Some Redesign Notes on Combat, Damage, Healing, and Wounds

[RECIVS]

Advanced HeroQuest is well known for its brutal difficulty. I believe we can fairly say that the fragility its characters, though a legacy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, is one of its most distinctive features as a dungeon crawler.

From experience (a mathematical model may be needed otherwise), it seems that such fragility or vulnerability of the Heroes results mainly from the interaction of the following gameplay elements: combat formation, damage mechanics, healing options, and number of starting wounds. I know there are other factors at play, such as Fate Points, but I think they’re secondary, and, in most cases, its use is determined by the said variables. I mean, FPs can make the game easier by negating damage in combat, yes, but they have nothing to do with how that damage is caused. Other elements (such as dungeon size, number and value of enemies, hazards, henchmen, spells, traps, treasure, weapon skill, etc.) play their part as well, of course, but they also do it indirectly I believe. Anyway, only the ones mentioned in the title of this thread are taken into account in this post; the others are considered constant variables for our purposes here. As usual, my methods and conclusions are open to criticism:

As we all know, every Hero in AHQ may start with 2-5 wounds and a Toughness (T) rating of 5-8 depending on race. In some instances, T may be increased to 12 relatively easily through training and armor. TH12 models require damage rolls of 12 (or 1/12 chance) to be wounded, which may be a game breaker for most people, me included, but that's another story.

Unless I’m missing something, it seems to me that the core of the issue is the way in-combat healing works in AHQ considering the scarce number of wounds allocated to the adventurers. I see that only spells and healing potions may be used to heal in combat according to the rules, but potions produce their effects at the beginning of the next turn in which they're taken. The rules don’t specify if adventurers in an enemy death zone may take healing potions, though, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Healing spells, on the other hand, are allowed only if no other figure is in the healer's death zone.

As one may notice from the above, it may get tricky to heal in combat under the vanilla rules, particularly when the adventurers find themselves surrounded by monsters, which I think is one of the main reasons why the game may be so difficult at times. It may seem, however, that the said 1/12 chance of damaging TH12 characters goes in tune with the original mechanics for healing with potions (and spells), as a chance of 1/4 or even 1/6 would make those characters more vulnerable, so it may not be a good idea unless healing in combat becomes easier.

In such circumstances, I see that the bottleneck formation is not only the form of room combat prescribed by the original rules (at least in solo mode), but the one that should be used every time if the adventurers expect to survive. I think it's clear that, given the scarce number of wounds allocated to the Heroes and how in-combat healing works, the chances of overcoming a room encounter may be severely reduced if the adventurers get surrounded by enemies. Entering a room occupied by monsters in the vanilla game, something that is supposed to be the norm in a dungeon crawler, is simply incompatible with its original design. Ultimately, what makes AHQ playable, I think, is the variable number and value of monsters provided by its matrices. I believe the game would be even more difficult and repetitive otherwise.

So, is that it? Is that how AHQ should be played? Am I missing anything? Should the major AHQ variants modify or preserve the original gameplay? to what extent? why?

It appears to be common knowledge that AHQ was rushed to market, and that it could have used more playtesting and support. In my opinion, the original game may get repetitive after clearing a few rooms, particularly in solo mode. I believe it's an outstanding and revolutionary game system that could do much better…that deserves much better! However, it seems that the original combat mechanics can hardly be tweaked without also modifying the other variables already mentioned in the title above. I mean, if one wants to fix the bottleneck issue and make encounters more varied and riskier for the Heroes in any way—by fighting inside rooms like in a normal dungeon crawler for a change—then I’m afraid that at least the mechanics of healing (and also the number of wounds allocated to the Heroes) must be altered as well, as the game would become unbearably difficult otherwise (FPs and everything else can remain the same for our purposes here).

Speaking of which, I think that my house rules for fixing the bottleneck and the Toughness-12 issues in AHQ should be used only if healing is also tweaked, as they may turn Heroes more vulnerable and exposed to damage at the same time. Years of tweaking AHQ and playing it with modified healing made me forget mentioning it in my house rules (my bad). Notes are now included in both documents plus the new Revised Healing Rules for AHQ.

In any case, it seems that the mechanics for in-combat healing along with the number of wounds allocated to the Heroes are the two variables that can most easily be tweaked to adjust the difficulty of the game without messing with anything else.

Now, we may see that most of the major AHQ variants out there modify the said gameplay elements in one way or the other:

Depending on their race, the Heroes in Reforged may start with 6-9 wounds—the highest among the other major AHQ variants—in order to compensate for the changes that make its adventurers easier to attack, hit, and damage (such as lower stats, broader death zones, fixed value of enemies, etc.). Reforged is the only major revision of AHQ that allocates a fixed number of wounds to its characters depending on their race and path. One may see that the T ratings of starting characters (2-5) are notably lower than in AHQ, making Reforged also the variant with the lowest T ratings; as a consequence, T10+ characters are rare in Slev's revision. It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that in-combat healing is much easier in Reforged than in the original: Healing potions work in the same activation in which they're taken, restoring the adventurer’s full health as a free action even when in an enemy death zone. Healing herbs cost 20 GCs, and they can restore four wounds, also in the same activation.

Second Edition preserves the original number of starting wounds (2-5) for the same races included in AHQ (ogres may start with 5-8). T ratings are also the original ones (3-8) depending on race. On the other hand, an unmodified roll of 11+ always damages, which makes characters slightly more vulnerable but the game more playable. Combat is conducted pretty much like in the original game, though new actions that may spice up the encounters have been added (such as change place and push). Healing in combat may be easier than in AHQ, as healing potions work in the same activation in which they're taken (though they only restore four wounds). Heroes also have access to bandages that may allow them to heal one wound themselves or an adjacent friendly model upon passing an Intelligence test, which also work in the same activation in which they're used. An ability to heal while in an enemy death zone is included (see dodge).

Characters in Extreme may start with 3-7 wounds depending on archetype, which tends to be slightly higher than in AHQ and the second highest after Reforged. The T ratings of starting Heroes are almost the same as in the original (5-7). Damage rolls work in the traditional way, but the solution this variant offers for TH12 characters is that some spells and types of attack ignore armor bonuses. However, combat in rooms is somewhat different, as the adventurers are always placed in the five by two (squares) area next to the door. Whoever wins the surprise places their figures before the opponent, and they activate first. Monsters may not be placed in the adventurers’ area of deployment. Healing potions, on the other hand, may be drunk in the middle of combat even if the adventurer is in a death zone, restoring wounds to their maximum value in the same activation in which they’re taken (at least that’s what I interpret from the rules). Drinking a healing potion in combat requires only one action; however, adventurers may carry a maximum of three potions, which is the most restrictive among the variants.

AHQ3 slightly increases the number of starting wounds to 3-6 depending on race and class. T ratings are also somewhat higher than in the original (4-9). Damage is resolved with HeroQuest dice, which sets this variant aside from the others. Combat works slightly different than in AHQ, though, as two squares are left between the adventurers and the monsters in room encounters; whoever wins the surprise gets the initiative. There are three different types of healing potions: Restoration Potions heal all the adventurer’s stats (including regeneration of lost limbs) for 120C, Potions of Healing restore up to four wounds for 50C, and Potions of Minor Heal restore up to two wounds for 20C. The rules don’t specify neither if healing potions work in the same activation in which they’re taken nor if they can be used in an enemy death zone, but those situations seem to be allowed.

AHQ2, Allied, and Enhanced either preserve the original mechanics without change or implement the battle dice of HeroQuest for resolving damage, which in any case is of no interest for our purposes here. I mean, as mentioned above, this is a list of AHQ variants that did modify the said gameplay elements.

We have then that most of the AHQ variants modify the vanilla rules for healing with potions, and some of them also increase the number of wounds allocated to the adventurers. It seems clear that the variants in which healing is easier than in AHQ are the ones that also offer more variety of combat.

In conclusion, I believe that some of the already-mentioned vanilla mechanics (such as delaying the effect of healing potions when the Heroes can have an average of only three wounds), though “realistic”, may restrict the tactical variety of the room encounters in AHQ. Even for an adamant purist like me, such mechanics, as classic and revered as they may be, shouldn't be preserved for nostalgic reasons alone.

From my perspective, flexibilizing the process of in-combat healing (with potions and spells) as well as increasing the number of wounds allocated to the Heroes, for example, may allow for more varied and engaging combat dynamics without spoiling the level of tension and difficulty the original game is well known for—quite the contrary, actually.

[RECIVS]

I came across the following video recently: 7 Reasons Why Advanced Heroquest is the Most Brutally Realistic Dungeon Crawler.

It’s a great-quality video, with fancily-painted minis and all (as usual), but I believe it misses important details that may help us visualize and understand the whole context better:

First off, when AHQ came out back in 1989, the concepts of “role-playing game” and “dungeon crawler” were notably different from what we understand them to be today. Please correct me if I’m wrong:

*Being derived from and based on wargaming, old-school “role-playing” games such as D&D used to focus on combat inside dungeon locations and play more like what we know today as man-to-man melee or skirmish games—with all that implies, unlike how more modern “adventure” boardgames play nowadays.

*Adventures and quests were about exploring single-location dungeons, with the objective of fighting monsters, collect loot, and complete a certain mission. They tended to focus on game mechanics over story; overland travel and town-visiting, for example, were incidental, less important elements of the experience. Modern adventure boardgames and “dungeon crawlers”, on the other hand, actually stray from that paradigm to create a quite different type of gameplay experience; these games are now less about playing a dungeon boardgame and more about living out a story, using a myriad of components, by the way.

*Old-school dungeon crawlers (both classic video games/RPGs and early tabletop board games) were famously very tight on economy.

*Unlike in more modern titles of the type, the characters in old-school dungeon crawlers were expected to die often, given the bleakness, "realism," and lethality intended for those games (e.g., WHQ). The video doesn’t mention this context at all.

AHQ clearly belongs to that old-school tradition, so, to no one’s surprise, it was intended to follow it by condensing the above-mentioned features into a solo-friendly boardgame, which was a novel concept back then.

It’s not so much that AHQ is the most “brutally realistic dungeon crawler” but rather that it’s the first one to implement such features in a boardgame format—though the video starts by alluding to “power-fantasy” dungeon crawlers that I assume came after AHQ.

Also, I believe we need to separate realism, dungeon design, and theme, which the video seems to mesh together into a single category.

Now, what the video doesn’t say (and its creator doesn't seem willing to acknowledge either) is that, for some reason, such “brutal realism” wasn't well implemented in AHQ, so—far from making it “one of the greatest of all times,” as the video says—it ends up affecting the game system's versatility, thus hurting its potential as a sandbox and tactical dungeon crawler. This is a consequence of nostalgia blindness, in my opinion, and it’s one of the reasons I say nostalgia is a hell of a drug that doesn’t do AHQ any justice or favor; quite the contrary, actually.

Besides, as I’ve pointed out in other threads, it’s a weird case of misplaced nostalgia in the end. If we are to be nostalgic about AHQ, then it should be about this type of old-school gameplay experience—the one based on wargaming that favors combat-oriented dungeon crawling over role-playing and storytelling, not about the ways of the rushed-to-market product that don’t do any justice to the spirit of the game.

A sandbox game such as AHQ, by definition, is about taking advantage of its potential to expand it even in ways the designers never thought of, as long as it does the game system more justice while preserving its spirit in the end. Keeping faulty mechanics out of nostalgia alone goes against that principle and, as mentioned above, ends up dwarfing the game system’s potential. The latter is an observation of fact, not an opinion.

For example, at the end of the video, its creator refers to the situations depicted in the game’s artwork as the truths behind the legends. The grim reality of what it takes to be immortalized in bolide [sic] tavern songs. These images set a tone that the game absolutely matches. However, he surprisingly omits the fact that such artwork doesn’t depict doorway fighting at all!

This discussion is nothing new; this thread addresses the matter in more detail, by the way.

How realistic is it anyway to have one Hero literally blocking groups of monsters inside a room all by himself, waiting to knock them down one at a time to his convenience while the creatures wait in line? I understand that the supposed sense of realism intended for AHQ is more about the adventurers being “as fragile as in real life” in relation to the weapons and armor used in the game, but we have shown how such an approach restricts the gameplay options to the point of making combat repetitive and creating more problems than it solves, unfortunately.

Therefore, contrary to what the video says, combat in AHQ stops being exciting to become the opposite sooner rather than later. I won’t go over it again here, but the problem I see is that, given the scarce number of wounds allocated to the adventurers and how combat healing works in the game, the adventurers are condemned to exploiting doorways if they expect to survive, which ends up limiting the tactical variety the game is supposed to offer and rely upon. I mean, such "realism" ends up making combat in AHQ—one of its main features—too bland and repetitive for a game of its type, unfortunately. It's clearly a design flaw to fix, not a game feature to keep and design around simply because we happen to have our nostalgia misplaced.

The game may become even more dreadful and deadly but also more tactically varied and thus more engaging at the same time by implementing some simple adjustments, starting with fixing the bottleneck issue, in my opinion. As I’ve posted in other threads, AHQ will never be properly fixed or reach its full potential without solving that problem, and it's misplaced nostalgia that keeps getting in the way.

[RECIVS]

Just to clarify, on a second read, I realized my point may be interpreted as if I were saying the creator of the video is the nostalgic one, but, actually, I'm referring to a certain paradigm or view about AHQ I've been finding weird and opposing for more than a decade now. The video in question seems to adhere to that view, and that’s what I’m discussing here.

In the end, it's all about doing AHQ justice and expanding its potential according to its nature, but everyone can reach their own conclusions, of course.

However, when I talk about the nature of AHQ, I'm talking about objective standards. I mean, people (including the creator of the video) may like or dislike vanilla AHQ as much as they want, but that doesn’t change the context in which the game was created, the tradition it belongs to, its spirit, or what the intention of its designer was. It doesn’t change the number of tactical options the vanilla game offers in its combat encounters either. As I've said in other threads, it's only an approach in the end, certainly up for debate.

[RECIVS]

However, when I talk about the nature of AHQ, I'm talking about objective standards. I mean, people (including the creator of the video) may like or dislike vanilla AHQ as much as they want, but that doesn’t change the context in which the game was created, the tradition it belongs to, its spirit, or what the intention of its designer was. It doesn’t change the number of tactical options the vanilla game offers in its combat encounters either. As I've said in other threads, it's only an approach in the end, certainly up for debate.

I know that tastes and preferences exist, especially in boardgaming, but that doesn't alter my point here in the slightest.

For example, we can disagree on a specific flanking modifier, but agree that one is needed in the game. We can also disagree on how detailed combat should be, but agree it needs to be more detailed. We can disagree on how many tactical options room encounters should offer, but agree that more are needed. We can disagree on how to solve the doorway exploit, but agree it’s a problem that needs solving, and so on.

As I've said in other threads, mine is an approach to fix AHQ in accordance with its true essence, not a specific set of rules. In the end, the idea is to provoke a paradigm shift, not to make people play the same game.

[RECIVS]

we can disagree on a specific flanking modifier, but agree that one is needed in the game.

The game is not that realistic without one after all, is it?

We can also disagree on how detailed combat should be, but agree it needs to be more detailed.

The implementation of the concept of death zones in the game alone hints at how detailed it was intended to be.

We can disagree on how many tactical options room encounters should offer, but agree that more are needed.

It's supposed to be an old-school, combat-heavy, tactical dungeon crawler in a boardgame format to begin with, with all that implies.

We can disagree on how to solve the doorway exploit, but agree it’s a problem that needs solving.

How do I deal with the bottleneck of doors in combat?

Combat bottlenecks--WWYD?

[RECIVS]

Just to conclude: the last thing I want is to be dismissive of people’s memories and feelings. It's obvious that, if someone is nostalgic about something, it's because it works or worked for them at some point, and that's fine. I’ve never said otherwise, only that it doesn’t really favor AHQ.

In any case, this isn't about our feelings or what suits our preferences; it's about doing justice to AHQ based on fairly objective standards. It’s about discussing facts and reasons, not fond memories and gut preferences. My attempts to be objective against a seemingly accepted view of things may come off as dismissive of people’s ideas or feelings sometimes, especially if they've been holding them for more than three decades; and, tough that may be inevitable to a certain extent, it’s never been my intention.

Now, the thing with “realism” in board games is that it’s not necessarily beneficial from a game-design perspective, as far as I understand. AHQ is a board game in the end, so it’s mainly about playability and fun, not realism. Realism is supposed to support the theme to enhance the gameplay experience, not hinder it altogether. As mentioned in other threads, a game mechanic that dwarfs the tactical variety of a dungeon crawler such as AHQ (in any way) in the name of realism, for example, clearly hurts its potential, so it becomes a flaw to fix, not a feature to keep and design around, at least in the context of my approach.

If AHQ is a combat-heavy, tactical dungeon crawler in a board game format, and if its artwork sets the theme and tone, then the game mechanics that translate to repetitive bottleneck combat encounters don’t match that at all to begin with. By the way, please let me know if I’m being victim of a confirmation bias myself.

Realism and theme alone don’t make for a good game as far as I understand. It's really just a matter of seeing how game mechanics such as death zones, for example, with all their potential, don't really shine in AHQ's bottleneck situations. Also, the Heroes may start accumulating too many Fate Points if they’re allowed to exploit doorways at their discretion, which becomes a problem later on, etc.

My conclusion, then, is that realism, as implemented in AHQ, is not what makes it the “greatest dungeon crawler” of all time; it’s actually what keeps the game from being it.

[RECIVS]

As a reference, I just came across this post with some interesting points and comments relevant to the subject of this thread. I totally agree with this comment, for example, but they all seem to support the same view one way or another.

[RECIVS]

By the way, someone sent me this meme more than a year ago. I find it weird how accurate it is and how well it encapsulates this whole situation.

[Evil Frog Wizard]

By the way, someone sent me this meme more than a year ago. I find it weird how accurate it is and how well it encapsulates this whole situation.

Never actually played AHQ but Isn't it pretty much the same problem classic heroquest has? Couldn't you just apply a fix from that? The common ones that come to mind immediately are: Archers, split-move on some enemies, spell casters, diagonal attacks on some enemies.

The game master could also just dig in and wait. If I remember correctly, they have a 2in12(1in6) chance of getting a token each turn. So, why not just play the waiting game?