Some advice needed for introducing HQ to the next generation

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I see, sorry my fault. I was just reading about the Gargoyle being underpowered and needing an extra attack due to him having an axe and a whip, elsewhere on this forum and I was still in semi-rant mode!

[slev]

1. It's there to force them to work together,. With all four Heroes it's *just* possible. A good twealk is to remocve a coupple of monsters and replace them with traps, giving the Dwarf more to do.

2. I do 50%

3. Most people let the Heroes keep thinsg quest-to-quest.

4. I changed this so when thrown, you lose it until the end of the quest. Worthwhile in a pinch, but not a regular tactic.

5. To speed it up, perhaps go back to the original die faces?

6. UK also has the Shield. Two copies in 1st ed, one in 2nd.

7. They can be short lived, but used at the right time can be very useful.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

6. I have a copy of UK/EU second edition which I thought was complete but it hasn't got a shield card (at least I don't think it has let me recheck)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Nope.

Rulebook states 14 Equipment cards and I have all fourteen;

Chain Mail
Plate armour
The Helmet

Hand axe
Crossbow
Broadsword
Tool kit
Short sword
Spear
Spear (yes two spears)
Staff
Battle axe

Cloak of Protection
Bracers

No shield!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Following play testing we have decided to drop the 'wielding a Shield means you can defend on a ' as it just got a bit confusing especially when some Heroes and some Monsters have shields and some don't so different people and different creatures are using different dice for hit and misses - shield just gives you an extra die in defence now, however before the traditionalists start to relax, it did get me thinking...

Maximum attack dice (assuming mundane - non artefact weapons only - vanilla HQ) is 4 dice, same assumptions for defence gives us 6 dice. Now bearing in mind that you have a basic 3/6 chances of rolling a skull gives an average of two skulls in attack and a basic 2/6 chance* of rolling a shield gives us an average of two white shields in defence - which cancels out nicely except, when you think about it, would you want them to cancel out? To my mind I would expect attack to be stronger than defence (or more accurately damage stronger than protection) by a ratio of 3:2 or even 4:2, after all having Heroes strolling round a dungeon not even bothering to draw their swords whilst a rain of blows bounces off their armour isn't much fun - ok I'm exaggerating a little!

So how to tweak, there are options;

1) And this is where the earlier * comes in, I think the HQ people also came across this little issue and decided to resolve it by introducing the to the combat die and using this as the Monster defence thus halving the odds of defences for the Monsters and changing the ratio mentioned from the otherwise 1:1 to 2:1 but for the Monsters only, it works but to me it feels like a bit of a realism cheat.

2) If you stick with for defence for all but then use the as a then you move from our 1:1 ratio above to a 4:3 ratio (I think) so a step in the right direction but not there yet so combine that with either;

a) as a critical hit causing two skulls of damage takes us to 5:2 - Pros; simple, no significant rewrites, Cons; perhaps too powerful 5:2 but could be combined with using the as a shield in defence also giving us 5:3 however this is starting to lose simplicity with the counting as 2 :skulls: on attack and also 1 on defence

b) Correct the imbalance of having a maximum of 4 attack dice but a maximum of 6 defence dice by increasing the attack dice, this resolves an issue around unarmed combat (using a single die but the US version having a dagger for 1 attack die) as a dagger could now have 2 attack dice and short swords and similar 3, broadsword 4 and battle axe 6 attack dice. Increasing the range of attack dice available from 4 to 6 also allows ranged weapons to be made a little less powerful as they always seemed too strong for me - (whole new thread to come!). In addition it resolves what to some appear to be inconsistencies within the Monster stats (like how does an Orc armed with a cleaver get 3 attack dice rather than 2?). Finally if the maximum attack dice is 6 and the maximum defence dice is 6 then with all defending on and attacking on and :skulls: then our maximum equipped combat would be on a 4:2 ratio.Pros: Simple and balanced, Cons: Bigger rewrite as new equipment cards / armoury, character and monster card tweaks etc

Any thoughts (and please feel free to check my ratio calculations!)

[Count Mohawk]

Maximum attack dice (assuming mundane - non artefact weapons only - vanilla HQ) is 4 dice, same assumptions for defence gives us 6 dice. Now bearing in mind that you have a basic 3/6 chances of rolling a skull gives an average of two skulls in attack and a basic 2/6 chance* of rolling a shield gives us an average of two white shields in defence - which cancels out nicely except, when you think about it, would you want them to cancel out?

Even if the expected value of both the attacker's dice and the defender's dice is the same, as in this case, there's always the possibility of real damage being dealt due to some of the defender's shields being wasted on rolls where the attacker doesn't get as many (or any) skulls. For a more specific example, in the 4-AD Battle Axe vs 6-DD* armor scenario, the attacker deals about 0.6 Body Points of damage per swing. Due to this imbalance of chances, attacking is inherently more powerful than defending in a way not borne out just by looking at the average number of skulls and shields rolled with any given combination of equipment.
*6 dice using white shields to defend, or else six blue dice for the colored-die grognards.

Whenever you make changes to the fundamental mechanics of a game, you should ask yourself what the problem you are trying to solve is, and also whether or not the proposed solution actually works the way you intend it to. For example, the Heroes are actually weaker in your proposed system of "use or to attack and to defend". Even if you assume that the Heroes' attack buff is cancelled by the Monsters' defense buff (the math works out to slightly favor the monsters, actually), their own defenses are not improved at all compared to the base game, which leads to them taking more damage from the Monsters' improved attacks.

b) Correct the imbalance of having a maximum of 4 attack dice but a maximum of 6 defence dice by increasing the attack dice, this resolves an issue around unarmed combat (using a single die but the US version having a dagger for 1 attack die) as a dagger could now have 2 attack dice and short swords and similar 3, broadsword 4 and battle axe 6 attack dice. Increasing the range of attack dice available from 4 to 6 also allows ranged weapons to be made a little less powerful as they always seemed too strong for me - (whole new thread to come!). In addition it resolves what to some appear to be inconsistencies within the Monster stats (like how does an Orc armed with a cleaver get 3 attack dice rather than 2?). Pros: Simple and balanced, Cons: Bigger rewrite as new equipment cards / armoury, character and monster card tweaks etc

I am actually intrigued by this option, as the math doesn't change too much compared to the base game. Widening the range of dice rolled allows for greater granularity between the different weapons. I wouldn't use the Walrus as a fourth skull, though - it's probably best used as the icon with which to defend against spells such as Sleep and Command.

[knightkrawler]

Nope.

Rulebook states 14 Equipment cards and I have all fourteen;

Chain Mail
Plate armour
The Helmet

Hand axe
Crossbow
Broadsword
Tool kit
Short sword
Spear
Spear (yes two spears)
Staff
Battle axe

Cloak of Protection
Bracers

No shield!

Is your copy second hand? There should be a shield instead of one spear. 1st edition had two helmets and two shields, but no bracers and no cloak of protection.
I know of no other composition and am thinking that the seller just filled up the missing shield card with a spear card?
I know someone who keeps a pretty comprehensive and concies list of the different editions and print versions. Two spears/no shield would be something unheard of.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

kk - it is my original second edition but I suspect I have swapped a card with another set at some point over the years - mystery solved, thanks!

Count Mohawk,

Even if the expected value of both the attacker's dice and the defender's dice is the same, as in this case, there's always the possibility of real damage being dealt due to some of the defender's shields being wasted on rolls where the attacker doesn't get as many (or any) skulls. For a more specific example, in the 4-AD Battle Axe vs 6-DD* armor scenario, the attacker deals about 0.6 Body Points of damage per swing. Due to this imbalance of chances, attacking is inherently more powerful than defending in a way not borne out just by looking at the average number of skulls and shields rolled with any given combination of equipment.

Agreed, but (and this is beyond my ability to calculate) as I am using the EU version as a base the Monsters having only 1 BP means Heroes suffer from another level of overkill when they score more than one excess hits.

Whenever you make changes to the fundamental mechanics of a game, you should ask yourself what the problem you are trying to solve is, and also whether or not the proposed solution actually works the way you intend it to.

I agree and I did ask myself those very questions however I probably should have stated that information in my original post.

My intention is to make combat shorter and more decisive without resorting to the Monster black shield defence "scam" and to make Monsters tougher without just adding additional BPs.

In addition I'm lowering the Battle axe statistics from the suggested increase above to 5 attack dice rather than six as I want to give the Barbarian an additional attack dice as his special ability (it may all make sense once I have finished?)

[Count Mohawk]

Ah, EuroQuest. Being an American myself, I have a mental block towards what I consider to be the more inferior elements of the European release of Hero Quest, such as monsters only ever having 1 Body Point. Apologies for the oversight.

That said, it's actually a lot simpler to calculate damage for EuroQuest, since monsters only have two states: alive and dead. Here's a table I constructed that shows the chances of monsters living through attacks of various strengths, and how long it may take to kill them on average:


What you do with this information is up to you.

[Gold Bearer]

Ah, EuroQuest. Being an American myself, I have a mental block towards what I consider to be the more inferior elements of the European release of Hero Quest, such as monsters only ever having 1 Body Point.

They both have stupid rules. The US version has heroes who can drink a potion after dying and a barbarian and dwarf who can use spell scrolls, and the EU version has a dwarf who can somehow disarm any traps that he can see and heroes not being able to move on the same square more than once during their turn. If you ignore the expansions I think the US version wins for monster BPs and chaos spells but I think AtOH and WoM are a lot better than tFH and MotM.

My intention is to make combat shorter and more decisive without resorting to the Monster black shield defence "scam" and to make Monsters tougher without just adding additional BPs.

I don't see how you can both make the monsters tougher and the combats shorter, seems like a contradiction. I know you said you don't want to increase their BPs but I think this works really well. Here's the way I do it: 1BP, 2BP, 3BP, 1BP, 2BP, 3BP, 4BP, 5BP. With the US monster stats it would be: 3BP, 4BP. Chaos warriors move seven and attack with four in the US version, basically as good as gargoyles and gargoyles have five defence dice.

In addition I'm lowering the Battle axe statistics from the suggested increase above to 5 attack dice rather than six as I want to give the Barbarian an additional attack dice as his special ability (it may all make sense once I have finished?)

Are you going to give the other heroes abilities as well? If not I think that makes the barbarian very overpowered. If you compare him to the dwarf he gets 1BP extra and a permanent extra attack dice compared the dwarf's 1MP extra and ability to disarm traps which isn't often that useful (normally you can walk round and spear traps are disarmed automatically when they're found) and when it is it helps the whole party.

A good way to give all the heroes a boost is to let the barbarian count black shields as skulls in melee, let the dwarf count black shields as white shields and include the three spell sets from wizards of Morcar. The wizard picks one set, the elf picks one, the wizard picks two, the elf picks one and the wizard gets the other two. That way it still goes 1-1-2 and the wizard still gets the last two. The wizard needs more of a boost than the others. Mix that with the increased monster BPs and it should be well balanced and the heroes and monsters will be much more distinctive.

Just my suggestions, take 'em or leave 'em.