Ye Olde Inn

There was supposed to be one quest with sneaking in, monsters calling for reinforcements.

Also, Q13 The Invincible Minotaur needs the heroes to have a powder keg and a red cape. But where to get them?
So I thought maybe they would steal it from the Chaos Dwarfs.

This quest is a little bit special, inspired by Warhammer 40k 4th edition (god I'm old). Please could you give me feedback if it is understandable?

I have set up the quest in a way that, if the heroes manage to attack each monster group one-by-one, it should be relatively easy.
If they manage to alert the minions and they come all at the same time, it should be quite deadly.

This quest is made for a group with 3-Dice-Equipment. Each sentry is replaced with one Chaos Dwarf and one Beastman.
Should the group have 4-Dice-Equipment, replace each sentry with one Chaos Dwarf and two Beastmen.

Disadvantage: In order to sneak out of the way of a sentry, you need a lot of open connections. That means, this quest needs more than the Hero Quest standard doors, lots more.
I propose to download and print valnar's open door package, to be found in his crazy-great tiles thread.
Also, this posting is best viewed if you have installed the fonts HQModern, Gaze and Heroquest.

Finally, I think it is a good idea to use Thantos' Dwarven Forge, or the Dwarven Forge from Kellar's Keep - however, to stay as base game compatible as possible, you can put a Fireplace there.

The Map:

Q12 wrote:

Quest 12: Thantos Part II: A Quest for Heroes with at least 3 dice
Night and a Fire
Tales speak of Thantos, a powerful Minotaur against which none could prevail and no weapon might harm. Yet, a cunning magician managed to trap the terror within a magical labyrinth, attracting it's wrath and costing him his life. Loretome has revealed that Chaos Dwarfs possess not only the mage's red mantle, but also powder capable of destroying the bridge the beast may use to escape. Sneak into the Chaos Dwarve's fortress, steal all these items, and get out without alerting the sentries!

Notes:
Doors: All doors are open and placed on the board. Use all doors you have, also closed doors and secret doors. They all count as "open" and "discovered".
Other room contents are revealed only when the heroes are entering the room or standing at the door.
Night: It is pitch black night: Line of sight is 3 squares, also for magical effects.
Sentry tokens are placed at the beginning of the quest as shown on the map. Morcar starts with an Alert Value of 3. For each sentry, Morcar rolls one red die at the beginning of his turn. If he rolls equal or less than his alert value, he may move the sentry; else the heroes may move the sentry. Each sentry can move 3 squares.
If Heroes and a sentry have a line of sight, replace it immediately with one Chaos Dwarf and one Beastman. The Monsters are always controlled by Morcar, even if the sentry token was controlled by the heroes.
Raising Alert: If there are active monsters at the beginning of Morcar‘s turn, raise the alert vlaue by one. Undiscovered sentry tokens don‘t count as monsters. Also, for each sentry becoming monsters during Morcar's turn, raise the alert value by one more. You can cross the boxes on this page to keep book.
Unconscious monsters: If a monster is under the influence of Tempest or Sleep or otherwise unconscious; it does not raise the alarm in Morcar's turn.

A: The Cupboard contains one Blasting Powder and the magic red cape.
B: The forge provides light. Any model can "see" inside and into this room as normal.
C: The Bookcase contains one Charm Philtre
D: The Bookcase contains one Spell Scroll of Pass Through Rock.

Wandering Monster:Beastman

Downloadable material

Follow up quest
valnar's open door package, to be found in his crazy-great tiles thread

In theory I like it. Yet it is hard to connect the storyline fully due to not having all the quests at hand for reference. Glad to see this moving on tho!

I suspect this quest will be too easy for a coordinated team of Heroes. What they'll likely do if they gain control of a Sentry Token that's not too far off, is that they move it towards them and then on their own turn, attack and possibly kill both of them. By doing this, they can clear a few of the tokens without significantly raising the alarm. Once a few of the tokens are gone, it becomes much easier to move about the dungeon, especially since the tokens only move 4 spaces.

What you could do is add a mechanic with regards to corpses. Give the players the option to hide a corpse, but if the corpse is spotted by another Sentry, it would raise the alarm.

Another variation is that you have stationary Sentries and patrolling Sentries. Sentries will then meet every now and then. When such a meeting fails (because the Heroes took out a Patrol or a Stationary Sentry), the alarm gets raised. This more or less forces the players to first observe Sentry patterns before taking them out; taking notes on when Patrols meet Stationary Sentries or other Patrols. The hard part for the Evil Wizard in that case is to keep track of where Patrols, which have been taken out, would be if they were still around.

Thank you for raising the point.

It means I need some wording that raises the alarm also when the heroes convert the sentries to monsters in Morcars turn.
It may also need some clarification that even when the sentry token is controlled by heroes, if they convert to monsters, the monsters are then controlled by Morcar and may attack.
I put some words for that in my quest note a minute ago, thanks.

What is intended indeed is, if they convert to monsters during the heroes turn, the heroes may attack them like when they open a door during normal gameplay. That shall reward them for successfully sneaking upon the guard. If they are then not able to kill them immediately, the alarm goes up.

Killing them in one turn is not easy as the chaos dwarf and the beast man have quite the statline.

What to do about moving them nearby and then uncover them during the heroes turn? Don't know really. Do you have any suggestions that are not too complicated? I try to stay in the few lines that are allowed by the standard quest note layout.

Maybe start with a higher alert level and fewer but more powerful sentries so that they are seeking out the heroes more actively and are less easy disposed of?
I have to playtest that one. With the exploit you described. Let's see how it plays.

Ok Maurice,
I was looking in the details of a fight between the hero group and a sentry monster group.
There is about 30% to 50% chance that the fight lasts longer than one round (and so raises an alarm).
Assuming that the first one or two fights are supported by special effects like spells or potion, it could go well for a while, but sooner or later the alert would be raised.

So the exploit you describe would work, but is very risky.

Thanks for the find!

Anderas wrote:. . . Please could you give me feedback if it is understandable?

The point I got hung up on was raising the alarm level. At first I thought the alarm level raised in a cumulative fashion turn after turn. Upon consideration of the mechanics, I then figured the alarm level was probably meant to reset to its starting value at the beginning of each Morcar/Zargon turn. Is the latter interpretation right?

Anderas wrote:I have set up the quest in a way that, if the heroes manage to attack each monster group one-by-one, it should be relatively easy.
If they manage to alert the minions and they come all at the same time, it should be quite deadly.

This is a great stealth implementation--very unique as far as Hero Quest goes!

Anderas wrote:. . . Disadvantage: In order to sneak out of the way of a sentry, you need a lot of open connections. That means, this quest needs more than the Hero Quest standard doors, lots more.
I propose to download and print valnar's open door package, to be found in his crazy-great tiles thread.

That link can easily be added. Perhaps valnar would even give permission for the doors to be included in a page at the end of the expansion.

Beyond that, if one door were cut out, say the one just above the cupboard, the 5 closed doors and 7 secret doors of the base set could save the need to create more. A Quest note would explain to use closed doors and secret doors for open doors, as needed.

Anderas wrote:Finally, I think it is a good idea to use Thantos' Dwarven Forge, or with the Dwarven Forge from Kellar's Keep - however, to stay as base game compatible as possible, you can put a Fireplace there.

As I recall, use of official materials downloadable from the Inn are good for use in the expansion. Your map is correct.

Anderas wrote:

Q12 wrote:Fire and Night
It is said that once there was a Minotaur, so strong that no one could fight and win against it. Many a good man lost their life trying to destroy the Beast in vain, for no weapon can harm the monster. A cunning magician finally trapped the beast in a magical labyrinth, losing his life in the course. You have found hints that the Chaos Dwarfs have the magician's red cape and the powder to destroy the bridge in one stroke. Sneak in, steal them, get out, without alerting the sentries!

I felt the bridge needed some explaining. How about this?

Tales speak of Thantos, a powerful Minotaur against which none could prevail and no weapon might harm. Yet, a cunning magician managed to trap the terror within a magical labyrinth, attracting it's wrath and costing him his life. Loretome has revealed that Chaos Dwarfs possess not only the mage's red mantle, but also powder capable of destroying the bridge the beast may use to escape. Sneak in, steal the items, and get out without alerting the sentries!

Anderas wrote:Sentry tokens . . . If a sentry is in the same room with a hero, or closer than 4 squares distance in a hallway, replace it immediately with one Chaos Dwarf and one Beastman. . . .

. . . B: The forge provides light. If a hero is in Line of Sight of any sentry while in this room, replace the sentry with monsters immediately; ignoring the normal 4-square-limit. . . .

I'd recommend simplifying LoS to just closer than 4 squares and drop the part about being in the same room. Otherwise, ignoring the 4-Square limit in the forge room is rendered pointless as it is yet another room.

Daedalus wrote:The point I got hung up on was raising the alarm level. At first I thought the alarm level raised in a cumulative fashion turn after turn. Upon consideration of the mechanics, I then figured the alarm level was probably meant to reset to its starting value at the beginning of each Morcar/Zargon turn. Is the latter interpretation right?

The rules are pretty clear, though:

For each living monster at the beginning of Morcar‘s turn and for each sentry uncovered during Morcar's turn, raise the alert value by one. (sentry tokens don‘t count as monsters).

There's no reset. The more monsters and triggered sentries, the higher the overall alarm. I guess you could see this as a mechanism that the remaining sentries become more and more aware that something is amiss (like noticing other sentries are not at their post, strange perpetuating sounds from elsewhere in the dungeon, etc ...) and deviate from their standard patrol routine towards active searching. As it is, the alarm level only dictates the odds of the uncovered sentries being moved by Morcar or by the Heroes.

Perhaps the rules could also use a defuse / decoy kinda mechanism. Something like a delayed blast trigger in a room. With increased alarm levels, it's more and more likely that the remaining sentries will converge on the Heroes. If the Heroes are able to create a distraction or diversion, like setting off fireworks two turns after leaving a certain area, it could draw all sentries that are nearer to it than to the Heroes. Morcar would then be forced to move said undisclosed sentries towards the fireworks going off, instead.

Maurice76 wrote:I suspect this quest will be too easy for a coordinated team of Heroes. What they'll likely do if they gain control of a Sentry Token that's not too far off, is that they move it towards them and then on their own turn, attack and possibly kill both of them. By doing this, they can clear a few of the tokens without significantly raising the alarm. Once a few of the tokens are gone, it becomes much easier to move about the dungeon, especially since the tokens only move 4 spaces.

What you could do is add a mechanic with regards to corpses. Give the players the option to hide a corpse, but if the corpse is spotted by another Sentry, it would raise the alarm. . . .

Anderas wrote:. . . What to do about moving them nearby and then uncover them during the heroes turn? Don't know really. Do you have any suggestions that are not too complicated? I try to stay in the few lines that are allowed by the standard quest note layout.

Maybe start with a higher alert level and fewer but more powerful sentries so that they are seeking out the heroes more actively and are less easy disposed of?
I have to playtest that one. With the exploit you described. Let's see how it plays.

I'll take a stab at hiding monster bodies. The rule could be included with these lines in blue:

Notes:
All doors are open and placed on the board along with the sentry tokens. It is pitch black night: Line of sight is only 4 squares. Room contents are revealed only when the heroes are entering the room.

A skull tile is placed on a monster's square when it is killed. A Hero that moves onto a skull tile may pick it up, but he may only roll one red die to move after doing so. A carried body may be hidden in large furniture with a special search action.

Sentry tokens are placed at the beginning of the quest as shown on the map. Morcar starts with an Alert Value of 2. For each sentry, Morcar rolls one red die at the beginning of his turn. If he rolls equal or less than his alert value, he may move the sentry; else the heroes may move the sentry. Each sentry can move 4 squares.
If a sentry is in the same room with a hero or skull tile, or closer than 4 squares distance in a hallway, replace it immediately with one Chaos Dwarf and one Beastman. The Monsters are controlled by Morcar, even if the sentry token was controlled by the heroes. For each living monster at the beginning of Morcar‘s turn and for each sentry uncovered during Morcar's turn, raise the alert value by one. (sentry tokens don‘t count as monsters).

If that's too long, here's an even simpler change for the top section:

A skull tile is placed on a monster's square when it is killed. A Hero may pick it up and hide the body in large furniture or place the skull tile around a corner with a special search action.

Just reducing the text to discovery in line of sight is a good one, I take that directly.

Just as Maurice said, no alarm reset is planned today; with the thought of "You cannot un-ring the alarm bell."
With an alert value of 3 it will already be difficult. With alert 4, it is quite a claustrophobic feeling. I remember that from 40k 4th edition, where you had a lot more space to move.
However, if during testing it proves to be too difficult; I am open to introduce some alert decay. Playability before realism, always.

Thanks for that door suggestion, anything to make it base game compatible is good!

+1 for the Minotaur's name of Thantos.
Another +1 for the fact that both of your fantasy starts running wild with suggestions; the decoy firework, hiding monster bodies... That's cool, because it means that this quest is triggering some something like the Rescue of Sir Ragnar. That motivates me to testplay it a couple of times to see if my mechanic works.

Just to poke your fantasy a little bit more, Thantos has also this model: Click me
In fact I was thinking for hours how I could possibly use it in play.

Tomorrow I will have the time, space and (important) a chemo-free head. So I will test-play this mission against myself. I will report.

Today during the afternoon I'll work on the textual suggestions so that they're ready for testing tomorrow.
Thank you very much!

Daedalus wrote:

Anderas wrote:. . . Please could you give me feedback if it is understandable?

The point I got hung up on was raising the alarm level. At first I thought the alarm level raised in a cumulative fashion turn after turn. Upon consideration of the mechanics, I then figured the alarm level was probably meant to reset to its starting value at the beginning of each Morcar/Zargon turn. Is the latter interpretation right?

No... you shall raise the alert by one if there are living monsters (sentries don't count) plus each time morcar manages to move one sentry in a way so that it is discovered.
So it can go up by more than one per round. If you're discovered, you're discovered.
On the other hand, if you can avoid them, the alarm does not go up at all.

Daedalus wrote:Beyond that, if one door were cut out, say the one just above the cupboard, the 5 closed doors and 7 secret doors of the base set could save the need to create more. A Quest note would explain to use closed doors and secret doors for open doors, as needed.

I think i'll do that.

I was also taking your mission text, that one is good. Naming the Minotaur after his father.

The map was also updated.

So I can play it today. (I have a WomanAway day.)

Maurice76 wrote:Perhaps the rules could also use a defuse / decoy kinda mechanism. Something like a delayed blast trigger in a room. With increased alarm levels, it's more and more likely that the remaining sentries will converge on the Heroes. If the Heroes are able to create a distraction or diversion, like setting off fireworks two turns after leaving a certain area, it could draw all sentries that are nearer to it than to the Heroes. Morcar would then be forced to move said undisclosed sentries towards the fireworks going off, instead.

Yes, this map just screams for some James Bond McGyvery!
* Throw a stone (Sentry moves some squares away)
* Hide in the cupboard (Alert value decreases by one or two if you stay long enough )
* Move the corpses (Otherwise the sentries see them)
* Mop the traces
* Don't use your plate armor (D6 movement when the sentries are after you, really?)

And on the other hand
* Find a wandering Monster during the search.