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Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: December 31st, 2014, 9:07 pm
by Daedalus
I have some comments about the Two-page Dungeon Crawl rules that I hope can help:

Attacking Rule It should be mentioned that a standard attack is against a figure in an adjacent square. Probably also want to mention up front that some melee weapons allow attacks from a diagonal square. Currently, diagonal attacks are only mentioned as a parathetical addition to dual-weapon attacks.

Equipment Rules Mention of shooting weapons not being able to attack adjacent squares feels redundant. Shooting restriction was already covered under the Attacking Rule. Maybe it's just me.

Line of Sight and Room Rules Consider making the outer two LOS rays solid to make it more obvious they point to unobstructed square-centers. For things that block LOS, I'd change "creatures" to "squares occupied by creatures". The LOS diagram might be improved by including an example of an exactly diagonal shot between two diagonal opponents (the 2 M's). Is LOS from C to the question mark blocked, or not?

                  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M . . . .?
                  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. M
                  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... . .
                  . . . . . . . .
                  C
The HQ rule for unlimited figures sharing a pit trap square should only be taken to apply to Heroes, as the rule is found under player movement. You need to make the same differentiation in your rule, or it will be possible to move unlimited opponents into a pit against a character. The attack rules don't cover this, as there is no adjacent square to attack from within a standard pit, even for just one opponent and one character.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: December 31st, 2014, 11:17 pm
by cornixt
Good points, thanks! I will make some adjustments, hadn't thought of those things.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 1st, 2015, 4:26 pm
by Big Bene
When thinking about my own Dungeon Crawl (and every experienced playder eventually does so), I always made the hero movement a mixed value, with a dice roll added to a fixed "movement" attribute, that is individual to the hero.
So, for example, the four original HQ heroes (which I didn't intend to use) could have movement values like:
Barbarian: Mov 1D6+5
Wizard: Mov 1D6+4
Elf: Mov 1D6+6
Dwarf: MOv 1D6+3

This would reduce the random factor, but not eliminate it.
Would also make it easier to use modifiers (such as for heavy armor), as they could be applied to the fixed value just once and would not have to been calculated for every dice roll.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 2nd, 2015, 2:34 pm
by cynthialee
I've often considered a similar idea but they all end up with no chance the heroes may roll snake eyes and only get two movement points...
The chance of a bogus roll for movement is what makes my favorite monster the Goblin so fun.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 5th, 2015, 11:17 am
by cornixt
That's why my Goblins move 3D6 - fast enough that they will probably catch up easily, but you never know.

The problem comes for the slow guys like Mummies. I'm thinking about giving them an extra 2D6 movement if they roll a 1 on their first D6 roll. That way you can't rely on being able to outpace them.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 6th, 2015, 7:09 pm
by Daedalus
I hadn't noticed that movement problem. A similar solution that keeps the cap slower at an 11 move is to reroll a die if 6 is rolled and add 5 to the result. Slow them even more by adding just 1, 2, 3, or 4 to the first 6 die roll. If your against a static modifier, add d3 rounded down: :roll6: + :roll1: = 6, :roll6: + :roll2: = 7, :roll6: + :roll3: = 7, :roll6: + :roll4: = 8, :roll6: + :roll5: = 8, :roll6: + :roll6: = 9

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 12th, 2015, 3:24 pm
by cornixt
Here is what I have done in response to Daedalus' comments:

Adjusted for the attacking rule and shooting rules.

I've been meaning to update the line of sight diagram for a while since this very thing was discussed on another thread recently. Looks like I'll have to redo it from scratch since I lost the file I was using to generate that picture. To conform with allowing to attack diagonally through an occupied doorway (which is essentially the same situation), I'm going to allow exact diagonal sight between two diagonal monsters. It's a tough call to make though, and I might change my mind in the future.

Pit trap - it is a weird condition, but now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense for there to be more than one creature in a pit that you can climb out unless the pit is bigger than one square. I think I was going for simplicity for multiple characters falling into occupied pits, but it actually just makes things awkward.

I'll upload a new version when I've had a few proper playtests with it. I'm going to stick with regular D6 numbers in the descriptions for all future versions - if I want this game to be useful outside of the HQ community then I can't expect people to buy obscure dice even if skull&shield _is_ better. I'm still avoiding all modifiers to diceroll values except in the case of HQ monster defense, but I think I will dump that too and make it a note in the advanced rules for using HQ quests.

New stuff:
I've been playing around with the idea of an optional card system for keeping track of items. Has anyone seen anything like this before and know of any drawbacks? The character card has the basic values in the upper corners, which can then be covered up by weapon cards that are being used, or added-to in the case of armour cards. There is a spot for the current health which requires either a token to slide around if you aren't worried about it accidentally moving, or number of tokens if you are. I haven't worked out how to deal with cash other than playmoney or writing it down. Everything in current use is upright, everything else is sideways. Each card will have all special rules on it with a different symbol/colour.
(the numbers in the picture are not all correct, colors/fonts/shapes/etc are not final, hope to squeeze in some pics too)

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 13th, 2015, 12:52 am
by gootchute
I've considered something similar to your card inventory, only with tokens. That's a good mock-up.

On movement... I had a random thought a few months ago which I have yet to play-test in HQ. I was going to test it and make a new topic, but since random rolling is being so heavily discussed here, why bother!

Movement and Turn Order
This optional rule is for those who want a little more randomness in their games of HeroQuest. It integrates random die movement and "initiative", as defined in RPGs, into a rules light but drastically different way to play The Game.

•There is no Hero Turn or Zargon Turn. There is simply, The Round.
•All heroes roll their movement at the start of the round. They must use separate dice and place them in front of their character sheet for all to see.
•Zargon counts down from 12 to 2. When a hero's rolled movement, or a monster's fixed movement is called out, they will act. Heroes beat monster's on a tie; heroes tied among themselves decide mutually who acts first.
•Effects/spells that last a turn will now last until after the next turn of the hero or monster which created the effect/spell.
•The Round ends after all heroes and monsters have acted. Begin a new round by having the heroes roll their movement dice again.

Sorry if I'm highjacking your thread, but what does everyone think?

[This topic is continued at Initiative &I Integrated Turn MOD]

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 13th, 2015, 5:05 pm
by mitchiemasha
That's a new take on initiative. I've spent some time on thinking of a good way. Even wording various techniques can be quite hard. I liked the idea of drawing tokens or rolling a dice and adding it to your mind value (this brings MP more into the game). The Hero who want's to play first reveals his token. A Hero with a higher total can choose to play before them.

Initiative for me is an essential game mechanic. It really spices up team interaction. Enabling a wizard to play first in 1 round but last in another can really change/effect how a game plays out, especially on difficult quest.

There is an attempt at a few write ups in the download link i've put somewhere.

Cornixt. That's a good idea with cards.

Re: Two-page Dungeon Crawl

PostPosted: January 14th, 2015, 11:04 am
by gootchute
Not to toot my own horn, but I like comparing move roll to monster speed. It's about as close to the original rules as possible in an integrated turn mod. No new die rolls or complex activation process. It just pushes the rolls to the top of a round.

Cool effect, potions of speed can be used after rolling to bump initiative.