Heroes Upgrade / Leveling System (and Villains too!)

[Kurgan]

Pics of the professionally printed Zargon coins (Elite Monster tokens) can be found here !

[Kurgan]

I created an evil wizard card that is a potion the bad guy can drink that gives him blue dice for defense until the end of the quest. I also created a card reflecting the same "Chaotic Defense" ability for each of the Wizards of Zargon(Morcar). If the Heroes are already champions, this helps the bad guys survive a bit longer and they will use the scrolls of battle formations similar to the Heroes once they have that ability as well.

Now to find a use for the purple, orange and other colors of dice (Wizard's Arsenal possibly).

[j_dean80]

I created an evil wizard card that is a potion the bad guy can drink that gives him blue dice for defense until the end of the quest. I also created a card reflecting the same "Chaotic Defense" ability for each of the Wizards of Zargon(Morcar). If the Heroes are already champions, this helps the bad guys survive a bit longer and they will use the scrolls of battle formations similar to the Heroes once they have that ability as well.

Now to find a use for the purple, orange and other colors of dice (Wizard's Arsenal possibly).

Mound of the Beastmen Questpack uses the orange dice.

[Kurgan]

Nice. I was resistant to using them at first, thinking it was going to make the games too complicated, but overall I see the benefit. The Green, Blue and Black dice are easily to account for, even if you don't have the special dice (just count a certain result as something else).

On white dice:
Black dice, count the black shield as another skull.
Blue dice, count the white shields as if they were black shields (and ignore black shields).
Green dice, count the black shield as a white shield OR count skulls as if they were white shields (and ignore white shields).

The pink/black and the red/gold dice are just dupes of the white dice, to keep Zargon's results separated at a glance from the Heroes, which is a fun luxury option.

I saw a "Beer and Board Games" episode where they played Hero Quest, but the guy playing Zargon used regular dice! I think he was counting 6's as black shields, 1-3's as skulls, 4-5's as white shields on each die. It's possible, just a bit harder to remember in a long game with a bunch of people without a cheat sheet.

But yeah the special dice with "doubles" of things, those are the ones that will be interesting.

[Kurgan]

More thoughts on Elementals... (already introduced here)

So these Summoned Creatures as we know are uber powerful.

They must have weaknesses, right? Unlike most of the other examples of Elementals I've seen, instead of having absurd numbers of body points, or expiring after they kill a certain number of figures, these are based on turns. They will survive for 2-7 turns. They impart damage or other effects simply by passing through other characters. Some of them have spells they can use which diminish the remaining turns of "life" they have. They can't be harmed by conventional means.

However they can die under other conditions:

1) They Pass through another Elemental. This could happen if there were two Hero summoned ones, or in theory (If I were to allow it) if a bad guy summoned one. This could happen I suppose if I allowed someone like the Frozen Horror to use a bunch of Ice ("water") spells to summon an Elemental of his own. What a battle that would be! But Elementals are special beings, they don't fight, they just crush into each other and are simultaneously annihilated.

2) Weaknesses. Yes, certain spells could damage them.

I haven't decided yet if these spells will DESTROY them in one take, or if each hit simply diminishes a turn (instead of doing a body point of damage as they would against a conventional target). Maybe it should vary by power? The situation is that a Hero could destroy another Hero's Elemental but more practically speaking it would be a Chaos Sorcerer taking out the Hero's super gambit.

So here are the weaknesses as I originally conceived them:

Fire is vulnerable to Water/Ice or Earth, is not affected by Air (or Air might make it stronger)*
Earth is vulnerable to Water or Fire
Air is vulnerable to Fire
Water is vulnerable to Air or Ice

* Using an example here of Tempest. Maybe Tempest strengthens a Fire Elemental. Zargon would know this, but if he tried it on the Hero's Fire Elemental, it would gain a turn. The Heroes could use their Tempest on their own Elemental to give it another turn of "life." Swift Wind wouldn't make the Elemental move faster, but it might give it another turn of "life" as well. The opportunity to do something similar "strengthening" say an Earth Elemental with an Earth Spell wouldn't come up unless you had a Spell Scroll. This seems like it would be even more OP, but in those cases, we are talking about single use, rare Artifacts that are only giving the character one more turn, at best. But then in a turn, they could run over the big boss one more time! But that means you really had to save all your big stuff for the end of the Quest, so there's still a trade off.

So element based spells come into play here, but I suppose also certain magical artifacts might count as well, but probably not potions, since you are supposed to drink them, not throw them at the enemy. I can't imagine dousing a Fire Elemental with Holy Water, but it would be pretty funny, now that I think about it, especially if it took multiple attempts with a stack of vials.

In my version, unlike some others, the Elementals are under complete control of the Summoner. So there is no worry about having to "put down" a rogue Elemental. I suppose if that were a factor, it would be pretty tricky. However, a turn-coat Elemental could do a TPK fairly easily in certain circumstances.

Once the Heroes in play are all "Knight" level...

The Frozen Horror (or any monster with sufficient chaos spells) will be able to summon an Elemental, mainly to threaten overpowered heroes or counter the "good" Elemental. This evil Elemental works the same way as the Hero's version. It moves after the monster who summoned it (in this case the FH himself), and has a "lifepsan" based on a number of turns (1 + 1d6 red die).

Ice Elemental (suggested model: Reaper Bones Crystal Golem):

This creature of Ice moves with 1 red die. Each figure it passes through rolls 3 white combat dice and loses 1 body point for each skull rolled.
I've decided that it will "put out" a Wall of Water it passes through, but at the cost of 1 "turn." The same would be true of a Water elemental passing through a Wall of Fire.
It may attack any adjacent enemy with 2 combat dice, and if does any damage, it automatically does a "Chill" spell effect as well (for 1 additional unblockable body point of damage UNLESS the Hero has some kind of nullifying item like a Potion of Warmth, Ring of Warmth or Armband of Ice to counter-act the effect)... due to the cold (and scary!) nature of the creature.

Certain spells may reduce it by a turn, but like all Elementals it is immune to all weapons (except from those magical weapons which are infused with a rival element).

After it has run out of "turns" or passes through (or is passed through by) another Elemental, it melts away into a lifeless puddle.

Should Elementals die if the Hero (or monster) who summoned the dies? I don't think they should. I think the one who controlled the summoner should still be able to control them until they run out of turns or die in some other fashion.

The FH's default spells (he gets all six, plus six more from the regular GS Chaos Spell deck!) are easy enough since they're all Ice based. Heroes can use Ice based spell scrolls equivalent to Water of course.

For purposes of Elemental summoning I would categorize the various chaos spells according to the previously known categories. So Lightning and Tempest would be air, Ball of Flame and Firestorm would be fire as would Fear, Rust would be Water as would Sleep. I'm tempted to say Command would be Air as with all "mentalist" type spells (ATOH) and "Madness" from WOM. Not sure if Cloud of Chaos would be better as Air or Water (its effects remind me of sleep, so maybe Water?).

Several WOM spells are trickier... other than the Stormmaster spells of course (which easily fall into the Earth, Air or Water categories). Skulls of Doom would be fire as would Wall of Fire. Hard to say regarding the various Orc Shaman and other Necromancer spells. Deathbolt could be Air or Fire (maybe air since it suggests some kind of lightning). Some I may not consider Elemental at all and just can't be used for that purpose.

When I saw the Reaper bones miniature "Carnivorous Black Pudding" I was tempted to imagine this as the Elemental summoned by sacrificing the "Darkness" spells by a Hero. But then what would "Detection" be? Maybe it summons a Beholder (Eye beast!)? What about Protection? An iron golem? (The Reaper "Avatar of Protection" is unfortunately just an anthropomorphic Water Buffalo, not too impressive).

[JoeAlekber]

It looks very nice. I hope I'll see something else interesting.

[Kurgan]

Thanks!

I haven't fully ironed out what the upgrades would be for the Bard (Orcish Pirate/Cleric), Warlock or Druid, but I did come up with some (thanks for JacerJ's feedback too) on the Commander of the Guardian Knights hero:

Champion: Substitute 1 green die when defending with any type of Shield. Substitute 1 black die when attacking the same type as the "Wandering Monster" on this quest.
(the below are preliminary:)

Knight: Substitute 2 green dice when defending with any type of Shield. Substitute 2 black dice when attacking the Wandering Monster of the quest.
Or maybe some kind of discount on mercenaries (charisma, but less than having the Warhorn of Command) or other buff to them?

[Kurgan]

Brainstorming:

"Bard" (Orc Pirate/Cleric)
Champion:
Rapier can use 2 black dice
Orc allies within LOS defend with Green dice

Knight:
Up to 3 black dice against any Orc.
"Healing Song" restores 3 BP
"Inspiring Tale" gives 2 dice

Warlock (Ranger):
Champion:
Wand substitutes 1 black die

Knight:
Wand substitutes 2 black dice
"Demonform" uses 2 dice

Druid:
Champion:
"Shape Shift" adds 1 extra attack and 1 extra defend AND can be used at range, not just adjacent.

Knight:
"Shape Shift" uses 1 black die (for attack) and 1 green die (for defense)
"Pixie" can be used twice per quest.

Rogue: (is he OP?)
Champion:
Dagger hits with black die (whether thrown or striking adjacent)
"Opportunistic Striker" skill attacks with two dice.

Knight:
Bandolier: always assumed to be carrying two daggers, and so two daggers can be thrown at once (2 dice ranged attack instead of 1). This stacks with Opportunistic Striker for 3 dice (2 black, 1 white).
Disarm traps like a Dwarf