Monster's defend dice

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Step 1: Scrap Black Shields for Monster defence

Step 2: Scrap Black Shields altogether and replace them on the dice with Skulls

Step 3: Decide you miss the Walruses and replace White Shields with Black Shields

[cynthialee]

For powerful Bosses I use the rule that they 'Defend on All Shields'.

[sajungzak]

Sounds like most people are generally not against the idea. Some concern was expressed however, that it would get too hard. I guess it depends on the group.

I still don't think it changes much for monsters with 1 or 2 defence, and it helps keep the bosses around for at least one turn so some chaos spells can be used. For this reason I prefer the blanket effect as opposed to changing only some monsters defence ability.

I suppose if it gets too hard and causes a total party wipe, it can be dropped on the next try.

I see it working out thus:
Skip the trial.
Normal rules for quests 1-6 or so.
Play the trial. By now the heroes should have begun upgrading their equipment and acquired at least a few potions.
Declare the heroes as champions and implement proposed house rule.
If it gets too hard and all the heroes die, demote new heroes and replay the quest they lost on without house rule.

[The Admiral]

Sounds like most people are generally not against the idea. Some concern was expressed however, that it would get too hard. I guess it depends on the group.

I still don't think it changes much for monsters with 1 or 2 defence, and it helps keep the bosses around for at least one turn so some chaos spells can be used. For this reason I prefer the blanket effect as opposed to changing only some monsters defence ability.

I suppose if it gets too hard and causes a total party wipe, it can be dropped on the next try.

I see it working out thus:
Skip the trial.
Normal rules for quests 1-6 or so.
Play the trial. By now the heroes should have begun upgrading their equipment and acquired at least a few potions.
Declare the heroes as champions and implement proposed house rule.
If it gets too hard and all the heroes die, demote new heroes and replay the quest they lost on without house rule.

I have recently been playtesting quests 4-6 of the 'Heralds of Chaos' Questpack. Most of the monsters encountered have 3-4 BP's. and are hard enough to put down as it is. These guys have powerful attacks as well and so would be hanging around even longer to make even more use of their better defence dice and get in more attacks. I would certainly recommend having a good look at the quest before implementing a blanket approach, such as you have done with the initial quests.

The Black shields for monsters is too ingrained in my psyche to want to change now, but I certainly agree that it can be an effective balancing tool for the EW player. I can just picture my brother's face now. 'I've tweeked a couple of things for this next quest...oh and all the monsters now roll white shields' said quietly to my side as I back cautiously towards the nearest exit!.

[cornixt]

I'm using a plain 5+ on a D6 defense for both heroes and monsters in my own HQ adaption. I've scaled back the body points on the tougher monsters because otherwise they take too long to kill (you are essentially doubling the number of hits required).

The black shield never really looked like a shield anyway. And on all the homebrew coloured dice it is white.

[mitchiemasha]

I'm using a plain 5+ on a D6 defense

WHAT!!! WAIT!!! NO THEMED PICTURE DICE! That's just blasphemy.

[cornixt]

It's designed for people who don't want to spend big bucks on special dice. All D6s. After all the little changes, it's now about as close to HQ as Descent is.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I was never sure how far you can modify a game before it ceases to be the same game, with HQ I made the combat dice one of my non-negotiable points. That said many many moons ago when I used to play a heavily modified, almost unrecognisable version of AHQ we did make it all D6 based but that is another story...

[alyndavies]

I've often thought about how HeroQuest can be too easy sometimes. This is an attempt to fix that without changing anything. Well, hardly. Just the primary mechanic of The Game itself.

How many of you have tried playing monsters defending with white shields? How did it go?

I figured it wouldn't be that different. Go from one out of six to two out of six, or, one out of three per die. I play tested it by myself and the difference was barely noticeable, except when there is three or more defend dice.

Then the big baddies are a bit harder and tend to last longer. I played with these rules with some family over the holidays. I showed them the Skull for a hit, the Shield for a block, and the Walrus which means nothing. I didn't tell them it was a house rule. They only get to play once a year and always need a refresher... One hero who had played before, part way through, asked, "Really? Fimir defends on White shields?"

We all had fun, and nobody complained about it being too easy. Or too hard. What do you think? It's like having beginner and advanced versions, no?

The standard game we play is:
Skulls to attack, monster and hero.
White dice for Monster, and Heroes to defend.
Black shields are a critical hit, so if you roll a black shield when attacking you get the same as 2 skulls, if your defending and you roll a black shield, it counts as 2 white shields.

It works well for us at least. the argument I always make is this, the Barbarian STARTS the game with 3 attack dice and a 50/50 chance to roll a skull off each dice. There is one black shield on a 6 sided dice to to have an equal chance to defend a Barbarians attack, the monster would need NINE dice under normal circumstances!

[Anderas]

That's true but not a Problem.
After all, the Barbarian has no other Skill than that.

Furthermore, you don't want Monsters that defend reliable against the Barbarian, that would be too hard. You want Monsters that die reliably after one or two attacks, but in best case attack back sometimes. You want Monsters who, if they are all counted together, take 15 to 20 BP from your Heroes.

And here it doesn't matter if you take one Monster with 9 defend dice and 15BP or if you have 25 Goblins with one BP and 1 defense die. (Didn't calculate if it fits, though)