Ye Olde Inn

Often when we play our favorite board game we are faced with an insufficient number of players for a full four man team. So we are left with the option of having someone play multiple heroes or we need to introduce a few more powerful heroes for when number of players is below par.
So it occurs to me maybe I could print off a few solo and or 2 man team heroes.
Such heroes would have to be capable of holding their own in the most dire of circumstances, while not being so over powered that they never stand the chance at failure.

Now one easy fix I have used in the past was to simply let the heroes have some extra gear from the Empires armory and a couple heal potions each. Typically I would just pull a couple random artifacts from a preapproved selection.
But that is just one way to work around a problem.

As I was considering this I came to the idea of Master Class heroes, heroes only to be played when there were limited players. (1 or 2 Hero players.)

So here are some 2 man team heroes I just cooked up:

The Barbarian Prince
This Barbarian has all the normal attributes of the typical Barbarian Hero except he comes from nobility and thus has the resources to equip with the finest of gear. To simulate this the Hero is given 1500 Gold coins and access to the armory and alchemist shop before he enters play on his first quest.

The Elven Ranger
This elf conforms to the standard Elf Hero except he starts play with an ancient bow created for Elvin warriors in a long forgotten war and an enchanted long sword handed down for generations. This bow is enchanted to create a mystic arrow of energy every time the bow is pulled. The mystic arrow attacks with 3 dice and against undead 4 dice. The long sword is enchanted to attack with +1 dice against all green skins.

The Dwarf Lord
This Dwarf conforms to the same stats as a normal Dwarf hero except he is rich and thus he may spend 1500 gold coins at the armory and alchemy shop before entering play on his first quest.

The Master Wizard
This wizard conforms to the normal stats as any wizard, however he has all four spell schools and a Mystic Ring that provides him +1 Defense dice against all attacks. This Hero is only played in the absence of an Elf.


But then I find myself considering what of the solo hero? Maybe this hero is the Emperors personal trouble shooter, or perhaps he is the apprentice of Mentor...

I am going to consider this topic more....
I welcome ideas and such.

The apprentice of Mentor !!! I love this Idea cynthialee!!
that character would be a absolute blast to play warping around the map and possibly knowing were certain things are in advance.
Great concept.

I like those four heroes very much.
In fact, I think they are so good that entire quest packs or gamenight filling campaigns should be written around them.
They are well-balanced and the fact that the Wizard should only be played with a heavy-hitting partner is also thought through.

Campaigns for solo heroes should be even more suited for a specific set of talents, but it's doable.
Maybe as a whole career in 12 acts form adventurer to legend?

However much I love my own ruleset and the plans I have, always letting the heroes start from the beginning has its downsides - quests on the same old level, same careers - even though I offer more different heroes to choose from, so this thing with the Tag Teams is something I have to keep in mind.
This idea might be blatantly stolen at one point.

If you're playing with only 2 Heroes instead of 4, you may want to consider giving each of the "Master" Heroes an extra Body Point, or even two. Getting rid of a roomful of monsters will take longer with fewer people killing them off each round, so even with higher-level starting gear, Morcar has an extra advantage due to, effectively, taking twice as many turns as normal.

Also, why do people spell it "Elvin"??? This isn't directed at you specifically, cyn, but I've seen that spelling all over the forum and it's starting to bother me. I've seen "Elven" as the standard spelling, and somewhat more rarely "Elfin", but never "Elvin".

I like the master wizard best because he's actually got a new ability and the others just have items or money.

You've already ruled that the ranger and master wizard can't be picked together so the elf could have another spell set. If they're using the WoM spells the two could be used together, in fact I'd up the wizard to two extra spell sets because the standard wizard is weaker than the other heroes but you'd have to use the WoM spells for that, or the three from the Japanese version (I'm using those for an artifact).

The dwarf could have the plus one defence just for being a tough bastard and the barbarian could have plus one attack dice.

Count Mohawk wrote:Also, why do people spell it "Elvin"???

I keep doing that too.

Wow, thanks guys.
Go ahead and play with the ideas as you will, as this is an orphan game all is fair.

I thought about adding a body point to the 3 fighter heroes and a Mind point for the Wizard, but I feared adding to much moxie to a single character.

I spell it Elvin because Elven looks too much like eleven when I scan read. I like álfar but it goes over some folks head.

I am coming up blank on a viable solo character that doesn't break the system. But that is probably to be expected as it is a game designed for group play and some amount of teamwork.
Perhaps a minion or two following a master class heroes orders..?

The Necromancer character that was in the recent thread could probably solo if given an extra Body Point and a Ring of Defense +1

Or let the barbarian count black shields as skulls (in melee only) and the dwarf count them as white shields. The ranger could get to a reroll with ranged attacks as a slight boost as well.

Fate points to reroll any dice could work nicely. That's what I use to balance the standard wizard.

A necromancer that gets back 1 BP for every creature slain, and has up to 6 summons at once might be able to take on a solo quest.

The problem I see is that in a running campaign, players will want to use their "own" heroes, even when a fellow player has no time to come for the game this evening.
Though I like the "master class" heroes as you did them, and think there will be good opportunities to use them, I would generally rather think around ways to use the standard heroes.
Possibilities that come to mind are:

• Make the quest easier.
  There are different ways to do so - perhaps we could even come up with a way to calculate the number or types of monsters or traps to remove when a specific hero or part of equipment is missing in this quest.
• Let the other players control the heroes of the missing players. Perhaps the players could make an agreement which fellow player they want to control their heroes.
• Variant of the previous point: If the players don't want their heroes controlled by someone else, the missing hero could be replaced by a generic hero of the same type ("Minimax could not come, but he has sent his cousin to help you"), that is controlled like a henchman.
• Give the heroes an advancement that is removed after the quest. Something like (Mentor's speech) "As your friend Hansi the barbarian can't join you in this quest, prince Magnus has decided he will lend you his personal enchanted sword to help you with your mission".

Big Bene wrote:The problem I see is that in a running campaign, players will want to use their "own" heroes, even when a fellow player has no time to come for the game this evening.
Though I like the "master class" heroes as you did them, and think there will be good opportunities to use them, I would generally rather think around ways to use the standard heroes.
Possibilities that come to mind are:

• Make the quest easier.
  There are different ways to do so - perhaps we could even come up with a way to calculate the number or types of monsters or traps to remove when a specific hero or part of equipment is missing in this quest.
• Let the other players control the heroes of the missing players. Perhaps the players could make an agreement which fellow player they want to control their heroes.
• Variant of the previous point: If the players don't want their heroes controlled by someone else, the missing hero could be replaced by a generic hero of the same type ("Minimax could not come, but he has sent his cousin to help you"), that is controlled like a henchman.
• Give the heroes an advancement that is removed after the quest. Something like (Mentor's speech) "As your friend Hansi the barbarian can't join you in this quest, prince Magnus has decided he will lend you his personal enchanted sword to help you with your mission".

* Make the quest easier - actually, Count Mohawk and I are currently working on an idea that could do the trick. We'll present it here when we finally got round to finish it. (Just needs an afternoon or two of work - an afternoon or two i don't have at the moment!)


Cyntia, you might like the idea to grant the Barbarian and/or the Dwarf a cleave attack with an Axe-like Weapon that can attack 2 adjacent Monsters at the same time with one dice roll.
The Elf might get a super fast rapier that allows him to attack twice each turn.
The Wizard might heavy-use the Staff of Fireball (1 Fireball each turn at any monster in the same room or within Line of sight, 2 Attack dice) - only that he gets Morcar's ring of power for this Quest that grants him the use of the staff twice each turn.

A second attack effectively halves the amount of BP that a hero loses in a fight - it's like having two Heroes in one Model, or one Hero with double strength. With these double-attacks, they can make up for the offense power missing otherwise.

For the defense, give them 3 potions of Healing. That's roughly the amount of BP the two missing heroes have. You could give them four as well, but... i like to have it a little bit more difficult.