So, playing Prison of Khinn last weekend and I think my heroes need some help.

Heroes:
Roganna the Shade (Shadow Walker)
Astarra (Hexer)
Sir Valydir (ShieldCaster/Runemaster)
Ispher (Bard)

In the first encounter, I pretty much stomped them. Placing spiders as far back as possible, heroes were forced to move up to deal with the fist specter but unable to clear any spiders at that range. First OL turn, used shifting earth to move Roganna forward 2 spaces, Astarra down and right (towards graveyard), and Ispher and Valadyir back towards the entrance. Swarmed Roganna with spiders, then backed them off (she dead), moved zombie master up the graveyard (move with blinding speed) to immobilize Astarra, remaining zombies stand on exit to rise as first action next round, move Golems up to block door at the top of the map.

What resulted was a series of KOs on Roganna and Astarra, and the heroes being bogged down in the first corridor (where spiders spawn) with zombies re-enforcing and pressing the rear while spiders and golems block the door.

Win for OL, 4 tokens in play area for Encounter 2.

So now I am looking at Encounter 2, best choices for defenses are perception and strength (all heroes have a 3 max attribute test, Astarra has to pass at 2). I already have 4 tokens, so first OL turn I can spawn Skeleton Archers at the exit. Open groups Golems and Medusae.

Looking at @Sadgit 's PBF (which is very enjoyable btw), having the heroes attempt to cross the pit while I still have Threat Tokens for Shifting Earth would be a disaster, but with a 50% chance to fail each test, attempting to kill the zombies, and then the Reanimate Archers is just going to let me re-enforce with the Medusae and Belthir right away. Using bard song Understudy, heroes should easily get 4 movement + fatigue out of sneak actions (stealth song?), so outpacing the zombies is an option, but with the archers at end of the hall (I have Splice from a rumor quest card, so they are going to be brutal), I don't think they can clear that group without creating another alarm.

Final option for them may be to split up, sending one hero down the right side to search objective tokens in the pit (Valydir), while other heroes (Astarra, Ispher, and Roganna) go down the left towards the exit. Roganna using her heroic to shield the group from the Archers and creating shadow soul, and Astarra trying to get in position to use her heroic feat in case I block the exit when Valydir tries to make his escape. I could (would?) still try to put Valydir in the pit, but it would be a single Threat token to move only a single character, and with archers tied up with the other group, zombies would have to catch him to take advantage of it.

This seems like a (really cool) difficult quest to handle for the heroes, since its the first Act II quest, so gear is not up to snuff for them. Has anyone done this quest recently? How did your heroes handle it?

Coincidentally, we are at exactly the same point in our campaign: we have played the first encounter of Prison of Khinn and will play the second in about 3 weeks.

My heroes fared maybe a little better than yours in this first encounter, in which I used Barghests: 3 managed to escape and I could stop only one thanks to Pit Trap to use up his last remaining movement point on the space before the exit (he had no fatigue left either). I didn't even stun him. I will start with only 1 token, so I might not be able to summon anything on my first turn.

...But then maybe they fared not that much better because without intending to do so (it was just how the dice rolled), I managed to get 3 heroes down to 1 health left, which means that in the second encounter, even the Zombies will be a threat.

Ha, don't worry, Act II zombies can do some WORK.

We finished it up last night, and it went pretty much as expected.

Heroes moved up first round and started killing zombies, spawned skeleton archers at the exit. One hero down due to remaining zombies.

2nd round spent reviving and clearing zombies, archers chilled back at the end of the hall, spawned Belthir with Scorpions Kiss.

Heroes decided that the new 'end game goal' was to loot the search token at the top of the map (the one closest to the entrance)... web trapped all except Astarra, who had run down the right side passage, and Roganna (the scout).... Roganna moves to loot the search token... Mimic, immediate skirmish for 5 damage, next action Roganna kills the mimic and gets a stamina potion.

Next round spawn Medusae. Archers take some range 6 pot shots at Roganna, and chill at the back of the hallway.

Next round everyone moves into the hallway, kill 2 skeleton archers at range down the hall (minions), Roganna uses heroic feat to protect the group. Astarra loots another search token in the other hallway.

This is the round it all went bad, I play Shifting Earth, Ispher moves 2 spaces forward (toward archers and Medusae), Roganna is moved 2 back (towards Scourge Servant and respawned zombies), Valadir passes and stands where he is, 2 spaces away from both of them, spawn Splig. Archers and Medusae kill Ispher, Belthir with Scorpions Kiss immobilizes and Poisons Valadir, Zombies and Scorge kill Roganna. Heroes turn, they figure 'well no idea what to do on this side, but Astarras turn is easy', Astarra opens the door to the Cave, Explosive Runes... Astarra rolls 6, takes 4 damage... dies.

I should mention at this point that Astarra is basically the Jar Jar Binks of this campaign, and has now died 4 times to random traps (including slipping in a Grease Trap and slamming into a door), so "Mesa see what in this door Okey Day?" was played to maximum comic effect.

Remaining Heroes stand up, Valadir kills a skeleton archer... and thats pretty much it. Next round I moved the remaining archers into the cave to shoot Astarra down, Zombies killed Roganna again, Medusae killed Ispher, and poor Valadir has to just sit and watch while being chain immobilized. Spawned the last group (Golems and Baron) and moved them up to block the hallway at the end of the turn... heroes intentionally got up as LOUDLY as possible to force the last alarm to prevent me from killing Valadir for my last threat token.

On 10/17/2017 at 3:45 PM, Silidus said:

So, playing Prison of Khinn last weekend and I think my heroes need some help.

Heroes:
Roganna the Shade (Shadow Walker)
Astarra (Hexer)
Sir Valydir (ShieldCaster/Runemaster)
Ispher (Bard)

In the first encounter, I pretty much stomped them. Placing spiders as far back as possible, heroes were forced to move up to deal with the fist specter but unable to clear any spiders at that range. First OL turn, used shifting earth to move Roganna forward 2 spaces, Astarra down and right (towards graveyard), and Ispher and Valadyir back towards the entrance. Swarmed Roganna with spiders , then backed them off (she dead), moved zombie master up the graveyard (move with blinding speed ) to immobilize Astarra , remaining zombie s stand on exit to rise as first action next round, move Golem s up to block door at the top of the map.

What resulted was a series of KOs on Roganna and Astarra , and the heroes being bogged down in the first corridor (where spiders spawn) with zombie s re-enforcing and pressing the rear while spiders and golem s block the door.

Win for OL, 4 tokens in play area for Encounter 2.

So now I am looking at Encounter 2, best choices for defenses are perception and strength (all heroes have a 3 max attribute test, Astarra has to pass at 2). I already have 4 tokens, so first OL turn I can spawn Skeleton Archer s at the exit. Open groups Golem s and Medusae.

Looking at @Sadgit 's PBF (which is very enjoyable btw), having the heroes attempt to cross the pit while I still have Threat Tokens for Shifting Earth would be a disaster, but with a 50% chance to fail each test, attempting to kill the zombie s, and then the Reanimate Archers is just going to let me re-enforce with the Medusae and Belthir right away. Using bard song Understudy , heroes should easily get 4 movement + fatigue out of sneak actions (stealth song?), so outpacing the zombie s is an option, but with the archers at end of the hall (I have Splice from a rumor quest card, so they are going to be brutal), I don't think they can clear that group without creating another alarm.

Final option for them may be to split up, sending one hero down the right side to search objective tokens in the pit (Valydir), while other heroes ( Astarra , Ispher , and Roganna) go down the left towards the exit. Roganna using her heroic to shield the group from the Archers and creating shadow soul , and Astarra trying to get in position to use her heroic feat in case I block the exit when Valydir tries to make his escape. I could (would?) still try to put Valydir in the pit, but it would be a single Threat token to move only a single character, and with archers tied up with the other group, zombie s would have to catch him to take advantage of it.

This seems like a (really cool) difficult quest to handle for the heroes, since its the first Act II quest, so gear is not up to snuff for them. Has anyone done this quest recently? How did your heroes handle it?

First ENC.

I could stop them at the first door, and because they were also isolated, absolutely had no chance against the ATC II barghest, who blocked the pathway to the exit.

I could get 3 hero token in the first enc. (3 hero player)

Second ENC.

From the beginning of this ENC. I felt that the overlord was overpowered. They barely managed to arrive to the cashm , and after that i constantly throwed them/moved them to the pit space with the Ettin's throw and Zacharet's ability. After the 4. alarm went off, and the reinforcement arrived felt they have no chance to victory it is just decimation from turn to turn.

Overall i feelt that this quest is quite unbalanced, especially in the 2nd ENC. ( http://d2etracker.com/ - overall 71% win ratio to overlord in 85 quest )

I even started to go through and doing some reasearch in connection with the quest rules, maybe i missinterpreted something.

In the Special Rules it is written:

"Each time a hero performs 1 of the 2 actions he received during his turn. He must test his choice of the Overlord's defenses ( it is an attribute test ) . I f he fails, the overlord places 1 of that hero's tokens in his play area."

As i interpret this: Every hero has to make 1 test if they want to make 1 hero action from the two (exclude sneak movement, but if the have to clim out from a pit space that is an action which is considered for the test) so for 2 actions it counts 2 test per hero. 1 test for each.

What do you think?