Odanan's HeroQuest stuff

[Daedalus]

I can butt in and take a couple of these.

. . . Question on the rules. Is there any reason NOT to search for traps and secret doors? There is no penalty?

For the North American game, there is no penalty for always searching. The European rules are more competitive, so only the first player to search for treasure gets rich. That provides incentive to forgo a trap or secret door search, at least temporarily.

I know some people make rules to stop the heroes just standing in a doorway and killing all the monsters. Do you find there is no need to add any rules to prevent this?

Hero Quest is a game of exploration, so it is incumbent on the Heroes to search those rooms. Morcar/Zargon needn't rush into a three-on-one door-guarding scenario if there are sufficient numbers to withstand a first attack. Just move away and wait--hopefully all of the Heroes won't reach the monsters in concert. Then settle into a fair fight.

Once the Heroes get crossbows, this tactic generally fails. That's when some Morcars/Zargons arm their monsters with bows, crossbows, or spears.

[perkypat123]

Thanks for the responses!

I ordered the print of about 260 cards. If you want, I can zip all my cards in their original .png files and send the link for you to download.

If you could, that would be awesome! I generally use a service where I upload each card into a template.

I did want to keep the game light (plan to play with the kids), so will likely combine the searching to keep it simple.

I did have a few other questions on your rules:

Evil Power cards:
- Do you draw them ever turn, or only when their are no monsters on the board (I have seen both variants mentioned somewhere)?

Treasure searching:
- Your rule states: 'When setting up a room, if there is no special treasure set to a furniture (see the Quest map), the Zargon/Morcar player must place anywhere in the room a “search treasure token” - if there is a special treasure mentioned in the quest map, then wouldn't it give away the surprise if you do not place a 'search treasure token' in the room?
- Lack of gold from treasure searching - I do like the simplicity of this. Is the amount of treasure/equipment found still balanced? Is it still fun to not find as much gold? I guess it is quite thematic as it would be more likely to find artifacts and equipment than gold stashed around everwhere!

Spells:
- When are Fimir spells used? For any quest with Fimir? Or for specific quests?

Hero balance:
- With the Barbarian using black skulls for attack, and the Dwarf for defense, are these two characters not much more powerful than the Elf and Wizard? Do the improved spells balance this out? Have you playtested this much? I do like the idea, just want to make sure if also plays well!

Thanks for taking the time to answer all this, I am preparing to print all this and finish painting the minis..!

[Odanan]

Thanks for taking the time to answer all this, I am preparing to print all this and finish painting the minis..!

Give me some days and I will gather all the images in a zip file.

The current rule is: you draw 1 Evil Power card each turn and can keep the maximum of 3 cards in your hand.

Treasure rule: yes, it would give away. But... I find the standard treasure rule in HQ very contradictory. Some quest have various traps "protecting" a chest (even the rule book recognizes that), suggesting the heroes do need to "touch" the chest to search it. But the manual says the heroes don't need to move to search a room. That simplification eliminates the function for a lot of the traps in quest. I chose to add this treasure token, so it values positioning and exploration a little more.

Lack of gold: heroes still find gold as special treasure or quest rewards but there is less management. I feel getting the items instead of gold more meaningful and optimized, not to mention it forces the heroes to use anything they find, instead of only the chosen (min maxed) weapons.

Fimir Spells can be used by the Fimir Witch summoned by Evil Power cards or in a custom quest you make.

Hero Balancing: I gave 3 more spells to the Wizard (4 sets instead of 3). The Elf was the best class, so he doesn't need much help. Still, he has access now to the very powerful Elf Spells and 1 more movement "speed". I think heroes are more balanced (and clearly more unique) now than in the stock game.

[perkypat123]

You are a legend! Thanks for answering. It would be great to get the png files, as it would save me a lot of cropping in Photoshop..

You have got some good ideas here!

Regarding the placing of the treasure token, maybe you could still place it when the quest book indicates treasure/trap in furniture, then it won’t look too suspicious! It would probably be thematic anyway to place all the treasure tokens next to or on furniture anyway…

[lestodante]

The current rule is: you draw 1 Evil Power card each turn and can keep the maximum of 3 cards in your hand.

Does it also draw a card when he already has 3 cards in hand and can chose to discard another one? Or he can't draw at all?
I prefer to let the EWP roll a combat dice first. On a skull roll he can draw a card, otherwhise he can't.
Also many players apply the rule that he can draw a card only when he can't perform any move/attack with his miniatures, to avoid heroes to waste time in searching or planning their actions.

Treasure rule: ...But the manual says the heroes don't need to move to search a room. That simplification eliminates the function for a lot of the traps in quest. I chose to add this treasure token, so it values positioning and exploration a little more.

I do my players being in front of the treasure chest in order to open it. They can perform a treasure search AND open the chest as two separate actions. So one hero search the room and the other one open the traseure chest.
What about treasure tokens you was talking about? (din't find it in your rules)

Hero Balancing: I gave 3 more spells to the Wizard (4 sets instead of 3). The Elf was the best class, so he doesn't need much help. Still, he has access now to the very powerful Elf Spells and 1 more movement "speed". I think heroes are more balanced (and clearly more unique) now than in the stock game.

I agree, the Wizard with 4 sets of spells is much well balanced. As for the Elf spells, do you allow him to take only 3 or the whole set of 8 cards?

[Odanan]

The current rule is: you draw 1 Evil Power card each turn and can keep the maximum of 3 cards in your hand.

Does it also draw a card when he already has 3 cards in hand and can chose to discard another one? Or he can't draw at all?
I prefer to let the EWP roll a combat dice first. On a skull roll he can draw a card, otherwhise he can't.
Also many players apply the rule that he can draw a card only when he can't perform any move/attack with his miniatures, to avoid heroes to waste time in searching or planning their actions.

Treasure rule: ...But the manual says the heroes don't need to move to search a room. That simplification eliminates the function for a lot of the traps in quest. I chose to add this treasure token, so it values positioning and exploration a little more.

I do my players being in front of the treasure chest in order to open it. They can perform a treasure search AND open the chest as two separate actions. So one hero search the room and the other one open the traseure chest.
What about treasure tokens you was talking about? (din't find it in your rules)

Hero Balancing: I gave 3 more spells to the Wizard (4 sets instead of 3). The Elf was the best class, so he doesn't need much help. Still, he has access now to the very powerful Elf Spells and 1 more movement "speed". I think heroes are more balanced (and clearly more unique) now than in the stock game.

I agree, the Wizard with 4 sets of spells is much well balanced. As for the Elf spells, do you allow him to take only 3 or the whole set of 8 cards?

He can draw a card and discard any card in his hand.

Elf gets only 3 spells.

[perkypat123]

Regarding searching for treasure, how about the following simple rules:
- a hero must be standing next to a piece of furniture to search for treasure in a room. If multiple pieces of furniture, chest takes precidence.
- single search per room
- if no treasure mentioned in Quest book, draw a treasure card (otherwise follow notes in Quest book).
- once searched, put a 'searched' token in the room.

This will allow:
- hero won't see a difference between rooms with special Quest book treasure, and regular rooms. The 'surprise' remains intact!
- this is thematic, as searching would generally involve being next to furniture or next to a chest
- traps near chests would now be more effective
- low bookkeeping, as simple 'searched' tokens added to rooms.

This only involves small simple tweaks to your custom rules.

Thoughts?

[Odanan]

Regarding searching for treasure, how about the following simple rules:
- a hero must be standing next to a piece of furniture to search for treasure in a room. If multiple pieces of furniture, chest takes precidence.
- single search per room
- if no treasure mentioned in Quest book, draw a treasure card (otherwise follow notes in Quest book).
- once searched, put a 'searched' token in the room.

This will allow:
- hero won't see a difference between rooms with special Quest book treasure, and regular rooms. The 'surprise' remains intact!
- this is thematic, as searching would generally involve being next to furniture or next to a chest
- traps near chests would now be more effective
- low bookkeeping, as simple 'searched' tokens added to rooms.

This only involves small simple tweaks to your custom rules.

Thoughts?

Most excellent. I wish I hadn't print my book already.

[perkypat123]

One last question…

There is a little bit of ambiguity on searching for traps and treasure.
One your character cards, it treats them as separate actions.

In the Heroquest book (custom rules), it says:
- heroes can either search for treasure, or ‘traps AND secret doors’
- it also says ‘When a player searches for Secret Doors and Traps, the Evil Wizard player consults the quest map to see if there are first, any traps and if not, any secrets doors in the same room or corridor as the character doing the searching’

So do you treat them as the same, or separate actions? Not 100% clear on this bit!

[Odanan]

One last question…

There is a little bit of ambiguity on searching for traps and treasure.
One your character cards, it treats them as separate actions.

In the Heroquest book (custom rules), it says:
- heroes can either search for treasure, or ‘traps AND secret doors’
- it also says ‘When a player searches for Secret Doors and Traps, the Evil Wizard player consults the quest map to see if there are first, any traps and if not, any secrets doors in the same room or corridor as the character doing the searching’

So do you treat them as the same, or separate actions? Not 100% clear on this bit!

Indeed, my PDFs are outdated at this point, but here you can find the newest hero card back (with the merged trap&secret door search):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ykAmJ3yefY2Frv5TozREHzNQujSn3o08/view?usp=sharing