Ye Olde Inn

Okay - so, I know phoenix has a great, very popular Imperial Academy.
But, while we all respect his work and bow down to his great experience with the game...I do
still toy with my own advancement ideas (gasp...oh, the horror of it all!)

So...I would like to get a poll on what everyone thinks. I do this because I'm putting something
together...and would like a good consensus on this topic.

Advancing characters: There are four ways to do it, as I see
1 - By number of quests completed (I think this is how the Imperial Academy works)
2 - By the characters using gold to buy training
3 - By simple experience points - this would require giving the monsters an experience amount
for what the characters defeat them
4 - By having the characters study and research - this would require thinking up books and scrolls
and allowing the characters find them and read them to learn the secrets within.

Which of these means of advancement do you think would be the best???
Thanks for the input.

I think The Imperial Academy is awesome, but i don't think i am quite ready to start using this with my group.

Currently i am coming up with the study and research method, number 4 on your list. Going to use books and scrolls to upgrade mind points, spells, even attacks for the fighters.

Coming up with good names for these such books has got me a bit stumped though. Designing some book cards etc and see how they come out.

Also, I am going to use the advancment rule that at the end of a quest book/pack (eg Basic System, RotWL, KK) i will allow them to either increase thier Mind or thier Body points by one point. I think this has been discussed on here before somewhere.!?

Yeah - coming up with names for books and scrolls are always hard to come up with.
You just made me think of something, though. As for finding a way for the characters to find
books and scrolls - they could just be put into the treasure card pile, I suppose, with a few really
good ones (like maybe special spellbooks for the wizard) placed in as artifacts. This would
give the characters more of an incentive to go to every room and area in a quest and check for
treasure, so they might have a chance to find secrets of becoming more powerful characters (i.e.
ways to advance their attack, defense, mind, body, etc.)

Well, i have already figered how to put them in my system. I was going to basically have book cards, hidden in bookcases / sorceror's table spread out over quest books. maybe a couple in basic system, couple in KK, couple in RotWL. Have been thinking about having the rule that for every two special books found by the same character, the Wizard's, or Elf's Mind would increase by one point. This would then allow them to use spells, that can be obtained in some of these books, which have Mind point restrictions. Eg I have a spell called 'Transference' but it can only be used if Mind points are greater than 7 (or maybe 8, i haven't decided!) I will post them up at some point so can see what poeple think.

point restrictions....hmmm, you've played Diablo haven't you?

hehehe

I've toyed around with using restrictions, also. Actually, I used to use restrictions for
armor and weapons, too. Characters had to have certain strength/body points to use
higher level armors...higher body points to use better weapons, and such.

Not sure if I'll go back to it. I would kind of make sense for the spell-casters needing certain
mind points to use spells. This would indicate that they have learned more about magic and
about magical writing, and so can now read the spells.

by the way - I see you live in suffolk, UK. The city I live in...chesapeake, virginia...is next to a city called suffolk. funny.

Never played Diablo. To be honest I have never played any other fantasy board game except for HQ. I have played the best and stuck with it!!

I think i will only use the restrictions on spells. Armour and Weapons have normal restrictions like 'Cannot be used by....'

I will also be using some of Phenox's combat cards, tweaked a little, so that the fighters will gain abilities. This will either have to be from buying training, or discovering books on combat and fighing specific monsters, learning thier vulnrabilities.
EG ..Barb may be able to swing axes accross 3 squares, Elf will get better range on his Bow and arrows, and the Dwarf will be able to perform a running charge attack!! Just some things that I have been thinking about.

there are other ways of advancement, you could do it all by equipment but subtlety changing the heroes so that upgrades from gear had a more obvious impact on their performance. i.e. the wizards spells get stronger the more mind points he has.
as a warcraft player i think you could also implement a talent tree system where players could specialise e.g. as different 'types' of barbarian, will your barbarian become a berserker or a juggernaut? will you dwarf become a steelbeard or a shieldbreaker? will your elf be a swordmaster or a mystic? your wizard a sorcerer or an elementalist?

We used #2 and #3 from the get-go.
I also had to find the scroll that revealed the secret of becoming a Lich.
My group and I find these methods alot more fun; particularly since they say they would have lost interest long ago in the base rules of HQ.
Just remember that like in any video game, you have to ramp up the monsters difficulty/nastiness.

Jag69r: Diablo simply takes all the rolls and stats and turns it into a realtime dungeon quest; using a red life "orb" of blood to represent your physical damage taken, and a blue 'mana' orb to represent your available spirit/mind. Casting spells decreases the amount of mana available.
I highly recommend the original Diablo; it is a fantastic game for HQ enthusiasts, and is bound to be pretty cheap these days. We will often put on the soundtrack to it when playing HQ; that's how great of an atmosfear it creates.
The original widespread 1st-person dungeon was the D&D cartridge for Intellivision: Treasure of Tarmin.
It is now called MINOTAUR, and D&D has been removed from the title screen. heh.

Just an idea:
Option 3, simple XP (experience points), would be the most "realistic" one and also the one closest to real RPGs. If the players really want their characters to gain experiance, this also adds to the exitement of the game: "Hey this gargoyle was good for 100 XP!".
The main drawback is complexity. Great part of the fun of HQ, as compared with PnP RPGs, are the streamlined rules and the ingeious overall simplicity that nevertheless allows for great athmosphere. So here's an little idea how to make counting XP more easy. I got this form Dark World.
When a hero has defeated a monster, just let the player keep the miniature. This way each player has a visual proof of his archievements in this quest in the beaten monsters piling up in front of him. In the end he can just sum up the XP. This is also more fitting to the very visual and haptic style of HQ, as opposed to Pnp. Of course the Game Mater has to own enough miniatures, as some quests use more than the basic set and depent on re-use.