Open Field Combat

[Daedalus]

For those quests that have a board with lots of open space, say for instance a large forest, how do you handle monster placement? Do you treat it as one gigantic room and place all the monsters at once that are in line of sight to the players? Since the original board is fairly insular (narrow corridors, confined small-to-medium sized rooms), combat is pretty straightforward - go down the corridor, open door, fight. Rinse, repeat.

But how do you do it for large open spaces where all the monsters are visible right from the beginning? Seems to me that's a quick path to a Hero slaughter!

Take, for instance, this wilderness geomorph set from Heroic Maps.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/1 ... Wilderness

There isn't really much of anything there that would obscure line of sight from one end of the map to the other. How would you use that? Say your Heroes start at one corner of the map and you have monsters sprinkled throughout the map. Do you as the EWP just place them all on the board as soon as they enter the map and then rush them all at the heroes on your turn?

Second what The Road Warrior said about placing all of the monsters working. A Quest wisely designed doesn't require houseruling.

Since Z/M is free to retreat forces and muster for one assault, I'd add that an average assortment of monsters could prove too powerful for a large, open board. Forces would sometimes need to be weakened where the addition of extra monsters in one coordinated combat magnifies monster damage-potential. Slower monsters used at the front of a Quest wouldn't apply to this general nerf, as they could be reached and killed beforehand. Lots of Hero ranged attacks also mitigates this threat.

If available ranged attacks are too few or monsters are fast and plentiful, I'd say the Quest goal should be to mostly engage monsters in smaller groups. This will make use of more of the board rather than ending up with one Z/M-coordinated battle that could have been done in a smaller space in the first place.

One simple way to achieve seperation is to stipulate in the Quest notes that once a monster is placed on the board, it must move towards the Heroes to attack. This can pretty much end up being one big battle anyway, but at least it can be reduced to more managable waves.

Another solution could be to create a Quest map demarked with walled monster zones that aren't seen on the board. When a zone is crossed, the monsters within are placed. Night, blizzard, or fog conditions could explain this reduced line of sight.

A third trick is to place monster traps from the EQP and BQP. If multiple Wandering Monsters were set for a Quest, lots of ambushes would spring up with small groups of monsters. The Wandering Monsters could even be set up to change type as the Quest progresses. For instance, a Monster Card deck could be created with Goblins, Orcs, and Fimirs. After moving onto a monster trap a Monster Card is randomly drawn. Next, roll a red die. The number of monsters is determined as 1-2: 1 monster, 3-4: 2 monsters, 5-6 draw an additional Monster Card and roll again.

[Goblin-King]

As mentioned, it all really depends on what the point is with the open area.
Some suggestions:

Add a view distance mechanic. Or as Daedalus suggested, zones.
Print out a view distance grid on transparent sheet to use as overlay on the map to check which monsters becomes visible.

Sprinkle the area with rocks and trees the monsters can hide behind. Just a few squares are enough that LoS is blocked until the heroes get closer.
An open area doesn't need to be empty!

(An interesting question: How does searching work in an open area? Does it count as ONE big room?)

[knightkrawler]

A third trick is to place monster traps from the EQP and BQP. If multiple Wandering Monsters were set for a Quest, lots of ambushes would spring up with small groups of monsters. The Wandering Monsters could even be set up to change type as the Quest progresses. For instance, a Monster Card deck could be created with Goblins, Orcs, and Fimirs. After moving onto a monster trap a Monster Card is randomly drawn. Next, roll a red die. The number of monsters is determined as 1-2: 1 monster, 3-4: 2 monsters, 5-6 draw an additional Monster Card and roll again.

That could open up the skirmish considerably, battle clusters being everywhere. The map shows a lot of wandering monster traps, but upon triggering the monsters come from a location to be determined by a die roll. In addition, a die roll determines the monster type. As per Wandering Monster rules they attack where applicable. This makes it very coincidental concerning monsters, locations, time... everything is a surprise and can work out as little combat situations or a medium-sized battle, depending on the outcomes of individual fights, the later the more important. These mechanics potentially work best, especially for places like glades and marketplaces, but you'd also have to determine that a trap is triggered every time a hero ends their move on there to avoid heroes standing around like stones.
As D. said, this doesn't take much houseruling at all. My ideas were basically for a whole new set of skirmish rules to be played within a HQ context, but this Wandering monster trap idea is best, at least right now, concerning what I can think of from the top of my head.

[Goblin-King]

However it should probably be trigger zones rather than single tiles.
In an open area you can't reliably expect heroes to step on specific tiles.

[Daedalus]

I'm with you about expanding monster traps into zones to make them more reliable. I had considered making ambushes from monster traps part of the monster zones description, but then went with separating the two. The main problem I see with traps and zones on a large board is M/Z needs to do more square counting to match things up with the map. An overlay like you mentioned would work, even just a stick with the correct length could do the trick if the length were applied with a consistent square-inclusion requirement. Placing seemingly random tiles as a landmarks could also make things manageable. Grid letters around the boarder could also be added, but maybe that would be distracting.

(An interesting question: How does searching work in an open area? Does it count as ONE big room?)

Searching is defined in terms of rooms and corridors. I'd say an outdoor area is neither. For that reason, I wouldn't call such a board one big room. New rules are called for.

A map-only marked zone of 5x5 squares works for me, since the largest room of the HQ board is 6x5 squares. Five squares also centers on a single square well if a trap or secret door is located on it. Treasure searches could work with zones if the center location of the treasure was marked on the Quest map. I would place such treasure location squares with monsters or traps. Combining treasure and monster zones would work well without location squares, as well.

[knightkrawler]

For searching, a letter for the open field area does the trick.

A) Searching for treasure is not allowed in this "room".

Or whatever rules might apply.

[mitchiemasha]

Some good ideas here. How about using turns, a turn counter. Dungeon strike has something on the board like this. I own it but never played so not sure how it works. Different monsters could be added to the room after so many rotations of play. Different hordes at different stages etc. If not using A DS board a simple 20 sided die could be used. The countdown is triggered on entering the room/open area and represents the passage of time.

[mitchiemasha]

As for searching, you'd have to say, near that tree or rock etc, be in the 5x5 radius and that area would be considered searched.

[Teldurn]

Everyone's advice was wonderful, thank you all so much!

So here's the thing. I'll be playing this online through Roll20/Hangouts. Roll20 has this function where I can assign the whole map to have dynamic lighting (fog of war) enabled and each player's token gets their own view radius, whatever I want to assign. Because of this, I think some levels (like the forest one mentioned earlier) will benefit from being set during dusk or night. And me as Zargon/GM will have the responsibility of only being able to activate those monsters that are within the view radius of the players' tokens. This would probably solve the issue of all monsters on the whole board activating at once and mob-rushing. In addition, since we also use turn order where the players all go first and I go last, this means the characters will have a great chance to reduce the numbers of the monsters before I even get to go.

In regards to searching, my current thinking is that I will restrict searches to only whatever a player's view radius is and of course only when there are no other monsters present.

More details about this quest will be posted once I get started on the next phase of HQP development. I'm practically finished with the character sheet and then I will move onto Quest Pack development. Stay tuned for more.

[knightkrawler]

In regards to searching, my current thinking is that I will restrict searches to only whatever a player's view radius is and of course only when there are no other monsters present.

How do you handle overlapping search areas and marking them when searched?