Ye Olde Inn

by **wallydubbs** » July 8th, 2019, 11:15 am

When I played this one with my crew I added 2 extra spells to the Fire Mage's arsenal: Wall of Flame (From WoM) and Dispell (from MotM). I also added a few Fireburst traps along the way as well.

Balur is supposed to be in league with orcs and yet in this quest he's mainly surrounded by undead, so I altered that as well: I replaced the 2 Zombies in the starting hallway with an orc and a goblin; Balur's entourage of skeletons were replaced with 2 orcs and 2 goblins. The heroes were hesitant to enter at first when my girlfriend (playing as the Elf) said "Something's wrong, we should not be facing the boss this early, so they assumed it was a trap. It didn't help them that the Barbarian was lagging in the hallway and couldn't get into the room, so the Dwarf stood as the meatshield in the doorway, whom I blasted with Ball of Flame.
By the time the heroes got in there and took out the 4 greenskins I played Summon Orcs. The room became quickly crowded and the Wizard cast Courage on the Dwarf, which I countered with Tempest on my next turn. As the heroes came close to taking out all the orcs the Elf was close enough for a Diagonal attack via longsword to get one hit on my Mage. So I cast Escape on my next turn and continued fighting with the orcs. After the Barbarian,
Wizard and Elf went, the Dwarf recovered and drank Heroic Brew, with his Courage and took out the remaining orcs.
In the next room I took out the Zombie and put in a Fireburst trap, which ended up detonating on the Barbarian, but no skulls were rolled.

The Southeast section of the board still had undead. However I added a bit to the story of the board layout: in my world undead and greenskins don't mix unless there's a Necromancer present, so they were cut off from the rest of the board. Like the door in Great Citidel of Keller's Keep has issues opening, so did my door to the room with the undead, and the brick wall tile in the Southern corridor was replaced with a rubble tile for a falling block trap; this would tell the heroes that, yes, there was a path here at one point but the orcs have since collapsed the ceiling to seclude the undead. That way if any hero chooses to venture out with Pass Through Rock and separate from the group, he would have that option. Unfortunately none of the heroes took the bait.

Once through the 2 secret doors I put a goblin in the central hallway in place of the skeleton. In the Central Room I swapped out Mummies and Zombies with Fimirs and orcs.
The Dwarf fought with the goblin while all the other heroes went into the two southern rooms to face the orcs. The Elf and Wizard handled one room while the Barbarian ran up the other. The Dwarf had finished off the goblin and made his way to the central Chamber. Rather then entering he chose to search and disarm traps, giving the other heroes time to clear out the other two rooms.
Although they killed the orcs it would still take them another turn of movement to reach the central room, so the Dwarf went in alone. He opted to go straight for the Fire Mage instead of taking on the orcs or Fimirs, but failed to land a hit. I then cast Fear on the Dwarf. The Fimirs and orcs gained up on him taking him down to 2 BP. The Elf had cast Swift Wind on his last turn, so the Barbarian charged up through the empty room, where I added a Fireburst trap, but he was well out of the room before it went off, ran into the center room and killed an orc; while the Wizard and Elf came up through the central corridor. The Wizard just barely had line of sight, using a Potion of Magical Aptitude and casting Sleep and Ball of Flame on the Fire Mage, completely forgetting he was immune to fire. So that was a wasted spell, but the Sleep spell did take hold, surpringly.
The Elf was next to run in and cast Genie to take out the Fire Mage. I was dismayed as I was saving Dispell for the Genie, but while asleep I couldn't use it! Luckily out of the 5 attack dice my girlfriend rolled but 1 skull. The Fire Mage had 1 BP left, and the Dwarf was too filled with Fear to land a Skull on his attack.
On my turn I recovered from Sleep, still had Firestorm, Dispell and Wall of Flame, but didn't want to cast Firestorm yet, I still had 2 Fimirs and an Orc, but the Dwarf and Wizard were close to death. So melee attacked the Dwarf with the Fire Mage, failed to roll a skull and ran away behind the bookcase using the Fimir as a meat shield. A Fimir attacked the Dwarf, 2 skulls, but the Dwarf successfully defended. The other Fimir and Orc chipped away at the Elf and Barbarian.
The Barbarian attacked the Fimir for 1 BP, followed by the Wizard, who attempted to cast Heal Body on the Dwarf, but I used Dispell and negated it. The Elf finished the one Fimir while the Dwarf broke free from the Fear spell and killed the other Fimir.

I backed my Mage away and cast Wall of Flame, while the orc failed to land a hit on Barbarian. The Barbarian and Wizard both failed to kill the Orc while the Elf and Dwarf attacked the Fire Wall.
It was time to use the Firestorm spell, the Elf took 2 damage, dropping him to 2 BP, the Barbarian with 3 left was protected by a Potion of Magic Resistance, the Dwarf rolled 2 5s, taking only 1 damage, surviving with 1 BP, but the Wizard was hit with 3 Damage and would've died right there, but the Elf was standing adjacent to the Wizard and had a Potion of Healing on him. Since potions don't count as an action and passing items are allowed (so long as no monsters ate adjacent to either hero) I allowed the transaction to take place.
The Barbarian destroyed the Fire Wall on his next turn, allowing the Elf to kill the Fire Mage. The heroes never went down the Eastern corridor and decided to end it there so never entered the last room with the chest, thus they never found the Wand of Magic or the 150 gold coins.

Actually, I was relieved that they didn't find it. If you've noticed, I've added Treasure Cards from Wizards of Morcar into the deck (primarily Potion of Magical Aptitude). Once the Wand of Magic is found, Potion of Magical Aptitude is pretty much redundant and loses its value. The heroes can carry on without the Wand of Magic, I'll add it to some chest when we play Wizards of Zargon.

by **Jalapenotrellis** » July 8th, 2019, 6:19 pm

You are a mean, mean Zargon! I bet challenging games tho. This is my first playthrough ever so I am not making modifications until I play thru once.

by **Anderas** » July 9th, 2019, 4:54 am

A COMPLETE play through with all the quest books can take a decade if you're normally loaded with work and other private things.

The original quest book is very good.

Seriously take a look at the alternatives and problems in the quest pack forums before you start the expansions: There are very good ideas around and there are style errors (by feeling) and real errors in the official expansions.

by **Jalapenotrellis** » July 9th, 2019, 5:23 am

Well we have 8 quests done in less than half a year, so far so good for pace by my experience. My other group didn't make it thru 7 quests in 8 months.

by **wallydubbs** » July 9th, 2019, 7:57 am

Jalapenotrellis wrote:You are a mean, mean Zargon! I bet challenging games tho. This is my first playthrough ever so I am not making modifications until I play thru once.

I'm really not that bad, I work some things in the hero's favor and some things in mine: I play with an expanded Treasure deck, access to additional spell sets from the get-go, gaining and losing spell sets depending on mind points (which will come in handy with the non-play-tested quest packs), and I let the heroes defend twice when dealing with a Polar Warbear that attacks him twice, i downgrade the Ogres in the Elf Quest Pack, and I always give the heroes way out with Falling Block Traps.
However I do upgrade boss monsters (such as Ulag and Ograk) giving them Choas spells, as well as the ability to open doors; i also add a time limit to certain quests (Lost Wizard, Race Against Time, Grin's Crag, Halls of the Dead, The Rescue), and only allow 1 Treasure card per room; and occasionally a few important items get lost that the heroes don't get back...

by **wallydubbs** » July 22nd, 2022, 7:42 am

So we ended up playing this one again (Different Group), and it was such a let down for the heroes.
I won't flood y'all with details, but I'm just wondering if this ever happened to anybody.

The Dwarf kinda got separated from the rest of the group and was fighting the Orcs in the Chest room while the other 3 Heroes fought the Fire Mage in the Central Chamber. The Elf cleared out the two Orcs (replacing the Zombies) as soon as he entered (I made Orc's Babe the artifact of Quest 6). When the two Fimirs (Replacing the Mummies) were killed and the Fire Mage ran out of spells he fled. He ran through his own Wall of Flame (Immune to Fire) and out the door.
He has 8 movement and 5 Defines Dice! The Elf managed to keep pace with him for a moment but the shortsword didn't do any damage. Barbarian managed to get a 12 in movement once the Elf's pace faulted. He wasn't able to block off the Fire Mage, just managed to swing his sword a few times, but the Fire Mage kept rolling good defense.
All the corridors are narrow and the heroes couldn't pass him to cut him off, so the Fire Mage managed to escape the Quest with the Elf and Barbarian chasing, but unable to get a hit in. He escaped from the stairwell... In great disappointed to the heroes as the objective was to kill the Fire Mage... They received no payment for a reward but are allowed to go to the next quest since no one died. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

by **Bareheaded Warrior** » September 8th, 2023, 3:40 am

Another modification that brings spellcasters into the game and makes them more effective, both good and evil, is discussed on the Combat: A Sticky Situation? topic. This makes it easier to protect spellcasters whilst still allowing LOS for spell casting.