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My first serious quest adaptation

Discuss Quest creation and share Quests/Quest Packs you've created.

My first serious quest adaptation

Postby Planetdune » March 25th, 2022, 9:24 am

Next week my party is going to tackle the Rescue of Sir Ragnar from the base game. I did my preparation to play the DM, but thought it needed some sprucing up to make it more interesting. If anyone could have a look at what I created to see if I didn't miss anything game breaking etc. I try to give a lot of freedom to my heroes. They can pretty much ask me anything during their turn and I'll see what's possible or not to my judgement.

Dungeon map + DM notes during play:
https://ibb.co/XjJsT8D

Some notes on the flow of the dungeon (specifically what I altered):

- The heroes start off as usual but the exit door is sealed. There is a lever next to the door but it breaks when a hero tries to pull it down. When investigating the weapon rack it is revealed most of it is junk except a handaxe that, while missing the axe, still has a haft in good condition. The chest in the room contains some gold (red herring) and some ragged cloth. The solution is to take the haft and cloth, and use them both on what remains of the broken lever to construct a new one.

The secret passage to Ragnar is more telegraphed and replaced by a silver box with a keyhole. The key is located on a table at location "J". The (already open) door to the key room is hidden behind a book case. (so is not revealed when furniture is placed in the room). Heroes will need to look (see light coming from behind the book case) or search secrets (actually find the door) and decide to move the book case. Then proceed to take the key to the silver box to open the passageway. It is also possible for a hero with 7+ body points to rip the silver box from the wall (this box can be sold at the armory for 50g between quests). This exposes the inner lock mechanism. This can be activated if a hero with 6+ mind points investigates it.

At "5" there is a caved in room with locked door, the heroes can spot from a crack at "7" in the wall (need to use look command) that the room is caved in. This can only be accessed with the pass through rock spell which obv is very dangerous if you do not know the caved in areas. There is a chest at "8" that contains a map of the current dungeon. When this is found all undiscovered non secret doors and furniture is placed in the rooms. This reveals several things to the party. The hidden door behind the book case at "9" if not discovered. The door between the Abomination room and Ragnar (hinting his location) and the treasure chest at "C" in the caved in room. With this knowledge, a spell caster should be able to use the pass through rock to safely land on a non caved in square (I made sure all squares next to the chest are valid locations. Once inside, you find a spell of mark and recall in the chest. This allows the spell caster to set one point in the dungeon marked, and at a later time teleport to this with recall. The only way out is to use the spell and be teleported to whatever location it is last "set" to. (this location ends up being the key room at "J". (should this not have been discovered yet, the hero is trapped until the rest of the party moves the book case (see "5").

Lastly added a barracks section to the northwest. One houses 6 orcs, the other 6 goblins. These are not intended to be fought with (but nothing stops the party for attacking them). But once either door ("4" or "8") is opened or Ragnar is freed the alarm sounds and just like in the original quest the monsters pour out. The orcs move first so they will block the goblins, meaning every monsters has 8 movement squares a turn. It takes the orcs and goblins 4 turns to get to the left of the exit door. At turn 5 they can block it. With a average of 3 (one red die) for ragnar, it takes 7 turns to get Ragnar to safety. The party should probably postion themselves between the door to the first room and the corridor to th east before they arrive to block them off before they can swamp the door itself. Basically fighting them off until Ragnar is inside the room. The point is I am trying to create a hectic escape from overwhelming odds, not just a "kill everything and stroll to the stairs".


That is the gist of it... what would you change? Did I make it too difficult? Too easy? All suggestions and comments welcome :)
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Re: My first serious quest adaptation

Postby Kurgan » March 25th, 2022, 1:17 pm

I love the Barracks idea, many of us have been doing similar things in our playthroughs of late.

So to win the Wizard has to be alive (only one with 6 Mind Points, no way to lose them in this quest unless you added extra dangers that do of course) and the Dwarf and Barbarian have to manage their body points so at least one of them has at least 7 at that point (healing can work for this, of course). So at least one of those heroes has to be alive at the time too.

Requiring the use of Pass Through Rock can be a risky proposition. What if they used it up elsewhere? You'd need to provide an alternate way to accomplish it (if nothing else, a spell scroll of pass through rock found elsewhere), or else they would fail the quest, right?

Even though I don't add that level of complexity to my quests, I like the imaginative ideas and problem solving with magical flavor you add to the quest to make it more challenging and interesting. I'd love to hear the aftermath of the play-test!


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Re: My first serious quest adaptation

Postby Planetdune » March 25th, 2022, 2:22 pm

Kurgan wrote:Requiring the use of Pass Through Rock can be a risky proposition. What if they used it up elsewhere? You'd need to provide an alternate way to accomplish it (if nothing else, a spell scroll of pass through rock found elsewhere), or else they would fail the quest, right?

Even though I don't add that level of complexity to my quests, I like the imaginative ideas and problem solving with magical flavor you add to the quest to make it more challenging and interesting. I'd love to hear the aftermath of the play-test!


The Pass through Rock spell is not needed to finish the quest. That is for the "mark and recall" spell reward and I expect the party to not find this one, but we will see :) Thanks for the feedback!
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