by Bareheaded Warrior » Tuesday March 29th, 2022 5:41am
I have put the following rules in place (at least these are my house rules specifically made to address the issues that you have mentioned) and as I introduced these gradually and play tested them extensively, I never really noticed what a difference they made collectively to the game until I recently started using the Companion app for a campaign that obviously is just vanilla and the difference is significant!
Most of these have already been suggested but that isn't surprising as most of the ideas originated in this forum anyway.
1. All Goblins are armed with either a spear (allowing a diagonal attack) or a bow (2AD ranged attack) which gives Zargon the option to put three monsters into attacking a door blocker, two spear armed Goblins attacking diagonally or to use ranged attacks along the long diagonals to take pot shots or a combination of the two)
Note: Prior to running a Quest you need to mark each Goblin on the map to indicate whether it is using a bow or not, I tend to roll a red die for each and if it is a 5/6 then that Goblin is bow armed (and add one to the roll for every non-Goblin in the same room) or you can just make it up!
2. Skeletons are armed with a scythe which allows them to attack diagonally (exactly as a spear like above)
3. Mummies can cast a Fear spell once (which can seriously hamper your door blocker, especially the Barbarian who is especially vulnerable to mind attacks)
4. The pass-through rule that allows movement through a square occupied by a friendly figure is suspended if that figure has an opponent in an adjacent square (this represents the fact that you cannot step aside to let someone pass you if you are in combat and has some beneficial side effects)
5. Advanced Combat Rules – including Push back rules (see below for details)
6. Limit searching to once per room, although that doesn't really impact on the door blocking issue, but it does slow down advancement which increases the difficulty
I've included these ones specifically as they don't involve significant re-engineering of the Quest maps, monster placement or extra monsters from the quest book, but there are options there also if you want to go down this route, such as double width doors and placing a pit trap outside a room, alarms that open additional doors or summon wandering monsters etc
Advanced Rules – Combat
38.1 Free Attack
If an opponent attempts to move away from a square that is adjacent to you (not diagonals even if you have a diagonal attack weapon) and you have no other opponents on an adjacent square, then you are granted an instant free attack roll that can be defended against as usual.
• You cannot make a free attack if you are in a pit
• This attack does not end the victims turn (unless it kills it!)
Note: This is an exception to the usual “attack only on your turn” (in much the same way as a Wandering Monster attack)
38.2 Follow Up
If you attack an opponent in an adjacent square and your attack results in that opponent being killed, you may choose to follow up by moving into the now unoccupied square.
Note: This movement MAY result in a free attack directed at you – see above.
38.3 Push Back (apologies for the length of this rule but in most scenarios, it is straight-forward but whenever I publish the short version, someone always says “but what happens if there are three Orcs in a row and …”)
If you attack an opponent in an adjacent square and your attack results in that opponent losing at least one body point, then you may be able to push them back.
Note: in normal play this is optional, you can choose whether to push back but if you do push back then you must follow up.
• You cannot push a monster back if that monster has the ‘no pushback’ attribute (Mummy, Troll/Fimir/Abomination, Dark Warrior, Gargoyle and potentially some bosses – see Quest Notes).
• You cannot push back a monster that is in a pit
• You cannot push back a monster if you are in a pit
38.4 Where can I push them back to?
You can only push a monster back into a square that it could normally move to using a single point of movement i.e., there are up to three possible squares that you can push an opponent back into, the square adjacently behind or the two to either side.
You cannot push an opponent back through walls, through closed doors, or into squares covered by furniture or squares that are diagonal, these squares are considered blocked. If all three of the valid squares are blocked, then you cannot push your opponent back.
• If the square behind your opponent is unoccupied then you push them back into that square
• If the square behind your opponent is occupied but either or both squares to the sides of your opponent are unoccupied then you push them back into the unoccupied square – if both are unoccupied then you can choose which square to push them back into.
• If all the valid squares are occupied, then you may only push back your opponent if you can free up one of those squares by moving any ONE figure to a square that is adjacent to it, is unoccupied, is not blocked and is not pit or chasm.
• You can push a monster back into a pit if the pit is unoccupied
• You can push a monster back into a chasm as these are never occupied
Feel free to try any or all of these and let us know how you get on!
= white skull, one "hit"
= black skull, one "hit"
= shield, cancels out one "hit"
Editions: 1989 Original Edition [89], First Edition [FE] and Second Edition [SE], 1990 Remake [90], 2021 Remake [21]
HQ Golden Rules Rule Fixes based on Original 1989 HeroQuest.
HQ Common Notification System to identify squares on the board
Rewards:
