Beefing up the Gargoyle

[The Admiral]

The poor Gargoyle always seemed to me to be a bit short changed. He looks all mean and imposing but in reality he is just a Chaos Warrior with an extra defence dice, oooh! In the Final encounter room with the High Mage from the Wizards of Morcar he is even weaker than the CW's of the High Mage's personal guard, leaving him cowering as the badist looking but weediest fighter.

Since getting back into Heroquest with my discovery of the NA version many years ago I have always played the Gargoyle with 4 Body Points, just so he is a little more of a challenge over the CW's.

[Count Mohawk]

Muhuhahahahahahaha! I like the way you think, Admiral!

In my games, the Gargoyle's base stat line has thus far remained at 3 Body Points, but I use it as the quintessential 'special' monster figure, in that except for Verag, every Gargoyle the Heroes meet has a trick to it in the Quest Notes. Just from my Quest Pack "Heralds of Chaos" alone, I have Gargoyles with the following quirks:

• Just a statue, but surrounded by trapped Treasure Chests
• Made of Basalt, with stats Mv 6 | At 5* | De 7 | Bo 5 | Mi 6 (*with the ability to attack Diagonally)
• Special monster with stats Mv 8 | At 4/4* | De 6 | Bo 4 | Mi 5 (*with the ability to attack twice per turn, and the second attack deals Mind damage)
• Soul-linked to a Chaos Warrior, giving both of them +2 Attack and +2 Defend, while the Gargoyle can't be damaged by non-fatal blows until the CW dies
• Appears to be a statue, but springs to life three rooms later, with stats Mv 8 | At 4 | De 9 | Bo 5 | Mi 6 and the ability to cast the Chaos Spell Fireball multiple times
• Blocks the door to the Quest Pack Boss's room and can attack all Heroes in sight at once

[Lemmeron]

As a kid I grew up playing the 1 HP for all monsters hero quest, which worked great for 1 vs 1 games (Hero vs Evil Wizard)

Now I am running games for my family, so 3 heroes vs me essentially...

The first thing I did was change the BP's
Fimir 2
Chaos Warrior 3
Gargoyle 4

I left the rest as single BP monsters including the mummy.

The next thing I did was made all monsters defend with blue dice - so they have 2 chances to defend as per heroes.
That has balanced game play out for 3 of them to provide enough challenge to make it interesting, but mostly they get through just fine.

If i didnt have those dice I would likely have adopted the inn's suggestion of monster body points which gives orcs and mummies extra too.

Since then I have totally re-written the equipment and added the various coloured dice to give the game a much longer playability in terms of progression and a reason to get gold...

since I have also included dual wielding for heroes in my equipment and rules - My gargoyles now get 2 attacks 1 with the sword and 1 with the whip that can be on the same player or a different player - and the whip attacks can be diagional

[Daedalus]

Those are some evil Gargoyle suggestions. My favorite is the multiple attack version with the secondary Mind Point damage. I've posted the diagonal whip idea before, but a 50/50 hit isn't very scary (just 1 AD for me.) An extra 50/50 Mind Point of damage makes for a more threatening scourge. Maybe I'll go with no armor to defend.

[Anderas]

I always wondered about the Gargoyle. If you search it in the base game quests, normally it has special stats.

Double attack is really an evil suggestion. Especially if he has enough BP to securely survive the first round.

[cynthialee]

Just putting the gargoyle on the board as is, is enough to make the players groan and start fidgeting. They are afraid of the dude.

[slev]

I have the gargoye's basic stats fo my game as A4, D5, BP4, MP1. I also give him the option of a one die ranged attack (for the whip).
Beyond the base game quests, he also tends to have some sort of bonus or special ability. This usually is a reflection of the Quest's theme.
Examples include:
Mechanical Gargoyle with diagonal attacks;
Obsidian Gargoyle, immune to spells, magic weapons, and ignores magical armour;
Demonic Gargoyle, causes Mind Damage;
Ice Gargoyle, double BP, but fire attacks and spells do double-damage;
Bone Gargoyle, every lost BP spawns a skeleton nearby;
Molten Gargoyle, every lost BP causes one white die of damage on all adjacent figures.

[cynthialee]

My Gargoyle is a dude you DO NOT want to run into:

Gargoyle
Body 5 Mind N/A Move 6
Attack 5
Defend 5 (Defends on all shields. This right here makes them extremely difficult monsters that can easily kill a silly hero who tries to solo the beast.)

Special Powers for some more powerful versions:
Able to deny the casting of Earth Spells in LOS with out an action.
Able to paralyze a hero with a gaze attack so long as the gargoyle does not move or take any other action.
Regenerate 1 Body Point per turn when in contact with any type of stone. (Which is always in a dungeon. Heroes must smash the bits of the gargoyle after it is defeated to truly eliminated the beast.)
Walk through stone at will. May remain in stone.
Meld with stonework.

Gargoyles are great 'soften them up' monsters that can often destroy a party with ease. It requires every hero at the battle to defeat them.
However I do limit them to a set area. They are not allowed to leave their post and will never pursue heroes. To bad for my players they haven't figured this part out. They see a gargoyle, they curse and mutter and just set to the grizzly task at hand.

[Lemmeron]

I think Milton Bradley stuffed up when they named the evil wizard mortar/zargon instead of Cynthia ...

[Anderas]

Maybe Cynthia is the person behind Morcar and Zargon?