Ye Olde Inn

It was brought up in a group that the wizard should be able to pick up some chump change by charging for healing. I think that the real explanation would be that every hero has expenses and duties that must be performed between quests. I'm sure that maintaining spell components is expensive and probably require's their benefactor's finances. Same thing with other heroes maintaining their weapons and equipment.

But just for the fun of it, we discussed what would happen if the players sacrificed something about maintaining themselves for profit during their downtime. With that in mind, I'm working on the following ideas. (This is why I wrote that card maker, by the way. Wanted to rapid prototype) The idea is that each profession can only be chosen by one hero. And that they are not required to play. But they do have to be chosen at character creation.

Edit: Added a cardback. Just something basic to start. I'll revisit it after more playtesting.

Update: Added cardback. See above.

Really interesting concept. Reminds me a bit of profession cards from the game of Life where it's more of a passive add-on to your play experience. Would be interesting if you had to change professions at some point too, or have levels within each profession that one can train in.

I might not be understanding the Innkeeper one though - what is the drawback to it? Can they no longer use poision cure spells?

Thanks. I like the idea of progression, but I'm not sure what would work there.

For the Innkeeper, the idea is that only healing potions work for that person. A tongue in cheek downside since they ruined their liver. In this case, something like a potion of defense would do nothing for the Innkeeper. Only healing and restoration would work.

they are cool! Good idea

peewee_rota wrote:Thanks. I like the idea of progression, but I'm not sure what would work there.

For the Innkeeper, the idea is that only healing potions work for that person. A tongue in cheek downside since they ruined their liver. In this case, something like a potion of defense would do nothing for the Innkeeper. Only healing and restoration would work.

Ahh - thanks for clearing that up for me. I like the reasoning behind it too

On the idea of progression, you could create a new profession card for lvl2, lvl3, etc. Have the effects increase as they stick with their chosen profession. Think of an artisan over time, at some point they master their craft. That might be the end of a quest book or set of defined quests. As long as it doesn't overpower the actual questing or spirit of the game it could be fun.

JCool wrote:On the idea of progression, you could create a new profession card for lvl2, lvl3, etc. Have the effects increase as they stick with their chosen profession. Think of an artisan over time, at some point they master their craft. That might be the end of a quest book or set of defined quests. As long as it doesn't overpower the actual questing or spirit of the game it could be fun.

I like the simplicity of that. Upgrading it with a new deck, so that progression decks can be made in the future. Maybe level 2 (completion of main quest) eliminates the downside and level 3 adds an upside. Something like that. My original worry on about it being complicated is that if the rules have to exist in an instruction manual, then the cards are less usable to others.

I considered overpowering players when first writing these. There are two issues, the financial economy of the game and player's being overpowered.

Players in Heroquest originally only progresses by: buying things, finding artifacts, and completing the non-NA version and becoming "champions" or whatever the term is. The expansions open new shops (typically alchemy) and I seem to recall mercenaries being a part of one of the expansions. So what you can buy tends to be the "Experience points" of the game.

Flooding players with extra money cheapens the original economy. (I.e. a Barbarian with platemail, a battleaxe, and a crossbow doesn't have good use for money anymore). I am playtesting this on a skill and level based game. It seems like there are a lot of good options for both of those, so I haven't shared the system that I am using yet. But there is progression outside of the economy that leads to skills. Also, I'm using a new Armory that increases what players might want and the overall cost of being fully decked out. This seems to help with the economy issue a lot. Plus, always having a potion shop turns money into things in the future.

As for player power, there are two things working in the favor of giving the players a boost. First, heroquest is a really easy game to scale. Any orc can cause 3 damage in a lucky shot. That means that increasing a room from 2 orcs to 3 orcs can be a significant threat increase. 3 Orcs CAN kill a barbarian in a single turn.

A little more into the game design, Heroquest is a risk/reward game. It probably was made with concepts from Dungeon! in mind. When you kick down a door, you face a risk and should get a reward. In HQ, virtually every door has monsters (plural) behind it. The longer you play, the more likely you die. The goal is to get to the end before running out of Body points form all of that risk. So, increasing that risk by adding more monsters is a perfect way to continue the scale. A fighter with 2 more defense dice should last longer against more orcs. Stronger monsters isn't always necessary.

But the second part... the expansions are passive aggressive and mean. Keller's keep has traps that Heroes are not allowed to find. Mage of the Mirror has monsters stronger than any boss in any expansion as regular monsters, encountered in quest 2 and 3 (solo quests). Return of the Witch Lord has fake monsters that Heroes cannot identify as traps. If they attack them they lose their weapon, no matter what, even Spirit Blade, the only weapon that can hurt the boss. But the most passive aggressive of all, Keller's keep has an infinite spawning monster section. The only way forward is a secret passage, but it has to be found in a couple turns because monsters become "in sight" really fast. If they can't find it in one of the many closets, they lose the quest and cannot escape because the entrance is blocked. Keep in mind, Kellers Keep came with a lot of extra orcs and goblins. The only limiting factor on the infinite monsters is the number on the board cannot exceed the total number of miniatures. So they increased the number of available miniatures so that the infinite spawn can fill the first hallway exactly.

So scaling players up is actually greatly needed for the expansions, and level setting monsters is usually really easy.

(A funny side story. Using the mentioned rules I once had a Wizard fire lightning bolt down the Keller's Keep hallway, killing about 12 or so monsters. But, the monsters were mostly goblins so it actually caused more orcs and fimirs to spawn, and made the fight WAY harder. Passive aggressive.

@peewee_rota You mentioned one of my favorite games - Dungeon! 25 gold awarded for awesomeness!

I haven't played through the expansions yet (though I do have them ready and waiting for a group of players to enjoy). I like how you described the pros/cons of each. I think giving players a boost with the trades mechanic will be a great addition. I'm also working on a custom armory with fun items for players to buy that cost a lot more money, that combined with opening up other shops should give your players a reason to keep searching for treasure and wanting more gold.

I'll take a look at your custom system when I get time over lunch today, always enjoy seeing how someone else expands the core game. As I mentioned I'm working on a few customizations as well - mainly the addition of a merchant deck of cards (trinkets that may or may not help the hero but don't do anything too bad) to be used in a series of merchant quests (e.g. go find the lost merchant, he's dropped some items along the way that you can pick up, etc).

is there a pdf for these?