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HHQ2 Wizard's Challenge (2e)

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Wizards of the Coast

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The village of Northbank was once a haven for mages of all talents and a magnet for hopeful apprentices. Its wizards' guild was a respected center for instruction, study, and research. But mysterious circumstances caused the sudden demise of the guild several years ago and resulted in the deaths of some important guild members. And a ghostly figure now threatens the few surviving members of the guild.

Wizard's Challenge is an AD&D adventure designed for a single character or a party of up to three members. It allows a wizard to be the center of the adventure and offers many role-playing oppurtunities such as spell research, component gathering, and forging important relationships with other wizards. This adventure is perfect for the wizard who needs experience, is looking for something more than crawling through dungeons, or is seeking a student or mentor.

Is your character ready to accept the challenge? Intrigue and danger await!

*****

Product History

HHQ2: "Wizard's Challenge" (1992), by Tim Beach, was the second in a series of "Head-to-Head Quests" for AD&D. It was published in July 1992.

Continuing the New One-on-One Adventures. "Wizard's Challenge" continued the series of one-on-one adventures begun a few months earlier with HHQ1: "Fighter's Challenge" (1992). Like its predecessor, it focuses on one character class and lets one player bring his or her own PC of that class into the adventure - to gain experience while adventuring in a "generic" fantasy realm.

Adapting for Wizard Play. In the HHQ series, TSR adapted the adventures to fit the character classes in question. Here, that means a lot fess fighting and lot more investigation, problem solving, and talking with NPCs. The book even says, "Because there is little combat, DMs are encouraged to offer experience points for other activities." This was a rarity for AD&D In almost any time period - though in fact the rules for it were found on page 48 of the Dungeon Master's Guide (1989).

Using the PHBRs. "Wizard's Challenge" leans slightly on PHBR4: The Complete Wizard's Handbook (1990) by using two kits from the book. It's a big step down in integration from "Fighter's Challenge," which depended heavily on PHBR rules. It'd also be the last such integration among the first four HHQ books.

Adventure Elements for the 90s. Much as with "Fighter's Challenge," this book shows the evolution of RPG adventure, with the more innovative elements from the 70s and the 80s now being used extensively in the 90s. There's a well-defined town of the sort that had been used since T1: "The Village of Hommlet" (1979), with an adventure integrated into the town - an adventure schema that dated back to N1: "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" (1982). The event-driven encounters of "Wizard's Challenge" were still a bit less common, though event-based encounters dated back to B6: "The Veiled Society" (1984), right at the start of the era of plotted adventures from TSR. There's "dungeon crawling," too (of course), in a cave complex and a tower.

The HHQ adventures did have at least one major innovation of their own: Like its predecessor, "Wizard's Challenge" has an extensive list of side adventures (subplot) that can be used to extend the adventure. Together with the village of Northbank, "Wizard's Challenge" thus creates a large and reusable campaign setting.

About the Creators. Tim Beach, one-time "monster guy" at TSR, wrote extensively for D&D from 1991-1995. In 1992, he was also contributing to the Dragonlance and Forgotten Rrealms lines.

About the Product Historian

The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the author of Designers & Dragons - a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.

We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.


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