Okay, last night I got beat by the heroes. We were playing quest 3 of the base game, and they had some pretty tough heroes... aka Tahlia. Granted, the base quests are considerably easier once you throw feats in, and my treachery never really worked out.

That said.... I think the heroes need to be taught a lesson. I have all the expansions. In your opinions, what is the most brutal quest I can unleash? I want all of them dead, and I don't care if it happens in the first room.

Thanks in advance. I'm guessing Well of Darkness is going to be coming up a lot in this thread.

I recommend quest 3 or 4 from WoD. Some of the AoD quests look pretty beastly too, but we started playing RtL after making it to quest 4 in WoD. They conceded after two failed attempts and we all decided to move on to RtL. I've read that WoD4 is one of the hardest quests, but that was just one source. I'm sure there are other opinions about that. Personally I've noticed that the larger the dungeon, the better off the first run or two go for the OL.

Do RtL and stack the rumor deck so that they get the down a hole rumor. That rumor uses pretty much every nasty trick in the book. I am not convinced that it is winable in copper without a fair amount of luck.

Trial by Fire is among the toughest of the regular dungeons in RtL, so it would be a good choice too, although it is merely brutal and not hell on Terrinoth like Down a Hole ( not that I've had a bad experience on that rumor with the boulder rolling 5 spaces a turn until it blocks the way forward, and then slowing to 1 space a turn).

There's some nice threads on BGG rating the difficulty of JitD quests ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/271256 ) and WoD quests ( http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/400225 ). Out of these, WoD quest 6 was rated as the hardest, but WoD quest 4 also had zero hero wins and a larger number of attempts. And I'm kind of surprised that he didn't mention the possibility of exploiting the monster limit rules in quest 6 after bringing it up in quests 3 and 5, so I'm not sure if he blanked or if he decided it just wasn't helpful. I haven't actually played any of the WoD quests.

I have read those threads, they are quite insightful. I was debating between WoD quest 4 and 6, and ultimately decided for 4. Quest 6 looks cooler (I tend to dislike symmetrical dungeons like in q4) but it only uses 3 monster types. Q4 just seems more varied, and with Trapmaster in play from the start, and all those master kobolds and mimic chests, I relish the notion of playing traps literally for free. I'm going to play test it tonight... despite its gargantuan size, it really doesn't appear all that tough. I'm guessing looks are deceiving.

The Mine Collapse mission is pretty much impossible without the teleporter mage, just because you have to run so fast to keep ahead of the collapse that you can't attack half the time, and it's narrow so can be easily blocked by enemies. The heroes will likely die several times just form not being able to move fast enough.

I forget what the treachery caps are like on wod4 but if you can get an extra trapmaster in the deck, do it.

I didn't add the second trapmaster. You only get 2 points of trap treachery on that map. I'm spending it on the card that makes them lose conquest when they glyph to town. I'm doing this because the people I play with often will arrange town trips in order to sell gear or purchase upgrades. This would make them seriously reconsider.

Veinman said:

Sloth is pretty good...hard to know if it's as good as an extra trapmaster and an extra dark charm, etc.

Depends on the quest and your play style. If you can foresee a lot of town trips being needed, or if your players just tend to make them, it's not a bad idea. If you have a situation where scything blades block paths, then sloth is great, because now they have to choose between going over scything blades twice or glyphing around to avoid conquest loss. I think WoD4 has that very situation if I recall it correctly, so...not bad if that's what you've got going on.

I'm still uncertain if a trapmaster adds damage to scything blades (we play only on the character that is affected by the blades if the trap treachery card is played), so that may also have an effect. But 2 damage and a bleed is pretty darn good anyway.

Feanor said:

I think Scything Blades are listed as "traps" in the iconography and thus should be treated as such by trapmaster (but I could be wrong). WoD4 has been the most brutal quest for me... played it as a hero thrice and never got much further than beyond the 2nd rune door. Fun Dungeon to be the OL though!

There are in fact scything blades in there, but since I won't have the scything blades trap card, trapmaster won't be of much use there. This time I'm specifically using my treachery to offset the heroes' play style. I'm also including Envy, in the hopes of preventing them from trading gear. Again, they do this a LOT since they typically don't get the right treasure draws for the right character.

Veinman said:

Just make sure they don't have bardic lore as one of their skills, since that would nullify pretty much any disadvantage of envy.

@oboewan-Trapmaster says that it adds damage to trap cards that deal damage, and so there's been a discussion about trap obstacles being affected by trapmaster or not. Dark charm has also been discussed, since it's a card, but since the card itself doesn't deal damage (a hero's attack does), it's generally accepted not to benefit from trapmaster.

Yeah, if bardic lore comes up I'll just sell off Envy. No big deal. And I've never added trap damage to dark charm.... doesn't seem appropriate.

Veinman said:

You don't have to do your treachery until after the heroes have picked their skills. I would wait for that before using up precious treachery for a card that would get discarded for threat. I forget how much event treachery it takes for envy (it IS event, right?), but I would go with a crushing blow if they have bardic lore for a somewhat similar effect, or I've always been a big fan of guiding forces. Make sure you can always aim those important attacks from your big-bads.

Feanor said:

However, a counter point to that is that one quest (4 actually, I believe) has a non-card trap that specifically says because trapmaster is in play, it deals an additional two wounds. I don't have the exact wording, but it really implies to me that all trap effects should always have the two extra damage. If I remember correctly, it's a poison spiked pit that is triggered by an encounter marker. I think it's worth 4 normally, but the text says it deals 6 due to Trapmaster being in play.

pinkymadigan said:

I know the one you refer to. It states it is a poison spiked pit. Poison spiked pit in all other cases IS a trap card that deals damage (4 poison damge, +2 with trapmaster), so I think basically it's saying that it is as if a poison spiked pit card has been played. This is another one of those things that make it hard to know intent with the quests/powers/cards, but that's my take ono why that one would get the trapmaster bonus.

An interesting question that one begs is whether the +2 damage from trapmaster also has the poison effect or not on a poison spiked pit. Thematically, it seems it would, because thematically trapmaster means you build scarier, more dangerous traps that cause more damage of the appropriate type. On the other hand, the card says 4 poison damage, and doesn't account for trapmaster. Hey, why would it? Clarity isn't fun for anyone.

Good point about being able to set my treachery just prior to playing. I've always done it well ahead of time so it's out of the way and one less thing holding up the game.

In Road to Legend campaign.

The newest expansion had the first campaign map that stopped my players cold. First time in 3 plays of the campagin.

I believe its #42.. The garden quest.

The trees stop movement/turn and it does 2pts of damage and they block line of sight. Its a huge tile, and i let my player enter it and just kept spawning mobs and after mobs and they never had a chance. I could spawn 2 squares away because there were trees everywhere blocking LOS.

It was a slaughter of the players. I kept the boss far enough way to come in and do some damage and back away if ever in trouble, and they just all broke and ran after a enough of them died multiple times.

I wonder no-one mentioned quest 7 from the base game yet. We tried it several times with changing skill and hero combos and never got past the giant.

And then I wonder why everyone thinks quest 1 of WoD is so hard. For your group, it was a cake-walk, no hero ever was crushed, as we were always 4 to 5 pieces ahead of the end and I think we had only 1 or 2 hero death in total.

We found Quest 7 (base game) and WoD Quest 1 the hardest.

However, Quest 7 is not that hard anymore when you know the best route to take and let go of your ideals of not *scrambled to prevent spoiler*.

The scything blades in WoD 4 do not do 2 damage extra. The pits do (however they ARE not poisonous, that's only flavour text), but only when they are sprung. The scything blades are there from the beginnen, thus do not do the extra two damage (there is no surprise there) .

How's the 'Hold the Line' quest in AoD? Reading it through, it seems like a lot of fun, and fairly rough on the heroes.

Veinman said:

This is a very refreshing quest. My heroes needed two attempts to make it (we are playing with all expansions, so Feat cards are present), but it may not the bad beating you would like.

Most brutal so far in my book are Lvl 7 Base game (only finished with the negative conquest variant, yet this was pre-ToI) and Lvl 4 from WoD (finished in the 2nd attempt only due to strong hero/skill combos and a tired OL miscalculation in the final turn).

To question things further... this is more of a 'how do you play with Trap Master' question. Most traps allow for the rolling of power dice to mitigate wounds dealt. Do you allow 2 additional power dice for the extra trap master wounds, or does the hero just take those wounds automatically? I don't recall seeing that mentioned anywhere.

Veinman said:

There's nothing that states that additional dice are rolled on a crushing block or explosive door/rune when trapmaster is in play. Nor is there anything in trapmaster which states that the additional damage can be mitigated. Trapmaster simply says that trap cards which deal damage do an additional 2 damage.

I think a more important question is does the damage retain all the characteristics of the original damage? I.E., does a poision spiked pit do two additional POISON damage with trapmaster in play? Thematically, of course it does because it's just a more dangerous poison spiked pit. RAW, I'm not sure...it might just be two additional damage, but only 4 of them are poison...per the words on the card.

Tonight we started quest 4. I'm not sure when we will get to finish it (it got too late) but they still haven't really started down one of the wings of area 2. I've got them down to 6 conquest, and I definitely see them going down.

They have a crappy party, no real heavy hitters. I've got Pride and Envy out there. Now they can't trade gear, and since playing Pride, they haven't placed a single order. I think Pride is going to be a main stay.