Analyzing the quests of frozen horror

[wallydubbs]

Anderas, you did an excellent job with these calculations; although we have different methods of resolving the broken solo quests, I certainly respect what you've done here.
My thoughts are that you can make the group quests less difficult if you add the Female Barbarian to the group. As there are the potions that can only be drank by the Barbarian (either one), it would make the combat go by much more quickly and with the added mercenaries encourage heroes to split up the group (probably 2 groups of 3 +mercenaries).
You also touched on the Wizard, who wouldn't do much combat. Playtesting through this I've noticed the Wizard would run out of spells much too quickly. These quests are much longer and could limit the Wizard's involvement. 3 sets of spells are not enough for him. Assuming you play this after Wizards of Morcar and/or Mage of the Mirror, it's not unreasonable to give the Wizard an extra set of spell.

If I'm not mistaken, when the expansions Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord came out, heroes were allowed to visit the armory and Alchemist shop between quests despite traversing deeper and deeper into an underground city. As far as I know it's ONLY in Against the Ogre Horde that heroes are not allowed to visit the Armory or Alchemist Shop between quests. Frozen Horror actually encourages heroes to make subsequent trips to resell equipment and purchase mercenaries.
I can perfectly understand the reasonings why the majority of the Ye Olde Inn community wish to play Keller's Keep, Return of the Witch Lord and even Frozen Horror as a similar way to Against the Ogre Horde's no trips to the armory. However this breaks the mechanic of Frozen Horror as mercenaries are desperately needed if the heroes wish to withstand the freezing hell that awaits them.
Do you propose some sort of mechanic or modification to rectify this? As you said, Deadly Depths, Search for the Scepter and Heart of Ice are incredibly difficult. As much as I like the introduction of Dark Warriors from Dark Company, I'm somewhat tempted to leave them as a band of mercenaries available for the heroes to hire.

Also, I'm wondering how you play with the Ice Slide if multiple heroes are going down it at once (such as the first two spaces from Search for the Scepter), do they all pile up one behind the other, or do they push the guy ahead of them off the slide?

[Pancho]

I use dwarf mercenaries for Frozen Horror, reasoning that there was a dwarves colony on Ice Mountain before it was evicted by the Frozen Horrors return (and crucially I also have the models for it). It doesn’t make much sense to me to have Imperial men-at-arms types available in the location I’ve set this pack (north of the sea of claws), but some of the Dwarves survived the initial attack and are now available for hire. Maybe not before the start of every quest, but every other one. They also have weapons, allowing trips to the armoury.

I agree with what you say about the Wizard. Thankfully, he has four spell decks by the time we get to Frozen Horror in my system, plus a ton of artefacts (as have all the Heroes).

[Anderas]

The wizard needs additional spells or any other homebrew muscle already to keep pace with the others. I think he is too weak in comparison as soon as the group starts rolling four dice. (I think he is strong in comparison in the first quests!)

Having one extra spell set does the job, having Whitebeard's artifacts from DungeonsDark does the job, too... using my wizardry system does the job too. Someone was proposing to put the potion of recall here and there, however in my experience it is used only for healing spells, so that would be a little bit meh in terms of variability.

You know what would be nice? An artifact like a spell book or whatever, that let's you take a spell group in the middle of the quest. It could be hidden in some bookcases or on sorcerer's tables in double board quests or in especially long other quests. It just goes "Choose one spell group. Take spells from that group as if you would start the game, discard this card after use, wizard only", something like that. A refill for long quests.

There are quests in the Frozen Horror where you need to have "6 dice" to roll in a normal 4-Hero-Group. Well, that doesn't exist.

Having two or three potions of healing goes a nice part of the way to be rated 5 instead 4 dice, Weltenlaeufer, so your method of hiding potions everywhere is a good one already.
Having one Hero more, on the same equipment level, easily puts the heroes on par with a theoretical 5 dice group.
Having around 4 or 5 mercenaries also makes one die more. Also I think (ok that's personal) that it is quite fun to play with a group of mercenaries - As Zargon I can kill them without players starting to cry and as player it just feels like something when you have 2 or 3 models to use.

So you can imagine how the heroes have to be stocked up on potions and mercs to get up to the correct fighting weight for the quest. That said, my wizard has some tricks up his sleeve that also help - firestorm burns the entire room, lightning bolt empties a complete hallway... but also the wizard needs to get there first and spend money on more spells; which he does in the city like everyone else.

Of course the heroes need access and opportunity to buy all of the above, otherwise it doesn't work. So even if it makes me cringe storywise, I would allow them between all the quests to buy equipment/potions/mercenaries. This is my marketplace I let the heroes visit. See that there are a few mercenaries for hire who have 3 BP - I draw different ones each time. He looks overpriced, but then I could rant eternally about the icy river.

I think it is especially poor game design that the heroes NEED the mercenaries to survive some of the quests, but the icy river flushes away the 2 BP like it's nothing.
If you're playing the european version mercenaries, same goes for the ice slide. It's fun to slide. Or is it if you lose your only BP in the course?
Now that I've made the transition like a professional journalist, let me answer your question on the ice slide - I have a game board with 30mm squares. It still looks awkward if there are multiple heroes in the same position, but I just stack them. It can happen in Pit Traps, too.

[Maurice76]

You know what would be nice? An artifact like a spell book or whatever, that let's you take a spell group in the middle of the quest. It could be hidden in some bookcases or on sorcerer's tables in double board quests or in especially long other quests. It just goes "Choose one spell group. Take spells from that group as if you would start the game, discard this card after use, wizard only", something like that. A refill for long quests.

Isn't this solved at least partially already, by the inclusion of the various spell scrolls? Although I admit that other Heroes could use them, too ...

[Jalapenotrellis]

On spell scrolls: I was looking ahead (haven't played any quest packs that use them yet). I noticed they didn't ask you to draw them very often, or am I remembering incorrectly from my cursory view of the quests when I read through them all?

[Anderas]

Yes. They're not often. If you want them to appear more often, consider Whitebeards Dungeons Dark (again) (yes I know). He has a treasure table to roll on.

[lordneg]

I have never thought about calculating all the damage the monsters in a quest could do. Are the numbers just based purely on if the Heros do not role any shields in defense, or is it averaged out, or just the damage rolls if the monsters max out damage? thanks

[Anderas]

Don't get me started

If a Goblin attacks, it can roll 0, 1 or 2 skulls.
If the hero defends, the end result can be 0, 1 or 2 Body Points damage. That's a "damage series".

The exact problem statement was a collaboration between me and Count Mohawk; the solution was all Count Mohawks idea. Whereupon I built up a little bit.

1. Both damage series (hero and monster) are put in a matrix.
2. If the hero does 0 damage, the goblin does his damage series. If the hero does more damage, the first goblin does no damage - but if there are more monsters in the room, then maybe the next monster does it's series. The number of monsters who are allowed "to do their series" depends on the room geometry and place of fighting.

3. Repeat until no monsters are left. (ok, this is a bit inaccurate, but... )
4. Count the number of body points that the hero has lost in every possible future.
5. Multiply the number of lost BP with the probability for this future. There are quite a lot of different futures, that's why it is a matrix and not a single value.
6. Add all possible future damages together: This is the number of Body Points the Hero will lose in this room. This is two numbers, mean and variance.

7. Repeat for every room, assuming the hero survives all rooms.
8. Add the results

Here you are, the results for one hero if he fights, room for room, the monsters in a certain order.
Now we made an intellectual exercise to apply that same method for entire hero groups (the result will be different, surprise, less monsters survive ).

9. Substract potions of healings from the damage, add traps (50% if they are findable, 100% if they are not findable because a monster is standing behind).

10. Compare with base game quests where "The Trial" is too hard and "The Rescue of Sir Ragnar " is too easy; assume that the middle between the two is perfect.
11. Repeat the simulation with lots of different equipment levels. Find out which hero group lands closest to the "ideal"

Today it includes the special rules for diagonal and ranged weapons, defense or attack on any number of dice sides, using any colored dice you like, using "Master" or "Guardian" defense from the expansions. Other than heroes, mercenaries will die during the simulation.

Which hero is how likely to be in the middle of a fight ja important, too(Barbarian more, Wizard less) and last but not least, including an estimation how many heroes and monsters may attack each round (which also changes each round depending on the outcome matrix)

So no, it is not based solely on average. It has become quite sophisticated over time.

I can upload the code to GitHub if you are interested.

[lordneg]

Oh wow that is a lot more in depth then I thought I would like to see the code, I work on my own quests and I worry if they are to hard or easy, so it could help. thanks

[Daedalus]

Quest 5, The Deadly Depths

. . . 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.

If you are using EU rules for Men-at-Arms or a Mercenary house rule to compensate for the hideously difficult Quests, yeah. (I am convinced you are right, by the way.) As originally designed however, the Mercenaries Chart of the BQP states that Mercenaries may only be hired for one Quest. This makes their possible loss just before the exit irrelevant. Anyone playing with the BQP rule should keep the recurring full cost in mind when applying your suggested fixes, particularly during the solo Quests.

Quest 8, The Search for the Scepter

. . By the way, looking at those results, either the swords should be more expensive or the halberdiers less so... :2cents

Agreed! Swordsman: 125 gold coins, Crossbow 100 gold coins. Halberdier 75 gold coins, Scout 50 gold coins.

. . . 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. . . .

About the Quest Notes inferring the wooden and iron doors being connected, I think (considering the difficulty) that up to Quest 9, its best to prioritize the Mercenaries rule on p.9 that allows the purchase of Mercenaries between Quests. Only between Quests 9 and 10 does a hard shopping restriction exist. It's okay to add some judicious Parchment Text for fair warning (Quest 5 does this.) Zargon should also clarify Merc shopping up front with the other special rules before the Quests begin.

To explain how Mercenaries get to the Heroes as they progress deeper into the depths of Ice Mountain, I think of it this way: Mentor uses Loretome to monitor the Heroes' progress and has the ability to teleport replacement Heroes in for reinforcements as needed. Why wouldn't he also teleport in Mercenaries if called for by Loretome to fulfill a Quest? "Yes, those in need of your services have gold to pay you. I'll send you to them now."