Ye Olde Inn

Staying with the official game system and its expansion packs (without additional cards for spells, potions, weapons etc) I wonder if should be wise to reset the stats between the expansions.

Playing HeroQuest is a lot of fun: searching for treasures, achieving gold coins by completing quests. The heroes buy better gear until they own everything that they need which is somewhere after half way through the main game. From this point the hunt for treasures feels kind of obsolete even though this is a fundamental mechanic in my humble opinion.

On the other hand it can be quite frustrating to lose all your gear. Another aspect is the expansions are harder than the game system (by the way. is there a poll for the difficulty of the expansions? i.e. from 1 - 10).


So, to reset or not to reset that is the question!

No, don't do it.

If your heroes are fully equipped, Kellars Keep and the Witch Lord are a little bit easy. Then you can apply a rust spell here and a twist wood there so that they can keep spending their gold on something.
With beginner's equipment, it's not possible to play KK and ROTWL

The Ogre Horde and Morcar's Mage are a step up from there, you'll see some certain hero deaths even with full equipment; so if they don't know how to spend their money you can (strongly) hint that mercenaries are worth a try.

Elf Quest and Barbarian Quest are incredible difficult if you play them as written, so, full equipment it is again.

You can offer your heroes some potions beyond what they can buy in those heavily overpriced potion shops - give them a heroic brew for 45 gold or a potion of strength for 60.
You can offer them also some cheaper mercenaries, like a Pirate with AT 2, DE 2, move 10, 1 BP, 1 MP for 30 gold...
I made also some intermediate equipment that fits between the others and some equipment which is better than the base game, but incredible pricey.

Additional offer in the shop, additional rust spells... the game keeps being interesting.

KK, WL, Ogres, BQP and in parts also EQP play multiple quests in a row without shopping. That's awful because it takes away the treasure hunt aspect of Heroquest - what do you need 1000 gold for if you can't go shopping? So I would try and find a way to let them go shopping at least every two quests. We tried something here for Kellars Keep; great thanks to mikemacdee.

This is very helpful!
Unfortunately I never made it thus far even though I own KK, WL, AOH and WZ. The party fell apart in the beginning of WL after they failed twice, second time without their gear (my fault). Well, writing this makes me see things clearer what happened back then. Next time I am gonna try it your way.

Regarding the mercenaries. They are only available as of WZ if I remember things right. But you are talking about mercenaries in generell, right? So I should offer them those helping hands before that (i.e. in AOH). Will think about that aspect, too.

The reason why I've avoided bringing self created items like potions and gear in so far is that I was afraid for the balance of the game. But rust and twist wood will work fine. Maybe there is even a way to bring additional items in, but by now I have no clue which ones won't break the balance of the game.

I read the linked thread of your's and I love the idea of bundling small quest packs in a more meaningful order and the chance to go shopping. My first idea to avoid that particular problem was to put a merch in the starting room or one of the unused rooms at the beginning of a quest. But that way it should work fine, too. I will definitely try KK in that specific new order. Very cool, thanks Anderas!!

NO, you should not reset at all.
If you do they will not be able to survive. Also if they lost the Spirit Blade they will probably never kille the Witch Lord in the Return of The Witch Lord expansion.

You are right. I tried to keep the progress unblocked. Critical artifacts like the spirit blade would have found their way back to the group. But as stated above I am now convinced that this is not the best / good solution for the progress of the game.

From now on I will not reset the hero's stats but set other impulses to maintain the gold flow and the character development.