The Spiral Passage

[Phunky Phantom]

My group has started playing Heroquest again after reacquiring it during the holidays as a gift. We have been playing 2 quests a night once a week pretty steadily. I have personally never gone past the original book and have been enjoying every minute of it.

We have made a few house rules in the game to help play and griping. We allow players to search the first square outside a door for traps. We treat chests as separate from the rooms for traps and treasure searches. We allow players to slide into pit traps without taking damage on a single non-black shield roll. We decided also to keep corridor searches limited to 2xmind points away from the heroes. After reading a bit on Kellars Keep and since my group is armed to the teeth with armor, longswords and crossbows I have decided to have a no Armory policy while going through this quest set as the Champions never come up for air. Additionally I have stairs block line of sight-the last stair end can be seen and see out of.

I have been waiting excitingly to use the stone bolder trap. After the heroes decide they didn't want to rush into traps I rolled an 11 on the bolder it ran them all over. Next turn it rolls 12 and slams home into the opposite corner. The group is now all half dead and starting to sweat. As they clear the set of corner rooms they enter the hallway still leery of the boulder.

I then decide it will keep moving. I decide to make it more ominous then dangerous due to it already exceeding my hopes with damage. I had it start to move again when the last player clears the eastern staircase and once it hit a corner it becomes stopped. Then had it travel that way until they clear the last outer staircase. I made note that next to the exit is a 1 square spot just past the last door where it will finally stop. Once the bolder clears the outer edge it will go unchecked until it reached it final spot.

This was a great mechanism during the "C" wooden door fight as they had to fight their way into the room so they would not get run over by the bolder. It slammed to a stop right next to our elf who started to scream "we need to get in there now!" They managed to evade it the rest of the quest but it did keep the tension up.

Overall it was a good quest and 5 times the heroes had to use potions or spells to survive. Never had so many last minute saves and potion tossing.

[The Admiral]

Welcome!
Sounds like you are having fun. I played Kellars Keep (UK version) many, many years ago. Got back into HQ when I discovered the NA version. I have actually just played Against the Ogre Horde in its NA version, and plan to do the same with Wizards of Morcar. I might just have to give the other two classics a whirl now, in the NA format.

[Pancho]

The no armoury policy during Kellars Keep, and the expansions in general, is a very good one. The Heroes are battling through one long connected dungeon, they have no access to a village where they can buy supplies.
I did allow one trip to the armoury about half way through KK, as the group stumbled on a group of Dwarves deep within the mines. The Dwarves, knowing that they held all the cards, did however charge an extra 50 gold coins per item. They were Dwarves after all.

[Spookyhappyfun]

The Dwarves, knowing that they held all the cards, did however charge an extra 50 gold coins per item. They were Dwarves after all.

I like this idea very much! I'll be adding this to mine!

[benvoliothefirst]

Excellent write-up! Loved hearing about your custom rules, I might incorporate some of those myself.

[Anderas]

You made the boulder trap following the heroes throughout the entire map!

That's cool. I'll have to copy that.

[torilen]

I have a great little drop-anywhere character/encounter that would work
for almost any set of quests.

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1601&p=18458#p18458

You can change the helper monsters involved to make him stronger, if you
think he would need it, and the price he charges can certainly change based
on where he is found and how needy the heroes might be.

Of course, he could have numerous magical mirrors and numerous "shops".
I created this in 2013 - kind of stole some else's idea a bit, if I remember
correctly - so 5 years down the road, there is no telling what Tenewick
might own at this point.

[wallydubbs]

Considering furniture has very little usefulness in quests (they're just there for show and to block off a couple of squares), I allow the heroes to only visit the Armory in Keller's Keep (and all interconnected quests) when they find a weapons rack and the Alchemist Shop whenever they find the Alchemist Bench. They'd still require the funds to buy potions and armor, but they would just appear so much more randomly.
This also closes the distance in difficulty between KK and RotWL, because the weapons rack and Alchemist table rarely appear in RotWL, thus making it more difficult.

[Okko]

Like the use of the stairs. Always thought they should have some effect other than just ornament which felt such a waste. Simple and effective use . Thanks for sharing this.

[Jalapenotrellis]

If you look at the stair tiles, they go platform--stairs--platform.. etc. I rule that players can "see" from one platform to the next platform. They can also only see the surrounding platforms if on the stairs themselves. They can't see the corridor beyond until at the top or bottom of the stairs.

We just played this quest today. The boulder only did 3 damage total to the barbarian and elf. There was a question of whether they could pass the boulder on their turn or not, and I ruled they could not because it is essentially a moving falling block trap that acts as a separation or wall, and furthermore, they could get run over by it again, not to mention, it would be odd seeing them run in front of a moving boulder again--would Indiana Jones do that? No. (This quest was written after Raiders of the Lost Ark was released).

I kinda wish I modified it and let the boulder keep rolling forever, but then there is the question of how does it not trigger all the traps beyond or get stuck in the pits.

The wizard, dumb blonde he is, went ahead and triggered 90% of the traps himself (jumped one maybe, used a potion and a healing spell on himself). The group was dicking around/joking too much to notice that the rules for traps in these halls was different and kinda seemed irritated at me for "changing the rules as I go" but I reassured them that I was playing it as written. In fact, I don't think any traps were disarmed other than one by the elf with a toolkit. The dwarf was too busy running behind or playing the role of the barbarian blockading a room.