Kellar's Keep Redux

[mikemacdee]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. When you say 3 dice, you mean 3 attack dice per hero?

Hope you can do the same with Arden Daredevils at some point. Never got anyone to play through that one for feedback.

[Anderas]

Thanks for the feedback thus far. When you say 3 dice, you mean 3 attack dice per hero?

3 Attack dice and 3 Defense dice.
If they have 3 AT and 4 DE, I call it 3.5 dice

I've made some hero groups with which I test all the quests that I tests.

One has four heroes with 2 dice each,
one has 3 heroes with 2 dice and the barbarian with 3 attack and 2 defense,
one has 4 heroes with 3 dice each,
one has 4 heroes with 3 AT and 4 DE... and so on, right up to 8 attack and defense dice.

Then I see how many BP the heroes lose, and compare with "The Trial", which most people find too hard, and "The rescue of Sir Ragnar", which most people find too easy (if they take the right way in the first place )
If you're in the middle of the two, I call it the "Sweet Spot", if you're closer to "the Trial" I say it's "hard".

And then of course, as I do the simulation with all of the above hero groups, I can tell you which one of them is closest to the sweet spot. And then I say it's a "3 Dice Quest". Or whatever comes out. I often see that the group with the sweet spot is also the minimum - try it with the next weaker group and you will see something that almost certainly kills your group.


It would be easier for me if you share the xml files. The part which is costing most of the time is when I write down the monsteers in a spreadsheet so that the simulation understands what I want. However, the simulation CAN read XML files, too. Than I save this part.

[Anderas]

3 B: Hall of the Dwarven Kings

Oh yeah this quest follows the idea of it's original, but sending Henchmen instead of Orcs is a nice twist indeed!
This quest lives from the tale that one of the heroes decides to sacrifice himself in order to let the others finish the quest; and this again is a lot easier with door blocking than without.
Now what does a good Zargon do against door blocking? Yes, diagonal weapons and ranged weapons. Helmsmen bring those.


Monsters arriving
There is a lot of random. I let the helmsmen arrive like this: Scout, Helbardier, Crossbowman, Swordsmen, repeat. Then the scouts overtake the others a lot, while the others are quite mixed.
With six turns of them, I let first three, then four, then three arrive (and so on); for a total of 21 Helmsmen. I have that many, but I don't know how many there were in the original packs.

Scouts are superfast, the first of them arrive in 4 turns in the double hallway, in 5 turns they can be in the center room.
Heroes have still 18 squares to go to the central room when the race starts. It's a save bet to say that the first scout catches up before the heroes even enter the room.


The fights
Crossbowmen and Helbardiers then do a good job of making door blocking really dangerous. I let three of them attack for every two attacks that the heroes have, presuming door blocking tactics.
With those rather harsh conditions, it's super hard for a 4-dice-group with a 15%-20% chance for a total party kill, while it is quite balanced for a 5-dice-group.

Then I can imagine them having helmsmen themselves or heroes with diagonal weapons who want to help equalizing a bit of the evolutionary pressure. Door blocking is a whole different thing if you have two friends left and right, who also poke the enemy a little bit. If yes, it would be a good quest for a 4-dice group, harder than many of the other quests but not too hard. Disadvantage is, if all the heroes get stuck helping the door block, no-one is left to finish the quest and find the exit. So, back to helmsmen helpers.

Final idea is to set up the door block behind the secret door, so you have one enemy attacking and 3 heroes. This is surprisingly not a lot better! Might have something to do with crossbowmen who hold back and shoot, each time the frontline camerade has died. So even with this tactic, the blocker hero would get some 3, 4 attacks per round in his face.

Now if we say the door blocker has 5 defense dice (Borin's Armor) and courage from the wizard plus the team plays good together, I think it could work.


Alternatives
The helmsmen enter during a period of 6 turns. If you down that to 5, the quest would be a little bit closer to the sweet spot, I think.

The Orc and Skaven variants both are less dangerous. Particularly for the skaven, as the white seer does not get to see any spells normally, he can't use his copy function.

[mikemacdee]

I caught another issue with missing markers: Quest 4-A doesn't have any. I just fixed this and re-uploaded so you'll wanna re-download the questpack.

[mikemacdee]

Finally finished the campaign with my friends, and added one more fix: when you fall into Grin's Crag you also lose a body point. If you lose your last body point in this manner, you fall to your death.

[Anderas]

4-A, the lower right corner has no marker for the chest.

How did it play out in quest 3-B that comes out a little hard in the simulator?

[mikemacdee]

4-A, the lower right corner has no marker for the chest.

How did it play out in quest 3-B that comes out a little hard in the simulator?

That time I limited the number of guys who were funnelling through the hall since it was only a two hero party. Half of them got killed by a well-placed lightning bolt.

For 4-A I just added to Note B that the chest contains 3 random potions.

[Anderas]

A well placed lightning bolt
Yes, I can't simulate situational magic, especially... where did the wizard get the lightning bolt? Mine has it, too.

So if I say it's "hard" I talk about fights only, plus I add the traps if looks feasible.

I've just seen you changed the eternal monster string to skaven.
I am on 4-A now

The southeast corner room has no access. Did you want to move that blocked square two to the north?

Skaven:
I'd say that is 5.5 BP from traps (the ones in the southern corridor, if they don't search it's their proper failure
The monster difficulty (skaven) is good for a 4 dice group; a group with 4.5 dice is leaning a little to the easy side.
I'd say you nailed the sweet spot here!

Orcs
For Orcs and Goblins, it becomes a little bit easier. It is still very well adapted for a 4-dice group, but it is also playable for a 3 dice group (having 4 defense), if they are searching for a challenge.

Helmsmen
The Helmsmen make it more difficult again, I think we will see this repeating. It is still a 4-dice-quest, but you'd want to take a scout with you. Or you accept the challenge - the "enhanced" difficulty is still well within the range of the normal.

[Anderas]

Quest 4 B, The East Gate

No traps, that part is easy.
Then, two white seers, I can't estimate them really. I just assume they fight and are fought first whenever possible.
So in those two rooms, I assumed that one Giant Rat was attacked, and when it was dead, the White Seer was next.

The Shapeshifter: I just assumed that the Heroes would fight the 8 Base Game Monsters one after the other, killing each of them once.

With those settings, I get to a difficulty of:


Which is nice!

Changing everything to Orcs (except the Shapeshifter), gives:

--> it's playable with a group that's just a little bit above 3 dice level...

With Helmsmen, it gives


hehe, the latest variant of the questimator now copies the combat dice smileys directly to the clipboard after it finished calculating. Love it.
I need to find a way to publish it, I hate it that I am the only one using it apart from it's grandfather, Count Mohawk.

[Anderas]

Ok, finished with Grin's Crag.

I didn't exchange monsters, as most of the quest is undead or the Guardian, so


Perfectly balanced for a fully equipped group, not too easy, not too difficult.

This quest book triggered a major update of my python variant of the questimator. For that, I say thank you.

Next I do the Arden Daredevils, if you care to share the xml files.