Returning after 25 years

[zaleuhe]

My dad sent me a package in the mail and it contained a lot of my old toys. And what to my joy did I find? My copy of Heroquest. So, I'm teaching my boys.

One thing I never understood when I was playing was these Chaos spells, among a few other types of cards...what were they?!? Well, now I know my game didn't quite come complete. Oh well, internet wasn't quite so prevalent back then.

Anyway, I was looking at some of your all's character cards.

1) What are the different color dice? How are they different? i.e. as in Lemmeron's cardshttp://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=2968 I'm assuming it is some varying amounts of skulls, shields, and monster shields.

2) How does the characters base skills interact with weapons/armor? i.e. My barbarian card shows he starts with a broadsword and can throw three attack dice. That seems more of a attribute of the sword than the barbarian. So the Barbarian's really starting advantage is he has better starting equipment than sheer brawn?

3) Continuing with the thought of #2, how does this affect leveling up using the advanced rules?

4) I even saw the use of a magic (purple) dice on one of the cards. How does this interact with the spells?

I'm sure I could find many of these answers spending hours going through the forums. But I'm hoping someone would be kind enough to give me he Cliff Notes version. Thank you.

[cynthialee]

The color dice are a player created modifier. You do not need them to play Heroquest. Unless you are using some house rules to account for their use then do not worry about them.

Unarmed Heroes attack with 1 combat dice. The Broadsword is a +2 attack dice weapon.

There are no official rules for leveling up in HQ. Only via equipment upgrades do the heroes advance. There are a number of player created content for hero advancement.

Again on the Purple dice...they are for some player created content that unless you have a rules set to incorporate their use don't worry about it.

Lemmersons topics are one good place to get an idea how to incorporate the colored dice sets.

[Count Mohawk]

Welcome to the Inn! You can find almost anything on the forums somewhere. Threadomancy is encouraged here; feel free to add your two cents even if the last post is from 2010 or something.

I recommend that you read through the expansions on the main site first before you start looking too hard for custom stuff here. Pretty much all of the original materials are available for download, which is great if your set isn't complete or you want the tiles from the expansions without paying a bushel of money for them on eBay. You do need 14 posts to get access to drathe's US re-imaginings of Against the Ogre Horde and Wizards of Morcar/Zargon, though.

On the subject of the Barbarian specifically, his advantages are the highest Body Point count and better starting equipment. This does mean that after everyone has collected 2,000 gold apiece and bought everything from the Armory, the Barbarian is no better in combat than the rest of the party. Some of our forum members like to fix this by giving the Barbarian a small bonus to his attacks (such as rerolling one combat die, or outright rolling an extra one) and starting him with a Shortword like everyone else (so he still starts with 3 dice to attack).

[Lemmeron]

Hi Zaleuhe and welcome back to Hero Quest !

what you mentioned in #2 of your post was one of the main reasons I decided to revamp and make my own combat system.

A barbarian starts with 3 dice and gets a shield or possibly a battle axe and he is done. 1 weapon or 1 shield upgrade is boring
Other characters get a whole 2 weapon upgrades...
Considering the number of weapons they have, that makes most of them useless beyond different starting equipment names...

The combat dice in the original game are tied solely to the equipment a character has, so an elf in full plate with a battle axe has more body points and hits as hard and defends as well as a barbarian (assuming elf takes a healing spell)

so the poor old dwarf is a gimped barbarian carrying a tool kit.

This made things a real issue if you wanted to "level up" in the original game... as all you could really do was add a 5th combat dice or some form of reroll mechanic.

I really wanted to change all that so once I got hold of the coloured dice it opened up many more possibilities and made the weapons and armour all meaningful - without unbalancing the game.

I have been saying it for a while now, but I will be posting alot more of my cards up soon (we are in the process of buying a house, so time hasnt been on my side lately)

I have a summary page of my projects here http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=165&t=2961
hich I will continue updating so that may help you with a few bits and pieces too.

[Gold Bearer]

One thing I never understood when I was playing was these Chaos spells, among a few other types of cards...what were they?!? Well, now I know my game didn't quite come complete. Oh well, internet wasn't quite so prevalent back then.

There's two versions and there's quite a few differences. The chaos spells are only in the US version so that's probably why.

[whitebeard]

Welcome to the Inn!!

Your observations about the barbarian are correct, but it applies to all characters really. For the base game system 14 quests, the barbarian is the best warrior most of the time so nothing needs fixing there.

And then there is leveling... I personally find it refreshing that there is no leveling in HQ. The entire concept has been taken way too far in D&D and video games. Sure a complete novice can get a a lot better. A veteran warrior can get better at fighting a certain type of new monster... But can anyone really increase their body points? To some extent this models turning with a blow, etc. and a limited amount of personal toughness. But the same dagger to the neck kills all humanoids equally.

Many of us prefer "vanilla" HeroQuest.

Once you get deeper into the game, it may make sense for you to introduce large "barbarian only" weapons, special armor for the dwarf, bows for only the elf, and spell books for only the wizard, etc. But keeping the hero powers round about where they are when they finish in the base system is key to keeping the monsters relevant.

Have fun!

[Gold Bearer]

So the barbarian's underpowered because of no skill.

The dwarf's underpowered because he's a barbarian with a tool kit and less BP.

But everyone thinks the wizard is the most underpowered.

In my experience the elf tends to die first.

They can't all be underpowered compared to the others, that doesn't make any sense.


I personally like levelling up the heroes in certain individualised predefined ability jumps. Adventurer, Champion (just the option to hire men-at-arms and the ability to use all the weapons properly), Veteran, Master, Legend.

The monsters can be kept relevant by adding new or improved ones and having weaker ones in greater numbers. I don't like the idea of taking it too far though with extra BP/MP attack and defence dice. Just some new or better skills to keep it interesting.

It helps if you increase the basic monsters BPs as well. You might want to try this.

1BP, 2BP, 3BP, 1BP, 2BP, 3BP, 4BP, 5BP.

3BP, 4BP with US stats.

It's too easy as standard, especially if you're not using the US stats.

[whitebeard]

They can't all be underpowered compared to the others, that doesn't make any sense.

Was this directed to my comment, below???

Your observations about the barbarian are correct, but it applies to all characters really.

If so, I missed the part in the original post or mine where it was said that the barbarian is "underpowered". But I do see how it could be interpreted that way. I believe the real issue is that none of the three warrior characters are truly UNIQUE. In the base system it's all just a matter of money... the Elf is a Barbarian plus spells and a brain, minus 2 BP (but often has a 4BP healing spell). I'll take that any day.

The wizard is only unique in his limitations. In expansions, spell scrolls are introduced and the Barbarian can read them! So with enough coin, who needs a wizard?

So yeah, with enough money and artifacts, nobody is really special, except the Wizard and not in a good way!

I believe the item / weapon / armor usage restrictions need some extension to give the characters more unique personalty. There are many obvious choices. Others can be found posted throughout the forum.

[Gold Bearer]

No, it was directed at my three previous comments that I've seen multiple times from other people.

Yea, the elf is definitely best but he tends to heal the wizard and then die.

I agree, that's what makes them all seem underpowered and it's the main reason I added the levels.

I might as well post them here. These are just the base heroes ones. Plus dwarven and elven equipment and the elf getting an advantage with a bow from the start, and the barbarian being able to use some new bigger weapons better than the others. Oh and the wizard has two fate points per quest for rerolls, he needs it.

---

Barbarian
Veteran: Mighty Swing

• You attack with an extra combat dice when you make a melee attack if you don't move during the same turn.
  
• You are able to wield a Battle Axe with one hand.

Master: Weapon Skill

• You attack with an extra combat dice when you make a melee attack if you move at half rate during that turn.
  
• You are able to wield a Great Axe with one hand.

Legend: Ferociousness

• Black shields count as skulls when you make a melee attack.

---

Dwarf
Veteran: Axeman

• You are able to wield a one handed melee weapon in each hand if at least one is any type of axe and can use them both to attack if you don't move during the same turn.
  
• You are able to wield Battle Axes with one hand.

Master: Anti-Magic

• You have the option to attempt to counter any enemy spell cast in the same room or corridor or directed at you by rolling a combat dice, on a skull it's unaffected, a white shield counters it and a black shield either counters it or rebounds it back against the caster if the spell is directed at you and either way the spell is then discarded.

Legend: Toughness

• Black shields count as white shields when you defend.

---

Elf
Veteran: Enrichment

• Draw a random spell from the Elf deck at the start of an adventure before you choose you spell set which is used in the normal way.

Master: Enlightenment

• You become a level two Magician and draw an additional two spells from the Elf deck at the start of an adventure before you choose you spell set for a total of three Elf spells which are used in the normal way.

Legend: Fusion

• You are able to cast Combined spells. If you choose one of the non-element spell groups you still pick an element to use and you can discard any two spells when casting a combined spell.
• You are able to cast the Fully Merged spell of your chosen element once per Adventure without discarding any spells providing you still have at least one spell of that element, or at least one Talisman spell if you didn't choose an element spell set.

---

Wizard
Veteran: Summoning

• You can summon the Elemental of the first spell set that you choose by giving up all other actions and using and discarding all three spells of that element.

Master: Wizardry

• You can cast Combined spells with the first spell set that you choose by using and discarding one of the spells that are usually required and any other as a replacement.
  
• You can summon the Elemental of the first spell set that you choose by using and discarding two of the spells that are usually required and any other as a replacement.

Legend: Divinity

• You can cast the Fully Merged spell of the first spell set that you choose once per Adventure by using and discarding one of the spells that are usually required.
  
• You can summon the Elemental of the first spell set that you choose once per Adventure by using and discarding two of the spells that are usually required.

[Diggin]

Fate points... consider that idea stolen.

any chance you have posted some more info about those elementals to summon (wizard veteran) somewhere? i'd like to know more.


oh.. welcome to the forum Zaleuhe

If you want to know more about those coloured dice, some Site is selling them (not cheap, i've been saving for months for a set of 8
and there's a topic about them:
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=2860&p=52415&hilit=green+dice#p52415