Carl Forhan's Rogue vs Original Heroes

[Gold Bearer]

(cannot be combined with artifacts oR armoury upgrades)

No bow

[Jazzdrummer]

I'll definitely use the armory! I like it! So are you saying to allow the assassin to roll 2 dice as opposed to 1? Or is this only if he throws the daggers? I finally be playing him today. I have nothing to do today but game...yay!!! These days don't happened enough. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there by the way. But really I don't think the 1 dice is weak. I mean monsters already have a hard time rolling black shields themselves. But I'll find out for sure today and get back to everyone.

[Sotiris]

(cannot be combined with artifacts oR armoury upgrades)

No bow

artifacts of armoury upgrade are Wizard's cloak and Wizard's Staff. If a spellcaster, with wizard restrictions, buy Bracers (let's say +1 defense) and later finds the Wizard's Cloak, he may not wear both. A rational player would sell the bracers and keep the Cloak. Then he can buy another set of bracers to enhance his attack, if he hasn't found yet the Wizard's Staff (Bracers that bought for defense may not change for attack upgrade).
I'm thinking seriously to add a bow..

I'll definitely use the armory! I like it! So are you saying to allow the assassin to roll 2 dice as opposed to 1? Or is this only if he throws the daggers?..

Only when he throws it. Otherwise it's 1 attack die as the original dagger.
The only weapon that hasn't tested yet is the crossbow with the reload quiver penalty (the team i'm playing with hasn't bought it yet). Maybe 50 gold coins between quests are too much and i'm thinking to change it to 25.

[Jazzdrummer]

Okay I played 2 games tonight using the assassin. Overall quite fun. Using 1 die he has a 50% chance to hit so he was missing a lot. But there were a few rare situations where it was amazing like one shotting a gargoyle. I guess it ultimately comes down to how lucky your dice is. Out of the 2 games the assassin 'assassinated' maybe 2 or 3 foes. One was a chaos warrior that was put to sleep by the wizard. The 2nd was the one I mentioned above which was a gargoyle. Pretty crazy. The other was a fimir I believe. Those were the times where he shined while the rest of the time he missed his attack more often than he hit. My son liked him but hated missing so much on the one die. But honestly this is probably one of the best versions of a sneak attack you can implement using this simple system. At any rate, it was an all day gaming session for Father's Day and it was fantastic. Cheers!

[Malcadon]

I just found this thread, and here is my take on Carl Forhan's Rogue Hero:

The Rogue You are the Rogue, a master of cunning and secrecy. You are strong enough to survive many battles in your own right, yet you recognize that sometimes the indirect approach is the bast. You carry the Tool Kit with you, which allows you to disarm traps by rolling anything but a black shield on one Combat Die. Without the Tool Kit, your skills are reduced to only succeeding by rolling anything but a white shield on one Combat Die.

Movement	Attack Dice	Defense Dice	Body Points	Mind Points
2d6	2	2	5	2

Starting Weapons: Shortsword and dagger Starting Armor: None

(damn, I should make a template for this kick-ass stat card)

OK, first the basic stats...

It seems well rounded, considering the Body and Mind Point totals are 3 points less then the core Heroes, but this Hero has some secondary skills to make up for it, and boy does he have some abilities!

Now, let us check them out...

The ability to disarm traps looks no different then the Dwarf's ability. The only noted difference is that the Rogue can loose his tool kit. On the other hand, that could make a great house rule for the Dwarf if he looses all his gear. If you want to make the rules simple (and reduce the card text), ignore the last part with not having a took kit.

Without the ability to use shields or two-handed weapons, the Rogue's best (non-Artifact) option is the longsword (3 , plus diagonal attack) with chainmail armor and the helmet (4 ). Even the Elf can pile on the heavy armor and use the battle axe in place of a shield. On the other hand, that limit could make a great house rule for the Elf to emphasize him as an agile light-fighter.

The dagger throwing ability is kinda neat: like an attack spell that would set you back 25 coins a throw. The 4 dagger limit is only useful if you impose a limit on gear, or if you allow the Rogue to use this ability every time he throws a dagger (in that case, you might want to drop it to 2 or 3).

A backstabbing rule is something everyone and their dog have been trying to add into the game to make a viable Thief/Rogue-type Hero. Without stealth or facing rules, this gets really tricky. The facing rules are simple compared to other other rules like it, but in practice, it is still wonky and slows down the game. The alternative "backstabbing as a first attack" is just bland and lazy to me.

I though I'll never say this, but 3.x/4e D&D have the right idea to allow a damage bonus if they can can flank their enemy. That is, if one Hero is one side of a monster and the Rogue is on the other side (see below), the Rogue can get an attack bonus. If this option is used, the attack bonus could be deduced to just a +1 (instead of +2 ). Yes, this would get the players to maneuver their Heroes around, but on the other hand, this might encourage them form taking formation around the door... no what, they would just have the Rogue and Barbarian on opposing sides of the door.

<— Yes, the Wizard is being used as a Rogue. With the Barbarian on the other side, he can back-stab the Orc in this meaty Hero-sandwich (try not to think too hard on what the "secret sauce" is — sorry, I washed-up here form Old Scratch).

Just for the hell of it, here is an other house rule:

As long as the Rogue is not in chainmail armor, he can roll 3 movement dice, and use the best two results. That is, if you roll a and , then it is a 9. You could also apply this rule to the Elf in order to emphasize him as an agile light-fighter.

[Jazzdrummer]

Thanks for the feedback. I like Carl's version of the thief/rogue. My issue was it seemed like he had way too many abilities compared to the other heroes. I mean did Carl come up with his version based on the base default game in mind or a version with added custom rules? Now granted I haven't tried playing Carl's rogue as it is. So I don't know how it plays.

EDIT: After thinking about it I guess it kind of makes sense for the rogue to have all those abilities when his health is so low and he can't use the strongest weapon or armor. I'll have to try him out. Malcadon can you repost the hero card removing the 2nd part of the trap removal ability? I think the dwarf should be the only one with a natural ability to remove traps.

[Malcadon]

Malcadon can you repost the hero card removing the 2nd part of the trap removal ability? I think the dwarf should be the only one with a natural ability to remove traps.

You mean like this:

The Rogue You are the Rogue, a master of cunning and secrecy. You are strong enough to survive many battles in your own right, yet you recognize that sometimes the indirect approach is the bast. You carry the Tool Kit with you, which allows you to disarm traps by rolling anything but a black shield on one Combat Die.

Movement	Attack Dice	Defense Dice	Body Points	Mind Points
2d6	2	2	5	2

Starting Weapons: Shortsword and dagger Starting Armor: None

If anyone wish to use the stat block to present your own Custom HQ Hero, then copy the code and fill-out the text. The stat numbers are hard to find in all the code and text, so after finding "2d6", run across the text to find 1, 2, 3 and 4, then change them to your desired scores. 1 = Attack Dice, 2 = Defense Dice, 3 = Body Points and 4 = Mind Points. (Yes, you can alter the movement dice and gear too.) It is a basic template, and Its not that hard to fill. Enjoy!

Code: Select all

[table border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=40% height=50px][tr][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][align=center][size=200][b]Hero's Name Here[/b][/size]
[img]Place_address_of_pic_here.[/img]
[i]Place fluff text here.[/i][/align][/td][/tr][/table][table border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=40% height=50px][tr][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Movement[/b][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Attack Dice[/b][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Defense Dice[/b][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Body Points[/b][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Mind Points[/b][/td][/tr][tr][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][size=200]2d6[/size][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][size=200]1[/size][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][size=200]2[/size][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][size=200]3[/size][/td][td align=center valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][size=200]4[/size][/td][/tr][/table][table border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=40% height=50px][tr][td align=left valign=middle bordercolor=#666666 bgcolor=#FFCBA4][b]Starting Weapons:[/b] sword
[b]Starting Armor:[/b] None[/td][/tr][/table]

Here is what it looks like without alteration:

Hero's Name Here [img]Place_address_of_pic_here.[/img] Place fluff text here.

Movement	Attack Dice	Defense Dice	Body Points	Mind Points
2d6	1	2	3	4

Starting Weapons: sword Starting Armor: None

[Sotiris]

Okay I played 2 games tonight using the assassin. Overall quite fun. Using 1 die he has a 50% chance to hit so he was missing a lot. But there were a few rare situations where it was amazing like one shotting a gargoyle. I guess it ultimately comes down to how lucky your dice is. Out of the 2 games the assassin 'assassinated' maybe 2 or 3 foes. One was a chaos warrior that was put to sleep by the wizard. The 2nd was the one I mentioned above which was a gargoyle. Pretty crazy. The other was a fimir I believe. Those were the times where he shined while the rest of the time he missed his attack more often than he hit. My son liked him but hated missing so much on the one die. But honestly this is probably one of the best versions of a sneak attack you can implement using this simple system. At any rate, it was an all day gaming session for Father's Day and it was fantastic. Cheers!

Nice! You enjoyed a lot!
That hero is expected to have many miss hits but don't forget the following instances that changing dramatically his success rate: Courage spell, Strength potion, Battle potion and the throwing daggers. But if you still find him weak, allow him to use short swords too.

[Daedalus]

Malcadon, I like that template. It's very accessible as a developing tool for forum display.

[Malcadon]

Malcadon, I like that template. It's very accessible as a developing tool for forum display.

Thanks!

I have been thinking about making more blank templates for monsters, mercenaries and cards in general (each with their own needs). But I'll do that on a dedicated thread. (Where would I even post something like this, on this forum?)