The Trial...of death

[Kurgan]

Having "The Trial" be quest #3 could help retain that old (1st edition) Lore of "becoming a Champion" and gaining the 500 gold (each) as a reward.

I will admit when I play I still don't shuffle the Treasure cards before EVERY search. I do one thorough shuffle before the quest begins and then that's it until it's over. But that's how I do it. I also use a deck that has 10-15 extra cards added to the standard NA Treasure deck (mostly good, but a couple of bad, the odds of getting a good card without shuffling are only slightly better than the base deck).

When I stream games on Twitch I also implement a house rule called "Bonus Treasure Search" that people in chat can "buy" using channel points (gold coins that acquire over time, with more given to subscribers!). These are "expensive" but I allow a Hero to search a room one more time than they normally could and the search will be a "safe" one (if Wandering Monster or Hazard card is drawn, ignore it and draw again until a "good" card is found... similar to "Treasure Without Doom").

[Bareheaded Warrior]

On the theme of shameless plugs I'm just putting finishing touches to a new first quest (due to be play tested in my household this weekend in our Annual Halloween HeroQuest Special - I am aware that we are a little late this year, before anyone points that out) that is intended to be used as the first Quest for a new group of players, as the original intro Quest “The Maze” was too boring, and “The Trial” is too hard and too revealing. Plot inspired by the comic strip in the Marvel Winter Special 1991, board layout based loosely upon “The Maze”.

[First Group Quest] [1 Quest] - United We Stand