Your thoughts on possible complications for houserules

[Anderas]

Ha! These three questions touch parts of the game that are really core. Moreover, they are symptoms of underlying problems, which you can solve the one or the other way.

Of course a group of Orcs would not let you out again once you run into their arms. Therefore the no backtrack rule is not only elegant and simple but even makes sense fluff wise. The fireburst trap is more difficult to explain, but in reality you maybe wouldn't know it is there until it, well, bursts. It is a typical guerilla thing to place which harms harmless kids, grannys and barbarians.

There are two underlying problems that they wanted to solve. Phallic formation and door block gameplay.

Search the forum for EWP cards if you need a way to prevent phallic formations building up in the first place.
Door blocking works only because the heroes have diagonal weapons and ranged weapons. See what happens if your monsters have the same kind of weapons. Suddenly the monsters have the possibility to move back a square and shoot the door blocker without being hit. Also they can stab diagonally at the door blocker which significantly reduces the life expectancy of the blocking figure, in turn reducing the attractiveness of this tactic to zero.

Never forget, the monsters don't have to attack. They can as well stay back.

The searches, I like to have the secret door separated. Sometimes they forget to search. That's a good day for me. I also like to have just one treasure search per room, and then an additional per furniture. It's a purely personal preference, but the background is of course the mentioned trap here and there.

[knightkrawler]

Phallic formation and door block gameplay.

Either Phallic Phalanx or if you can't find the 'x' key, Phallic Phormation.
You need to tame the terminology
and spend some time on the alliteration of spelling aligned with the specifics of sound.

Yeah I know, alliteration and head rhymes' sometimes borders blur.

[Anderas]

Yay, alliterations are cool. Where's chaoticprime when you need him?

[Big Bene]

Also, welcome to the Inn!
What's this crature in your avatar? Seems vaguely familiar to me...

[knightkrawler]

Something from the Moomins?
The nose looks like the Groke's (Die Eiskalte Morla for you, BB).

[Big Bene]

Something from the Moomins?
The nose looks like the Groke's (Die Eiskalte Morla for you, BB).

I'm not very familiar with the Moomins, but isn't it Morra?

Die Eiskalte Morla

MORLA-sm2.jpg

Perhaps that's why she sneezes all the time...

[Terrorbillen]

Thank you all for your welcomes!
You’ve all got some great views on the implementation of the house rules. When we play tonight, I think I will follow most of your advice and not make it too complicated and try and implement it as something along the lines of: 1) Treasure chests are now “opened” instead of being included in the treasure search so a hero must be adjacent. Other furniture and treasure searching rules still apply as written. 2) Heroes cannot pass the same square twice in the same movement. They will have no problems accepting this as this is how we play already (I only just found out it was removed from the newer versions). 3) will discuss this with the group. While I think it would be a cool thing to have to step into the unknown to see what is there, it also seems like a great risk, which, a lot of times, would lead to death especially for the wizard (3 orcs swinging away at a wizard with 2 defend dice would statistically lead to 2-3 damage = death for most wizards I imagine)

That'll learn him.

Haha! I’m totally in for teaching the heroes, but I’m always cautious that it’s within the rules. Last thing I want is to kill off a hero and not be able to base it on the rules. (my group is very quick to jump up if they know the rules and I don’t follow them.)

I counter this in the way I control the monsters. Nowhere does it say that a monster has to attack right away. I play tactically. If they line up at the door, I surround the square just inside the door. If I can, I move after attacking so another monster can move then attack. Also, this forces the hero to move before attacking on his next turn so they can't employ the same tactic against me.

AND

Door blocking works only because the heroes have diagonal weapons and ranged weapons. See what happens if your monsters have the same kind of weapons. Suddenly the monsters have the possibility to move back a square and shoot the door blocker without being hit. Also they can stab diagonally at the door blocker which significantly reduces the life expectancy of the blocking figure, in turn reducing the attractiveness of this tactic to zero.

I totally get what you guys mean. Great additions. Already use the EWP cards. Have you got any more detailed tactics to deal with diagonal attacks if I don’t want to put in custom monsters just yet? (they are only on quest 5)

Big Bene: I think my “though I have never really had any problem with it being unrealistic” should have been “AND I have never really had any problem with it being unrealistic”. I totally agree with you on your take on the aspect of realism. It gets kinda hard to find the best way though as I think this game never should have any rules that adds too much complexity.

The last option is just as legitimarte as the others, and the way the authors of the original game did it.

That sounds really interesting! Is it an official revision or are you referring to the fact that the rules seem to let players search in chests while standing at the door and not trigger traps?

What's this crature in your avatar? Seems vaguely familiar to me...

As KnightKrawler noticed it is indeed something from the Moomins. It’s Stinky, a little creature who’s always up to no good. See http://moomin.wikia.com/wiki/Stinky

[knightkrawler]

Something from the Moomins?
The nose looks like the Groke's (Die Eiskalte Morla for you, BB).

I'm not very familiar with the Moomins, but isn't it Morra?

Die Eiskalte Morla

MORLA-sm.jpg

Perhaps that's why she sneezes all the time...

Indeed, Morra.
I got things messed up and that joke makes a whole lot of sense with the sneezing and all.
Been a long time and I didn't even like the Moomins much. Probably would like them better now in my old age than back then.

[mitchiemasha]

100% agree with big bene 1st post, spot on.

Are you, by the above, thinking that I should have had the player searching for treasure (standing just inside the door) in example #1 fall into the pit trap?

This is why I have the house rule...
Treasure Search: A room not searched for traps first, featuring a trap, will trigger the trap. Place the Hero on the trapped square, don’t pick a card.

My other Favourite House Rules are...
1. Goblins MAM, move attack move, small fast slippery lil buggers.
2. Bought weapons can be sold for 50% of cost.
3. Thrown weapons range limited by BP. Huge thematic value for how simple it is to implement.
4. Lost thrown weapons can be found if the room is searched. This makes them worth buying and due to how searching works means they're a 1 shot for each area.
5. Short Sword, dual wield, 2 attacks if 2 owned, not diagonal attack. Brings back the need for spear and makes the short sword worth buying, can dual wield with orcs bane 3 attacks against orcs.
6. Chaos tokens taken from Advanced HeroQuest***.
7. Bonus Action, sacrifice 1 rolled d6 to climb, we can get on tables in our game; give, change equipped weapons armour***.

***Helps fight against players taking advantage of some base game mechanics.

8. I also like to add Double 1 - Hazard! The EW should call out an effect “You stumble on a loose stone!”/“Rocks fall from above and slow your progress!”/” In your desperate attempt to escape, the floor greets your face!” etc!!! The Hero may move but rolls 1Cd6.

Skull: lose 1BP.
Black shield: Saved, no attack.
White shield: Saved.

The Heroes will want to do as little dice rolling as possible, no more waiting for high rolls to reveal a room. Searching every room on the way out doesn't seem such a good idea either, especially if wounded.

Some more Quest specific ones. Undead must be finished off. Chaos Armour. I could go into more details but my post is already getting too long.

[Big Bene]

That sounds really interesting! Is it an official revision or are you referring to the fact that the rules seem to let players search in chests while standing at the door and not trigger traps?

The latter. It's just my own reasoning of how the original rules work. Sorry.