Balancing your quests

[torilen]

Okay, I don't know if this has been done on the forum or not, but I came up with
an idea last night and found out that I was right.

If you look at all the monsters involved in each quest...add all of the attack dice,
all of the defense dice, and all of the body points together...you get a good idea
of how many monsters and/or what kind of monsters you can or should have in
your quests.

I didn't include movement and Mind Points, as they don't really bear much on actual
combat in HQ...which is what the game is about, basically.

I'll be working on this for the next few days...but here is what I have for you so far:
Q1 - Attack = 62; Defend = 57; Body = 33; Total = 152
Q2 - Attack = 53; Defend = 33; Body = 22; Total = 108
Q3 - Attack = 50; Defend = 35; Body = 24; Total = 109
Q4 - Attack = 55; Defend = 37; Body = 23; Total = 115
Q5 - Attack = 42; Defend = 47; Body = 22; Total = 111
Q6 - Attack = 66; Defend = 45; Body = 30; Total = 141
Q7 - Attack = 43; Defend = 50; Body = 27; Total = 120

You'll notice that the quest 1 is quite a bit harder than the rest - we all know that the
trial is hard. quest 6 is harder, as well...haven't figured out if that was an accident on
their part, or supposed to be like that....kind of a Boss level or something.

[Daedalus]

I tackled this one before, I can post the link if you want. It only accounts for the Game System Quests.

I think judging the difficulty of a Quest is useful, not just for guaging the strength of fan-created Quests, but also for judging the appropriateness of long term Hero power-ups. But then you need to add up the numbers for the Heroes, as well. Worthwhile, if you want to fit your Quests to your Heroes' power level.

[torilen]

yeah, sure...I'd be interested in seeing what you have. Maybe you added in some stuff I didn't - for example...I was working on
it just a bit ago, and realized that quest 8 includes a special character who is immune to fire and has spells - how does one
account for those...haven't worked that out as of yet.

[drathe]

quest 8 includes a special character who is immune to fire and has spells - how does one
account for those...

They beat him with their swords. Honestly, the lack of Fire Spells makes very little difference in this Quest. If they've been saved for the boss, it really only wastes one hero's turn. That is, if the boss even survived until the Wizard's turn any way.

[Goblin-King]

These quest rating systems doesn't consider the combination of monsters.
I mean 4 orcs in four different rooms is very easy, but the same 4 orcs clustered together in one room is a different story.
1 orc has a good chance of being killed on sight without ever getting the chance to strike back. The four orcs are almost guaranteed to get at least one strike back.

inb4 rating systems are just guidelines. I get that, this is just a thought...

[torilen]

I actually had thought of that, and was going to look at a room-by-room basis, to see how the rooms themselves
added up. That's going to take some time, though. Just a cursory glance at it last night told me that rooms
vary widely using the "rating" system.

[lorddax]

This is one of the things Thrawn and I have been tackling (mostly him putting out the ideas and me running the math with tweaks ). A room basis would probably be a better granular measure of power level, but the over all pictures is good for figuring out which ways you can tweak a scenario without overpowering your players.

A points based system will eventually end up in my final HQPoints thread, but until then you'd have to keep an eye on Thrawn's threads and my own as we continue to bounce ideas.

[Patroclus]

in my opinion, the best way to balance your quests is to create the map adding easy, normal and hard difficulty rooms. That is what I do. First I draw the map, I put the special rooms with the special monsters to build the story, and after that I stock the dungeon with creatures by choosing how many easy/normal/hard rooms I want to put in. A monster table could help. At the end I put the secret doors, traps, etc. Finally, I play the dungeon solo, without GM using my rules for solo playing(http://www.yeoldeinn.com/hqforum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=1107). And it is done. I don’t say that it is easy, but I think that more calculations make it even harder.

If the heroes are champions (with full armors and weapons), and you feel that your quest is easy for them, try to add more monsters as the game is running. One or two more monsters will be fine.

[lorddax]

Careful playtest and rebalance will always be a great way to construct, I've been simply seeking a way to set up an architecture that will let me do for encounter creation what HeroScribe did for map documentation. So thats the secret goal of the project

As well for allowing the original published material to be modified on the fly or enhanced without requiring complete reworks of the content.

[el_flesh]

That's an interesting system. We were suprised last night at the ease of cutting thru several 'Renders' (custom undead), which had given us loads of headaches before. Can only wonder what's on the other side of the double doors.