[Quest Pack] [6 Quests] - Mound of the Beastmen

[Pan]

Lot of posts since my last visit... Will try to answer all the questions.

I finally got round to finishing this quest. The Halls are very interesting and were a real delay to my Heroes, which is bad for them as I use Evil Wizard Cards, and the longer they take the more EW cards are drawn. In terms of BP's it wasn't a huge drain. It seemed I triggered a ghost every turn, but with the four Heroes having MP's of 7/4/4/3, it only resulted in a couple of lost BP's. The three henchmen that were picked up previously (2 Scouts and a Crossbowman) had little to no chance of getting through this quest alive. With only 2BP/MP's they all died. At least I will get a couple more in the next quest. The Halls of the Blind will be alot more interesting when I play this with my brother. They lost a little bit of the atmosphere playing solo.

Vivigor is very powerful, but he has no bodyguard, although I spawned an Elite Skeleton to help him, and Chaos Energy gave him a BP back during the battle. He got to play his Summon 2 Chaos Hounds, Chain Lightning and Shield of Thorns (it inficted 1BP) before he succumbed. My Wizard hit him with a Ball of Flame, which wasn't defended with the 2d6. Should I have allowed him an extra 2d6 for the Shield of Thorns?

I am glad you liked this quest. I had a lot of fun making it, and I tried to create some original room to surprise the players. Well... It is not designed for US rules, so special monsters could seem a little bit weaker than intended. I think you have to adjust their BP to make them be a challenge. I am not a pro player of US rules, so, sadly, I cannot help you.

When should your Quest Pack be played? (I imagine after the original 14 Quests.)

No, you can play my questpack with brand new heroes. You don't need to have ever complete one single quest before you can start my pack. The questpack is designed for heroes who start "nude" in the first quest, as they lost all of their equippement in the embush.

By the way, can a tomb trap be disarmed (perhaps sealed)?

Yes, but not with the usual way. You can "disarm" it by rolling both shield with a combat dice.

Also, I noticed that Quest 2 calls for 8 Coffin Tiles (tombs), but the tile download sheet only contains 4. That means a relatively expensive second printing of a color page will be needed. With some rearranging, it should be possible to fit the other 4 Coffin Tiles on pages 1 and 3. Of course, most will already have spare Coffin Tiles from RotWL.

Yes, I should have put more of that in the print sheet. But as you said, you can find some tombs in the Witch lord expansion. I have no doubt most of the people here get it .

[Pan]

I have some feedback and questions about your Quests:

Quest 2: Does the evil Wisp, which can't be attacked and lacks a figure, prevent searches as a monster? (I guess yes.)
E) The Compendium states: "This door is obviously bolted and will not budge...." while Note E states: "...the door remains closed and no interaction through the door is possible..." However, spell casting Heroes often save Genie and Pass Through Rock spells for emergencies. It seems either spell, which are meant to work around impassable doors, could thwart this barrier and gain the Heroes access, even before the sentry is dispatched. I'd say more is needed, such as: "Any spell or artifact used to gain access to the room fails due to the magics within."
Quest 3: Published expansions include useful, in-game information about room tiles in the pertaining Quest Notes. As you've done a lot to emulate their formatting, I'd say the location with the Runic Room Tile could use is own note rather than needing a check of the introductory pages. It is possible to carve out enough page space with some reduction of text (let me know if you want my suggestions), but this is primarily my advice/opinion for any future Quest Packs.
E) While this entry works fine in conjunction with the Compendium, it fails to mention Vivigor's escape. If only the Quests are played (without the Compendium) the shaman is simply killed. The Parchment Text of the following Quest, "The vile Vivigor has managed to escape!..." would then match poorly. A fix could be to add to this note: "When defeated, he escapes by a hidden exit and can't be followed." This wouldn't help with making space for a Runic Room note, unfortunately. This is again guidance for future Quest Packs.
Quest 4: E) This note should mention the first Hero to search for treasure finds the Black Stone on Vivigor's body. Without the Compendium, there is no other way to make this crucial objective known.
Quest 5: As with Quest 3, I feel the Notes would benefit from entries for the Pit and Runic Rooms. You'd probably need 5 lines or more to pull it off. To do it, I'd number the doors and locks 1-3 and combine notes B-D as one entry. Entry F could also be shortened.
H) I'd change "Any Hero..." > The first Hero... because "Any" could be understood as more than one.
Quest 6: A) Without the Compendium, either the Parchment Text or this entry needs to explain how Sir Vardion takes possession of the Black Stone.
G) Sir Vardion is encountered both here and in room A, but with different stats. The Compendium makes it clear he is separated and then corrupted, but some kind of explanation is needed here if only the Quests are played. (Notes D and E could be combined to make the space.)

A lot of the comments are only relevant if the Compendium isn't used, but who would want to do that? Those story interludes make your Quests more immersive, unique, and in interesting. Rather than adding in all of the fixes, I'd say it would probably be best to make the Compendium necessary for play simpler to leave things as they are. Excellent work!

It is always a great pleasure to see some players so involved in a project to make it better. It give a real motivation to follow on creating and trying to make things even better.

So yes... My questpack was designed at the beginning to be played only with the compendium. I realized after it could be a breaker for those who don't like role play, and just want to go fast trough the dungeons, slaying goats and looting craps. But I didn't put too much effort to make the story understantable without the compendium just because... if some players don't want to use the compendium, they don't care much about the story. To my mind, it is then not a problem if they don't know they take back the black stone on Vivigor's body, for example. But well, to make all the things better, I should have make some importants parts of the story to appears in the classic quest story. I tried in some ways, but as you see, it is very difficult to condensate all the writings in this little space. And the priority is to the gameplay paragraph, so the quest is playable and easely understandable, gameplay side. That's why I put the room tiles outside the quest notes, always to gain space, even if I agree with you 100%, it would have been better to have them in the quest note. But don't worry, I found a solution for my next questpack .

Pan, I am completely stunned by the amount of professional production work that has gone into this thing. I hope you're a graphic designer, otherwise you're depriving the graphics world of a true talent!

Having said that, I agree that "Barrow" has a more labyrinthine and treasure-hoardy connotation than "mound," which has been discussed. Now I'm torn between referring to it as Barrow of the Beastmen or Barrow of the Beastlord, which I think has a nice parallel to Return of the Witch Lord. No disrespect to the truly talented designer! Thanks to all involved.

Thank you very much for your comment ! And yes I am a professional user interface designer in the video game industry, it helps a lot in this kind of project !

Yes the barrow thing returns this and there, I am wondering if I should edit the pack with that (I should have listened to Knightkrawler since the beginning )...........

[thequester]

Throwing in my vote for this utterly fantastic production! (a vote that wasn't even asked for... sorry)
I'd vote for "Barrow of the Beastmen"
"Barrow" sounds totally awesome, and personally I think "Beastlord" is a little too close to the "Witch Lord"... it's OK with some variation to me...

[The Admiral]

By the way, can a tomb trap be disarmed (perhaps sealed)?

Yes, but not with the usual way. You can "disarm" it by rolling both shield with a combat dice.

in my opinion I see these as hazards. They are not traditional traps that have been set, but just dormant undead that noisy Heroes could awaken. So there is no mechanism to disarm in order to render them inert, and any fiddling with the tomb is just going to risk waking its evil inhabitant

[Pan]

By the way, can a tomb trap be disarmed (perhaps sealed)?

Yes, but not with the usual way. You can "disarm" it by rolling both shield with a combat dice.

in my opinion I see these as hazards. They are not traditional traps that have been set, but just dormant undead that noisy Heroes could awaken. So there is no mechanism to disarm in order to render them inert, and any fiddling with the tomb is just going to risk waking its evil inhabitant

You have very well resumed my use of " " for "disarm"

[The Admiral]

Throwing in my vote for this utterly fantastic production! (a vote that wasn't even asked for... sorry)
I'd vote for "Barrow of the Beastmen"
"Barrow" sounds totally awesome, and personally I think "Beastlord" is a little too close to the "Witch Lord"... it's OK with some variation to me...

I Certainly prefer 'Barrow' to 'Mound', but what about 'Kurgan'? This is another word for Barrow.

[The Admiral]

Looking at this thread as I am hoping to resume my solo play of this tomorrow. And on the subject of traps, what happens when a Hero fails to disarm a Rune Trap? It seems a bit odd that they then get a 1 in 3 chance of disarming it again.

Personally, I would either have the Trap as not capable of being discovered e.g.Wandering Monster Trap, It is magic after all, or, if the trap disarming attempt fails, them 1-3 = blowback and 4-6 = explosion.

[The Admiral]

Just seeing if I can post a picture.
Vordarth is about to enter, and get stung by a Rune trap, but if it explodes all three Beastmen will get it as well!

[The Admiral]

That actually raises a couple of questions on Rune traps:
1) I presume the Hero is blown back in the direction from which he entered the trap space?
2) Is the 2 square distance counted diagonally or as you would move i.e. in the picture in my previous post would the Beastman nearest to the bookcase be caught in the blast?

[Pan]

That actually raises a couple of questions on Rune traps:
1) I presume the Hero is blown back in the direction from which he entered the trap space?
2) Is the 2 square distance counted diagonally or as you would move i.e. in the picture in my previous post would the Beastman nearest to the bookcase be caught in the blast?

1) Yes, absolutly
2) Yes, diagonals are counted. Here is a quick view of the rune trap area of effect :



Just to be clear on this trap :
- it works like a pit trap : it is not visible unless it is discovered. When it is discovered or when a player trigger it, you can put the rune trap tile on the board.
- it can not be disarmed the normal way
- the only way to disarm it is to roll a 3 or 4 with a die
- when triggered, you have to roll a die and refer to the manual to see the effect on you.