Ye Olde Inn

Just sharing this idea... so what hero doesn't hate the idea of losing stuff because of those danged Ice Gremlins (from BQP) right? Tough cookies, this is HQ and I am Zargon, by the way.
But I had this idea wherein the "room" where they store everything is not just the stuff from that particular quest but EVERYTHING that has been stolen up to this point. Let's say even somehow the heroes fail to discover this room but come upon another cache in a future quest... I'd roll over everything into that one, see?

So you might find a bunch of weapons and things you were missing from a long time back, which if nothing else, you can sell later for extra gold. Thoughts?

That's the way I'm planning to play it too. When I read through FH recently, it wasn't entirely clear to me if the loot room contained items from just that quest, or all previous quests. Probably the former, but I think its fairer on the players to make it the latter. It makes sense to me logically too; the gremlins on ice mountain are part of one tribe and have loot stores further into the mountain than the quest location where the equipment was initially stolen.

Have people found this to be a real problem then? Having played FH competitively as the EW, I found it exceedingly hard to steal anything and only achieved it once during the whole questpack, and the item was later retrieved.

The Admiral wrote:Have people found this to be a real problem then? Having played FH competitively as the EW, I found it exceedingly hard to steal anything and only achieved it once during the whole questpack, and the item was later retrieved.

Really? Ice Gremlins could be rather difficult to kill with 3BP. If he survives the heroe's first attack the Gremlin could just steal a weapon and run. Unless surrounded, with 10 movement it would only take 2 or 3 turns to leave the heroes' line of sight. In such an occasion, Wizard's Wall of Stone could come in handy.

I found that Ice Gremlins are easily able to get away, as confident heroes will have mercenaries backing them up they'd be free to split up into smaller groups, or in times of battle there'd be a lot of guys standing around unable to get a shot in.

I never really noticed that the Ice Gremlin, stealing an item in a previous quest couldn't be found in the next Treasure Trove room. I always took that as a given and not that it had to be from that particular quest.

If they don't have any stolen loot by that time, I'd throw some random items into the hoard anyway, because they probably stashed stuff from previous adventurers...

Kurgan wrote:Just sharing this idea... so what hero doesn't hate the idea of losing stuff because of those danged Ice Gremlins (from BQP) right? Tough cookies, this is HQ and I am Zargon, by the way.
But I had this idea wherein the "room" where they store everything is not just the stuff from that particular quest but EVERYTHING that has been stolen up to this point. Let's say even somehow the heroes fail to discover this room but come upon another cache in a future quest... I'd roll over everything into that one, see?

So you might find a bunch of weapons and things you were missing from a long time back, which if nothing else, you can sell later for extra gold. Thoughts?

I think this is a fair way to play it. From the new components tile entry:

Ice Gremlin Treasure Room
Ice Gremlins steal anything they can get their cold hands on. Their
booty is all stored in this room.

The inclusion of all for emphasis supports including everything in the previous Quests.

From Quest 6:

A xxThe first Hero to search for treasure in this room finds 120
A xxgold coins, a longsword and a spell scroll. . . . This Hero also
A xxfinds any items previously stolen by the Ice Gremlins.

The wording is open enough to include "any items" stolen from previous Quests (Quests 1 through 6 altogether). "in this Quest" would indicate otherwise, but specificity is lacking here. I'd judge it's intended for Zargon to default to the tile entry for "all" guidance.

There is another Ice Gremlin treasure room in Quest 10 (room K). It will contain a stolen Ice Key, but there is no other mention of treasure. In this case I'd say it's best to again default to the Ice Gremlin treasure room tile-entry as a global rule and include any stolen treasure from Quests 7 through 10. Also, treasure from Quests 1 through 6 could be included if the Quest 6 Ice Gremlin treasure room wasn't explored. Or not--it's up to Zargon's benevolence. I'd probably screw the Heroes in this case for not exploring Quest 6 properly as they would have plenty of gold coins to replenish stolen items at the end of the Quest Pack.

I consider all linked quests to be one 'quest' so I would definitely allow everything to be found.

I think Avalon Hill intends in the remake version for it to mean only items stolen in that particular quest (with the caveat that anytime an Artifact that is necessary to complete a quest-meaning it was the goal of a quest-is becomes a special treasure early in the next quest, this doesn't mean it HAS to appear in the hoard room, but that's another option).

I think it defeats the thrill of finding the room if its no different than any other room, so I stand by my earlier thought... everything stolen so far or unclaimed up till this point can be found there, and if nothing stolen, then some other good loot. I'd say the lost items can be found there even if the heroes exhausted their per room searches for that room too, just so they have a chance to get the important items back!

I always ruled that then the Heroes find a Ice Gremlin's Treasure Hoard, they will find everything that was stolen by Ice Gremlins up to that point, plus some extra stolen loot—hell, I place down the Stockpile from Jungles of Delthrak to highlight how much stuff they horded! Although, I like to make such rooms harder to find than normal. Think: A normal pit trap that is tucked behind a blind corner to a short corridor that leads nowhere (naturally dismissed as an odd placement of a trap), but actually holds within it, a secret door (folks forget you can search inside them) that leads to another pit in an adjacent room that look like an empty Ice Vault, but it is filled with nasty traps and a secret door that leads to an Ice Gremlin's Treasure Hoard.

Although, I never liked how Ice Gremlins get 3 BP as that feels like something reserve for bigger, tougher monsters. As such, they are 1 BP monsters at my table. Likewise, I also nerf Mercenary monsters, called "Dread Soldiers", with 1 BP so I can use them instead of boring old Orcs-N-Goblins, while hired Mercenaries have 3 BP so they can keep up with the Heroes.