(AHQ) House rules for a better game... got some?

[Gunzhard]

Skill tokens is a brilliant idea! I'm going to have to ask Sjeng for some help making cards!

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this:

if you want to avoid different classes, just put some artifacts in your quests

.

I was also thinking, regarding your combat idea; everything seems fine except the actual roll, if only the GM is rolling. The "surprise roll" is intertwined with so many other rules in the game via bonuses or penalties etc... I feel like all of that would be lost. Unless, in the general rule, the GM just starts out automatically with penalties to his surprise role and gains no benefit from sentries etc... what do you think? The idea is to make it more difficult for the GM win surprise but also still allow benefit of special effects and Elf sight etc...

[Sjeng]

I think he means special artifacts that add some sort of skill or attribute to your heroes, changing them from their starting stats. Good idea with the skill tokens too!

Tell me what you need, provide me with artwork, and I can photoshop something for ya.

[Gunzhard]

I think he means special artifacts that add some sort of skill or attribute to your heroes, changing them from their starting stats. Good idea with the skill tokens too!

Tell me what you need, provide me with artwork, and I can photoshop something for ya.

Sjeng that is great thanks! ...I'll need to come up with something first but I will take you up on that.

[Patroclus]

Skill tokens is a brilliant idea! I'm going to have to ask Sjeng for some help making cards!

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this:

if you want to avoid different classes, just put some artifacts in your quests

.

I was also thinking, regarding your combat idea; everything seems fine except the actual roll, if only the GM is rolling. The "surprise roll" is intertwined with so many other rules in the game via bonuses or penalties etc... I feel like all of that would be lost. Unless, in the general rule, the GM just starts out automatically with penalties to his surprise role and gains no benefit from sentries etc... what do you think? The idea is to make it more difficult for the GM win surprise but also still allow benefit of special effects and Elf sight etc...

You can keep the surprise roll if you like. When you open the door roll one dice normally for the GM and one for the Heroes. It’s not a big deal. My problem is that I don’t like the rule when the Hero wins, he places the monsters wherever he wants in the room and the GM is allowed to move them one square for each. And when the GM wins, he places his monsters and the hero is allowed to move them one square each and (the GM) gains a free attack. This ruins the strategy of pre-made maps because every monster is placed to its square for a reason(ex a monster behind a pit trap). Maybe it’s better to always put the monsters as the quest says, and when the GM wins he gains the free attack, when the Hero wins nothing is happened.

About classes, you may want to put a berserker, a thief, etc. We all do that. We are making skills for our heroes but very carefully to not affect the balance of our game (this depends on the quests of each GM, because other GM’s creates very difficult quests and others don’t). And there are many times where we do changes to some of our skills even after lots of games. But don’t give those skills from the beginning. Let them buy skills with “training” after every campaign by paying gold. So, on your first campaign let them play normally with the basic original stats. And then you will have an idea for how much help you can give to your players with some skills, so it’s nice to make a list of possible skills for them to buy every time they “go back to town”. The cost for these skills are also depends on the gold you give to your players for each quest. It’s nice if your players have enough money to buy one skill after every campaign (5-6 quests). You can put a restriction for how many skills they can “carry” (ex 2 skills for each quest) or you can put some skills as upgrades from others (but always have in mind that your wizard should be the one who have the best spells or else he won’t be so valuable).

[Gunzhard]

You can keep the surprise roll if you like. When you open the door roll one dice normally for the GM and one for the Heroes. It’s not a big deal. My problem is that I don’t like the rule when the Hero wins, he places the monsters wherever he wants in the room and the GM is allowed to move them one square for each. And when the GM wins, he places his monsters and the hero is allowed to move them one square each and (the GM) gains a free attack. This ruins the strategy of pre-made maps because every monster is placed to its square for a reason(ex a monster behind a pit trap). Maybe it’s better to always put the monsters as the quest says, and when the GM wins he gains the free attack, when the Hero wins nothing is happened.

So I've been hashing this out quite a bit... here is the problem so far. If the GM always places monsters the battle almost never moves into the room. I've tried with a single-square door and a double-square door. The cause; there is no reason for the GM to not place his monsters right at the door every time; unless of course he has a rare spellcaster or some ranged weapons at which point he still just needs line of sight or a small buffer zone.

If the Heroes place monsters, let's say near the farthest corner of the room; then on their turn they can charge in bringing the combat into the room.

The other issue with the GM always placing monsters is that the Wizard will never be able to place a Fireball template if there are monsters right at the door, at least not without hitting his own guys.

The 'free moves' are weird though; especially if the GM wins initiative... why move the monsters 1 square when the GM is just going to move them immediately after? Yeah I guess the free-move might disrupt certain things like range/spells on occasion but mostly it seems pointless and counter-intuitive.

Anybody have any brainstorm ideas here? I'm thinking maybe something like this: for all randomly-generated rooms; use the rulebook placement/combat except that the Hero's don't get a free-move when the GM wins init. Then do something different for pre-generated rooms...

OR perhaps... if the GM does always place monsters... if GM wins init he attacks first; if the Heroes win init, the Heroes(not GM) get the free-move then they attack. That way the battle could still progress into the room and the Wizard could still use the template when they win, and the monster placement intention is not too disrupted... what do you think?

The other game feature that keeps the battle in the hallway is (most) ranged combat (spellcasting, shooting arrows); which requires no-movement per each phase. SO your ranged guys will basically always be stuck out in the hallway until xyz... perhaps this is not much of an issue though.

[knightkrawler]

I am not a fan of adding mandatory rolls to HQ, like the initiative roll you suggest, as there would have to be stats. Surely a goblin hasn't the same initiative value a chaos warrior does.
Some ideas for optional rules addressing, among others, the initiative problem
(Can't believe I haven't posted them in this one yet):

1. Order of Play
At the beginning of each round, the Heroes may decide among them who gets his turn first, second, third, fourth. That makes for some tactical diversity, as well as funny trial/error situations in trying to fool the Evil Wizard Player...
It helps to have Turn Markers for each Hero. I use those from Descent. They have a red cross on one side (move made in that round) and a green circle on the other (still gets to move in that round).
OR
Everyone - including the Evil Wizard Player! - rolls dice to determine order of play at the beginning of each round. Here it also helps to have Turn markers.

2. Intervention
Immediately after a Hero has opened a door and finished his turn (including movement/action), ONE monster from that newly opened room gets to move and attack.
That breaks up the storming-a-room-and-slaughtering-every-monster-before-the-Evil-Wizard-Player-may-even-move-situation. Mostly, this monster will put itself between the one hero having entered the room and the others. Interesting fights have occurred during my playtests.
That Monster may ALSO move and attack normally when it's the Evil Wizard Player's next turn.

3. Tough Monster
In addition to 1 Black Shield blocking 1 Skull, 2 White Shields block 1 Skull. This may be a valid option for the game system quests.

4. Push Back
When a Hero or monster takes 1 or more Body points from its opponent IN MELEE, he may decide to
a) exchange squares with that opponent
OR
b) push his opponent back one square (if there's a free square behind or next to the opponent) and moving to the square that's just become free.
All this is independent from Movement points or actions.
It makes for some interesting situations and freer flowing combat.
Of course it makes sense to make exceptions for bigger monsters like Ogres and Gargoyles and maybe even Chaos Warriors.

5. Search in the Presence of Monsters
A Hero may search even though he can see a monster IF that monster has no way to attack that Hero until the beginning of that Hero's next turn.
(That means, for example the Hero can search, even though the monster can attack the other hero blocking its path, killing him, and then being free to move up to the searching hero... cause the monster's attack for that turn is done).

6. No monsters in play
If at the beginning of the Evil Wizard player's turn, there are no monsters in play, he rolls 1 combat die. Skull means he can put 1 Wandering Monster in any room already explored by the Heroes (but none any of them is currently in); Black Shield means he can put up TWO wandering monsters. The Monster(s) may move and attack (if possible) immediately.

7. Monsters opening doors
A monster may open a closed door if the area behind that door has been explored by the heroes. That monster can thus try to stab the heroes' backs when they are trying to block a door...

[Gunzhard]

Hey knightkrawler, thanks for the speedy response heh but I was specifically talking about Advanced Heroquest in that last post. It's my own fault for not putting AHQ in the subject title!

But yeah I think I found a good solution for placement/combat. Using a 2square door; the GM always places monsters. If the GM wins init, he simply attacks first. If the Heroes win init, they get to move the monsters 1 square, then they attack first.

The question is - for pre-generated rooms does the GM get a bonus to surprise rolls? ...and then what if the Hero's have a treasure map displaying that room?

[knightkrawler]

Oh...
Uhm...

...
My bad.
...

PLAY HEROQUEST, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!

[Gunzhard]

Heh I played it some... but AHQ is my game, despite being hard to find, lacking even enough miniatures in the box to play the built-in mission, and having some needless complexity I still love it. It's definitely better with some tweaks though... the guys in this thread have already tossed in some great ideas!

[Gunzhard]

Oh gosh I just realized that I've only just recreated Slev's combat rule, that I specifically asked him about a few months ago hah... so much for inspiration, just poor memory.