Dragon Strike Quest pack

[StratosVX]

I have an eps file I made of the tunnel I could send you. I just overlay it on the map when I'm putting together these quests. I'm going to send it to Derfel to be added into the next update of the Heroscribe icon pack. PM me if you want it.

[Nephew of Mentor]

I finished Quest 1. Quest 2 has a little bump. One of the orcs has a ton of magic gear. I am thinking of converting them to artifacts. One of the DS treasures is just "magic sword". Its ability is "roll d12 in attack. If you miss, you can immediately make a second attack against the same target with a d8." I am going to convert it to "Echo Blade: This ivory handled broadsword allows you to roll three combat dice in attack. If no damage is dealt roll two attack dice against the same target and the same defense roll." I sort of used the apirit blade for reference. Alternate ideas include rolling one attack die instead, or only rolling if no white skulls are rolled in attack. What do you think?

Another item is "gauntlets of Ogre Power: These Gauntlets let you swing, smash, and slash with extra force. If you attack successfully with a short-ranged weapon, your opponent lises 2 Hp." I am thinking "If you hit successfully, deal an additional 1bp of damage automatically." Alternately, the 1bp could be only if you roll all white skulls or only if the opponent rolls no black shields or add the oponent's white shields to yours or something along those lines.

The third item is "Wondrous Plate Mail: Your base AC is 8 while you wear this Plate mail." I initially though to just basically make it Borin's armor. No idea here.

Actually, I should just cut this monster down to one magic item or two. Regardless, please share your opinion of the ability alterations for all these items anyhow. Thanks.

[Nephew of Mentor]

Quest 2 is basically done. Huzzah!Some time this week I'll figure out what my photobucket password is and start linking the pages so you folks can see.

[StratosVX]

One of the DS treasures is just "magic sword". Its ability is "roll d12 in attack. If you miss, you can immediately make a second attack against the same target with a d8." I am going to convert it to "Echo Blade: This ivory handled broadsword allows you to roll three combat dice in attack. If no damage is dealt roll two attack dice against the same target and the same defense roll."

I would re-word this. Instead of "...against the same target and the same defense roll" I would say "...against the same target. Target Monster defends as normal." Or something like that. To me, the original wording makes it sound like the monster would keep the same roll that he had, which would likely make the re-roll pointless. If the original attack resulted in two skulls against a defense roll of two black shields, then re-rolling two attack dice against those two shields wouldn't do anything.

Another item is "gauntlets of Ogre Power: These Gauntlets let you swing, smash, and slash with extra force. If you attack successfully with a short-ranged weapon, your opponent lises 2 Hp." I am thinking "If you hit successfully, deal an additional 1bp of damage automatically."

I like this one.

Actually, I should just cut this monster down to one magic item or two. Regardless, please share your opinion of the ability alterations for all these items anyhow. Thanks.

If it was me, I wouldn't give an Orc more than one artifact. Not if it's a normal Orc anyway.

[Nephew of Mentor]

Actually, I had intended to have the second attack done against the same defense roll, but now that you mention it, that doesn't make sense(brain fart!) Unless I added the white skulls from the second roll to the white skulls from first roll, haha.

Is that the sword variation you prefer?

The game gives him 4 magic items! I decided to take away two of them, mainly because one of the items he has is only useful to deflect a spell one time and then it is discarded. If the players cast a spell against him it's gone anyhow.

[Nephew of Mentor]

Can anyone mock up some art for trap deck cards? Or are there, by chance, already trap deck cards? Thanks.

[JasonMCM]

My ideas on the artifacts you mentioned.

Echo Blade: This magic broadsword allows you to roll 3 combat dice when attacking. If you do not roll enough skulls to deal at least 1 BP of damage to the defender roll 2 additional combat dice, and add them to your original attack roll. No Wizard
Thoughts: I like the extra power only if you miss, but if you used it against a powerful enemy the chances of the second attack being useful even with the re-roll of defense dice are rather small, that is why I added the combat dice into the attack. As a broadsword No Wizard is obvious.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power: These magic gauntlets make you extra strong. If and of your melee attack rolls score at least 1 BP, deal 1 more BP of damage to the target of your attack. Reduce this damage by 1 on the roll of a 5 or 6 on a red die. No Wizard.
Thoughts: I feel that +1 damage on successful hits is too powerful, and that +1 damage on 66% of successful hits balances it out more. Also these scream no wizard.

Antimagic Ring: This magical ring causes the first spell cast against the wearer to fail. The ring only works once per quest and cannot tell the difference between beneficial spells and harmful spells. A hero must wear this artifact from the beginning of a quest for it to work and if it is removed so a beneficial spell can be cast on him then it will have no effect until the next quest.
Thoughts: I have no clue what this is called in Dragon Quest, but as you said that it had the power to stop one spell and I like artifacts I made one up for this as well.

Extra Thoughts: As I said earlier that i like artifacts, you could always give random henchmen the artifacts that you don't want to put on the big baddie. It could be fun to give a random chaos warrior the antimagic ring and laugh with glee when the "ball of flame" cast buy the wizard does nothing to him.

[StratosVX]

Can anyone mock up some art for trap deck cards? Or are there, by chance, already trap deck cards? Thanks.

I have a card back for this, but I have no idea where it came from or who would get credit for it. I'll PM you the image and I'll have to see if I can find out who it was so we can ask their permission.

I don't have a preference for the sword. Jason seems to like your idea, although I agree with him that it shouldn't be used by a Wizard.

[Nephew of Mentor]

Yeah, I triple the no wizard statements, haha.

I'm not sure about the red die with the gauntlets, primarily because it might complicate it more than is traditional for the game. I would like to hear from a few more folks on that issue.

I also like the extra rule stipulations of the Ring of Spell Turning, though there are soooo many artifacts in DS that I wonder if it would make players overpowered. I personally know some evil Zargon's on this forum would be frustrated at giving the players too much of an advantage. For that reason, I am fond of the one then done nature of the ring and many of the other artifacts. I would like to hear from others on this as well.

After looking over Quest 1, I put the finishing touches on it. I removed some events from the notes (space is limited). Let me know any errors you find or recommendations you might have. I know the above might suggest otherwise, but I appreciate feedback, haha.

Also, in the classic HQ maps inaccessible areas are greyed out. I couldn't find a solution in Heroscribe but couldn't find it. I also tried using Gimp. I couldn't make it look right, any suggestions?



(Edit) someone showed my how to grey out inaccessible areas. I updated the map/link.

[StratosVX]

I was able to successfully darken the areas on this map using the "Dark/Bridge" function. For whatever reason, the new version of Heroscribe use a brown color. Personally, I'm not fond of it. But in this image, I darkened the upper left buildings as well as the odd-shaped upper right one.