Potion of Retribution

[Gold Bearer]

It's one of the broken in the name of simplicity rules that badly needs attention in my opinion. I like that you can drink them out of turn but at any time doesn't make sense. Maybe between the monsters turns, it's not like in advanced HQ where they all move then all attack.

[mitchiemasha]

Technically...according to the rules...the side action (drink a Potion) can be done in the middle of the Action (Attack). It would be equivalent to opening a door (side action) during ones movement (Action). Thematically, on the other hand, it doesn't make sense (drink a Potion while an axe is chopping down at you). To keep the vanilla HQ rules would allow for drinking it. Depends on how simple the EWP wants to keep it.

No problem to theme around. It's not that you drink the potion when an axe is coming down at you, that is when you declare it but it's more a case of, you drank the potion at some point during your turn. Although we usually rule that you can't take it after seeing an attack role. until you roll your dice, you might be dead, kind of 'cat in the box'!

Another strange one people have with theme is the monsters being 'locked' in certain rooms. I don't see it that way, although they are marked in that room in the Quest book, that won't of been where they always were, it's simply where they meet you in your story. Some have a problem with monsters not being able to open doors but they don't see that they will have opened many. It doesn't have to be they're eating dinner, sleeping, totally unaware of the heroes presence. They could of just entered the room to collect weapons, stash stuff or charging towards you and this is the room they got to just before you did.

A Goblin in the next room could of vacated the room you've just entered, through a closed door, alerting the Orcs, preparing an ambush, setting traps. The options are endless. You didn't meet him in the room he was in at the start or 5 minutes ago, the theme is entirely up to you.

[knightkrawler]

Technically...according to the rules...the side action (drink a Potion) can be done in the middle of the Action (Attack). It would be equivalent to opening a door (side action) during ones movement (Action). Thematically, on the other hand, it doesn't make sense (drink a Potion while an axe is chopping down at you). To keep the vanilla HQ rules would allow for drinking it. Depends on how simple the EWP wants to keep it.

No problem to theme around. It's not that you drink the potion when an axe is coming down at you, that is when you declare it but it's more a case of, you drank the potion at some point during your turn. Although we usually rule that you can't take it after seeing an attack role. until you roll your dice, you might be dead, kind of 'cat in the box'!

Another strange one people have with theme is the monsters being 'locked' in certain rooms. I don't see it that way, although they are marked in that room in the Quest book, that won't of been where they always were, it's simply where they meet you in your story. Some have a problem with monsters not being able to open doors but they don't see that they will have opened many. It doesn't have to be they're eating dinner, sleeping, totally unaware of the heroes presence. They could of just entered this room to collect weapons, stash stuff, awaiting to ambush or charging towards you and this is the room they got to just before you did.

They could of just left the room you were in to hide behind the door. The options are endless.

Very much all that!
Adding to that it doesn't make thematical sense that a hero would enter a room and kill a monster with one attack roll.
To fix that you could easily houserule that a monster, when reduced to 0 body points with the first strike, always gets one last attack roll before dying.
I don't see people do that. Why?
The simplicity of HQ is a blessing. Drinking a potion wheneverthefuckyouwantto is one of these masterstrokes to keep it that way.

[mitchiemasha]

I reworded the end of my last post a bit.

[Gold Bearer]

Technically...according to the rules...the side action (drink a Potion) can be done in the middle of the Action (Attack). It would be equivalent to opening a door (side action) during ones movement (Action). Thematically, on the other hand, it doesn't make sense (drink a Potion while an axe is chopping down at you). To keep the vanilla HQ rules would allow for drinking it. Depends on how simple the EWP wants to keep it.

No problem to theme around. It's not that you drink the potion when an axe is coming down at you, that is when you declare it but it's more a case of, you drank the potion at some point during your turn.

The idea of a role playing game is that the player takes the roll of the character, that's where it get its name from. If the character can't wait for an attack before drinking a potion and then defending the attack then why should the player? It's silly. It's not always possible for it to completely make sense but this is an easy one.

Although we usually rule that you can't take it after seeing an attack role. until you roll your dice, you might be dead, kind of 'cat in the box'!

I only recently realised what that thought experiment actually is after ages of thinking that it doesn't make sense. It's not about the cat being alive and dead, the point is that the cat has to be one or the other but when does this happen? I don't want to go any further because I've been banned from talking about science and it's way off topic but search the Von Neumann if you're interested, it's fascinating and very profound.

Adding to that it doesn't make thematical sense that a hero would enter a room and kill a monster with one attack roll.
To fix that you could easily houserule that a monster, when reduced to 0 body points with the first strike, always gets one last attack roll before dying.
I don't see people do that. Why?

That's not even close to the same. The hero gets to attack first because it's their turn, they're the ones bursting into the room and surprising the monsters. The monsters can attack the heroes first, it's called a wandering monster.

The simplicity of HQ is a blessing. Drinking a potion wheneverthefuckyouwantto is one of these masterstrokes to keep it that way.

No, it's lazy rule making and it doesn't make sense. It's not complicated in any way to say that they can drink a potion between the monsters turns but not during, it's a huge loophole closed with no drawbacks. In the name of simplicity why not guess the rough odds of completing the quest and roll a dice to see if they do. You could then roll a dice for each hero to see if they died during the quest. It's so simple it's beautiful.

[mitchiemasha]

The idea of a role playing game is that the player takes the roll of the character, that's where it get its name from. If the character can't wait for an attack before drinking a potion and then defending the attack then why should the player? It's silly.

Thank you for explaining an RPG to me. As for the rest of the paragraph... HUH! i'm still scratching my head!!!

[Gold Bearer]

I put the at the end of the post to show that it wasn't as as it might have looked but I think it just made it seem smug.

[Daedalus]

Normally, potions may be drank at most any time, but the NA rules include an important exception under How A Monster Attacks on p.22 of the Instruction Booklet: ". . . If hit, the Hero immediately defends by rolling it's Defend Dice. . . ." As a hit is immediately followed by rolling Defend Dice, this automatic reaction should supersede drinking a potion at any time.

The potion from the OP specifically allows for drinking right before a defense roll, however. (Cards may create rule exceptions.) I like to see this as part of the magic, narratively drinking before the attack with a sort of precognition expressed through the game mechanic of knowing the attack roll.