Ye Olde Inn

I was comparing scans of the "Premiere" Edition of HQ for Quest 3 (Prince Magnus' Gold) to the NA version and this one wasn't quite as interesting as from the Lair of the Orc Warlord.
The EU version gives 200 gold coins as a reward for completing the mission, while the NA version gives 240.

Mostly the original version was sparse in terms of furniture placement and had fewer monsters. One interesting bit from the original non-US version was this:

"IF any character decides to keep Prince Magnus' gold instead of returning it, he will be outlawed. This character may never become a Champion."

[That's 250 gold per chest, for a total of 750 gold! But that means you forfeit the "reward" for becoming a Champion which in the original edition was 500 gold after completing only three quests. Plus you got to put a little "champion" sticker on your character sheet that resembled the winged rod of Asclepius.]

The EU version in general (which was based off the Premiere Edition) doesn't assume the Heroes will work together. You can cast offensive spells on each other and attack each other, while this is much harder to do in the NA version, so this bit makes sense.

While the US version clearly says that the Heroes cannot keep any of the Treasure inside the chests.


Any other interesting variants you've found between the EU and NA versions of quests? I see NA's "The Lost Wizard" is called "The Stone Hunter" in the EU edition (where "Wardoz" becomes "Kalern"). And in "The Fire Mage" the bad guy gets the three Fire Spells (so you can't even choose them, nerfing one of your magic users) while the NA version gives him a stack of Chaos Spells AND makes him immune to your Fire (and gives him more body points, of course).

Well there aren't Chaos spells in the original EU edition, so Grak and the Witch Lord are severely underpowered. However the Witch Lord can summon one undead figure each turn. But if you're looking for changes in the map storyline wise, the base system has no further changes.
Return of the Witch Lord and Keller's Keep expand on their conclusions. However I think EU Keller's Keep is verbally more confusing. RotWL adds the defect of Sir Ragnar in its conclusion.
There's also a few tweaks on Keller's Keep maps from EU to NA, particularly in quests 1, 4 and 7.

wallydubbs wrote:There's also a few tweaks on Keller's Keep maps from EU to NA, particularly in quests 1, 4 and 7.

Very good observations. Generally I feel like when there are differences between the editions, the NA is always better, but not always as we have seen!

There is one difference regarding only the Italian version, in quest 2 Sir Ragnar is called "Sir Manfred", but... only in my country!
I agree US versions are better but the EUR layout is my favourite for cards and questbook. Oh and the miniature bases too.

Yeah, that fancy beveled edge... the US expansion miniatures all had it too. The Dragonstrike minis don't have it, so their bases look like the US game system (& KK/ROTWL) bases!

I prefer the NA version, because it seems the most advanced and it was the version I grew up with, but I love these little differences and extras and I am trying to incorporate as many of them as possible into my games. The Equipment cards, the missing Expansions (Wizards of Morcar, Dark Company, Ogre Horde) searching secret doors and traps at the same time (in very limited circumstances), searching corridors for Treasure, upgraded Spells (in certain circumstances), Rewards for becoming a Champion...