Hey all, this is in the nature of looking for suggestions.

So I've been working on a few Plot ideas, but I'm getting bogged down in playtesting them. Even if I'm just looking to play through myself, its taking a long time.

So I'm thinking of trying to come up with a way to sort of fast track it. Most of the time gets spent in the dungeons anyways, so its more in the nature finding a way to simulate the conquest accumulation, but still make it close to accurate with a bit of randomness thrown in. I realize I will never be able to fully replicate completely the things that can go on during a dungeon or a full length campaign. What I'm looking to do is just approximate the dungeon/encounters part of it to save some time.

I was thinking of doing something involving dice. For example, for a dungeon level, you would roll 4 power dice.

Enhancement = Hero died on the level

Surge = Hero died twice on the level

Blank = Hero died three time on the level.

If the heroes die X number of times on 1 level, they automatically flee. Figure I can also use dice rolls to see if the OL cycles through the deck or not, roll like 2 dice and based on what you get determines if you cycle through the deck for that dungeon or get very lucky and go through 3 times (though I might just leave that out because in my experience it rarely happens).

Heroes would still collect treasure and money the same as always. Biggest problem using this method would be scaling. I figure I might need to make some kind of sliding scale on the dice both for campaign level, and for monster upgrades. For example, once the OL gets his first monster upgrade, I could add a power dice to the roll that would overide the weakest dice roll. Or once the Heroes hit Silver, scale it back so that on an enhancement the Hero doesn't die, a surge is one death, a blank is one death. Same kind of reduction for Gold.

I'd still do the Lt batltes, and all the overland stuff like sieges and movement.

Just throwing some ideas out there looking for some constructive feedback on it. It might not be feasilbe, and again I'm looking more for a fast way to simulate the progression of the game than anything else so if anyone has a better suggestions feel free to put it out there.

Big Remy said:

You know, I had a similar idea to that where you basically assign a value to each dungeon level and play it through. I like your idea about the rolls of the die representing # of deaths, but then I have seen dungeons where certain heroes don't die at all and certain ones die a lot (mages), but that doesn't cause flight. I would still give the flight option to the heroes in question. I would consider scaling it differently for high armor/health tanks like Nanok, etc. I have had a dungeon or two where I kill Nanok (he's one of the heroes in our campaign) 2-3 times, but...that's usually a rarity and because the other heroes stay away from my trolls/beastmen/etc and leave him out there to shield the rest of the party.

Heroes it's easy because you can just look at what's on the map and give them the CP for glyphs and gold for treasure piles, and roll the dice/draw for chests. The OL's abilities would differ...and you may want to adjust for things like: what type of leader/minions do you have versus what types of monsters have you upgraded? e.g. if the level leader is a Sorcerer with skeley minions and you have gold level Eldritch, I think it's gonna be tougher than if the master is a copper razorwing with some hellhounds. Obviously, a good ol would use his spawns and traps, etc. to still get some kills, but...I am sure you know what I am saying.

So...on average heroes get a 5 for the first two levels (3 glyph, 2 leader) and 7 for the last one (4 leader) plus statistically one chest out of 3 should yield no treasure. So thats..18 CP if the heroes make it all the way through and activate everything.

My experience has been that The OL usually outscores them, but I have gone anywhere from 20 for a whole dungeon to 48 in a really rough go for the heroes. Your method, assuming we have conquest values of 4, 3, 3, and 2, respectively means we can get anywhere from 12 to 36 cp per level. Now, I know blanks are unlikely, but even if you get all surges we're talking 24 per level? 72 in a single dungeon? I've had some good dungeons but that seems a bit much. So..I'd look at scaling it down. Maybe start with an automatic 18 yourself and then roll one die and it would be enhancement=1 death, surge=2, blank=none. That way you get as much as 42 but as little as 18 (even, and what are the chances you roll 4 blanks, really?) but are averaging more like 30. Now, this seems a little more accurate to me, but...you can tailor it to what the trends are in your games.

Maybe you and your heroes simply agree on a value for the OL everytime and just say dungeons=18 for heroes plus two treasure rolls and $1200 from gold piles while OL gets 30? 32? Something like that. Then you are basically just doing overland map stuff, rolling for sieges and handling encounters (esp. lt. ones) as they come up. But you did say you wanted randomness, so perhaps that's too structured.

As for scaling, you could just back off your starting 18 at each level to say...14, then 10 before rolling...or perhaps you could allow the high armor/conquest guys to go to anything but a blank is one death, and blank is none or something like that.

Anyway, those are some thoughts...hope it at least gives some good food for thought.

Sounds good.

This is for the most just me and the game, not with other players. I'm trying to iron out as many bugs in two home made plots as I can before I try to inflict them on some players

I would adopt a more subtle strategy that covers better hero play better I think.

Each time the heroes visit a dungeon you first assess hero 'level'. For the first half of each campaign level the heroes count as one level lower. Eg in first half of bronze, heroes count 'shop', first half of gold, heroes count 'silver' etc. For the second half of each level heroes count as the same level.

Play the mapboard game as you would normally - it doesn't take too much time. Also play OL upgrades normally, pretty easy to do.

When the heroes enter a dungeon and draw a level card, then you check what level the Boss is (according to upgrades).
If the Boss is the same level as the heroes or lower then assume the heroes clear the level and each dies only on a blank. Any hero that dies, rerolls and could die again (theoretically unlimited on a chain of blanks but a practical limit is about 3-4?).
If the Boss is one level higher than the heroes then the heroes have a choice.
i) withdraw from the dungeon
ii) roll once for each hero and once for each coin stash, treasure, glyph, Boss. Death/collection on a surge. Heroes do not reroll. If the boss is not killed, heroes flee to Tamalir. This represents raiding and running.
iii) Roll once for each hero and once for each coin stash, treasure, glyph, Boss. Death/collection on an enhancement. Heroes do not reroll. If the boss is not killed, then again for each hero, (remaining) coin stash/treasure/glyph and Boss
If the Boss is two levels higher than the heroes (eg Silver vs Shop) then the same options as above except heroes always reroll when dying (again, practical limit 3-4?).

Encounters could be simplified to a single roll per hero. Enhancement = nothing, Surge = roll trait dice = Wounds and take damage for each surge, Blank = killed.

Lt fights could be treat heroes same as in encounters each turn (maybe change blanks to like surges but wounds on enhancements). Each turn Lt also rolls.

It is still overly simplified (no reason for Ol to buy Treachery for example), but a bit more subtle than earlier suggestions and still covers things like early bronze dungeon raids etc. Its also a first draft idea, so could do with plenty of polish...