Q12 Night and a Fire by Anderas

[Daedalus]

Some spells will be especially useful in a stealth Quest but may need to be addressed. A monster that is affected by Sleep or Tempest shouldn't bump up the alarm level. Perhaps change "living monsters" > active monsters.

A found spell scroll could also be a good idea. Veil of Mist or Pass Through Rock [or Dust of Disappearance-edit] could be really useful combined with fireworks or some other baked-in distraction. Notes could provide special objects with their distractive uses if you want and can fit more stealth options into your Quest.

[Anderas]

Sleep and tempest may help;
fire spells again, may LIGHT some area.
Wall of Ice/Stone/Fire might stop a sentry from coming, but is it suspicious?

The quest notes are already full if we talk about one single page. That was why I did not do any McGyver stuff in the first place.

If this quest turns out to be a lot of fun and we want one or two more of this kind elsewhere in the quest pack, we might invest in a page of rules in the beginning; to have those gadgets and rules in place.


The first try was already a loss for the heroes in the first round. Turns out, in quest design I put the top three sentries in a way that each single one of them is acutely threatening the heroes when they enter the quest. So I decided that the barbarian would do the Leroy Jenkins and uncover one of the sentinels, to finish them off quickly.

The Barbarian storms forward. He uncovers a sentry. I have a 4-Dice-Group at work here, so i put one Chaos Dwarf and two fimir Beastmen (don't have beastman models as of yet). He attacks a chaos dwarf but makes no damage.
Unfortunately the other heroes were not fast enough to support him. The only one who was quick enough was the elf, but he dealt no damage just like the barbarian.
With three Monsters alive Morcar got three more alarm markers and the cover is blown. The heroes decide to call it a day and try again later.

The game table


Three alarm markers for Morcar. End of Quest, retry in 5 minutes.

[Maurice76]

Anderas, I like your doors! Crafted those yourself? If so, how did you do them?

[Anderas]

Naah, I bought them in the famous Dungeon Kickstarter of Zealot Miniatures.

You can still buy them in Thantos' Web Shop.

The second test game is over. Either I overestimated my heroes, or I roll super bad today; or I underestimated the Chaos Dwarfs!


The heroes used a different tactic this time.


Heroes could move every Sentry safe for one. They have a safe corner now but still the need to search every room.
The Barbarian decides it is safe to search the first room and discovers a wandering monster. The combined help of his friends manages to kill it.
Now the luck is changing. Morcar rolls good for the first two sentries. One gets converted directly and the other one is threateningly nearby.


For the convert, Morcar gets an alarm marker more and has three now.


He moves the chaos dwarf to attack my female dwarf. During the heroe's turn, the combined force of all heroes is sufficient to kill the chaos dwarf. But the two other monsters survive and Morcar gets two new tokens so he has 5 now. The cover is blown.
As I calculated the quest, I know there is no way to survive the combined force of all sentries coming at the same time. So I stop here.

I think I will retry the quest with the 3-dice-difficulty now --> one Sentry = 1 Chaos Dwarf and 1 Beast Man.

[Maurice76]

Maybe you should change it to one level of alarm for each round there are active monsters on the board?

[Anderas]

This time, I played it relatively problem free.
Well.

The wandering monster "Chaos Dwarf" is quite a biggie. Everytime I need the complete group to kill him - mind, my group has 4-dice-equipment, so they are not weak at all!
Either I replace him by a Beast Man, which is a step down, or even by an Orc, which is two steps down.

But yes you are right, one alarm per Monster is instant-blow-up-in-your-face. That was the idea! The heroes should be really frightened to get in the way of a sentry. Now, it played just bad.
So just one alarm if monsters are there should be better. I try that next.
Alternatively, alarm 3 for start, but sentries move only 3 squares and see 3 squares, and then with "instant blow". I will try that, too.

I need also to change the top left sentry position. If you imagine moving that one 4 squares in morcar's preferred direction, then you can see that the west hallway, the north hallway, the red room and the blue room are well-guarded. So the heroes have exacly one choice for movement in the first turn.
That, or you go full out gung-ho and try to kill this sentry quick.

Finally, in the no-alarm-state it was too easy to move some sentries completely out of the way. Maybe if they meet each other, there is an alarm increase?

See for yourself. The heroes thought "if we move the sentinels in groups, they are less dangerous, also if the group is far out of the way."
Then, the middle sentries rolled 1 and 2, two times in a row; and all of a sudden the board was becoming very small again for the heroes.




Finally, the south sentry discovered them. Again, two models, the entire group and the djinn spell were needed to finish them off quick enough.



In the end, the dwarf could claim the price. Currently I am heading back to the exit.


After having killed three sentries without raising alarm, I was deliberately getting careless and attracted the rest. It was not so much of a struggle anymore.
So you really have to stay under cover only for the one or two first sentries, then it plays quite easy.

I would like, if it is possible, that you need to stay hidden a little bit longer... but ok. That was for the 3-dice-monsters with the 4-dice-heroes.

[Anderas]

Yay I think that's it. It works now.

Results:
I played again, with my 4-Dice-Group, but this time I replaced each sentinel with one Chaos Dwarf and two Beastman, as it is appropriate for a 4-Dice-Group.
I started with 3 Alert markers.
Each sentinel could move 3 squares. Line of sight was restricted to 3 squares. Morcar could get only one alert marker for living monsters, also if there was more than one monster alife.
Tempest and Sleep were able to prevent alert.

This works. I updated the first posting accordingly.

Very short Battle report:
The group used Maurice' exploit to kill one sentinel group (it took two rounds, but they used tempest).
Later they were discovered by another sentinel group (+1 alert) and not able quiet them all fast enough (+1 alert) which lead to another sentinel coming in +1 alert: Full alert.
They were coming in like in karate films: The first two groups were nicely one after the other. My group used all potions and magic trickery there was, and survived... just.

Had they "quieted" this second sentinel, i imagine it would have been easier.

I let even some markers on the game board to mark the dead monsters, just to see if there would maybe come something from it, but it didn't make a difference.

[Daedalus]

It would help if a spellcaster had an extra Tempest or Sleep in a spell ring. That artifact could be given in a previous Quest. Starting at alarm level 2 would also help bring about a more likely win.

Just thought of another McGgyver: disguises.

[Anderas]

A Tempest potion that you can use without action. Call it... chloroform bomb...

Sleeping water.
You may throw this bottle of green liquid at a model. The target and any model in adjacent squares miss their next turn.

Smoke Bomb
Throw this bottle of white smokey liquid at a model. The target misses their next turn.

The drama was that there still was a tempest spell scroll in the group, but it was in the elf's hand and that guy preferred attacking.
The wizard tried to sleep the beast man, but with two mind points, the beast man just passed the mind test as if nothing happened.
Love dramatic moments.

So a glass bomb you could use with potion rules could have saved the day. Also, that "tempest potion" would be quite strong in normal games so they really need to receive it directly in the quest before this one and then it needs disappearing forever.

Ii also like the first variant more, as it might have side effects on the group.

[TMU]

From what I gathered, I like it a lot. The feeling of danger doesn't leave the heroes at any point of the quest. Also you did some good playtesting which seems to have landed to a foolproof solution for this quest. If the party is not unlucky