Ye Olde Inn

Anyone familiar with Basic D&D? It offers several saving rolls based on the type of attack
a hero would be saving against:
Spells/Magic Staves/Magic Rods
Turn to Stone
Poison and Death Ray
Dragon Breath
(might be one more - I don't have the book in front of me).

What would you all think about implementing something like this for HQ. For anyone sort of save,
the player would roll 2 red dice. Each hero would have its own base saves for the attack types...
you know, elves and wizards might save better against spells, but no so good against poison...
dwarves would save good against spells and poisons, not so good against dragon breath...etc.

Most of the saves would start between 7 and 10...the player would have to roll above that to
be successful.

This would allow the ability for magical items to give better saves...more powerful monsters would
require higher saves...etc.

Just been thinking about a way to add a system for heroes to fight back against certain attacks, without
having to write it out in quest notes all the time, and that would allow magical items and such (as stated
above).

Well, for starters I don't really think magic is dominant enough in HQ to justify a system like this.
That being said, if you build a bestiary and armory up around this concept I suppose it could work out all right. Just don't add too many armor types.
One of the charms of HQ after all is it's simplicity.

Maybe instead of rolling red dice, just use combat dice as normal.
A hero would have say 5 physical defense and 3 magical defense.
Then all attacks just has to be qualified with a damage type - Physical or Magical.
If hit by a ghost with a magical attack you must use your magical defense and the physical defense is irrelevant in this particular attack.

That way you get the multiple damage/defense system without changing too must of the established rules.
Just a suggestionn

I like the 5 stats system. I also use the Mind points extensively when it comes to spells and skills.

Oh yeah!
In the system I suggested you could simply base magic save on pure MP.
Then you'd only have to assign damage types to everything. Everything else would already be in the game.

But what I'm kinda saying is that I don't really like how you are changing how a defense roll works.
In HQ it goes like this. Enemy does damage (1 per skull); you roll to reduce damage (-1 per shield). Skulls - Shields = inflicted damage

But maybe I just don't understand how your system with two red dice works? :S
Could you elaborate a little? Example?

I was trying to come up with something that would get away from using combat dice,
as it kind of limits things unless a hero has an enormous amount of combat dice to roll.
It also makes it hard to make it universal between spells, special monster attacks, and
monsters with more powerful spells, etc.

In the NA version of the chaos spells, some of them say that the player can roll 2 red dice
and reduce damage by 1 point for every 5 or 6 rolled (something along those lines). The system
I'm thinking up works basically the same way, except it adds the result of the two dice together
instead of looking only for a 5 or 6. This allows for a wider range that can be rolled without running
into the same problem as using combat dice - where a player would need to roll 4+ dice for a save.

So, the same spell might say that the player needs to "roll their base save against spells". Or, if the
chaos spell caster is powerful (a lich lord, for example), it might say that the player needs to "roll
their base save against spells + 3".

If you use dragons, each dragon type could have a typical save required for their dragon breath, and
each hero would have a base save against dragon breath. It makes it a universal system.

This would also allow for a LARGE expansion of available poisons, diseases, molds, etc. that we could
invent for the game. More dangerous poisons would need a better save against poisons, or the hero
takes the consequences. That would also allow for an expansion of antidote potions, as some poisons
would need better antidotes.

And of course, this would allow for a lot of new magical items, offering better rolls on the different types
of saves needed.