How to Get the Most Variety Out of the Basic HQ dice

[whitebeard]

Another vote for the simplicity of the original dice! Great thread.

I have not yet seen truely devasting damage in this thread. You could do 2 AD and if a hit goes undefended then you roll a red die for damage.

[sadkitchen]

I always wanted to get a set of the colored dice with normal sides (3 skull, 2 white shield, and 1 black shield) in a different color (red or black) just for special artifacts.

Example
Aegis shield: Roll 1 additional defense die. On this additional defense die only, count an extra white shield for each shield rolled. (White or black). No Wizard
Death's Scythe: Roll 3 attack dice and 1 special attack dice when attacking. If the special die comes up a black shield whomever you are attacking cannot defend. No Wizard, Two Hands (no shield)
or even
Orc's Shield: Roll 1 additional defense die but only defend on black shields for it.

(wording would need to be improved for all of them before they could be truly made into cards but you get the idea)

-SadKitchen

[Goblin-King]

You could easily add special effects much like that using just the normal dice.

Sword of Power: Roll 3 dice in an attack. If you roll a skull on all dice the attack cannot be defended against.
Angelic Ward: Roll 2 dice in defense. If both dice rolls a white shield the entire attack is negated.

Or just to make things completely insane...

Mace of Madness: Roll 3 dice in an attack. You must roll black shields instead of skulls, but each shield count as 5 skulls.
or
Sword of Lightning: Roll 2 dice in an attack. If any black shields are rolled, all skulls are ignored and each black shield counts as 3 skulls.

[mitchiemasha]

Or even make the special effect happen when you roll a total mix.

Cloak of feathered wings: Roll 3 dice in defence, a mixed roll of both shields and a skull, fly back to any previously explored area.

Or rolling just 1 skull in attack or shield in defence triggers special.

Shield of shock Roll 3 dice in defence, roll only 1 shield and any skulls rolled count as a free counter attack.

I also like a berserker special ability where at the beginning of the turn the player roles all combat dice and movement dice at the same time. All skulls rolled can be spent in any order after any amount of movement. A fully equipped hero that's just drank a potion could potentially kill a lot of monsters in 1 turn. Fast way to clear out a room.

Then there's the good old fumble,
Roll all opponents shields in attack and defender gets a free Counter Attack.
Roll all opponents shields in defence and attacker gets Follow Through. Skulls rolled can be used on adjacent monsters.
I especially like the last one... The sheer force of your blow slices straight through your victim, smashing on to the next.
or attached to a blade, Razor... Your blade is so sharp it effortlessly passes through your foe, slicing them clean in half and smashing on to the next.
This could also be roll all skulls in defence. I might end up using roll all opponents shields to result in a broken weapon. Your weapon takes to much of the blow, suffer the loss of BP and your weapon is broken.

[QorDaq]

So; firstly... Great topic for discussion.

Next, a disclaimer; I love novelty dice. I do. And many HQ fans are in the same boat in that the uniqueness of the original dice are part of the charm of HQ. But beyond this I collect dice, especially unusual ones.

I make that statement to get it out in the open from the get go that I am not argueing for or against the use of additional specialized dice. I think there is room for both approaches depending on the interests of the group/GM inoved.

Personally, I want a full set of the colored dice, I want to see what playing with them is like. I think they could add a new twist to a beloved game system.

I also think that had there been differently colored dice and assorted distributions of Shields, Skulls, and so on from the beginning we would not be having this discussion. More and more games these days are branching out into specialty dice, something that was not so common in the late 80s when HQ was in development. So having the one color/type of die at the time was already "Breaking Convention" to some degree. If MB had introduced us to two or more die types at the time (something they likely never even thought of), we would take it in stride now I think.

Now to the topic of the flexibility of the single white die type in HQ. Yes, it's there. As others have already illustrated a range of variable uses for the dice I won't expand much on that, except to point out one house mechanic we used to use ocasionaly, that of more accurate weapons.

As an example a
Short Bow (Sword/ Axe/ whatever), of Accuracy:
Roll 3 dice to hit. (Or more if needed to ilustrate trully excetonal items.)
Maximum Damage = 2. Ignore any dice results rolled beyond two Skulls.

This mechanic came about in an effort to improve some attacks without creating weapons that did riiculous amounts of damage and having to power creep Defensive gear. Though similarly: armors, items of protection, potions, and so on, could add additional dice to roll thus improving the chance of being protected, without actually protecting against greater amounts of damage.

We did similar for weapons that needed to be very deadly without having massive dice pools;

Sword of Sharpness
Roll 2 Dice to hit.
Damage = 0-3. If at least one die results in a skull showing then add one additional point of damage (Maximum damage of 3 total).

So you see, I am not against the idea of finding creative ways to work with the existing dice, and I think there are plenty of reasons to stick with the originals.

But, ironically, I remember discussions "Back in the day" from some purists who felt that using the dice in any way beyond what was listed in the rules was unecessary because it complicated a system whose strongest selling point was it's simplicity. Same with adding or tweaking Monsters, Gear, Quests, or what-have-you.

I mention that last only to point out that modifying the basic rules of HQ has been controversial pretty much from the beginning.

I think this is an excellent topic though, because there are so many different ways of upgrading rolls (or down grading for that matter), whether one uses unique dice, adapts the originals to new purposes, tweaks weapon or creature stats, what ever methods folks use, having discussions like this one does more than simply defend or refute a particular approach. It opens up the opportunity for people to share the various ways that they have discovered to impacted their game. Which I find useful and very cool.

maj!

[Goblin-King]

I also think that had there been differently colored dice and assorted distributions of Shields, Skulls, and so on from the beginning we would not be having this discussion. More and more games these days are branching out into specialty dice, something that was not so common in the late 80s when HQ was in development. So having the one color/type of die at the time was already "Breaking Convention" to some degree. If MB had introduced us to two or more die types at the time (something they likely never even thought of), we would take it in stride now I think.

Though HeroQuest's littlesister Space Crusade did use two different dice; the white light weapon dice and the red heavy weapon dice.

But, ironically, I remember discussions "Back in the day" from some purists who felt that using the dice in any way beyond what was listed in the rules was unecessary because it complicated a system whose strongest selling point was it's simplicity. Same with adding or tweaking Monsters, Gear, Quests, or what-have-you.

Like I mentioned earlier, it all boils down to desired amount of damage and the probability for said damage
I'm inclined to agree that simply adding dice actually goes a long way to begin with; though it may begin to feel stupid when you roll too many dice...
At the end of the day we can calculate average amount of damage/blocked damage per attack, but as we have seen in this thread there are lots of ways to spice it up.
Some players may like the stability of just throwing lots of dice while other might like the excitement of exploding damage...

Speaking of which... How about equipment that is either extreme weak or extreme strong with no middle ground?

Scorpion Knife: Roll 1 die in an attack. If you roll a black shield your target dies without defending.

I've also realized two things in this thread.
1. Making up names for example equipment is fun!
2. Making special rules for armor is much harder because of the ability to wear multiple pieces- and the way body armor works different than other pieces of armor.

[The Road Warrior]

I'm really enjoying this topic. Great work cornixt (and everyone else!)

[QorDaq]

Though HeroQuest's littlesister Space Crusade did use two different dice; the white light weapon dice and the red heavy weapon dice.

I never did get to play Space Crusade, though I understand it was something of a proto-type for Space Hulk, which I think I played once but liked... Regardless, interesting point that GW had experimented with more than one special die even back then.

Like I mentioned earlier, it all boils down to desired amount of damage and the probability for said damage
I'm inclined to agree that simply adding dice actually goes a long way to begin with; though it may begin to feel stupid when you roll too many dice...
At the end of the day we can calculate average amount of damage/blocked damage per attack, but as we have seen in this thread there are lots of ways to spice it up.
Some players may like the stability of just throwing lots of dice while other might like the excitement of exploding damage...

Agreed, for myself having smaller amounts of damage but better chance to hit always seemed to keep the scale of the original rules in good focus. once you have swords, axes, Machine-pistols, or wqhatever that do 5,6,7 or more dice of damage (and believe me we tried all of that at one point or another), the whole system gets bogged down. It also reflectsd

Speaking of which... How about equipment that is either extreme weak or extreme strong with no middle ground?

Scorpion Knife: Roll 1 die in an attack. If you roll a black shield your target dies without defending.

Not a fan of insta-death items, but yeah the options are quite extensive...*Grin*...

I've also realized two things in this thread.
1. Making up names for example equipment is fun!
2. Making special rules for armor is much harder because of the ability to wear multiple pieces- and the way body armor works different than other pieces of armor.

Good point about the armor. In general I like the basic rule of thumb that items (Rings, Necklaces, Clothing, and so on), impact the chance of being hit--meaning more defensive dice but again as above, where ,for example you roll multiple dice but maybe only get a maximum of two or three success max regardless of number of dice. While straight up armor adds extra Body (HP) effectively absorbing some damage. Contrasted with say a shield that actually adds a full extra die of defense to roll. Three different approaches to protective gear. Lot's of options.

[Goblin-King]

Not a fan of insta-death items, but yeah the options are quite extensive...*Grin*...

I thought instant death was pretty fair since a single skull can't really kill anything (and you still have 2/6 chance of missing completely).
But you could easily modify the mechanic to be less instant-deathy though.

Spider Bite Knife: Roll 1 die in an attack. If you roll a black shield it count as six skulls.

But of course these sort of mechanics should really also consider buffs in their wording...
What if a spell allowed me to double my dice in an attack, making me roll two?

Would EACH count as six skulls?
Would the effect only trigger if I rolled EXACTLY 1 ?
Or would ALL rolled dice have to be ?

[Count Mohawk]

I have the "Sledge" as a form of mace. You only roll one die when attacking with it, but it has the property "Damage +2", which means that as long as you roll at least one skull, the weapon deals two more damage, for a total of 3. It's very inaccurate, but also very strong when it hits (and is also very favorably affected by the opportunity to roll extra combat dice). In answer to the above question...

Would EACH count as six skulls?
Would the effect only trigger if I rolled EXACTLY 1 ?
Or would ALL rolled dice have to be ?

...in this case, whether you roll one, two or more skulls, you always add 2 to the final count of skulls. Whereas the way the Spider Bite Knife is written, it would appear that each rolled counts as 6 , so two would count as 12 , and so forth.

On the other end of the spectrum, I also have the "Sunrise Bow" Artifact, which always deals 2 Body Points of damage without needing to roll to attack. Monsters may, however, Defend normally.

There's also the Peshkabz, an exotic knife that deals only 2 dice of damage, but reduces the target's Defense by two dice as well.