Boss monsters - making them stronger (EU rules)

[Zenithfleet]

G'day all,

Just thinking again about how to improve 'boss monsters' like the Witch Lord in the classic EU ruleset so they don't die too quickly. (I might have already posted a thread on this years back but can't find it now.)

There are two issues to my mind: Body points and Spells.

As usual, my approach is to try to keep things as simple as possible, and then make it even simpler!

Body points

Infamously all monsters in the EU base game, Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord had only one Body point each, apart from that special Gargoyle at the end of KK. When people hear that the North American edition gave monsters extra BP (as does the Hasbroquest remake), they usually think, "Cool! Much better!" And I used to think so too. Back in the day I upgraded my Fimirs, Mummies and Chaos Warriors to 2 BP each, and the Gargoyles to 3 BP.

However, over the years I've become more and more dissatisfied with giving ordinary monsters extra BP. In practice it just seems to slow the game down to a slog, since it can take a few turns just to get one skull past their multiple defence dice and HQ combat isn't that interesting. It also requires some slightly annoying bookkeeping (such as turning the model around to show that it's been hurt, or putting a die beside it, etc - counters in the NA edition). My younger self would be aghast to hear it, but I do think the UK designers got that part right, even though it never felt right, if you see what I mean.

But boss monsters are another story. It's pretty embarrassing for the Witch Lord or Ograk the Orc Captain to die in a single hit before he can even fight back. The UK designers clearly agreed, since they started giving Chaos Sorcerers and the like individual 'body point tracks' to check off in Against the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar.

The question is, then, how to determine the Body points of boss monsters in the base game, KK and RotWL. What method do you use to decide this?

My own thinking at the moment, keeping it as simple as possible (and keeping the amount of BP as low as possible), is as follows.


Is it a personality monster?

If so, look at how many Defence dice it rolls. Halve that number, rounding down. That's how many Body points the monster has. Keep track of the monster's Body points on a spare character sheet.

(The term "personality monster" comes from the Against the Ogre Horde EU questbook, and refers to a unique monster with a special characteristics block and usually a name. It's very British and I like it. )


Looking through the base game, KK and RotWL, the monsters that qualify for more than one BP are:

Base game
Ulag - Body 2
Grak - Body 2
Balur the Fire Mage - Body 2
Witch Lord (base game) - Body 3

Kellar's Keep
Ograk - Body 3
Special Gargoyle - already has 3 BP

Return of the Witch Lord
Bellthor - Body 3
Skulmar - Body 3
Kessandria - Body 3
Witch Lord - Body 3

By first impressions at least, this feels about right to me, by contrast to the ordinary monsters with only 1 BP each.

There are a couple of other 'leaders' such as Verag in The Trial, but they don't have special stat blocks so they just fight as ordinary monsters with 1 BP. There are also special monsters like the Dwarven-king skeletons in KK or the Spirit Riders in RotWL, but they're not unique monsters so they also just have 1BP each as their stat blocks say.

Kellar's Keep is admittedly light on multi-BP bosses under this system. The one I have some qualms about is Petrokk, a random Chaos Sorcerer in 'The East Gate', who is likely to get demolished the moment the heroes meet him because he's all by himself in a room close to a door and probably won't have time to get a hit in. But he's just a side character and not the 'boss' of that quest (arguably that's the dreaded shapeshifting Fimir) so I can live with it.

[Zenithfleet]

Now for the second issue: Spells.

The EU game didn't come with Chaos (Dread) Spells. Occasionally a boss monster would be allowed to take the hero spell cards, such as Balur the Fire mage getting the three Fire spells for that game. At other times the boss would have a special rule - the Witch Lord at the end of RotWL can summon one monster per turn, for instance. By Against the Ogre Horde, the designers were adding proper spells, but at first were limited by the components available: they put them on special cardboard tokens for Ogre Horde because they didn't do a playing-card pack. Only Wizards of Morcar added proper decks of 'evil' spell cards.

Years ago I made some EU versions of the Chaos spell cards from the North American edition. (Other people have further tinkered with them to make revised versions, such as Sjeng.) But how to decide which bosses get spells, and how many? I never really settled on an answer.

For the hero characters there's a clear relationship between their maximum Mind points and the number of spell sets they can take. e.g. the Elf has Mind 4 and can take one set of spells. The Wizard has Mind 6 and can take three sets of spells. Presumably a Mind 5 character would get to take two sets of spells, while a Mind 7 character would get to take four, and so on.

However, this relationship breaks down a bit with boss monsters because it makes them too powerful. Balur the Fire Mage has Mind 7, which would mean 4 x 3 = 12 spells! Overkill for an early-game boss.

Instead, my idea is to give Chaos spells to the boss monsters like so:
Mind points 0-3 = No spells
Mind 4 = 1 spell card
Mind 5 = 2 spell cards
Mind 6 = 3 spell cards
Mins 7 = 4 spell cards
and so on.

Instead of getting a set of three cards per Mind point, like the heroes do, they just get one card per Mind point. If the quest notes already give the boss some spell cards, they count towards this total.

The spells could be drawn randomly, or chosen according to theme.

Using the list of bosses above:

Base game
Ulag - no spells
Grak - no spells
Balur the Fire Mage - Mind 7, so gets four cards. Already has the three Fire spell cards. So he also gets one Chaos spell - probably Firestorm or Fireball. He shouldn't have Escape since that's already taken into account in his special abilities in the quest notes.
Witch Lord (just getting out of bed) - Mind 4, so gets one Chaos spell card. Probably 'Summon Undead'.
Witch Lord (on his bone throne) - er, there's a misprint in the questbook and it's not clear whether he's Mind 4 or 6, but let's go with 6. He gets three Chaos spell cards.

Kellar's Keep
Ograk - no spells

Return of the Witch Lord
Bellthor - Mind 4, so gets one Chaos spell. (If you don't like this, assume Gargoyles can't do magic as their brains are made of stone...)
Skulmar - Mind 5, so gets two Chaos spells.
Kessandria - Mind 6, so gets a total of three spells: her Swift Wind spell and 2 Chaos spells.
Witch Lord (final showdown) - Mind 5, so gets two Chaos spells. (That might not sound too impressive, but remember that he also has the special ability to summon a random creature, which he can do as well as attack or cast a spell.)

I haven't looked through Against the Ogre Horde yet but I assume any sorcerously smart monsters will already have spell tokens, so they don't need actual spell cards.

Edit: Wizards of Morcar is fully taken care of already. It doesn't follow the strict Mind points vs Spells relationship I suggest above, of course, since each evil sorcerer has 6 spell cards no matter what his Mind points are. You could shuffle the cards and only give each sorcerer one card per Mind point, though, to slightly weaken him. If making 'generic' versions of these sorcerers (e.g. a generic Necromancer with 1 fewer attack and defence die and 1 fewer Mind point), you can use the relationship above and give them the matching number of cards, drawn randomly.


Again, this is just my own current thinking on a simple guideline for using EU versions of the Chaos spells. How do you prefer to figure it out?

[Kurgan]

You can also simply swap out special dice for the bad guys.

Using the infamous "Power Dice" (aka those German color dice)...
Black dice for attack (increased chance of skull).
Blue dice for defense (double chance of black shield).

Or even the "Boss Dice" that are sold out there (the pre-2008 version of the "orange" power dice) which have only three skulls (but two are doubles), and one of the black shields is a double.

Of course it's all luck of the roll... so a fight might not take any longer if they roll poorly compared to the heroes. I find any character rolling 3 or more of the special dice gets a significant boost in combat situations though.

[burglekutt]

I always felt each quest should have two to three sub-Boses each quest & that those sub Boses should have at least one to two spells each. At least three to five chaos spells per quest that our heros must face hopefully requiring a MindPoint roll (which are horribly under used).

[Kurgan]

Japan's HeroQuest has some neat ways that creatures were beefed up. Some monsters have 2 body points (here specifically Gargoyles and Chaos Warriors)... and you have to deplete both of them in a single attack to kill that monster. If you simply damage them... the next turn someone takes, the monster is healed!

Also in that edition, Wandering Monsters get an unblockable strike, and the card draw determines which monster does the attack (2-3 dice) to be fair, after attacking, the monster simply vanishes from the board).

[Zenithfleet]

Japan's HeroQuest has some neat ways that creatures were beefed up. Some monsters have 2 body points (here specifically Gargoyles and Chaos Warriors)... and you have to deplete both of them in a single attack to kill that monster. If you simply damage them... the next turn someone takes, the monster is healed!

I love that rule! I came up with the same idea myself for Beastmen enemies and was pleased when I found out the Japanese had beaten me to it.

I'm not familiar with the "power dice" (are they new Hasbro dice?) but I was thinking in terms of what could be done with just a classic Heroquest set, and no extra components.

I always felt each quest should have two to three sub-Boses each quest & that those sub Boses should have at least one to two spells each. At least three to five chaos spells per quest that our heros must face hopefully requiring a MindPoint roll (which are horribly under used).

In the EU rules, since there were no Chaos spells in the base game, the rare spellcasting monsters borrowed the players' elemental spells. Balur used the Fire spells, for example.

Thinking along the same lines, I realised recently that a spellcasting monster with Genie would be pretty nifty because it might actually ... OPEN A DOOR. Dun dun dun! (To let monsters out as reinforcements, obviously.)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

One of the great things about the European & Australasian edition(s) [I use the term "Classic Edition(s)" as spelling Australasian seems to be a challenge for me!] is that it was published in its entirety, a long time ago and hasn't (yet) been subject to a re-release or reprint so we are safe to consider it now in its entirety, as a complete entity, the original box and all the subsequent expansions, and view it in retrospect, with the benefit of decades of hindsight and apply material that was introduced in later expansions and apply it to the earlier quests ("backporting").

To explain what I mean by this specifically rather than as a general point consider the following statements:

+ Under the Classic edition, unlike the North American remake, all monsters and bosses have 1BP

+ Under the Classic edition, unlike the North American remake, there are no Chaos Spells

On Body points...

Against the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar (and the Gargoyle even earlier in the example you cited) both introduced monsters and bosses with more than one Body Point and a method of handling Multiple BP monsters (although arguably not a very good one in AtOH and WoM!) which opens up the possibility of retrospectively applying those changes, so for example I have back-ported various "new" monster types that appear in later expansions back to the earlier versions, like Orc Captains, Orc Henchman, Orcs with Crossbows, Goblins with Shortbows, Goblins with Spears, Orc Shaman, Elite Chaos Warriors (Doomguard), Elite Skeletons, Wraiths, Liches, Necromancers, Stormcasters, Fire Mages, Aetherial Sorcerers and so on from later expansions, mainly AtOH and WoM. For more details see The Monster Mash

On spells...

Taking into account the entire range of the Classic Edition(s) and its expansions, there are 48 spells for use by the EWP's minions (these are "Chaos Spells" in every respect apart from the name), plus as you point out some of the heroes spells can be used by certain monsters which expands that range further.

I've have retrospectively applied this as follows:

+ For "Chaos Spellcasters" Mind Points (which I have tweaked the values a little as I use Mind Dice rather than Mind Points, but that isn't really relevant here) of 4-5 = 1 set of 3 spells, 6+ = 2 sets of 3 spells*

+ I have divided the sets of 6 spells into 2 sets of 3 spells, either set A or set B

+ The magic type (type of spells) is based on the standard/generic monster type that a named boss is based on

*This is part of the general formula of one set of 3 spells for each MP above 3 i.e. 4MP = 3 spells, 5MP = 6 spells, 6MP = 9 spells, 7MP = 12 spells etc but remember that represents the MAXIMUM number of spells, not the actual number of spells at the point you encounter a caster (our 6MP Wizard for example may have a maximum of 9 spells, but 3/4 of the way through a quest he may still have 6MP but only 6 spells remaining...)

So for example

a) The Witch Lord is a named example of a Lich, standard Liches have access to Necromantic magic and have a Mind (Dice) value of 7 which gives them access to both Necromantic spell sets

b) Grawshak, Orc Shaman of the Northern Tribes, is a Master Orc Shaman (which introduces the possibility of a standard Orc Shaman detailed below)

c) Ulag, could be an Orc Shaman, standard Orc Shaman have access to Orc Shaman magic and have a Mind (Dice) value of 5 which gives them access to one set of 3 spells, either set A or B

d) Fanrax is a Master Necromancer (which introduces the possibility of a standard Necromancer with a MP of 4-5 and only 3 Necromantic spells) and his "special creations" are Elite Skeletons which I refer to as Reapers.

e) Boroush is a Storm Master or "Master Stormcaster" (which introduces the possibility of a standard Stormcaster with a MP of 4-5 and only 3 Storm spells)

f) Balur is a Fire Mage

g) Festral is a Master Aetherial Sorcerer (Aether Magic is the one covered by the "Mind" spell set presented in AtOH) although as this set has only 3 spells, he only gets 3 but they become more potent due to his higher MP

h) Xenloth and Nexreal are Aetherial Sorcerers with all 3 relevant spells

And so on

For more details see The Monster Mash

[Zenithfleet]

*This is part of the general formula of one set of 3 spells for each MP above 3 i.e. 4MP = 3 spells, 5MP = 6 spells, 6MP = 9 spells, 7MP = 12 spells etc but remember that represents the MAXIMUM number of spells, not the actual number of spells at the point you encounter a caster (our 6MP Wizard for example may have a maximum of 9 spells, but 3/4 of the way through a quest he may still have 6MP but only 6 spells remaining...)

I originally came up with something very similar, with the boss spellcasters getting one 'spell set' of 3 spells per Mind point above 3.
4 Mind points = a set of 3 spells
5 Mind points = 2 sets of 3 spells = 6 spells
and so on.

I wanted to use my custom EU versions of the Chaos spells, which are one big blob rather than divided into sets of three, so I decided that a Chaos 'set' of spells was 3 random cards. Similarly, for the Wizards of Morcar spells, one set is 3 random cards from that deck.

However, on reflection I think that while this system works well for the heroes, it gives the boss monsters too many spells. Balur the Fire Mage for instance has Mind 7, so under this system he would get 4 sets of spells = 12 cards! That could be either the three Fire spells plus nine Chaos spells, or multiple sets of the Fire cards. Frankly I don't think he's going to live long enough to use that many. Either it makes him too powerful, or it's needless extra bling he'll never get to use.

So I decided to give the bosses one card per Mind point above 3, rather than one set of 3 cards. At the moment I feel this tones things down enough to be generally in keeping with the design principles of the EU/UK game in the base questbook plus the first couple of expansions.

Based on Wizards of Morcar, I've made 'generic' Necromancers, Orc Shamans, etc as you suggest. My simple formula is that the generic version has one fewer attack and defend die, one fewer Mind point, and 1 Body point. They follow the same system as above, so for instance if a Necromancer has Mind 5, he gets two random cards from his special Necromancy deck.

(If not using fanmade EU Chaos spells, the boss spellcasters could have the heroes' spells instead. For instance, Kessandria in RotWL already has a Swift Wind spell, so she could have the other two Air spells as well.)

[Malcadon]

There are a number of ways to make a Boss Monster stronger. First thing one should do is consider a fight with one as a Big Boss Battle. This is key as it becomes more than just a single monster -- its a battleground! Here are the ways to go about it:

Beef-up the Stats: This is most common. Make 'um hit harder. Defend better. Take more hits. And so on.

Give 'um Special Abilities: Naturally, this means spell-use, but not always. Two attacks per turn, Yeti bear-hug, or immunity to range weapons or spells are all fine examples of special attacks and abilities. And there are so many to choose from, or invent your own.

Multi-Phase Enemies: This is a new ability from the Avalon Hill sets that allows a monster to change stats when a trigger happen, usually going down to 0 Body Points. This could be by some magical mutation akin to "THIS IS NOT MY FINAL FORM!!" or the enemy going berserk were they get a second wind and got at the Heroes with more attack power at the cost of defense. You can get away with give a multi-phase boss less-than-normal BP as the Heroes are effectively facing multiple monsters in one. (Figure substitution is not at all necessary, but the Evil Wizard Player needs to note the change to the players, hopefully with a colorful description.)

Use Minions: In nearly all boss battles there are evil minions to slow down and soften the Heroes before that can reach them, or take good aim. In some cases, a boss might have special monsters with beefed-up stats and/or special abilities. The sky is the limit, but they should not outshine to boss as they would take the limelight away from the boss... unless you want to make it easier from the boss to escape by making it more of a Mini-Boss Battle.

Use Traps, Hazards and the Environment: This is your classic "put pit traps in front of the archers" tactic, as well as your "make the room shift to make the battle more dynamic" move. That is, not all the traps and hazards need to harm the Heroes, but just slow them a little. There are so many ways one could go about it, but video games are a great place to steal ideas.

[Kurgan]

I'm not familiar with the "power dice" (are they new Hasbro dice?) but I was thinking in terms of what could be done with just a classic Heroquest set, and no extra components.

The "power dice" are just a trendy name that have become attached (in the last couple of years) to those "German colored dice" that have been circulating since at least the mid 2000's. Like the combat dice are colored black with white symbols and there's an extra skull on there (and one less white shield) to show boosted attacks, blue dice with white symbols that have an extra black shield and one less white shield, green with white symbols that have one more white shield and one less skull, etc. (with orange, purple, and yellow... the latter using black symbols on yellow... that have "doubles" of some of the symbols, so you might roll two skulls on a single die for example).

You can find these in various shapes, sizes, materials, styles, and colors (and while that German site is still around, there are a bunch of different sellers on ebay pushing their own versions of them).

There are no uniform, universally agreed upon rules for using these dice but many fans have put out their own suggestions and systems. Some of the sellers put out their own printed sheets explaining some ways they could be used. Mostly I see people using them as bonuses to represent magical buffs, to further differentiate expanded armory decks, or else a something similar to the Evil Wizard Deck or Combat Cards-- as bonus power ups that heroes can use (and then maybe Zargon gets them).

I use them with my hero upgrade system, to show proficiency with certain weapons or spells over time, to further differentiate some types of equipment, as well as to show powered up monsters.

But yes, the "power dice" are strictly a fan creation. All of the combat dice put out by Avalon Hill (and Milton Bradley before them) are just the white dice with black symbols that have the three skulls, two white shields, and one black shield. Many new color variants in the new era, but no changes to the distribution of symbols in the official sets.