Prepping for the Hall of the Dwarven Kings tonight, I realized that I hadn't updated on last week's Quest 4: The Dwarven Forge.
This one was relatively straightforward, but with a few fun elements to play with (feels like I've said that before
I guess that is why some are critical of KK as a quest pack).
For starters, there's the Orc at the beginning who opens the first door when he dies. This didn't really cause much trouble for our heroes, they were able to get in there and dispatch those greenskins easily. But it did give a nice sense of urgency in the beginning of the quest.
Then Vrag the Barbarian and Gizzard the Wizard wasted a little time in the dead-end, bookshelves room, while Lady Darwin the Dwarf and Miranda the Elf pushed forward.
Miranda got the treasure of the Fire Ring and found the secret door leading to the Forge, while Lady Darwin faced the Fimirs and Orcs in the southwest room and waited for Vrag and Gizzard to catch up. Eventually, Miranda entered the Forge and searched for treasure before traps. Whoops! Poison dart, two body points! But she found the piece of Grin's Stone Map, and then the embers from the forge blasted her at the end of her turn.
The damage caused by the heat from the Forge is something I would adjust if played again. Or, maybe I should say, I would adjust how to present it to the players.
At the end of Miranda's turn, I paraphrased the quest notes, something like: "Burning embers blast out of the forge, threatening a hero that ends his turn here. Roll one combat die."
So, I left out the part about the Dwarf not being affected, because I didn't want to just give that to them so easily, but maybe I could/should have done more to suggest that other heroes might fare differently in the room?
Either way, Miranda managed to not roll a skull, so she didn't lose a body point and she high-tailed it out of that room on her next turn. No search for secret doors, no discovery of the secret chest with 300 Gold Coins.
Looking back at it now, I think I would do the combat die roll for damage from the embers at the beginning of Zargon's turn, rather than at the end of the Hero's turn. This gives other heroes a chance to boldly rush in there withouth knowing the consequences, and frankly, wherever a hero ends their turn is almost always where they will be at the start of Zargon's turn. So that's my
on that mechanic.
Then, I got to use my Fimir with the Rust spells! After consideration, I decided to house-rule that the Rust spell can destroy Battle Axes. The Fimir rusted Vrag's Battle Axe first thing. The first Goblin and Orc in that room were defeated and I stupidly left the Fimir Spellcaster unguarded for a round. Amazingly, my heroes did not take advantage of this. Vrag, Lady Darwin, and Gizzard arranged themselves in a way to take on the monsters on the following round (I still don't understand thier line of thinking on this plan, but I don't really care because it helped me), while Miranda said, "Screw you guys, I'm not losing any of my stuff," and went into the next room to avoid the spellcaster. I moved the Fimir behind the Orcs and then rusted Lady Darwin's Battle Axe. The Heroes defeated the last two Orcs; down to them and the spellcaster. I rusted Vrag's Helmet. And then finally, Vrag struck down the Fimir Spellcaster with his Broadsword.
On their way out, the Heroes literally said, "There haven't been many traps in this one" right before Lady Darwin fell in the pit trap!
Once they passed that, those last few goblins weren't too much trouble for them, but when they searched for treasure, I used my Evil Wizard Deck - Mimic Card to enchant the fireplace and set it after them!
It didn't really do any damage to them, but it was a little bit of extra fun and gave them a bit of urgency to just finish the damn quest already! (
Zargon got a little bored after the Fimir Spellcaster was defeated)
Looking forward to the Hall of the Dwarven Kings tonight. Lady Darwin is going to find out that she's not too hamstringed by losing her Ax, because that Spirit Blade will be cleaving some undead flesh soon! Also, after all my searching for decent undead Dwarves, I ended up scooping a KS Dungeon Saga from eBay, so I'll be using their Dwarf Revenants and undead Dwarf King.