Ye Olde Inn

I'm doing a lot of homebrewing for Heroquest, trying to create a homebrew ruleset that remains simple for my children and wife to play, while at the same time addressing various issues with the core rules.

One thing that has always bothered me is that Barbarian is just... worse than any other hero that performs the same role.

His only advantages are:
1) Having more Body Points
2) Starting with a Broadsword

Having a Broadsword isn't much of an advantage though as most other heroes that perform a similar role (Dwarf, Elf, Knight, Berserker) can also get and use a broadsword just fine, while having a bunch of advantages themselves.

Body Points meanwhile are important - far more so than Mind Points in most scenarios - but it must be noted that in practical terms, there isn't much difference between starting with 1 extra Body Point, or preventing 1 Body Point of damage to yourself, or healing for 1 Body Point.

Based on this, I did a quick mental analysis of other characters similar to the Barbarian, listing their pros and cons:

Dwarf:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword, or Handaxe in First Light)
+ 1 more Mind Point
+ Can disarm traps successfully without a toolkit 5/6 times
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied, and the gold coin value of not needing a toolkit is in fact greater than the cost of buying a Broadsword, so this already evens out. Having 1 less Body Point is a bit of a downside, but the amount of Body Points potentially saved by both the Dwarf and his companions by having a 83% rather than 50% chance of disarming traps should not be overlooked, and is something the Barbarian can't buy. In balance, a Dwarf's unique ability is likely more useful to the party in the long run than the Barbarian's 1 extra Body Point, so the Dwarf is better.

Elf:
- 2 less Body Points
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ 2 more Mind Points
+ Can cast spells from 1 Elemental spell deck (or from the Elf spell deck, if using it)
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to cast spells adds a great deal of versatility. Picking either Water or Earth provides the Elf with a healing spell, which translates to 4 additional Body Points, not to mention the utility of the other two spells this provides. The Barbarian never gets the ability to cast spells, so the Elf is better.

Knight:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ Starts with a Shield
+ Can wear Plate Armour without being slowed down
+ Has 3 Knight Skills
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to wear Plate Armour without being slowed is huge - it effectively means the Knight can buy the equivalent of Borin's Armour, and if you have Borin's Armour, it frees this up for someone else to use, giving another hero an extra potential defense dice. Having 1 less Body Point is irrelevant, since the Knight has the Stalwart ability that allows them to survive hitting 0 Body Points (or even -1 or less) with 1 Body Points once per Quest - so this is as good or better than having 1 extra Body Point. And finally, their Shield Block ability (if they choose to use a shield) blocks at least 1 Body Point of damage that would have been done to another hero, potentially even more. The Barbarian has none of these things, so the Knight is all-round better.

Berserker:
- 1 less Body Point
- Can't use ranged weapons
+ Has 3 Berserker skills
Conclusion: The Berserker skills are quite powerful but can only be used once per Quest and have conditions or costs. "Enrage" lets you spend 1-2 Body Points to perform an attack with 1-2 extra Attack dice. "Retaliation" lets you do 1 free attack on an enemy that attacked you (if you have 5 or fewer Body Points). "Frenzy" lets you attack every enemy adjacent to you, including on diagonals (if you have 3 or fewer Body Points). These are potent skills that the Barbarian doesn't have. That said, the inability to use a Crossbow does factor into balancing this to some extent, since the Crossbow is often considered a rather overpowered weapon, and the loss of 1 Body Point (plus the cost associated with Enrage) makes the Berserker into more of a glass cannon. On the whole I'd say the Berserker does still edge out the Barbarian for overall power, but it's a closer call than, say, the Knight.

My proposed homebrew fix is to give the Barbarian a simple ability to make him unique and better but still a fairly straightforward character to play.

The ability I came up with:
Anger
If the Barbarian takes any Body Point damage from one or more monsters, then if they use their next action to attack an adjacent monster, they may roll 1 additional combat die for that attack.

A few notes regarding the above:
- The ability only works if the Barbarian's next action is to attack. If he does not attack with his next action, the ability does nothing. The extra attack dice isn't 'stored'.
- The ability only ever provides 1 extra combat dice for an attack. It doesn't matter how many Body Points the Barbarian lost or how many monsters hit him before that attack, the bonus is 1.
- There is no limit to the number of times this ability can trigger.

However, I wanted to make sure that "Anger" doesn't straight-up make the Barbarian better than the Berserker either.

Comparing a Barbarian with Anger vs a Berserker:
+ Has 1 more Body Point
+ Anger can trigger multiple times in a Quest (every time the Barbarian takes damage from monsters)
+ The Barbarian can use a Crossbow
= The Anger ability doesn't improve Crossbow (or other ranged) attacks as it can only be used against enemies adjacent to the Barbarian
- The Barbarian can't control when Anger triggers (at least not directly - they can choose to wear less armour and put themselves in danger, which is rather thematic), whereas the Berserker gets to choose when they use Enrage for a similar effect.
- Anger will only ever provide 1 extra die, whereas the Berserker's Enrage can potentially provide a 2 combat dice bonus if they choose to lose 2 Body Points.
- The Barbarian only has Anger, while the Berserker not only has Enrage but also the Retaliation and Frenzy abilities.

Note that in my homebrew rules I've toned down the crossbow a bit (you need to spend a full turn to reload it after shooting, plus there's some minor time pressure in each Quest) so the crossbow advantage isn't quite as big for me, but I'd like to consider this in the light of the vanilla rules too.

What does the Inn think: is the proposed Anger ability too powerful? Or is it good as-is?
Should I tone it down so it only works sometimes (though that would make it even more complex)?

I've been using the following for years, it is similar to yours, but simpler

Battle Rage

A character with this ability rolls an extra combat die when attacking in hand-to-hand combat and one less combat die when defending in hand-to-hand combat due to their ferocious but reckless combat style.

Barbarian can wear the Amulet of the North and use Potions of Frost Skin, Battle Rage, and Icy Strength (even outside the Rise of the Dread Moon).

Bareheaded Warrior wrote:I've been using the following for years, it is similar to yours, but simpler

Battle Rage

A character with this ability rolls an extra combat die when attacking in hand-to-hand combat and one less combat die when defending in hand-to-hand combat due to their ferocious but reckless combat style.

That's a nice, simple, elegant rule.

Does mean that the Barbarian is always less 'tanky' though (which is a shame, given his high BP) and gives him a very high Attack Dice total all the time (I find even one extra attack dice makes quite a difference). How have you found playing this? Did the Barbarian feel overpowered at all?

Kurgan wrote:Barbarian can wear the Amulet of the North and use Potions of Frost Skin, Battle Rage, and Icy Strength (even outside the Rise of the Dread Moon).

Yeah, the Barbarian and Elf Quest Packs are a different can of worms entirely... I find both The Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror to be replete with overpowered items/spells intended solely for their main star.
That might have worked if we'd been given a Dwarf and Wizard pack too, and if we didn't have all the other hero types that Avalon Hill introduced, but as of now we'd have to come up with our own similar additions for things to remain vaguely balanced.

That said, if I'm not mistaken, the potions were rebalanced in Rise of the Dread Moon so that anyone can use them, not just the Barbarian, so it's no longer a unique advantage... only the Amulet of the North is (and I suppose any Barbarian that survives the Frozen Horror deserves it).

Kurgan wrote:Barbarian can wear the Amulet of the North and use Potions of Frost Skin, Battle Rage, and Icy Strength (even outside the Rise of the Dread Moon).

And the Amulet of the North is what keeps the Barbarian in the running with other heroes. Without a system of leveling up the character themselves, the gear they accumulate is what makes our daring heroes grow over time. The Amulet of the North is a pretty big deal, taking the Barbarian to 10/3

Another strength held by the Barbarian, but in a different way? Simplicity. The Barbarian provides the simplest possible character for younger players to use. They don't need to worry as much about when to use an ability, how best to position oneself to use an ability

Not saying these aren't valid critiques and observations, but I'm going to look at the other angles of it too here...

Soul Reaver wrote:Dwarf:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword, or Handaxe in First Light)
+ 1 more Mind Point
+ Can disarm traps successfully without a toolkit 5/6 times
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied, and the gold coin value of not needing a toolkit is in fact greater than the cost of buying a Broadsword, so this already evens out. Having 1 less Body Point is a bit of a downside, but the amount of Body Points potentially saved by both the Dwarf and his companions by having a 83% rather than 50% chance of disarming traps should not be overlooked, and is something the Barbarian can't buy. In balance, a Dwarf's unique ability is likely more useful to the party in the long run than the Barbarian's 1 extra Body Point, so the Dwarf is better.

Of course I'm assuming all the heroes are working as a team rather than as rivals, of course (and almost all quests are designed for 4 heroes)... there's only one Solo Quest built for someone other than the Barbarian or Elf and it's pretty easy (Into the Northlands).

When it comes to traps, most traps never need to be disarmed... either they are triggered automatically when walking through the doorway (dirty trick!) or else they can be avoided simply be careful searching. Pit and Falling Block traps are the biggest nuisance and in corridors they will need to be jumped (just as risky as disarming with a toolkit). Again, let the Dwarf do it. Other than some of these corridor traps the only other ones to deal with are the furniture traps on Chests when an artifact must be found. Once again, unless you left the Dwarf behind for one of these other heroes (or you let him die), the Barbarian doesn't have to risk himself. This keeps up the Dwarf's value, while his turn action is used to disarm to the trap while the Barbarian can still be useful fighting or doing the risky search.

Moving from 2 attack dice to 3 is a big deal. Broadsword costs 250 gold coins, while the Barbarian's is free. Depending upon where the heroes start gold may not be a big deal, but the Game System doesn't give out lots of gold to each hero without them having to work for it (and risk many hazards and Wandering Monsters). The Broadsword is FREE. Yes, if the Barbarian is willing to give it away to another hero when he upgrades HIS weapon, sure I guess that's great for that hero. The Barbarian never needs to disarm traps while the Dwarf is alive.

The Barbarian will on average kill his opponents faster and easier than the Elf or Dwarf. He can also tolerate bad Treasure cards a little easier so he could theoretically upgrade his gear faster, meaning he's always going to be "ahead" of his fellows unless he's deliberately holding back.

Mind points are great, but unless you're playing Frozen Horror (where "Poison" can take away potentially 2 Mind Points in the quest, leaving you "in shock" with halved movement, weak attack, and unarmed defense... until a Potion of Restoration heals you of course)... you only have to worry about this during select boss fights.

Elf:
- 2 less Body Points
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ 2 more Mind Points
+ Can cast spells from 1 Elemental spell deck (or from the Elf spell deck, if using it)
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to cast spells adds a great deal of versatility. Picking either Water or Earth provides the Elf with a healing spell, which translates to 4 additional Body Points, not to mention the utility of the other two spells this provides. The Barbarian never gets the ability to cast spells, so the Elf is better.

Healing to save himself is great (Earth or Water spells), but this assumes he's always using it to save himself from death instead of healing the Barbarian to keep him alive and tanking the doorways. The heroes are working together as a team not as rivals competing in the 2021 edition like the 1990 NA edition. The other healing will always be in the hands of the Wizard (if the MOTM Elf spells are given and the Elf happens to choose those, the Wizard can have BOTH healings if he wishes and heal the Barbarian once again). Barbarian can benefit the most by healing to full when he's down to half. He also benefits the most from Healing Potions with less chance of "wasted" points (down to 2 and he could roll a 6 and go back up to full). More of course is possible when he gets the Amulet of the North for a max of 10. Meanwhile with the Elven Bracers (only available in MOTM's remake) the Elf can make it to 8 BP but the Barbarian may already be at 10 (depending upon what order you play the packs). The Elf Spells provide no healing so best used by an experienced elf who has accumulated some healing potions.

Knight:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ Starts with a Shield
+ Can wear Plate Armour without being slowed down
+ Has 3 Knight Skills
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to wear Plate Armour without being slowed is huge - it effectively means the Knight can buy the equivalent of Borin's Armour, and if you have Borin's Armour, it frees this up for someone else to use, giving another hero an extra potential defense dice. Having 1 less Body Point is irrelevant, since the Knight has the Stalwart ability that allows them to survive hitting 0 Body Points (or even -1 or less) with 1 Body Points once per Quest - so this is as good or better than having 1 extra Body Point. And finally, their Shield Block ability (if they choose to use a shield) blocks at least 1 Body Point of damage that would have been done to another hero, potentially even more. The Barbarian has none of these things, so the Knight is all-round better.

Defense is nice, but again the Barbarian can kill monsters faster. The Knight's Stalwart Skill is the only skill that actually helps himself... and brings him back with 1 BP, making it effectively like he has 8 BP I suppose, but doesn't help him maximize healing like the Barbarian can quite as well. The Shield Block only helps a fellow and Knight's Challenge draws more risk to himself (If he chooses) to save someone from a Wandering Monster attack. Plate Armor is the most expensive item in the Armory, so won't be available for a long time. By this time, it's likely Borin's Armor will be found, maybe even the Elven Chainmail (MOTM) and so it makes sense to just have three heroes who have the strongest armor, rather than worrying that two Plate Mail users will exist and one be jealous of the Knight! If the knight ever sells his shield, he loses two of his skills, meaning he won't be able to use the Battle Axe (though how Zargon handles switching weapons and armor to avoid cheating comes into play here) unless he thinks it's worth it. The Knight can never go above 7 BP while the Barbarian can go to 10, and equal his mind points, with FH's Amulet of the North. Plus he gets access to those extra potions (if Zargon decides to allows the Alchemist deck from ROTDM be available as a shop for every quest, then this becomes less of an advantage of course; Is Frozen Horror's Alchemist Shop only available during that expansion... or available during all of the "hero themed" packs?).

Berserker:
- 1 less Body Point
- Can't use ranged weapons
+ Has 3 Berserker skills
Conclusion: The Berserker skills are quite powerful but can only be used once per Quest and have conditions or costs. "Enrage" lets you spend 1-2 Body Points to perform an attack with 1-2 extra Attack dice. "Retaliation" lets you do 1 free attack on an enemy that attacked you (if you have 5 or fewer Body Points). "Frenzy" lets you attack every enemy adjacent to you, including on diagonals (if you have 3 or fewer Body Points). These are potent skills that the Barbarian doesn't have. That said, the inability to use a Crossbow does factor into balancing this to some extent, since the Crossbow is often considered a rather overpowered weapon, and the loss of 1 Body Point (plus the cost associated with Enrage) makes the Berserker into more of a glass cannon. On the whole I'd say the Berserker does still edge out the Barbarian for overall power, but it's a closer call than, say, the Knight.

Berserker often throws his life away. He needs lots of healing as he loses BP even faster than the Barbarian despite the damage he deals. No upgrade to 10 BP. If he never uses his skills he could be a less risky way to fight but he'll kill enemies faster than the knight (and thus not have to worry about defending). The nice thing is if he's playing defensively but happens to take damage, he can make proper use of the skills, but needs backup, just as the Knight is not so great by himself. All heroes play as a team!

Don't underestimate ranged weapons. If you play the Crossobow as Avalon Hill intends (without the many nerfs people use) it's value is inestimable. It's like being able to throw unlimited broadswords at your enemies! Some rule that the Berserker can still throw weapons (dagger, hand axe). Of course one weapon is extremely weak and the other is a very expensive thing to throw (and for "only" 2 dice vs. 3 with the crossbow's unlimited arrows).

The Barbarian is awesome. Not invincible, not utterly self sufficient, but a strong asset to the team.

All that said, Homebrew is great... do whatever you want! But keep in mind when you boost one hero, you're back to the old "problem" of worrying the other heroes are now less desirable when another is boosted. Do they all have to be absolutely equal? In the first edition players would "roll off" to see who got first pick, and the last person would have to accept whoever was left (you could even do this if you only had two people playing). I'm navigating the tricky road of have an "upgrade" path of progression for the heroes, which means giving them all something as they complete more quests (but not endless growth, it still Maxes out after 10-14 quests completed then you're just buying more potions and hiring more mercs when available).

The barbarian should get some special skill like:
He can attack with an extra dice when using a basic weapon (dagger, hand axe, broad sword ir short sword or any artifact melee weapon).

Or

He get a token and can spend it once per quest to add one skull to an attack roll even after the roll is made.

Something like that.

Kurgan wrote:Not saying these aren't valid critiques and observations, but I'm going to look at the other angles of it too here...

Soul Reaver wrote:Dwarf:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword, or Handaxe in First Light)
+ 1 more Mind Point
+ Can disarm traps successfully without a toolkit 5/6 times
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied, and the gold coin value of not needing a toolkit is in fact greater than the cost of buying a Broadsword, so this already evens out. Having 1 less Body Point is a bit of a downside, but the amount of Body Points potentially saved by both the Dwarf and his companions by having a 83% rather than 50% chance of disarming traps should not be overlooked, and is something the Barbarian can't buy. In balance, a Dwarf's unique ability is likely more useful to the party in the long run than the Barbarian's 1 extra Body Point, so the Dwarf is better.

Of course I'm assuming all the heroes are working as a team rather than as rivals, of course (and almost all quests are designed for 4 heroes)... there's only one Solo Quest built for someone other than the Barbarian or Elf and it's pretty easy (Into the Northlands).

When it comes to traps, most traps never need to be disarmed... either they are triggered automatically when walking through the doorway (dirty trick!) or else they can be avoided simply be careful searching. Pit and Falling Block traps are the biggest nuisance and in corridors they will need to be jumped (just as risky as disarming with a toolkit). Again, let the Dwarf do it. Other than some of these corridor traps the only other ones to deal with are the furniture traps on Chests when an artifact must be found. Once again, unless you left the Dwarf behind for one of these other heroes (or you let him die), the Barbarian doesn't have to risk himself. This keeps up the Dwarf's value, while his turn action is used to disarm to the trap while the Barbarian can still be useful fighting or doing the risky search.

Moving from 2 attack dice to 3 is a big deal. Broadsword costs 250 gold coins, while the Barbarian's is free. Depending upon where the heroes start gold may not be a big deal, but the Game System doesn't give out lots of gold to each hero without them having to work for it (and risk many hazards and Wandering Monsters). The Broadsword is FREE. Yes, if the Barbarian is willing to give it away to another hero when he upgrades HIS weapon, sure I guess that's great for that hero. The Barbarian never needs to disarm traps while the Dwarf is alive.

The Barbarian will on average kill his opponents faster and easier than the Elf or Dwarf. He can also tolerate bad Treasure cards a little easier so he could theoretically upgrade his gear faster, meaning he's always going to be "ahead" of his fellows unless he's deliberately holding back.

Mind points are great, but unless you're playing Frozen Horror (where "Poison" can take away potentially 2 Mind Points in the quest, leaving you "in shock" with halved movement, weak attack, and unarmed defense... until a Potion of Restoration heals you of course)... you only have to worry about this during select boss fights.

Elf:
- 2 less Body Points
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ 2 more Mind Points
+ Can cast spells from 1 Elemental spell deck (or from the Elf spell deck, if using it)
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to cast spells adds a great deal of versatility. Picking either Water or Earth provides the Elf with a healing spell, which translates to 4 additional Body Points, not to mention the utility of the other two spells this provides. The Barbarian never gets the ability to cast spells, so the Elf is better.

Healing to save himself is great (Earth or Water spells), but this assumes he's always using it to save himself from death instead of healing the Barbarian to keep him alive and tanking the doorways. The heroes are working together as a team not as rivals competing in the 2021 edition like the 1990 NA edition. The other healing will always be in the hands of the Wizard (if the MOTM Elf spells are given and the Elf happens to choose those, the Wizard can have BOTH healings if he wishes and heal the Barbarian once again). Barbarian can benefit the most by healing to full when he's down to half. He also benefits the most from Healing Potions with less chance of "wasted" points (down to 2 and he could roll a 6 and go back up to full). More of course is possible when he gets the Amulet of the North for a max of 10. Meanwhile with the Elven Bracers (only available in MOTM's remake) the Elf can make it to 8 BP but the Barbarian may already be at 10 (depending upon what order you play the packs). The Elf Spells provide no healing so best used by an experienced elf who has accumulated some healing potions.

Knight:
- 1 less Body Point
- Weaker starting weapon (Shortsword)
+ Starts with a Shield
+ Can wear Plate Armour without being slowed down
+ Has 3 Knight Skills
Conclusion: The weaker starting weapon is easily remedied. The ability to wear Plate Armour without being slowed is huge - it effectively means the Knight can buy the equivalent of Borin's Armour, and if you have Borin's Armour, it frees this up for someone else to use, giving another hero an extra potential defense dice. Having 1 less Body Point is irrelevant, since the Knight has the Stalwart ability that allows them to survive hitting 0 Body Points (or even -1 or less) with 1 Body Points once per Quest - so this is as good or better than having 1 extra Body Point. And finally, their Shield Block ability (if they choose to use a shield) blocks at least 1 Body Point of damage that would have been done to another hero, potentially even more. The Barbarian has none of these things, so the Knight is all-round better.

Defense is nice, but again the Barbarian can kill monsters faster. The Knight's Stalwart Skill is the only skill that actually helps himself... and brings him back with 1 BP, making it effectively like he has 8 BP I suppose, but doesn't help him maximize healing like the Barbarian can quite as well. The Shield Block only helps a fellow and Knight's Challenge draws more risk to himself (If he chooses) to save someone from a Wandering Monster attack. Plate Armor is the most expensive item in the Armory, so won't be available for a long time. By this time, it's likely Borin's Armor will be found, maybe even the Elven Chainmail (MOTM) and so it makes sense to just have three heroes who have the strongest armor, rather than worrying that two Plate Mail users will exist and one be jealous of the Knight! If the knight ever sells his shield, he loses two of his skills, meaning he won't be able to use the Battle Axe (though how Zargon handles switching weapons and armor to avoid cheating comes into play here) unless he thinks it's worth it. The Knight can never go above 7 BP while the Barbarian can go to 10, and equal his mind points, with FH's Amulet of the North. Plus he gets access to those extra potions (if Zargon decides to allows the Alchemist deck from ROTDM be available as a shop for every quest, then this becomes less of an advantage of course; Is Frozen Horror's Alchemist Shop only available during that expansion... or available during all of the "hero themed" packs?).

Berserker:
- 1 less Body Point
- Can't use ranged weapons
+ Has 3 Berserker skills
Conclusion: The Berserker skills are quite powerful but can only be used once per Quest and have conditions or costs. "Enrage" lets you spend 1-2 Body Points to perform an attack with 1-2 extra Attack dice. "Retaliation" lets you do 1 free attack on an enemy that attacked you (if you have 5 or fewer Body Points). "Frenzy" lets you attack every enemy adjacent to you, including on diagonals (if you have 3 or fewer Body Points). These are potent skills that the Barbarian doesn't have. That said, the inability to use a Crossbow does factor into balancing this to some extent, since the Crossbow is often considered a rather overpowered weapon, and the loss of 1 Body Point (plus the cost associated with Enrage) makes the Berserker into more of a glass cannon. On the whole I'd say the Berserker does still edge out the Barbarian for overall power, but it's a closer call than, say, the Knight.

Berserker often throws his life away. He needs lots of healing as he loses BP even faster than the Barbarian despite the damage he deals. No upgrade to 10 BP. If he never uses his skills he could be a less risky way to fight but he'll kill enemies faster than the knight (and thus not have to worry about defending). The nice thing is if he's playing defensively but happens to take damage, he can make proper use of the skills, but needs backup, just as the Knight is not so great by himself. All heroes play as a team!

Don't underestimate ranged weapons. If you play the Crossobow as Avalon Hill intends (without the many nerfs people use) it's value is inestimable. It's like being able to throw unlimited broadswords at your enemies! Some rule that the Berserker can still throw weapons (dagger, hand axe). Of course one weapon is extremely weak and the other is a very expensive thing to throw (and for "only" 2 dice vs. 3 with the crossbow's unlimited arrows).

The Barbarian is awesome. Not invincible, not utterly self sufficient, but a strong asset to the team.

All that said, Homebrew is great... do whatever you want! But keep in mind when you boost one hero, you're back to the old "problem" of worrying the other heroes are now less desirable when another is boosted. Do they all have to be absolutely equal? In the first edition players would "roll off" to see who got first pick, and the last person would have to accept whoever was left (you could even do this if you only had two people playing). I'm navigating the tricky road of have an "upgrade" path of progression for the heroes, which means giving them all something as they complete more quests (but not endless growth, it still Maxes out after 10-14 quests completed then you're just buying more potions and hiring more mercs when available).

I guess we're coming at it from somewhat different angles.

The way I'm thinking about it is still from the Barbarian being part of a team.... but from the perspective of trying to decide on if it's worth including a Barbarian in a four hero party when there are more than four options for heroes available, and with a long term view on his usefulness.

From the view of the first few quests, yes, his additional combat dice is useful. But most heroes can just spend 175 Gold Coins (by selling their starting Short Sword) and buy a Broadsword too. Then they're just as strong offensively... and also have at least one unique ability that the Barbarian can never get.

At 'max level', fully decked out with all the equipment they can/want to buy, every other hero mentioned in the list above is at least as good or better than the Barbarian at both attacking and defending (except maybe the Berserker since they actually are given one disadvantage). They can do everything he can do... and then some other stuff as well. It doesn't take that long to be at 'max level' either. In my game with my family, and even with house rules that only allowed one search for treasure per room total (not one per hero) they were pretty much fully decked out by the end of the core quest book. Yet there are a ton of expansions still to go after that.

The additional Body Points that the Barbarian has aren't of much value. In the bigger scheme of things, if you allow heroes to pass potions to each other and you have at least one per hero, and since all of the above options could get the same Defense Dice total, this mans that an individual Hero's Body Points don't really matter much - what matters is the total pool of Body Points that the party has available to them, and how many of those reside in places that get replenished for free at the end of the Quest (ie, in healing spells and in the hero's own Body Points) and how many are in single-use items like Potions.

If you play the game as written, there's never any reason to drink any Potion of Healing unless it's to stop yourself from dying - as you'll get the full healing anyway (I have a house rule that avoid this, but that's irrelevant here).
As long as a hero has 6 or more Body Points, they will never 'waste' any healing by drinking a healing potion this way, and all of the above heroes have 6 or more body points.

With this in mind, if the Elf chooses a spell deck with a heal spell, they beat the Barbarian's contribution by 2 points and add additional utility as well... and if the elf DOESN'T choose a heal spell, chances are that's because the player feels they've got something even better than those extra Body Points available to them.
And if you pick the Knight you've got AT LEAST the same effective Body Point total (the ability to come back with 1 BP might save you from more than just 1 damage, and the ability to block an attack against an ally saves even more).
Only the Dwarf and Berserker's contributions to the Body Point total are genuinely lower, and both by only 1 point... but both have useful abilities.
The Dwarf's ability is situational, but a single pit trap in the middle of the corridor that you have to cross means on average a loss of 2 Body Points from people failing the 50/50 jump roll unless you disarm it... twice that if you have to cross it again on the way back.
The Berserker can be a lot more killy than the Barbarian once they drop to 5 or 3 Body Points, and they don't have to 'sacrifice' any Body Points to get there - it can just happen during the normal course of play. If the same thing happened to the Barbarian, they'd be at 6 or 4 Body Points.... but they wouldn't have access to the Berserker's abilities. And those abilities are powerful, and able to kill monsters. And killing monsters means they won't hurt you in return.

I'm not asking for all the heroes to be 'equally good', but I don't like one of them to pretty much have nothing to recommend them over other heroes other than for the very first few Quests (out of many, many, many more).

And regarding the rewards from the Barbarian Quest Pack (ie, Frozen Horror)... well, compare that with the rewards the Elf gets from the Elf Quest Pack (ie, Mage of the Mirror) and the Elf becomes the best Hero in the whole game.
Those Quest Packs would really only have worked from a balance perspective if every hero had gotten one.

The point I will concede is that he's easy for very young players to pick up and fun for them in the very early game when they get to throw more dice than anyone else.
But case in point: even my 6 year old son (and Barbarian player) soon started eyeing the Elf's ability to cast spells with envy.

Hi,
I’m sorry, I only just discovered this thread.
Yes, the barbarian is really at a disadvantage compared to the other heroes. He was the simplest of the original ones and now with the new edition and the new heroes, he is even more at a disadvantage.
Many things have already been mentioned. We also came to the decision several years ago to improve the barbarian with skills and thus make him more equal to the other heroes. The first skill that our barbarian can learn is the skill Powerful Blow.
Here are the rules for it:
You will be shown how to better channel your raw strength into your blow with a weapon. This will enable you to cause more damage than normal with a blow to the opponent’s armour.
From now on, 1 black shield counts as a skull when rolling your dice for an attack.
For us, this skill costs 600 gold coins. However, it can also be played as a basic skill. That’s how we initially handled it. This skill has proven itself over many years of play. It is relatively easy to implement and gives the barbarian a kick.

Best wishes, Thrasher79

I would prefer that the barbarian receive rules that give the player more interesting choices rather than simply increasing the damage output. Maybe something where his movement is important like getting a free 1 dice attack against monster he passes or being able to split his attack dice between multiple enemies.