[Preview] [Quest Pack] [3 Quests] - Solo Quest Pack

[Anderas]

Ok, first Quest, The Spellbook of Blyth

If the wizard is able to lay his hands on the Spirit Blade and Borin's armor, he will lose around 1 Body Point, most of it in the fight with the Fimir.
If the wizard comes so formidable equipped, i would suggest an orc more here and there; and a second Fimir in the final room.

The 2-Dice-Wizard will lose more or less 2 Body Points, one and a half of them in the epic fight with the Fimir. Again, probably a second Fimir in the final room? That would make 6 BP loss total, 5 of them in the final room. That would be dangerous as quest; but as the wizard probably has two healing spells, it shouldn't be un-doable.

The deviation is 3 BP, so i wouldn't go much further than that. Most of the games will stay inside 1 deviation, around 30% of the games have 2 deviations plus or minus. My personal experience: somehow the heroes always managed to stay in one deviation so far.


Second quest, Karug's Stash, is in the same range. 2BP loss for the 2-dice-wizard, less than one BP for the Spirit Blade/Borin's Armor wizard. The lightning strike Orc changes nothing about it.
If you let all the Goblins appear in pairs in this quest, the 2-dice-wizard will lose 3BP. Deviation is 3BP again, so it means he will lose between 0 and 6 BP. That's ok with a healing.

more later.

[The Admiral]

Quest 3 seems a little tough on the wizard. He will almost certainly die if he doesn't find his gear quickly, which is a distinct possibility, and that is without the 1 in 1296 chance of dying in the cell.

I personally hate the escape and find your equipment quests, unless you are guaranteed to find it fairly soon via the map layout. Otherwise it can kill off a powerful Hero you have built up over a long time without you having much say in the outcome.

[Decipher]

Ok, so my daughter and I played thru the first quest a few times. Well, tried to. It is way way to hard. I am going to put the artifacts in quest one fairly early. It is very obvious the Wizard is not set up for combat at all. The two artifacts will give him an edge plus if he plays his spells right, he can make it thru the first and second quest. It mostly depends on how lucky the player is when searching for treasure. The thing that handicaps the the Wizard is even though he can cast spells, he still has to wait one turn to capitalize on the effects of most spells. I'll do some more toying with it to try to balance it out a little better. I knew I was going to have trouble with the Wizard, the other Heroes are a breeze.

[Decipher]

Here are the two Wizard artifacts along with a nerfed Skulmar monster card.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9QllI ... sp=sharing

[Anderas]

One question - do you play the wizard with one attack die or with two attack dice?

I calculated with two attack dice.
If you reduce the wizard to one die, that triples the difficulty.

With one die, I would consider giving him one out of those:
a man-at-arms
the Staff of fire (may fire a 2 dice fireball each turn, see Knightkrawler),
the ability to cast and attack
the ability to cast two spells per round

The Mercenary would be my favorite.

[Decipher]

The Artifact Karug's Wand will give the WIzard 2 combat die for attacking while the Artifact Ring of Protection will give him 3 combat die for defense. These will be available in the first Quest. If he is able to cast spells and attack the same round, he would in a sense be overpowered in my opinion. But, I don't crunch the numbers or do hardcore %'s like a few fellow players here, so I'm kinda flying blind here, going from experience and playtesting.

[Anderas]

Then why not giving him an Helbardier? That guy would die after some time or disappear after the first quest. So it would be a temporary bonus that dissolves as soon as the wizard can care for himself.

[The Admiral]

The Wizard is a different beast to the other three characters. Building him up immediately to make him powerful enough to fight like the others, or aiding him with henchmen to enable him to complete quests too difficult for him is not, in my humble opinion, the way to go.

I would simply give him quests tailored to him as he is. Allow him to evolve naturally as the others would do. Just as the Elf appreciates a Broadsword, so should the Wizard get the same from the staff. The diagonal attack ability is precious, allowing him to attack without being adjacent. This forces the monster to come to him to attack, rather than attacking and then running away. But this only works if the room has negligible monsters. He is very vulnerable to searching for treasure, especially wandering monsters, which get to attack him twice before he even gets a chance to respond. Maybe it is a Giant rat that attacks with 1 die and then scurries off into the darkness?

The Wizard, in a full group, is a powerful addition. He tends to get given all the scrolls, magic daggers etc.As I try to explain to my brother, why would the Barbarian want to waste a 4 or 5 dice attack to cast a Genie. Give it to the Wizard and we can make two 5 dice attacks.

But on his own he becomes weaker than the others do, and I feel any solo quest for him just needs to reflect that.

[knightkrawler]

The Wizard is a different beast to the other three characters. Building him up immediately to make him powerful enough to fight like the others, or aiding him with henchmen to enable him to complete quests too difficult for him is not, in my humble opinion, the way to go.

I would simply give him quests tailored to him as he is. Allow him to evolve naturally as the others would do. Just as the Elf appreciates a Broadsword, so should the Wizard get the same from the staff. The diagonal attack ability is precious, allowing him to attack without being adjacent. This forces the monster to come to him to attack, rather than attacking and then running away. But this only works if the room has negligible monsters. He is very vulnerable to searching for treasure, especially wandering monsters, which get to attack him twice before he even gets a chance to respond. Maybe it is a Giant rat that attacks with 1 die and then scurries off into the darkness?

The Wizard, in a full group, is a powerful addition. He tends to get given all the scrolls, magic daggers etc.As I try to explain to my brother, why would the Barbarian want to waste a 4 or 5 dice attack to cast a Genie. Give it to the Wizard and we can make two 5 dice attacks.

But on his own he becomes weaker than the others do, and I feel any solo quest for him just needs to reflect that.

That's some invaluable insight put into words, right there.

[Decipher]

Alright, I get all that, but I thought the Wizard having to fight golblins the whole time with the occasional orc or fimir would be repetitive and boring, that's why I included the artifacts to help him at least hold his own for bigger monsters. The rat wondering monster is simply an awesome idea that can be used. But, I think after exploring the entire solo idea and play testing this past weekend, I'm going to deffer to scraping this whole project. It's not that I am lazy or don't have time or the ability, I just think the Wizard on his own is a unique situation that the standard rules do not cover and maybe it's just something that cannot be balanced for a good game.