Fixing the Doorway Problem

[Zenithfleet]

G'day all,

One of the biggest flaws of classic HQ (and presumably the Hasbroquest remake too) is the way heroes will open a door to a new room and then wait at the door to fight the monsters one at a time.

The rooms were clearly designed so that the heroes would rush in and fight several monsters at once in a glorious melee amongst the cool furniture... but in practice, it's much safer to let the Barbarian stand in the doorway and take out the Orcs one by one, so nobody can get surrounded. Safer--and much more tedious. Especially if you aren't the Barbarian.

What solutions or house rules have you come up with to deal with this? If any?

One idea I had recently was to grant monsters a defence bonus if they're on the other side of a door. For instance, if a monster is defending through a door, it defends on any shield, not just black shields.

(Heroes don't get this bonus, because it's the monster's door and they've fortified it / practised defending it! Or something like that.)

The idea is to flip things around so that it feels like the heroes are the ones on the offensive. Now they should want to rush into the room and get into a proper fight, before the monsters block / barricade the door. It's now in the Morcar player's interest to block the door, and if the heroes hesitate, that's what will happen. If monsters do manage to crowd around a door, the heroes will have to try to force an opening by killing the one at the door, then stepping into the empty square inside the room before the next monster steps up to defend. It would be like a mini castle siege - got to breach their defences!

Haven't tried it yet. Just thinking aloud...

[Kurgan]

The official rule books told the heroes to block doorways and use diagonal strikes to maximize their attacks on enemies through doorways. If it's a flaw, it was an intentional one. It's just playing smart, much in the same way as Zargon will attack with one monster, then move that monster out of the way so the next monster can attack, focusing attacks on the weakest target when possible. Similarly, the placing of trap tiles on the opposite square of an open door (therefore undetectable) is also intentional and favors the Zargon side (the NA team in 1991-92 thought of adding a blind jump mechanic to let heroes leap even through doorways to have a chance to anticipate and avoid such traps but it was left on the cutting room floor).

Avalon Hill reacted to the first criticism (and other feedback) in Rise of the Dread Moon... Specters (and Wraiths) can pass through walls, enemies, and other solid objects. Plus their body points resist non-magical attacks (black shields are hits against them rather than skulls; magical weapons and spell attacks act normally) and their own magical attacks bypass armor (based on the notion that heroes get so much armor they're really hard to hit). At first they considered the idea of giving monsters the ability to open doors but decided against it. If memory serves there was also at least one spell (for the heroes anyway) that lets you "push back" characters. If the bad guys had such an ability they could do the same.

My personal take is more to give the monsters some of the same tools as the heroes if they seem to be always thwarted, for instance we already have examples of monsters armed with spears or staves (see ATOH) and evil halberdiers (see BQP) who can strike diagonally, or the "advanced Skeletons" with this same ability added in the companion app more recently. Monsters with ranged weaponry or the ability to have higher defense (such as blocking with white shields or with skulls, or a single black shield blocking all skulls) have also been thought of and we can draw from these examples. A more rare example is where a monster (usually a boss/named character) can put other creatures on alert, such as by activating nearby rooms (who will flank the heroes who were blocking the door, in theory, or at the very least, force them to split up to cover both areas).

I am not of the opinion that the monsters and heroes should be absolutely equal. If that were the case then the game would change to a dueling gauntlet where every fight could be the last... (maybe someone would enjoy that more, but it's completely changed from the original versions) plus you run into the issue where now you have to reduce the monsters to equal the number of heroes. Originally it was simulating what you see in video games and movies, where the small elite force goes up against a vast, but inferior force of monsters, with a final "boss" bad guy who is a bit stronger than the others. Through teamwork and determination (and a little luck) the good guys can triumph... but mess around and split up, their chances go down.

It all depends upon what you want to do, but I think the official releases ('89-'92) do contain many suggestions (mentioned above) that can already be used to try to negate what some consider to be cheap (though legit) tactics.

One of the oldest complaints of veteran players (or from people who remember the game) is "it was too easy." They are only talking about the game system (after you've survived the trial and are dedicated to working together). The later expansions increase in difficulty, until we reach the pinnacle of ridiculousness, the Frozen Horror (which AH valiantly tried to fix with "Into the Northlands" and some new things in the companion app, though to me these are just the beginning of the fixes). Yes, you can still block doorways, but going against Monsters with double attacks, ones who can steal items, and other who can "hug" heroes throws a big monkey wrench into the strategy of having the barbarian stand in the way all the time.

[cornixt]

One idea I had recently was to grant monsters a defence bonus if they're on the other side of a door. For instance, if a monster is defending through a door, it defends on any shield, not just black shields.

(Heroes don't get this bonus, because it's the monster's door and they've fortified it / practised defending it! Or something like that.)

I've had the opposite idea - that heroes fight with two fewer combat dice when attacking over a door threshold but monsters don't. This makes doorways the worst place to be for the heroes, since some of them can't even roll any dice. It makes them want to rush in and kill so that they get the first strike, backing up into a corridor means the monsters get to go first and isn't always an option anyway.

[SirRick]

The advanced goblins option on the app is quite annoying. The person in the door way can be subject to a multitude of attacks, and you wonder as a player if you should attack the orc first or go after the goblins.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I find this Houserule: Push Back combined with allowing diagonal attacks for Goblins and Skeletons does the trick to rebalance the doorway problem.

[burglekutt]

if a monster is defending through a door, it defends on any shield, not just black shields.

Id say let the monster roll s. All shields might be to intimidating.

Check out the link BHWarrior posted for "Push Back."

I'm trying to get members on board with a mechanism for "Suprise", where a CombatDie is rolled by the hero entering the room & if he rolls correctly ( ), one monster will have his back to you giving you a plus +1Att to your first swing,
encouraging the Heros to enter the room. Here's a link:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6731

[Vorimir]

The archers rule from ATOH fix it quite well.
And you can also have advanced goblins (attack during movement) or skeletons (diagonal attack)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I find myself in the unusual position of kind of agreeing with Kurgan, so pay attention as that doesn’t happen often!

The Door Blocking tactic is deliberate and I don’t consider it a flaw as such that needs fixing I just feel that it is imbalanced in that from a character point of view it is almost always the best tactical option so should be taken almost all the time without any thought or variation, but from a player point of view it makes the game dull, especially for players that are not the one blocking the door.

One reason is that in the base game heroes are more likely than monsters to have diagonal attack weapons allowing them to concentrate multiple attacks on the monster blocking the door, whereas monsters are less likely to be able to respond likewise. To rectify this aspect of the imbalance is simple, no rule changes required, as has been mentioned by others I simply assume ever Goblin is equipped with a Spear and Skeletons scythes permit diagonal attacks. This means that depending on the number and type of monsters in a room, and indeed the positioning of “terrain” on the board (furniture, door positioning, blocked square tiles), heroes may or may not be able to use diagonal attack weapons to their advantage, equally the EWP may be able to use them to his advantage, this is a very simple way of bringing some tactical decisions into the game without any rule changes being required. Also from the outset of a group of new players it demonstrates to them the tactical options that diagonal attack weapons allow, which encourages them to purchase them, which is a good thing for advancement balance.

The other method that I have introduced is the pushback rules mentioned above, whilst these are a little more complex and should perhaps be introduced once starting players are experienced enough to be using the tactics, the intention here is that door blocking remains a viable tactic but introduces the risk of the blocking character being pushed back or even pulled into the room, allowing attackers to get to the otherwise safe spaces. This introduces an element of risk and therefore excitement for both the door blocker and those supporting him which makes the otherwise dull player aspects of this tactic more interesting.

As both of these ideas apply equally to all characters, monsters and heroes alike, this balances the game more neatly than introducing yet more rules that apply to only one side and not the other in order to restore balance.

[Palindala]

I find this Houserule: Push Back combined with allowing diagonal attacks for Goblins and Skeletons does the trick to rebalance the doorway problem.

This is what I will suggest as a change in our house rules.

[Zenithfleet]

Argh, I completely forgot that I had posted this a year ago!

Thanks for all the replies - lots of good ideas to ponder. I'll need to look at that Pushback rule!

I recently had a chance to playtest my original idea: extra defence for monsters at doors. It didn't work very well. The instinctive response of the hero players was simply to retreat from the door and let the monsters come to them, which was the reverse of the outcome I was hoping for (that the heroes would move into the room to engage the monsters).

In the next game I tried my other idea, which worked a bit better. It goes like this:

If the Evil Wizard player does not move or fight with any monsters on their turn, they may instead roll 3 standard dice. If the result is a triple 1, a wandering monster appears.

This has several effects. Firstly, it applies a slight--but only slight--time pressure on the heroes while exploring, when there are no monsters on the board. Rolling a triple is very unlikely, so it doesn't put too much pressure on them to rush. Exploration is one of the fun parts of Heroquest. That's why I made it 3 standard dice instead of 2, even though 2 would be preferable since the base game comes with two dice. However, the uneasy possibility of a triple 1 is always at the back of the hero players' minds. They're not completely safe.

Secondly, it gives the Evil Wizard player something to do on a turn when they would otherwise be doing nothing. Roll dice and hope!

Thirdly, and most importantly, if the heroes insist on standing outside a door instead of entering to fight the monsters, the Evil Wizard player can simply elect not to move those monsters, and instead roll the 3 dice. This prevents a stalemate developing where neither side wants to move. If the heroes keep stalling, eventually a wandering monster will appear. It might take fifty turns but it will happen. Therefore there's no point waiting at all. The heroes may as well enter and fight. It's a psychological effect more than anything else.

In our test game using this rule, the hero players said, "Well, no point waiting out here playing chicken with the monsters - eventually they'll win. We'd better move in and fight them." Which is exactly what I hoped it would do. But other players of other groups might not respond the same way.

Edit: It occurs to me that I could replace the 3 standard dice with 3 combat dice for the same result without needing a spare die:

If the Evil Wizard player does not move or fight with any monsters on their turn, they may instead roll three combat dice. If they roll three black shields, a wandering monster appears.