HEROQUEST - COMPANION APP discussion

[SirRick]

I finally tried this app out yesterday. It was quite fun. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t play it on my pc laptop, so I was stuck using my phone. A mouse would be very handy for plotting your character’s movement path.

I played the first 3 quests in the original quest book. I plan on finishing the main book to get a template of all the “stuff” the heroes can acquire while playing through it. Mainly the gold piece value of all the stuff I purchase as well as a number of potions an experience party might have. With this information, I can start a group of new players with a different quest book without playing the base quests yet again.

Mentor’s narration is quite enjoyable. Zargon however can be quite grating to the ears. His Skeletor-like voice and the way he roles his Rs was starting to drive me crazy. I really appreciated the “Actions” tab for each Hero. It gives you a clear indication of who searched for treasure in a room. It can be confusing remembering who searched where with four heroes running around otherwise. The artwork for the events was great too.

The AI could be improved. I noticed monsters would not move after attacking to allow another monster behind them a chance to attack. Also I hope they add the new Knight card from RotDM, as well as the Knight Fall online quest. I’m assuming they will add these at some point. Otherwise I don’t have other feedback yet from playing only 3 quests. It seems very promising so far.

[Kurgan]

Don't forget Rogar's Hall! We still need that one to make things complete (well now also with Prophecy of Telor and Spirit Queen's Torment which I'd expect to be added in about a month)...

If you have a modern PC, the Bluestacks emulator does a pretty good job of running the App I've found (you may need a VPN to get it if you're in certain territories).

Agreed the monster AI needs work (even if it is a little better now than it was).

Edit: as of 12/1/23, version 1.82 is still the latest app version available.

[SirRick]

I played Quest 5 today, Melar’s Maze. I got to the room in the bottom left corner containing a trapped chest. I searched for traps, which revealed the remaining traps in the room, but there was no way to disarm it like you would the normal traps.
I disarmed the other floor trap so the only one left was the trap on the chest. I moved on top of it and on either side of it, and the app would not give me the option to disarm it.

Is there some way of doing this? Or is it possible this particular trap is bugged? I believe I disarmed the chest in quest 2 with no issues, but I couldn’t get this on to give me the option to disarm it.

Edit: I finally discovered you just tap a chest to disarm it.

[SirRick]

So I have been advancing through the Game System quests, and here are some observations that may or may not be related to the app, but are interesting nonetheless.

As mentioned before, I am using a default party, and I am using the treasure searching rules in the instructions (4 searches per room, though I only shuffle after a bad card is drawn).

Quest 1: The Trial: Completed successfully, though I meta-gamed somewhat by skipping the room with two Dread Warriors, and the room with the Weapons Rack and the Abomination. I was too weak after the boss fight to risk attempting those rooms.

Quest 2: The Rescue of Sir Ragnar: All the monsters were dead by the time I rescued him, which is typical. Had I gone the opposite direction from the starting room, things might have been different.

Quest 3: Lair of the Orc Warlord: Completed, fairly uneventful.

Quest 4: Prince Magnus’ Gold: Same as previous quest, except it was annoying to have to move every hero the 100 spaces or so back to the entrance (I moved each hero all the way to the beginning in one move The app resets the movement count after 99 back to zero). A common complaint, I know, but I think the longest trek to finish a quest so far.

Quest 5: Melar’s Maze: Aside from Quest 1, this quest turned out to be more challenging than I remember. I got countless Wandering Monsters, but fortunately they were only Zombies so it wasn’t too bad. This quest was the start of a trend that occurred every quest afterward so far..

Quest 6: Legacy of the Orc Warlord: This quest I purposely went South to the room with the fireplace instead of North to where our equipment was. I defeated the Orc easily, but the first treasure search yielded a Wandering Monster. The Abomination proceeded to John Wick my ass. My heroes defeated it eventually, but they were walking on eggshells the rest of the quest. Its one of the few times I had to resort to using healing potions to survive.
In the app I noticed the first Hero who searches for treasure in the storage room is told they get their stuff back, but otherwise gets nothing. Any other Hero who searches for treasure is asked to draw a treasure card, but they don’t officially get their stuff back. Subsequent Heroes get their stuff simply by walking into the room. If other Heroes are already in the room, they must leave then reenter to find their stuff.

Quest 7: The Lost Wizard: This quest was quite challenging for a couple of reasons. The stone dread warriors in the halls were putting up quite the fight. Also, I drew countless Wandering Monsters while searching. The Mummies that appeared were just wailing on my party. I barely had the strength to get to the room containing Borin’s Armor. I managed to avoid using any healing potions somehow, but everyone crawled out of that dungeon with about 1 Body Point left.

Quest 8: The Fire Mage: I managed to slay Balur in the first room, but it took a Tempest spell and two full rounds of attacking to kill him. He kept rolling black shields like a madman. I continued to explore, but the Dwarf failed to disarm a number of traps, and I drew a ton of Wandering Monsters once again. By the time I made it to the “Final” room, I was fairly weak, but managed to one-shot the Mummies and win easily.

Quest 9: Race against Time: I forgot about the secret door in the starting room, and when exploring the three adjoining rooms the monsters rolled really well, and I rolled very poorly, otherwise the rest of the dungeon was not bad.

Quest 10: Castle of Mystery: This quest was fairly easy, except on the first turn the Wizard was transported to the room with two Dread Warriors. They rolled very badly, and my Wizard had Bracers and the Wizard’s Cloak at this point, so he managed to defeat them both by himself. He used most of his spells and had 1 Body Point left, so he did do much for the rest of the quest.
Despite the Wandering Monster being harmless, I drew mostly Hazard cards and took a lot of damage from that. This quest wasn’t particularly difficult, but due to the Hazards, everyone crawled out of there with 1 Body Point left.
The app only allows one Hero to grab 5,000 gold coins, while the quest book seems to suggest everyone can get the 5,000 if they want. Also the book states the quest ends when all the monsters are killed. This does not occur in the app.

Quest 11: The Bastion of Dread: I was expecting this quest to be very difficult, but my Heroes fought like rock stars. I was still fairly weak by the end of this quest, but I drew a whopping 18 Wandering Monsters. Including the 2 Abominations placed in the dungeon I got 600 gold from the Abominations alone. I eventually had to stop searching because it was getting too dangerous.
In the app, the quest does not seem to officially end even after every single monster is slain. So I wonder if you could leave immediately without exploring and still get the quest complete message…
Despite pulling in over 1000 gold from this one quest, I had all the essentials purchased already, so I bought 3 Tool Kits, and 2 Shields for my axe users in case they want to switch to one-handed weapons somewhere down the road.

In all the quests I averaged 10 good treasure cards per quest. It happened a number of times I got 4 Wandering Monsters in one room. Even with all the bloodshed I used only 3 healing potions, and each hero has a stack of 5 or 6 healing potions on deck.

I hope you enjoyed my long summary of my journey through the companion app. In the next quest, I am going to try and finish the quest without waking the Witch Lord to see what happens in the app.

[Kurgan]

Yeah the dice rolls of the heroes (and the monster die rolls) are all on you. The treasure deck as well. Officially you're supposed to shuffle before every treasure search but some of us only shuffle before each quest (a "shuffle" to me means you re-arrange the cards about seven times and when playing live I usually add a "cut" to it as well).

[SirRick]

Today I completed Quest 12: Barak Tor: Barrow of the Witch Lord. I went backwards through the quest without waking the Witch Lord. I must say this quest is terribly boring. Many long passages and few monsters. When completing the quest the app just assumes you awoke the Witch Lord and you report the news of his return to the king. I was hoping the app would have Mentor tell the heroes he has a bad feeling and needs the heroes to investigate the room containing the Witch Lord, but no such thing happened.

If you are playing this quest in a group, do the Zargon player a favor and wake the Witch Lord so he has something interesting to do for the last part of the quest at least.

[SirRick]

Today I finished the GS quests, The Quest for the Spirit Blade, and Return to Barak Tor.

Quest 13: This quest was fairly uneventful. Even with the Dread Warrior for a wandering monster, I got pretty lucky and got 13 of the 14 good cards. I noticed the app was allowing the Heroes to find the special rock traps with searches, and the app also allowed the Dwarf to disarm them.

Quest 14: This quest was quite the disheartening slog. Due to my bad shuffleing, I got an astounding number of wandering monsters and hazards. Also do to my dice turning against me, the monsters in general were hitting a lot harder, and defending a lot more valiantly than normal. The second half of the dungeon was more favorable, and I managed to get a total of 9 good treasure cards by the end. The final fight went smoothly compared to the rest of the quest. My Barbarian used a Heroic Brew and two Strength Potions to finish the Witch Lord. The Wizard had to use a healing potion because he fell down the pit trying to finish off the last skeleton.

After finishing the Quest Book, I tallyed up all the stuff I found, so people can use it as a basis to start advanced expansions without having to play the original quests. The potions I used, I did not count. Everything listed is what I had left at the end. Also I did not sell any of the starting equipment. Stuff I wasn’t using I wrote on the back of the sheet as stuff they left at home.

Purchases: 3 Crossbows, 3 Helmets, 2 Shields, 3 Tool Kits, 2 Battle Axes, 1 Chain Mail, and 2 Bracers (4,975 gold total)

Found: 2 Staves (if you count the Staff Grak is said to be holding. The App does not give you this staff), 1 Shield

Gold on hand: 1,426

Treasure Deck Potions: 30 Healing Potions, 10 Heroic Brews, 5 Strength Potions, 5 Defense Potions

Other: 1 of the 4-point healing potions from the quest notes, all the Artifacts

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

I have a homebrew rule that stuff not carried by a Hero during a quest is what a replacement Hero inherits if the said Hero dies on a Quest.
It seems wrong to make the player lose everything owned by a Hero if he dies
But I do charge a 15 gold charge for storage per quest at the local Inn to store it!!!!!

[Kurgan]

When a hero dies, another hero can claim the goods, but I get it, he might not want to actually part with it (or might sell it off without sharing the wealth!).

(Also a mercenary can claim the gear to prevent a monster from stealing it). At least the NA rules account for Artifacts stolen by monsters being available early in the next quest as a special treasure (Zargon's discretion exactly where and how of course).

[j_dean80]

I have a homebrew rule that stuff not carried by a Hero during a quest is what a replacement Hero inherits if the said Hero dies on a Quest.
It seems wrong to make the player lose everything owned by a Hero if he dies
But I do charge a 15 gold charge for storage per quest at the local Inn to store it!!!!!

Shouldn't the empire pay their inn fees?