Ye Olde Inn

Has anyone ever tried to go beyond the 4 hero/player starting number? If so, how many heroes/players did you have at one time, and what adjustments did you make to the quest, if any? Did it work well?

Played The Trial with five heroes (Paladin was the 5th) and another time I'm forgetting exactly if it was ROTDM or MOTM but there we played with five heroes again (Monk was the spare if I recall correctly). We've also had animal companions to make up the difference and then had a hero join mid-game. I just increased the rewards and added a few more monsters (or played a quest that was already difficult, where the hero would take the place of a few mercenaries anyway).

Does it take longer playing this way? Yes, but it's doable. Having a bunch of mercenaries to move means the turns take longer so you can look at it that way. You try not to have someone waiting forever for their turn, but getting to roll defense and drinking potions off turn kind of makes up for it when you're waiting around as the last person in the list.

Parzival wrote:Has anyone ever tried to go beyond the 4 hero/player starting number? If so, how many heroes/players did you have at one time, and what adjustments did you make to the quest, if any? Did it work well?

Yes, several times. Mostly for long difficult quests like Frozen Horror, but we don't play any recovery of BP's, spells, artefacts etc. Between quests where you are moving off one board directly to another. I think 6 is the most we've ever used.

Parzival wrote:Has anyone ever tried to go beyond the 4 hero/player starting number? If so, how many heroes/players did you have at one time, and what adjustments did you make to the quest, if any? Did it work well?

I hadnt until this last gaming convention I was at. I had a father son duo who has played Hero Quest with me at this con for the last 3 years. When they went to sign up there was only 1 spot available. The Father messaged me asking about letting him sit alongside or if possible, play the game. I told him absolutely would allow him to play, just a simple twist to the mission, mostly just adding a few more monsters here or there. I added a couple more traps as well. The game went great; they had a couple hair-raising moments but that is all part of the fun and excitement. The biggest thing is to communicate and adapt on the fly. If the Heroes are breezing through, then it is time to up the proverbial ante.

Parzival wrote:Has anyone ever tried to go beyond the 4 hero/player starting number? If so, how many heroes/players did you have at one time, and what adjustments did you make to the quest, if any? Did it work well?

This post describes a turn house-rule that allows for playing with more than four players. It doesn't add monsters or traps, so Quest playing time isn't lengthened. Sorry, but it's not playtested.

I've only used 5 heroes in Frozen Horror & Mage of the Mirror where the difficulty is heavily ramped up.

A relatively simple way to add difficulty for an extra play would be for the evil wizard player to roll a combat die each time a group of monsters is added to the board. If you roll a black shield then add a model of the wandering monster type next to one of the quest monsters just added.

Any quest pack that accommodates Mercenaries can add a 5th hero without too much of a problem (FH +24 BP, MOTM +24 BP, ROTDM +8 BP, WOM +24 BP.... also ATOH +4 BP). The new hero could after all have anywhere from 4-8 BP to add to the party total.

Hello,
We played it for a while with 5 heroes. For me as the game master, it felt strange. Not only the 1 more attack that the heroes had each round, but also the tactical placement of the figures was annoying for me in some cases. It works with more than 4 heroes. But it just didn’t feel right. Apart from that, you then have to get 6 people to the table;-) With 5 it is already difficult to find dates that suit everyone...

Greetings Thrasher79

I've run a couple of the Game System quests with 5 or 6 heroes. Our usual group tends to be 4 or 5 but we've had an extra a few times. It was a bit weird the first time, but it feels pretty normal. Since we are playing with the more casual story focused heroic difficulty the extra player isn't a huge issue for the most part. I kind of played it as needed for adjustments. Like if encounters were leaving some players along for the ride without getting a chance to do much, I would add a couple more monsters to the next room or change one to a stronger one that can potentially stick around longer. I've also on the fly adjusted rooms due to player behavior- most notably when we had a new player learning the game and the more experienced heroes were turtling at the door leaving them without a chance to engage. It was also stalling the game with them wanting to play it too safe so I had two monsters move strangely to a side of the room. When they didn't push forward on the next round, I told them that an alarm had been raised and there was a great clamor of noise from the next room. That was enough to get them moving again, and the next turn I said they could hear banging on the door. I ended up adding an extra goblin or orc to most rooms, and upgraded a few of the orcs to abominations. Between the alarm and the party size it worked out really well in that instance and made for some good drama when a few bad rolls (and splitting the party for chance at treasure) put a character in a dicey situation where they were cut off from the others. It ended up being our best session in terms of tense moments as I rolled super well on the boss too, so they couldn't just face tank damage. Since I started writing an after action report of sorts after each session, some of the stuff has made for very memorable moments. Like blaming the elf's consistent poor movement rolls on an old injury.

I generally roll my dice visible to the table but will put in weaker monsters or skip a trap sometimes if someone's luck is super poor depending on their recovery options. I allow forgiving line of sight where monsters or heroes can see thru their allies. I would probably need a different group to play a less forgiving way. I don't usually make any changes to treasure though, so they have a limited pool of resources to use that extra players are pulling from. They usually use the same characters each time, but I keep the play materials so the other characters are effectively available on a roster. We've had one near death where they got careless and barely got to someone opening a nasty room and rolling poorly.