10 Custom Characters: Are they *mostly* balanced?

[GimmeYerGold]

Getting ready to finalized some modified and new Character types, and I'd like to know your input if these additions are:
A) not overly-complex, (at-home with the spirit of vanilla HQ)?
B) Mostly balanced?
C) "Your thoughts here"

A few notes:

0) I rolled back starting weapons, and offered some starting armor, keeping a ~175 gold limit on starting equipment, to prevent power creep early on.
1) I removed "Elf" and "Dwarf" as a Character-type to allow players to choose their own race. Race has no effect on the game other than an RPG flavor.
2) I mix UK rules for spell-targeting: any figure in the same room, etc. and also figures you can "see." (Helps beef up the wizard-types)
3) Also UK-style, my armory has 2 armor options and a 2 dice weapon available for wizard-types, so a wizard/druid could reach 2 attack, 4 defense.
4) I have 8 spell groups, so there are plenty of spares for groups with more than 2 spellcasters, and the cleric's power.
5) Keep in mind I'm not going strictly for a specific archetype with these characters, but a character that has a balanced "skill set" of abilities and options that's fun to play, that's what I'm more concerned about. I feel to play to the character's strengths is what makes them unique, and better/worse in a given situation, so that a party of adventurers must support each other to survive.

Happy to answer any questions in the thread! So here goes:

[Gold Bearer]

I'm not sure about the paladin. He's a barbarian with different starting equipment that balances out but he has an extra very useful ability. That makes him overpowered and the barbarian pretty pointless other than starting with an extra attack dice. At least in the standard game he's the only one with 8BP.

I don't think 8BP/2MP is right for a paladin anyway. I would have thought 6BP/4MP or one either way at most. Also it says he can use his skill many times? How many? As many as he likes as long as he has enough BP? The others seem okay.

I think it would be nicer if race did have some kind of effect on the game. Maybe three new artifacts, one for each race and possibly one for spell casters.

[clmckay]

These are really excellent.

My only things to consider are:

The Paladin, I agree that his stats may be too high. 6BP/4MP does feel better, and I think that would be less prone to, lets call it abuse, than 8BP when it comes to unlimited use of the ability and give the Varbarian something to be unique with.

The Bard, the second ability feels clunky. Almost too little. What about 1 Red Die x10 when selling, hiring or buying?

Thief, I understand he's a dwarf replacement, but flavor wise it may make sense to add some thievery. I dunno exactly what, maybe a bonus on chests/treasure searches? Or maybe steal from monsters somehow (that may be too unwieldy). If you play with locked doors and keys, maybe he could bypass those without keys... His BP also feels 1 or 2 too high to me (I feel that way about the Dwarf too).

Monk, like the ability, seems well balanced. I would drop his BP to 5 as a personal preference, 6 just flavor-wise feels too high to me.

Rest - to me, perfect. I'd drop them in my games without touching anything and I bet they'd be perfectly balanced.

[StratosVX]

I'm not sure about the paladin. He's a barbarian with different starting equipment that balances out but he has an extra very useful ability. That makes him overpowered and the barbarian pretty pointless other than starting with an extra attack dice. At least in the standard game he's the only one with 8BP.

I don't think 8BP/2MP is right for a paladin anyway. I would have thought 6BP/4MP or one either way at most. Also it says he can use his skill many times? How many? As many as he likes as long as he has enough BP? The others seem okay.

I would think the Paladin would have more than 2 MP, but I don't think he would be over powered with his ability. All it does is transfer his BP to someone else. He can only do this as many times as he has BP left. All it is doing is shifting where the damage was dealt to the party. The more he uses the ability, the less he can stay in the front lines without dying so I don't see this as being an ability that would be constantly used.

[GimmeYerGold]

Okay, I'm going to try to make a case for this Paladin!

I'm not sure about the paladin. He's a barbarian with different starting equipment that balances out but he has an extra very useful ability. That makes him overpowered and the barbarian pretty pointless other than starting with an extra attack dice. At least in the standard game he's the only one with 8BP.

This was the trickiest one for me. Originally, the Paladin just had the different starting armor, no special skill. I wanted to add something unique, that if put in to practice, would help others, but hurt himself, and limit his capacity as a frontline warrior. As is, a Ranger (Elf) can cast a spell that can ostensibly heal 4 body point of damage on himself or another hero, loses nothing but the spell itself, and still has 2 other spells to cast, but for the Paladin at full health to heal 4 body points of damage (on another *adjacent* Hero *only*) knocks himself down to 4 body points, so he must be very careful now. Since he has this ability, he will be expected to use it to help his friends from time to time, so his 8 Body Points total perk is diminished as both a damage sink and healing sink.

The Barbarian on the other hand, can be more reckless with his 8 body points, and use them in the traditional "barbarian" fashion.

I don't think 8BP/2MP is right for a paladin anyway. I would have thought 6BP/4MP or one either way at most. Also it says he can use his skill many times? How many? As many as he likes as long as he has enough BP? The others seem okay.

I see what you mean, but with the other characters I already have, I wanted to have 2 heroes of each Body+Mind = 10 breakdown, no overlaps, (putting the Fighter at 8/2 would be too OP, for sure) and in a lot of ways, to distinguish a Paladin from a Cleric, I like to play the Paladin as a "legitimized" Barbarian, a Tank with a mission, holy or otherwise, and light on the spells/brains, but still heedful of right/wrong and helping others. Yes, the paladin can ostensibly use the ability more than once, and loses BP each time he heals, for the same amount healed. Some players might see him as a Blood Bag!

Question: Do you think if it was limited to once per Quest, but the Paladin could choose how many points to heal and then lose, that it would help bring balance?

I think it would be nicer if race did have some kind of effect on the game. Maybe three new artifacts, one for each race and possibly one for spell casters.

I would like to factor this in too, but haven't thought of a way right now that keeps it simple, or wouldn't be exploited by my heroes! And also, I've a habit of letting my rules sprawl out of control. I could have just have easily made the Bard a Halfling or Hobbit character, and kept the Elf and Dwarf, but I like seeing my players create roles for themselves, and 10 different characters to choose from seems like a good start for customization! There isn't too much wiggle room for simple minutiae when it comes to stats+perks in HQ, without rewriting the rulebook

[StratosVX]

Question: Do you think if it was limited to once per Quest, but the Paladin could choose how many points to heal and then lose, that it would help bring balance?

Actually, when I read it, I thought the player would choose how many points he could heal.

[GimmeYerGold]

Question: Do you think if it was limited to once per Quest, but the Paladin could choose how many points to heal and then lose, that it would help bring balance?

Actually, when I read it, I thought the player would choose how many points he could heal.

Yep! You're right. I was just reiterating that even if it was a one-use ability, there would still be the option to "donate" a variable number of body points.

[clmckay]

I'm trying to imagine the Paladin. Above all, you know your players and have to design for them.

I see mine with 2 heavy hitters at the front, the Paladin behind them, and the Wizard at the back of the room healing the Paladin out the wazoo. Definitely your description of a blood bag! I'm not seeing him as a heavy hitter, just because it is so tempting to keep him at full BP, behind ranks touching the big guys every couple turns and the Wizard behind him tanking him up.

I wouldn't limit his ability to use to just once per quest though. I like free use, just a tad smaller blood bank.

Its neat to hear your version of a Paladin. I always thought of them as sort of general knights, in service to some sort of higher power. I'd never thought of them as a barbarian type.

[GimmeYerGold]

These are really excellent.

My only things to consider are:

The Paladin, I agree that his stats may be too high. 6BP/4MP does feel better, and I think that would be less prone to, lets call it abuse, than 8BP when it comes to unlimited use of the ability and give the Varbarian something to be unique with.

The Bard, the second ability feels clunky. Almost too little. What about 1 Red Die x10 when selling, hiring or buying?

Thief, I understand he's a dwarf replacement, but flavor wise it may make sense to add some thievery. I dunno exactly what, maybe a bonus on chests/treasure searches? Or maybe steal from monsters somehow (that may be too unwieldy). If you play with locked doors and keys, maybe he could bypass those without keys... His BP also feels 1 or 2 too high to me (I feel that way about the Dwarf too).

Monk, like the ability, seems well balanced. I would drop his BP to 5 as a personal preference, 6 just flavor-wise feels too high to me.

Rest - to me, perfect. I'd drop them in my games without touching anything and I bet they'd be perfectly balanced.

These are good points! I had dug my feet in earlier about the body point distribution, but with your comments here, and Goldbearer's, I could see how I can shuffle some things around!

For instance, I make the Paladin 7/3, leave ability as-is, make the Thief 6/4, (and add a slight treasure perk), make the Monk 5/5, so there are three 5/5 "middle of the road" heroes, and the Barbarian's 8/2 is more unique.

I could up the bard's perk to 2 red dice for an average of 7 free gold per transaction, even if it gets abused by the other heroes asking him to do business on their behalf, it wouldn't produce more than 50 extra gold on average per Quest (to be shared among 4 heroes presumably at about 12.5 gold each)

When you said the ability was "clunky" did you mean the wording? I can work on that too.

[GimmeYerGold]

I'm trying to imagine the Paladin. Above all, you know your players and have to design for them.

I see mine with 2 heavy hitters at the front, the Paladin behind them, and the Wizard at the back of the room healing the Paladin out the wazoo. Definitely your description of a blood bag! I'm not seeing him as a heavy hitter, just because it is so tempting to keep him at full BP, behind ranks touching the big guys every couple turns and the Wizard behind him tanking him up.

I wouldn't limit his ability to use to just once per quest though. I like free use, just a tad smaller blood bank.

Its neat to hear your version of a Paladin. I always thought of them as sort of general knights, in service to some sort of higher power. I'd never thought of them as a barbarian type.

I like your description of the ideal party for this! Poor paladin bloodbag!

For the paladin identity, I was influenced early on by the Warcraft 2 paladin, a sort of brutish knight (that deep voice!) promoted to a holy rank: