Knights of the Daystorm - Design Thread - 100% complete

[Velenne]

This project is complete. Please direct new questions and comments to the release thread HERE (http://heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=29617).

CAPTAIN'S LOG STARDATE 1/22: The enigmatic 'truth' has placed this thread on the front page of Scapers! I'm very excited! I'd like to welcome all you folks visiting this thread from the link provided. Below is a brief overview of what this campaign entails. Relevant links are also below. Please note that this project is unfinished and needs you to get us the rest of the way home! If you get a chance to play through any or all of KotDS, please let me know what you think and I can make improvements accordingly.

Here's a placeholder for what I'm planning. It will also serve to motivate me to test and complete it and provide regular updates.
There are 5 dungeons in this campaign.
It's being designed to work with 2, 3, and/or 4 players during any stage.
There's an over-arcing story heavily inspired by Final Fantasy I. Each dungeon consists of 4-5 rooms/encounters with a Guardian fight at the end.
The party will face and be composed of a variety of heroes and monsters. You'll have the chance along the way to convert a few as well.
Variability will be important. You can do the 4 main dungeons in any order you choose.
The maps/dungeons will also be epic in scope. You'll need about 2 of every expansion to do the whole thing, but as is the beauty of Heroscape, you can always swap out terrain you don't have and use the rules anyway!The process has begun! Check out the drafts below. I'll make regular updates and revisions as we go.

Download these first! You'll need them to play.
Game Guide (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1954) in PDF format.
Player's Campaign Status Tracker (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1967)


Water Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1955)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//water%20dungeon_E5m.jpg


Fire Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1957) (Runa's Riddles HERE (http://heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?p=985232#post985232))
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//fire%20dungeon_XOR.jpg


Air Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1964)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//air%20dungeon_G5z.jpg (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1966)


Earth Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1966)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//earth%20dungeon_jT3.jpg


Sanctuary (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1971)
http://www.heroscapers.com/downloads//sanctuary_4Mp.jpg

[Vilsara]

This seems like a fun epic game, and I'm glad you've taken the placeholder this early, since I've been eager to try out an epic campaign- or at least see one- since DnD was first revealed.

Good luck with the story, first off. I'm sure that's going to a huge part of the campaign, but it'll probably be hard to nail. As a young writer, I'll be eager to see how you tie this in to the game (or, well, copiously edit your spelling and grammar ;)).

The converting idea also sounds intruiging; I feel most eager to see how you pull that off. Sounds like you're taking a bit of inspiration from Fire Emblem.

I'll be watching this space, and probably be giving out quite a bit of +rep.

[Velenne]

Thanks for the kindness, Vilsara! I look forward to your feedback!

Here's a bit more of what I have so far. I think the story in particular can be tightened up.

Story
Player represents a party of Heroes, the Knights of the Daystorm, who originate on Earth and are thus comprised entirely of humans.
Four 'Keys' bound to the elements have been hidden across space and time by ???? and are protected by eternal Guardians.
The player chooses the order in which to find the keys, and thus also determines which Heroes he/she will have access to in each subsequent dungeon.
For example, the Earth Key might be on Feylund. After completing that dungeon, the player will be able to draft from Feylund heroes as well as Earths'.
After gathering all 4 Keys, the player uses them (thus losing them) to gain access to a final dungeon.
General Gameplay
Player begins with a drafted army of up to 550 points, max 6 Heroes, all from Earth. DM uses the dungeon's prescribed bestiary.
If the DM manages an Total Party Kill (TPK) in the first dungeon, the player may restart with an entirely different party. If the DM manages a TPK in any subsequent dungeon, the previous Keys are lost and the adventure is over and evil triumphs. Player and DM switch roles.
If a player's character (PC) dies in a dungeon, it may never be reused and must be replaced from the allowed pool of Heroes.
A player may not drop a party member to replace with another. Knighthood is a mantle taken until death. Feeding a Knight to an angry troll to make room for another candidate is perfectly acceptible. (No one ever said Knights were good...)
Treasure is carried over from one dungeon to the next, however bonuses to a given stat do not stack.
Each dungeon will have scalable encounters to become more difficult as the player's party becomes more powerful.
Dungeons
Fire Dungeon
Fire Key - grants an AoE Special Attack to the bearer
Valhalla
Lava/Rock terrain
Boss fight = Sujoah
Earth Dungeon
Earth Key - grants 1 round of invulnerability/dungeon
Toril
Swamp/Underdark terrain
Boss fight = Othkurik
Water Dungeon
Water Key - slither, disengage 7?
Feylund
Ice,sand/water terrain
Boss fight = Cyprien
Air Dungeon
Air Key - Flight
Alpha Prime
Castle/Road terrain
Boss fight = Q10
Final Dungeon (Name??)
Lose all keys
Icaria
Terrain = boss' original terrain
All bosses back-to-back followed by battle with Charos?. Beyond just the battles, I want to include multiple scenario challenges in each dungeon. So it won't always be about having a party with the best stats, but maybe the best synergy or a variety of useful abilities. Also, I'd like to balance the rewards from each dungeon with the usefulness of being able to draft Heroes from that world after you beat it. Finally, the scaling issue is going to have to be very tightly controlled to allow for more powerful parties without crushing them.

[Velenne]

Working list of draftable heroes:


Major X17
Zetacron



Agent Carr
Agent Skahen
Alastair Macdirk
Brave Arrow
Crixus
Deadeye Dan
Elgrim
Finn
Guilty McCreech
Hatamoto Taro
Isamu
James Murphy
Johnny "Shotgun" Sullivan
Kaemon Awa
Kumiko
Marcus Decimus Gallus
Master Win Chiu Woo
Moriko
Otonashi
Parmenio
Retiarius
Sgt. Drake (RotV)
Shiori
Sir Denrick
Sir Gilbert
Sir Hawthorne
Thorgrim
Valguard



Acolarh
Arkmer
Brunak
Chardris
Emirroon
Gurei-Oni
Jorhdawn
Khosumet
Kyntela Gwyn
Migol Ironwill
Morsbane
Syvarris




Ana Karithon
Darrak Ambershard
Erevan Sunshadow
Tandros Kreel



Atlaga
Concan
Empress Kiova
Kelda
Raelin (SotM)
Saylind

So you start with a big list of 28 human and can eventually expand that to another 24 for 52 total options. That should help guarantee no game plays the same twice.

[Velenne]

Custom Treasure Glyphs and Traps. I plan on using very simple d20-based treasure and trap tables.


Shield of Arrow Deflection: +2 Defense vs. non-adjacent normal attacks

Seeking Ammunition: Units defending against non-adjacent normal attacks from the owner cannot negate the attack using any special power on an Army Card or glyph.

Amulet of Health: Grants 2 extra Life to the owner .

Boots of Haste: +2 Move to the owner. Further, the owner may move an additional 2 spaces if the owner does not attack this turn.

Vorpal Sword: When making a normal, adjacent attack, if the owner rolls a skull on every dice, the defending figure receives a wound for every skull and cannot roll any defense dice.

Ring of Protection +2: +2 Defense

Eyes of the Eagle: +1 to Range if the owner already has a Range greater than 1.

Potion of Cure Light Wounds: After moving and instead of attacking, discard the Potion of Cure Light Wounds and remove 2 wounds from the owner.

Scroll of Teleport: (Wizard only) Before moving and instead of attacking, discard the Scroll of Teleport and choose an empty space up to 8 clear-sight spaces away from the owner. Move the owner and up to two adjacent friendly figures to that space. Place any chosen teleported figure(s) adjacent to the owner. If the owner and any chosen figures are engaged when they start to teleport, they do not take leaving engagement attacks.

Scroll of Deep Slumber: (Wizard only) After moving and instead of attacking, discard the Scroll of Deep Slumber and choose a Common figure within 5 clear sight spaces. Roll a d20. If you roll a 10 or higher, remove all Order Markers from that figure's card.

Luckstone: When the owner rolls a d20, add 1 to whatever number is rolled.

[Velenne]

The Fire Key
Valhalla

5 Rooms, 3 Treasures

Room 1 - Long, narrow passage flanked by raised lava pits. Each holds an Obsidian Guard. There are 2-3 (depending on how many Keys the Knights have) squads in total.

Room 2 - A wide room of lava rock and a central lava pit. There are only 4 safe places to stand. Players can toggle a bridge to a central island and claim a treasure there, but if the enemy can get them off the switch, anyone on the bridge falls into the lava. The room is guarded by 2 squads of Minions (and Taelord in the advanced version).

Room 3 - The party begins in a small, flat area with 3 rising sides. One or more steam vents can potentially erupt at the end of each round, doing serious damage to those nearby. If the party can disable all 4 vents, they discover a treasure. 2-3 squads of Granite Guardians watch this room.

Room 4 - Runa's Riddle. Runa carries a Luckstone, making her power even more frightening in this room. She is able to fly from one perch to another, denying melee attacks. If the Knights can solve two of her riddles, she will let them pass. One error, and they must face the curse of her helm.

Room 5 - Lava rock mixes with jungle trees as Sujoah and his spiders try to stop the Knights from claiming their prize.

Fire Key Special Attack
Range 7. Attack 3 + Special
Choose a figure to attack. Any figures adjacent to the chosen figure are also affected by the Fire Key Special Attack. Add 1 to owner's attack dice for every additional Key owned by the party. Roll attack dice once for all affected figures. Each affected figure rolls defense dice separately. Owner cannot be affected by his or her own Fire Key Special Attack.

(( This entry and those that will follow are rough outlines which I'll use when creating the dungeons. I just wanted to share with you and open the process up to your feedback. ))

[Velenne]

(Hmm... I seem to have lost my water dungeon post...that makes me sad...guess I'll have to retype it...)

The Water Key
Feylund

4 Rooms, 2 Treasures, Dungeon is in a spiral shape with the adventurers starting on the outside

Room 1 - Funnel-shaped. Single, double, and triple-hex grass tiles are separated by water tiles. Marcu and 2-3 squads of Wolves of Badru guard this room. Marcu has a Ring of Protection +2. If his Hatred causes him to change sides, he joins the party for the rest of this Room and will not betray them. He will also give them his ring.

Room 2 - A long, narrow chamber of ice and snow is guarded by Brunak and Iskra Esenwein. Brunak's heat quickly melts the snow around him, obscuring him in a shroud of steam that protects him against ranged attacks.

Room 3 - A curving room of 6, 7-hex grass tiles. Jotun and his ogre ally Gurei-Oni seem unconcerned by the rising waters here. Indeed, Brunak's presence in the room above has caused this room to begin flooding. At the end of each round, the DM removes the trailing 7-hex piece, causing any figures still on that piece to drown.

Room 4 - The Water Key awaits at the top of this twisting spire, but so do Cyprien and his lady Sonya Esenwein. This landscape here is lush but trecherous, a perfect combination for Cyprien's tactics. Sonya carries with her an Amulet of Health.

The Water Key - the owner is able to assume a living water form at will, granting the following abilities.
Water Step - The owner does not have to stop their movement when entering water spaces. Stepping onto a water space does not count against the owner's movement.
Water Evasion - If the owner does not attack this turn, he or she is not attacked when leaving engagements.

[Velenne]

The Air Key
Alpha Prime

5 Room, 3 Treasures, Tech theme, this dungeon goes UP!

Room 1 - Actually composed of 4 smaller rooms, the party must stand on 4 pressure plates (one in each room) simultaneously to open the gate to the inner courtyard. Hindering them along the way are squads of Blastatrons and Gladiatrons. Figures use teleport pads to move from room to room.

Room 2 - Deathwalker 9000, Zettian Guards, and rats and rats and rats wait at the end of the courtyard. Players can take cover in a few places here but that may not stop the mighty robot from attacking its own Deathreavers to get at them. They may also find Seeking Ammunition in this room.

Room 3 - Turbolifts provide the means by which the party will assault this tower and the Omnicron Snipers in its turrets. A Shield of Arrow Deflection found near the base of the structure may help with the ascent.

Room 4 - A pack of Deathstalkers feed on scrap metal thrown into this pit. A clever party may be able to lure some of the predators over a duct and drop them using the lever provided. Or, they could jump down and try to find the Boots of Haste buried beneath the rubble.

Room 5 - Major Q10 has been reprogrammed to attack anyone coming into this chamber to claim the Air Key. However, he can be fixed but only if no move is made to attack him. His moving platform can both surprise and protect from certain vantage points while the party tries to gain access to his memory. If successful, Major Q10 can be recruited into the party.

The Air Key - the owner is able to make himself lighter than air, gaining the following abilities
Flying - When counting spaces for owner's movement, ignore elevations. owner may fly over water without stopping, pass over figures without becoming engaged, and fly over obstacles such as ruins. When owner starts to fly, if he or she is engaged they will take any leaving engagement attacks.
Mist Walk - Owner can move through all figures and is never attacked when leaving an engagement, but may not Fly or attack this turn.

[Toad Rocket]

I find this very intersting as I already have started a similar project.

However....
:nopics:

Seriously, your killing me. The ideas and maps sound cool, but pictures man. Pictures!

[Sujoah]

These are really awesome ideas! But, how many sets will it take to make a single dungeon? And how many for a single room? Because this sounds really fun, but I would rather not have to take apart and build a new map every time I finish a room.

[Velenne]

I find this very intersting as I already have started a similar project.

However....
:nopics:

Seriously, your killing me. The ideas and maps sound cool, but pictures man. Pictures!

All in good time! I'm still fiddling with all the maps in VS. I promise to post some up since I'll be hunting for feedback.

These are really awesome ideas! But, how many sets will it take to make a single dungeon? And how many for a single room? Because this sounds really fun, but I would rather not have to take apart and build a new map every time I finish a room.

I'm not really operating within a set limit. I can tell you that I have 3 of every terrain set so i'll certainly never go above that, but you should be able to build the entire dungeon within those parameters easily. In other words, I'll never use more than 3 of a single set (more likely 2) during the construction of any dungeon. The rooms themselves will therefore be smaller skirmishes.

[Velenne]

Earth Key
Toril

4 Rooms, 3 Treasures

Room 1 - Another adventuring party awaits the Knights in these ruins. The group proposes a contest. Pair off members of each party (DM's choice). If the Knights number more than 4, the remainder wait on the sidelines. The combatants fight 1v1 and if the Knights can win any 2 contests, the other party will agree to let them go first and can be recruited in later dungeons. Refuse, and you must fight them all at the same time.

Room 2 - This swamp is inhabited by a clutch of Feral Trolls. The trolls might easily surround the Knights but the terrain may have a few defensible positions for wary adventurers. A Vorpal Sword rests half-buried in the muck in the open as bait for the foolhardy.

Room 3 - Pelloth and his drow mercenaries are in the middle of a ceremony in which he hopes to gain enough power to destroy the black dragon himself and claim the Earth Key. Each unwitting drow he manages to sacrfrice will bolster his stats. In a discarded sachel the party can also find several wizard scrolls.

Room 4 - Though young, Othkurik has had enough time properly trap its lair against intrusion. The party must contend with these traps while defending against the creature's acid spit and enhanced maneuverability.

Earth Key - +2 Defense. Also, once per dungeon the owner may declare him or herself to be immune to all attacks and damage for the remainder of the current round. During this round, the owner cannot move.

[mnguy12000]

this looks completely awesome! Too bad it sounds like you need a lot of terrian for this and i dont have it! But sounds fantastic!

[Velenne]

this looks completely awesome! Too bad it sounds like you need a lot of terrian for this and i dont have it! But sounds fantastic!

I hope it turns out well. And don't worry if you don't have all the terrain. The beauty of Heroscape is that if you're missing some things, you can always proxy it with stuff you do have. :)

[Ormus]

Velenne this is good stuff. I especially love the riddle mechanic. In the past I have put little 'in-game' type of allusion riddles into scenarios that were necessary to solve in order to find 'hidden' item glyphs.

Great minds think alike I suppose... because when I first saw the DnD terrain I had this image of a Lavadungeon/Swampdungeon/Roaddungeon combo w/ respective Fire/Water/Ether item glyphs to be recovered from each room. I think I posted those jpegs that in my last map thread. Though mine are Talismen not Keys and my map is cohesive, w/ just one room per theme, one map, not a campaign. Anyways...Great work, I will follow this thread w/ enthusiasm...


;thumbsup:

[Velenne]

Thanks Ormus! I'm still convinced I can improve and tweak the various dungeons but I'll save that for when I post them and get some feedback. I'm open to ideas and will of course give credit in the final product.

[Velenne]

Ok I've put together some preliminary information.

HERE (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1954) is the beta version of the game guide in PDF format.

HERE (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1955) is the first draft of the water dungeon in PDF format.

If you're at all interested in helping with the development process, by all means try it out and let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks!

[ZBeeblebrox]

Wow Velenne, this is awesome.
How did you get this out so fast? Amazing stuff. Can't wait to try some of it after the holidays.

[Velenne]

Thanks President Zaphod! If you like that, there's a lot more where that came from.

HERE'S the newest update, the Fire Dungeon. (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1957)

[Grungebob]

Wow....Just wow!

[Xn F M]

You're just trying to make the rest of us look bad aren't you. ;)

I think you've gone and set the bar for great dungeon design (and pretty high at that). That water dungeon looks spectacular.

[Velenne]

I appreciate the kindness immensely. :)

I've tested the water dungeon and the basic rules. Some quick changes (I'll wait for more updates before altering the file but I will reflect these changes in the download page.)

Room 3: Change the special rules to "Starting in Round 2, at the end..." and the DM section to read "DM: Jotun. (with Gurei-Oni if advanced)".

The heroes lost in the final battle with Cyprien in both rounds. However, both were very close and could have easily gone the other way. I'm toying with the idea of giving the heroes 500 points instead of 450.... but right now I'll stick with 450. The games were tight, fast, and fun!

[Velenne]

Got the Air Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1964) finished. Man was that complex!! I hope you enjoy it. :)

[ZBeeblebrox]

Wow, Velenne...42 level map....
either you are crazy or a Campaign Genius.

My vote is for the later. Also that is my vote for your title.

[Velenne]

GAH! There was an error with the Air Dungeon file. I uploaded the incorrect file. That's been fixed now.

ZB, I wish there was an easy way to tell Virtualscape not to print the inbetween levels on castle maps. That would make this a much easier job to print. :) If you get a chance to play any of the dungeons, please let me know how it goes!

[Velenne]

Added the Earth Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1966) and a handydandy Player's Campaign Status Tracker (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1967).

Now I just need to finish up the Final Dungeon, "Sanctuary", and the last 25% will be playtesting!

[killercactus]

This looks super-duper awesome.

In thinking about building a campaign, I had the same type of elemental ideas and thought about adding 4 more Elements (Light, Darkness, Nature and Science). Maybe I'll try to create a campaign for just those 4 to compliment this amazing one...:ponder:

The toughest thing to come up with so far for me was how strong to make the enemy parties in each room. I love your ideas of scaling them up depending on which way the player goes. Pure awesomeness.

Even if the campaign wasn't awesome, you'd get rep from me for making Runa the boss of her own room.

[Velenne]

Thanks KC! I love Runa for situations like these. What could be scarier the thought of losing your figure to a single die roll?? It really ups the pressure factor when answering those riddles!

One more dungeon to go. I'm going to make this one expanding and modular. It's gonna be a little tricky. Wish me luck!

Oh and if you like any of this (and the number of downloads so far tells me at least some of you do!) PLEASE give me feedback! I'm desperate! Surely my genius must know some bounds! Surely it's not perfect? Maybe you're just being nice and I should keep my yap shut, but really, anything, I'm dyin here!

[nyys]

I think Velenne should get the title 'enchilada.' :)

Great stuff btw.

[killercactus]

Thanks KC! I love Runa for situations like these. What could be scarier the thought of losing your figure to a single die roll?? It really ups the pressure factor when answering those riddles!

One more dungeon to go. I'm going to make this one expanding and modular. It's gonna be a little tricky. Wish me luck!

Oh and if you like any of this (and the number of downloads so far tells me at least some of you do!) PLEASE give me feedback! I'm desperate! Surely my genius must know some bounds! Surely it's not perfect? Maybe you're just being nice and I should keep my yap shut, but really, anything, I'm dyin here!

You want negative feedback? Fine! I didn't see Sonlen on the list of heroes from Feylund that you were allowed to use. Is there a specific reason for that?

Since he wasn't on there, I used him in my Darkness Dungeon that I PM'ed you... :twisted:

[Velenne]

I think Velenne should get the title 'enchilada.' :)

Great stuff btw.

My last title was "Sexier than the Hoff" cuz some people thought I looked like him but I disagreed for just such a reason. It's about time I had another one methinks.

Thanks KC! I love Runa for situations like these. What could be scarier the thought of losing your figure to a single die roll?? It really ups the pressure factor when answering those riddles!

One more dungeon to go. I'm going to make this one expanding and modular. It's gonna be a little tricky. Wish me luck!

Oh and if you like any of this (and the number of downloads so far tells me at least some of you do!) PLEASE give me feedback! I'm desperate! Surely my genius must know some bounds! Surely it's not perfect? Maybe you're just being nice and I should keep my yap shut, but really, anything, I'm dyin here!

You want negative feedback? Fine! I didn't see Sonlen on the list of heroes from Feylund that you were allowed to use. Is there a specific reason for that?

Since he wasn't on there, I used him in my Darkness Dungeon that I PM'ed you... :twisted:

Got your PM. I shied away from some of the higher costed heroes, so no Spartacus or Kato Katsuro. No Sir Dupuis and no Sonlen either.

I've already discovered that I'm going to have adjust some of the starting zones to conform to the few double-spaced heroes you're able to recruit. Got that noted.

[Velenne]

Based on tonight's games, I've made enough significant changes to the Air Dungeon to warrant a reupload. The new version has replaced the old and can be found in the same place HERE. (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1964)

edit: I also took Q10's perch down to the bottom level so as to save paper when printing. :)

[ZBeeblebrox]

Thanks KC! I love Runa for situations like these. What could be scarier the thought of losing your figure to a single die roll?? It really ups the pressure factor when answering those riddles!

One more dungeon to go. I'm going to make this one expanding and modular. It's gonna be a little tricky. Wish me luck!

Oh and if you like any of this (and the number of downloads so far tells me at least some of you do!) PLEASE give me feedback! I'm desperate! Surely my genius must know some bounds! Surely it's not perfect? Maybe you're just being nice and I should keep my yap shut, but really, anything, I'm dyin here!

I'm hoping to test some of this out this weekend, so feedback should be coming soon.

ZB, thinking this is front page material...

[Velenne]

Can't wait, ZB!

I've uploaded the final dungeon, Sanctuary. Get it HERE (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1971).

Now it's down to playtesting!

[Creationist]

That looks great. Along with those 4 bosses, will there be a culminating boss or room? That seems to be a good ending.

[Velenne]

Creationist: Charos joins the second pair of bosses in Sanctuary and his mindlink ability makes that a very tough encounter!

[Fedex worker]

I think you should add the total terrain requirements to each dungeon. Also, the maximum amout of Knights you can have is 450 points and six spaces right and how do you recruit figures?

EDIT: where are the riddles for Runa's room?

[Velenne]

I think you should add the total terrain requirements to each dungeon. Also, the maximum amout of Knights you can have is 450 points and six spaces right and how do you recruit figures?

EDIT: where are the riddles for Runa's room?

All good points.

1 - Each dungeon will require 1-3 of several sets. I tried to limit myself to 1 MS and 2-3 expansions total but then I went crazy. You're basically going to need at least 1 of every set to date to do it as written. If you don't have this, no big deal, just substitute in terrain you do have. :)

2 - You start by being able to recruit up to 6 'Knights' (Unique Heroes) from Earth. After each dungeon, you're able to recruit more to fill any recent openings (and you will have openings, I assure you :twisted:) After testing, I've come realize I need to account for double-spaced figures and so I'm going to change the wording to "you may recruit up to 450 points and 6 starting spaces worth of Unique Heroes from Earth".

3- Right. Sorry. I need to get those. For now, try the intarwebs.

[killercactus]

How have your heroes been doing against the enemies in each room during testing? I started testing a 4-room dungeon yesterday, and 550 points of heroes (Carr, Awa, Drake RotV, Crixus and Guilty) couldn't take down one squad of Protectors (first room), one squad of Imperium (second room) and one squad of Sentinels (3rd room). They made it to the 3rd room with only a 3-wound Crixus on their best run. I had to take the Imperium out because they were too strong, and replaced them with Dzu-teh. Then the heroes got through all 3 rooms, but only had Crixus with one life and Guilty with one life, who were brutally slaughtered by the boss.

I guess I couldn't believe how easy each room has to be in order to give the heroes a chance through it, and I had 550 points instead of 450. How have yours done?

[Velenne]

The great irony is that squads are king in HEROscape, remember, so particularly strong, mobile squads can be lethal to your heroes. No matter how good they are they're only attcking once (maybe twice) per turn.

SO that being said I try to help the heroes out a bit when making rooms with strong squads, and I don't use more than 2 until they get Advanced.

[Ormus]

Velenne, I'm following this w/ intent...

I noticed in the Fire pdf you mention the riddles...

Have you thought of those sample ones yet?...just curious.

Great setups:up:

[Velenne]

After some playtesting, I've made some changes to the Earth Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1966).

Version Notes
Beta
Clarified rules for Room 1
Slightly modified Room 2 so the Trolls can gain height advantage on a Knight claiming the Vorpal Sword.
Rebuilt Room 3 so the Deepwyrm Drow cannot attack the Knights on the first turn.
Modified Room 4 so Othkurik can't keep the whole central perch against a single Knight of Height 4 or less.
Changed the trap table in Room 4 so the "nicer" traps are higher, and the meaner traps are lower. This is more consistent with existing rules.
Rearranged footprint of entire dungeon to be a bit more manageable.

[Fedex worker]

Well, with your changing of the trap's die rolls, you forgot to change the instructions to Subtract 2 from your die roll if advanced.

Edit: Just noticed that each room in each dungeon only contain six starting spaces. This could be a potential problem, because if you go to the Air Dungeon first, lose one hero, and then recruit Major Q10, your army would take up seven starting spaces.

[Velenne]

Good catch, Fedex. Thank you! I'll note that change for the next version.

I'm changing the drafting rules to allow for up to 6 spaces worth of figures, instead of 6 figures. There's also at least one room (in the water dungeon) where double-spaced figures can't start, so I need to change that too. The rules change will be in the next update of the player's guide which I hope will be soon.

[Velenne]

Once I play the Fire Dungeon a few more times and can make some changes to the file, I'll reupload it again. But for now, here are Runa's Riddles:


Runa’s Riddles

Soft as a petal that falls from a tree, the more I dry, the wetter I'll be.A sponge or a towel.
I run all day and never walk. I tell you something, but I do not talk. A clock. Greater than the gods, more evil than Utgar, the rich need it, the poor have it, and if you eat it you'll die? Nothing Cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after. Ends life, kills laughterSilence Four men sat down to play. They played all night till break of day. They played for gold and not for fun. With separate scores for everyone. When they had come to square accounts. They all had made quite fair amounts. Can you the paradox explain. If no one lost, how all could gain? They’re musicians. Alive without breath, as cold as death, never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail and never clinking.Fish All things it devours: birds, beasts, trees, flowers. Gnaws iron, bites steel, grinds hard stones to meal. Slays king, ruins town, beats high mountains down. Time Voiceless it cries, wingless flutters, toothless bites, mouthless mutters. Wind In marble walls as white as milk, lined with skin as soft as silk, within a fountain crystal clear, a golden apple doth appear. No gates there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in to steal the gold. Egg The person who built it doesn't want it, the person who bought it doesn't use it. The person who used it never saw it. What is it? Casket They call me a man, but I will never have a wife. I was given a body but not a life. They made me a mouth but didn't give me breath. Water gives me life but sun brings me death. Snowman My life is often a volume of grief, your help is needed to turn a new leaf. Stiff is my spine and my body is pale, but I'm always ready to tell a tale. Book You heard me before, Yet you hear me again. Then I die, 'Til you call me again. Echo What is dry going in, wet going out and satisfies two people? A tea bag. There is an ancient invention still used in some parts of Earth today that allows men to see through walls. A window. Ullar has it but he does not use it. A man’s father has it but his mother uses it. Your lady friend's husband has it and she uses it. A Last name. I can be cracked, I can be made. I can be told, I can be played. A Joke The more you take, the more you leave behind. Footprints You cannot keep it until you have given it. Your word.

[Velenne]

Hope to get games in on the Fire Dungeon this weekend. I created Ancient Artifact glyph cards for each of the four Keys, much like the one used in the HSers exclusive scenario. They look AMAZING if I do say so myself (and I hope you'll agree when you see them) but I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the final campaign book. I'm sure I'll need to tweak the Key's powers at some point and I wouldn't want you to waste all that printer ink. :)

Side note:

So I played the Earth dungeon this week and for the sake of playtesting took along a party that had finished the Water dungeon and thus had access to heroes from Feylund. I brought Migol and Syvarris (with a Ring of Protection +2) along with Kaemon Awa (with the Amulet of Health), Valguard (with the Water Key), and Isamu.

That third room was rough. I gained a whole new appreciation for how quickly a focused team of Deepwyrm Drow can bring down a hero!! (Suffice to say the room was tweaked later.) I did manage use both of the Water Key's abilities in this dungeon, as well as transfer items strategically between characters. At one point, Isamu had the Ring and the Amulet, giving him 3 life and 3 defense! Along with Vanish 9, that's one scary ninja!

[killercactus]

Yeah - those squads with hero-killing abilities can really wreak some havoc.

I'm using a squad of Protectors in one of my dungeons - brutal. And I had to completely scrap the Einar Imperium - just too strong.

[Velenne]

You're right, kc. When I get to the Fire Dungeon, I have a feeling I'm going to need to redo that room with the Minions.

Speaking of playing, my family and I are in the process of moving (this is a great thing!) so I don't know how much Scape I'm going to get in for the next few weeks. The opening play was to requisition my gaming area for storing packed boxes and my Heroscape "Tower" (the monolith of drawers which hold my terrain and armies) was relocated to a closet.

That means I'll be depending on all of YOU reading this thread to try some games out and let me know what you think!

[Sujoah]

Just so you know, there's a floating double asphalt tile on the bottom left corner of the Air dungeon.

[Velenne]

Spooky....

[killercactus]

I've got a couple of players coming over Friday night that are interested in campaign-style scaping, so I think I might setup KotD for them since my campaign is far from complete, and the one in the D&D rulebook might be over too quickly.

If I do, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[Velenne]

Ooh please do! I'm very interested to know which dungeons they choose and it plays out. I'm very concerned with making these balanced, but interesting (challenging/scary) and for that I think I need more people trying it out. Thanks kc!

[ZBeeblebrox]

I hope to play test these this weekend as well Velene...ufortunately i got sick and real life interupted before I could last time. This being a three day weekend, should give me ample time to test this out.

- ZB, keeping fingers crossed

[WOOKIE]

Everything looks great. When are you planning your next event? For the Air Dungeon, the top platform composed of 5 hex road, road walls, 7 & 9 hex castle pieces look cool but looks impossible to built. I don't see how it would stay together or perched. Would you need to cheat & use paper clips? If I'm right, there is a way to make a platform using those exact pieces in a different formation. The secrete is using the road walls as the supports that bind everything together. Before I've used 6x 24h rock & 6x road walls to make a large suspension bridge. Using the castle walls (or ladders) also held it together.

Bloo Bridge by WOOKIE

http://i680.photobucket.com/albums/vv161/WOOKIE74/Bluebridge.jpg

[Velenne]

You've got the idea, Wookie. The top level of the Air Dungeon stays together by virture of good manufacturing/engineering and the road walls which stick everything into place. Once perched, the ladders serve to secure it beneath.

[WOOKIE]

It does work, you just can't put a lot of pressure on the 5 hex road tile. It is an awesome map.
I do believe the road walls are some of the best pieces we have, given what they allow us to build.
There is one thing though. Because it is flat, I thought you could lay a 24 hex on top of it, connecting to other tiles. If it was a millimeter shorter you could.

[Velenne]

Anybody get a chance at KotDS over the weekened/holiday? I'm itching to hear what you think!

[ZBeeblebrox]

So I did get play KotDS over the weekend. I decicded to playtest two separate drafts of Knights and will finish the second dungeon tonight. In depth Battle reports to come of Earth and Water dungeons.

[killercactus]

Anybody get a chance at KotDS over the weekened/holiday? I'm itching to hear what you think!

Sorry Velenne - I wanted to, but kiddiecactus refused to give me the time needed to set it up. I ended up modding the scenario from the D&D Rulebook for 3 Players, because I already had the dungeons and Road to the Underdark up in my basement when my two friends came over. Also got some Summoner Wars in - great game.

On the good side though, one of my friends wasn't a Scape fan, but enjoyed the campaign-style version. I'm sure there will be some time before I have Betrayals of Utgar finished for more campaign-Scape, so I'll do my best to give this a shot.

[Velenne]

Anybody get a chance at KotDS over the weekened/holiday? I'm itching to hear what you think!

Sorry Velenne - I wanted to, but kiddiecactus refused to give me the time needed to set it up. I ended up modding the scenario from the D&D Rulebook for 3 Players, because I already had the dungeons and Road to the Underdark up in my basement when my two friends came over. Also got some Summoner Wars in - great game.

On the good side though, one of my friends wasn't a Scape fan, but enjoyed the campaign-style version. I'm sure there will be some time before I have Betrayals of Utgar finished for more campaign-Scape, so I'll do my best to give this a shot.

No worries, kc. I've had the same thing happen -a friend didn't like Scape but loves it now with the dungeon rules. More Scapers is always a good thing!

So I did get play KotDS over the weekend. I decicded to playtest two separate drafts of Knights and will finish the second dungeon tonight. In depth Battle reports to come of Earth and Water dungeons.

http://www.themovieblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/burns-excellent.jpg

[ZBeeblebrox]

Here is my 1st of four battle reports. Questions and comments will come later.


Playtest Team 1:
Knights: Crixus, Valguard, Isamu, Finn, Brave Arrow, and Sgt. Drake (RotV)

Earth Dungeon:
Room 1:
Dungeon Delvers vs Knights

Ana Karithon vs Isamu
Ana wins initiative and Ana move within range, but Isamu Vanishes. Isamu uses his superior movement to gain the high ground, and causes three wounds. Ana then moves to even ground, and attacks…Isamu fails to Vanish but does block the attack. Ana then blocks Isamu’s attack and on her Turn 3 fails to roll a skull. On Isamu’s third turn…Isamu rolls all skulls and Ana falls.

Tandros vs Finn
Finn moves, Tandros moves and attacks Finn and causes 3 wounds. Finn counters with a wound of his own. Tandros attacks again but Finn parries the blow. Finn also attacks and misses. Tandros counters again, but again Finn blocks the attack.
At the beginning of round 2, Finn attacks first, but misses. The Tandros counters and puts the “inished” on Finn.

Darrak Ambershard vs Brave Arrow
Darrak moves first, Brave Arrow uses tracking to stalk his prey. Darrak moves in to attack but misses. Brave Arrow get in a wound in return. Darrak returns the favor. The Brave Arrow gets in one more wound at the end of round 1.
At the beginning of round 2, Darrak wins initiative and wound Brave Arrow. Brave Arrow then finishes off Darrak as Darrak whiffs of=n his defense roll.

Room1: Knights win, gain future help of the Dungeon delvers. But they lose Finn.

Love the choice of fighting or not, since fighting risks the sucess of the Knights. The ruins in the center give nice cover to both groups, and each combatant has to work around them to get an advantage. The Dungeon Delvers can disk out some damage, but fail against the top echelon heroes.

Room 2:
Round 1: The trolls win initiative and the blue troll move forward. Brave Arrow tracks towards the Vorpal sword. The Red Troll moves. Brave Arrow move again. The Blur troll moves in to attack Brave arrow and causes 2 wounds. Crixus moves in to help Brave Arrow and rolls all skulls; the blue troll takes 5 wounds.
Round2: Brave Arrow disengages, and the Blue troll misses him. Brave Arrow get s the Vorpal sword!. The Blue troll attacks Crixus and causes a wound. Crixus attacks and rolls 4 skulls, and down goes the Blue troll. Crixus then moves to attack the Red troll and causes 2 wounds. The Red troll counters with a wound to Crixus.
Round 3 : The Red troll attacks Crixus and misses. Crixus attacks and causes a wound. The red troll attacks and misses. Sgt. Drake moves forward. The Red troll attacks Crixus and misses again. Crixus counter with 4 wounds.
Round 4: The Red troll attacks Crixus and causes a wound. Drake moves in and causes 4 wounds. Red troll attacks Drake and misses. Crixus finishes the Red Troll.

Knights clear Room 2, no casualties.

I think the Trolls are outclassed in this room, but I missed the newest version with some height advantage in the center. Although, the Vorpal sword did not come into affect, the possibility of Brave Arrow surviving multiple attacks may have lessened with that addition.

Room 3:
Round 1: Knights win initiative and Crixus moves forward. The Drow move and attacks Crixus, and all miss the gladiator. Valguard moves in with the Vorpal Sword and removes a Drow skull. Pelloth unleashed his Wrath and causes two wounds on Crixus, a Drow warrior is destroyed and increases Pelloth’s power. Crixus disengages from the Drow warrior to engage Pelloth directly; the Drow misses as his moves away. Crixus then sticks Pelloth in the gut and causes two wounds. Pelloth uses his Wrath again on an adjacent Drow and inflicts two more wounds on Crixus.
Round 2: Crixus attacks Pelloth and inflicts two more wounds, but Lolth’s Favor healed some of the wounds from the last round. Pelloth unleashes his Wrath again, and Crixus falls. Valguard attacks a Drow warrior and destroys him. Pelloth attacks Valguard and causes two wounds.
Round 3: The last Drow chares Valguard and causes a wound., then Valguard kills the Drow. Pelloth (with his attack increased to 6 dice due to Lolth’s Favor) attacks Valguard and misses. Valguard misses Pelloth on his charge. Pelloth attacks again and causes a wound to Valguard. Brave Arrow moves forward.
Round 4: Pelloth attacks Valguard, All Skulls on 6 dice!! And down goes Valguard. Brave Arrow move in and finishes Pelloth.

Room 3 Knights win, but lose Crixus and Valguard.
I also missed the version where the Drow cannot get to the heroes on turn 1, but I did gain some respect fro Pelloth, regardless of the extra Lolth's Favor ability, just his normal special power wrecked havoc in this room and took down Crixus with ease. Lolth's Favor should have a cap of 3 IMO, because he just get ridiculous with more than 6 attack dice.

Room 4:
Round 1: Othkurik wins initiative and move forward. Brave Arrow tracks the dragon. Othkurik uses its breath weopon, but Brave arrow uses Concealment to avoid the attack. Brave Arrow move in to attack, but misses. Othkurik attacks with its Acid Breath and causes a wound. Sgt. Drake moves forward.
Round 2: Drake moves in to attack and causes a wound. Othkurik causes 2 wounds to Brave Arrow. Brave Arrow gives one back. The dragon attacks the Mohican again, but misses. Drake rolls 5 skulls and finishes off Othkurik.

Othkurik needs some help in here, he just could not stand up to some of the power hitters. Maybe add a couple of Dumutefs to slow down the heroes as Othkurik advances.

Knights clear dungeon and gain Earth Key.
Survivors: Sgt. Drake, Brave Arrow and Isamu
Lost Finn, Crixus and Valguard.

At end of Dungeon this team drafted these replacements:
Agent Skahen, Agent Carr, and Guilty McCreech

[Sujoah]

Nice battle report. Just curious, which Drake are you using?

[Creationist]

Nice battle report. Just curious, which Drake are you using?

It says ROTV at the top.

[killercactus]

Nice report! Looks pretty balanced to me - you rolled some excellent attack dice there to get those wins.

[Sujoah]

Nice battle report. Just curious, which Drake are you using?

It says ROTV at the top.

:duh:
I didn't even see that.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 2:
Knights: Kaemon Awa, Agent Carr, Agent Skahen, Thorgrim, and Guilty McCreech

Earth Dungeon:
Room 1:
Dungeon Delvers vs Knights

Darrack Ambershard vs Thorgrim
It was a slow round, with each hero jockeying for position and exchanging blows. By the end of the round Darrack had suffered 3 wounds and Thorgrim had suffered two.
Darrack misses with his first attack, in round two….and Thorgrim does not give him a second chance by applying the last wounds to take down the dwarf.

Eravan vs Guilty
Guilty moves in, but cannot get a shot at Eravan, Eravan uses Fey Step to get the drop on Guilty, and then misses with his fire Blast. Guilty then gets a shot in on the wizard. Guilty’s superior range causes Eravan to succeed the higher ground to the gunman, but his Fire Blast still causes a wound. Guilty then takes his two shots and misses twice. Eravan then launches a 4 skull Fire Blast that finishes McCreech.

Tandros Creel vs Agent Carr
Tandros wins initiative, he succeeds in getting into range and uses his bow to attack Carr. Carr’s reflexes saves him. Carr the charges and get in two wounds onto Tandros. Tandros tries to retaliate and misses, as does Carr on turn 2. On turn 3, each combatant exchange a wound.
At the begiing of round 2, Tandros wins initiative but misses Agent Carr. Carr does not miss with his counter and causes two wounds. Tandros is on the rope, and attacks with fervor and cuases 2 wounds to the agent. Now both men are badly injured, Carr attacks on his turn and rolls 5 skulls, Tandors cannot with stand the onslaught and falls.

Room 1: Knights win, gain future help of the Dungeon delvers. But they lose Guilty McCreech.

Room 2:
Round 1: The Knights win initiative and the Agent Skahen moves forward. The Blue troll moves. Skahen pops off a couple of shots at the troll and causes two wounds. Agent Carr moves up under her Cover Fire. The blue troll move in to attack Carr and misses. Carr attcks with his sword and causes one wound. The red troll moves to guard the sword.
Round2: Agent Skahen moves forward, shoots at the red troll and misses with both shots. The red troll engages her and misses with his attack. Skahen manuvers onto the Vorpal Sword, and she then shoots the red troll twice for 4 wounds. The Blue troll attack Agent Carr and misses. Carr attacks the blue troll and causes two more wounds and then the blue troll retaliates with a wound to the agent.
Round 3 : Kaemon Awa moves up and lauches two arrows at the blue troll and causes 4 wounds. The red troll attacks Skahen and causes a wound. Carr kills the blue troll with a roll of 5 skulls. Skahen causes another wound to the red troll.
Round 4: The Red troll attacks Agent Skahen and whiffs. Skahen returns 2 wounds; meanwhile Agent Carr uses her Cover Fire to engage the red troll. The red troll misses Skahen again and then Agent Carr takes sword and puts through the red trolls brain, the red troll falls.

Knights clear Room 2, no casualties.



Room 3:
Round 1: Knights win initiative and Agent Skahen and knocks off a couple of rounds at a Drow warrior…unfortunately the shadows influence the attacks. Agent Carr does use her Cover Fire to advance. The Drow move in and attack both Agents, and Skahen takes a wound, but she shrugs off the poison. Agent Carr removes a Drow from the field. Pelloth unleashes his Wrath, rolls 3 skulls and Skahen screams in agony as she is devoured by a swarm of spiders., as the Drow warrior increases Pelloth’s power. Kaemon Awa moves up and destroys a Drow. Pelloth unleashes another Wrath attack and inflicts a wound on Carr.
Round 2: The Drow move forward and attacks Kaemon Awa, the samurai takes two wounds. Pelloth uses his Wrath again to inflict two more wounds on Agent Carr. Agent Carr moves in to attack Pelloth, and misses. Pelloth (now with an attack of 6) attcks the agent and misses as well. Carr returns the attck and inflicts a wound on the Drow leader.
Round 3: Pelloth attacks Agent Carr and eliminates the threat. Pelloth then turns to attack Kaemon Awa and misses. Kaemon Awa then attcks Pelloth and causes 3 wounds. Pelloth counters and misses, so Kaemon Awa Counterstrike finishes off the Arachnomancer.


Room 3 Knights win, but lose Agents Carr and Skahen.


Room 4:
Round 1: Othkurik wins initiative and move forward. Kaemon Awa move forward and give 2 wounds to Lil Blackie. Othkurik sprays acid at the samurai and causes a wound. Thorgrim moves in, Othkurik releases his breath again and misses. Kaemon Awa releases two arrows and kill the Dragon.

Knights clear dungeon and gain Earth Key.
Survivors: Kaemon Awa, and Thorgrim
Lost Finn, Agent Carr, Agent Skahen and Guilty McCreech.

At end of Dungeon this team drafted these replacements:
Eravan Sunshadow, Darrak Ambershard, Crixus and Isamu

[killercactus]

Another nice report, ZB! I'm excited at how balanced this dungeon seems, though it does seem like the Drow room is the one where the heavy casualties come.

Also, if I'm reading your report correctly, I don't think you can move Carr with Cover Fire if Hide in Darkness ignores the wounds. If a wound is ignored, it isn't considered inflicted. Just FYI.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Another nice report, ZB! I'm excited at how balanced this dungeon seems, though it does seem like the Drow room is the one where the heavy casualties come.

Also, if I'm reading your report correctly, I don't think you can move Carr with Cover Fire if Hide in Darkness ignores the wounds. If a wound is ignored, it isn't considered inflicted. Just FYI.

:duh:

Oh well, Hide in Shadows only came in effect once, because Pelloth loves to destoy his pawns.

And the Drow room is the toughest room out of two dungeons so far. Pelloth is gross with more than one squad to blow up.

[Velenne]

:jawdrop::passout:

It'd the motherlode of feedbacks! Wow reading these has been so fun I"m pondering creating a KotDS Battle Report thread of its own once I'm done! Ok onto specifics:

Room 1: The intention wasn't to lose any of your Knights during the duels in this room. I may need to rephrase my rules here so that's more clear. In my own testing, my players were confused about that as well.

Room 2: Yes this one is quite easy. I may need to move the high ground to the middle or start one of the trolls close up. It's intended to be a race to get the Vorpal Sword before it sinks, but not to cause major casualties.

Room 3: It's this nasty! Lolth's Favor never got higher than 3 in my testing as there was ever a conflict between buffing Pelloth or using the drow's own nasty poison attacks.

Room 4: I've altered this room once to make it a big smaller and easier for the Knights to climb the rear hilltop. My intention is for the DM to slow-play the black dragon, allowing a Knight or two to fall victim to a trap and then attacking them when they're spread out or weakened. Also, most parties will only have 1-3 Knights left by this point so giving Othkurik all the terrain advantages seemed like enough. But it looks like you didn't have that problem. Hmm...

I'll reserve changed pending your other two tests. Great stuff so far!!

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 1:
Knights: Isamu, Brave Arrow, Agent Skahen, Agent Carr, Guilty McCreech, and Sgt. Drake (RotV)

WATER DUNGEON

Room 1:
Brave Arrow (Vorpal Sword), Agent Skahen (Earth Key)

Round 1: Marcu’s team wins imitative; wolves move forward. Skahen moves, attacks twice and misses twice. The Wolves move again, 2 wolves pounce at Agent Skahen….but only inflict one wound and the wolves sink into the waters of the dungeon. Guilty takes a couple of shots and destroys a Wolf of Badru. The Wolves move up. Skahen moves, and pops off two shots and kills another wolf. Agent Carr move up under her Cover Fire.
Round 2: Skahen attacks, and kills a wolf and wounds Marcu. Agent Carr uses her Cover Fire to move up so more. The last Wolf of Badru moves. Agent Skahen again wounds Marcu. Agent Carr moves under Cover Fire. Marcu begins to make his move, but gets enraged and his Hatred takes over. He then turns to the last wolf, removes its head and tosses his ring to Skahen as he leaves the Dungeon.

Room 1: Knights win, no casualties

Room 2:
Brave Arrow (Earth Key), Isamu (Vorpal Sword), Sgt. Drake (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Drake moves forward. Brunak, with Iskra riding on his back, gallops forward. Brave Arrow move forward. Brunak/Iskra move forward, Brunak attacks Brave Arrow, but misses. Agent Carr moves forward, attacks Brunak and misses. Iskra attacks Brave Arrow and causes a wound, but she fails to summon the Rechets.
Round 2: Iskra attacks Brave Arrow and misses, and she fails to summon. Sgt. Drake attacks Brunak, and Brunak rolls all skulls to defend, whoops…the quarterback is toast! Iskra attacks Brave Arrow again, and misses again. This time however she is able to summon the Rechets of Bogdan. The Rechets attack the knights and remove Agent Carr and Isamu with two lethal stings!!! Brave Arrow gets revenge and kills a Rechet.
Round 3: Drake attacks Iskra, All Skulls…Iskra defens with All Shields and only takes three wounds. The Rechets attack again, and miss Brave Arrow, but wipes out Guilty McCreech. Brave Arrow attacks a Rechet and misses. Iskra attacks Drake and misses. Skahen attacks a Rechet and destroys it. Iskra attacks Drake and misses.
Round 4: The last Rechet of Bogdan attacks Brave Arrow and misses. The Sarge attacks Iskra, but misses. Iskra return the attack and causes two wounds and heals herself. Brave Arrow move in to attack the last Rechet and kills it. Iskra misses Drake and Skahen unloads on the vampiress and inflicts two wounds.
Round 5: Drake removes Iskra’s head to finish the battle.

Room 2: Knights win, but lose Agent Carr, Isamu and Guilty McCreech.

Room 3:
Brave Arrow (Earth Key), Agent Skahen (Vorpal Sword), Sgt. Drake (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Skahen runs up and pops off two shots, which misses Jotun. Jotun lumbers forward, grabs Skahen, but fails to throw her, and fails to injure the agent and as well. Sgt. Drake move in and give two wounds to the giant. Jotun turns and attempt to throw Drake, but fails again. But he does poke a Skahen with his sword and gives her a wound. Skahen disengages, and Jotun makes her pay with a wound to remember him. Skahen then return the favor by giving a wound back to Jotun. Gurei-Oni move forward to end the round.
Round 2: Drake attacks the giant, who whiffs on his defense and Jotun falls. Brave Arrow move in to attack the ogre and causes 3 wounds. Skahen move back, but decides not to attack, for she intimidated by that Evil Eye. Gurei-Oni attacks with his tetsubo and gives 2 wounds to the Sarge and one to the Mohican.
Round 3: Gurei-Oni attacks and misses with his tetsubo, Drake retaliate and puts his sword right into the ogre’s eye to finish him.

Room 3: Knights win, no casualties

Room 4:
Brave Arrow (Earth Key), Agent Skahen (Vorpal Sword), Sgt. Drake (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Sgt Drake uses his grapple gun to advance to the top of the spiral. Cyprien moves in and misses Drake, with both his Chill Touch and his attack. Drake attacks Sonya and misses. Cyprien misses with Chill touch, but does manage to give Drake a wound. Brave Arrow begins to track his prey up the spiral. Sonya attacks the Sarge and misses.
Round 2: Cyprien once again cannot manage to touch Drake, but does hit with the sword and causes a wound on the soldier. Drake returns the favor with a wound to the Vampire Lord. Cyprien is stunned and misses with both types of attacks. While the vampire is disoriented, Sgt, Drake attacks with fervor and causes 4 wounds! Sonya tries to get some payback and misses. Drake ignores her and calmly removes Cyprien’s head. Sonya’s scream echos throughout the dungeon as she is Heartbroken.
Round 3: Sonya is enraged, rolls a 20 on initiative, rolls all skulls and drives her sword through Drake’s heart. Then in triumph she tosses his corpse from the spiral. She then flies down to the agent, rolls all skulls again and removes an unsuspecting Skahen’s head before she can even scream. Sonya then flies up the spiral to attack Brave Arrow, but finally her rage has dissipated and misses.
Round 4: Brave Arrow and Sonya a spectacular fight, where at the end of the round Brave Arrow causes two wounds to the Vampiress and she cannot get through the Earth Key’s defenses.
Round5: Brave Arrow tied from the last round, make an all out attack, rolls all skulls and sticks his hatchet right into her cold heart.

Room 4: Knights win, but lose Sgt. Drake and Agent Skahen


Knights clear dungeon and gain Water Key.
Survivor: Brave Arrow
Lost: Sgt. Drake Alexander, Agent Skahen, Agent Carr, Isamu and Guilty McCreech

Recruits for the next dungeon: Arkmer, Syvarris, Migol Ironwill, Kaemon Awa, and Kyntela Gwyn.

[Velenne]

I love it! :popcorn:

I've removed Gurei-Oni from the standard water dungeon. He's only in the advanced now. Great job keeping Drake alive for that last battle! I think your poor luck against the retchets was made up for in your amazing performance in room 3. Did I specify the vorpal sword only works with melée? I'll have to look into that..

[CheddarLimbo]

Round 4: The last Rechet of Bogdan attacks Brave Arrow and misses. The Sarge attacks Iskra, but misses. Iskra return the attack and causes two wounds and heals herself. Brave Arrow move in to attack the last Rechet and kills it. Iskra misses Drake and Skahen unloads on the vampiress and inflicts two wounds.

Iskra only heals when she kills a figure, right? Or are there special rules for this room?

Great battle report! This sounds like an amazing adventure!

[Fedex worker]

Velenne, how do you get your rules into a PDF? And love the battle reports ZB, very descriptive. They actually make me want to try this out more!

[Velenne]

I use a program called PrimoPDF. When printing, I select that as my printer and it makes a PDF file instead of actually printing. Highly recommended. :)

[halobosspotter]

I use a program called PrimoPDF. When printing, I select that as my printer and it makes a PDF file instead of actually printing. Highly recommended. :)

You need to drop this entire campaign into a .Zip file and upload it to Megaupload or Zshare. I would like to have the entire campaign, maps, etc so I can study them. My play group is going to use this scenario next week, and we are pretty excited about the games.


HbP//

[Velenne]

That'd be great! But i'm waiting until I have a polished product to combine them into one file. There are several bits of polish I've added already which are not yet in the uploaded files. Try a few dungeons out, get back to us in this thread and I'll make sure to give you thanks in that final compilation. ;)

[Anonymous]

Just began the Fire Dungeon using ZBeebleBrox's Playtest Team 1 from his previous battle report. Lost all the members in the first room against the Obsidian Guards. Terrible die rolls combined with great rolls for the Obsidians resulted in first Crixus, then Brave Arrow, than Drake, 3 order markers were on Drake resulting in quite a few missed turns. Valguard promptly joined him in death and then Isamu dropped, leaving Finn standing. Finn was then killed. We used the 2 Vs. 2 Order Marker rules. We had both teams sit next to each other so that each side took two turns in a row. I don't know what effect that would have had on the results. Also, when only Finn was left, the party was at a severe disadvantage because only one set of order markers could be used while the Obsidians could use two sets of order markers. I don't know how this issue could be rectified. Three of the Obsidian Guards were killed in the battle. We will try it again, though.

This was probably already covered, but wound markers are removed after each room, correct?

[Velenne]

Youch!! That's a rough first room! Also glad you guys tried the 2v2 rules. I can't think of a way around the lone Knight problem without creating another problem or more complicated rules. Did you only get the chance to try it once.

And yes the Knights heal up between rooms and can use that opportunity to swap items as they please. One thing i need to note is that if you leave a treasure unclaimed at the end of the room, you can still pick them up after the encounter unless the rules say otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Tried the Fire Dungeon again with ZBeebleBrox's Playtest Army 2. It went significantly better this time. The heroes eliminated 5 of the Obsidian Guards. By this point, Kaemon Awa had 3 wounds and Agent Carr had 2. Kaemon Awa's Quick Release Attacks failed to kill him and then Agent Skahen was also unable to bring down the Obsidian. He moved forward and killed Kaemon Awa. Than he killed Agent Carr. Finally, Skahen finished him off. So, Skahen, Guilty, and Thorgrim move on to the next room. We didn't have time to play the next room due to the Vikings/Saints game, however, I will post the results when we get around to playing it.

P.S. Thanks for doing this Velenne, it is awesome.

[Anonymous]

Just did the second room. Skahen, Guilty, and Thorgrim were left. Guilty moved forward and shot at the Minions but to no avail. Then, Skahen moved up on to the northern upraised rock space and shot a Minion next to the other upraised rock space. She then attacked another Minion but failed. The Minions moved in and killed her with one attack. Than they killed Guilty McCreech. Finally, they finished off Thorgrim. Again the 1 man left order marker issue appeared. Maybe you could change it so that if only 1 hero is left the DM only gets one set of Order Markers in subsequent rounds? I don't know. Also, one thing I thought of was the fact that in 4-player matches the lava field is a much smaller factor because there are two times as many turns being taken between when the damage takes place, giving you more time to avoid it.

[CheddarLimbo]

Just did the second room. Skahen, Guilty, and Thorgrim were left. Guilty moved forward and shot at the Minions but to no avail. Then, Skahen moved up on to the northern upraised rock space and shot a Minion next to the other upraised rock space. She then attacked another Minion but failed. The Minions moved in and killed her with one attack. Than they killed Guilty McCreech. Finally, they finished off Thorgrim. Again the 1 man left order marker issue appeared. Maybe you could change it so that if only 1 hero is left the DM only gets one set of Order Markers in subsequent rounds? I don't know. Also, one thing I thought of was the fact that in 4-player matches the lava field is a much smaller factor because there are two times as many turns being taken between when the damage takes place, giving you more time to avoid it.

Lava field damage occurs at the end of the round, not at the end of a turn...


Hey Velenne - If I were to "run" this campaign for other people, should I tell them in advance what kind of figures to expect so they can draft accordingly? Or should I surprise them?

[killercactus]

I ran into the same problem when I tried to adapt the campaign in the D&D Rulebook to 3 players. I was the DM and got 2 sets of Order Markers. My two friends split up the heroes (2 cards apiece) and set their turns.

What we found were that, even before the Player loses OM's, the DM's Order Markers are far more efficient because he can focus all of his turns on the relevant units. The Players couldn't do this as effectively - for example, if the best move was for Tandros to get all of the OM's, the Player couldn't do that because one player wasn't controlling Tandros. The DM though could just load up on whatever was most effective. On top of that, when one Player was completely killed, the DM just dominated.

What we did for a quick fix was allow both players to place their OM's on any card they wanted. That eliminated the first problem. Another solution would be to also split the DM's Order Markers into two "teams". For example, if the room contains 2 squads of Obsidian Guards, keep track of each squad separately and each has its own set of OM's. Or, if there are multiple units (like in Room 2 of the D&D Dungeon with the Drow and Troll), split up those army cards and use separate OM's to control them only.

Doing that helps somewhat on the second problem too - at least the DM can't focus its OM's on what it needs to kill the remaining heroes. They're forced to split them up because the army cards are segregated. I don't think that the DM should get cut down to one set of OM's though just because the Player lost one set - that's the reality of multi-player Scape. The Player can have the same advantage over the DM this way, if they can kill off one separate set of Army Cards.

[killercactus]

Lava field damage occurs at the end of the round, not at the end of a turn...



Yeah, but since he has two sets of OM's going, there are effectively 8 turns in each round instead of 4, thus doubling the amount of turns before lava damage is rolled.

[CheddarLimbo]

Lava field damage occurs at the end of the round, not at the end of a turn...



Yeah, but since he has two sets of OM's going, there are effectively 8 turns in each round instead of 4, thus doubling the amount of turns before lava damage is rolled.

:roll: Derp. I'm an idiot. Please ignore me.

[Velenne]

I ran into the same problem when I tried to adapt the campaign in the D&D Rulebook to 3 players. I was the DM and got 2 sets of Order Markers. My two friends split up the heroes (2 cards apiece) and set their turns.

What we found were that, even before the Player loses OM's, the DM's Order Markers are far more efficient because he can focus all of his turns on the relevant units. The Players couldn't do this as effectively - for example, if the best move was for Tandros to get all of the OM's, the Player couldn't do that because one player wasn't controlling Tandros. The DM though could just load up on whatever was most effective. On top of that, when one Player was completely killed, the DM just dominated.

What we did for a quick fix was allow both players to place their OM's on any card they wanted. That eliminated the first problem. Another solution would be to also split the DM's Order Markers into two "teams". For example, if the room contains 2 squads of Obsidian Guards, keep track of each squad separately and each has its own set of OM's. Or, if there are multiple units (like in Room 2 of the D&D Dungeon with the Drow and Troll), split up those army cards and use separate OM's to control them only.

<snip>

I really like this idea! Hell, it may be more fun to do this regardless of how many players you have. Food for thought...

[Anonymous]

We started the whole campaign over and began with the Water Dungeon. The party consisted of Isamu, Sir Hawthorne, Alastair MacDirk, Eldgrim the Viking Champion, Finn the Viking Champion, and Otonashi. We have finished the first room. Very hard to move around due to all the water. The heroes had killed 3 of the Wolves and dealt Marcu one wound. Eldgrim had two wounds, Alastair had four wounds, and Hawthorne had one wound. Marcu turned on the wolves and killed one. The wolves proceeded to kill him while the party moved into position. One of the wolves moved onto the Ring of Protection that Marcu dropped. The wolves were in a position where they would have defensive height advantage if they were attacked. Alastair MacDirk moved in and killed the wolf standing on the ring, and then overextended in order to move up and pick up the Ring as well as attack the final wolf. He slayed the wolf and the adventurers moved forward to the next room.

P.S. Is the snow light or heavy?

[Velenne]

Heavy I believe.

[TheAverageFan]

Isn't Charos a bit easy? I mean... my last D&D scenario, I fought Charos, Braxas, and Kelda with Q9, Nilfeim, and Sonlen. Didn't lose a single guy. Why not... 3 Charos...es?
It IS a D&D scenario, anything could happen.

[Velenne]

You're actually fighting Charos and two of the other Guardians from the previous dungeons at the same time. You've also lost all 4 major artifacts (Keys) so those options you may have come to depend on are lost to you as well. Given the DM also has easy order markers with his granted Mindlink power, I'm worried that last encounter might be a little too hard!

[TheAverageFan]

Well, I suppose it depends on your figures, and luck is always important. Perhaps Order markers affect this battle also. Whatever works for you! :D
I accidentally never used order markers my first several games, and still don't use them. Just a my turn-your turn scenario (you can image I never use Dund the doggin). They add more strategy to the game though. I wonder what color order markers master set 3 has...?

[TheAverageFan]

Say, how many points do you get for this scenario? I might wanna try it out myself. You read my D&D scenario page? (It's alot of stuff to go through, but it's super-customizable).

[Velenne]

450. You'll need to download the Player's Guide. It's all in there, along with the glyphs so far. (Later I'll add the Artifact cards and modified glyphs to it.)

[Xotli]

I'm avidly following this thread; nice ideas Velenne! Don't know when I can talk SSX into playtesting with me, but hopefully I can give it a shot sometime soon.

In the meantime, it's loads of fun watching all the playtest reports. I also had a couple of questions you might want to clarify in the rules:


I note that you clarified that the heroes heal up between rooms. Definitely add this to the PDF.
I also note that you clarified that heroes can swap out magic items between room/between dungeons. What if a hero dies while holding a magic item? Can the other heroes retrieve that (say, after the battle)?
What about spirits (i.e. Thorgrim, Finn, Eldgrim)? I'm assuming they're retained between rooms, but what about between dungeons?


This is great. Keep up the good work!

[Velenne]

Responses in BLUE.

I'm avidly following this thread; nice ideas Velenne! Don't know when I can talk SSX into playtesting with me, but hopefully I can give it a shot sometime soon.

I hope you guys enjoy it!

In the meantime, it's loads of fun watching all the playtest reports. I also had a couple of questions you might want to clarify in the rules:
I note that you clarified that the heroes heal up between rooms. Definitely add this to the PDF.I thought it was standard to D&D/HS but I'll clarify it just in case.

I also note that you clarified that heroes can swap out magic items between room/between dungeons. What if a hero dies while holding a magic item? Can the other heroes retrieve that (say, after the battle)?Items on dead Knights are dropped in their formerly occupied space just any Treasure Glyph, but fallen items can be recovered after the battle and before the next encounter, unless specified by the rules of that room.
What about spirits (i.e. Thorgrim, Finn, Eldgrim)? I'm assuming they're retained between rooms, but what about between dungeons?Yes, and yes, though the Spirit can never be transferred to another Knight and the stated rule about stacking bonuses applies to Spirits as well. Specifically, static bonuses to a unit's statistics overlap (do not stack). (For example, if Kumiko had Thorgrim's Spirit and a Ring of Protection +2, only the +2 would count.)

This is great. Keep up the good work!

Thanks Xotli! I'll clarify those points in the player's guide before the next release.

[Sup3rS0n1c]

Well, I finally got around to downloading this, and I must say, it looks rather amazing!

I started with the Air dungeon, for two reasons: 1)no one else seems to have reported on it yet, and 2)I thought it looked coolest ^_^

There's a few things that irk me:
1) It took me over two hours to build the entire thing. >.>
2) There's a few illegal/unstable builds (the 12 height trees on level 0, the battlement "terminals" can get knocked off rather easily, I'm afraid of the top level coming down and obliterating the board)
3) It took me a while to figure out what the instructions meant for me to do. :P

Anyway, now that it's all figured out (and that I've taken several measures of my own to help keep things in place), it looks pretty good. I'm only going to be able to play the first room tonight, but I'll give you a report as soon as I'm done.

[Velenne]

1: Yikes! It took me about half an hour. I know the ladders and battlements can be hard to spot. What gave you trouble.
2: Im not concerned with "illegal" build. Ladders not coming down, trees on 0, or jungle trees not connected to 2 tiles... none of that effects gameplay so outside the BoV... not much point. If the Terminals are falling over you might try stabilizing them with some ladders. If you're concerned with the top level, you should be able to remove it as a single piece and set it aside until you need it.
3: What part is confusing?

Can't wait to hear your report! Let me know about how long the rooms take you. Thanks!

[Sujoah]

I would love to teat these out for you, but I don't have enough of the sets required for any of them. I'll look at the required sets list again, but the only one I might be able to make is the Water Dungeon. And I really don't want to waste too much paper, which both Water and Air would do.

And Sup3rS0n1c, I think the Abyssal Ruins are still waiting for you to try them. ;)

[Sup3rS0n1c]

And Sup3rS0n1c, I think the Abyssal Ruins are still waiting for you to try them. ;)
Sorry, I played the first room and got sidetracked. :P

Yeah, the paper I used is about and inch or two thick for the entire campaign. I used cardstock, mind you, but it's still plenty thick. :P

And, here's my report for the first room of the Air dungeon:

Army
Sir Denrick
Sgt. Drake
Brave Arrow
Eldgrim
Deadeye Dan
Agent Carr

Round 1 (Knights initiative)
-Brave Arrow tracks toward the Boots of Haste
-Deathstalkers on the south end of the board move north
-Agent Carr grabs height over a Deathstalker, killing it four skulls to one shield
-Two of the northern Deathstalkers move south while the other stays to protect the Boots
-Sgt. Drake moves toward the northern Deathstalkers, grabs some height and kills a Deathstalker
-central deathstalkers move into position, one grabbing height and staying back, one engaging Drake, and one breaching the trees to the three idle figures in the start area; both attackers whiff
Round 2 (Knights initiative)
-Brave Arrow claims the Boots of Haste, killing the guarding Deathstalker as well
-Remaining Deathstalkers engage and attack, landing a wound on Deadeye
-Drake attacks and kills another Deathstalker
-Both Deathstalkers attack, landing wounds on deadeye and Eldgrim
-Carr attacks, killing another Deathstalker
-Last deathstalker whiffs attack
Round 3 (Knights initiative)
-Carr attack and kills the last Deathstalker
No casualties

It played pretty fast, but was fun and tricky, if not difficult. I'll likely be playing the next four by Friday, I'll be sure to give a report.

Oh, and to answer the answers:
1) It was probably a multitude of several things, including my lack of having everything I needed in one place, lack of space, my after-school delirium confusing me and my ADD distracting me. It was a piece of cake after the first three levels, but my limited space to build and jumbled terrain gave me a bit of trouble in the beginning.
2) Yeah, I already stabilized all the terminals that I had trouble with. But another issue is that a lot of those areas that weren't really conencted to something were flying all over the place, and I had to secure them to more stable areas with lava tiles, to satisfy my minor OCD compulsions. Also, the top level stays just fine, but I have a feeling in my clumsiness I'm going to knock it off and it is going to come down and spectatularly squash my figures. Just a bit of anxiety there. :P
3) Mostly the part that I can't exactly pinpoint which rooms are which. I can understand the parameters of the first three rooms just fine, but 4 and 5 seem a little too vague for me.

Well, there, my wall of text is over. I hope to play the rest of it tomorrow, and if not by the end of this week. I should get you the reports as soon as possible, and by the way, thanks a lot for making this! ^_^

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 2:
Knights: Kaemon Awa, Thorgrim, Eravan Sunshadow, Darrak Ambershard, Isamu, Crixus

WATER DUNGEON

Room 1:
Isamu (Vorpal Sword), Kaemon Awa (Earth Key)

Round 1: Wolves od Badru and Eravan take turns moving and at the end of the round, Kaemon Awa takes out two wolves with Quick release.
Round 2: Wolves move up, Eravan attacks and eliminates another wolf. The Wolves move again, and Kaemon Awa attacks and kills another wolf. Marcu moves forward and attcks Kaemon Awa, but misses. Kaemon Awa attacks Marcu and inflicts 3 wounds.
Round 3: Eternal Hatred kicks in and Marcu joins the team. Kaemon Awa knocks off the last two wolves.

Room 1: Knights win, no casualties


Room 2:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Vorpal Sword), Crixus (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Brunak with Iskra riding, moves forward. Crixus moves up. Brunak/Iskra move up, Brunak attacks Crixus and misses. Darrack moves in to sneak attack Brunak, but misses. Iskra moves to attack the dwarf and causes a wound, but she fails to summon the Rechets. Crixus attacks Brunak and causes two wounds.
Round 2: Crixus cuts down Brunak. Iskra attacks Darrak and misses, and she cannot summon her pets. Darrak returns the attack and causes two wounds on the Vampire. Iskra continues to attack the Dwarf, and causes another wound; but she still fails to summon the Rechets. Crixus attacks and misses. (Turn 3 marker revealed on Brunak)
Round 3: Knights win initiative and Crixus rams his sword through Iskra's heart for two wounds.

Room 2: Knights win, no casualties.

Room 3:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Vorpal Sword), Crixus (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Kaemon Awa move forward, and launches a couple arrows at he giant and misses. Jotun moves to engage the Samurai.; attempt to grab him for a throw, but misses. The he also whiffs on his attack, where Kaemon Awa uses counterstrike for a wound. Crixus moves in and gives the giant three more. Gurei-Oni moves forward. Crixus inflicts two more wounds on Jotun. Jotun attempts to throw the pesky gladiator and misses, but does get in a wound.
Round 2: Crixus finishes Jotun easily. Kaemon Awa attacks Gurei-Oni with his Quick Release and misses. Gurei-Oni attacks with his Tetsubo, and misses but Kaemon Awa and Crixus. Keamon Awa, misses twice again, and the ogre misses with his Tetsubo attack.
Round 3: Gurei-Oni attacks and wounds Crixus. Darrak moves in to sneak attack and causes a wound. The ogre hits with the Tetsubo and Kaemon Awa and Darrak both take a wound. Crixus ends the battle with 5 skulls!

Room 3: Knights win, no casualties

Room 4:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Vorpal Sword), Crixus (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1:The Knights wins initiative and Kaemon Awa begins up the spiral. Cyprien flies down and misses Crixus with both Chill touch and his attack. Crixus causes two wounds to Cyprien. Cyprien returns the favor by giving the gladiator two wounds as well, one with Chill Touch and one with his sword. Kaemon Awa uses Quick Release to give the Vampire Lord 3 more wounds! Sonya flies down to ambush Isamu, but she misses.
Round 2: Darrak moves to Sneak Attack, and rolls All Skulls! Sonya falls. Cyprien is enraged at the loss of his beloved, disengages from the fight with the gladiator and the samurai and flies over to attack the Dwarf as he lands on the ring of protection. He gives Darrak three wounds with Chill touch, but misses with his attack. Kaemon Awa climbs off the spiral, and looks to get a couple of shot at the Vampire. He only can see his pasty white face, between Thorgrim and he wall, just under the overhang of the spiral’s steps…but it is enough, for Kaemon Awesome puts two arrows into Cyprien one in each eye to clear the dungeon.

Room 4: Knights win, no casualties


Knights clear dungeon and gain Water Key.
Survivors: Kaemon Awa, Thorgrim, Eravan Sunshadow, Darrak Ambershard, Isamu, Crixus


BTW, Crixus and Kaemon Awa are a formidible team, especially with the treasures equipped.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Ok I did notcie somethings in the Water Dungeon.

1) I did not treat the snow as Heavy, because I did not see it in the directions. If it was heavy, things may have changed a bit.

2) The Spiral handicaps short figures. The base is four levels high, and figure of Height 4 would never have been able to climb it. So I added tow ladder pieces to the base, so short figures could climb the awsome looking spiral.

Just a couple things I noticed.

[Messenger]

I ran into the same problem when I tried to adapt the campaign in the D&D Rulebook to 3 players. I was the DM and got 2 sets of Order Markers. My two friends split up the heroes (2 cards apiece) and set their turns.

What we found were that, even before the Player loses OM's, the DM's Order Markers are far more efficient because he can focus all of his turns on the relevant units. The Players couldn't do this as effectively - for example, if the best move was for Tandros to get all of the OM's, the Player couldn't do that because one player wasn't controlling Tandros. The DM though could just load up on whatever was most effective. On top of that, when one Player was completely killed, the DM just dominated.

What we did for a quick fix was allow both players to place their OM's on any card they wanted. That eliminated the first problem. Another solution would be to also split the DM's Order Markers into two "teams". For example, if the room contains 2 squads of Obsidian Guards, keep track of each squad separately and each has its own set of OM's. Or, if there are multiple units (like in Room 2 of the D&D Dungeon with the Drow and Troll), split up those army cards and use separate OM's to control them only.

Doing that helps somewhat on the second problem too - at least the DM can't focus its OM's on what it needs to kill the remaining heroes. They're forced to split them up because the army cards are segregated. I don't think that the DM should get cut down to one set of OM's though just because the Player lost one set - that's the reality of multi-player Scape. The Player can have the same advantage over the DM this way, if they can kill off one separate set of Army Cards.For situations like these (lots of Heroes) how about taking a page from the Basic Rules, and ditching the order markers altogether? Just alternate turns, and when it's your turn use whichever one of the units you still control. That way you can fearlessly use a Hero that only has one life left, as opposed to not putting an OM on an otherwise 'dead' guy.

If you're playing 2 vs. the DM just alternate between the players and DM, like this: P1, DM, P2, DM, P1, DM...

[Xotli]

I note that you clarified that the heroes heal up between rooms. Definitely add this to the PDF.I thought it was standard to D&D/HS but I'll clarify it just in case.

Well, not sure what you mean here ... I don't think we can say that it's standard for HS, because I don't think there's an analogue to "rooms" in standard HS. In D&D, you can choose to rest up and heal between rooms, but then again you might choose not to (because it costs either time or magic, or both).


I also note that you clarified that heroes can swap out magic items between room/between dungeons. What if a hero dies while holding a magic item? Can the other heroes retrieve that (say, after the battle)?Items on dead Knights are dropped in their formerly occupied space just any Treasure Glyph, but fallen items can be recovered after the battle and before the next encounter, unless specified by the rules of that room.

Ah, gotcha. That's what I figured, but good to have that clarified.


What about spirits (i.e. Thorgrim, Finn, Eldgrim)? I'm assuming they're retained between rooms, but what about between dungeons?Yes, and yes, though the Spirit can never be transferred to another Knight and the stated rule about stacking bonuses applies to Spirits as well. Specifically, static bonuses to a unit's statistics overlap (do not stack). (For example, if Kumiko had Thorgrim's Spirit and a Ring of Protection +2, only the +2 would count.)


Ah, okay ... yeah, I definitely wouldn't have thought of that. Good to clarify.

Thanks Xotli! I'll clarify those points in the player's guide before the next release.

Awesome. Great job so far. Looking forward to even more improvements.

[Velenne]

For situations like these (lots of Heroes) how about taking a page from the Basic Rules, and ditching the order markers altogether? Just alternate turns, and when it's your turn use whichever one of the units you still control. That way you can fearlessly use a Hero that only has one life left, as opposed to not putting an OM on an otherwise 'dead' guy.

If you're playing 2 vs. the DM just alternate between the players and DM, like this: P1, DM, P2, DM, P1, DM...

That's not a bad idea at all and worth testing. Thanks Messenger!

[Messenger]

Thanks, though I'm sure the Order Marker purists will object.

I don't use order markers when I play with my kids. They're still young, so it alleviates frustration and makes for a more enjoyable experience overall.

From waaaaay back in my D&D playing days, I seem to remember the turn-based mechanic being similar to what I proposed. Everyone got to take their turn in a back-and-forth style battle. It seemed similar to playing without order markers, and the basic rules give us that precedent.

[halobosspotter]

Hope to get games in on the Fire Dungeon this weekend. I created Ancient Artifact glyph cards for each of the four Keys, much like the one used in the HSers exclusive scenario. They look AMAZING if I do say so myself (and I hope you'll agree when you see them) but I'm afraid you'll have to wait until the final campaign book. I'm sure I'll need to tweak the Key's powers at some point and I wouldn't want you to waste all that printer ink. :)

When are you releasing the glyph cards? We will be playing tommorow so I will be able to give you detailed reports.


//HbP

[ZBeeblebrox]

I got sidetracked, but I hope to finish playtesting with the two adventure parties by Monday. Since Monday is a holiday, I'll have three days to complete the Fire and Earth dungeons and Sanctuary with each group.

[Velenne]

Great to hear! I just finished my move and should get some games this weekend. I'm also looking to host a local gameday to finish playtesting!

[ZBeeblebrox]

O I finished both playtest team against the Fire Dungeon, and I played over half of the Air Dungeon...but I was stumped on Rooms 4 & 5 in the Air Dungeon.

I am having trouble with where one begin and the other ends...Velene can you give me more information than what is listed in the Dungeon directions.

Also, I've noticed that the original overveiw mention another Treasure gylph in the Air Dungeon (Deflection against Arrows), but the instructions do not mention that gylph, did I miss something?

[Velenne]

Room 4 is simply the spaces at the bottom of the fortress door, the castle walk tiles, asphalt, and ladders. It's very small 2-dimensionally. Room 5 is the uppermost level with the cantilevered section along with the corresponding asphalt levels far below on levels 1 and 2. (If you look straight down from the top you should be able to see those below, so using the Turbolift tiles will get you from top to bottom.) Make sense?

I didn't end up including the Arrow Deflection shield, so you didn't miss anything there.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 1:
Knights: Brave Arrow, Arkmer, Syvarris, Migol Ironwill, Kaemon Awa, and Kyntela Gwyn.

FIRE DUNGEON

Room 1:
Migol Ironwill (Vorpal Sword), Syvarris (Earth Key), Arkmer (Amulet of Health), Kyntela Gwyn (Scrolls, Water Key), Kaemon Awa (Ring of Protection +2),

Round 1: Knights win initiative, Kaemon Awa shoots twice and eliminates a Guard, then that Guard throws a Lava Ball at the Samurai and inflicts two wounds. Syvarris takes out two Guards on his turn. An Obsidian Guard Throws more lava at Kaemon Awa and inflicts another wound. Arkmer attacks and misses.
Round 2: Guards attack, and Kaemon Awa falls meanwhile Arkmer takes two wounds. Syvarris takes out two more Obsidian Guards. Guards attack Migol and inflicts a wound. Then more Guards move up and miss with their attacks. Arkmer attacks and misses.
Round 3: Guards attack with Thrown Lava and Arkmer is doomed. Migol jumps up onto the Lave Field and with his Vorpal Sword removes the head of the Guard that killed Arkmer. The Guards attack and inflict two wounds on Syvarris. Syvarris counters by killing two Moltarns. A Guard attacks Migol and inflicts a wound. Syvarris ends the battle by taking out the last Moltarn.

Room 1: Knights win, lose Kaemon Awa and Arkmer.


Room 2:
Migol Ironwill (Ring of Protection +2), Syvarris (Water Key, Earth Key), Kyntela Gwyn (Scrolls, Amulet of Health), Brave Arrow (Vorpal Sword)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Kyntela Gwyn runs across the Lava Field, pulls out the Scroll of Deep Slumber. She casts the spell and puts all the Minions to sleep. Then Syvarris moves up and rolls all skulls with both sots and remove Taelord from the equation. The Migol Ironwill runs forward to protect the Elven Princess. The Lava Field takes its toll as four Minions fall to the extreme heat and all the Knights take a wound except Brave Arrow.
Round 2: Migol kills a Minion of Utgar. The last Minion attacks the Dwarf and inflicts two wounds. Migol misses the counter attack, then the Minion attacks and misses as well. Brave Arrow runs up to activate the Bridge. And the Minion misses Migol Ironwill again.
Round 3: Syvarris moves onto the Bridge, avoids an engagement swipe from the Minion and opens the treasure. The trap is avoided and the Heroic Rune is found. The Minion attacks the Dwarf again and misses, and then Migol finishes off the last opponent to end the battle.

Room 2: Knights win, no casualties

Room 3:
Migol Ironwill (Vorpal Sword, Water Key), Syvarris (Heroic Rune, Earth Key), Kyntela Gwyn (Scroll, Amulet of Health), Brave Arrow (Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Syvarris moves up takes out a Guardian with awell placed shot. The Guardians move forward and release Landslides upon Migol, and inflicts a wound. Migol move to even ground and eliminates a Granite Guardian. The Guardians release more landslides upon Brave Arrow, who avoids injury and Migol, who take two more wounds. Migols Vorpal Sword removes another Guardian. The Guardians then move forward and attack Syvarris directly and he take two wounds, and they also release a Landslide upon the Dwarf and inflicts one more wound to Migol.
Round 2: The Granite Guardians attack with Landslides and Migol falls under the rubble. Syvarris attacks and remove the Guardian that injured him last round. The Guardians attack and give Brave Arrow a wound. Syvarris takes out two more Elementars. The Guardians attack Brave Arrow and miss. (Syvarris take a wound from the adjacent water)
Round 3: Knights win initiative, and Syvarris takes out two more Guardians from his perch. Guardians release Landslides at the Mohican and he deftly avoids trouble, Syvarris takes out another Guardian and the last tries a landslide but misses. Syvarris ends the battle.

Room 3: Knights win, lose Migol Ironwill

Room 4: (No riddles, since I play test by myself)
Syvarris (Heroic Rune, Earth Key, Amulet of Health ), Kyntela Gwyn (Scroll, Ring of Protection +2), Brave Arrow (Vorpal Sword, Water Key)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Syvarris moves up and shots at Runa and inflicts a wound. Run flies to the tower closest to the Knights, activates her Helm and fails to eliminate a Knight. Syvarris climb a tower and launches two arrows, which hits Runa both in her chest and she falls from the tower.

Room 4: Knights win, no casualties


Room 5:
Syvarris (Heroic Rune, Earth Key,), Kyntela Gwyn (Amulet of Health ,Scroll, Ring of Protection +2), Brave Arrow (Luckstone,Vorpal Sword, Water Key)


Round 1: Knights win initiative and Syvarris move forward and shoots two arrows into Sujoah’s side and inflicts three wounds. Sujoah flies forward, and attcks Brave Arrow. He inflicts a wound on the Mohican but the Poison does not take effect. The Spiders move up and surround Syvarris, but fail to Entangle and cannoy bypass the Earth Key’s defense. Syvarris then turns toward the large insect and puts two point blank shots into its carapace and removes Sujoah from the battle. The Spiders try to Entangle Syvarris again and fail, but they do inflict a wound each upon the Elf causing a total of three wounds. Brave Arrow moves up and takes out a Spider, and the Spiders miss Syvarris.
Round 2: Spiders Entangle Syvarris and removes Turn Marker #2, and then they attack and miss. Syvarris kills two more Spiders. Then the Spiders kill Syvarris. The Spiders then turn to Brave Arrow and take him down as well.
Round 3: Kyntela Gywn runs up and picks up the Vorpal Sword. The Spiders attack the Princess and fail to entangle and fail to injure. Kyntela swings the Vorpal Sword and eliminates a Spider. The Spiders attack and miss. Gwyn kills another, and the last Spider cannot bypass her Ring of Protection.
Round 4: The Spider attacks the wizard and Misses, Kyntela misses, The Spider inflicts a wound, Kntela then slams the Vorpal Sword down on the Spider and ends the battle. Whew!


Room 5: Knights win, but lose Syvarris and Brave Arrow


Knights clear dungeon and gain Fire Key.
Survivor: Kyntela Gwyn
Lost: Sgt. Brave Arrow, Arkmer, Syvarris, Migol Ironwill, and Kaemon Awa

Recruits for the next dungeon: Raelin (SotM), Brunak, Marcu Esenwein, Chardris, Emirroon,

[ZBeeblebrox]

Room 4 is simply the spaces at the bottom of the fortress door, the castle walk tiles, asphalt, and ladders. It's very small 2-dimensionally. Room 5 is the uppermost level with the cantilevered section along with the corresponding asphalt levels far below on levels 1 and 2. (If you look straight down from the top you should be able to see those below, so using the Turbolift tiles will get you from top to bottom.) Make sense?

I didn't end up including the Arrow Deflection shield, so you didn't miss anything there.

Thanks Velenne, I hope to finish the Air Dungeon tonight.

[Velenne]

What a battle report! Whew! Glad to see the Knights pulled out the win with the help of some handy items and abilities. Some questions for you, ZB:

1 - Did the Fire Dungeon feel appropriately more challenging using the Advanced rules?

2 - How do you feel about the flavor of the special items and artifacts? Do they work well?

3 - Do the maps feel like dungeons? Are the encounters interesting and different? What are you most and least favorite rooms so far?

[ZBeeblebrox]

What a battle report! Whew! Glad to see the Knights pulled out the win with the help of some handy items and abilities. Some questions for you, ZB:

1 - Did the Fire Dungeon feel appropriately more challenging using the Advanced rules?

Yes it did, in both play tests it was nerve racking at the end. The Fire Dungeon’s start zones for the “monsters” seemed right next to the Knights, A couple of places they fought directly from the start zone. I was afraid when I saw that the Knights were facing two squads of Minions and Taelord, but the lava field was the equalizer, because it could kill them, where it only injured the Knights.

2 - How do you feel about the flavor of the special items and artifacts? Do they work well?

So far I like all of the artifacts, although I have yet to use any of the powers in the Water Key. The defense of the Earth Key and the Ring of Protection are crucial in this campaign. Also the Vorpal Sword helps out the “little” guy. I realized early on that by giving the Vorpal Sword to a figure with less attack dice, it actually maximized by success with the artifact. In the last room when Brave Arrow went down for Team #1, I knew my only chance was to get Kyntela to get to the sword or the game would be over.

3 - Do the maps feel like dungeons? Are the encounters interesting and different? What are you most and least favorite rooms so far?

Some of the maps feel like dungeons, the Fire and Earth especially. The Water did not give me a Dungeon feel, but I like the spiral anyways. So far I have utterly enjoyed this campaign; each encounter is different and unique. I Loved the Water Dungeon the most, because I loved how it spiraled around itself and the center tower was awesome to behold. Even thought it was difficult, I liked Room 3 in the Fire dungeon. The Guardians have the high ground from minute one and I could picture them avoiding Lanslide after Landslide to reach the top. But I think that the method to produce a treasure in that room is too difficult. You cannot avoid the G-Guards enough to activate it…I think having it in there where it can be stepped on would be better.
I thought the room with Runa was too easy; she goes down quickly to Archers. Also the First room on the Water Dungeon, felt too easy as well, because the Wolves of Badru were really slow through the water. I think that Armocs may give more of a challenge in that room.


Playtest Team#2 Fire Dungeon Adventure to be posted soon….

[Velenne]

Awesome feedback, ZB; I greatly appreciate it. I'm definitely changing Room 1 of the Water Dungeon and looking at the glyph rules in Room 3 of the Fire Dungeon. I'm also looking into tweaking Room 5 of the Air Dungeon to make it more intuitive. I'll leave Runa's room the way it is though, because I want it to be more about the riddles than the combat. I'll also look at adding a few more places to use the Water key (I remember a great spot in the Boss room of the Earth Dungeon, but there's no water in the Fire or Air dungeons at all.)

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 2:
Knights: Kaemon Awa, Thorgrim, Eravan Sunshadow, Darrak Ambershard, Isamu, Crixus

FIRE DUNGEON

Room 1:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Vorpal Sword), Eravan Sunshadow (Scrolls, Ring of Protection +2), Darrak Ambershard (Water Key), Crixus (Amulet of Health)

Round 1:Knights win initiative and Kaemon Awa take out a Guard. The Guards attack and Darrak takes two wounds from Thrown Lava. Kaemon Awa misses twice. A Guard attacks Kaemon Awa directly and misses, the Samurai conterstrikes the Moltarn and remove its head. Two Guards Throw more Lava at the Dwarf but miss thanks to Thorgrim’s Aura. Eravan attacks, roll all Skulls, kills a Guard and then he attacks a second time and misses with his Fire Strike. A Guard throws Lave at Darrak and misses him.
Round 2: The Guards attack first, Darrak Hides in Shadows to avoid more Thrown Lava, but the Samurai take two wounds from the molten missiles. Darrack Sneak Attack a Guard that is attacking Kaemon Awa and destroys it. The Obsidian Guards attack Darrak again, and again he Hides in the Shadows. Kaemon Awa remove two mor Guards with Quick Releases. Guards move in, and Kamon Awa charges up onto the Lava Field and eliminates two more Moltarns. Then he survives the heat of the Lava Field.
Round 3: Kaemon Awa knocks off the last Obsidian Guard.

Room 1: Knights win, no casualties


Room 2:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Water Key), Eravan Sunshadow (Scrolls), Crixus (Ring of Protection +2), Isamu (Amulet of Health, Vorpal Sword)

Round 1: Kyrie win initiative, and the Minion fly to the safe areas, and activate the bridge., One minion flies up on to the bridge. Isamu runs up to the Minion on the Activating Hex, and rolls all Skulls, the Vorpal Sword removes its haed and makes the bridge disappear. The Minion on the bridge is caught unaware and falls into the Lava to perish. A Minions attack and Isamu Vanishes twice while Eravan avoids a deadly axe strike. Isamu ataks a Minion again and rolls all skulls, The Vorpal Sword strike s again! Tealord move to the center of the Lava and reveals a Heroic Rune. (The Lava field take its toll on everyone except the pesky ninja and the Minions)
Round 2: The Minions attack and Eravan takes three wounds. Isamu vanishes again! And then in and unbelievable show of swordsmanship he removes another head with the Vorpal Sword. (WTF, that’s All Skulls 3 turns in a row) Taelord calls off the dogs and goes after the pesky ninja, but Isamu Vanishes again. Kaemon Awa puts two arrows into the back of Taelord’s head to remove him from the field. The Minions attack ,and Isamu Vanishes, but Eravan is hit with All Skulls from a Minion and he is slaughtered. Kaemon Awa destroys that Minion that killed the wizard in retaliation. (The Lava Field only effect the Samurai this round)
Round 3: The last Minion attacks the annoying Ninja and finally Isamu trips on a lava rock and is cut in two by the Minion of Utgar. Crixus runs up and puts his sword into the back of the last Minion.

Room 2: Knights win, lose Eravan Sunshadow and Isamu

Room 3:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key), Thorgrim (Water Key, Vorpal Sword), Crixus (Scrolls, Heroic Rune, Ring of Protection +2), Darrak Ambershard (Amulet of Health)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Crixus move up the rock hill and remove a Granite Guardian. The Guardians attack the Knights with Rockslides and crush Thorgrim with All Skulls! (Thorgrims spirit attaches to Darrak) Darrak move up and sneak attacks a Guardian. The Guardians use Rockslides again and Crixus take a wound. Crixus kills another Granite Guard. Rockslides are used again, and Kaemon Awa takes two wounds and Crixus take one.
Round 2: Kaemon Awa Attacks and remove two Guardians from the equation. The Guardians attack and manage to injure Crixus and Darrak for one wound each. Crixus returns the favor and remove another Guard, and Darrak avoids another Landslide. Crixus misses, while the Guardians Landslide Darrak for another wound.
Round 3: The Guardians attack and miss Crixus, but inflict two more wound on the Dwarf…but The Amulet’s power keeps him alive. Darrak Sneak Attacks another Guarding ending it existence. The Guardian attack again inflicting another wound to Ambershard, but misses Crixus. Crixus kills a Guardian, The last Guardian misses, and Crixus doesn’t thus ending the battle.

Room 3: Knights win, lose Thorgrim

Room 4: (No riddles, I play test by myself)
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key, Amulet of Health, Heroic Rune), Darrak Ambershard (Ring of Protection +2), Crixus (Scrolls, Water Key, Vorpal Sword)

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Kaemon Awa moves up and shoots at Runa and inflicts 3 wounds. Runa flies to the tower closest to the Knights, activates her Helm and fails to eliminate a Knight. The Samurai climbs a tower and launches two arrows, which hits Runa both in her chest and she falls from the tower.

Room 4: Knights win, no casualties


Room 5:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key, Amulet of Health,), Darrak Ambershard (Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2), Crixus (Scrolls, Water Key, Heroic Rune)


Round 1: Monsters win initiative, And Sujoah advances and attacks Darrak, but misses. The Bonded Spiders move forward. Kaemon Awa attacks and misses. Sujoah inflicts a wound upon the Dwarf, but fail to poison. Spiders move in, but fail in attacking and Entangling. Kaemon Awa puts two arrows into the large Insect for three wounds. Sujoah attack Darrak and inflicts two wounds, but the poison has no effect. The Fyorlag Spiders attack and miss. Darrak uses Sneak Attack to kill Sujoah. Two Spiders are enraged and swarm over the Dwarf, who just shrugs off their attacks. Meanwhile Crixus does get wounded by a Spider.
Round 2: Kaemon Awa attacks and kills two Arachnids. Fyorlag Spiders move in and miss the Gladiator. Darrak move around to Sneak Attack the Spider on Crixus. Spiders Attack the samurai and inflict two wounds. Darrak Sneak Attacks another Spider. Spiders attack and miss their targets.
Round 3: Spiders attack and inflict two more wound on Kaemon Awa (Amulet kicks in). The Samurai is annoyed and picks off the last remaining Spiders.

Room 5: Knights win, no casualties


Knights clear dungeon and gain Fire Key.
Survivor: Kaemon Awa, Darrak Ambershard, Crixus
Lost: Isamu, Thorgrim, and Eravan Sunshadow

Recruits for the next dungeon: Atlaga, Deadeye Dan, Eldgrim

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 1:
Knights: Raelin (SotM), Brunak, Marcu Esenwein, Chardris, Emirroon, and Kyntela Gwyn.

AIR DUNGEON

Room 1:
Kyntela Gwyn (Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2 ), Marcu Esenwein (Earth Key), Brunak (Heroic Rune, Amulet of Health), Emirroon (Scrolls, Water Key, Luck), Raelin (Fire Key)

Round 1: Chardris Fire Strikes a Deathstalker; Stalkers move in attack and miss. Brunak gets Blood Hungry and attacks and kills one Stalker while missing a second. Stalkers attacks one of the wizards and Chardris is Mauled for 3 wounds. Brunak misses his target. Stalkers attack and Raelin takes a wound.
Round 2: Brunak gets succumbs to his Blood Hunger and destroys the two Stalkers adjacent to him. A Stalker attacks Kyntela and misses. Marcu makes a beeline towards the treasure. The Deathstalkers attack and Chardris take two wounds. Brunak kills the Stalker that just injured the wizard. The Stalker run in, attack and miss.
Round 3: Brunak picks up Raelin, move next to more Stalkers and places her on a hill in a more secure location. He then succumbs to his Hunger and wipes out two more Stalkers. Stalkers attack and manage to Maul Marc for 3 wounds. Marcu gets to the treasure, does not activate the trap and picks up the boots of haste. He then attacks the Stalker and rolls All Skulls to eliminate the threat. The last Deathstalker Mauls poor Chardris and leaves him a bloody mess and then Brunak finishes it off.

Room 1: Knights win, lose Chardris.


Room 2:
Kyntela Gwyn (Vorpal Sword,), Marcu Esenwein (Ring of Protection +2, Boots of Haste), Brunak (Amulet of Health), Emirroon (Fire Key, Scrolls, Water Key, Luckstone), Raelin (Earth Key, Heroic Rune)


Round 1: The Soulborg win initiative and the Blastatrons order the Glads through the teleporter to engage the Knights where they gather outside the walls. The Blasts follow and shoot at the Knights, in which Marcu take a wound. Brunak goes on a Blood Hungry rampage and destroys two Glads and one Blastatron. The Blasts order the Glads to surround Brunak, and then they fire on the beast to inflict only one wound. Brunak succumbs to his Hunger again. but only kills one Gladiatron. Another Gladiatron takes his place as the Blasts fire away at the Trolticor, and he takes another wound. Emirroon points the Fire Key at the Blastatrons and destroys 5 Soulborgs with its awesome power (3 Blasts, 2 Glads fall).
Round 2: Brunak gets Hungry for Blood and destroys two more Gladiatrons. More Blastatron come through the teleporter and shoot at Brunak which ricochet off his thick hide. Emiroon uses the Fire Key again, and three more Blastatrons cease to exist. The Last Blastatron comes through the teleporter, shoot and misses. Brunak ends its life with his powerful sword.

Room 2: Knights win, no casualties

Room 3:
Kyntela Gwyn (Scroll, Vorpal Sword,), Marcu Esenwein (Ring of Protection +2, Boots of Haste), Brunak (Water Key, Amulet of Health), Emirroon (Fire Key, Scrolls, Luckstone), Raelin (Earth Key, Heroic Rune)

Round 1: Knights win initiative, and Brunak carries Raelin to the Blast Shield. They move the shield more into the center of the room. Deathreavers move forward and attack and miss. Brunak attacks a robo-rat with his special attack and misses. Reavers move, attack, and miss their targets. DWK9 moves forward and targets Raelin with an Explosive Attack and misses. Emiroon uses the Fire Key to destroy two Reavers.
Round 2: Knights win initiative, Brunak runs forward and attacks a Zettian Guard and misses. DWK9 shoots at Brunak and misses. Raelin Whirlwinds into the air, destroying the two Reavers at her feet. Two robo-rats Scatter and engage the Trolticor. Reavers attack the Knights and miss. Brunak uses his Special Attck to kill another Reaver. Reavers attack and miss.
Round 3: The Soulborgs start the round and DWK9 shoots at Marcu who is badly injured for 4 wounds, with a roll of All Skulls! Raelin flies in to help her fellow Knights and Whirlwinds to remove two more rats from the field. DWK9 blasts at Marcu again and inflicts another wound. Emirroon moves up, points the Fire Key at DWK9 and misses. DWK9 sees the threat and launshes a Explosive rounds at the wizard that misses everyone.
Round 4: Soulborgs attack and DWK9 targets Emirroon again and the resulting Explosion does nothing. Emirron after shrugging off the attack, point the Fire Key at the Deathwalker and turns it into spare parts. Emirroon then points the Key at a Zettian but misses the Guard…but does inflict a wound on Brunak. Ouch! Brunak is pissed, goes Blood Hungry and kills a Reaver and a Guard.
Round 5: The last Zettian attacks Brunak and Brunak attacks back…both cannot wound the other for the entire round.
Round 6: Emirroon seeing Brunak’s ineptitude, points the Fire Key and destroys the Zettian and inflicts two wound on the Trolticar, luckily he has the Amulet of Health on. Whew!

Room 3: Knights win, no casualties

Room 4:
Raelin (Earth Key, Heroic Rune, Fire Key, Water Key), Kyntela Gwyn (Eyes of the Eagle, Vorpal Sword,), Marcu Esenwein (Ring of Protection +2, Haste), Brunak (Amulet of Health),
Emirroon (Scrolls, Luckstone),

Round 1:The Omnicron Snipers attack. Brunak take tree wounds. Raelin flies up and point the Fire Key and misses. Snipers attack and Raelin takes two wounds. Raelin points the Fire Key again and destroys two Snipers. The Sniper sattack the Kyrie Warrior again and she take another wound. Brunak take the Turbolift up.
Round 2: Snipers attack and put large gaping holes into Emirroon as Kyntela screams! Raelin points the Fire Key and two more Omnicrons go up in the blaze. Snipers attacjk and Brunak and Raelin each take a wound. Raelin again uses the Fire Key to make short work of an Omnicron. The last Sniper misses, and Marcu flies up to make a lunch out of the Soulborg.

Room 4: Knights win, lose Emirroon


Room 5:
Raelin (Earth Key, Boots of Haste, Fire Key,), Kyntela Gwyn (Scrolls, Luckstone, Vorpal Sword,), Marcu Esenwein (Ring of Protection +2, Heroic Rune), Brunak (Water Key, Eyes of the Eagle, Amulet of Health),


Round 1: Soulborgs win initiative, and Major Q10 materializes upon the top platform ans blast away at Raelin, who take a wound. She points the Fire Key at the Major and inflicts two wounds. Q10 blasts away at her again and misses with two rockets. She points the Fire Key at him a second time to blow him sky high!
Round 2: Repulsors take turbolift up, attack and miss. Brunak charges, goes Blood Hungry and destroys two Omnicron Repulsors. The Repulsors move and attack and miss again. Raelin points the Fire Key and two more Repulsors bite the dust. A repulsor attack Marcu to inflict a wound. Raelin destroys another Omnicron. .
Round 3: Knights win initiate and Raelin points the Fire Key to blast the last Repulsor from the platform


Room 5: Knights win, no casualties


Knights clear dungeon and gain Air Key.
Survivors: Marcu Esenwein, Kyntela Gwyn, Brunak, and Raelin (SotM)
Lost: Emirroon, and Chardris

Recruits for the next dungeon: Eravan Sunshadow and Atlaga.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Playtest Team 1:
Knights: Kaemon Awa, Darrak Ambershard, Crixus, Atlaga, Deadeye Dan, and Eldgrim

AIR DUNGEON

Room 1:
Kaemon Awa(Amulet of Health) , Darrak Ambershard (Earth Key), Crixus (Scrolls, Heroic Rune), Deadeye Dan (Fire Key), and Eldgrim (Water Key, Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2 )


Round 1: Knights win initiative, Kaemon Awa launches two Quick strikes at Deathstakers and they fall. The stalkers move and attack, Deadeye Dan takes a wound. Kaemon Awa eliminates two more Stalkers. Stalkers miss their targets and Crixus beheads one more. The Stalkers move in and attack the Knights…Crixus takes two wounds and the Samurai takes one.
Round 2: The Knights attack and Kaemon uses his Quick Release to yake down two more Soulborg. A Stalker attacks and misses. Crixus attacks and misses. Stalkers attack and cause wounds to Crixus and Atlaga. Atlaga disengages from a Stalker, avoids the swipe and flies towards the treasure. The Death stalkers attack Kaemon Awa and Crixus…they miss the Samurai who Counterstrikes it, while Crixus stands tall without a scratch.
Round 3: Atlaga finds the treasure, and avoids the trap. The last Stalker attacks the Gladiator and misses him; Crixus does not miss with his attack.

Room 1: Knights win, no casualties


Room 2:
Kaemon Awa(Water Key) , Atlaga (Boots of Haste), Crixus (Fire Key, Earth Key, Amulet of Health , Heroic Rune), and Eldgrim (Scrolls,, Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2 )


Round 1: Knights win initiative, and Crixus goes through the teleporter. One he gets to another room he points the fire Key at the surprised Soulborgs and turns two Blastatrons and two Gladiatrons into slag. The Blasts order the Gladiatrons to move…one engages Crixus and three other teleport to the Knights gathering room. Three Blasts follow to the gather room and blast way at the Knights; but they miss everyone. Kaemon Awa destroys a Glad. The Glads move again and then the Blasts shoot and give Darrak a wound. Crixus destroys a Gladiatron. The the Blasts attack Darrak and Crixus again and the Dwarf takes a wound.
Round 2: The Soulborgs win initiative and attack. Darrak Hides in Shadows while Crixus take a wound. Kaemon Awa eliminate two Blasts. Two Blats teleport to where Crixus is all alone and they continue the assault. Both Darrak and Crixus take another wound. Kaemon Awa destroys one of each Vydar Soulborg. The Blasts attack the Gladiator and he take another wound. Crixus uses the Fire Key to destroy another Blast.
Round 3: The Samurai teleports to Crixus’ aid and remove two Blastatrons from the equation. The final Blastatron kills Darrak Ambershard. Kaemon Awa Teleports again and Kills another Glad. Blast shoots at Dan and misses. Crixus misses a Gladiatron and it misses Crixus.
Round 4: Blastaron teleports and shoots at the Gladiator and misses. Crixus misses his target, and that Glad misses him. Crixus misses again, and so does the Blast. Kaemon Awa teleports in to save the day and eliminates the last Glad and Blast!

Room 2: Knights win, lose Darrak Ambershard

Room 3:
Kaemon Awa (Water Key) , Atlaga (Earth Key, Fire Key, Luckstone, Boots of Haste), Crixus (Heroic Rune), and Deadeye Dan (Scrolls, Amulet of Health,), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2)

Round 1: Knights win initiative, and Atlaga flies forward and loads the Bolt of Witherwood and fires. He gets lucky (rolls a 15) and the bolt his Deathwalker 9000 right in the chest and the Knights breathe a sigh of relief as they see his red menacing eyes go out. DWK9 falls! The Reavers retaliate and surround the Kyrie Warrior, but cannot bypass the protection of the Earth Key. Dan move up and attacks a Zettian and misses. The Reavers engage the Gunslinger and miss. Kaemon Awa takes down two robo-rats.
Round 2: Borgs win initiative, Reavers move to engage Dan and Atlaga; but cannot damage them. Atlaga points the Fire Key at the Reavers attacking him and three go up in flames. The Zettian Guards target Atlaga and the first one inflicts a wound. Atlaga disengages from a robo-rat which misses its swipe and they lands points the Fire Key at a Zettian and turns it into scrap. The other Zettian attacks and misses Atlaga. Dan tries to shoot a Reaver that is engaged, and hits! Rats scatter to engage Atlaga once again.
Round 3: Atlaga disengages again, this time a rat does get in a wound. The Atlaga lands and points the Fire Key at the other Zettian, but he misses it! The Reavers move and attack Atlaga again, and miss again. Kaemon Awa misses twice. The Zettian misses. The Samurai whiffs two more times and the Zettian does not do any better.
Round 4: The Zettian attacks and misses. Crixus moves in and cuts a robo-rat in two. Dan targets the Guard with his Enhanced Rifle and puts a bullet into its CPU, and then he turns the Rifle to the last rat and makes it shutdown with a bullet to the skull.

Room 3: Knights win, no casualties

Room 4:Kaemon Awa (Earth Key) , Atlaga (Eyes of the Eagle, Heroic Rune, Luckstone,), Crixus (Boots of Haste, Fire Key, Heroic Rune), and Deadeye Dan (Ring of Protection +2, Amulet of Health,), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword, Water Key)

Round 1:Knights win initiative and Kaemon Awa take the turbolift up and uses Quick Release to eliminate a Omnicron Sniper. The Omnicrons attack and Atlaga takes a wound. Atlaga flies up and takes out a Sniper. The Omnicrons attack and Crixus takes a wound. Crixus takes the turbolift and proceeds to throw a Sniper from the wall.
Round 2: Snipers attack and Crixus take another wound. Kaemon Awa kills two more. The last Omnicron misses Crixus. Crixus uses the turbolift to get to the Sniper and misses, the Sniper then misses the Gladiator. Kaemon Awa doesn’t miss his target ending the battle.

Room 4: Knights win, no casualties


Room 5:
Kaemon Awa (Earth Key, Water Key), Atlaga (Amulet of Health, Eyes of the Eagle, Boots of Haste, Fire Key,), Crixus (Boots of Haste, Ring of Protection +2,), and Deadeye Dan (Heroic Rune, Luckstone), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword, Scrolls)


Round 1: Knights win initiative and Atlaga flies over to the edge of the platform; points the Fire Key at the Repulsors below and destroys the entire squad! Major Q10 materializes upon the top platform and Wrist Rockets and twice who takes two wounds. Atlaga moves. Repulsors attack and Atlaga takes two wounds. Atlaga points the Fire Key again and take out two more Omnicrons! The last Repulsor uses the Turbolift and attack Crixus…but it misses the Gladiator
Round 2: Atlaga flies to the lower area. Major Q10 materialzes next to the Kyrie and Machine pistols him for two wounds. Eldgrim moves to a turbolift and Overextends himself to take it to the area below. Q10 attacks and injures Atlaga with a Wrist Rocket. Kaemon Awa misses the last Repulsor. Atlaga is shot at by Q10, but manages to avoid injury as he reprograms the large Soulborg.


Room 5: Knights win, no casualties


Knights clear dungeon and gain Air Key.
Survivors: Kaemon Awa, Atlaga, Crixus, Eldgrim, and Deadeye Dan

Lost: Darrak Ambershard

Recruit for the next dungeon: Arkmer

[ZBeeblebrox]

Of all the Dungeons, I like the Air Dungeon the least. The first three room rock, but the last two are too complicated and the platform I find too fragile to make me happy.

I knocked over the top platform by just hitting the table three times and had to restart, because I could not remember where the figures were on the board.

I also had to remove the platform to plat the forth dungeon because I kept knocking it to the ground.

The tower where Q10 sits does not allow hi to sit properly because the battlements impede his placement…I finally ended up taking out two so he could be placed.
Also I found the wording of room 5 confusing, because it says you have to keep a Knight next to a battlement from the end of one round to the end of another round. Well that technically impossible because the only battlements are on the walls, 9 levels high. I interpreted it to mean the walls, and used that interpretation for Playtest #2.

[Velenne]

Great reports. I love reading these!

I think you're right. I need to rework room 5 completely. I'm too in love with the turbolift mechanic.

Sorry about the stability problems too. You should be able to lift the whole top off as one piece and play on the table if it becomes a problem.

[Velenne]

Got some great games on the Fire Dungeon tonight and will put some in tomorrow. After that, I'll take up all the feedback and put up a 0.9 version for some final revisions and feedback before the big release.

[Velenne]

Let's start with changes to the Earth dungeon:

Previous changes:

Version Notes
Beta


Clarified rules for Room 1
Slightly modified Room 2 so the Trolls can gain height advantage on a Knight claiming the Vorpal Sword.
Rebuilt Room 3 so the Deepwyrm Drow cannot attack the Knights on the first turn.
Modified Room 4 so Othkurik can't keep the whole central perch against a single Knight of Height 4 or less.
Rearranged footprint of entire dungeon to be a bit more manageable.

New changes:

Reclarified rules for Room 1 to be extra clear. ;)
Modified Room 2 a bit more.
In keeping with the 2 BftU set requirement, I removed the "+1 for advanced" on the Deepwyrm drow as this would require 3 sets of them. Instead, I gave them closer starting zone options in the advanced options.
To clarify, this dungeon requires: 1 RotV, 1 SotM, and 2 BftU sets to build.
Othkurik now carries the Earth Key, granting him +2 Defense and a round of non-moving invulnerability. He has the distinction of being the only dungeon boss to carry a Key and may warrant a precident.

[DrLivingston]

I had a lot of fun playing through the Fire Dungeon last night!

Crixus almost made it. So close!

Thanks for all the work you're putting in to it and I eagerly await for the date to be set for the play through date!

[Velenne]

Changes to the Fire dungeon:

Reworked Room 2's layout. This should be an even more dynamic encounter now, both in normal and Advanced versions.
Changed the rules in Room 3 to require only 3 of the 4 vents to be covered to shut them off instead of all 4.
Slid the Rooms around a bit to reduce the footprint of the dungeon.
Changed Runa's Riddle mechanic. Runa now asks two riddles at the start of each round and if the player answers both correct, combat ends and the player advances.

[Velenne]

I had a lot of fun playing through the Fire Dungeon last night!

Crixus almost made it. So close!

Thanks for all the work you're putting in to it and I eagerly await for the date to be set for the play through date!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm going to set that date after I finish this round of revisions. I need to test Sanctuary at least once before that date. I'll make one final round of revisions after that, polish the whole presentation a bit, and if the mods don't object, create a new "release" thread for the final product.

FYI: I will include the build requirements in the final version. I didn't want to get into that until I had final versions of the dungeons.

[Velenne]

Changed the rules of the Water Dungeon:
Lowered the necessary sets for the build requirements. (Now only need 2 RotV, 1 SotM, and 1 TT.)
Changed Room 1 to feature Zombies of Morindan instead of Wolves of Badru. These zombies a bloated with river water and as such do not stop their movement when entering water spaces.
Clarified Heavy Snow and Normal Ice in Room 2. Brunak's heat ability allows him to treat snow tiles as Normal Snow.Changed the rules in the KotDS Rulebook:
Clarified that Knights heal all wounds between room encounters.
Specified the long-reaching effects of Viking spirits.
Rules now state that if a Hero holding at least one Key dies, Keys must be dropped in lieu of other treasures. Multiple Keys on the same recently destroyed Hero can be dropped.
Added the Artifact Glyph cards for all 4 Keys!
Added the player's sheets to this file.The Air Dungeon has undergone significant revision to Rooms 4 and 5.
Room 5 is now built separately and added to the castle walls surrounding room 3 after the player has finished Room 4. (In-game it descends from the clouds.) Once built, Room 5 takes place across the entire dungeon, with Major Q10 able to move his spire to any two Castle Walk tiles.
The Turbolifts in Room 4 and 5 now replace the rules for Castle Walk tiles, essentially giving players the Flying ability if they spend their entire movement on Castle Walk tiles.
Room 1 was tweaked a bit to add some water, making life a little more difficult for those single-hex Heroes!
Several things were given further clarification.

[Velenne]

All KotDS files in the download section have been updated to include the revisions made and suggested up to the time of this posting.

At this point, I need to playtest Sanctuary at least twice before my upcoming KotDS gameday. :pray: :pray: :pray:

After the gameday, I'll take up feedback, make changes, and publish the final version of this gargantuan project.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Wow Velenne, I like the changes you made. Now I'm going to have to play it again ;)

I am also hoping to get in Sanctuary battles this week.

I do have one concern with the last Dungeon...where are the dragons?

When you suggested that the keys would lead the Knights to Icaria, I thought we would see the dragons. I am a little disappointed in seeing only the four "bosses" that seemed too easy in the first place. I thought I'd see a different dragon representing each element along with each boss a second time.

Something Like this:

Sujoah & Zelrig - The Lava Pit
Major Q10 & Charos - The Ramparts
Othkurik & Braxas - The Underground Bog
Cyprien & Nilfheim - The Frozen Glade

Anyways, I hope I can playtest this as well...I'll keep you updated on my progress.

[Velenne]

You're actually fighting two bosses simultaneously, followed immediately by another two bosses + Charos with Mindlink. It may need to be dragons instead but I'm not convinced yet.

[ZBeeblebrox]

You're actually fighting two bosses simultaneously, followed immediately by another two bosses + Charos with Mindlink. It may need to be dragons instead but I'm not convinced yet.

Velenne, if you are fighting two at once...why are there start zones for each elemental "MOP"? Just curious, because, I thought each "MOP" was treated like a separate room like the rest of the campaign.

[Velenne]

You're actually fighting two bosses simultaneously, followed immediately by another two bosses + Charos with Mindlink. It may need to be dragons instead but I'm not convinced yet.

Velenne, if you are fighting two at once...why are there start zones for each elemental "MOP"? Just curious, because, I thought each "MOP" was treated like a separate room like the rest of the campaign.

You play on two sections for Battle 1, but the player chooses which two. The DM orients them and brings them together. The DM can then place the two matching guardians for the chosen sections in whichever blue starting spaces he likes.

Then in Battle 2, the DM brings in the remaining two sections and you fight those two guardians + Charos on the whole map.



There are four sections to the final dungeon. Each is guarded by a formidable and familiar foe.
Sujoah - The Lava Pit
Major Q10 - The Ramparts (if Q10 was recruited in the Air Dungeon, substitute Major Q9 in his place now)
Othkurik - The Underground Bog
Cyprien - The Frozen Glade

The player chooses two sections and relinquishes (permanently discards) the matching Keys. The DM chooses how to orient the sections. (It is recommended you build each section separately and simply place them as close as possible without attaching them.) Join the two chosen sections in any configuration per the adjacent diagram. The second two sections will be added later.
http://heroscape.glasq.com/heroscape/mops/example_02.gif(per the lower-right; this isn't the image used in the document)

Battle 1: The DM hides a Potion of Cure Light Wounds and a Tome of Resurrection under the army cards of the two guardians of the chosen sections. These are dropped as normal when the figures are destroyed. The Knights will battle these guardians in order to complete this encounter and begin the next. Knights heal between battles as normal. Discard the final two Keys after Battle 1.


Battle 2: The DM chooses how to orient the final two sections relative to the first two per the above diagram. The final two guardians are joined by Charos. For this battle, Charos has the following Special Ability:
Mindlink - After revealing an Order Marker on Charos, you may instead take a turn with any Unique Hero you control within 8 spaces.
Defeat this encounter to defeat the campaign.

[Velenne]

Here's what I've got it down to right now:
Earth Dungeon: 1 RotV, 1 SotM, 2 BftU
Fire Dungeon: 2 RotV, 1 SotM, 2 VW
Water Dungeon: 2 RotV, 1 SotM, 1 TT
Air Dungeon: 1 RotV, 2 FotA, 1 Marvel, 2 RttFF
Sanctuary: 2 RotV, 1 SotM, 2 BftU, 1 Marvel, 1 TT, 2 VW, 2 FotA, 1 RttFFI did some very minor aesthetic changes to Sanctuary to make sure it fit within the set limits created by the previous 4 dungeons. In all but one case you wouldn't even notice.

Figure-wise you need:
Earth: 2 BftU sets.
Fire Dungeon: 2-3 VW sets, 2 squads of Minions, Taelord, 2-3 Granite Guardians (who can proxy for Obsidian Guards), Runa, Sujoah, 1-2 squads of Fyorlag Spiders
Water Dungeon: All the Esenweins and Retchets, Brunak, 2-3 Zombies of Morindan, Jotun, Gurei-Oni.
Air Dungeon: 2-3 Deathstalkers, 2-3 Blastatrons, 2 Gladiators, DW9k, Zettian Guards, 2-3 Deathreavers, 2-3 Omnicron Snipers, Major Q10, 2 Omnicron Repulsors
Sanctuary: Charos.So that's:
2 RotV,
1 SotM
2 BftU
2 (3 without figure proxies) VW
1 TT
2 RttFF
2 FotA
1 Marvel
2x TJ
3x Malliddon's Prophecy: Snipers and Vipers
Malliddon's Prophecy: Heroes of Bleakwoode
2x Utgar's Rage: Drones and Minions
Orm's Return
2x Zanafor's Discovery: Soulborgs and Elves
Raknar's Vision: Heroes of Lindesfarme
Thora's Vengeance: Soulborgs
Thora's Vengeance: Warriors and Soulborgs
1-2x Dawn of Darkness: Zombies
Dawn of Darkness: Heroes of Durgeth
Fields of Valor: Fiends and Vampires
Fields of Valor: Heroes of Elswin
Aquilla's Alliance: Heroes of the Quagmire
2x Blackmoon's Siege: Dwarves and Repulsors
3x Valkrill's Gambit: Warriors of Feldspar

[ZBeeblebrox]

Here's the end of Playtest Team #1

Eravan Sunshadow, Atlaga, Marcu Esenwein, Kyntela Gwyn, Brunak, and Raelin (SotM)

Sanctuary

WATER & AIR MAPS –Raelin (Fire Key), Kyntela Gwyn (Amulet of Health, Vorpal Sword), Marcu Esenwein (Ring of Protection +2), Brunak (Heroic Rune), Atlaga (Eyes of the Eagle , Luckstone , Boots of Haste), Eravan Sunshadow (Scrolls, Earth Key)

Round 1: The “Bosses “ win initiative, and Cyprien move in. He Touches Raelin for a Chilling three wounds. And then whacks her for one more. Atlaga attacks the vampire and gives him a wound. Cyprien lays his hand upon Raelin again and Chills her to her doom. He then turns his sword to Atlaga and misses. Brunak is enraged, runs over attacks Cyprien and…rolls all Skulls!! ( with the Heroic Rune and height that’s 6 skulls) and Cyprien whiffs on defense. Wow, Brunak just took down the vampire Lord with one attack!! Major Q10 move up and shoots at an unsuspecting Kyntela Gwyn and obliterates her. Marcu flies over to attack the Soulborg and causes one wound.
Round 2: Marcu attacks the major again and rolls all skulls!! And major Q10 is eliminated easily.

FIRE & EARTH MAPS –Marcu Esenwein (Vorpal Sword, Ring of Protection +2), Brunak (Amulet of Health, Tome of Resurrection, Heroic Rune), Atlaga (Eyes of the Eagle , Luckstone , Boots of Haste), Eravan Sunshadow (Scrolls, Potion of Healing)

Round 1: Brunak read the Tome of Resurrection and bring back Raelin. Charos orders Othkurik through the Mindlink to move in and attack. The Young Dragon misses with a Acid Spray. Eravan attacks the black Dragon with Fire Blast(rolling 2 dice) and 4 blasts later Othkurik only has one Life point left. Othkurik move through the Link and attacks the Knights, thus inflicting two wound to Raelin. Atlaga attacks the Young Dragon and finishes him off. Sujoah is ordered to move forward.
Round 2: Sujoah attacks Marcu and inflicts a wound, but the vampire is Poisoned and he sufferers from two more wounds. Brunak attack sthe large Insect and misses. Charas flies up and attacks Brunak and misses. Sujoah attacks Marcu and misses. Atlaga load his Bolt of Witherwood and rolls a Natural 20 to take down the Dragon King!!
Round 3: Sujoah attacks Marcu and inflicts two more wounds, and the vampire is affected by the Poison Stinger again and he falls. Brunak inflicts a wound to Sujoah, and the Insect counters with a Sting of all Skulls and another Natural 20 to kill the Trolticor. Sujoah then decides to attack Raelin and misses. Eravan misses Sujoah with a Fire Blast.
Round 4: Sujoah attacks Raelin and misses. Atlaga inflicts another wound. Raelin is hit for a wound and Poison causes her one more. Atlaga finishes off Sujoah and the Knight of the datstorm gain the knowledge of the Wellsprings.

Knights win
Survivors: Atlaga, Eravan Sunshadow, and Raelin (SotM)
Lost: Marcu Esenwein, Brunak, and Kyntela Gwyn.

[Velenne]

Wow looks like the Knights caught a few lucky breaks! How did it play out for you?

I played one game yesterday on Sanctuary with a buddy. To simulate losing items and heroes along the way, I had a roll a 5 or better on a D20 for any hero I tried to draft, and a 10 or better on each of the items. I ended up with:

Knights: Atlaga (Earth Key), Isamu(Ring of Protection), Elgrim (Vorpal Sword), Tandros Kreel(Heroic Helm, Boots of Haste), Ana Karithon, Sir Dendrick (Potion of CLW, Fire Key).

Water and Air Maps - Round 1: Cyprien leads in starts on Kreel who's next to the vampire's true target, Ana. Atlaga takes a perch above and fires his Bolt, slaying Cyprien (who drops another CLW potion) on the opening attack! The DM loses an OM so Atlaga takes the high ground in the Ramparts and puts a wound on Major Q10. The soulborg steps forward, unable to take even ground on the kyrie, and fires two wrist rockets dealing 3 wounds!

Round 2: Torn between the near-dead Atlaga and an approaching Dendrick, I try for one more shot with the kyrie. Q10 takes two more wounds and is near death! Full of righteous determination, the soulborg fires twice on Atlaga, destroying him. Dendrick comes dangerously close but not close enough to engage and so on its next marker, Q10 takes the fallen Earth Key and now sits pretty at the top of the map. Dendrick comes forward, swings and misses. Q10 retaliates but only deals 1 wound.

Round 3: Q10 declares himself immune (something I should have done with Atlaga had I been thinking) and proceeds to lay waste to panicked Knights who scamper for cover. Dendrick heroically leaves himself in danger, approaching the soulborg's feet but is nearly killed.

Round 4: Dendrick falls in the opening turn, costing me an OM which Q10 uses pick up the CLW potion and heal himself. ARG! Q10 then lays waste to Isamu and Elgrim in back-to-back Wrist Rockets. (I'm rolling ****-poor at this point; the dice gods have decided to equalize my karma for killing Cyprien so fast.)

Round 5: Tandros decides he's had enough of this nonsense. With Elgrim's spirt to guide him he picks up the fallen Vorpal Sword from the viking's dead hands and charges up the ramp. His superior movement catches the surly robot soon after and he lays waste.

Knights use the Tome to bring back poor Dendrick. After combining the Earth and Fire maps to the previous two, I examine my army and my options and elect to start on the Fire Pit.

Knights: Sir Dendrick (Ring of Protection +2), Ana Karithon(Vorpal Sword), Tandros Kreel(Potion of CLW, Heroic Helm, Boots of Haste)

Round 1: Knights get set up in an exploitable center area of the Fire Pit. The guardians try to stop this pod from getting set up but its inevitability finally comes to fruition and the Knights are little worse for the wear.

Round 2: With Tandros and Dendrick set up on either side of Ana, Othkurik fires off several acid blasts from range. Tandros and Ana return fire and for this round, the each side is content to see how the exchange plays out.

Round 3: The Knights win out early, dropping the Young dragon on the first OM. Charos flies in on Dendrick and Sujoah meets Tandros. The ensuing battle is every bit the epic struggle I'd hoped it would be. Ana heals, each hero and guardian exchange mighty swings.

Round 4: Sojo finally gets off a vicious poison sting, dealing a total of 6 wounds to Tandros in a single attack, killing him. I lose an OM but with Charos in the way Sojoah can't attack anyone either on its next turn so the insect stays put. Foolish move! Dendrick safely takes the parting swipe and shifts to Ana's other side, attacking down with 7 dice on the wounded insect. It falls and Charos (the DM) roars with frustration. Dendrick changes sides and the final battle comes down to the dice gods' favorite.

Round 5: Back and forth the mighty heroes take swings. Were it not for his healer, Sir Dendrick would have perished long ago. The Dragon King's strikes and counterstrikes are vicious, but Dendrick's training against dragons serves him well. At the end of the round either one could die in a single contest.

Round 6: The Knights win init. Sir Dendrick draws deep on his inner will and lunges forward at the wounded dragon, rolling 6 skulls on 7 dice. The Dragon King knows he is beaten. With one final defiant roar he rears backward and receives the Knight's sword to his heart. The way to the source of the Wellsprings opens...

Knights win with Dendrick (4 wounds), and Ana (3 wounds).

[Velenne]

Observations:
- I clearly need to fix that area in the middle of the Fire Pit. That's the only reason I won. Well, that and I still managed to out-sling Othkurik. Had he killed Ana, and I had not been able to protect her after, Dendrick and Tandros would have died quickly to Sojo and Charos.

- I think I'm going to limit the Knight's starting zones to 3 per MOP. This will create an interesting dynamic for the DM in how to choose to orient the first and second pair of MOPs. It will then create a difficult choice for the player in how to deploy.

- I realized looking over the rules that I don't give credit to GaryLASq for the MOP idea. I'm going to correct that oversight in the final version.

[ZBeeblebrox]

- I think I'm going to limit the Knight's starting zones to 3 per MOP. This will create an interesting dynamic for the DM in how to choose to orient the first and second pair of MOPs. It will then create a difficult choice for the player in how to deploy.



I like this idea, for one with all the Knights bunched up, all the DM had to do is take the high ground, with all his fliers. If it wasn't for all the lucky breaks...the Knights would have been in trouble. The Bosses took the high ground on the first turn becuse the MOPS are small compared to most maps.

[ZBeeblebrox]

So I played the second playtest team in Sanctuary...and if you thought the Heroes were luck in the first game wait to you hear what happened this time.

(Why can't I be this lucky in tournaments :confused: )




Sanctuary

WATER & AIR MAPS–Kaemon Awa (Boots of Haste), Atlaga (Earth Key, Eyes of the Eagle, Heroic Rune,), Crixus (Fire Key, Ring of Protection +2,), and Deadeye Dan (Luckstone), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword), Arkmer (Scrolls, Amulet of Health)

Round 1: The Knights win initiative, and Atlaga flies up to the crosswalk on the Air map and shoots at Q10 and drops the Major with one shot!! (4 skulls, and a defense whiff by Q10). Kaemon Awa uses two turns to move up the tower “steps”
Round 2: Cyprien flies over to the Air map. Kaemon Awa attacks Cyprien and inflicts a wound. Cyprien tries to touch Atlaga and misses; but does inflict a wound with his sword. Kaemon Awa put two Quick shots into Cyprien for 4 wounds. Cyprien manages to Touch Atlaga for 3 Chilling wounds and misses with his normal attack. The samurai then Releases two Quick shots into the vampire’s heart for 6 wounds and Cyprien falls!.


FIRE & EARTH MAPS –
Kaemon Awa (Boots of Haste, Potion of Healing), Atlaga (Tome of Resurrection, Eyes of the Eagle, Heroic Rune,), Crixus (Ring of Protection +2,), and Deadeye Dan (Luckstone), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword), Arkmer (Scrolls, Amulet of Health)

Round 1: Knights win initiative, and atlage flies forward; and loads the Bolt of Witherwood. He then takes aim at the Dragon King and puts the bolt in his brain , eliminating Charos! Kaemon awa move up and shoots at Sujoah at long range and inflicts a wound. Then he moces closer and two Quick Releases later, Sujoah falls!
Round 2: Othkurik move up and releases an Acid Spray at Atlaga whicjh misses. “Deadeye” Dan reaches into his pocket to grasp the Luckstone and then he steadies his nerves, takes aim at the Young Dragon with his Rifle and with a roll of 18 (plus the Luckstone)…Othkurik falls! Miraculously the uninjured Knights of the Daystorm gain the knowledge of the wellsprings.

Knights win
Survivors: Kaemon Awa, Crixus, Deadeye Dan, Atlaga, Eldgrim, and Arkmer.

[Velenne]

That's just silly...

[ZBeeblebrox]

That's just silly...

Tell me about it, I finished in less than 30 minutes. Also I decided as I placed order markers for Round 2 that since the Heroes were so lucky, why not get Dan in the action...and he finishes the game. :shock:

I actually laughed out loud at the absurdness of this match.

all I know is that at the next tourney, I'm using my Vydar dice...because that was the dice I used for the Heroes.
(I used my Utgar dice for the monsters, so I need to stay away from them in tourneys ;) )

[DrLivingston]

:popcorn:

I am really enjoying these play-testing battle reports!

I am also enjoying seeing which heroes make good knights.

I wouldn't have thought twice about Brunak, but if I play again I am definitely taking him as soon as he's available.

Good stuff, guys!

[Velenne]

Does it seem like too much map for only two Hero-based battles? Should I shrink the MOPs, or just use two, or...?

[ZBeeblebrox]

Does it seem like too much map for only two Hero-based battles? Should I shrink the MOPs, or just use two, or...?

I was thinking that, but then you mentioned only having 3 start spaces on each MOP. I think that will solve the problem. Because now yoy have to tactically think about which unit will be good against each boss. For one, it would have been harder to use Kaemon on everyone in the battle. (By the way Kaemon Awa is just Awesome in Hero based Dungeon battles.

[Velenne]

2nd playtest, this time with my Scaping wife! (+999 rep for having a Scaping wife!) I'm trying this one out with the dragons (Nilfheim, Braxas, Zelrig, Mimring, Charos).

(I dropped Othkurik for Mimring since the latter is from Icaria. This way you have two fire dragons (Mimring,Zelrig), and the other way you have two earth dragons (Braxas,Othkurik) so I'm not sure I'm going to be satisfied with this. I might make Charos the Air dragon and Zelrig the King of Icaria, but Zelrig isn't very challenging for a group of heroes. :shrug:)

(Another option I'm now considering is starting with the entire board, the Knights losing all their keys, and fighting all 5 Icarian dragons at once. I'd have something about killing a dragon releasing energy you could use to either heal or ressurect depending on a d20 roll.)

Knights: Major Q10 (recruited; Boots of Haste, Air Key, Potion of CLW, Amulet of Health), Isamu... Atlaga (Luckstone, RoP +2, Vorpal Sword), Sir Dendrick(Helm of Heroism), Ana Karithon (Fire Key, Seeking Ammunition)

Water and Earth Key: The DM/wife decides to put her dragons next to each other and split my Knights onto opposite sides of the map. I deploy Q10 and Isumu on the Water side with Nilf, and the other Knights on the Earth side with Braxas. My plan is to beef Q10 up enough that he can take down Nilf on his own, and get lucky with a Bolt of Witherwood against Braxas. Barring luck, the combination of Ana, Dendrick and Atlaga should be able to bring down the Queen but I'm highly afraid of her getting a lucky spit roll.

Round 1: Nilf takes a perch up on the hill and waits his turn while Ana takes position on a hilltop and drops a Maelstrom on Braxas which misses. Q10 takes a spot on the ledge just below Nilf and fires two rockets, dealing two wounds. The White King, enraged, comes off his perch and decides taking his chances of losing init next round and giving up height is worth the extra dice of its normal attack. It misses! Atlaga takes a different perch across from Ana and fires his bolt, missing. He must then watch in futility as the Black Queen swoops in and melts Ana into a puddle of hissing, steaming, goo!

Round 2: Dragons win init and I am dismayed to see 3 OM's on Braxas' card. I have my '1' on Q10 though, so even though I lose init, Braxas spits twice at my heroes and misses. Q10 takes the height from Nilf, fires twice and blows the White King to pieces! (4 skulls followed by 3!) Nilf drops a potion of CLW. The DM, enraged, spits twice more with Braxas and destroys Sir Dendrick! Atlaga can only attack down to the dragon, dealing 1 wound. At this point I think, "there's no way that's happening again. Surely she'll just use the normal attack on me." No. She spits. Atlaga becomes the third new pile of muck on the board... I lose my last turn.

Round 3: Well the OM's are obvious at this point as all I have left is Q10 and Isamu, and the DM has Braxas. I'm Large and immune to the acid spray so I'm feeling pretty confident with the outcome of the battle, but very scared of the coming encounter. I'm equally helped by the fact that Atlaga and Ana died on single-hex elevations, keeping Braxas from getting their items! By the end of the round Q10 does emerge victorious but only because of the Amulet of Health and a CLW potion.

Knights ressurect Sir Dendrick since Ana can't cure Q10 (too big).

All Keys: I have the advantage(?) of being able to start my 2 good heroes next to each other (relegating Isamu to a far off corner of the map just in case). The DM, not wishing to risk her Charos early on and seeing me set my little pod, puts her other dragons as far away as possible but I've still got Zelrig in Q10's normal attack range. Sadly, my perch is quite vulnerable to a Fire Line.

Round 1: Mimring hits the two perched heroes with a Fire Line with some great placement, but neither take a wound from the weak attack. Not willing to tolerate any more of that nonsense, Q10 walks up to another another hill and proceeds to lay 3 wounds on the inert Zelrig. The Fire King chastises poor, bestial Mimring with a glare, and the lesser dragon mopes forward to engage Q10. The two duke it out for a few order markers, Q10 taking 1 wound and Mimring getting blown apart. (I'm rolling like a champ with this Wrist Rocket!)

Round 2: Q10 gets close to Zelrig, doesn't have the move to get adjacent, but still puts a wound on him. Zelrig responds by flying to the top of the Air Key Room. Q10 gives a robotic finger to the dragon as he takes two wounds from a great majestic fires roll. The soulborg then steps forward onto the road, looks up, and puts two rockets down the dragon's gullet. Two dragon Kings down, one to go. (My clever wife had flown Zelrig up there for two reasons: 1 to get a better Defense, and 2 because she had her 3rd OM on Charos and in case Zelrig survived she'd be able to take a 3rd turn with him using the Mind Link. My wife is so clever. I have a clever wife and I love her.) Q10 takes the road around but can't quite get range on the Ullar King. Charos, seemingly unfazed by all this, leisurely flies down and swallows an unvanishing Isamu as an appetizer. He then looks back over his shoulder and smiles coolly.

Round 3: Q10 and Charos play the game of positions, neither willing to give up superior ground, but the latter keenly aware of his lack of a ranged attack. At the end of the round, the two meet on even terrain. I know at this point that my only hope of getting and keeping height would take two turns in a row (losing init one round, winning the next), and then taking a parting shot so I keep that in the back of my mind.

Round 4: The dragon and the robot battle on the hill between the Water and Air dungeons. By the end of the round, Charos has survived 6 attacks with 5 wounds left, while Q10 has only taken 2 damage.

Round 5: The battle continues but the stakes get higher as each ends with only 2 wound markers left on their card! (Amulet of Health saves the day again!)

Round 6: Charos wins init, attacks, but is blocked. Q10 ripostes, dealing a wound. Charos, sensing his time near its end, launches one final assault and crushes the soulborg in his jaws! Losing my 3rd turn, Charos then picks up the Amulet of Health and turns back to look across the battlefield at Sir Dendrick. The Knight draws his sword, cracks his neck, and beckons Charos over.

Round 7: Another battle for position. Charos baits Dendrick into meeting in the open field. Dendrick then counterbaits Charos into taking a high ground, takes 2 wounds from that attack, but is able to spin around to a shadow space and put a wound on the dragon. It's down to: Charos 5A/5D (with Amulet of Health and COUNTERSTRIKE) with 9/11 wounds, and Dendrick 6A/7D (with RoP+2, and a shadow space) with 2/5.

Round 8: (switches on my 1940's boxing sportscaster voice) Dendrick wins init and puts a wound on Charos. Charos tail sweeps and puts 2 more wounds on Dendrick (one left)! Dendrick is on his last leg! He swings his sword and puts one more wound on Charos! They've each got one left! Dendrick jukes right! Takes a swing! 3 skulls! Charos tries to back out! 2 Shields!

THE KING IS DEAD! THE CHAMP IS DOWN!

KNIGHTS WIN! KNIGHTS WIN!

[ZBeeblebrox]

The dragons do sound more chalenging...nice report Velenne

[Velenne]

Ya that was a great game! Now I'm gonna see what happens when I do the following.

Player chooses a dungeon section, DM orients it. Repeat for all 4 sections, deploy dragons.

Player starts with all 4 Keys. When the Player kills a dragon, he also loses its corresponding key (Zelrig/Air, Mimring/Fire, Braxas/Earth, Nilfheim/Water) however the player also gets to roll for the following:

Elemental Energy Burst: When the player destroys a dragon, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1, nothing happens. If you roll a 2-11, remove 3 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control. If you roll a 12-20, you may remove up to 5 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control OR return one destroyed figure to your starting zone and remove all Wound Markers from that figure's army card.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Ya that was a great game! Now I'm gonna see what happens when I do the following.

Player chooses a dungeon section, DM orients it. Repeat for all 4 sections, deploy dragons.

Player starts with all 4 Keys. When the Player kills a dragon, he also loses its corresponding key (Zelrig/Air, Mimring/Fire, Braxas/Earth, Nilfheim/Water) however the player also gets to roll for the following:

Elemental Energy Burst: When the player destroys a dragon, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1, nothing happens. If you roll a 2-11, remove 3 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control. If you roll a 12-20, you may remove up to 5 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control OR return one destroyed figure to your starting zone and remove all Wound Markers from that figure's army card.

Wow awesome ideas V! I'm going to try this this weekend with both playtest groups. I will have new reports next week. I am also going with 3 hex start zones on each MOP.

[DrLivingston]

:popcorn:

Still watching and enjoying the show!

That last one was my favorite yet.

I was really pulling for Charos that time...

[Velenne]

All dragons / all sections playtest.

Knights: Kaemon Awa (Air Key, Amulet of Health, Potion of CLW), Crixus (Earth Key), Migol Ironwill (Fire Key), Darrak Ambershard (RoP+2, Water Key), Zetacron (Eyes of the Eagle). Ya, I rolled pretty bad to keep my items this time. And I have no healing. We'll see how this goes....

Knights deploy Zetacron in the Earth section by his lonesome. Crixus and Darrak start in the Water section. Kaemon and Migol start in the Fire section.

Round 1: Zetacron wins init and puts 4 wounds on Braxas from height! (All skulls vs 2 shields!) The Knights are off to a strong start. Braxas, taking cues from a mindlinked Charos, flies over the glaciers toward Crixus and Darrak but is out of spitting range. Zeta moves over a hill and pops a shot off at Zelrig that misses. Braxas gets in position, spits twice, but doesn't off any heroes. Kaemon Awa flies forward and puts 3 wounds on Mimring with a Quick Release. Mimring gets the nod from Charos to take high ground on ramp to the top of the Air Section and Fire Line Kaemon from range, dealing one wound.

Round 2: Braxas goes first, spitting and missing. Crixus moves up the hill but can't get in on the Black Queen's height and reach. Charos gives the cue for Zelrig to get off the low ground, claiming a perch next to the great King on the Rampart's upper level. Darrak moves adjacent to Braxas and puts another wound on her. She responds by melting him into a puddle of slag. Zetacron goes 3rd for the Knights, stepping forward onto a shadow tile wounding Zelrig for one.

Round 3: Charos looks sadly at his Black Queen, knowing that given the choice between a lucky d20 roll or killing another Knight, he'd rather kill the Knight. Two markers on Crixus are enough to seal the deal, but he figures she's done her damage and can die with honor. Two markers later, she falls. I lose the Earth Key from Crixus and roll a 7 on my Elemental Energy Burst, but the only wounded heroes are Zeta (who took one from Nilf a turn earlier) and Kaemon. I heal Kaemon. Nilf swoops in and drops the soulborg. :shrug:

Round 4: Mimring is commanded to go first, firing a line of flames onto the hapless samurai far below for another wound. Kaemon steps forward and tries to finish off Mimring, dealing only a wound (Mimring now at 4/5). Charos would rather not lose another Guardian at this time, so he takes matters into his own talons, flying down from his perch and swiping Kaemon for 3 wounds! The samurai is saved by Amulet at this point and so he risks the disengage, takes the wound (1 left!) and flies up to the perch with the help of the air key. Quick Release finishes off Mimring, I lose my Fire Key off Migol but roll 18 on the Burst. I choose to take wounds off Kaemon instead of rezz one of my low-cost heroes. Furious, Charos flies back up to his perch and puts another 2 wounds on Kaemon! Again, Kaemon recklessly parts, takes the hit, but delivers a telling 3 wounds to nearby Zelrig to end the round.

Round 5: Knights win init and Kaemon makes the curious decision to fly back off the perch and shoot up at Zelrig (I didn't want to lose my Air Key up there, lose Kaemon, and give Charos the Amulet of Health again...) He only deals one wound, leaving the Red King with one left. This time it's Nilfheim who comes out of nowhere back in the Earth section to engage Kaemon! The Samurai manages to barely defend, taking only 1 wound, but only has 2 left. He parts, takes another f'ing hit, and moves to a single-hex raised fire space. From here he can just catch Zelrig in his range. He shoots, he scores, loses his Air Key, but roll a 20 on his Burst, removing all his wounds again! (Kaemon is the MAN!) Charos bellows mightily and orders Nilfheim to take the lower ground against the resilient samurai. Nilf responds by putting FOUR wounds on Kaemon. Not thinking the samurai would do as well as he already had, I'd put my 3rd marker on Migol who moves forward from the rear of the Fire Pit. Nilf chomps again, dealing 1 wound. Kaemon, standing on a lava rock tile with only wound left, rolls that undefendable dice and gets a skull yet again, falling.

Kaemon took 3 parting shots and rolled for lava damage once, and never failed to take the hit.... but he did kill 2 dragons so I'm not too sad about it.

Round 6: Everyone sees that Amulet of Health up on that single hex. Everyone knows I want to get my Migol over there to it. So Charos sends Nilf to the center of the Fire Pit to spit some ice at the dwarf. Migol one-shield-defenses himself down to taking a single wound, and is then faced with a dilemma: Do I take the high ground on this lava rock tile here and attack down to Nilf, or try to weasel my away around to that Amulet? Aw t'ells with it, he thinks, No Guts No Glory worked fer that sissy archer fella. He steps up and whiffs. Charos and Nilf look at each other meaninfully but nothing happens. The White King is out of range! Charos growls and flies closer to the battle. Migol takes a free swing, dealing 3 wounds! Nilf bites down and does another wound to the dwarf. Migol swings but his axe can't get through the dragon's scaly hide. Migol rolls for lava rock and takes a wound. (.......)

Round 7: Migol and Nilfheim trade attacks while Charos eats a Sandvich. Migol finall puts four wounds on the White King a single attacks, Crixus loses the water key, and I decide to rez Kaemon Awa. Charos rolls his eyes and sighs. Migol triumphantly holds his axe over his head just in time to roll lava rock damage against himself and die.

Round 8: Again, both of us are looking at that Amulet of Health knowing what I want to do. The DM shakes her head at me. She wins init and flies a bit closer but out of Quick Release range. Kaemon takes a nice high ground spot and hits Charos for his first wound. Charos takes a low ground spot with a shadow tile and whiffs, suffering two wounds from a Counterstrike. Kaemon takes a disengage wound (AGAIN!? Yes. Again. I'm oh-fer on the game against these undefendable dice.) Luckily for Charos, Kaemon whiffs on both Quick Release strikes. Charos moves around to even ground but knows Kaemon is getting that Amulet on his next turn. He doesn't quite seal the deal, putting 1 more on the samurai. Sure enough, I get my Amulet back (much to the DM's chagrin) and put another wound on Charos. Charos now has 4/9, and Kaemon has 2/6.

OH! BUT WAIT! I'm on the lava rock tile again. Y'know the one that killed Kaemon last time? Well guess what? Ya you know what. I roll for it and take ANOTHER hit. I could scream.

Round 9: Knights win init and I'm thinking I've got this in the bag. I've got my special attack, I've got height, and Charos only has 5 wounds left. So I stay put and roll my Quick Release, putting 3 more on him. Charos responds by rolling all skulls (and the crowd goes wild....) I roll 2 shields and Kaemon is dead. Charos takes the rest of the round fly atop the Ramparts and revel in his triumph.

So it's 2 life Charos vs. full life Crixus. This could really go either way.

Round 10: Charos wins init. Crixus was left in bad position and I'd really wanted to win this, but still trusted in my OSD. Sure enough, the Green King flies down and rolls 5 skulls but I get my shield and take only 1. Not wanting to attack up against that countstrike I take the parting and the heavens part, angels sing, and the hand of the Dice Lord Almight declares that I shalt not suffer another parting shot! I do give up a crucial attack but I thought it was worth it to not have to fight Charos from low ground. Charos sportingly steps down, rolls ridiculously well, but I get my shield. Crixus swings and Charos blocks. Charos all-skulls me again, but I roll my shield. Crixus swings one more time and manages to get a wound.

Charos has 1 wound left, Crixus has 2.

Round 11: The DM rolls a 19. "CRAP!" I say about her Dice Jesus rolling, then roll a 20! I triumphantly pitch my 5 dice into the tower with a loud "HA!" and come up with nothing. She smiles softly, lets her dice spill from her delicate little fingers, and comes up with 2 shields. Crixus dies to counterstrike.

Guardians win.

[Velenne]

Ya I'm pretty sold on doing it this way, but I'd like to see how ZB does in his own playtests.

ZB, try it the way I posted up there a couple of times if you get the chance. I think we've got a winner on our hands here.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Sanctuary – All Maps / Dragons of Icaria vs Playtest Team#2

Kaemon Awa (Earth Key, Boots of Haste), Atlaga (Water Key, Eyes of the Eagle, Heroic Rune,), Crixus (Air Key, Ring of Protection +2,), and Deadeye Dan (Luckstone), Eldgrim (Vorpal Sword), Arkmer (Scrolls, Amulet of Health, Fire Key)

Knights Deployment: Dan and Crixus start on the Fire Zone, Kaemon Awa and Atlaga start on the Water Zone and Eldgrim and Arkmer start on the Earth Zone.

Round 1: Knights win initiative and Atlaga flies forward and lands on a Snowy hill, He loads the Bolt of Witherwood and fires at Nilfheim and the magical Bolt finds its mark and the Dragon falls. Arkmer then pulls out the Scroll of Teleport and teleports Himself, Crixus and Eldgrim to the center of the Fire Zone. Zelrig flies from the top of one of the Air Towers towards the Knights. He uses his Majestic Fires to burn Atlaga for 3 wounds. Crixus uses the power of the Air Key to fly over to Mimring and inflicts a wound on the Beastly Dragon. Braxas flies over by Deadeye Dan and misses him with her Acid Breath.

Round 2: Mimring takes a wound from Crixus as he disengages to get a Fire Line attack on Eldgrim and Arkmer and Eldgrim takes two wounds. Crixus flies after Mimring and attacks the Dragon; and inflicts another wound. Charos flies to the center of the Earth Zone and hides in the shadows. Atlaga attacks Zelrig and inflicts a wound. Braxas move around Dan thus putting her in range of three Knights and releases her Poisonous Breath, and Dan falls to the fumes, while Arkmer and Eldgrim hold their noses. Kaemon Awa releases two Quick shots at Mimring and kills the Dragon. The Elemental Burst from the Fire Key heals Atlaga to full health.

Round 3: Kaemon Awa moves up and Quickly Releases two shots at the Dragon Queen and Braxas take 5 wounds! Zelrig attacks Atlaga and misses. Kaemon Awa activates the Stone Form power of the Earth Key and attacks Braxas again, thus inflicting another wound to the Queen. Braxas flies out over the Lava Fields and releases her Breath again , this time taking down Crixus, but leaving Arkmer and Eldgrim alive. Kaemon Awa shoots at Braxas from long range and puts an arrow into her eye to remove the Earth Guardian. Crixus is returned to the land of the living by the Elemental Power of the Earth Key.

Round 4: Kaemon Awa moves to step on the Air Key and shots at Zelrig but misses. Zelrig’s Fires burn the Kyrie Warrior for two wounds. Kaemon Awa uses the power of the Air Key to fly up onto the crosswalk of the Air Zone, landing behind the Dragon Emperor and shoots twice; Zelrig take 3 wounds. Charos attacks Crixus and inflicts a wound. The Samurai attacks Zelrig again and manages to wound the Dragon again. Charos returns Crixus to the land of eternal slumber as the gladiator whiffs on his defense.

Round 5: Zelrig attacks Kaemon Awa and misses with his Majestic Fire. The Samurai does not miss his opportunity to cause more damage and inflicts enough wounds to topple Zelrig from the crosswalk. The Air Key does not give off any Elemental Burst and its power drains from the Samurai. Kaemon Awa the moves to the edge of the Air Zone tower and shoots at Charos causing him 2 wounds. Charos lands on the Ring of Protection +2 and grasps it with his hind claw. Kaemon Awa shots at the Dragon King again, but cannot penetrate his new protection.

Round 6: Charos flies up to the Tower of the Air Zone and destroys Atlaga. Kaemon Awa runs over to step on the Heroic Rune to keep it away from Charos and release two pint blank shots, that bounce off the protected Dragon. Charos attacks the Samurai who blocks and Counters for a wound. Kaemon Awa attacks twice more and manages to wound the Dragon. Charos return the favor for three wounds. The Kaemon Awa gives one more to the Dragon.
Round 7: Charos attacks the Samurai again and tears off his arm as he throws Kaemon Awa from the tower. Charos then picks up the Boots of Haste and somehow gains their power. Charos then flies down to attack the Viking and misses. Charos takes a wound from the lava filed at the end of the round.

Round 8: Charos attacks Eldgrim and bites off his head. Arkmer releases magic energy at Charos and misses. Charos land next to the wizard and receives an Engagement Strike and then give a wound back to Arkmer. Arkmer attacks and give Charos a wound. Charos attacks again and give back two wounds, but the power of the Amulet of Heath keeps the wizard from falling. Arkmer knows this is probally his last attck, so with all his power he raises his staff and releases a magical blast right into the side of Charos…and the Elven Wizard is shocked to see the bolt of energy form a largehole in the side of the Dragon King and Charos falls. (Arkmer rolled 3 skulls, and Charos with 7 dice managed only one shield) :shock:

The knowledge of the Wellsprings is revealed to the wizard.

Knights win
Survivors: Arkmer.

[Velenne]

:rofl: Did you ever see Cube? Reminds me of the ending of that. One dazed and confused savant stumbling into the light...

Great read!

[ZBeeblebrox]

:rofl: Did you ever see Cube? Reminds me of the ending of that. One dazed and confused savant stumbling into the light...

Great read!

Yep somehow the wizard saves the day...and my mouth dropped open when I saw I only rolled one shield. (Deathwalker syndrome anybody)

[ZBeeblebrox]

Last playtest......


Sanctuary – All Maps / Dragons of Icaria vs Playtest #1

Raelin SotM (Fire Key, Ring of Protection +2), Atlaga (Water Key, Eyes of the Eagle, Boots of Haste, Luckstone,), Brunak (Heroic Rune, Amulet of Health ), Eravan Sunshadow (Air Key, Scroll of Teleport), Kyntela Gywn (Vorpal Sword), and Marcu (Earth Key)

Knights Deployment: Brunak starts on the Fire Zone, Raelin and Kyntela start on the Water Zone and Atlaga, Marcu, and Eravan start on the Earth Zone.

Round 1: Knights win initiative, and Atlaga flies forward and loads the Bolt of Witherwood and Braxas takes the bolt in the heart and falls. Nilfheim attacks Raelin and misses, but the second attck takes out Kyntela. Raelin points the Fire Key at Nilfheim but misses the Dragon. Raelin tries again and misses again. Zelrig flies forward from his start zone.

Round 2: Raelin points the Fire Key again at Nilfheim and causes 4 wounds to the icy Dragon. Charos attacks Atlaga and causes a wound. Raelin uses the power of the Fire Key to burn off the flesh of Nilfheim and he falls. The Elemental Blast of the Water Key heals Atlaga. Brunak charges the Dragon King but Charos blacks the attack, and counters for a wound.

Round 3: Dragons win initiative, and Zelrig uses his majestic Fire to attack Raelin, and she takes wound. Raelin flies up to the crosswalk of the Air zone and points the Fire Key at Zelrig and misses. He then attacks the Kyrie Warrior and he misses. She attacks again and inflicts a wound. Mimring moves forward and Fire Lines Marcu, who takes a wound. Atlaga disengages from Charos, who misses his swipe, and shoots at Charos to inflict another wound to the Dragon King.

Round 4: Mimring flies into position and Fire Lines Eravan and Marcu, who both take one wound. Raelin hurts the Emperor Dragon with the Fire Key; giving Zelrig two wounds. Zelrig’s Fire give a wound back to Raelin. Raelin then gives two more to Zelrig. Charos Mindlinks with Mimring and instructs him to Fire Line the Knights again, and both Marcu and Eravan takes two wounds each. Brunak attacks Charos and misses and Charos counters the attack for two wounds.

Round 5: Zelrig misses Raelin with Majestic Fire. Marcu bites Mimring for 4 wounds. Zelrig misses Raelin again and she also misses him. Mimring is instructed to attack the Knights again and a Fire Line hurts Marcu and Eravan for one more wound each. Raelin uses the Fire Key to Burn a hole into the Emperor and Zelrig falls from the tower of the Air Zone. The Elemental Energy released heals Eravan Sunshadow.

Round 6: Knights win initiative and Raelin flies forward towards the dragons. Mimring receives more Mindlink instructions and a Fire Line hurts Eravan and Marcu for another wound each. Raelin attacks Charos with the Fire Key and inflicts a wound. Charos disengages from Brunak, who misses his swipe, to attck Raelin directly. She takes a wound from the attack. Marcu disengages from Mimring to attack Charos and the King takes two wounds (Miring also misses his swipe). Charos instructs Mimring to Fire Line Raelin and Marcu, but he whiffs.

Round 7: Mimring releases another Fire line after the Dragons win initiative and Raelin takes a wound and Marcu falls. Raelin uses the Fire Key to give Charos 3 wounds. Charos misses Raelin with an attack. Atlaga attacks the King and misses. Mimring once again is contacted to Fire Line Raelin and she take the full hit and falls. Atlaga sees that his fellow Kyrie has fallen and flies over to her. She hands him the Fire Key as she dies. He turns to Charos and attacks and puts a bolt into the Dragon King and Charos falls.

Round 8: Atlaga then turns towards Mimring and yells “This is for Raelin!” and points the Fire Key at the Fire Zone Guardian and uses his own pwer to destroy him. The Elemental power release is not enough to bring back Raelin so Eravan wounds are healed.

The knowledge of the Wellsprings is revealed to the Knights.

Knights win
Survivors: Atlaga, Brunak and Eravan.

[Velenne]

Great report, zb! You rock!

Does the map feel too big with all 4 pieces?

Do you find it valuable to be able to adjust the sections how you want?

How useful is the Mink Link ability?

Do you think it's too easy for the Knights? (Should I lower the numbers on the burst?)

[ZBeeblebrox]

Answers:

Does the map feel too big with all 4 pieces? Nope it feels just right

Do you find it valuable to be able to adjust the sections how you want? Yes, but with the DM positioning them, he/she can put the dragons real close to the Knights start zone. I suggest having the DM arrange the zones and place Dragons before the players have to place thier figures.

How useful is the Mink Link ability? I like it, but its range makes it hard to use sometimes. But Charos did use it enough in both games to keep it.

Do you think it's too easy for the Knights? (Should I lower the numbers on the burst?) I think 1-5 should be no burst, becuase an auto heal is pretty powerful.

[Velenne]

So DM orients and deploys, then Knights deploy, roll for Init? I like that.

For Elemental Energy Burst, what about: "Elemental Energy Burst: When the player destroys a dragon, roll the 20-sided die. If you roll a 1-5, nothing happens. If you roll a 6-15, remove 3 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control. If you roll a 16-20, you may remove up to 5 Wound Markers from any Army Card you control OR return one destroyed figure to your starting zone and remove all Wound Markers from that figure's army card."

[Velenne]

Just so you know, I haven't abandoned this project. I'm crafting a booklet for it which will include a cover page, contents, the various glyph cards, player's sheet, and of course maps and rules. There's artwork and graphic design stuff involved so it's taking me awhile.

[ZBeeblebrox]

Just so you know, I haven't abandoned this project. I'm crafting a booklet for it which will include a cover page, contents, the various glyph cards, player's sheet, and of course maps and rules. There's artwork and graphic design stuff involved so it's taking me awhile.

I'm looking forward to the final draft Velenne, I had so much fun testing this campaign.

[Velenne]

Ok... ok...

I think it's nearly done. I'm going to give it one more once-over tomorrow for grammatical and canonical errors, print the sunovabitch, and upload it.

[Velenne]

Done.

[Velenne]

Ok the uploaded guide is HERE (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=2161). It weighs in at 38 pages and 9.5 megs. Hopefully the art isn't too glitchy but if it is, I'll upload the glyph stickers and artifact glyph cards separately (since Word seems to dirty them up when I try to insert them to guide file).

I'm going to create a separate "release" thread for questions regarding gameplay now that design is finished, but first I was hoping some of the folks who have been involved so far could chance a look at it for any major mistakes.

[Velenne]

Final versions of each map and various rules and sheets have all been uploaded.

Links to individual files:
Player's Campaign Status Tracker (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1967)
Rulebook (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=2164)
Air Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1964)
Earth Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1966)
Fire Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1957)
Water Dungeon (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1955)
Sanctuary (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/downloads.php?do=file&id=1971)

[Cavalier]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Velenne again.

:thumbsup:

[ZBeeblebrox]

Amazing job Velenne!! It looks awesome.

I did not see any problems with it, and thanks for the mention on the introduction page. Glad I could help with this project.

[Velenne]

Well it's got 25 downloads and 2 responses so I'll go ahead and post the new thread HERE (http://heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=29617).