Base game too easy

[The Admiral]

I just replied on boardgamegeek to a poster who complained that the base game is too easy. My reply is below, and I think it's relevant for anyone thinking of starting a new party of heroes:

No, you are correct the base game quests are ludicrously easy and get boring quite quickly. If you want more of a challenge for a new bunch of heroes try this:
1) Play online Quest 0 - A New Beginning first. This will give the heroes some cushion.
2) Now play the Spirit Queen's Torment Questpack, but don't allow shopping or the recovery of Body Points, Mind Points and spells between quests 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 and 10-14.
This will be a real challenge, but is doable, and many of the artifacts from the base game are in this quest. I am currently playing this in this format with four of the new characters: Knight, Druid, Rogue and Warlock. On the last quest now but it has been quite tight.

[Kurgan]

The problem with Spirit Queen's Torment is right now it's not widely available (but will be once it's re-released in retail within the next 6 months)...

If the game is "too easy" it's pretty simple to turn that around:

Play the Frozen Horror (or Mage of the Mirror 1992 editions) without mods. Your heroes will be destroyed, and you will become frustrated with the game...

Then find a happy medium!

Other ways to make the difficulty over the top:

1) don't allow death saves. Heroes have to heal before their body points reach 0.
2) Monsters defend like heroes (this doubles their durability).
3) The app gives lots of suggestions (increase all enemy stats by 1, double wandering monsters). The app's monster AI is pretty weak, but monsters should focus their attacks on the weakest target(s).
4) Double the prices of all equipment.
5) Cut the gold rewards in half.
6) Take away potions found in the Treasure deck at the end of the Quest (use it or lose it).
7) Heroes have to roll black shields to score hits against monsters (who again, defend with white shields).
8) Alternately, any black shield rolled by a monster blocks ALL skulls rolled against them.
9) Simple substitution (replace goblins with orcs, orcs with fimir/abominations, fimirs/abominations with chaos warriors or gargoyles. chaos warriors with gargoyles or ogres, skeletons with zombies, zombies with mummies, mummies with chaos warriors or gargoyles).

I don't personally think all of this is necessary, but any one of these can greatly increase the difficulty of the game system adventures.

[The Admiral]

It's not that the game is too easy, as your Frozen Horror example aptly demonstrates, It's that the Base quests are too easy. This leads to massively powerful heroes very quickly for whom the later quests are again too easy. There are of course numerous solutions to make play harder, I was just trying something simple for first timers who want to play within the simple parameters of the RAW.

in my opinion the Base quests are not a great start for a group looking for a challenge. Likewise Frozen Horror and Mage in the Mirror are suicide for a new group, which is equally unrewarding. Having played New Beginnings + Spirit Queen with a new band of heroes I can vouch that it works. Take away my recovery restrictions and it will be totally RAW and still a reasonable challenge compared to the standard start.

But you are right, it is not easily accessible at the moment, so I will think more on this.

10 mins later...

If one wasn't bothered about the timeline, then RotDM I think would be a good start. Again begin with New Beginnings as a definite to give the Heroes some good stuff to set them up and it's a decent first quest for a new group. The early quests are not too difficult, and with recovery after every quest, the underground market and a few henchmen thrown in, this would be a great experience for new questers.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Of all my houserules there are probably 5 that directly increase the difficulty

#1 = All defend on
#2 = counts as a and activates pushback
#4 = Extra Monster (although if you are using 1990 remake "NA" monster stats then you have this already)
#5 = Wandering Monster Roll
#13 = Pushback Rule

And I suppose also limiting search (for treasure) to once per room and Goblins with Spears, Skeletons with diagonal attacks and some of the other Monster types (see #30 The Monster Mash)

It's funny in a way that this issue was recognised very early on in 1989 and the 1990 remake "NA Edition" attempted to address it by introducing monsters with multiple BP, an extra monster spellcaster, introducing chaos spells (all good ideas), but then at the same time they diluted those improvements by simultaneously increasing the number of treasure searches, moving away from "cards limit supply", changes to allow potion hoarding and the death saves...

[Daedalus]

I just replied on boardgamegeek to a poster who complained that the base game is too easy. My reply is below, and I think it's relevant for anyone thinking of starting a new party of heroes: . . .

I like your RAW suggestions for alternate Quests. I do have a question: did the BGG poster play the 90's GS Quests or the Prophecy of Telor Quests? I understand the newer GS Quests are somewhat tougher than the originals. I'd be a bit disappointed if he--and more importantly you--would think the Prophecy of Telor Quests are too easy, as I hope to play them one day. Not that I couldn't houserule them into shape myself. But being forewarned would help out.

[The Admiral]

I just replied on boardgamegeek to a poster who complained that the base game is too easy. My reply is below, and I think it's relevant for anyone thinking of starting a new party of heroes: . . .

I like your RAW suggestions for alternate Quests. I do have a question: did the BGG poster play the 90's GS Quests or the Prophecy of Telor Quests? I understand the newer GS Quests are somewhat tougher than the originals. I'd be a bit disappointed if he--and more importantly you--would think the Prophecy of Telor Quests are too easy, as I hope to play them one day. Not that I couldn't houserule them into shape myself. But being forewarned would help out.

I honestly can't remember, but if I recall correctly it was the base game, not PoT. I'm assuming from the date of my post that it was the new iteration of the base game.

I haven't played Pot, and on initial inspection they seemed quite easy, but they don't give out much at all. A much tougher challenge indeed for a new party.

[The Admiral]

I crank up the danger by adding extra monsters, giving bosses more body points, and limiting healing. Small tweaks like these keep our group on their toes without slowing the game down.

Heroquest is such a great game that accepts adjustments with no impact on complexity or rules. Heck, the Heroes won't even be aware what you've done.

How do you limit healing? Remove Healing Potions from the quest/treasure deck?

[Parzival]

I had the impression it was too easy myself, but I was playing against the App.
Then I took on Zargon’s part for a night with friends, introducing them to the game. They almost got slaughtered on the intro quest— in fact, the Wizard *did* get killed, and the others were close to death. Plus, they very quickly decided that the Treasure deck was too dangerous and stopped searching for treasure (!), so they had no potions of any kind to assist them, and they returned with very little gold. These were adult gamers with decades of experience with D&D and other role-playing-games, as well as various Games Workshop games. So they knew the score, as it were.

I think the game can vary depending on the willingness and ability of the Zargon player to use effective and ruthless combat tactics against the heroes. Target the Wizard and the Elf. Gang up on the Barbarian. Use hit-and-run actions where possible. You’ve got a lot of tools at your hands to batter them; they won’t think it’s too easy then!

[wallydubbs]

Although you can't make adjustments in the app, a good Zargon could see if the heroes are ahead of the game and make changes accordingly. The Base Game as is, could be too easy (except the Trial as the first quest), but for young and inexperienced players, it might be just the right level to learn.
A while back when playing with my brother and cousins they got ahead of the game and were brutalizing my monsters. But when I was making the Elf spell cards provided from this website, I had made a Twist Wood spell with the Chaos backing. Since the wording wasn't specific, I used this to nullify the Elf's Crossbow. I would also add a Giant Wolf as a mini boss for the heroes to gang up, or reduce the gold reward because they didn't bring back Wardoz alive. The Fire Mage's Firestorm burns up the Wizard's staff. I also made some adjustments and set a timer on A Race Against Time, where the heroes had to complete the quest in a certain amount of turns. Stuff like that.

So even though some of the quests are a little too easy, it gives a good backdrop for Zargon to make adjustments, which isn't outside the rules. Only problem is, the app can't do this, which is why it's preferable to have a creative human Zargon.

[Thrasher79]

Hello,
yes the basic adventures have always been much too easy. In the very early days we usually only played the 3 adventures with the ghost sword from the book and then went straight to Karak Varn and RotWL.
I think that there is a very good approach here in the forum to make the basic adventures better. The work was done by the user Anderas.
Here is the link to the thread:

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=3070#p58379

I think that this makes it much better and you can adapt it very well to your needs.

Greetings Thrasher79