u/NervousSleep1488

TL;DR: this quest has a great idea that was badly implemented. Most Zargons just end the quest after Gulthor is killed and the treasure chests recovered. I edited it so that the heroes have two different routes towards the central room, and they are pursued after recovering the chests. Main edits happened on the right quadrant of the map.

This is my take on the above mentioned quest from the game system campaign. I always thought this quest has a fantastic idea that is badly implemented. What is the point of adding a penalty to carrying the treasure chests if nobody is pursuing the heroes, and there is nothing hurrying them up to the staircases? Why even the need to come back to the starting point of the quest if, by the time the chests are recovered, there are no more remaining monster anyway? Most Zargons usually just end the game after collecting the treasure chests from the Dread Warrior Gulthor, which is a shame because the idea of the quest is neat, it is just the implementation that fails.

This lead me to modify it. If you only own the game system, you should be still able to play this version of the quest, even it uses the trap door tiles from Kellar's Keep and the Goblin Archer and the stone doorway from Against the Ogre Hoard. It should be easy replace them with whatever you have available.

The idea is simple. This quest's "happy path" is the one where the heroes find and take the secret tunnel on room "A" towards corridor "A", the tunnel collapses, then they proceed to the central room, recover the treasure chests, and escape the other way around, been delayed a bit by "ambushing monsters" and the heavy door from room D.

But players have agency, so they may as well take a different path, and that takes us to the second route. The heroes do not find the secret tunnel, so they encounter the goblin archer as a first challenge, then find the central room taking the opposite path, and find the secret tunnels from the corridors, making a swift escape that does not unnecessarily take 2 hours. No pursue from Abominations, or a very short one, but at least we save the heroes from the slog of having to walk back a very long corridor, half a dozen of empty rooms, and a last long corridor.

Speaking about corridors, note that I removed the super long corridor from the top right quadrant from the original quest, and instead created a few rooms that lead to the exit, while proposing the heroes two different ways to come back to safety. Every time I played the original quest, this long corridor was the most boring part of the quest, particularly when moving while carrying a chest.

A fun fact about this quest is that the more I was editing it , the more it looked like the original intention of its author was for the heroes to first find the central room, and then run back to unexplored rooms on the left quadrant, but something unexpected made him change their mind at last minute.

Anyway, enjoy it, and let me know what you think of it, and also what are your thoughts on the original quest.

We all know one of the game's problems is how, once heroes max out on the armory's purchases, the game becomes too easy. This issue worsens by the fact that this happens relatively early on in the base game campaign.

Much has been suggested to fix this issue: adding more monsters, buffing existing ones, devising contrived ways ​to destroy heroes equipment with the hopes of always keeping them from maxing out, and a long etc of proposed solutions. In my opinion, for one or another reason, those solutions do not work well, feel unfair to heroes, increase the amount of time it takes to end quests, and more.

So what do I propose? I've been trying something different, and for now, it's working greatly. I think what I'm going to propose is simple but effective, and it doesn't have any of the above issues.

Basically, the way is not in buffing the monsters, but instead nerfing the heroes, particularly I'm referring to their defense stat. You could nerf the attack too, but IMHO the real issue is heroes' high defense on earlier campaigns. No hero should achieve than 3 defend dice during the game system, and probably even Kellars Keep or Return of the witch lord. ​​I could expand on how to achieve this, but mainly, armor-wise, the armory only sells 3 shields . No chain mail. No Bracers. Helmets now protect the heroes against falling off pits and falling rock traps , but do not increase defense. Borin Armor, Wizards Cloak, and other defense-buffing artifacts can instead be found later on on a different campaign, prior to playing something like Frozen Horror.

If you feel you need to compensate for the less diverse armoury and missing artifacts, and thus for the subsequent more limited hero progressions, there is a remedy. 1) Add a simple levelling system, paid by gold. No xp tracking. Every 3 quests, a hero can pay X amount of gold for training and obtain​ a skill card that will make the heroes more resourceful without becoming OP and breaking the game. This is explained here by the user AelfricHQ, who in my opinion is one of the people that understand HQ's mechanics the best: https://youtu.be/0bZbyv6MWEw?si=OgxZbEncXkT4VkYy 2) You can add homebrew weapons for the base game: for example offer a bow before offering the crossbow, a scimitar and a spear before giving the heroes access to the​ longsword, etc.

​​I've tested this, almost halfway through the base game with 2 different groups, and I have to say this has worked fantastically. I'm keeping my heroes on their toes, using at least 2 potions per quest, sometimes praying they find one when they search for treasure because they are about to run out. ​The best part is I dont need to unfairly destroy their stuff, create monsters that come out of nowhere, etc.

The armory limitation is best coupled with a very simple initiative system and a special rule for when a hero opens a door. ​I would like to know if somebody has tried the same or something similar. Also open for comments or questions.