Midwest Zoom (Oct 16th '21 ???)

[arntisdale]

I'd be interested in joining up.

[iKarith]

I'd be interested in joining up.

FRESH MEAT! Er, I mean, welcome!

[Kurgan]

I'd be interested in joining up.

Excellent! I'll PM you.

[Kurgan]

I know I said July 9-10 was possible, but it probably won't be happening as I'm having a family gathering at that time.

[Kurgan]

Hey folks, I'm going to be busy next two days, so I won't be available for virtual HQ until maybe next weekend at the earliest, sorry about that.

If someone else wants to host though, feel free to start without me!

[Kurgan]

This saturday (tomorrow) I could do it. Anybody interested?

[Kurgan]

Going up on zoom start 12pm CST. I'll keep it up at least until 2ish in case anybody wants to join later. Contact me if interested!

[Kurgan]

Had a nice long gaming session yesterday. Thanks everyone who played!

[arntisdale]

It was a blast! I'm looking forward to playing more in the near future!
Alas, sorry Dorf and Alf, I looted your corpses before we limped away to victory!

[Kurgan]

So there were three of us Sat on night (one had to leave early) and we played a fairly modified version of Quest 5 (Melar's Maze). More difficult than the standard version, but not quite as brutal and sadistic as the HeroScribe remake.

As usual, I was Zargon and each of the others took two heroes (Dwarf and Elf; Barbarian and Wizard respectively).
We used starting heroes with no special tricks except the pure fighters (Dwarf/Barbarian) each got two combat cards.
As Zargon I didn't draw any combat cards myself but did use my Evil Wizard (Zargon) deck. Corridors searchable for treasure, like usual and we used my 70 card expanded treasure deck as well as the special searching rules for certain furniture rooms.

Since these were basic Heroes, I also issued one random Equipment card for each character:

"Dorf" the Dwarf got Chainmail.
"Alf" the Elf got a Staff (and took Earth-based "Terra" alchemy skills). He really wished he had a bow!
"Arrgh" the Barbarian got a (mighty!) Halberd (3 dice, diagonal, two handed).
"Fizzen" the Wizard got a (2nd) Dagger (took the rest of the elemental spells)

In this version I stashed away some secret Mummies that poured out of some hidden rooms after the Dwarf was "trapped" on his own looking for the Talisman to occupy the other heroes.

Dorf was able to disarm another falling block trap and the Heroes were able to stay together, especially thanks to the locating of an additional "Hyrax Cage" Alchemist Item (Pass Through Rock Spell Scroll) since I allow that search on a Sorcerer's Table. I did forget to put out one pit trap, but Zargon's mistake is nobody's business. Overall the Heroes took a lot of damage from traps (mostly failing to jump them, needed the rabbit boots/whip!) and some periods of bad rolls against the monsters.

The Dwarf was on his own for awhile and defeated a Sasquatch mummy (think WCW Halloween Havoc, for you wrestling fans) , but nobody was around to point out that he had a piece of bandage wrapping stuck to the bottom of his boot trailing behind him like toilet paper. Eventually after beating up some more Mummies, he pulled off the piece and used it to wipe his short-sword clean of the dead monster goop. He fought bravely throughout and made great use of his disarming ability (he also miraculously missed taking any damage from the first falling block trap!).

Deeper into the maze, they bravely defeated many skeletal mutants and other foul creatures of chaos.

The Wizard made good use of his spells, using up everything except Veil of Mist and Swift Wind. He flambeed some monsters, virtually unwrapped a Mummy with Tempest (how humiliating!) but failed to put a particular Orc to sleep as well as used some healing. He built himself a small fire of twigs to warm himself while waiting for the other heroes to show up at the big central room. Arrgh made great use of his Halberd to double the attacks at the doorways.

Along the way Healing Potions were found and used...

A fearsome Fimir got the "Chaotic Defense" EW card and was able to defend with blue dice, but this only kept him alive a little bit longer from the heroic onslaught in the center room but he was no match for the Genie (Chinese Rocket) which reduced him to gibblets. The Heroes made good use of the "block the door" technique in combat, though near the end of the quest this proved to be the undoing of Dorf , long may he live on in memory as the bad guys used it too to get some extra attacks in.

The Barbarian fell into a shallow pit of venomous Snakes (!) while searching for treasure, losing one of his only 2 Mind Points, making him somewhat more cautious for awhile. He only ran once from battle when he was badly wounded, for his fellow heroes to pick up the slack. The Barbarian was kind of a trap magnet, actually, having a few spears fly by him without damage and so forth.

Alf the unfortunate attempted to save his friends when they were in danger but sadly fell into a pit trap, which became his ready-dug grave. (he tried and failed to jump it)

The belongings of the two fallen Heroes were collected by their comrades (who each had only 2 BP left), and in the end, the Talisman of Lore was recovered (due to time, we ended the adventure without the slog to the stairway, even though potentially two extra monsters: a Zombie and Mimic could have been drawn from the EW deck). The remaining Heroes were very low on BP with their healing items expended. Even so, they would have survived even bad rolls jumping the pit trap on the way home, so we called it in favor of their being the victors over Zargon, his forces defeated and the artifact recovered.

In a room with some (stone) bookcases two Spell Scrolls (Alchemist Items) were found, a Fire of Wrath (Fire Lance) and Treasure Without Doom (Treasure Flare).

Hidden Reserves was used to restore 2 BP to the Dwarf at an appropriate time.
The Barbarian could have used his Heroic Sacrifice to save the Dwarf later on, but it would have meant his own death instead (2 BP damage). Two of the combat cards required ranged weapons and I probably should have offered a re-redraw at the beginning for those since there were no specific ranged weapons to acquire in the quest itself, sorry about that.

They made out with the following loot:

229 Gold coins worth of treasure
Potion of Magic Resistance (aka Potion of Mithril)
Potion of Fire Resistance (aka Red Mithril Potion)
Treasure Without Doom Spell Scroll (aka Treasure Flare Alchemist Item)
The Talisman of Lore (which the Barbarian was wearing)
2 Shortswords
1 set of Chaimail
1 Broadsword
1 Halberd
1 Staff


All in all I see that games seem to take 3x as long doing it this way. So a 2 hour game stretches out into 6 hours, with the usual banter, restroom breaks and the simple fact that you basically say what your move is going to be, then move it, then clarify that this was correct on the display board. In an IN-PERSON game, you'd just take your turn and move one set of pieces/dice/cards. Plus, you're controlling multiple heroes (by the end we had one player controlling 4) which always takes longer than one person controlling each.

I think on future quests I may just have each person control one hero even if we have a smaller group, just to save on time, and make up for the difficulty by piling up the gear.

I think I will begin implementing a rule I learned from my brother long ago... if the Heroes can think of a reasonably plausible feat to do at a particular time, I will give them a 1 die roll to see if it will work (50% chance of success). We considered having the Barbarian throw a handful of snakes at the Gargoyle (the Dwarf knew a thing or two about Gargoyles), but we figured the Gargoyle would have most likely opened his mouth and devoured them, increasing his strength (but also giving him the effects of food coma, negating the boost).

I look forward to the next game! To our other regulars, you'll have the Talisman if these Heroes make a return, otherwise you'll have to find it in another quest, either a variation on this one, or as a special treasure in some other dungeon.