Ye Olde Inn

Greetings good people and other nerds

I have been wondering if I should order myself custom combat dices for my Heroquest game to add some spice to the game
Normally we only use combat dice which is = s, s, s, w, w, b
(if s = skull, w = white shield, b = black shield)

But would it improve the gameplay if we introduced new dices to the game?

New dices!?!
Stronger opponents dice/evil dice = s, s, s, s, b, b or
s, s, s, w, b, b
Enhanced dice/stronger weapon = s, s, s, s, w, w
Defence dice or (defence dice+monster attack dice) = s, s, s, w, w, w or
s, s, w, w, w, b

Defence dice
changing one normal dice into defence dice for shield or for each armor hero has (the latter option maybe overpowered...)
I have thought of two ways of using the defence dice
One is only using it for hero when he is throwing defence (not using it when attacking)
or
using both when in defending and when the monster is attacking hero who has defence dice (changing same number of normal attacking dice into defence attacking dice for the monster)
I feel it would only be available option if I decide to make the defence dice = s, s, w, w, w, b

Another option
To spice things up, I also thought of using 1 automatic hit/defence for for specific weapons/armors and mayby even for specifics classes

Maybe even mixing these two (new dices !?!, another option) together somehow or not at all.

Please fire away what you think of my ideas

I use the following (with standard combat dice)

= "1 hit"
= "1 hit"
= cancels " 1 hit" (all characters heroes or monsters)

Using the as an additional "hit" makes attacking 33% more effective, monsters using same as heroes doubles their defence (which is minimal otherwise), the combination of the two makes all attacks stronger and monster defence stronger so gives monsters a small boost overall which makes the game slightly more difficult, without most monsters lingering around for much longer.

I'm also currently play testing a variant of this:

= "1 hit"
= "1 hit" unless defender has shield (in close or missile combat)
= cancels " 1 hit" (all characters heroes or monsters)

Scrapping the Shield's +1DD and replacing it with reducing the effectiveness of an attack in this way, makes the utility of the shield scale up as your opponent's attack dice scale up which is a neat effect and caps DD to 5 (plate & helmet) rather then 6. This makes the Shield more effective overall, so penalises Battle Axe and Crossbow use a little more. Only monsters equipped with shields would be "elite" versions of Orcs (Henchmen), Skeletons (Reapers) and some named Monsters which is similar to your idea of special dice for special monsters but without needing special dice.

All that said your idea sounds similar to a coloured dice mechanism that has been discussed on this forum, but I don't use that so I'll leave others to comment but it is discussed on the Those Colored German Dice topic

Tanks alot for your thoughts.
It makes me think of more ideas
I Will also copy my post and add it on the german dice thread.