Rogar's Hall - The Trial for adults

[Anderas]

One nice thing about that US-only thing out there is, that we get a new quest, complete with a new symbol set inside the PDF.

Download the quest Rogar's Hall here. It says in the quest description:

“Welcome to Rogar’s Hall, a magical arena built long ago to test the greatest of heroes. Here you are
to face the foulest of Zargon’s Dread servants. You will come to know what it is to be on the verge of
hopelessness—know what it is to face defeat. Yet if defeated today, you emerge stronger tomorrow.
Whilst this is a magical trial—a conjured illusion—it seems most real. The coldness of
the dark halls can be felt, and your enemy's blows will still hit hard upon you. I shall join you
to observe. Prepare yourselves, for none have triumphed here before. Ready? Then we begin!

No *lemony goodness*, no exaggeration here. Wow that quest hurts!

First, the Scorecard I so like for the comparison.
Maze 3, Exploration 2, Trap 0, Hero level 3, Monster count 37, Something new here: Yes (Goblin's rule, Mentor following you), Quest Pack: No, it's an independent quest; Material list: Base Game; Trap BP 1.8; unfindable Trap BP: 1 (There's a monster in front)

What does that mean?
This quest uses a lot of rooms and monsters. Man, 37 monsters. Who likes to wade in blood, this is a must-play. If I played with my 8-year-old daughter, I'd have to remove two thirds of the rooms to not overstretch her patience. Monster-count is a good proxy for estimating the game length.
The Maze-ness is quite average, no risk of not finding the way. But you can't explore too much: Stray away from the group and you're dead; plus you can't keep the finds, so why exploring. Worse (but only for me), the artifacts are chosen randomly, so I can't include them into my Quest estimation. What a drama, what a catastrophe!

There are very few traps, you can securely ignore them for the estimations. Heroes close to dying who don't search have it coming anyway.

Now the Hero Level.
This is a beginner's quest, theoretically, well, Hasbro says so. If you ask me neutrally with which group you should play it: Play it with a group, that's about right. It is right for the one and only reason that Mentor is following you around and heals you up to three times by giving you potions of healing, everytime someone has zero BP.

I made an extensive simulation of this quest today with many different groups and exploration paths. A beginner's group would normally lose 47 Body Points during the quest; alone 5 through this Goblin special rule. Throw in the Mentor-Healing and both healing spells, you go by more or less 26 Body Points loss - without trap. That's 80% total party kill probability. You have to play 5 times to win one time. "The Trial" for adults I wouldn't promote this frustrating experience to beginners. No, if you're new to the game, make that 3-Chaos-Warrior-Room empty and remove the two Mummies north of the central room; that's a nicer for a person new to the game. If you're a seasoned Hero Quest player and want to have a real challenge, you could try this quest as written, with four heroes. Much depends on what you find in the chests - the optimal path is doable, who knows, maybe you survive the third try!

A fully equipped group (That's 4 and 4 in my simulator; I know there are other builds possible; especially with more defense; but for the simulation I keep it simple) would lose around 16 BP and should master the quest quite okay, even without Mentorhealer. You have to roll really bad dice rolls if you want to lose with the experienced group - and Mentor is following you around with three healings in his pocket, so I would use that tactically instead of using potions and I think I would get out there without using a single potion.

The 3-dice group (3 AT, 3 DE) is right in the middle. Without Mentorfollower it would be "hard", even harder like the Trial is for beginners. But Mentor changes everything. Even a 3 dice group should have an easy time. Some bad dice rolls can still end in a bad day, but that's how it should be, right?


Last, there is one thing I really like about this quest: If you are a seasoned player and you take the challenge, you accept to die two or three times, then you can find the optimal path through this quest. And this optimal path avoids many monsters, so many monsters that you will survive - with a beginners group and Mentor following you nearly always! You have a total party kill with just 2%. That's good quest design: Let your heroes try it several times and learn from error, they will get better, that generates a feeling of satisfaction and makes you addicted.

However, other than a computer game, I highly doubt that a group of 5 players will motivate themselves to play this quest three or four times.

[Kurgan]

Missed this post... this is why I theorize that it's not really a Trial at all, but a trap set by Zargon to torture the Heroes.

[Kurgan]

Since the original link no longer works, try this instead. My post above still stands!

Alas this quest still hasn't been added to the Companion App!

[SirRick]

I’m sure Zargon in his free time intercepts new heroes on their way to meet Mentor, claims to be Mentor and leads them to their deaths.

He claims the monsters are illusions, when in fact they are very real. He follows them to make sure they don’t escape, but heals them occasionally to give them a false sense of security. As they get deeper and deeper into the labyrinth, the heroes are slain one by one. Each time Zargon convinces the others that their friend’s bloody mangled corpse is an illusion and that their friend was magically teleported and waiting for them outside.

Who knows how many batches of potential heroes he has dispatched in this manner?

I’m sure the initial conversation would go something like this:

Zargon (as Mentor): “Greetings brave heroes! I am Mentor, your well-meaning and trustworthy guide and patron!”

Heroes: “I thought we were supposed to meet you at your house, or tower, or whatever.”

Zargon: “Ah, yes. Plans have changed however. I have some…special…training for you.” (Zargon then leads them to his cleverly named Rogar’s Hall. He then gives the heroes the rundown of what they are to do.)

Heroes: “Special training, huh?” (the heroes seem a bit unsure at the moment) “Do we get anything if we pass?”

Zargon: “Oh! Um…I shall give you…100 gold!”

The heroes cheer excitedly, do a TMNT style Cowabunga, then charge down into the dungeon. Zargon gives the faintest hint of a smile and utters “Fresh meat…” as he follows them below.