Heroes return full health between quests as series, right?

[Kurgan]

Not to beat a dead horse here with what has already been said but a few more thoughts...

It's also worth pointing out that even though it's a different game, but by the same company and some of the same designers... in Space Crusade the healing ability (medpack) of an Ultramarine Commander must be used while he's alive and can't be used if his life points have just been reduced to zero. You could argue it's not quite the same thing since this is super technology and in HeroQuest we are dealing with varieties of magic... even if ultimately it's all a form of fantasy fiction that "just works" because the game needs it to.

The intention seems to be in the EU editions last second saves from death were not allowed, whereas they were explicitly allowed in the NA editions. So regardless of how any of us prefers to play, that was how it was meant to be. Did the designers just forget to say that the Big Potions also restored all lost mind points? If that were the case, I could kind of see them serving the sort of function some were speculating about, but still, the idea of being forced to use potions between quests is unprecedented for the physical board game. Not being able to buy equipment is a major handicap, but not quite so bad in the EU edition. You could speculate that the type of Heroes intended to be playing ATOH have already conquered the 14 quest main campaign and so are fully tricked out with all the equipment and Artifacts they could want. There is no Alchemist Shop to buy potions and no mercenaries (yet) so there's nothing really to spend their gold on that could be advantageous except the odd throwing dagger...* except in the case of a dead hero who has to be replaced with a "basic" hero. Hopefully you've got enough spare gear to outfit him appropriately!

*[Edit: Oops, I forgot that throwing daggers aren't in the EU edition, so change that to "throwing axe instead," but the Crossbow kind of eliminates that utility and the Wizard can't use the throwing axe so nevermind! ]

I also am reminded that for all we know, the people playing ATOH just completed the 1st edition of the original campaign and so are playing under those rules rather than the 2nd edition, with all the pros and cons that this entails!

But what is the bonus of being able to heal more during campaigns? Is it that you're going to be taking more damage during campaigns? Or that you can't heal like normal between quests? I can see what people are thinking here to imagine it served the purpose of restoring what is normally restored between quests automatically, but it would seem here that the mind points are a necessary patch to make it actually work as possibly envisioned this way... if we assume that a Hero who is at zero mind points can have his mind points restored either by using it on himself or having someone else use their Big Potion on him, either between quests or in the middle of one, perhaps right before the completion of any particular quest.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I think that we all agree that using a Potion of Healing to restore a Dead Hero shouldn't be allowed, however the fine distinction, that I openly admit is an exploit originated from a canny player of mine back in the early 90s (under UK/EU rules), and went something like this.

Monster attack dropped his Hero to zero BP
"Ha you're dead"
"No, I've got a Healing Potion so I'm drinking it"
"You can't you're dead"
"But am I? Death isn't always instantaneous, I'm not dead for another few seconds, right now I'm just dying, and whilst dying I'm going to drink my Healing Potion"

Many years later, when I discovered this forum and US Edition of the rules I was pleasantly surprised that this exploit was common enough that it had been written into the US rules. The line below from p23 of the US Instruction Booklet seems to support the logic in a backwards kind of way

Important! After your Body Points have reached zero, you can never be saved by a fellow Hero's spell or potion. It will be too late. You will have died by the time it is your fellow Hero's turn - the only time when he can cast a spell or give you a potion.

You will have died by the time that the next turn starts, could be taken to mean that you don't die until the end of the current turn. A small healing window.

That said it does open up the tactical option for Heroes to never use their Healing Potions until death, which I don't like, so I modified the rule so that a Healing Potion taken by a dying Hero (the Death Save) restores 1 BP, if taken by a Hero with 1+ remaining BPs then it restores D6 BP

[HispaZargon]

That said it does open up the tactical option for Heroes to never use their Healing Potions until death, which I don't like, so I modified the rule so that a Healing Potion taken by a dying Hero (the Death Save) restores 1 BP, if taken by a Hero with 1+ remaining BPs then it restores D6 BP

Interesting... this idea is roughly in line with the rare Live-giving Elixir the heroes can find in EU's The Dark Company quest, it can bring back to life a dead hero but with only 1 BP.

[Kurgan]

Good point about Dark Company... the sole exception to the "no post-death saves in EU editions" rule HZ!

The "never use potions until death" isn't an absolute, because as an item it can be passed (on your turn) to an adjacent ally, but the ally has to use it BEFORE dying (only an Elixir of Life can be used after a comrade has died to restore them).

Spell Scrolls are also items and so can be passed to other heroes (or even Mercenaries) but use an action (unlike potions) being transferrable unlike normal Spells. Of course no "Spell Scroll" artifacts in the EU editions.

The "must be adjacent to an ally but not also adjacent to a monster" clarification was only made in the EQP/BQP and remake editions, but the passing of items existed in all editions prior if I recall correctly ("on your turn").

[manaknight14]

I know we have deviated from the original topic, but the last-second save rule is one I’ve had to think about lately. I used to be fine with the NA RAW until I saw Always Board Never Boring playing through some Frozen Horror quests and he realized that as long as he was carrying a Potion of Warmth (which only heals 1BP in most situations) he was invincible, which was just too powerful. I am inclined to agree, because anything that makes it impossible for a hero to die ruins the tension of the game. While the rule proposed in this thread (and by ABNB) of last-second saves only raising you to 1BP is a nice penalty to disincentivize players from always holding potions until they hit 0, the fact that holding one means you can’t get unexpectedly killed by anything still ruins that tension I described. There has to be at least some risk that keeping the potion in your pocket won’t be enough to save you. However, I don’t want to get rid of the last-second save completely. I played without last-second saves under NA rules as a kid and it was brutal. Our wizard died all the time, as he was in danger of a one-hit kill pretty much any time he wasn’t at max health (things that can do 3BP of damage are everywhere).

The best solution I’ve come up with is these two house rules:

• A hero’s BP can become negative.
• A hero whose BP are less than 1 can only use one healing potion/spell before death occurs.

This way, last-second saves still work most of the time, but if you’re running around with 1BP left or fighting something really strong, there’s a risk that your last-second potion won’t be enough to save you. This is especially true of those Potions of Healing from the treasure deck that require a die roll. I tried this rule out in a quest this weekend and it worked pretty well. Our barbarian burned through three healing potions, and only one of them was used in a last-second situation.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Yes we have strayed from the main path, so I've spun up a new topic Healing: How A Hero Escapes Death for that specific aspect if you wish to repeat any points there (especially your last post manaknight14 as I have a response brewing) and will keep this one for the ATOH specific issue that matches the topic title

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Back on topic...

So I am now in two minds entirely about this topic.

If the mega-potions were intended to replace the lack of BP restore between Quests then they are missing the restore MP aspect, so if this was the intention then either need to boost these potions to restore MP also, or a better idea might be to scrap the potions and just re-instate the standard BP&MP restoration Between Quests (judging from the number of potions, if this in the intent that I would argue that potentially the last 2 Quests are a single Quest split into two with no restore in between, possibly?)

If the mega-potions were intended to supplement the normal Between Quest restore of MP/BP and therefore were intended to compensate for the 'loss' of other Between Quest functionality, that doesn't make sense either due to Kurgan's point, what is the loss that is being compensated for? in the EU/UK version you can't buy potions, or hire mercs, the Heroes will already be carrying everything apart from the kitchen sink in terms of equipment, so 10,000 GC worth of compensation purely because you can't swap spells or pick up some replacement throwing weapons seems generous to say the least!

[Kurgan]

Maybe the designers just realized at the last minute they had designed a really hard quest book that might catch a lot of players off guard, and instead of rewriting it to make things easier they threw in the option to gives the good guys some help?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Now that thought had occurred to me too (because it is really starting to look very much like that!) but if that was true then why only give the good guys some help if they were 'playing as a series' but not otherwise?

[Kurgan]

It's hard for me to imagine players NOT playing the quests "as a series." Maybe that's just how we played, but what would the alternative be?

You play quest 1, then you play quest 2, etc. that's how you play any pack. I guess the original game doesn't force you to do that but strongly recommends you play them in order and don't skip any because they lay the groundwork for future adventures (though they still can't assume every person bought every expansion, so they could have been starting there after completing quest 14 of the original series only, though one or more heroes might have died along the way and been starting from scratch with any inherited gear or purchased for them by their wealthy surviving comrades).

So what is the imagined alternative to the "series"? The players play one quest, decide "this is too hard" and move on to different quests outside the pack, official or homebrew, maybe coming back (or not)? The Japanese heroquest actually gives the heroes the option to skip a couple of the quests, deeming them to be too hard for some, but that's the only explicit bone I've seen thrown. Otherwise they presume at least part of the party is going to be playing them through and moving forward... though by the end all four of your original heroes might have died to be replaced by others. Other than The Trial (? or I could be confusing this with recent memories of Rogar's Hall) I think you were expected to replay a quest until you actually finished it, whether you ducked out early, had a TPK or otherwise failed to complete your objective before attempting the next one.

Back to the "as a series" thing...

I know a similar kind of thing crops up perennially with Kellar's Keep... people will say that "realistically" the heroes are underground and so shouldn't be able to go shopping between quests though they can still rest and heal up between adventures. KK itself makes no allowance for this, it acts very much as if you're expected to shop between quests like normal and the NA edition even gives you an extra shop from which to buy potions. But I could imagine on the EU side of things the designers hearing the feedback about "realism" and deciding to make it an official option, but then also figuring that could be more difficult and throwing in a bonus as a result. But even with the KK thing, everyone is assuming your Body & Mind and your spells recharge between quests, even if they decided to disallow shopping or place switching between quests within the pack (and again this is all homebrew, the designers never sided with it).

But yes, when a hero dies and there is no ally to claim his gear, it is lost, and a new hero teleports in to replace him in the next quest, and there is where being able to buy extra stuff would come into play. Otherwise the heroes will probably have already everything they need. Still, if I were playing these quests, the idea of having some big potions would seem nice. They could have spun it instead as a difficulty selector kind of thing than as a proposed compensation for not being able to buy equipment or change their spells/turn order between quests like normal.

Perhaps it was one of those things that wasn't well thought through, but it's a neat idea to toy with I guess.

I don't think any other pack gives this alternative, but it is an interesting suggestion.