How difficult is the US version?

[el_flesh]

If you want to make your wizard like LoTR, you can make him pay for training to give another AD; and you can make some staffs found that have even more magic dmg.

Depends on the house rules! Might not want an OP wiz!

[knightkrawler]

By that point there are options for a successful wizard.
I made a spell that lets you once per quest fight like a swordmaster (4AD, 4DD)
until you get hurt.
...and so on.
I care for my wizards who - I hope - will be more popular and less squishy.

But 2 AD should be the absolute maximum for them in melee,
3 AD makes my eyes watery,
My mages - I made rules for a Darkmage (similar to a chaos sorcerer), a Guild Wizard (the original one, more or less), a Druid (or Elementalist),
and a Necromancer (which might not be the greatest translation - think less body, more spirit summoner - kind of a ghost whisperer practicing real necromancy) -
should max out at 2 AD, with many spells to choose from, which give them options for battle and ranged combat.

[Leander]

After playing enough quests to have at least 3 attack and 4 defensive dice each (except for the wizard) I understand why the game is still easy. Monsters live longer if they have more BP but heroes are rarely hit with their 4 dice. Oh, wait, the barbarian already had five dice. A skeleton still wounded him but only because of a very rare and odd roll.

Maybe a system like Dungeons & Dragon has is better. (dice roll) + attack bonus >= armour class of target.

[Daedalus]

Roll them dice, don't throw 'em away! Remove them and you remove a lot of the game's character. They don't require dry math, and it's more impressive when your handfull of dice results in a lot of successes.





If you want things to be tougher, balance is the problem. Your ideas about monster abililies is already partially addressing that. Since you plan to give the Heroes skills, why not give Zargon some cards to counter them? Even if the Heroes horde their skills for the boss, you as the Zargon player can also selectively hold onto a hand of cards to make your boss an epic advesary.

Those mosters were created as relative pushovers so that the game could progress quickly. However, a well placed, rule-altering card could occasionally break things up when you put some whoop-ass on a Hero. What do you think?

[knightkrawler]

The combat dice and the battle system of HeroQuest are its heart and soul, definitely.

When I started changing and adding to the rules, my first line which never to cross was this:
Do not use special dice from other games (like Descent, the first D&D boardgame, BattleMasters, whatever).

So far, my HeroQuest version relies heavily on cards, lots and lots of them,
and uses:
* as many HQ combat dice as a group can get their hands on,
* d4, d6, d8 for movement (different races, no changing, looking, and such - every hero gets his own die for movement and a set bonus and that's it)

But I digress.
Fact is: HeroQuest is HeroQuest because of its combat system and those awesome dice.

[Leander]

How many dice do you have? I have 12.

[knightkrawler]

[Leander]

[Leander]

How many dice is the wizard allowed to have? US version -> Wizard's Cloak & Wizard's Staff... -> 2 attack dice, 3 defensive dice.
In the German Master Edition he can buy a special robe for 350 gold and bracers that give him +1 attack dice (ERROR! -> should be defensive dice +1). Do you just play the US version and the wizard has a maximum of 2 and 3 or may he also wear the bracers for an additionl DEFENSIVE die?

My thoughts are that I limit the wizard to 2/3 and the other heroes to 4/4 (axe, basic defense of 2 + armor and helmet but NO plate armor) or 3/5 (longsword, basic defense of 2 + helmet, shield and armor). Having 5 dice and the axe or 6 defensive dice is too much in my opinion. If Orcs cannot hurt the heroes anymore it's just boring. Moreover, the movement restriction of the plate armor is annoying, too...who wants to roll just one die and crawl around like a snail?

[knightkrawler]

additional.
He maxes out at 4 Defend dice.