As kids we reasoned that the best defense is a strong offense, but in my later years I've found that buying armor first is often a wise decision. The Shield of course is helpful for any other hero to use. And it's fully compatible with the classic Game System as long as you just write down that the ring increases your max BP by 1 as long as it is worn on your character sheet. 37 (?) that NA edition of The Trial had, plus enough gold to buy a staff for the Wizard at the end (not counting Treasure cards) and increase his max BP to 5 with the Ring of Fortitude (spoilers!) and give him bracers so he can defend with 3. So this new quest gives us a monster body point (not counting wandering monsters which are only goblins) of 24 BP (the Gargoyle is weakened, I missed that at first glance and defends with only 2) vs. He was getting in some practice writing quests again after three decades, and he wanted to (or was tasked with) including the 'Mentor' bonus figure into a quest so that's why we got it, and as something to whet our appetites while we waited for the pledge drive to end. so they may have the wrong impression about his abilities which is too bad.

Thankfully Stephen Baker gave us much more high quality quests in 'Prophecy of Telor' but the general public as access to Rogar's Hall, not the latter. Yeah Rogar's Hall is NOT a good first quest, the whole point is to 'teach you about failure' by almost ensuring your destruction which few young or new players will have the patience to continue with.

Heroes of might and magic online quest