BQP: The Frozen Horror Remake Main Thread!

[Vorimir]

Yeah, I allowed the female barbarian as a 5th hero after they saved her in one of the first quests. She was a good help but was killed in a Wandering Monster trap by two yethis. I used an adaptation for the first quest to be played by all heroes and the wolf went all five quests. I even add sime narrative magical power to the Frozen Champion items when needed.
Is a bit sad that we got the same undeveloped product.

[Kurgan]

Yeah, Wandering Monsters can only attack the Searcher (or the Knight instead if he invokes the "Knight's Challenge" skill card of course), so in these quests it's best for the heroes if they stay bunched up in the corridors when searching (and backed into corners with other heroes/mercs in the way of the searcher forming a protective screen).

[SirRick]

The Ice Gremlins having 3 Body Points always seemed a bit much. The only reasoning I can come up with is that they are roughly little Frozen Horrors in appearance, so maybe they are supernaturally tough.

The Body Point bloat in BQP and EQP is one of the biggest issues with those releases. The ogre being reduced to 5 BP is a good start. I do understand a lot of people wanting previously released content to be in its original form, but I don’t think anyone would complain about the ogres having less BP in this case. I still wish they could have done something, like adding a chart on “Into the Northlands” with alternative BP totals for the monsters in the BQP, that Zargon can choose to use if desired.

[Kurgan]

Zargon can always and easily designate certain monsters as having different stats than the norm. There is one quest where it seems the point is to have a "trap" early on that forces the heroes to use up most or all of their healing right away (similar traps exist in Kellar's Keep and to a lesser extent Return of the Witch Lord). Reducing Ogre body points across the board as the remake suggests changes this outcome (which will to be the liking of many heroes I'm sure!). To me though restoring the "boss level" body points to the FINAL Ogre in MOTM makes the most sense even if none of the others are adjusted.

The EQP/BQP quests are very long, from 2x-4x longer than the GS quests, not only because they often take up most of the board with rooms, but because of the high BP of the monsters. Yes, you can certainly speed things up by knocking down the BP totals of the monsters, but an even easier way to handle it is just to remove some of the monsters. Why do you need three Ice Gremlins nearly every time you encounter them and two of each other type of monster? Why do Wandering Monsters need to be in multiples? Yes, it makes the game "harder" but also much longer. So unless you are trying to "Beat the designs as written" (which, let's face it, some of us are trying to do, even though we realize it at least requires some extra potions or second chances to make that happen, maybe even some help from the draft notes or rule "clarifications" and "playtesting" suggestions), removing some of the monsters (or substituting "weaker" monsters for some of them) will work wonders in making the quests go more quickly and be easier (and maybe even more fun for those playing them).

Of course one person's way of making these quests easier and better is going to vary from those of another, but I think removing some of the monsters and/or replacing some of them with weaker monsters goes a long way towards this. Changing a monster's stats across the board is a more drastic change which may improve some quests more than others.

[Vorimir]

At the end: At the end all those questions should have been made and answered by the designers, not by the fans after getting a half baked quest book twice.

[SirRick]

So, a couple days ago I finally finished The Frozen Horror using the companion app. This quest pack has always had a reputation for being the most difficult quest pack, and being nearly impossible. With these preconceptions in mind, I had been dreading playing this pack.

In preparation I tried to hoard as many healing potions as I could from previous quest packs (GS, KK, RotWL, PoT, SQT in that order, including the online quests). I swapped out party members between quest packs to have one hero of each type to try them all out on the way. I tried very hard to complete each quest without using any healing potions, and managed to accumulate over 100 healing potions (roughly 2.5 found per quest).

The Frozen Horror is definitely playable. A number of others have completed it in some fashion. I remember one member here who’s game group played through FH right after the GS, which I thought was impressive, so it is doable. I played through with the following which affects the difficulty in various ways:

1. I played Into the Northlands to get the Armband of Ice
2. I used the Wolf companion for all solo quests
3. I placed the Raiment of the Frozen Champion artifacts in the quests where similar items were found. Quest 1, I replaced the Shield with the Spiked Shield, and the Longsword with the Ice Queen. The Plate Mail in Quest 6 with Cold Iron Plate, and the Warhorn of Command in the first empty chest I found.
4. I never hired any mercenaries. The maps are too cramped for lots of extra figures, and it seems most of them would die from traps and natural hazards before seeing any action.
5. I frequently fought battles by setting up ambushes where I could fight one monster at a time, and all my heroes could attack that one space. This allowed me to take out Yetis, and Polar Warbears without too much trouble, which leads me to my next point…
6. I played on the app, which makes things easier in general. The app’s behavior is predictable and can be exploited. Such as you know the Yeti is always going to attack the party leader, who probably also has the Spiked Shield, making the hug attacks a non issue. A human Zargon could be an ass and always attack the person without the shield causing the players to use the “block the door” technique instead, which somewhat limits how many heroes can attack at once.
7. I also did not search for treasure unless there was a chest, or I suspected there was something there. Multiple Wandering monsters with high BP totals are just a pain in the ass, and a slog to get through.

With these points in mind, the quest pack was much easier than expected. Still very difficult, but playable. From a design perspective the quests are very poorly designed, involving lots of cheap trap placements, and often using every single room on the board. The maps also have so many doors, you often run out about 2/3 of the way into the map. I had to use about one healing potion or so for most quests, but in the final quest I used about 10 healing potions due to the wandering monster traps that spawned double Polar Warbears in the narrow corridors.

The closest I came do dying was in Quest 1 from a lucky Yeti hit. While the monster was draining my health, Snowdasher could not land a hit on the beast to finish it off. My Armband of Healing kicked in which gave me one more round to survive. Luckily Snowdasher finally was able to kill it and release my Barbarian.

The one time my party had to traverse the slippery chasm room, I used an Ice Bridge scroll to negate the obstacle. Other times this room was used, the Snowshoe wearer would run back and fourth, luring monsters into ambush I set up outside the room.

Overall this quest book was difficult and not fun at all. Each quest was a chore that took hours to complete. Playing with all heroes searching for treasure would make this more torturous and maybe even impossible. The mercenaries seem pointless and your money would better be spent on potions such as the Potion of Battle Rage to combat large quantities of high BP monsters. A human Zargon would be much more difficult, but they should reward the players for using smart tactics. I always saw Zargon like a DM or storyteller that shouldn’t actively be trying to kill all the players every game. That is just be me though. I feel a group who is fully equipped after playing a couple of expansions would be more than ready for this.

[The Admiral]

Yeah, Wandering Monsters can only attack the Searcher (or the Knight instead if he invokes the "Knight's Challenge" skill card of course), so in these quests it's best for the heroes if they stay bunched up in the corridors when searching (and backed into corners with other heroes/mercs in the way of the searcher forming a protective screen).

I personally think this is too gamey and I don't allow it. My WM's are placed next to the searcher and if there is not enough space they will attack the next nearest hero or merc they can be placed next to. The thought of them leaping out but not being able to reach the searcher and so doing nothing does not seem right to me. I am sure some people have a totally logical explanation to justify this rule, but it doesn't wash with me. It also doesn't waste time while the heroes constantly shuffle around to achieve the perfect searching position.

[wallydubbs]

Overall this quest book was difficult and not fun at all. Each quest was a chore that took hours to complete. Playing with all heroes searching for treasure would make this more torturous and maybe even impossible. The mercenaries seem pointless and your money would better be spent on potions such as the Potion of Battle Rage to combat large quantities of high BP monsters. A human Zargon would be much more difficult, but they should reward the players for using smart tactics. I always saw Zargon like a DM or storyteller that shouldn’t actively be trying to kill all the players every game. That is just be me though. I feel a group who is fully equipped after playing a couple of expansions would be more than ready for this.

I could agree with you, I tried this quest pack as written with a Barbarian, Druid, Elf and Dwarf and it lost a lot of fun trying to kill Ice Gremlins in a cramped hallway where here's coul todn't move around each other to get multiple shots in. It was difficult and boring. By the time the 4 heroes reached Quest 9 they were completely out of healing potions and I rushed the ending by skipping Quest 10, having the Elf cast Genie to bypass the Crystal Key and go straight to the Frozen Horror. It just took too long.

My recommendations for fixing it:
1.) Use 5 Heroes
2.) If a Wizard is in play grant him 4 spell sets.
3.) Limit Wandering Monsters to 1.
4.) No trips to the Armory or Alchemist shop.
5.) The only mercenaries you can hide are the ones found on the board. Most mercenaries are located in a room with other mercenaries, these are the only ones the heroes can buy. Not only does this remove a room full of bad guys but gives the heroes hired help since they can't go back to town after a quest.
6.) Slippery Ice can only stop a heroes movement, but they don't take damage for slipping.
7.) Allow the heroes to draw a random spell scroll whenever a Sorcerer's Table is found.
8.) Limit the Ice Gremlins on a corner turn to 1.

[SirRick]

If you use the “Into the Northlands” stuff, my strongest recommend is giving the lone hero the Spiked Shield as a special gift from Mentor or the Tribal Elders before starting the first quest. That way Zargon has a legitimate excuse not to use Yeti hug attacks. The Wolf companion helps cut down the time it takes to defeat the tough monsters they decided to include in the solo quests.

[Vorimir]

I also used the idea of one hero getting the four Into the northland items (shield, armor, horn and spear) getting the Frozen Champion title and power: Add one extra dice when attacking FH expansion monsters (so the magic spear will be 3 and diagonal, 4 vs polar warbears) and they roll one less dice when they attack you...
But after we finished the expansion the barbarian had to gave up the items...