> we're looking to get to do a Heroquest or more than one, the
current arc is
> limited to about six sessions or so, and growth will be pretty
> inconsequential in that time - the normal rate five times. I'm
guessing
> we'll each spend a dozen or so HP on increasing abilities during
that time.
>
The one thing that is fixed in a hero quest power levels is crossing the barrier (10W3 I think?), but there are lots of fudges for that: you get a priest to help, you sneak into the great temple at midnight, you find a weak spot in the barrier, you have massive community support, etc. In short, presuming that the group has the ability to set up the quest, or the narrator is willing to make life easy for them (priest help, weak spot, etc), they should be able to get across the barrier.
Numbers presented in HQ suggest that in older time periods, even "normal" beings were more powerful than modern mortals. Hence, most hero quests are against high level opposition.
BUT, I don't see any rule that says that there cannot be a "weak" quest. Not that there may not be some reasonable challenges along the way, and the risk of surprises, but the end challenge is against someone fairly weak, as these things go. Something/one in the heroes range, just.
The question then is "why doesn't everyone do this quest?" And the answers could be almost anything. It is a family secret. There is a station or two that are easy with the right item, but very hard without it, and it is a specific item held by their clan (congregation, whatever). There are no side benefits, and the main benefit is very narrow, so normally people just don't bother. There are no side benefits, and the maximum end benefit is quite low, so most people who can cross the barrier go for bigger game. There are side benefits, but rather nasty ones, that people aren't normally willing to accept (this particularly works with the short story arc, since at the end the heroes might be willing to make brave sacrifices to save the day). A variant on that last one is that the quest is easy enough if the leader is willing to die at the end, but is quite harrowing otherwise.
So I think the answer is that if you are willing to tailor the myth (and the opposition in it) to the heroes, there is no reason that heroes of any level can't do hero quests, provided you can also work around the barrier issue.
--Bryan
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