Combat: A Sticky Situation?

[Kurgan]

Interesting stuff, though I never had a problem with a character withdrawing from combat or walking past an enemy without having to engage them.

The new Skullblight monsters in Jungles of Delthrak have a kind of built in "stickiness" if you will. They stop an opposing figure who moves into a square adjacent to them (temporarily), but they don't stop a character from backing off on the next turn, and if they move in to the square adjacent to an enemy, that doesn't make that character "stuck" like they would if they moved adjacent to the Skullblight. Plus a Wandering Monster Skullblight appears next to an enemy, but that enemy can still move away freely on the next turn.

This to me is like the realism of so many other things. You could imagine a character can't retreat because their opponent wouldn't allow it physically or would get a free hit on them as they turned tail and ran (who says they didn't just back away with their guard up?). Or you couldn't run past an opponent because at the very least they'd stick out a leg for you to trip over! But then maybe they'd just be otherwise occupied or you have your guard up so it doesn't make any difference if you want it to happen.

There's a rule based out of the written rules that if you can see a monster outside a closed doorway into the next room or corridor over, no matter how far away that monster is, that you can't search the room/corridor you're in! But if an ally blocks your view, then you can search. But then if the door is a secret door that's open, it doesn't matter if that monster is even in the square right next to yours... you can search no problem. Why? I guess the monster is watching you so you can't search? Or maybe they put their hands out like defense in basketball and stop you from searching all the squares? Or you're transfixed by the presence of an enemy so you can't let your guard down to go feeling around for coins? But another hero there means that person holds the monster at bay while you check under ever rock and in every nook and cranny? Maybe the monster doesn't know about the secret door and didn't see you open it, so isn't paying attention so it doesn't count? This isn't just an anomaly, Avalon Hill has acknowledged it. So imagination takes over and either justifies the weirdness of the rule, or urges you to make a change to something more to your liking based on that imagination.

I'm all for modifying HeroQuest to be like other games. I'm also all about modifying those other games to be like HeroQuest. It's a matter of preference at the end of the day, so carry on!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Revised rule following playtesting and including the "dodge roll" aligned with the Action Dice Mechanism

If you are the only hero on a square adjacent to a monster, or the only monster on a square adjacent to a hero, then you cannot allow a friendly figure to move through your square and you cannot move without making a successful agility roll.

Agility roll: Roll a number of combat dice, shown below, score at least one to succeed, failure ends your turn.

Monsters: Roll a number of dice = 1/2 their movement value
Heroes: Elf (5), Barbarian (4), Dwarf (3), Wizard (2)

...though I never had a problem with a character withdrawing from combat or walking past an enemy without having to engage them.

This isn't the problem that introducing this house rule is intended to solve. The problem under the standard rules is around defending spellcasters, essentially the adventuring party need to protect the Wizard from attack, but in order to do that they have to surround or block him from attack, and in doing so they limit their own attack and movement options and the attack options of the Wizard. The reverse is also true from the Evil Wizard's point of view, if he has a spellcaster in play then he needs to protect them from attack but in order to do that he has to surround or block the spellcaster from attack, and in doing so it limits the other monsters attack and movement options and the attack options of the spellcaster as it blocks his LOS.

For example:

If the Wizard chooses to stay in the square outside the door and the Elf occupies the square inside the door, this blocks all monsters in the room from moving to and attacking the Wizard, however it limits the options open to the Elf (he can't move and can't attack unless a monster moves and attacks him or he uses a missile attack weapon) and it severely limits the options open to the Wizard, as he has practically no clear LOS to cast spells.

If the Wizard chooses to enter the room and stay on the square inside the door, then the other 3 heroes will need to occupy the 3 squares adjacent to the Wizard to block any attacking monsters, which limits the options available to all 4 heroes as they cannot move and the Wizard has practically no clear LOS to cast spells.

Equally if you are the Evil Wizard player and you have some monsters including a spellcaster in a room, to protect the spellcaster you must place monsters either on all the squares adjacent to the spell caster, or all the squares around the door to block hero movement, in either case you severely limit the LOS for the spellcaster rendering them ineffectual.

By introducing the "Sticky Combat Rule" the protective "net" that you deploy can be looser, providing a degree of protection to the caster, whilst still allowing the caster to have LOS, any other characters to have options to move and attack whilst still blocking. It is hard to explain, although the second image that I posted previously gives a very simple example, but until you actually play using the new rule or at least experiment with it then you probably won't get what I mean!