5. HQ25 - Spells, tiles, mechanics and misc

[Gold Bearer]

I think writing the spells before the quests is putting the cart in front of the horse. We don't yet know how many spell casting monsters there will be, and how strong the spells should be due to quest difficulty. Since this is a quest system replacement the heroes will not be all that powerful so dumping 12 deadly spells on them might be overkill, or it might not. This depends on how much treasure and artifacts we allow them.

For this reason, I will focus on quest design, and come back here to pluck my favorite spells of the suggested ones as needed.

I think that's the best way rather than making them up as we go.

With 12 swamp spells I don't see them all being used in the Fimir Chapter of 4-5 quests, especially if the quests are so early in the pack, the difficulty would be insane, although as you say we can use them elsewhere. Hence my insistence on using the standard Chaos Spell card back, more versatility. What if other chapter authors don't want Swamp themed monsters? WoM is different BC they are 4 unique wizards with their own spell set, these are spells any chaos wizard could use in this quest pack, or future homebrews. Whether we make 6, 9, 12 or 24 they should not have different backs. As with all things I type here, this is all my personal opinions though.

If other quests makers don't want themed monsters then they have the chaos spells, or they could use both. Four bloody good reasons to keep the swamp spells seperate. They may have a slightly different art style. They're all new and deserving of their own deck. I want to use chaos spells for tzeench worshippers and swamp spells for nurgle worshippers. We've got a very nice image for the backs of the cards.

After looking at the possibility of a Cultist themed chapter in the story thread, I could see us getting carried away and making 6 swamp spells (which double as nurgle spells), 6 tzeentch spells, 6 slaneesh spells, and 6 chaos dwarf spells! (khorne hates spells) Whether they have different backs or not, is another discussion. Overkill I say. The Chaos Wizards and Chaos Dwarves can use existing spells and swamp spells.

I agree. I think the chaos dwarves should use chaos spells, it makes sense. I'll be using chaos spells for tzeench and I'm not planning on using slannesh magicians. Even if I do I'll probably give them the ice themed chaos spells and use the fire ones for tzeench, but I doubt I'll bother.

I do plan on using a liche for the undead quest. Before any thinks of protesting about trying to introduce another monster, he'll basically be a chaos sorcerer. He'll use the chaos sorcerer model (which looks much more like a liche anyway) and he won't even have any special rules. He'll just have the summon undead, reanimation and chill chaos spells, that's enough to make him a liche.

[MrBigB]

Traps

Slough
This trap is a concealed natural occurrence and can be found by searching for traps, but can never be disarmed. A slough trap may be jumped like a pit trap. If a Hero steps onto a square containing a slough trap before it is found, he triggers it and ends his move immediately. A Hero occupying the same square as a slough trap, has to try to climb out of the slough. At every turn, he rolls a number of combat dice equal to his current Body points, but no less than two. If at least one white shield is rolled, he successfully climbs out of the slough onto an unoccupied adjacent square and may move and take an action again during his next turn. If at least one black shield is rolled, he loses 1 Body point. After the roll, the Hero's turn is immediately ended. A hero may also immediately climb out of the slough by discarding any one earth or water spell.

Acid Spray
When an Acid Spray trap is triggered the victim is sprayed with a strong corrosive green goo. The player rolls a combat dice, on a skull they take one body point of damage and on a black shield they take one body point of damage and any non magical armour they may be wearing (not a shield or helmet) is discarded.

Creeping Snare
When a Creeping Snare trap is triggered the victim is ensnared with deadly vines. An ensnared character cannot move and attacks and defends with one combat dice until freed. The vines have 4 body points but don't defend. An ensnared target or any directly adjacent allies can attack the vines.

Noxious Spores
When a Noxious Spores trap is triggered the victim is unable to distinguish between reality and the effects of the spores and is forced to re-roll any successful combat dice within that room or passageway.

And Cloud Of Flies and Insect Swarm could be used as parts of the environment in certain places.

Switching these to traps vs spells is a good idea (no matter how bad I wanted to see my Creeping Snare make it into the spell deck ). I've been on the fence on a lot of these discussions, but this helps solve a lot of issues in my opinion.

For the record:
1. I fully support the new swamp spells being a separate/new deck. They're all new, specifically themed, and frankly just a nice touch to add our own spin on the game.
2. I do however think the deck should be trimmed down to 9 spells tops. Even 9 feels like its pushing a little, but not so much it feels like overkill. Plus like I said before, by swapping a good portion of our list to traps, we solve the deck size issue, but get to keep some great ideas in.

I do plan on using a liche for the undead quest. Before any thinks of protesting about trying to introduce another monster, he'll basically be a chaos sorcerer. He'll use the chaos sorcerer model (which looks much more like a liche anyway) and he won't even have any special rules. He'll just have the summon undead, reanimation and chill chaos spells, that's enough to make him a liche.

This sounds great

[Gold Bearer]

Switching these to traps vs spells is a good idea (no matter how bad I wanted to see my Creeping Snare make it into the spell deck ). I've been on the fence on a lot of these discussions, but this helps solve a lot of issues in my opinion.

For the record:
1. I fully support the new swamp spells being a separate/new deck. They're all new, specifically themed, and frankly just a nice touch to add our own spin on the game.
2. I do however think the deck should be trimmed down to 9 spells tops. Even 9 feels like its pushing a little, but not so much it feels like overkill. Plus like I said before, by swapping a good portion of our list to traps, we solve the deck size issue, but get to keep some great ideas in.

WoM had 24 spells for a 5 quest set, very nearly five spells per quest plus 9 for the heroes. We've got 15 spells for a 25 quest set, 0.6 per quest. There's no need to limit ourselves to a certain number of the swamp spells before we make the quests. Let's just see at the end how many would be a good number. Quest makers can use any of the fifteen swamp spells and some can be used as traps or just part of a room or corridor. If we decide to trip it when we're done obviously the spells that are also traps should be the first to go.

[MrBigB]

Switching these to traps vs spells is a good idea (no matter how bad I wanted to see my Creeping Snare make it into the spell deck ). I've been on the fence on a lot of these discussions, but this helps solve a lot of issues in my opinion.

For the record:
1. I fully support the new swamp spells being a separate/new deck. They're all new, specifically themed, and frankly just a nice touch to add our own spin on the game.
2. I do however think the deck should be trimmed down to 9 spells tops. Even 9 feels like its pushing a little, but not so much it feels like overkill. Plus like I said before, by swapping a good portion of our list to traps, we solve the deck size issue, but get to keep some great ideas in.

WoM had 24 spells for a 5 quest set, very nearly five spells per quest plus 9 for the heroes. We've got 15 spells for a 25 quest set, 0.6 per quest. There's no need to limit ourselves to a certain number of the swamp spells before we make the quests. Let's just see at the end how many would be a good number. Quest makers can use any of the fifteen swamp spells and some can be used as traps or just part of a room or corridor. If we decide to trip it when we're done obviously the spells that are also traps should be the first to go.

Sounds like a very reasonable plan Can't wait to start seeing these quests/maps!! I've lost track, is there already a thread for posting maps?

[Gold Bearer]

Can't wait to start seeing these quests/maps!! I've lost track, is there already a thread for posting maps?

http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2102

[MrBigB]

So it seems like we have at least 2 (if not 3) "official" story outlines floating around the various threads.

Can't wait to start seeing these quests/maps!! I've lost track, is there already a thread for posting maps?

http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=2102

Are we using this outline as the true official working story? Honestly it seems the most complete version, but also needs a little updating moving forward (obviously easier said then done) as several good ideas have been posted over the past couple weeks that seemed to stick. Off the top of my head there was (1) the greenskin chapter incorporating the first 3 opening quests (which throws off the quest count a little) and (2) the order in which the hero artifacts are found and in which chapters. Seems like there were a couple other points but I'll have to re-read the threads to find them.

Sorry if this makes more work for people, but I'd hate for folks to work on content that gets cut because we didn't have a clear direction the group is working toward.

[Goblin-King]

Goblin-King, what do you think to this, it's your spell?

I suggest we change fever from this:

Fever
This spell will inflict a terrible fever upon a player. He rolls one less defense die against all attacks. The victim may try to recover by rolling a defense die at the start of each of his turns. If he rolls a shield he returns to normal.

To this:

Fever
This spell will inflict a terrible fever upon a target in sight. They roll one less defence dice, one less attack dice and move at half their standard rate or rolled score (rounding up). Any any non undead/Nurgle/swamp based characters who start their turn adjacent (including diagonally adjacent) to character with the fever rolls a combat dice. On a skull they are affected by the symptoms of the fever for the duration of this turn and on a black shield they are fully infected with it. A character with the fever rolls a combat dice at the start of their turn. If they roll a white shield the fever is fought off and if they roll a black shield they suffer one mind point of damage. The effects of Cloud Of Flies, Pestilence and Nurgles Rot are not cumulative with each other but are cumulative with Fever.

It's kind of a mirror to plague, though only in some ways, and I thought it would fun if it was contagious.

Oh my! Please keep it simple. This is way too complex.
Also consider we are using the original layout for cards and quests. There is a very limited amount of writing space (I also noticed some lengthy passages in the quest section).

Hah! Yeah, I don't wanna give any players a fever!
Except party fever

[Gold Bearer]

I can reword it to make it fit and sound better, can it at least be contagious?

[Gold Bearer]

Oh I've got it.

Fever
This spell will inflict a terrible fever upon a target in sight. They roll one less defence dice, one less attack dice and move at half their standard rate or rolled score (rounding up). A character with the fever rolls a combat dice at the start of their turn. If they roll a white shield the fever is fought off and if they roll a black shield they suffer one mind point of damage. Any any non undead/Nurgle/swamp based characters who start their turn adjacent (including diagonally adjacent) to character with the fever are also infected if they fail to roll under the number of their current mind points on a standard dice. The effects of Cloud Of Flies, Pestilence and Nurgles Rot are not cumulative with each other but are cumulative with Fever.

That's cleaner.

[Sjeng]

man, I'm reading this and I'm confused halfway through the text... If I had this card in my game, I'd never use it. I prefer the original. You read it ONCE and you know what it does.