Tuesday Night HeroQuest!

[Gold Bearer]

Do you seek the glory of adventuring but aren't entirely thrilled by the prospect of being killed on the job?
Now there's an answer! Join the fleers. Group motto: No foe is to swift to run away from if you start at a great enough distance!
Magicians with Swift Wind particularly welcome.
Ask at the local inn for details.

[lucasdp]

Do you seek the glory of adventuring but aren't entirely thrilled by the prospect of being killed on the job?
Now there's an answer! Join the fleers. Group motto: No foe is to swift to run away from if you start at a great enough distance!
Magicians with Swift Wind particularly welcome.
Ask at the local inn for details.

Exactly! You see what I have to deal with here? My friends get so attached to their characters that they'd rather lose the quest than risk dying!

[slev]

That was YEARS ago!

If I recall, the final note section didn't exist, we had to "create" the Deathmaster. We also rounded out some bits of the dungeon, but I'm lost as to speifics.

[The Admiral]

I had a look at the quest on BGG. It seems you had to come up with something for Notes C and D which are on the map, but have no corresponding text. This is quite a powerful quest. That room with the fireplace is fiendish! Pit trap in the doorway, and then 2 fimirs and 6 orcs that then comeback as undead!

[lucasdp]

In addition to Gizzard and Lady Darwin getting engaged (viewtopic.php?f=143&t=3368) we've also played the first two quests from Return of the Witch Lord since the last time I updated.

The Gate of Doom was fun, with the alarm at the beginning which releases four rooms of monsters on the heroes at once. Pretty basic exploring after the initial ambush, but still a fun quest
The Cold Halls was pretty good, but the revolving room mechanic sure ate a lot of time. My heroes don't like getting split up, so there was a lot of going back into the room and rolling for a different door if they didn't like the first outcome. Additionally, they completely missed searching for secret doors in the hallway where the necessary secret door is, so they found and fought all four of the Spirit Riders before doubling back to find it. One of the Spirit Riders actually took out Miranda the Elf (the longest-surviving hero at our table) but she had an Elixir of Life, so she was ok once someone took out the Spirit Rider and moved to her character to feed it to her. I also switched up the "sparkling mist" in room D; since my heroes made it through the original questbook without getting either Borin's Armor or the Orc's Bane, I changed it so the mist will destroy a random artifact from any hero entering the room. Gizzard lost his Wizard's Cloak, and Miranda lost her Spell Ring. They weren't happy about it, either.

I've maintained that undead defend on white shields, and it seems to have helped make this questpack more challenging than some comments on this forum lead me to believe it would have been without modification. I've also ordered a set of the blue dice, so I can just say, "undead roll blue" and still look for the walruses!
We seem to be taking less pictures lately, so I don't have any good ones to go with this update. Anyway, The Silent Passages is up next. Looking forward to using the Death Mist to mess with my heroes! I hope they don't think to use the Spirit Blade on it too soon!

[knightkrawler]

We seem to be taking less pictures lately, so I don't have any good ones to go with this update.

Doesn't matter much. Good read, keep 'em coming.
These batreps and playtesting reports are so useful to me cause they save me a lot of trouble and they are just fun to read, too. I'll keep reading.

[Anderas]

Thanks for this! I like your reports a lot. Especially for my four color quest book they have been invaluable but even now I like to read them.

[lucasdp]

We played The Silent Passages last night. I had fun with the Death Mist, but overall this quest was pretty easy.
I could tell when planning this quest that there was not much going on besides the Death Mist, and I was nervous that Miranda the Elf would attack the Death Mist early on with the Spirit Blade, but thankfully that never happened. When the Mist appeared, they asked if they could attack it, and I replied, "You can try." Miranda had hired a Swordsman Mercenary; she had him attack the Mist. Whoosh! His sword went right through the greenish fog without any effect. Gizzard the Wizard attempted a fire spell on the Mist; no effect.
My group is crafty, though. They hid in one of the safe rooms and sacrificed a Mercenary to lead the Mist back to the start of the quest, then made a break for the bottom hallway. The dead-end at the two 2x3 rooms bought me enough time to get the Death Mist caught up to my heroes, and I managed to shave a couple more body points off Vrag the Barbarian before they all escaped through the secret door.

As mentioned, this is not the most dificult quest, and would have been especially boring if they had defeated the Mist early on. But the way it played out was fun, even if the Heroes were never in major peril (I don't think anyone fell below 3 BP). The Heroes had a hell of a time trying to figure out the mechanic of the Mist and what they assumed was actually way more complicated. There was one turn where I forgot to move the Mist and that gave them all these crazy ideas about how and when it moves; when really, Zargon just had a brain fart.

The Halls of Vision is up next. I'm looking forward to the puzzle aspect of that one, and I hope the Heroes enjoy it. I shuffled the Mage of the Mirror treasure cards into our treasure deck some time ago, when my girlfriend (Miranda the Elf) and I ran a couple of the solo Elf quests. Last night, Vrag the Barbarian drew the Elven Cloak of Passage and gave it to Miranda, of course. It will be interesting to see if the cloak is used to find the Keys of Agrain in the Halls of Vision.

[The Admiral]

When the Mist appeared, they asked if they could attack it, and I replied, "You can try."

I've lost count of the number of times that conversation has occurred! Death mist, Stone Gargoyles, swirling vortex, etc!

[knightkrawler]

Yeah, "You can try" is probably the most uttered sentence when playing HQ. It never fails to confuse or intimidate, too.