Rescue the Princess: Proposed Improvements (Spoilers)

[iKarith]

First draft of my reply included: WHY IS IT that literally everything in this game with the slightest bit of magic resistance WHATSOEVER is completely immune to fire magic, the ONE element in the game deemed to be "offensive" in nature? But I wasn't being serious (there is the Genie's single 5 CD TexAvery when you need to reach out and touch some…thing, after all. I mean yeah, despite having elementals on the backs of all four sets of spell cards that would inflict some serious hurt on the whatever you wanted … you don't get those powers in the standard game.

The more I think about how combat and magic are implemented in HQ vs. D&D, JRPGs, Middle-Earth, and what I know of HEMA … the more I think I'd like to see what something more akin to actual HEMA and a realistic depiction of magic in which someone would actually want to learn it … yeah, I think that'd be interesting. Armor would be very effective, but … not as much when worn by someone who doesn't know how to fight against someone who does. The occupant would still be quite squishy, hence the desire to wear armor in the first place. Weapon damage would be a problem, but it should be easy to grab anything in the room if that happens. Magic balance would be its tendency to go wild. And people wouldn't "level up". in any meaningful way—only train in their disciplines to maximize their effectiveness when using them.

It'd be a meat grinder of a rule set because enemies would be basically as powerful as heroes. It'd come down to tactics. hmm. Definitely more RPG than board game material.

And that's kind the reason for it, I think: Why is it always fire magic? Because HQ is a board game that's trying to have four theoretically balanced or at least complimentary players, and also because Morcar is a player with everything he can do prescribed and spelled out, not a DM who can fudge the game's difficulty on the fly to strike the right balance to keep everyone engaged, and have fun weaving a world or at least a story. It's a board game, four against one! Even if it's expected the four are going to win most of the time, the one's gotta have something up their sleeve to keep it interesting once in awhile.

Unfortunately, the other aspects basically mean the wizard's combat magic is mostly fire-based. It doesn't make sense to say "oh, he's immune to earth magic!" What good is that? The wizard hasn't got any earth combat spells!

[Kurgan]

Yeah, only three explicit combat spells (in terms of dealing direct damage to the enemy), so if it's going to benefit someone to be resistant to it, it makes sense that would be it.

But yes, why not a bad guy who can't be put to sleep (undead monsters are already immune, higher mind points is a kind of resistance)... or immune to Tempest or Genie? (Genie is a physical attack)

A couple of bad guys are fire resistant, and in homebrew quests it seems natural to copy some ability from a canonical quest I guess. This Brazilian fan-mag released a quest obviously intended for that locality's version of HQ. I'm not sure what expansions (if any) were released for it by '94.

Unless you're incorporating the extra spells from other expansions (WOM for Wizard/Elf, EQP for Elf alone) then somebody will have Fire and somebody won't be able to hit that bad guy with it effectively. The NA version doesn't do this (having a ready-made set of Chaos spells cards for the evil side), but some editions even take the fire spells AWAY from the Heroes and give them to the bad guy (which makes the rest of the quest up to that point harder if you can't use them!).

As far as magic resistance for Heroes, there is fire resistance potion in WOM which only works once. Both EU based WOM and NA based BQP have magic resistance which applies to ANY damage causing chaos spell. Later on good and bad guys get spell-cancelling spells as well, but we are again talking about single-use item/abilities. Yes, there are sometimes fields in which no magic may be used, but I'm not aware of any characters that are completely immune to magic (even the WitchLord has weaknesses).

In Dark Company, there are new enemies that are very hard (or frustrating) to kill, but are much more easily dispatched with magic in general.

The exclusive NA fire ring protects the Hero from two chaos fire spells. So yeah, when it comes to homebrew, get creative!

When adapting this quest, all I did was try to supplement what was already done, in a rather sparse quest with a few glitches, to make it more playable and interesting, rather than just starting over from scratch.

So yeah when designing new spells, why not give him earth based attacks, or water based attacks, etc. My Mystic character uses lightning, wall of water, etc. and also flame and wind based healing spells. It's all in your imagination...!

Even though I'm making up new homebrew stuff, my general philosophy tends to be building upon what was already done or remixing existing standards. Others may want to make something completely original and more power to them. Heroquest is a board game that encourages creativity and improvisation. But it still operates within limits. If you want to take the pieces, tiles, etc and create an entire new game out if it, you absolutely can and I'm sure some have actually done this. In the same way you can take miniatures from Dungeons and Dragons and use them in HeroQuest (not using D&D rules at all), you can do the same with this game. I like the fantasy setting and I'm nostalgic about the characters and conventions, so I tend to try to stick close to it, but I use lots of fun ideas others have come up with, like combat cards, evil wizard deck, extra potions and treasures, artifacts, and have contributed some of my own. But it's still within the general framework and very similar to what was actually released. The beauty is that if you hate some aspect of the game or are bored with it, you can do what you want. You can make the game as complex or as simple as you like. So some people want to take away rolling to move and weapon restrictions, while others want to simulate jumping up on top of furniture, wound systems, gear that wears out, and having limited range on their ranged weaponry and leveling systems for their magic, etc.

The eternal debate about what is "realistic" (and whether this is a good thing) in games will vary widely. Just like some want to have loud slapping and whooshing sounds in their kung fu battles, and others want their handguns to have unlimited ammunition and make bright sparks/explosions on impact (and hits send bodies flying backwards), some will actually want to have these goofy conventions in their game, because it simulates for them some fantasy or other (be it from tv, video games, movies, comics, books or imagination), rather than "real life" (or some theoretical extrapolation in the case of things beyond our science & experience). Each person will say at some point, "I like this aspect of realism and I'm going to use it, but this other thing I'm going to fudge for the sake of fun/balance/challenge." I may think it's silly to have a katana that cuts clean through other swords and blocks projectiles, but if you want it in your game (to simulate some fiction you like), who am I to say you can't?

In my own case, I once contemplated having the Heroes get a salary, that they would need to use to pay for upkeep on their gear, lodging, training, etc. In the end while kind of interesting I thought it detracted from the basic game of dungeon crawling, treasure hauling and monster mauling (what brought me to the party in the first place). Whatever economic concerns in the Hero's life were taken care of by the time he reached the next quest, and the gold in hand is what he has left after taxes, feeding his horse, and everything else, so no need to worry about how much he paid the blacksmith, tailor, ferryman, etc. The buying phase of the game IS fun for a lot of people I play with, so I keep it, rather than just handing out stronger equipment each game to keep pace with the difficulty and represent character growth.

But yes, back in HQ proper, if you are the Wizard and you were saving your two fire attacks for the Boss and it turns out he's immune, well, sucks to be you at that point! What the quest writer is obviously trying to do is to add to the difficulty and force the Hero players to use different tactics. Whether or not they succeeded, or just made the game less fun, is going to be a matter of opinion. We could just get rid of the wizard entirely (instead of rewriting him) and hand out spell scrolls according to some predetermined formula. There are lots of ways to address this. My attempt was to make it easier to get potions (AND scrolls), and to reward heroes that survive several quests, by improving their abilities and options. Some frustration will exist, but hopefully it makes the achievement that much more satisfying. And whether my system is better or worse than another will be a matter of personal taste.

You make great points ikarith, and it could deserve its own thread really!

[iKarith]

Yeah, only three explicit combat spells (in terms of dealing direct damage to the enemy), so if it's going to benefit someone to be resistant to it, it makes sense that would be it.

But yes, why not a bad guy who can't be put to sleep (undead monsters are already immune, higher mind points is a kind of resistance)... or immune to Tempest or Genie? (Genie is a physical attack)

If not for the fact that the wizard's magic was so limited … why not monsters who are immune to magic and those that can ONLY be attacked with magic? I brought up before that undead should be weak to fire and that skeletons would take less damage from swords, but axes and hammers would be as effective as ever. That might be more true with thrusting swords or thrusting weapons in general. There's room in there for a system that has your attack be normal, strong, weak, or ineffective … but THAT part I don't know how to connect to HQ's combat dice, so I'll let that stew for a bit.

A couple of bad guys are fire resistant, and in homebrew quests it seems natural to copy some ability from a canonical quest I guess. This Brazilian fan-mag released a quest obviously intended for that locality's version of HQ. I'm not sure what expansions (if any) were released for it by '94.

Unless you're incorporating the extra spells from other expansions (WOM for Wizard/Elf, EQP for Elf alone) then somebody will have Fire and somebody won't be able to hit that bad guy with it effectively. The NA version doesn't do this (having a ready-made set of Chaos spells cards for the evil side), but some editions even take the fire spells AWAY from the Heroes and give them to the bad guy (which makes the rest of the quest up to that point harder if you can't use them!).

As far as magic resistance for Heroes, there is fire resistance potion in WOM which only works once. Both EU based WOM and NA based EQP have magic resistance which applies to ANY damage causing chaos spell. Later on good and bad guys get spell-cancelling spells as well, but we are again talking about single-use item/abilities. Yes, there are sometimes fields in which no magic may be used, but I'm not aware of any characters that are completely immune to magic (even the WitchLord has weaknesses).

One thing to note here is that a recent review of Warhammer Quest: Cursed City pointed out that GW is NOT known for carefully balancing characters and abilities. It sounds cool, so they do it. And the players will use it or not based on how it works out. They can adjust it in a future edition if they need to. Or not, if they never make one.

MB would have known very little about this kind of game at the time, so we can presume that rumors that GW did most of the heavy lifting are fair. And since the criticism of balance was said to date back to the original WHQ and well before it, it shouldn't surprise much that HQ might be affected by this. Not all sets of spells are going to be created equal. Also did you notice that a major reason for the elf to take either earth or water spells is to give him a heal, and yet the elf spells which are supposed to later replace the elementals for him don't have a heal?

*facepalm*

In Dark Company, there are new enemies that are very hard (or frustrating) to kill, but are much more easily dispatched with magic in general.

Isn't there an enemy that rolls a metric crap ton of CD for defense and any black shield blocks all damage automatically? And in the US localization, it was given several body points too, making it even more silly. I think they appear in one of the other expansions but I do not remember which.

The exclusive NA fire ring protects the Hero from two chaos fire spells. So yeah, when it comes to homebrew, get creative!

When adapting this quest, all I did was try to supplement what was already done, in a rather sparse quest with a few glitches, to make it more playable and interesting, rather than just starting over from scratch.

So yeah when designing new spells, why not give him earth based attacks, or water based attacks, etc. My Mystic character uses lightning, wall of water, etc. and also flame and wind based healing spells. It's all in your imagination...!

In part because people tend to think it unbalances things for the wizard to be throwing spells every round. Although … what if he had to roll a number or higher on red dice to succeed in his spell? What if his spells were only about 50% effective and he had to use them from at most a square distance, well within range of counterattack unless there's some strategizing? And what if some portion of the time when the spell is not effective, there's a chance it could do something that maybe makes your heroes not want to be standing next to him?

What if your mystic fails and instead of the target, it strikes everyone within range wearing armor? Doesn't affect the wizard who can't wear it … but did you give that barbarian a helmet or some plate? What if you could make your fire spells stronger (more likely to hit) at the cost of water spells being less likely? Oh, and what if that applies to utility spells too? Might want to stick to potions, which are enchanted to have a spell's effect and would have been tested before a batch was bottled and sold, so they do what it says on the label… Ah, but potions might be really expensive because of that. Buy the potion or take your chances with the mages…

Again, these thoughts lead to a "not HeroQuest". Interesting maybe, but a different game.

Even though I'm making up new homebrew stuff, my general philosophy tends to be building upon what was already done or remixing existing standards. Others may want to make something completely original and more power to them. Heroquest is a board game that encourages creativity and improvisation. But it still operates within limits. If you want to take the pieces, tiles, etc and create an entire new game out if it, you absolutely can and I'm sure some have actually done this. In the same way you can take miniatures from Dungeons and Dragons and use them in HeroQuest (not using D&D rules at all), you can do the same with this game. I like the fantasy setting and I'm nostalgic about the characters and conventions, so I tend to try to stick close to it, but I use lots of fun ideas others have come up with, like combat cards, evil wizard deck, extra potions and treasures, artifacts, and have contributed some of my own. But it's still within the general framework and very similar to what was actually released. The beauty is that if you hate some aspect of the game or are bored with it, you can do what you want. You can make the game as complex or as simple as you like. So some people want to take away rolling to move and weapon restrictions, while others want to simulate jumping up on top of furniture, wound systems, gear that wears out, and having limited range on their ranged weaponry and leveling systems for their magic, etc.

The eternal debate about what is "realistic" (and whether this is a good thing) in games will vary widely. Just like some want to have loud slapping and whooshing sounds in their kung fu battles, and others want their handguns to have unlimited ammunition and make bright sparks/explosions on impact (and hits send bodies flying backwards), some will actually want to have these goofy conventions in their game, because it simulates for them some fantasy or other (be it from tv, video games, movies, comics, books or imagination), rather than "real life" (or some theoretical extrapolation in the case of things beyond our science & experience). Each person will say at some point, "I like this aspect of realism and I'm going to use it, but this other thing I'm going to fudge for the sake of fun/balance/challenge." I may think it's silly to have a katana that cuts clean through other swords and blocks projectiles, but if you want it in your game (to simulate some fiction you like), who am I to say you can't?

In my own case, I once contemplated having the Heroes get a salary, that they would need to use to pay for upkeep on their gear, lodging, training, etc. In the end while kind of interesting I thought it detracted from the basic game of dungeon crawling, treasure hauling and monster mauling (what brought me to the party in the first place). Whatever economic concerns in the Hero's life were taken care of by the time he reached the next quest, and the gold in hand is what he has left after taxes, feeding his horse, and everything else, so no need to worry about how much he paid the blacksmith, tailor, ferryman, etc. The buying phase of the game IS fun for a lot of people I play with, so I keep it, rather than just handing out stronger equipment each game to keep pace with the difficulty and represent character growth.

But yes, back in HQ proper, if you are the Wizard and you were saving your two fire attacks for the Boss and it turns out he's immune, well, sucks to be you at that point! What the quest writer is obviously trying to do is to add to the difficulty and force the Hero players to use different tactics. Whether or not they succeeded, or just made the game less fun, is going to be a matter of opinion. We could just get rid of the wizard entirely (instead of rewriting him) and hand out spell scrolls according to some predetermined formula. There are lots of ways to address this. My attempt was to make it easier to get potions (AND scrolls), and to reward heroes that survive several quests, by improving their abilities and options. Some frustration will exist, but hopefully it makes the achievement that much more satisfying. And whether my system is better or worse than another will be a matter of personal taste.

You make great points ikarith, and it could deserve its own thread really!

This stuff might get its own thread if I ever get past the random thoughts stage and into having an idea what would make good mechanics for it.

At least in published official quests, the intro text tells you something about the immunities of the boss. The FIRE MAGE is who you're after and he's going to be resistant to magic. Okay, there's a fimir, I'm cooking that SoB because the fire mage is likely to laugh at my fire spell that does one or two BP of damage, if it hits.

[Kurgan]

Okay I'll add some text: "...this Chaos Cleric is not to be underestimated, rumor has it he was trained by a Fire Mage!"

As for the Elf not having a healing ability with his new spells, point is well taken (and they forgot to put the magical Bracers artifact into the quest, though Phoenix's fix for that was cool). By then you just have to hope he's acquired the Armband of Healing or stashed a Spell Scroll or a few potions. My upgrade system basically makes that a very likely scenario... he and the Wizard could be swimming in potions before long! Why give so many bonuses? It's not just for variety but also building towards those unfairly-hard-to-the-point-of-being-broken quest packs (much easier than revamping them all to be less difficult).

If you want to see what I think of making the Wizard "too powerful," step right this way...

(since we're getting way off topic)

[iKarith]

I noticed the Elf spells had no healing looking at a rules supplement Phoenix put together, actually.

[Kurgan]

It's correct. Several of the EQP Elf spells are pretty cool, but you could say without the heal it's weaker than just him picking Earth or Water. Criticisms have been made of the WOM spells as well (which are open to the Wizard and the Elf). If something seems less useful the player is less likely to choose it. I might start introducing salesmen characters in-game to advertise the benefits of the different spells/equipment. Be careful, some of them might be selling snake-oil!

Other people have their own solutions but for me...

The idea that the Elf is too weak and doesn't have enough magic I attempted to remedy by letting him draw a spell scroll at champion level. So it's like he has 4 spells (and that random draw could be healing or something else). And at knight level, he gets two draws, so like having 5 spells. Granted, I'm limiting the pool of spell scrolls, but there are some good ones in there (majority are taken from KK & ROTWL, but I used one homebrew scroll from the Inn, and introduce the EQP/BQP scrolls as well).

Spell scrolls come up even more in my homebrew rules as they can be random draws from the Treasure deck (chance of getting a ruined scroll though) AND for the spell scroll draw as being a consolation prize from searching an non-notated Sorcerer's table when you haven't used up any of your spells (I use it as a one-time recharge after a search).

I want to reward the heroes for surviving many quests over time but we'll see if it makes the game too easy. I suspect it will be okay because the quests I'm hoping to work towards with people are the much harder ones.

But, whether the Elf has healing or not, someone else can always heal him, it's just that if we're talking about using the healing as a way to survive death (something nobody gets in the EU rules), he would be weaker without that. Then again he's generally harder to kill than the Wizard anyway.

[Kurgan]

I had forgotten that there is a second version of the "Escape" Spell... from the EU based "Wizards of Morcar" expansion, which allows the Chaos sorcerer to transport instantly to ANY UNOCCUPIED SQUARE on the board. So perhaps that's the easier fix than designating a transport spot (as per the Game System version of "Escape" spell).