HeroQuest Gold

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Interesting as I approach it from almost the opposite end of that spectrum. Trying to make it as easy as possible for Quests to be created, shared, GM'd and played (but then again I don't have a DnD background) - whilst still allowing Quest creators to make special exceptions within their own Quest to mix things up - although if they do then it becomes their responsibility to make sure those exceptions are clear and playable!)

Clearly we both enjoy debating rule mods, and trying to get that perfect (and impossible) balance between low rule complexity and high in-play richness.

[Markus Darwath]

D&D's complexity does make it inherently more open-ended in terms of writing adventures. And for those intending to write adventures for others to run as game master, much of the onus in terms of ease-of-use does land on the talent and organizational ability of the adventure writer as opposed to the rules system.
A friend of mine (Dave Z.) has "published" several adventure modules, meaning they are approved by the Adventurers League organization for use in organized play events. He is very adept at making it easy for the DM to prepare for and run his material. I'm currently running the second four-part series in a story line he created, in which he allowed other writers to take on two of the four modules, and his work is just hands-down superior to his guest writers in terms of clarity and the amount of prep work I need to put in to run the adventures. So I totally get that you're trying to build a HQ ruleset which allows everyone to be a "Dave" when it comes to Quest design. Unfortunately, there is a bit of a catch-22 involved in that the more potential situations there are which the rules definitively cover, the more extensive and complex the rules themselves need to be. And that, as you are aware, increases the risk of creating additional problems in unforeseen circumstances. It's basically dealing with chaos theory in game design. It's ideally possible to calculate every outcome if every possible variable is known, but the field of variables is generally to large to actually know them all. Even worse, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle comes into play, where simply knowing the variables may inadvertently introduce new variables.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Next instalment

20151218 “Combat Dice & Pushback Update”

Problem: Having play tested the current version of the rules by playing through the Game System Quest book, a modification to the White Shield defend for Monsters was needed as it slowed gameplay down

Monster's defend dice

*Revised the ‘Monsters defend on white shields’ as it drags out combat, so now using (White) Shields for defence for both Monsters and Heroes and the Black Shields now Black Skulls as an extra Skull and they trigger the push back rules

Problem: Numerous topics on the forum and in-game experiences around the door blocking tactic, how once discovered by Heroes it becomes a real spoiler, but needs to remain a valid tactic

Houserule: Push Back

*Introduced the pushback rules and monster variant types with diagonal and ranged weapons to reduce the effectiveness of door blocking

*Introduce the free attack rule to mitigate the effectiveness of the rolling door block / attack tactic

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Next installment...

20160106 “The Throwing Weapon Recovery Update”

Problem(s): Throwing weapons being single use stops them from being utilised by Heroes as they are too expensive to be thrown, this in turn removes a method of expending Heroes gold.

The Wizard despite the premise that he dedicates his time to the study of the magical arts rather than the martial arts, and hence has limited access to weapons, has clearly taken time out to master the use of throwing daggers

Potions, Traps and Throwing Weapons

Recovering Daggers and limiting Crossbow arrows

A Simple House Rule for Recovering Thrown Weapons

*Modified the Dagger so that it cannot be thrown and introduced a new Throwing Knife weapon that has the same attributes as the Dagger formerly did

*Changes to the rules for recovery of thrown weapons in response to the tendency with the official rules of throw and lose for players to just not buy them - now only lost when you throw and miss that is roll no skulls [1AD = 1 in 3, 2AD = 1 in 9], otherwise automatically recovered when you step onto the target square or search a room containing the target square.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

As far as Search goes. If you wander around a room to search for treasure and there are undetected traps, I feel you would step on one and trigger it. If you had already performed a trap search then you could avoid them minus the traps surrounding a treasure chest.

I agree with the 'if you wander around a room to search for treasure and there are undetected trap then you would step on one and trigger it' bit but surely the next part of your statement the 'if you had already performed a trap search then you could avoid them' bit, if you substitute the same text around wandering around a room with undetected traps whatever your intention was, then the statement could validly be rewritten as

''if you had already wandered around a room to search for traps and there are undetected traps then you would step on one and trigger it then you could avoid them'

The statement above obviously makes no sense but it highlights to me the illogicality of the original premise that wandering around a room (with the intention of finding treasure) has an inherent risk of triggering on an undetected trap (fair enough), whereas the same Hero wandering around the same room (with the intention of ignoring treasure but finding traps) has NO inherent risk of triggering an undetected trap! If that is the case then surely my Hero just needs to opt to wander around the room with the stated intention of 'looking for traps' but pocketing any treasure that he finds on the way - no risk, all reward!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

20160301 “The Advancement Update”

Contrary to widespread belief HeroQuest does has an advancement mechanism - through the acquisition of loot and the purchase of improved weapons and armour, but this has a few issues that this update intends to fix

Problems

1. Not enough ‘steps’ – the Barbarian starts with a Broadsword leaving him only one step up in terms of Weapons upgrades, the Battle Axe in UK/EU system or two steps (Longsword, Battle Axe) in the US system, or 2 and 3 if you include the Crossbow, other Heroes have 3 (Broadsword, Longsword, Battle Axe) or 4 if you include the Crossbow

2. Rate of gold acquisition versus cost of items results in the Heroes maxing out too quickly (made worse by the later introduction of the buyback rule)

3. Giving away free upgrades in the form of weapons & armour in-Quest undermines the advancement mechanism AND takes away player choice (“but no one wants a staff except the Wizard, and he already has one, I would have preferred the gold to choose my own upgrade”) and some of the later Quests give away kit by the cart load – can’t remember which one off the top of my head but I think 2 short swords and 2 longswords in a single chest – think of the gold value!

Advancement - how to do it?
Managing Hero Power Creep : Gold & Equipment

*Battle Rage special ability for the Barbarian helps to better differentiate the Heroes and reduce the Barbarian’s starting weapon to a Shortsword giving him an extra step in his “weapon advancement” path to Broadsword (currently he has two steps only – Longsword, Battle axe, this adds or restores a third - Broadsword)

*Restrict search to once per room (rather than once per Hero per room) to throttle back on loot acquisition and reduce the problem of Heroes maxing out on Weapons and Armour upgrades too quickly

*Ported the Axe (already done in last update) and Spear from UK version to increase the choices and number of weapons available to the Heroes to improve the advancement journey

*Introduced new ranged weapon, the Bow, increase the choices and number of weapons available to the Heroes

*Changes to the prices of some Weapons and Armour following a review to rationalise and slightly increase costs to further reduce the problem of Heroes maxing out on Weapons and Armour upgrades too quickly – Staff (50), Dagger(0), Throwing Knife (50), Shortsword (150), Axe (250), Spear (250), Bow (250), Broadsword (450), Crossbow (650), Longsword (650), Battle Axe (850), Shield (100), Helmet (200), Chainmail (500), Plate (850)*now worn over Chainmail both giving +1 each, cumulative +2DD

[Bareheaded Warrior]

20160308 “The Loot Update”

Problem: Some of the trap placement in some of the official quests indicates some confusion around handling chests in relation to searching for treasure and traps. In addition, the rules are not clear how to handle the situation where a Hero falls into a pit trap, directly in front of a chest. The inclusion of the Quest Note comment “This chest is empty” make no sense in the context of the official rules.

Pit traps in front of treasure chests

*Exclude chests from the general “search for treasure” rules

*Introduce a new action “Loot” for handling chests, and chest traps, separately.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

20161119 “The Item Update”

Note: All the topics below contain valuable discussions and information but the one labelled **Primary is the oldest / original topic that I can find so is probably the best to use to continue discussions on the same topic.

**Primary Equipment Maintenance and limits [OP: March 27th, 2012, 4:40 pm]
Inventory rules [OP: April 3rd, 2016, 11:54 am]
Limit to number of items in same "slot"? [OP: July 29th, 2019, 3:19 am]

This update is an unusual one as it is less about modifying the rules and more about explicitly stating items and their properties in a systemic manner for clarifications and to act as a framework for any added items and to form a basis for introducing labels or better iconography to make item attributes or properties more intuitive for players

Capacity Limits

Worn items can only be equipped/changed between quests. The exception is if you find something new during a quest. Then you have the option of equipping it immediately.

Problem: There are no limits in the base game on the amount of equipment, weapons and so on that Heroes can carry. Whilst this isn’t an issue at the start of the game with time Heroes start to amass a lot of kit. Many don’t see this as an issue, but it means that players don’t have to make a choice about what equipment and weapons they take into the Dungeon, they can simply just take an array of kit for every occasion, and a kitchen sink to wash up in after every fight!

This in turn then causing lots of complicated situations and subsequently house rules to resolve those situations, for example – can I shoot with my crossbow whilst still using my shield, before switching to my battle axe in one hand to get my 4 attack dice and still being able to throw a dagger with my other hand and then switching back to my shortsword and shield in time to get the extra defend die against the monster attacks (and in fact whilst I’m juggling all this hand held kit I also want to change my armour for the fire proof version in time for the dragon trap to kick in and can I do all the above whilst quaffing a potion and still be able to keep my hands free to climb out of a pit trap without any movement penalty)?

Allowing all Heroes to carry unrestricted amounts of kit also dilutes the need to have balance within the party, if each Hero has a battle axe for certain types of combat, a crossbow for ranged combat, a longsword and shield combo for diagonal attacks, an array of daggers for good measure and a plethora of artefacts – hold on I’m attacking an Undead let me sort through my filing cabinet of artefacts to select the one that gives me the best Undead bonus – then each becomes a one-man band, which isn’t great in a game that should encourage Heroes to work as a team.

Proposal:

See the carrying limit rules but in summary.

All items to be labelled with a size "Large", "Medium" or "Small" (for ease of use assume every item is "Small" unless otherwise stated)

• Large = Crossbow, Bow, Shield, Battle Axe, Spear, Staff
• Medium = Shortsword, Longsword, Hand Axe, Dagger, Broadsword

And that characters have 10 available slots;

• 2 that can be used to carry items of any size
• 2 that can be used to carry small or medium size items
• 6 that can be used to carry only small items.

Worn items are treated separately, as is treasure.

#A new category of treasure “Special Treasure” has been created that includes all magic items that are sufficiently rare that they are not found in the Treasure Deck and are not truly artefacts – because they are limited use rather than permanent and are not unique

Note: This includes potion purchased from the Alchemist’s Shop and the Elixir of Life has been moved to this Special Treasure category.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

20210530 “The Secret Door Update”

secret doors

Problem

1. Use of a tile to mark a secret door on the board and a ‘tile’ icon to indicate its location on a Quest map contrasts with the fact that they are located in a wall, exactly the same as any other door, and yet other doors use completely different on-board and Quest Map imagery which causes confusion such as around LOS through secret doors and which side a secret door can be found on

*Modified rules to clearly state that a secret door is exactly the same as a standard door, except for the fact that it isn’t put out on the board automatically like a standard door when it can be seen by a Hero, but is only revealed when a Hero moves into an adjacent square through movement (or assumed movement during a search)

*Added a recommendation that the secret door tile is not used for the purpose of indicating a found secret door on the board and instead a standard open-door piece is used instead for a secret door once it has been revealed (obviously nothing is required to mark on the board a secret door that hasn’t been found) *

*Added a recommendation that the iconography on Quest Map is changed from using the secret door tile on a square to using a new icon, exactly as per a door, but with an ‘S’ through it

*Note: this means that the secret door tiles are no longer needed which creates the opportunity to homebrew rules for using this tile to represent hatches in the floor, that could lead just about anywhere…

*Introduced Hatch rules

[Shark]

Re Capacity Limits

To cover for the amount of equipment a hero can carry, and at the same time make remembering the rules easier, i have taken the idea of the original equipment cards (and don’t forget the spell cards). Why not just create multiple copies so rather than writing it down you just set out the card next to a smaller character sheet. I have then created a few extra item cards, Belt and Backpack (it does come in different sizes). The belt allows 1 weapon to be stored as well as a couple of quick draw potions. Then the basic backpack can hold 4 small items (inside), 1 extra weapon (outside) and a couple more potions (not quick draw).

You can only swap stuff out of backpacks when no monsters are present.
You have 2 hands, wear one armour, hat, ring, etc.

I have converted some of the treasure from gold to small items, so they need to decide what to keep or ditch.