Ye Olde Inn

So I haven't played any of the Elf Quest Pack (Mage of the Mirror) beyond Quest one (I didn't own it back in the day and have only poked through the new box a bit, still playing Frozen Horror), but it was recently pointed out to me by a few alert HeroQuest fans that there are no instances in the published version of MOTM (whether the NA original from 1992 or the remake version) where the heroes can actually take Mind Point damage.

That's right, so buying Mind Point restoring potions (at least they restore body points as well) is kind of a waste of gold (thankfully you can stockpile these for future quests) and the awesome "Sky Orb" artifact won't get any use (not that it has to, but just saying, why even bother giving it unless it was a reward for completing the pack?).

So a very easy, quick and simple "fix," as I see it is to take the two "Poison" cards that were added to the treasure deck in the Frozen Horror (Barbarian Quest Pack) and use them in MOTM's treasure deck as well.

Not that the difficulty requires it, this is a VERY difficult quest pack, almost as "broken" as the vanilla Frozen Horror, though to be fair the remake edition does boost things a little by allowing the Elf to find the Elven Bracers very early and contribute a least a little more gold to the cause and carefully hides the rule that you can't use more than one Elf at a time...

The original card art even features the Elf!

Any other thoughts on this?

I suppose its not required to have things that damage your Mind Points (same as in the Game System), but if you add in the new treasure cards and spells as you go, weird things can happen.

Aside from the Poison Hazard cards, the only real danger would be if a particular caster could choose it’s spells. I know the Frozen Horror was allowed to pick spells, but these additional spells could only be from the Game System. I don’t believe the EQP has such a caster, but if the heroes fail a quest, and you feel the need to make an alternate quest, you could always add a new villain who has the Mind Freeze spell or some other special attack.

Also the heroes wouldn’t know if they have to worry about Mind Point damage or not. They shouldn’t know what challenges they will face. It would be meta-gaming to know ahead of time which potions are worth buying. This can be hard to avoid since most people just read through the quest books before playing anyway (such as knowing not to open one infamous tomb in RotWL when the heroes open every other tomb they come across).

I was shocked to learn this.

If you go back to the first draft written by Kathy, Mind Blast caused a Hero to lose 2 Mind Points. Mike Gray called for a saving throw, compared to the Wizquest spell. So apparently the editor (Mike Breault) took the advice literally and changed the EQP spell to match the WQP one, which is what we have today.

Another change from Kathy's original was the Potion of Restoration. This was a change from her Refresh potion which restored full Body Points and Mind Points plus 1 more. Though the Potion of Restoration can't affect Mind Points in the EQP, it can cure a Werewolf's Curse if a Wolfsbane Potion hasn't been drawn yet.

Yeah the names "Mind Blast" and "Mind Freeze" should seemingly be switched. It seems more accurate as Mind Blast freezes the mind, preventing the hero to move. Mind Freeze seems to blast the mind, causing damage to mind points. So it seems to make sense that Mind Blast might originally meant to be something else.

But this is definitely a broken quest pack, as the Mind Point dilemma isn't the only issue: the Reanimation spell is designated to three spell casters that are nowhere near Undead monsters to reanimate.

The Elven Bow of Vindication, although a necessary artifact compared to the difficulty of this quest pack, could essentially kill Sinestra without giving her a chance to cast any spells.

All the Elven artifacts seem to allude to working for the Elf, but makes no mention of it could be used by any other hero.
The original quest pack was missing the Magical Elven Bracers and the Elven Chainmail has no artifacts card to go along with.
The Elven Cloak of Passage seems more like an artifact then a treasure.

There's also many questions that follow some of the Elf spells, especially Twist Wood.

So yeah, all I can say is that the Quest pack wasn't completely finished and should've been playtested more. But it was rushed through.

Yeah I missed my opportunity to throw in Mind blast when we played it. I used a lot of other stuff from the earlier drafts though, and that final battle was epic!

We've finished EQP and BQP (and ROTDM) and now are almost done with CopD and have begun JoD.