The Beard

[Sotiris]

End of the quest for me. I'm in for the next one!

Let's drink!

It was a hard quest for 1st quest but we didn't have healing spells so it was ok. I wouldn't change the difficulty yet.
I also liked the lever mechanism. Rotating the fireplace with the cupboard and anyone in front of them was brilliant.
I'll use it in my quests too!
How many chaos cards did you draw? 3?

[Gold Bearer]

Okay, I'm out. Biggles gives the beard to Mortis before falling lifeless to the floor.

I also liked the lever mechanism. Rotating the fireplace with the cupboard and anyone in front of them was brilliant.

+1! It would have been a lovely touch if you'd swapped the yellow and green squares around in front of the fireplace when it swiveled, but I'm just being picky.

What was in that room? If it was a treasure chest or weapons rack I'm not going to be amused!

[clmckay]

First time as a Hero for me.

I enjoyed it, feels like a well designed and thought out level.

I'd like to see the completed quest map and notes too.

[Anderas]

The Quest notes are a little bit "I know how i meant it" but apart from that the quest is complete

That Fireplace is copied from Indiana Jones.

That last room is there to be avoided, for example. It contains three orcs equalling the loss of 1 BP if you work good together. Nothing else.


So, the entire thing was there to present Goldbearer something: Would the Questimator prediction come true?

The quest was designed to take 17 Body Points (give or take 4); plus 2 BP Wandering Monsters.
It actually took 14 (12 without wandering orcs). In between it was looking rather dark, but in the end you did everything right, every shot a hit, and you survived the final 6 BP room with the loss of a single BP! (well, and the elf )

From statistics point of view, that last room was the only surprise in the quest. Well done! Apart from that you were quite following the path of the statistic. My personal conclusion: This was the fifth test for the Questimator, and I stay convinced that it works.


I will continue to rate selfmade spells by how many BP they save for the Hero Group.
* Biggles for example added 2 BP to your group.
And I added the explosive mechancis as a 19 BP quest is rather deadly, and normally for more than one hero. You used the explosives once, saving one or two BP for your group. That's a kind of healing potion but one that is fun to use! Plus, with it, you managed to avoid at least one room, saving you another BP more.

[Gold Bearer]

That's not how you do a real experiment. You made a well balanced quest. You could just make a quest and predict roughly how close it will be based on experience. The fact that it happened to fall within your (extremely flexible) prediction is irrelevant. It's the equivalent to claiming that breathing large amounts of carbon emissions will prolong your life, here's my data:

289.jpg

life-expectancy-figure1.png

You also skewed the result by allowing the dwarf to retake a turn and kill Biggles, who probably would have killed Mortis. If you hadn't done that I wouldn't have been able to reraise Biggles and the party would have been one hero down early on. Biggles and especially Mortis performed very well so that would have made a huge difference. I doubt they would have even get close. Pivotal moments like that are something that no amount of analysing before hand can predict, nor should anyone want it to.

I always said it was good as a rough guide, the law of averages will tend to allow for self-correction. It's just that there's a lot that it doesn't take into account. Some spells like wall of stone and cloak of shadows for example can indirectly save the loss of BP and attacking spells can do it by killing stuff. There's also nothing to reflect the equipment the heroes have and that makes a huge difference.

That was a very nice quest, a couple of new and creative elements and tough but not overly hard fights.


I think the pirate is very overpowered. I've always said that the common house rule of letting the barbarian add one dice to any melee weapon really overpowers him and this is even worse. If you compare the pirate to a standard barbarian the pirate has one less BP which is overcompensated for by a rule that any potion heals 1BP and he attaks with four dice as standard. It isn't like a spell, it's every attack! He definitely needs equipment restrictions to compensate. I don't think he should be able to use any kind of armour, except maybe chainmail. When have you ever seen an armoured pirate anyway?

[Anderas]

Ok. I won't discuss that here in detail.

Just so much: I could make it more reliable but then it would hardly resemble Heroquest, like removing the treasure deck and such things, and i think it would make no fun then. Abilities and equipment of Heroes known beforehand are taken into account for in the quest design. Abilities diced during the quest I am allergic against.

You'll receive a detailed answer per PN later the day.

[Gold Bearer]

Yea, you could make it work by removing the random elements, but like you said, no fun. It's the randomness that makes it interesting and worth playing, which is why I love diced skills.

My point was always that the only way to really make something like this work is to destroy the game because you shouldn't be able to predict exactly how it go.

Why don't you reply in your questimator topic? I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Sotiris]

I think the pirate is very overpowered. I've always said that the common house rule of letting the barbarian add one dice to any melee weapon really overpowers him and this is even worse. If you compare the pirate to a standard barbarian the pirate has one less BP which is overcompensated for by a rule that any potion heals 1BP and he attaks with four dice as standard. It isn't like a spell, it's every attack! He definitely needs equipment restrictions to compensate. I don't think he should be able to use any kind of armour, except maybe chainmail. When have you ever seen an armoured pirate anyway?

Maybe i'll let him roll 1 die when drinking a potion and make it 50% to heal 1 B.P.
We can try it from now if Anderas agrees, i didn't use that skill yet anyway.

About restrictions i think he is ok. My only fault is that i forgot to mention about Shields. He may use a shield only when has not attacked in the same turn (because he is a one-handed Pirate!). So no bows, no battle axe, no plate mail (borin's). A full equipped Barbarian would have 3 range, 4 melee and 5 defense. The Pirate has no range (unless he throws gold), 1 less melee (or equal if in an unsearched room) and 1 less defense (or equal if hadn't attack). Isn't he balanced? (with the new potion rule)

Here's the topic for my heroes viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2696&start=10 which i play'em with my group.
Any suggestion about the Pirate or anyone else will be appreciated. They are not all playtested and i would like to anticipate issues like this.

[Gold Bearer]

NOW I like him!

[Anderas]

I assumed all the time that we play your one-handed pirate from the other thread.

We didn't try the BP Stuff until now. I think it is strong, but in a good game the potions shouldn't pile to the roof.