Minor Houserules: Unarmed Attacks, Jumpy Elves

[Farwatcher]

Hi all,

Working on my own collection of more extensive houserules, I've come up with a couple of minor rules that seem to fit in smoothly with the base game, so I thought I'd share them here.

Unarmed Attacks: A hero without a weapon rolls the same number of Attack dice as their Starting Attack Dice, but monsters roll 2 extra Defend Dice against an unarmed hero. (So the Barbarian always punches harder than the Wizard.)

Jumping: A hero may jump over a number of squares per turn equal to their current number of Movement Dice. (So normally a maximum of 2 squares, or 1 square if burdened by Plate Mail/3 squares if speed-boosted.) Most heroes must roll anything but a Skull to jump over a square, but the Elf succeeds by rolling anything other than a Black Shield. (A small bonus for the Elf, for a little bit of parity with the Dwarf.)

-FW

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I, too am working on my own collection of more extensive house rules, so in the interests of sharing...

Unarmed Attacks: A Hero without a weapon rolls 1 Attack Die, but the defender gets to roll an extra defend die

The Barbarian always punches harder than the Wizard anyway due to him having the following special ability:

Special Ability: Battle Rage: As you attack a foe you fall into a berserk rage, sacrificing your own safety to press home frenzied attacks. Whilst in this state your attack dice are increased by one, but your defence dice are reduced by one. This state ends when, at the start of your turn, there are no monsters visible to you.

A couple of questions around your proposed Jump rule

[*]What would happen to a Hero wearing plate armour whose path was blocked by a two-square wide chasm?

[*]Why does the Elf need more to catch up with the Dwarf, he already gets to use all the same weapons and armour as the Dwarf plus he gets spells which may be worth more than the disarm ability in many situations?

I do like and already have in my own rules that things that boost your movement also give you a bonus to jumps (I use red dice for jump tests and similar)

[Farwatcher]

A hero in plate armour can either jump one square and choose to fall into the second square (following the usual rules for voluntarily falling in/climbing out) or take off their armour (I don't allow heroes to change their armour more than once per turn, so they'll have to weigh crossing the chasm against their Defense Dice).

Making the Elf a better jumper is mostly for flavour, but I find that the Dwarf's extra BP + Disarm ability gives him an edge over the Elf, particularly in the early game. As a passive ability, being jumpy also makes the Elf more on-par with the Dwarf as a scout, which I think is worth encouraging.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I think the 'bonus' for the Elf's jump is fair enough, not essential but as you say it adds some flavour, personally I have converted all those types of tests like Disarm, Jump and others to use a red die, for example Jump would be roll a red die and get 3+ to succeed (4+ in the standard rules) and it makes bonuses and penalties easier to manage, you just add one to your roll for a +1 bonus etc.

I still have concerns with your plate armour jump rules, but feel this is opening a big can of worms, long running debates that have never really been resolved on this forum, around fixed versus variable movement for Heroes, and the Plate Mail impact on movement but without going into all that it doesn't make any sense to me that something heavy like Plate Mail armour, so heavy that it comes with its own movement penalty, should suddenly weigh less if you take it off and carry it. If anything, wearing something on your body as opposed to carrying it, makes it easier, hence ruck sacks.

The option to voluntarily fall into the second square won't end well if it is a bottomless chasm!

Thinking of your Elf jump bonus, perhaps the Plate Mail penalty would be better as a -1 penalty to jumps, instead of a one less red die when moving penalty after all when moving around the dungeon in the absence of monsters, I wouldn't expect the Heroes to be moving flat out at maximum speed, quite the opposite, I would expect they would be moving cautiously in an unfamiliar and dangerous environment so wearing heavy armour wouldn't have any significant impact on their speed, in the presence of monsters then yes fast movement would come into play, but generally you are only talking about moving a few squares, equivalent to perhaps 2-10 metre dash typically so again would plate mail really make a significant difference?

Actually the more I think about that the more I like it, Elf +1 jump tests, Plate Mail armour -1 jump tests…

Also on a separate note I think your unarmed attack rule has a flaw, the Barbarian for example unarmed combat against an Orc he would roll 3 AD, Orc would roll 4DD, but if the unarmed Barbarian then found a Dagger he would drop to 1AD and the Orc to 2DD, so the Barbarian would be less effective if armed than unarmed.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

With regards to the unarmed attacks - I've posted my thoughts on this topic already - along with many others Lair of the Orc Warlord

The continuing debate around Plate (Mail) Armour penalties is Plate Armour

That said around "Jumpy Elves" (i.e. giving the Elf a +1 to jumps) I think I will include that in my House Rules, and combine that with the Elf NOT being allowed to use Plate Mail Armour (as this would negate his/her jump bonus as that is the penalty that I apply for wearing Plate Armour rather than the tradition -D6 Movement) mainly because at the moment I'm working on the Heroes 'End State Differentiation' or lack thereof as under the standard rules the fully equipped Barbarian/Dwarf/Elf are pretty much the same as each other in terms of their Attack/Defend values, with my Barbarian's Battle Rage special ability and now the Elf's Jump Bonus and Plate Ban, it restores some much missed differentiation between the Heroes even in their equipment end state.