Ye Olde Inn

My current playgroup can't get enough of AHQ, and they already completed 2 full campaigns (Shattered Amulet and my reworked version of Dark Necropolis).
Both quite large campaigns where they gained alot of Fate points and magic items. They also trained quite some Characteristics.

This caused my end fight vs the Dread King in The Dark Necropolis being a bit of an anti climax.
Before entering the fight they went back to town to replenish all their Fate points (8 each) and then just used up all of them during the endfight.
There was hardly any chance of actually dying and they just went in without any real tactics.

The fight itself looked pretty cool though:


Once finished they were already looking forward to the next adventure with their current heroes. So they don't want to retire them yet

Since I'm not a fan of taking away their gear or nerfing their stats, I had the following house rule in mind to spice up their future adventure:
A Hero is allowed to use only one Fate point per Expedition phase or Combat phase.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? I would love to hear some other ideas.

You could add more powerful monsters as wandering monsters to get rid of some of those fate points along the way.

We had a party of characters with very low stats(no re-rolls, no fiddling with the numbers, no picking races in character generation); one started with 3 wounds and the lowest possible bravery, the other 3 had 2 wounds, and generally low stats all around. Almost all just about got the lowest possible intelligences. The dwarf was the only one who had a decent mind, he rolled the only 6 in any stat, giving him 10 intelligence. a Dwarf wizard is not ideal, but the weak team played remarkably well and their weaknesses made it more fun. After two missions, the dwarf wizard (Frizbeard) increased his wounds to 3. But I think he will never be able to go higher than 4 wounds per the rules. I'm hoping to see how well they do against a Minotaur Lord in their 3rd adventure:

Dieterdg84 wrote:My current playgroup can't get enough of AHQ, and they already completed 2 full campaigns (Shattered Amulet and my reworked version of Dark Necropolis).
Both quite large campaigns where they gained alot of Fate points and magic items. They also trained quite some Characteristics.

This caused my end fight vs the Dread King in The Dark Necropolis being a bit of an anti climax.
Before entering the fight they went back to town to replenish all their Fate points (8 each) and then just used up all of them during the endfight.
There was hardly any chance of actually dying and they just went in without any real tactics.

The fight itself looked pretty cool though:


Once finished they were already looking forward to the next adventure with their current heroes. So they don't want to retire them yet

Since I'm not a fan of taking away their gear or nerfing their stats, I had the following house rule in mind to spice up their future adventure:
A Hero is allowed to use only one Fate point per Expedition phase or Combat phase.

Has anyone else encountered this issue? I would love to hear some other ideas.

I call it the "FP accumulation issue", and yes, it can potentially break the game. It's not commonly reported because most people don't stick around enough to reach that point. Only serious players get to come across it. You're really into the game, aren't you?

Surprisingly enough, you won't find any fix posted online as far as I can tell. The major AHQ variants don't even address the issue at all!

What matrices are you using? The issue could be a sign that the number and PV of the monsters you're picking are not a suitable match for the adventurers. You may need to start including stronger monsters along with spellcasters and specialists. Another quick fix is to increase the GM's chances of success so that a DC is used upon rolling equal to or lower than dungeon level (instead of a 1 for any DL). If you're playing multiplayer, then give the GM more DCs.

Limiting the use of FPs works as a quick fix, but then you'd have to limit the matrices and dungeons as well or the game would become unbearably difficult. You may probably want to increase the FP allotment as the adventurers become more experienced, though, or you'll be stuck with the same matrices and exploration tables. You'll have to find the point of balance that works best for you if you're going to keep using pre-made monster matrices. To me at least, sticking to monster matrices nowadays is like preferring graph paper to draw your dungeons by hand instead of taking pictures with your cellphone. Do yo still draw your dungeons by hand?

I can't recommend Slev's system enough for generating monsters (the one that worked anyway). It scales itself to party strength taking training, spells, and experience (FPs) into consideration. You may find it in my bestiary.

Another part of my approach is that FPs may be used to acquire feats that spice up the encounters. Also, my adventurers start slightly lower stat wise than their AHQ counterparts but within the same spectrum, leaving more room for advancement. You can read about it in my redesign notes.

Nice setup, by the way. It looks fantastic!

RECIVS wrote:To me at least, sticking to monster matrices nowadays is like preferring graph paper to draw your dungeons by hand instead of taking pictures with your cellphone. Do yo still draw your dungeons by hand?

Speaking of purists, this is me almost eight years ago, drawing my dungeons by hand and developing my own notation system to keep track of the number of turns played and what happened in each one of them. I managed to perfect it to the point of being able to recreate an entire game session! It was abandoned years ago, however (along with combat tables and monster matrices), because it requires considerable time and effort that I prefer to spend on the actual game. It was definitely the right decision; there's no way I'm going back to that.

RECIVS wrote:I can't recommend Slev's system enough for generating monsters (the one that worked anyway). It scales itself to party strength taking training, spells, and experience (FPs) into consideration. You may find it in my bestiary.

I'd like to know more about the system you mention but don't know where to find it or your bestiary.

b_0 wrote:I'd like to know more about the system you mention but don't know where to find it or your bestiary.

It seems you missed this post.

RECIVS wrote:

b_0 wrote:I'd like to know more about the system you mention but don't know where to find it or your bestiary.

It seems you missed this post.

It seems I'm not able to access it without signing up for some sort of password or something. Is Slev's system located anywhere else?

b_0 wrote:It seems I'm not able to access it without signing up for some sort of password or something. Is Slev's system located anywhere else?

It's also posted on my AHQ webpage. You may find it here.

I'm afraid the one in the current version of Reforged doesn't work. I still don't see why it had to change.

Thanks. It seems more complicated than the regular monster matrices with more dice rolling work and calculations, even if it might be more versatile. Is Slev's original version available somewhere, I'd like to see what that looks like.

b_0 wrote:Thanks. It seems more complicated than the regular monster matrices with more dice rolling work and calculations, even if it might be more versatile. Is Slev's original version available somewhere, I'd like to see what that looks like.

It's actually quite simple and easy to use once you get the hold of it. Some examples are included. It can generate groups of enemies ranging from 1 to 24 monsters that can be assembled on the go. As I said in the post linked above, putting together the appropriate monster matrices to do the same in the original way requires much more work (believe me), and in the end, they could never be as flexible.

You may find Slev's version here.