Arcadia Quest - Tips & Strategies

The rules for Arcadia Quest don’t allow for trading of weapons or items mid-scenario without resting your entire guild (you may freely reallocate both in between scenarios). This can be rough when you’re learning the game… your prior-to-start decision to give your ranged weapons to the hero whose inherent ability works best with them can leave your other heroes ill equipped to deal with that Bullroarer you need to attack from afar, and you’ll have to wait until your team is resting to do anything about it.

We’ve house ruled that any active hero ending his/her movement on the same space as an allied hero may freely give or trade any equipment to that allied hero in lieu of taking an attack action. This is a heavy price to pay – it is extremely important to attack as much as possible in Arcardia Quest, so forgoing that attack action must be heavily weighed. But trading can save you from the equally unappealing fate of not using one of your 3 heroes at all between rests because you left them under-powered.

Wisp is a character I underestimated when I first read his ability. I thought to myself, “So what if he can move around without triggering guard reactions? I wanna kill monsters!” But after playing him, he instantly became one of my favorite characters. Why? Because he can very easily and very quickly complete PvE quests. Many of the PvE quests involve slaying a certain monster or collect a certain token. For other characters, you would have to fight your way through several monsters (or risk getting beaten to a pulp via guard reactions) before reaching those quests. This isn’t true of Wisp. He can easily slip by monsters (even many that are guarding important portals) to quickly reach his objective while other players are still twiddling their thumbs near their start locations!

One of the unfortunate circumstances I’ve faced many times is when my character gets killed by another player’s ranged attack while I’m trying to kill a monster for a PvE quest, or another player kills the monster I was targeting with a ranged attack and steals the loot I worked so hard trying to obtain. Oftentimes these PvE-quest monsters are hidden in a room behind a door. This where Wisp comes into play. Where most characters would open the door and then immediately proceed to attack the monster (leaving much room for others to sweep by and assassinate you or your target), Wisp is able to open the door, walk into the room, and close the door (triggering no guard reaction and rendering ranged attacks useless!). Then he can freely “open a can” on the monster(s)… melee weapons, armor, and cleave are helpful for this =)

The following solo variant has been up in one form or another since last fall and I wanted to post it here for everyone’s enjoyment. The rules creators are BGG users riddle13 and owll and I created the scoring system. The original posts can be found in the Arcadia Quest variants forum and are linked below

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1262066/arcadia-quest-co…

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1302418/solo-campaign-tw…

The Game

Setup:
– Setup the map scenario normally.
– The Spawn tile uses only 4 slots. Place a skull token on the fifth spot.
– Choose your guild and heroes and set them up normally.
– Place them in any one starting area.
– Use only PVE quests.
– You need a 12-sided die to mark the number of Rounds.
– Use 3 Turn markers from another guild to indicate that a hero has played his turn for each Round.

Play:
– You need to complete 2 quests to win a scenario. As soon as you complete the second quest, you win.
Of course, you only need to kill Lord Fang in the last scenario.
– Because there is no other player, there is a time clock for scenarios as the number of Rounds is determined by the difficulty of each scenario. You fail any scenario if you do not complete 2 PVE quests within the limited amount of turns of a scenario.
– Easy Scenario: 8 Rounds (not turns).
– Medium Scenario: 10 Rounds (not turns).
– Hard Scenario: 12 Rounds (not turns).
– If you fail an easy or/and medium scenario, you keep your reward and your title if any, and then your Gold minus 1 Gold for each skull your guild has and you go to the upgrade phase. The number of scenarios being played for upgrade cards and monster levels are always the completed scenarios not taking into account the scenarios you failed. Thus for example, failing your second scenario means you only have access to first level upgrade cards.

You then have to repeat a same stage scenario but ONE level of higher difficulty. You still need to successfully complete 3 stage one, 2 stage two and the final scenario to complete the campaign. You cannot repeat a scenario during a campaign. Thus, if you fail a hard scenario at any stage, if you fail a scenario and you run out of available higher difficulty scenarios at that stage or if you fail the final stage 3 scenario, you fail the campaign.

Play normally and follow all rules except for:
The Game is played in a succession of Rounds:

1- On your turn, you may activate ONE hero OR rest ONE hero that has not a Turn marker on its card. You then place a turn marker on that hero’s card indicating that he has played this Round. When all your 3 heroes have played their turn, a Round is completed.

2- Monsters guard and payback activations are played normally. However each Monster cannot be activated (guarded or payback) more than ONCE per Round even if it did not attack or even move. Place an activated monster on its side.

3- At the end of each Round, there is a Monster turn. For each Monster on the board (not on its side) that was not activated by any kind of reaction this Round, there is a check in that order:
a) If a ranged Monster can see (LOS) a hero, it will attack this hero.
b) If a melee Monster can see (LOS) a hero, it will move 1 space toward that hero if he can. It cannot attack a hero unless it is in the same space. See C below.
c) A melee Monster that is in the same space as a hero will attack this hero.
After all eligible monsters attack:
1) – Remove all Turn markers from your heroes.
2) – Advance the Round marker.
3) – Re spawn ONE monster from spot one if tile contains 4 monsters. If more than 4 monsters would appear on the tile together, these would be out of the game. Then slide down the other 3 monsters toward the first spot. The other rules for spawning are normally executed.
Note: If there is more than one hero that is in range of a Monster or visible to a Monster, the Monster will target the hero that is the closest, and if tied then the closest hero with the lowest amount of life left. If still tied, you chose the hero among those who are tied.
4) – Stand up any Monsters.

4- Because you are the one that moves the monsters, you always use the best move that would affect your heroes. Thus for example, during the payback reaction, such as opening doors to increase an attack or LOS toward your target is mandatory.
– You re-roll only unsuccessful dice and you always move the monsters and attack if possible.
– If you target multiple heroes with an attack, the strongest (attack strength) will execute the payback reaction.

5- Heroes:
a- When a hero dies, he keeps all of his possessions; nothing is dropped on the map. A dead hero that rests will resurrect back only on his starting area with all his life back and all his cards unexhausted.
b- A hero can give any of his items except death and quest tokens during his rest action to any other hero that is close to him. However, he can’t receive items.
c- Heroes abilities: Hobsbawm Blessing: Activate another Ally means that this Ally has another turn for the Round.
d- You ONLY earn gold for:
– Treasure chests and they earn only 1 gold each.
– Killed Monsters gold.

6- Items: – Extra turn potion removes a turn marker from a hero.
– Bomb: The bomb affect monsters in the same way as it would have affected enemy heroes if they are caught within the bomb effect. But monsters do not enter such spaces.

Optional Rules that were play tested and that you can add to your campaign (one or many) if you find the game too difficult or too easy:
Too difficult…
1- When a hero is chosen to Rest, remove 1 wound marker from that hero if there is more than ONE. Thus this means that a Hero cannot fully heal by resting.
2- Increase the number of turns.
3- Use all 5 spaces on the Spawn tile.
Too easy…
1- During the monster Turn only, there is a check for all Monsters even the ones that were already activated this Round. This means that some monsters may be activated twice in one round.
2- Reduce the number of turns.
3- There is no limit to the number of Monster reactions during any Round.
4- Use only 3 spaces on the spawn tile.

7. Scoring:
Outer Ring:
10 pts scenario success
10 pts for each round less than max
1 pt for each gold
-2 pts for each death token

Inner Ring:
12 pts scenario success
12 pts for each round less than max
1 pts for each gold
-2 pts for each death token

Dawning Twilight:
25 pts scenario success
15 pts for each round less than max
1 pts for each gold
-2 pts for each death token