Ye Olde Inn

Hey everyone-

It's been a while since I posted but I want to share something I've created and an idea I've been toying with.

I play with another guy who loves to be Zargon, but has no concept of how to balance keeping the game challenging enough to be fun while still being possible to win. He always overshoots on the hard side (boss monsters with 20BP who can cast all the Chaos Spells, plus some extra spells he made up - that kind of thing) and ends up having to come up with reasons to let us resurrect our heroes a hundred times just so we can finish a quest.

Anyway, the time came when he was writing his own massive custom quest for us to play. Knowing how he is, I decided to create an extra character. We were going to have more than four heroes playing that day anyway, so we needed an extra one. Having flipped through a lot of the custom characters people have created on Ye Olde Inn, I decided to base mine on the greatest fantasy hero of all time, Samwise Gamgee.

This version of the halfling was inspired by mo123813's halfling (http://www.yeoldeinn.com/hqforum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=405&hilit=halfling). I especially loved his find food and cooking equipment ideas. I take no credit for those concepts except the design of the cards and some minor tweaks.

Here I've posted the Halfling's character sheet, his relevant skill and item cards, and an extension I created for the armory panel, which contains several halfling-specific items, as well as some items for the other characters.





My favorite card was the "secret" halfling ability. When I presented my character to the other players the first time we played it, I kept that card hidden and didn't tell anyone about it until I busted it out. I figured I should be allowed one ace in the hole since we basically had no chance of winning anyway. Zargon let me have it, and it helped a ton, but we still got thoroughly crushed because he's a ridiculous person. When playing, I use the Frodo and Sam 2 miniatures from Games Workshop (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?prodId=prod1060276).


So my thinking is that, starting with this halflling, I could create an entire Lord of the Rings-inspired overhaul for HeroQuest. I'd create characters for Aragorn, Gandalf and Boromir. Gimli and Legolas would be very similar to the existing Elf and Dwarf, but perhaps with tweaked abilities. Orcs and goblins would be pretty much the same, but I could add Uruk-Hai and a Gollum character. Creating Sauruman will be fun. For the sake of keeping things interesting, I wouldn't base the quests on any actual part of the LotR story, but could set them in certain Middle-Earthy locations, such as Moria, the Misty Mountains and Mordor.

I've seen a lot of people throwing out ideas for Lord of the Rings HQ expansions, but I haven't found one that's actually done. I think this might be my next big thing. What do you guys think?

mirkwood , mirkwood , mirkwood !

I am a suporter of creative people and LOTR

Ooh Mirkwood. Good call.

Mirkwood for sure!

I would like to see a mission against the pirates of Umbar That would be suh-weet!!

I have Middle-earth Quest. The heroes aren't those of the books, but instead are similar heroes: a rider of Rohan, a ranger, a warrior of Gondor, a dwarf, and an elf. They quest about Middle-earth thwarting Sauron in the years after the ring is found by Bilbo but before the quest of the ringbearer begins. They sometimes interact with characters such as Saruman, Aragorn, and Gandalf.
Beyond making the 9 companions of the ringbearer, consider making general Heroes as well. They certainly would fit into any adventure, as their backgrounds aren't set. Their abilities should be simpler to balance, as you don't need to match abilities as specifically.