Established House Rules

[knightkrawler]

common sense

My players would tie my noose with that if I'd ever use that term.

[TMU]

common sense

My players would tie my noose with that if I'd ever use that term.

Well, I play with my family so we get each other.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Thanks for all the feedback!

I will cover additional weapons, equipment, artifacts and so on separately - one step at a time!

Agreed that we need carrying limits, I would suggest the following, although common sense (the GMs) should also apply;

Worn

One piece of head gear (helmet, circlet, crown and so on)
One amulet
One piece of body armour (unless otherwise stated such as plate over mail)
Two rings
Two bracelets
One pair gauntlets
One belt or girdle
One pair of boots

Carried;

(Items will need to be categorised into Heavy, Medium, Light - although this will need to take size into account as well as weight)

Two heavy item slots - can be used for heavy or medium
Two medium item slots - can be used for medium only
Unlimited light items, can be held in pockets, belt pouches, boots, backpack and so on

Back to the main list, now modified;

1. Quaffing a potion or similar should be an action as should exchanging items between players (in fact the latter probably should be a whole turn action like searching) - need to review dead/unconcious character rules to ensure potions can be quaffed to save your life!
2. Searching; scrap searching for treasure in a pit trap. Also the logic for searching a passageway/corridor or a chamber/room in general assumes movement yet you can search the whole area for treasure then on your next turn trip over a trap the second you take a step. I intend to replace the search for treasure/secret doors with a single search action that covers the whole area, but may reserve an 'examine' action for specific objects / features in the area such as a well or statue. - amendment removed traps from this list, these will be tripped by movement either direct movement or virtual movement during a search, depending on a roll you would either trigger the trap and suffer the consequences, trigger and dodge, or spot before triggering and get the chance to disarm or avoid.
3. Movement - many mentions in house rules of scrapping the roll 2D6 option for movement, just make it a fixed amount either a standard 12 or as a speed/move characteristic - I think I'll go with a fixed amount as it isn't a race and I imagine normal movement (possibly outside of combat) in a poorly lit and rough cut dungeon to be at a cautious rate so penalties for carrying or heavy armour would be less meaningful
4. The issue around attacking diagonally seems to add complexity and not much value, scrap and these and allow all attacks to be against adjacent targets, ranged waepons would have to be non-adjacent
5. Ranged attacks would have to take into account whether LOS to the target may be partially obscured by furniture, unless you are adjacent to it
6. Also related to combat is the issues around blocking doorways and such tactics, pinning rules need perhaps and a pushback rule (excellent discussion on this elsewhere on this site)? - Push Back - Houserule: Push Back
When a figure loses one or more Body Points during a melee fight, an attacker may choose to use the momentum of the attack to push that opponent back or to the side one square. If there's a wall or other immovable object or another figure behind or next to the opponent, pushing back in that direction is not possible. If you kill an opponent you may take a free step into the square now liberated. Note: A chasm isn't an immovable object! does strength play a part?
7. What about combat, I love the special combat dice but find them a little limiting but these seem core to the HQ experience so I'm not sure about toying with them? I kind of expected the leave them alone response but I'm still tempted for the reason below, amongst others;
Combat especially between low skilled protagonists, such as elf ranger versus a goblin, seems protracted, I hit you, you hit me, too much roll with no impact or roll then blocked...more like an endurance slog between super heavyweights than fast and deadly as I would prefer.
8. Need some sort of advancement / development but based on what you do, so killing an opponent in close combat adds points towards a close combat related skills / ability
9. Opening doors - Monsters opening doors - A monster may open a closed door if the area behind that door has been explored by the heroes. That monster can thus try to stab the heroes' backs when they are trying to block a door...again like it and this opens up the possibility of Heroes securing their exits, barring doors and so on.
10. Death house rules
11. Order of Play - like it but the point has been made that it may slow play down, I also have an egg timer 3 minutes that I use for Space Hulk so in certain situations time pressure could be applied. I am experimenting with another approach, subject to successful play testing, that each of the heroes declare there actions, in any order then the GM determines the outcome

Example;

Player 1 - I'm going to move to the chest and loot it (moves character to chest)
Player 2 - Damn I was going to do that, fine I'll move to the door on the far side of the room and attempt to open it (moves character to door)
Player 3 - I'll follow you to the door and provide some back up (moves character to door)
Player 4 - I'm going to check out that statue before we go anywhere else (moves character to statue)

The GM then determines the outcome of the various actions, the chest looting, examining the statue and revealing what lies behind the door.

12. Intervention
I understand the need to break up the storming-a-room-and-slaughtering-every-monster-before-the-Evil-Wizard-Player-may-even-move-situation, but I do that through tests when dealing with doors, for example forcing a barred or locked door is a test if successful you get the door open swiftly and surprise the occupants i.e. storm the room, if you fail then you get the door open but take long enough that the occupants are ready for you and get the first move (same applies to picking locks and other methods of entry
13. Search in the Presence of Monsters - A Hero may search even though he can see a monster IF that monster has no way to attack that Hero until the beginning of that Hero's next turn - agreed provided the monster has no way of attacking the Hero anywhere in the area being searched
14. In addition multiple opponents in combat will need to be considered, I favour one-to-one rules but with the additional attack dice or bonus for the excess combatants. Front, side, rear

Apologies these notes are becoming increasingly scrappy, I'll write them up in a better fashion over the weekend!

[Daedalus]

1. Drinking potions as an action is gonna run into the same trouble as a spellcaster using a healing spell to avoid death. The rules as written nearly make this only useful when a trap is sprung during movement before an action. In most cases, death comes about from monster attacks, so you're gonna want to adjust your houserule, I think. Others have decided to allow a healing spell to be cast even after an action has been taken. They simply count this against the Hero's next action. You can do the same with healing potions.

2. Searching furniture pieces seperately is a fairly common houserule. Rolling a die for searches isn't common, but I am also in favor of treating assumed movement searches with die rolls. Nice to hear someone else sees the need to treat assumed movement differently. My rules remain nested away in my notebook. I could post them if you want, but you already appeared to have searching covered.

6. Pushback is found in this thread. Looks like you got it down.

7. Some combat ideas that have been mentioned: use a critical hit/fumble die; riposte; combat skills as cards to be played, weapons with extra abilities (such as riposte), skills such as fighting with two weapons. Some overlap with point 8 here.

8. HeroQuestFrance and gravaillon worked up a system that included a Hero sheet with boxes to tic off each time a skill was used. This Kellar's Keep Remasted thread has an edited partial version and some notes in the Legend section that may be of interest.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

1. I've hoping to cover both the drinking potion and castin healing spells to save yourself and others in the revised death rules

8. That is what I had in mind, I might group skills into categories, especially combat related, and will leave space on the character sheet for tally marks then develop the characters between quests

6. I've find a number of threads relating to pushback and similar but I'm not happy with it yet!

Options for push back;

Whilst the models remain generally stationary during combat I picture the actual combat as being far more dynamic, that said, I don't want a hollywood style epic duel, combat in a gritty, enclosed dungeon should be fast, dirty and deadly, lasting seconds and ending decisively with one or the other combatant lying face down in a pool of blood on the floor!

I can visualise an opponent being forced back under a rain of blows from a stronger opponent, as a voluntary retreat or under penalty if you cannot retreat due to 'terrain' or your comrades pushing you forwards and I can also see an opponet struck by a decisive blow but saved by their arnour being momentarliy stunned and their opponent taking the advantage to press their attack home or to pull away, ending the combat, but let's for a minute revise why a push back rule is required.

I won't recount the 'meat grinder' effect here as it is covered more than adequately elsewhere but my rule amendments would prevent that occurring in its traditional form as once in a deathzone you cannot move out to switch characters attacking anyway but you can still use the 'barbarian blocking the doorway tactic'.

This forum covers a number of option to prevent this, expanded door ways and such, but for me this IS a viable tactic in the bulk of engagements so to prevent the combat becoming stale and predictable you need to work out what makes this tactic preferably in the majority of engagements and change it.

1. Most HQ monsters are patsies and they make up for this by their numbers, when outnumbered fighting on a narrower fron for the heroes is an obvious and sound choice so, make the monsters in each encounter (room) tougher and less numerous, for example for a party of four heroes, three monsters (or for a party of three, two monsters), which will encourage heroes, with the advantage of surprise to storm the room and use their advantage in numbers. This is especially true if this storming was combined with a range attack on the way in to whittle the number even more.

2. Ranged weapons on monsters (and also to a certain extent on heroes) are limited in the base game, so I will be simplifying ranged combat and arming up lower level monsters with ranged weapons - your basic orc/goblin grunts are hunter gatherers so should be armed and proficient with bows, throwing axes and similar. This change would mean that a large target standing around in the doorway posturing would be punctured full of holes in moments, necessitating the need to either storm or slam the door and retreat.

Of course, on occasion numbers will not be on your side and neither will surprise which would lead to options other than storming being selected by our intrepid party!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

HeroQuest House Rules - the list so far and better formatted as promised!

Assume US rules as base.
For use in quests with a Narrator (GM/DM) only

1. Searching

1.1 Scrap searching for treasure in a pit trap.

1.2 Remove ability to search for traps, these will be tripped by movement either direct movement or virtual movement during a search, depending on a roll you would either trigger the trap and suffer the consequences, trigger and dodge the consequences, or spot before triggering and get the chance to disarm or avoid.

1.3 Combined search for Treasure / Secret Doors - Also the logic for searching a passageway/corridor or a chamber/room in general assumes movement yet you can search the whole area for treasure then on your next turn trip over a trap the second you take a step. Replace the search for treasure/secret doors with a single search action that covers the whole area, but may reserve an 'examine' action for specific objects / features in the area such as a well or statue. This search will trigger any traps if present

1.4 Search in the Presence of Monsters - A Hero may search even though he can see a monster IF that monster has no way to attack that Hero until the beginning of that Hero's next turn - agreed provided the monster has no way of attacking the Hero anywhere in the area being searched

1.5 Time taken to search – difference between one hero searching a room and four heroes, time penalties, event cards (including wandering monsters) – not just for searching but any time wasting?

2. Movement

2.1 Scrap rolling 2D6 for movement and make this a fixed amount, either 12 or 6 (not affected by armour or stature as I imagine movement within a poorly lit and rough cut peril laden dungeon to be at a cautious rate (although penalties to evading traps or ranged attacks will take such things into account)

3. Retrieving Items from Pack

3.1 Retrieving an item from your pack is a whole turn action, like searching, but may include free actions such as quaffing a potion (i.e. it takes a full turn to retrieve the potion and quaff it) as should exchanging items between players

4. Close Combat

4.1 Adjacent - Scrap the orthogonal, diagonal rules around close combat and allow attacks to be against all adjacent targets, ranged weapons by extension may only be used on opponents in non-adjacent squares

4.2 Pushback, fallback - EITHER - When you successfully hit an opponent in combat but they are saved by their armour/defences, they are considered stunned and MUST fall back into a square behind them (either directly or diagonally behind - their choice) and you MAY press the attack by following into the vacated square and attacking again. If no suitable squares are empty then they are considered 'off-balance' and you may immediately attack again with a +2 bonus. If you kill an opponent in combat, you MAY also follow up as above.
OR - When you successfully hit an opponent in combat but they are saved by their armour/defences, you can choose to push them back (either directly or diagonally behind - their choice) and you MAY press the attack by following into the vacated square and attacking again. If no suitable squares are empty then they are considered 'off-balance' and you may immediately attack again with a +2 bonus. If you kill an opponent in combat, you MAY also follow up as above.
Note: A chasm isn't an immovable object! does strength play a part?

I wrote the above before my response to the last post, so this piece is out of date before even being posted!

4.3 WARNING Please sit down before reading this. Replace the combat dice with a contest, each combatant rolls 2D6 applies any modifiers based on skills, abilities, weapons, highest score has hit opponent, draw means strongest hits or if equal roll again. This would mean in a single roll (or possibly two if drawn) you would determine who had hit who! Next step use a test, 2D6 roll add mods for damage versus a fixed armour value (for example mail might have a value of 7) if greater than or equal to armour value they are wounded – the greater the excess the greater the hit points lost, otherwise only stunned. This test / contest pricipal can be rolled out to all other actions.

4.4 Multiple opponents in combat will need to be considered, I favour one-to-one rules but with the additional attack dice or bonus for the excess combatants. Front (-0), side (-1), rear (-2). Assumes that characters can turn to face an opponent, but if two opponents are positioned on opposite sides, any facing will give either one to the front (-0) and one to the rear (-2) or both to the sides (-1x2).

5. Ranged Combat

5.1 In cover – Ranged attacks would have to take into account whether LOS to the target may be partially obscured by furniture and similar features, unless you are adjacent to it (would include shields!)

5.2 Ranged Contests - Make ranged combat into a contest attempt to hit versus cover, size, speed*, unless target is inanimate or unawares. Need to clarify terminology around speed in the sense of dodging traps and evading ranged attacks (reactions?) and agility regarding climbing or leaping over chasms.

6. Advancement

6.1. Advancement / development but based on the principle of improving on what you do. For example killing an opponent in close combat adds a point towards purchasing close combat related skills or abilities, picking a locked door adds a point towards a lock picking skill, casting a spell, hitting a range target, perhaps even dodging a trap, disarming a trap (but perhaps not purely physical, simple actions like leaping a chasm or smashing down a door)

7. Opening doors

7.1 Monsters opening doors - A monster may open a closed door if the area behind that door has been explored by the heroes. That monster can thus try to stab the heroes' backs when they are trying to block a door...again like it and this opens up the possibility of Heroes securing their exits, barring doors and so on.
7.2 Dealing with locked, barred, bolted and jammed doors - Tests when dealing with doors, for example forcing a barred or locked door is a test if successful you get the door open swiftly and surprise the occupants i.e. storm the room, if you fail then you get the door open but take long enough that the occupants are ready for you and get the first move (same applies to picking locks and other methods of entry)

8. Death house rules

8.1 Need to review dead/unconscious character rules to ensure potions can be quaffed to save your life!, what actions can you take in what state, what happens when you hit zero body or mind points, negative body or mind points, poison and toxins, knocked unconscious

9. Order of Play

9.1 Apply Time Pressure - Could use an egg timer - 3 minutes – in certain quests or situations. Also an idea from those books, name escapes me, but potions and spell effects last in real time

9.2 Two phase turns

Phase 1: Declaration of intent, includes movement
Phase 2: Outcome, includes combat

Example (the player numbers are simply the order in which they spoke up);

Declaration of Intent
Player 1 - I'm going to move to the chest and loot it (moves character to chest)
Player 2 - Damn I was going to do that, fine I'll move to the door on the far side of the room and attempt to open it (moves character to door)
Player 3 - I'll follow you to the door and provide some back up (moves character to door)
Player 4 - I'm going to check out that statue before we go anywhere else (moves character to statue)

Outcome
The Narrator then determines the outcome of the various actions, the chest looting, examining the statue and revealing what lies behind the door.

10. Carrying Limits

10.1 Worn

One piece of head gear (helmet, circlet, crown and so on)
One amulet or talisman worn around neck
One piece of body armour (unless otherwise stated such as plate over mail)
Two rings (can you wear rings and gauntlets)
Two bracelets or pair of bracers
One pair gauntlets (can you wear rings and gauntlets)
One belt, girdle or sash around waist
One pair of boots

10.2 Carried
Items will need to be categorised into Heavy, Medium, Light - although this will need to take size into account as well as weight);

Two heavy item slots, using baldrics or similar straps to sling over the shoulders - can be used for heavy or medium items
Two medium item slots, generally attached to a belt, sash or girdle at waist level and hanging down the outsides of the legs - can be used for medium items only
Unlimited light items, can be held in pockets, belt or baldric pouches, stuffed in boots, backpack and so on.

[Patroclus]

in my opinion, the good about the rules of HQ is that it has no rules... Don’t try to put a rule for everything because you will make a book of 100 pages, and you will change what HQ really is. HQ leaves many things to common sense and gives the opportunity to play many things as GM wants. For example, if you choose that your healing potion needs an action to use it, you can do it, it’s up to you. But if you ask me, it is better to use it instantly but before monster’s attack roll, and other people could say different things. Don’t write it anywhere, maybe another time if your heroes are on a wooden bridge you could say that it’s impossible to drink the potion so fast because the bridge is moving and they have to spend an action to stay focused and drink it.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

A couple of people have mentioned that the proposed changes, at least those relating to scrapping the use of the HeroQuest dice and using a common 2D6 mechanism for all tests and contests, plus the addition of an advancement process may take my proposed rules beyond HeroQuest and these rules may perhaps be better characterised as a custom Advanced HeroQuest variant. I'm intending to get hold of a copy of at least the AHQ rulebook and hopefully any necessary components before making a call on this but if that suits better then I'll continue this discussion in a new topic under the AHQ part of this site.

Any opinions on this? HQ or AHQ?

[el_flesh]

The house RULES.

Whatever the DM says, goes.

That being said, it's a dam good idea to write down the supplementary house rules, and print em out to have on hand, so that they can be referred to when questioned by players that wish to remain immortal.

[Malcadon]

A couple of people have mentioned that the proposed changes, at least those relating to scrapping the use of the HeroQuest dice and using a common 2D6 mechanism for all tests and contests...

Well, with that you might as well be playing Barbarians of Lemuria or something (actually, it is a great, rule-light system). I have played with a number of 2d6 systems. In most cases, they are nice and simple systems to work with. On the other hand, the simple elegance of rolling two dotted knuckle bones don't feel as awesome as rolling skulls and shields to kick ass.

Whatever the DM says, goes.

Thee quintessential rule in any good game of D&D.