have some links to help out, or a few brief explanations, I'd love to hear them, because if there's a problem, we're up to trying to solve it, I'm sure.