PLAYTESTING DATA/SESSION REPORT
(City of Chaos v.1.2)
Ran v.1.2 of my City of Chaos quest last night for my regular weekly HQ group with their current, fairly inexperienced heroes (3 or 4 quests under their belt), using my HeroQuest Extreme rules (included in PDF), but all you Zargon/Morcars out there should note that these are revised "Extreme" Heroes, so this data is not all that relevant where regular HeroQuest rules are used.
There were five Heroes: Wizard (Revised to Body 5, with all 12 elemental spells), Barbarian (revised to immune to command and fear, 1 extra "mighty" Combat Card per quest), Assassin (revised from version on AginsInn to be trained in lockpicking and disarming traps with kits), Psychic Assassin (homebrew Hero), and Ranger (revised from AginsInn version with +1 attack die when using a longbow).
* NOTE: I had to fold the thief type abilities into the assassin, not because he really needed the power boost, but because no one wanted to play a thief, and lockpick/disarm traps is crucial to this quest. Yes, they could have hired a Scout, but I forgot about that, LOL. At least folding the skills into the Assassin made him blow 500 gold on buying the lockpick and trap tool kits. Plus, I didn't want anymore Hero types coming along than I already had. OOPS! Just had a thought: By making a Scout available in the Red Dagger Inn for hire, I could have eliminated this altogether. Will incorporate this into next version.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW, HEROES KEEP OUT!
THE REST OF THIS POST IS FOR ZARGON/MORCAR'S EYES ONLY!
They went to the city but the Chaos warrior at the gate immediately detected their papers as forgeries by rolling a black shield on his Mind roll (explained in the PDF's HQE rules). The two Heroes (Wizard, Ranger) in front of the city gates were dropped into a pit. I quickly realized that this was a bad idea to get the Heroes captured, so provided an escape tunnel from the pit into the sewers, justifying it to myself as having been dug by ghouls looking for victims (ghouls are in the quest, after all). This kin of fancy mental footwork prevented the quest from being derailed right at the start, LOL, which was a massive oversight on my part while writing it. I will correct this in the next version.
The heroes came up from the sewers inside the city over by Cemetery Hill and decided NOT to explore the city as they were, after all, wanted men (prudent, but frustrating for me as the quest author). They headed for the Red Dagger Inn to keep their appointment with Baron Vlako, the Chaos Army defector. Ran the ambush as written, but heroes, having not depleted their strength elsewhere, made short work of my Chaos Warriors. They even put my Doomguard to sleep and finished him off before he could do a thing except say "Ha! You fools fell right into our trap..."
The Heroes then had the brilliant idea to put on the Chaos Warrior armor to disguise themselves (remember, they were wanted men). They then smashed in the faces of the Chaos Warriors to make their corpses unrecognizable, and carried them off to the Governor's Palace, where they knocked and presented themselves as the Chaos Warriors who had just killed the Emperoror's heroes in the ambush the Governor had set.
CHANGE: Added Baron Vlako as the victim on the torture rack in the Governor's Palace. I had made the Heroes think they had EATEN him when they bought food at the Red Dager Inn prior to going in the back for the ambush, LOL. They were relieved to see they weren't cannibals! I will add Baron Vlako to the next version of the quest. Having a rescue victim present forces the Heroes to spend a Healing potion tomake him fit to escape, and gives them something else to worry about in the fight and while escaping the city.
CHANGE: The central room is just too small to run this battle. Switched battlev to Ron Shirt'z Palace tile (the one with the giant winged statue on the raised dais). This eliminated the second set of double doors into the palace and prevented any monsters from escaping to alert the city.
So the Governor welcomes them in, and then the Heroes attack! I had them make a free round of surprise attacks to reward them for their cleverness at gaining entry (plus, thisbattle could be super-deadly for them as relatyively inexperienced Heroes --- too deadly, I was worried). The heroes were very angry with me when they realized that there were so many doomguards, because they had met one as a boss in last week's quest and discovered that doomguards block ALL a hero's skulls by rolling just ONE black shield when they defend!
The Psychic Assassin cast her Possession ability on one of the 4 doomguards closest to the Governor (a Balrog demon). Possession does not work on "bosses" so that was the next best choice. The spell worked, and suddenly, the Heroes had a Doomguard on their side, attacking the Governor! This kept the Governor busy, his Fimir Champions busy, and effectively out of the fight for the entire battle!
NOTE: My version of the Chaos Doomguard has them able to cast Cloud of Chaos and Summon Undead once each.
One doomguard cast Cloud of Chaos, while another cast Summon Undead and hung back as he couldn't get to attack anyone (he did send a skeleton after the possessed doomguard on the dais above). Two doomguards were killed faster than I expected, but my Cloud of Chaos paralyzed the Barbarian and Assassin (the Psychic Assassin and Wizard had stayed out of the room). The Ranger broke the spell and killed the Doomguard who cast it with his bow, freeing the Assassin and Barbarian.
The Barbarian got paralyzed AGAIN when the last unpossessed doomguard cast his Cloud of Chaos and so the Barbarian stayed out of the rest of the fight (the Ranger got paralyzed and stayed out of several rounds before he broke free).
Meanwhile, none of my monsters could kill that one stupid, possessed doomguard. We had previously ruled last quest that while possessed/commanded/charmed, etc., a monster defends with WHITE shields instead of black, as he is temporarily considered a Hero/Henchman. So, much effort was wasted trying to protect the Governor from one of his own "loyal" men! In fact, the possessed doomguard assassinated the Governor (right before he was about to Fire Storm everyone into oblivion and fly off for help through the skylight). The Fimir Champions were quickly destroyed and the Undead. The last doomguard fought valiantly, blocking many blows, but eventually fell to the Heroes combined assault. The Wizard had made good use of his remaining spell cards was down to just 3, with the only "good" attack one left being Genie. He would've used it on the Governor, but decided to cast "Courage" on the possessed doomguard, which was a much better choice, as he became even more invincible with two extra attack dice, LOL.
The Psychic Assassin then ordered the possessed doomguard to open the locked chest (containing the military maps the Heroes came for) after everyone had left the room. I added a firestorm trap that blew him up (he had only 1 Body left), and then doled out treasure.
The Heroes evacuated Baron Vlako, his maps, and made it home to get their reward. I could have made it more difficult to escape, but it was 2:30 am and the Heroes would've gotten creamed. They earned their escape through their clever tactics.
CONCLUSION: There are still a few bugs to work out, but nothing a creative Zargon/Morcar can't make up on the fly. Not sure regular HeroQuest Heroes (Elf, Dwarf, Barbarian, Wizard) would have made it. The Rings of Healing I gave out at the start were only used by two Heroes to resurrect themselves. The rest went unused and were taken back.
If you have read or run this quest, please post your feedback here for me, PM or email me your thoughts. Thanks!
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