Making heros wrong

[burglekutt]

There's a huge difference between making a 5th hero to the group & making a replacement hero to one of the original 4 heros.

Making a 5th hero is easy because we just need to make him weak enough not to upset the game as he hangs along.
Bards, Monks, Thieves etc, we can all find a place for them when they are a 5th wheel.

But if they are a replacement hero...the situation is vastly different.
Here are some suggestions:
Barbarian/ Paladin
Dwarf/ Thief
Elf/ Bard
Wizard/ Monk

Have any of you ever created "replacement hero's" for the original 4?
I see that most of you haven't, including me sadly:)

[MonsterMotor]

We are inventing heros wrong!
By pretending 5 to 8 players are gonna show up every game is ludicrous & tempts you to create "middle of the road heros" with stats between 5/5 & 6/4, we see it all the time! We should instead be making heros that replace the original four that can be traded out when needed.

Who is we? I don't know anybody who pretends 5 to 8 players are gonna show up every game. There is surely a lot of imbalance among the heroes, both old and new ones, which is somewhat problematic as is widely known here. I do dislike a few of the new official heroes and personally make substantial changes to many of the heroes in my ruleset to better balance but also individualize them further, which makes them more interesting to play. But I do not see why new heroes need to be fully exchangable for old ones. Even the original HQ rules allow for compensation of some missing or underdeveloped abilities, e.g., you can hire a scout or buy a toolbox if you have nobody who can disarm traps. There are weaker heroes with no spells, but they can have spell-like abilities. Spell scrolls and potions also exist if the group is weakly skilled in the use of magic.

[burglekutt]

Ggvv