Changes to existing weapons in AHQ

[Thanquol]

No worries, I'm glad we've established a mutual understanding as avoiding any misinterpretations of intent always makes forum discussions flow better.

That being said, I had found myself still musing about Karaghul's presence across various Warhammer settings...

I get the impression there have been several iterations of Karaghul for both Warhammer Fantasy Battle (WHFB) and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP).

Certainly, the rune sword Karaghul was forged with one purpose – to slay dragons – in both the novels and WFRP. The sword's runes are especially effective against dragons. Her Wyrmslayer runes activate, arousing her slaying passion against dragons, wyverns, and jabberwocks. She also possesses the Penetrating trait.

Felix swallowed the desire to scream as a ball of [Chaos dragon] fire struck down towards him and he brought Karaghul up as if to parry a blow. The runes on the weapon blazed brighter than the blade itself and the dragonbreath struck a shell of energy.
—David Guymer, Gotrek and Felix: Kinslayer

Therefore, theoretically within the Advanced Heroquest (AHQ) setting she could have possibly been an actual Rune Sword and therefore – interestingly – potentially usable by a Wizard the rules didn't say otherwise.

UK, White Dwarf issue: 125 (May 1990), The Dark Beneath the World (page 26)

The sword, Karaghul, has the following abilities and may be used by any Hero:

Karaghul

WS +2, S +2, never fumbles, criticals on 10–12, allows the bearer to cast three Flames of Death spells per expedition.

However, Games Workshop likely didn't class her as a Rune Sword for AHQ balance purpose (nor had space to mention she would utterly loathe dragon-types). The casting of Flames of Death is a curious choice – Karaghul, being semi-sentient, instinctively will try repel dragon breath fire in the novels. (I don't think the "may be used by any Hero" was an intentional phrase; it was likely carried over from the Blade of Leaping Bronze.)

Furthermore, Felix fights like a dashing duellist, so Karaghul was likely kept as a versatile two-handed Longsword in the novels. Thus, allowing for dramatic shifts between powerful two-handed strikes and artful one-handed parries. The sword was extremely light for its true size and magically quickened his movements.

Felix's bond with Karaghul transcends simple ownership – through battle and survival, the blade became an extension of his fate. Whether it was through instinct or enchantment, it acted as much as his guardian as his weapon.

It's the deadly Assassin who transforms a plain, puny, simple low damage output dagger into a lethal weapon. AHQ, however, never really delved deeply into professions or specialist Hero skills.

Regardless, AHQ's version leaves much to interpretation. Karaghul, despite her clear draconic fury in the novels, is ultimately bound by the mechanics assigned to her in the game.

AHQ's broad weapon classifications – where "Sword" and "Two-Handed" cover multiple distinct archetypes – left Karaghul's exact nature vague. Players speculated whether she was truly a Longsword or required two-hands, but the system never explicitly clarified this.

But that's what makes these discussions intriguing.


Sarcasm: Wait! Wait! Before you go, bring me parchment and quill pen. I have an idea.

All that glitters in not warpstone – but warstone is ALL that matters.

There is nothing either good or bad, but Thanquol makes it so. /Sarcasm

[Thanquol]

It might not have been clear from the previous post; anything after the first paragraph, I was just simply musing about Karaghul and addressing nobody in particular.

Also the "/scarcasm" wasn't directed at anyone. It was light humour, mimicking the style of the real Warhammer character called Thanquol, and his scheming guile. Search for him using your favourite Search Engine... Thanquol is a notorious Skaven Grey Seer, whose scheming self-interest always overshadows his actual competence.

I don't think the "may be used by any Hero" was an intentional phrase; it was likely carried over from the Blade of Leaping Bronze.

I also forgot to mention that was just one possible scenario for the text "may be used by any Hero". The other alternative reason for that phrase possibly being; GW knew it was a Rune Sword, but they simply forgot to type the words "Rune Sword" for the benefit of AHQ.

In either case without question she really should have also been a Rune Sword for AHQ purposes - regardless of balance concerns.

[Neuralstasis]

Man, talk about over thinking it! Haha!

I’ll try and address some specific things, but first this:

An important factor I’m following when I have been creating and reworking things for AHQ is to keep things simple, so the game moves quickly and easily. The regular players I GM for in AHQ are not seasoned veterans of decades of RPGs. Tabletop wargames and boardgames. They like the game but are not the sort of players who will take the rulebooks home and pore over the contents trying to find the best combos of equipment and memorise all the monsters and traps. They want to come over and have a fun time exploring a dungeon, bashing baddies and improving their heroes while leaving most of the rules to me. If I have to stop the game, look up what some rule or other does every 5 minutes and then debate about how it should be interpreted, then that is not a fun game for me or them.

When we first started AHQ we played through the whole of The Quest for the Shattered Amulet using the Enhanced AHQ rules, which was good but there was a lot of poorly written rules and confusion that come from the original AHQ rules. After completing the quest over about a year, we reset everything, and started my own custom Quest using the Re-Reforged AHQ rules. I liked how the reforged rules were much more definitive, but I didn’t like (and the players didn’t like) how there were so many MORE rules. The gameplay moved so slowly as I had constantly reference rules. In response, I have put a huge amount of effort in creating a fusion of the systems that I like. The changes to the weapons I posted here are a sneak peek into some of the changes I have made while still retaining the playability of original system.

So that background is where I am coming from.

Cleaving

You mentioned that the additional cleaving rule from reforged could have a similar effect. But I don’t want to add a new rule. I just wanted to keep things simple and work within the existing rules. So I used a statistical analysis to figure out how altering the critical values would affect the number of wounds caused and then applied that knowledge to altering existing weapons.

In the Changes to weapons document I posted, there are a few “Special rules” but all of them are just carefully defining what is already in the AHQ book. No need for exceptions. This is to simplify and unify the system, not make it more cluttered. It’s also written so that new weapons could be added and not require additional rules or exceptions. I’m trying to make it a fast and easy system with less debate about how rules might work in different situations.

Cleaving, as described in reforged also only provides a linear boost to damage (see below).

Linear Damage

When I refer to “linear damage increase” or how a rule may increase a hero’s damage in a “linear way” I mean that most bonuses to weapons (like +1 DamDice, or +1 to hit, or +1 to Brutal) affect the amount of wounds they will, on average, inflict on ALL targets. These bonuses will always be an improvement, there is no downside to them, they simply work better against all targets regardless of their toughness. The amount of wounds caused against a target will decrease in a linear graph as their toughness goes up.

My idea of making all crits half toughness and then tweaking the damage dice and crit values of the weapons is intended to make some weapons better or worse against high toughness targets. When you halve a targets toughness it then a high toughness target is affected more than a low toughness target. So then you get more a curve on the amount of wounds vs toughness graph. I go into this in more detail with actual graphs in the Changes to Weapons doc I posted.

The whole free attack vs halve toughness on crit

There’s too many points made by RECIVS and Thanquol to comment on specifics. For me I just read the flavour texts and interpreted it to mean a “hit that is critical”. Not a hit that makes the wielder swing their sword again. If a big weapon is supposed to chop off more heads and do more damage, why does it not give a bonus to actual damage? Why does it allow my hero to attack a different target with another attack?

“This double-handed sword has an enchanted sharpness which allows it to cause a critical hit on a roll of 10–12”

Why does a sharp blade make my hero swing their sword faster?? Does not make sense to me. I felt like someone writing the original rules decided at the last minute to change it to a free attack and then didn’t go back and update the flavour text.

I can understand that removing the free attack may reduce some of the random fun in combat, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make to enable my more variable weapons (without creating additional rules) and streamline the gameplay.

Reforged does offer more weapon variety, but also created more rules. Of course a system with more rules is going to have more variety. Slev also just wrote a HUGE bunch of extra weapons by using combos of existing rules and new ones. (Way too many in my personal opinion.) I was not trying to make new weapons, I was trying to define each of the existing AHQ weapons so that they all have a purpose in the game.

[RECIVS]

Overthinking? Nah, that's nothing.

We all want to keep the game "simple", but it's inevitable that different people may understand that word differently. There's also difference between complicated and demanding, by the way.

Downtimes are perfectly normal when the DM is not familiar with the game system. One day I'd like to discuss results rather than presentation.

You started this; you made some changes to the game and showed us charts and everything to support your conclusions. I've never made a chart for AHQ myself. When I saw your charts I thought this was going to be a discussion about facts and math, not about how “complicated” other AHQ variants seem to you.

You're the one that proposed creating new rules, and I replied showing you how Slev's system offers more variety with less changes. So now having a huge selection of weapons in a DC is a bad thing?

I think I made it clear why critical hits work the way they do in AHQ.

As posted above, your system is fine if it works for you. Have fun, mate!

P. S. The gargoyle finally appears!

[Neuralstasis]

Anyway... moving on from free attacks vs halve toughness...

What do you reckon about the missile weapon changes?
Like with the hth weapons, I was trying make all of them useful in different situations.
I allowed for the bows to use strength as a factor with their damage dice. They are still capped but now allow heroes to somewhat improve the damage of their missile weapons when training.
I also reduced the ranges for most missile weapons to make it a factor in dungeons. The original AHQ ranges were pointlessly large considering the size of the dungeon sections.

[RECIVS]

Anyway... moving on from free attacks vs halve toughness...

What do you reckon about the missile weapon changes?

May I ask what do you want my opinion for if you'll end up doing what you and your group consider better anyway? I'm afraid this is not a discussion about the game's mechanics and how they work, but rather about what you and your group think of them. I don't see the point. As I said, your system is fine if it works for you guys. I'm afraid I have nothing else to add.

[Neuralstasis]

Well I'm looking to this forum as a source of experienced AHQ players to give me their opinion on the rules ideas I have come up with. I value your insights into how these rules may affect gameplay in ways that I haven't considered and also value your concept of the Essence and Feel of AHQ. Apologies if I came off snappy, I didn’t think the free attack would mean so much.

Yes in the end I will do what I like, but I also want to provide a reasonably authentic experience to my players. Only one of my current players has much to say about the changes, they are mostly concerned with obvious perceived buffs and nerfs to how they played EAHQ last year.

Them: “why does my attack do only 4 damage dice, I used to do 5? I have been nerfed!”
Me: “Sigh… Now your weapon has a better critical chance so it should do more damage in the long run etc….”
Them: “These nerfs suck”

I looking for feedback on my changes. Do you think they work with keeping the combat more or less balanced? Are they changes too complicated? Do you like the idea of different ranges for inside and outside? Do you think missile damage being partially based off strength is a good/bad idea?

[RECIVS]

No problem. I'm happy to help. Twelve years ago I'd have killed for this info, by the way.

If you value my concept of the essence and feel of AHQ as you say, then you have to admit that variety of combat is one of the aspects of the game that should be privileged over all else given its nature. AHQ is a combat-oriented tactical dungeon crawler in which the players fight monsters in dungeons most of the time. Isn't that obvious? In contrast, we have that you and your group don't think that variety of combat "means so much" in AHQ. If you guys are ok with less variety of combat options in AHQ, then I have nothing to say about that other than: have fun!

What I meant is that, if your playing group is composed of newcomers that don't care much about the tactical aspect of the game as you say, then maybe you guys should have started with something easier—in which that aspect is not as important. AHQ was named "advanced" for a reason; that's also part of its essence if you ask me.

I'll take a look at it again and let you know what I think.

[RECIVS]

I'll take a look at it again and let you know what I think.

I looking for feedback on my changes. Do you think they work with keeping the combat more or less balanced? Are they changes too complicated?

I answered this already; I wouldn’t use your changes, for the objective reasons I posted above in this thread.

Do you like the idea of different ranges for inside and outside? Do you think missile damage being partially based off strength is a good/bad idea?

I went through your notes again, but I can’t seem to find anything about this.

If you value my concept of the essence and feel of AHQ as you say, then you have to admit that variety of combat is one of the aspects of the game that should be privileged over all else given its nature. AHQ is a combat-oriented tactical dungeon crawler in which the players fight monsters in dungeons most of the time. Isn't that obvious?

This should be the starting point of the discussion in my opinion, which should be had beyond personal preferences. I mean, this is not about what we like or prefer in a DC, but rather about what works with AHQ and what doesn't as objectively as possible. By objectivity I mean an analysis related to the object in and of itself—including its nature and ontology, not about what we might think of it. Yes, I know that a case could be made against "objectivity", but I think we can agree that the meaning of that word is clear in the context I'm using it.

[Thanquol]

Picking up on your earlier post 6 June, Neuralstasis – specifically the section regarding "free attacks vs halve toughness on crits." I understand what you were reaching for; however, I think the arrow may've landed a bit wide.

Why does a sharp blade make my hero swing their sword faster?? Does not make sense to me. I felt like someone writing the original rules decided at the last minute to change it to a free attack and then didn’t go back and update the flavour text.

Your slight confusion likely stems from GW's historically murky wording – "free attack" sounds like an extra swing, when in reality, it's just shorthand for "inflicts greater damage," a mechanic abstraction for a severe hit, not another action.

You're absolutely right that the phrasing could be problematic – ironically, what's being questioned isn't quite where the rules trip over themselves. Perhaps think of D&D's critical hits: a guaranteed hit that deals extra damage thanks to an additional "free" damage roll.

I'll reiterate the following from some of my previous replies it helps clarify...

[...] In some ways "free attack" is misleading; actually a Critical is the severity of the damage inflicted by the slicing, piercing or bludgeoning effects... Hence why I clearly said it wasn't to do with: "speed or manoeuvrability". ... [Source]

So we're not blurring the lines between flavour, mechanical effect, and homebrew reinterpretation.

[...]
The Advanced Heroquest rulebook actually explains it fairly well (page 18)

"[...] Just as larger weapons cause critical hits more often, so they cause more fumbles – although they're heavier and batter easily through armour, they're also clumsier to use. These weapons cause a fumble on a hit roll of 1 or 2. ...

[Source]

AHQ's Critical ranges (like 11–12 on some large heavy weapons) reflect lethality, not agility. Your player's Two-Handed sword isn't speeding up – it's just splitting skulls harder. And yes, your double-handed; weapon is doing more damage – because Critical hits boost impact, not tempo.

When you say "Why does a sharp blade make my hero swing their sword faster?" – the answer is; it doesn't. It means the weapon is more likely to do grievous harm. That's all the Critical mechanic represents. So GW's real failure was in word choice – not logic.

You mentioned not wanting to "create additional rules," but swapping out free attacks for halved toughness is, functionally, a new mechanic. That's fine – many of us tweak systems – but let's call it what it is: a homebrew pivot for consistency and elegance.

Well, it is correct that the word "cleaving" appears within Advanced Heroquest: Terror in the Dark (page 24)

[...] Axe of Cleaving
This axe has a series of fine runes engraved along its blade which keep it magically sharp.

[...]

Double-handed Sword of Cleaving

This double-handed sword has an enchanted sharpness which allows it to cause a critical hit on a roll of 10–12. ...

However, it's more a case "Cleaving" in the AHQ rules means a magical "enchanted sharpness" rather than say a physical sweeping or thrusting movement. It's more of a placeholder word rather than effect it could easily have said keen blade or "Slashing" for the Sword version with the expanded (10–12).
... [Source]

Also, I flagged the semantics of "Cleaving" earlier. In AHQ, cleaving isn't a mechanic – it's just flavour text attached to enchanted sharpness. It doesn't imply multi-target strikes or sweeping arcs. The [Toothpick] of Cleaving, Sword of Cleaving, etc., have the expanded Critical of 10–12 because they're magically sharp and cut or penetrate deeper, not because "cleaving" is doing mechanical work.

So really, "cleaving" in AHQ is less about chopping through enemy ranks, and more about giving your weapon a fancy name to impress the tavern crowd. Call it tactical bravado, or maybe just... You know the type – tactical bravado dressed up as a rune-forged confidence enhancer.

In short, "cleaving" serves more as thematic dressing than a codified mechanic – it evokes magical sharpness, not physical technique.


Sarcasm: Yes-yes! The mighty Cleaving Blade – legend-thing of ruinous sharpness – known across all tunnels and above for slicing, chopping, cleaving through logic-words, rule-thoughts and poor design-texts! Its blade, ahh-its blade! Forged – no, birthed! – from shattered page-leaves of THREE rulebooks (maybe four, yes?) and the last burnt out nerve-thing of a frazzled book-maker-thing with no sleep... Cleave-crush! Slice-cut! Game balance will never survive!
—Attributed to the Glorious and Majestic Grey Seer Thanquol, Supreme Commander of the Misread Sidebar and Prophet of Page 18 /Sarcasm