Quest 6 - all gold stolen

[cynthialee]

If you have potions available for purchase then gold will be ussed up rapidliy and be welcomed when found.

[Thrawn]

If you have potions available for purchase then gold will be ussed up rapidliy and be welcomed when found.

Both KK and RotWL don't have shopping opportunities between quests though. You just accumulate. Not to mention, by the end of those two quest packs, my groups usually had dozens of potions stocked up since they didn't need them during the quests.

[Daedalus]

@Thrawn-
Do you mean to say they maxed out at the 8th Quest of the base system, or the 8th Quest of Kelllar's Keep? I think it must be the latter.

@lorddax-
Phoenix came up with discovered and developed [-edit] a cool idea about weapon damage posted in this thread. Lots of drained gold coins, not power-ups whatsoever. If you care to read it through, you'll find my modifications on page 2.

@allyouZargonsMorcarswhoneverplayedaHero-
I played through Return of the Witch Lord, and it SUCKS to lose all your gold coins. You can't get out to spend your gold coins accumulated over 5 Quests. No problem, now you have some spending cash for some of those overpriced potions...then >POOF< it all disappears! That does not make for a fun game night. If it were returned in a later Quest, well, okay. Unfortunately the Quest Pack makes no mention of that, nor did our Zargon.

[drathe]

The game is designed that Heroes can purchase new equipment between quests. Even though it doesn't make logical sense to do so because they wouldn't actually leave in the middle of Kellar's Keep or Return of the Witch Lord and head all the way back to town to make purchases. There is no rule stating otherwise in these expansion packs. It would also make the (over-priced) Alchemist's Shop potions added to the American version (more) pointless as you could only purchase them at the beginning of the expansions.

The only place where a rule of no visiting the armoury exists is in Against the Ogre Horde and it's an optional rule as part of a few rule additions under the "Playing the Quests as a Series" heading on page 11.

[Thrawn]

@Thrawn-
Do you mean to say they maxed out at the 8th Quest of the base system, or the 8th Quest of Kelllar's Keep? I think it must be the latter.

I meant the original set.

By the end of quest 8 the party should have:
Estimated 2916 gold
staff
borins armor
wizards cloak

With the 2900+ gold you can buy:
2 shields
3 helmets
1 battleaxe
3 crossbows
1 broadsword
1 chain mail

So you can have:
1 Hero with Battleaxe, Crossbow, borin's armor, helm = 4/3 attack, 5 defense
1 Hero with broadsword, crossbow, helm, shield, chain = 3/3 attack, 5 defense
1 Hero with broadsword, crossbow, helm, shield = 3/3 attack, 4 defense
1 wizard with staff, wizard cloak = 1 attack, 3 defense

So I was exaggerating slightly. We are short 1 set of armor, and the wizard staff doesn't come for a couple more quests, but at the end of quest 8 there is only one item left to buy to have maxed out characters, but my point pretty much stands. Advancement from that point forward is only done through artifacts, and there are only a couple relevant other than a couple to boost the wizard a little because he's falling off hard at this point.

[Goblin-King]

Not to mention, by the end of those two quest packs, my groups usually had dozens of potions stocked up since they didn't need them during the quests.

We play by the rule that all treasure card potions not used during the quest is lost upon completing the quest:

This encourages the players to actually using the stuff they find.
The treasure deck is always refreshed. I suppose you write down what you find - but still
It brings better balance (They wont just insta-destroy an entire room filled with mummies by tossing holy water)
The alchemist shop is actually useful!

Potions found via quest notes are however allowed to be transferred to the next quests.

[Sjeng]

We play by the rule that all treasure card potions not used during the quest is lost upon completing the quest.

Also during chained quests such as RotWL and KK? In those cases I would let them keep everything they find, as they can't go shopping, and might need them in the next map.

Usefull topic, as I've just finished the main game and am preparing for KK (franticly painting my goblins and orcs)

[Goblin-King]

As drathe suggested, the game is designed around allowing the players to spend their gold, even if it doesn't make that much sense.
So, at least access to Alchemist's Shop and perhaps the Armory

[Daedalus]

@Thrawn-
I didn't really set up my query well. I completely agree with you that the Heroes max out on gold coin equipment too early. I meant to question Quest 8 of the Game System because my math doesn't agree. Let me explain:

Quests 1-8 Gold Coin Special Treasure
Q1: 204 / Q2: 240+60 / Q3: 180+24 / Q4: 240 / Q5: 144 / Q6: 0 / Q7: 400 / Q8: 400+150

Adding these together, the special treasure total for the first 8 Quests works out to 2,042 gold coins.
The bold amounts are those actually found in chests, rather than the others which are rewards. However, chests are not always successfully found by most groups. (Perhaps the group felt like finishing early rather than doing a thorough explore, or they were too weak to continue.) I'd suggest it's reasonable to assume 25% of those chests go undiscovered. That would reduce the 582 gold coins from chests downward by an amount of 146 GCs. This, in turn reduces the original 2,042 GC total down to 1,896 GCs.

Of course, Treasure Card deck gold coin treasure has to be added in. My original assumption was that most players stop looting the (N. Amer.) Treasure Card deck when the odds are 2 to 1 against for a beneficial card. That would stop draws after just 4 beneficial cards had been pulled, but that didn't match what happened in our games. Those Potions of Healing drive the looting, in my experience, as they are far and away the most valuable resource in the deck. So looking at the card distribution of 6 potions (2 sets of 3), 8 GC treasure including gems (2 sets of 4), and 10 detrimental, pulling 7 beneficial cards would account for 1 set of potion cards (including 1 Potion of Healing) and 1 set of GC treasure cards. The last successful pull would be at 4 to 9 odds of drawing a beneficial card vs. a detrimental one--not far at all past 2 to 1 psychology.

So, as a side-effect of efficiently looting for Potions of Healing, one set of monetary treasure cards worth 125 GCs is gotten by a group of Heroes every Quest (on average, of course). Eight Quests would yield an even 1,000 GCs. Add that to the special treasure total of 1896 and that group of Heroes should have 2896 GCs to spend on equipment. Pretty darn close to your total of 2916! I thought things would work out differently, but I changed some things as I studied the problem tonight, such as 7 draws instead of 5, and only reducing the chest treasure by 25%, not all special treasure. Glad you brought up the issue. Did you have a different method to arrive at your number?

It's a niggle, but your equipment totals don't quite fit. I come up with a total cost of 2,925 GCs. That would mean coming up shy another item, probably a Crossbow, Battle Axe, or Chain Mail, as the cheaper ones are bought first. Quest 9 will take care of that with 200 GCs to be found in chests there (even if it's reduced to 150 GCs by my 25% rule).

Where we differ is what constitutes a max-out. I'd upgrade the Broadswords to Longswords or Battle Axes, so 1 of each there (what Hero would be satisfied with less?). That's another 800 GCs. Don't forget Daggers for the Wizard, say 2 per Quest, starting with Quest 2. That's infinite, but just count to the max-out. I think you could also include Tool Kits at 250 GCs a pop for the three non-Dwarf Heroes as part of the max out. (What if the Dwarf dies mid-Quest, or a Hero becomes separated?) That's another 750 GCs needed. Add in that Plate Mail at 850 GCs or another Chain Mail and either 2,400 or 2,050 GCs are still needed. Altogether, that's 5,325 or 4,975 GCs needed for the Heroes to glut out on the Armory items (not including Daggers).

All 14 Quests will yield 4,543 GCs using my methods of calculation. That's not enough to reach either max-out that I described. So starting at Quest 2, Daggers will be used throughout the Game System Quests at a cost of 650 GCs. Added in, the new max-out totals are 5,975 or 5,625 GCs. Kellar's Keep will have to provide the max-out I see. Not until Quest 8 is the 1,900 GCs available from found special treasure and Treasure Cards to raise the necessary total to 6,443 GCs. By then, the additional Dagger costs will total 400 GCs, raising the max-out costs to 6,375 or 6,025 GCs. The Armory is finally bought out (but for Daggers) with 68 or 418 GCs remaining, depending if Chain Mail or Plate Mail is chosen for the third Hero.

Of course, this is just how I see things--there are some judgments that can change the numbers: aggressive or hesitant Treasure Card drawing, preferences for a satisfying buy-out for a Hero, and tenacity in searching for special treasure all can affect the max-out. Don't forget Hero Death--maybe nobody was present to stop a victorious monster from looting all of his items and treasure. There's also the option of selling back equipment for half value from the Elf and Barbarian Quest Packs--one I plan to use. All these variables can slide the numbers quite a bit. Still, I'm going with Kellar's Keep, Quest 8 as the milestone where the use of Gold Coins dramatically changes.

I'm gonna say it again--you're right that Hero Quest stales as far as character progression goes once max-out is reached. You point out an important issue that deserves attention from the community. I don't mean to contradict your view, rather my intent is to broaden it with another opinion. I look forward to more of your analysis of play shortcomings. I feel this may have came off as too pedantic or contradictory, but I enjoyed the analysis process. This kind of thread is what attracted me to the Inn in the first place.

[Thrawn]

Every group I've played with was very aggressive in treasure hunting, so it was rare you don't see 4 searches per room. The number of rooms varied a little, so I actually averaged that out over quests, and my average treasure number was actually about 160 gold per quest not counting rewards and treasure from the notes. That is the difference in our gold.

Now, I did ignore daggers for the wizard, since most groups I know have found that daggers are so inefficient, they just aren't worth pouring money into until everyone is "maxed out."

Now as for our definitions on maxing out. There are several things I looked at.
1) Most people don't like the slow move from plate, so most I've only seen a couple players go plate, even when they have the money to do so, so I didn't include plate in the "max out" build which is most efficient for a character.

2) For weapon choices, you want both a ranged and a close combat weapon. So everyone but the wizard needs a crossbow, so the choices for close up are:
Battleaxe (450 gold)
Longsword + Shield (500 gold)
Broadsword + Shield (400 gold)

Now, I always considered broadsword as not maxing out. However, something pointed out to me recently, and reading the rules, I'm tending to agree with is that a crossbow can shoot the diagonal square. Therefore, there is no reason to buy the longsword. Broadsword is equal in adjacent squares, and the crossbow can shoot the diagonals with equal damage.
A