Are the side quests static in their difficulty other than number of heroes? Or do they scale dynamically based on xp level of the heroes when you enter, or group makeup, anything like that?

My group started Kindred Fire recently. We did the first quest, went to the city, then did the Tekaris side quest, and it was brutal. We could maybe have moved faster by a turn or two, three with significant dice luck maybe.

It just seemed extreme. Do we need to have a more optimal dps focused group? Or are some side quests just harder than others and should be avoided until we have leveled up a bit more?

We started getting the third stage peril just after opening the locked door. That was 10 damage spread over the group one round, 15 the next, 20 the next, then finally 26. At the same time we were facing two shadow dragons with Tekaris bottlenecked behind them, doing 2 damage to each hero on the same round as 10 damage, then another 2 to each hero the turn we also had to spread 15 around, then 4 per hero the turn we had to spread 20 around. We got knocked out when the 26 damage peril came up.

Our group:

Knight Syndrael

Disciple Avric

Necromancer Leoric

Thief Tomble

The perils are activated/reset by actions. If you remain on the same tile too long, that's when you get stomped.

I can also say from experience that some quests are easier/harder depending on suboptimal/optimal random monster choices.

It may have been that you just got stuck in a hard cleft based on monster choices, hero choices/class choices.

Sometimes, you just hit a wall.

The perils are activated/reset by actions. If you remain on the same tile too long, that's when you get stomped.

I can also say from experience that some quests are easier/harder depending on suboptimal/optimal random monster choices.

It may have been that you just got stuck in a hard cleft based on monster choices, hero choices/class choices.

Sometimes, you just hit a wall.

Thanks for the insight. Just to make sure I understand you correctly, when you say tile, you are talking about the numbered physical tiles, not just a square within a tile, right?

So, if it looks like we are going to be bottlenecked and the horrific perils start, the best option would be to quick move to a different tile and let the monsters follow us?

I had read perils are based on a timer against exploring content, as described in this thread:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/227299-rtl-strategy/?hl=peril

That's why I was assuming we just weren't moving fast enough, but we couldn't move much faster really. The nasty damage everyone for 10+ perils each turn started when we opened the locked door, which revealed the rest of the dungeon. So were we just up against the timer and were getting punished for it and nothing could avoid it once it started, or would moving from one tile to another have changed something?

I do wish that it told you the round limit like in IA, at least then you would know how much time you have to work with.

We lost the second story mission just because of time, which was a bit of a piss off as we didn't get a lot of hints besides these perils.

Our SOP for all RTL quests is too keep the heroes moving and leave the monsters behind. I must say in general we found the side quests a bit tougher than the story quests. The good news is you can abandon a side quest and get the same reward you would have had for losing it. In some cases it saved us morale and a city visit.

Interesting, so you're saying if you pick to do a side mission and fail you get the same gold? Or at least some gold?

That seems very exploitable..

You get some gold and whatever gold you picked up in search tokens.

But you lose morale (affects travel events and shop items) and you lose a week traveling to the quest, and traveling back.

The only thing you don't lose when you quit early is the moral.

But if you have a few weeks to spare before your next story quest, you can travel to 1-2 side quests, go a little bit in and grab some search tokens, then high tail it out and go to the next mission.

Is there not a big reward for completing a side quest? It seems crazy that you would get the same reward for walking in, grabbing search tokens and leaving as you would also killing the end boss.

Is there not a big reward for completing a side quest? It seems crazy that you would get the same reward for walking in, grabbing search tokens and leaving as you would also killing the end boss.

Pretty sure you just get whatever gold you picked up from search tokens.

Edit: Correction, you gain 60 gold for a side quest regardless of win or lose + any gold looted in search tokens. Each quest has its own rewards for success.

To clarify as there is some confusion here: Attempting a side quest gives you gold regardless of the outcome. Winning a side quest gives you more (possibly gold, fame and/or relics).

As for the original question: Yes I am pretty sure that quest difficulty is only based on act and number of heroes. Thus side quests at the start of act 1 are hard, and the end of act 1 are easy (start of act 2 depends how well set up you are).

To clarify as there is some confusion here: Attempting a side quest gives you gold regardless of the outcome. Winning a side quest gives you more (possibly gold, fame and/or relics).

This was my experience. If we won a side quest we would get more gold and fame than if we lost a side quest. But we would at least get some gold if we lost. So to maximize our gold we would attempt a side quest and abandon it if it looked like we would get knocked out, for example the boss would sometimes have a lot of extra hit points and by the time we'd face her we were already low on health. We could then do a main story quest without having to visit the city because our morale would be maxed. That way we could fit in an extra side quest here and there. I don't think it was really game changing strategy but we got some benefit.

To clarify as there is some confusion here: Attempting a side quest gives you gold regardless of the outcome. Winning a side quest gives you more (possibly gold, fame and/or relics).

This was my experience. If we won a side quest we would get more gold and fame than if we lost a side quest. But we would at least get some gold if we lost. So to maximize our gold we would attempt a side quest and abandon it if it looked like we would get knocked out, for example the boss would sometimes have a lot of extra hit points and by the time we'd face her we were already low on health. We could then do a main story quest without having to visit the city because our morale would be maxed. That way we could fit in an extra side quest here and there. I don't think it was really game changing strategy but we got some benefit.

I want to add that the real benefit of abandoning a quest we knew we would lose was in real life morale. It helped prevent game burn out for us. We knew we lost so we'd call it a night, get some gold and try again the next day.

We are early into our first campaign as a 2 hero team and found it to be 50/50 for difficulty so far. Some quests we steam rolled and I got a bit concerned the whole game might be like that. We then ran into some much more difficult situations that we barely survived. Its funny how a couple of bad dice rolls can really turn a quest around

Thank you for the answers everyone. We did the second story quest in Kindred Fire tonight, and steamrolled it with no problem. And quick enough that we only saw Minor Peril, twice. I guess it was just bad luck we got such a hard ending in our first side quest. We'll start bailing out of side quests now if it looks like we are going to get rolled to save the town trip to replenish morale.

The only upside of winning a side quest is (a little) more gold.

There is one side quest (maybe 2) that gives you an item. The only one I've seen so far is the side quest that gives you the shards of Ithyndrus, the quest related to Manor of Ravens

Losing a quest loses you Morale, but as was stated, abandoning it does not, so you can run in, gun for the search tokens, then quit.