Analyzing the quests of frozen horror

[Anderas]

The three solo quests belong together, so I'd like to do my balancing proposal in a separate thread from other discussions.

Quest 1, Xanon Pass:
A beginner's group would have 10BP damage from Monsters,
Traps, not findable: 2.5BP
Traps, findable: 5 BP
All together it is quite survivable.

The barbarian alone, with AT3 and DE2, would go in die 99% of the time.
My proposal to play this quest is to give the barbarian 3 additional Halberdiers (there will be 0 or 1 survivor);
or if you want to keep some then give her one merc of every type (there will be three survivors for the next quest)

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Quest 2, Trial by Ice:
The Barbarian has now AT3, DE3, diagonal and ranged attacks.

Traps are all findable, and have 6.5 BP potential. As they are all findable, that'd be ok.

Alone, no chance again: losing 18 BP from monsters alone is a little too much for a single barbarian.
Having 2 Helbardiers let him survive 80% of the time,
having 3 Helbardiers let him survive 95% of the time: He will lose estimated 3-4 BP from Monsters.

This is discounting both, the icy river and the ice vault; which can and will both take their toll, too.
Again, I simulated for a few normal hero groups, and the beginner group did quite well, it was maybe even a little bit too easy.

We need Barbara and three halberdiers.
If Barbara is willing to put herself between a sword and her helmsman, she could *just so* manage to do it with one swordsman instead of three helbardiers; knowing that the lower number of people raises the risk to the sky.
Or, again, play it as a group quest with a beginner's group.

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Quest 3, The Rescue
In my simulation, Barbara encountered three wandering monsters per quest, because she was treasure hunting all the time.

I think that Barbara would go now and buy either chainmail or helmet, or both. She could sell a broadsword and the crossbow for 300 gold, the long sword for 175, gets 195 gold from the quests, that's 670 gold. As she was treasure hunting despite the danger, it is save to assume she got 200-300 gold more from various treasure cards.

I set Barbara's stats now to 4 AT and 4 DE; assuming that she got Chainmail, Helmet, Two-Hand-Axe.
Just to be sure, I keep past time's barbara in the simulation for comparison.

I would be quite pissed of if I'd do all this in reality just to find a battle axe in the first room.

Traps, findable: 3.5
Traps, not findable: 3 BP (what's worse: They'll kill any injured mercenary in what appears to be the end fight!)
Monsters for 4-Dice-Barbara alone: 21.4 BP. Yes. It just got even worse.

The usual fix with 3 halberdiers did not help; there was still a 60 percent chance of not coming through.
I had to go up to 5 halberdiersto have a "normal" die rate of 10%!!
Buying Swordsmen instead Helbardiers, you'd need 3 instead of 5. But that still is 300 gold to spend on helmsmen alone and they are more difficult to place in the room with their lower move and attack range.

Just out of interest I simulated with a normal hero group, too. A complete hero group with beginner's stats would have a tough time! A mostly-3-Dice Group would fit quite good into this quest.

So either this is meant to be tried several times (not explaining the yeti bug)
or this is meant to be a group quest and was later changed by some "manager" to solo;
or Barbara is meant to spend all the gold on mercenaries; however; she can't afford to spend too much gold on them because she has to make her equipment better, too!

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Putting it together

Looking at the three quests together, I'd say Admiral's proposal is not too bad: Give Barbara 4 Helmsmen to begin with and then let her buy replacements between the quests.
With 3 helbardiers, there is a chance that one survives, or maybe not.
With 4 helmsmen in the "mercmix", there is a good chance that 3 survive (!).

Barbara will certainly buy swordsmen replacements, I know my players.
So if she goes to the second quest with a refilled "mercmix", this time there will be three dead mercenaries.

If she then uses all of her gold to refill again, with Swordsmen, then it should work out.

However it needs a Zargon who is willing to praise the helmsmen so that his player takes the good decision.

[j_dean80]

...but a beginning Barbarian has no coins for mercenaries in Quest 1.

[Anderas]

Yes. This quest is not playable without changes.

Solo Barbara without money, group or mercs just has a 99.5 percent chance of dying. And in that chance, there is no trap included yet.

So I'm not talking about keeping everything the same.
I am talking about a change.

[Anderas]

Quest 4, The Glacial Gate

Traps, findable make 13.5 BP...
however there is the slide costing 0.3 BP and delivering you into a pit trap for 1 BP per hero. That's fun if you survived until here. Poor Mercenaries.
So the slide costs for the group: 5.3 BP

Monsters do this damage:

6 Dice Group	....4.9
5 Dice Group	....7.5
4.5 Dice Group	....8.9
4 Dice Group	....11.0
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....14.0
3 Dice Group	....18.0
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....24.1
2 Dice Group	....33.7
1 Die Group	....86.1

Looking at the number of traps, I guess we must shoot low on Monster BP loss with the group, so this is probably meant to be balanced for a 4-Dice-Group.
With a 3.5 Dice Group, if I want this to go well, I would tell my players to buy one or two scouts so that they don't miss the traps.

[Anderas]

Quest 5, The Deadly Depths

Findable Traps: 14.5
other Traps: 8.5
Potion of Healing: 8BP
Icy River: 2.5 BP from each heroe, mercenaries are completely dead. (so total 10 BP more!)

Wow this number of traps is just annoying. In addition, no less than five of them are directly behind a door, which is not good sportsmanship.

Monsters are costing those BP:

6 Dice Group	....5.8
5 Dice Group	....9.4
4.5 Dice Group	....11.3
4 Dice Group	....13.9
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....17.8
3 Dice Group	....23.2
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....30.4
2 Dice Group	....43.6
1 Die Group	....110.2

So the not-findable Traps in addition to a 4 Dice Group are too much already, as it adds up to 22.4 BP AVERAGE damage; which is very close to a TPK in average.
Those Potions of healings are mitigating them, but then there are also those other traps you are supposed to find; but as our heroes are our heroes, they will set off some.

It just means that this probably needs to be played with a 4.5 dice group; that is, you have (for example) 4 dice and 2 halberdiers; or 4 AT and 5 DE; something along those lines.
I think the need for mercenaries is particularly evil because of that icy river in the end, that will just "flush" any surviving mercenaries away.

[Anderas]

Quest 6, The Frosted Path

Findable Traps: 5 BP
other Traps: 5.3 BP
Potion of Healing: 4 BP

Monsters:

6 Dice Group	....6.0
5 Dice Group	....9.1
4.5 Dice Group	....10.7
4 Dice Group	....13.2
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....16.8
3 Dice Group	....21.5
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....28.9
2 Dice Group	....40.9
1 Die Group	....107.8

So this quest is a little less difficult than the last one. A group without mercenaries would live through it, even if they had just 3.5 dice (ok, it'd be hard).
A group with 4 dice, without mercenaries, will play rather nice in the sweet spot.

The Ice Ledge is a little bit... well... You'd just hope the wizard has still Pass Through Rock, so you can save one hero. If the wizard has the Earthquake Spell, he can save all heroes. (By the way, nice bug: You can make a "pit trap bridge" over the bottomless chasm with the earthquake spell, hahahaha ) If the earthquake spell is not available for heroes in your system, you just have to hope that no-one rolls 2 walruses on 2 dice. I hate "roll and on snake eyes you're dead" so probably I would change that particular room in my personal playthrough.
The Elf could save one hero with Flashback... I don't know if the Elf is supposed to have the spell at this point, but if yes, I'd say everything's fine, no hero will die here through snake eyes.
Zargon could prepare the hero group by letting the ice gremlins steal spell scrolls of Pass Through Rock in earlier quests so they would be found in Room A.

[Anderas]

Quest 7, The Halls of Kelvinos

Traps, findable: 6
other Traps: 3
Potion of Healing: 8 BP

Monster BP damage:

6 Dice Group	....6.4
5 Dice Group	....10.1
4.5 Dice Group	....11.9
4 Dice Group	....14.6
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....18.3
3 Dice Group	....23.6
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....31.7
2 Dice Group	....44.7
1 Die Group	....116.4

Those damages are another step up. Worse, the effect of the room of living fog is not included in the calculation, so these results will be a little worse even.
On the other hand, the two potions are found very early in the quest, so in the end... a 4 dice group without mercenaries or with maybe one mercenary should play in the middle of the sweet spot.

[j_dean80]

You going to add suggestions on making them playable?

[Anderas]

@J_Dean, yes, in a final summary posting.


Quest 8, The Search for the Scepter

findable Traps: 5 BP
other Traps: 10.8 BP
Potion of Healing: 8 BP

As this quest was more difficult, I added some mercenary simulations.
The damage shown is only the damage received by heroes.
Damage received by the mercs is not shown here. (I have it available, though)
By the way, looking at those results, either the swords should be more expensive or the halberdiers less so...

Monsters do this:

6 Dice Group	....9.6
4 Dice + 3 Swords	....10.9
4 Dice + 5 Helbardiers	....11.8
4 Dice + 4 Helbardiers	....13.5
4 Dice + 2 Swords	....14.2
5 Dice Group	....14.7
4 Dice + 3 Helbardiers	....15.2
4.5 Dice Group	....16.6
4 Dice + 1 Sword	....17.1
4 Dice + 2 Helbardiers	....17.3
4 Dice Group	....20.4
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....24.4
3 Dice Group	....31.8
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....41.9
2 Dice Group	....57.9
1 Die Group	....144.1

So far, this is the "worst" quest. To achieve something between 5-Dice and 6-Dice niveau, our heroes need to bring 4 Helbardiers or 2 Swordsmen, at least. The available gold allows for it, but in the quest notes they are trapped in a tunnel without possibility to buy stuff, right? If so, there should be a note that the heroes may go shopping this time, otherwise it is plain unfair that all the mercenaries were flushed away in quest 5.

IF they are allowed to buy new mercenaries, Zargon should state clearly that they need them.

To give you an idea: A plain 4-Dice-Group without mercenaries, Losing 20.4 Body points plus traps minus healing potions makes some 28 BP loss in average. Even with the wizard's healings, and if they are used to the maximum effect, they will lose some Heroes and have some 70% chance for a total party kill. That's a no-no.

[Anderas]

Quest 9 and 10, The Heart of Ice

Traps you can find: 19 BP
Traps you can't avoid: 15 BP
Potions of Healing: 24 BP (if used to the max)

Monster damage dealt to the heroes

6 Dice Group	....10.1
4 Dice + 3 Swords	....11.5
4 Dice + 5 Helbardiers	....12.4
4 Dice + 4 Helbardiers	....14.1
4 Dice + 2 Swords	....14.8
5 Dice Group	....15.3
4 Dice + 3 Helbardiers	....15.8
4.5 Dice Group	....17.2
4 Dice + 1 Sword	....17.7
4 Dice + 2 Helbardiers	....17.9
4 Dice Group	....21.0
3.5 Dice Group (AT 3, DE 4)	....25.1
3 Dice Group	....32.4
2.5 Dice: AT2, Barb AT3, all DE3	....42.5
2 Dice Group	....58.5
1 Die Group	....144.3

So the sum of traps and healings is 34 BP damage, 24 BP healing = 10 BP damage.
If you want to get out of there with both arms attached, you better stomp in with 3 swords or more!

At one point you have to jump the bottomless ice room twice, just to get the crystal key back which was stolen from the ice gremlins. One jump you can avoid by passing through rock, one fail can be averted with flashback... and then?