Their distributions are as follows:
Attack Dice
Exclamation point: Critical success
Hammer (2 faces): Attack success for some characters
Swords: Attack success for other characters
Dot with a half circle: Support
Dot with a full circle: Double support
Defense Dice
Exclamation point: Critical success
Shield (2 faces): Block, defense success for some characters
Arrow: Dodge, defense success for other characters
Dot with a half circle: Support
Dot with a full circle: Double support
In order to see their potential in HeroQuest first you must know how they are used in the game they were designed for. In Warhammer Underworlds characters have one or more attack actions. These actions list the range, number of attack dice rolled, target symbol for a success (sword or hammer), damage, and special properties such as cleave or knockback, if any. Attacks are generally use 1-3 dice.
Defense is listed as a number and a target symbol for a success (dodge or block). Defense is generally 1-2 dice. Characters can also take an action do go on defense, in which case they count both dodge and block symbols as defense successes. Some powerful attacks can ignore shield symbols which makes heavy armor a liability in some cases.
When a character makes an attack they choose an available attack action, roll the number of dice listed and count successes. The target rolls their defense and counts their successes. If the attacker beats the defender’s successes, their damage is dealt. Damages is a fixed value as opposed to the margin of success used in HeroQuest
So far pretty simple right? But what about all those other symbols? There are two aspects to these dice that could make combat much more interesting: support and critical success.
Support
If one friendly character is adjacent to your target you also count the support face as a success in addition to the normal symbol needed. If there are two or more friendly characters adjacent to your target you count both the support and double support faces as successes.
This applies to defense as well, if the defender has one friendly character adjacent the attacker they count the support face as a success in addition to the normal symbol needed. If there are two or more friendly characters adjacent to the attacker they count both the support and double support faces as successes.
Critical successes take precedence before normal successes. If one side rolls any criticals, and the other does not, character with the critical automatically wins the roll. If both sides roll criticals they will cancel out 1-1, and the side with the most remaining criticals wins. If there are no more criticals after canceling them out, compare normal successes.
How might we use these dice in HeroQuest?
For HeroQuest we have many options. Firstly you could have heroes use hammers and blocks, while monsters use swords and dodge. Use the rules for criticals and support as explained above. A critical would render all non-critical opposing successes invalid. The margin of success would obviously be used to determine damage dealt, as we are used to. This is the simplest interpretation.
In addition, you could make weaker warriors such as the wizard and goblins hit on swords, while the real fighters such as barbarians and fimir hit on hammers. Maybe the only monsters in your game to defend with shields are chaos warriors, or named villains. You could base it strictly on whether the model looks armored, so instead of giving an orc model with chainmail and a shield extra defense dice you upgrade their target symbol from dodge to block. Where you draw the line is up to you.
You could have unarmored heroes defend on dodge symbols with 2 dice, and allow heroes with armor to instead defend on block symbols but lose their natural defense dice. Or maybe they only lose the natural defense if defense dice from armor is equal or higher than 2: so a hero could get a helmet and roll 3 dice looking to dodge, or buy more armor losing their 2 natural dice. In this case a hero with plate, helmet, and a shield would roll 4 dice looking for block symbols, instead of the 6 standard combat dice they would roll.
If you wanted to you could give heroes a static attack value, and have their target symbol change depending on the weapon, while also setting static damage values for weapons and monsters.
You could handle critical successes differently: perhaps instead of negating all of an opponent’s roll, each critical attack die deals 1 damage ignoring defense if not stopped by a critical defense success. Afterwards compare normal successes. Personally I will be using crits to trigger additional effects like knockback and stun rather than additional damage.
Overall I think this would make combat much more tactical. One caveat, I would limit support through doorways. No staff wielder should be able to help diagonally through a door. This is to cut down on doorway jams and encourage moving in and using the space of the room to your advantage to gain support.
