My house rules in modular form

[Thrasher79]

Hello,
After a long time, I finally managed to translate my house rules into English. I hope it’s easy to read.
Basically, it’s structured in a way that you can easily pick out individual parts. You’re not forced to use the entire rulebook. The core topics are the advancement system with the skills and the city/guild area. The last pages will then be filled with the bestiary. There, all the monsters I use are listed, including their stats and skills.
I deliberately left the cover out of the PDF, because otherwise the page numbers in the table of contents would have been off by one page.
Maps, overlays and quest books will be added gradually.
Here’s the link to the rules for now:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/6hqj7qs6 ... 9.pdf/file

Regards, Thrasher79

[Onan]

The Hero may choose the order of these actions freely. However, each action may only be performed once per turn.

This is a very elegant solution! Move is an action, double move and double attack is prevented by requiring 2 different actions per turn. Elf and wizard may now attack and cast, which is OK I think. Maybe the biggest change is Search+Attack. You can now kill the Wandering Monster after Search. Is this how your players use it? Or any other cool combos that would not be allowed in vanilla HQ?

[Thrasher79]

Hi,
I’m glad you like my rules.
Yes, my heroes actually use everything that is possible. The rules themselves have been in use for more than 20 years. The adventures have been adapted accordingly to the advantages the heroes receive. However, the freedom to choose actions is not such a big deviation from the original rulebook. I’ve just expanded it a bit
The user The Admiral is currently helping me translate the quest books into English. He is also playing a test game. The first book is basically finished. There are only two small changes left in the text, then I will make it available here. You will see that the heroes really need everything. I have done a lot for the heroes as a game master, but that doesn’t mean I don’t expect anything from them. I don’t give them anything in the quest, it’s all about fighting the enemy with all your might.

Regards, Thrasher79

[The Admiral]

Having solo played Thrasher 79's first quest of his Shadows of the Past trilogy, I can confirm that it is exceedingly hard, but speaking for myself I can say it was welcome as my brother and I have some very powerful parties now that most quest packs are just too easy for; this isn't.

Obviously he plays them with his rules, but they can be played with standard rules as well and there will be special rules written where any rule conversions are necessary. For example, Thrasher 79 has his own potion creation rules, created before Rise of the Dread Moon, but the official Alchemy rules from that quest pack are easily substituted.

[Thrasher79]

Hi,
@Onan: I unfortunately misunderstood you yesterday in part! The heroes can freely choose the actions that are listed, BUT: Attacking, casting a spell and using a scroll are one action. This is summarized in one point in the rulebook.
That means:
Searching and attacking in one round is possible.
Attacking and casting a spell in one round is not possible.
The actions are always listed with a black bullet point. The hero can freely choose between these points. Basically you understood it correctly, only that attacking and casting a spell in one round is not possible. That would probably be too much.
Sorry that I misunderstood that yesterday. I hope I could correct my mistake.
But feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
I am always happy when I am informed about things that are not understandable for outsiders. As the author you always know what you mean. That doesn’t mean that others can understand it the same way;-)

Regards Thrasher79

P.S.: The Admiral sent me the last text changes today. Now I just have to insert them and then I can present the first book in the Inn:-)

[Onan]

The actions are always listed with a black bullet point. The hero can freely choose between these points. Basically you understood it correctly, only that attacking and casting a spell in one round is not possible. That would probably be too much.

Ah, that was the idea of listing them under one bullet point! I thought it was just a little inconsistency in format. Yes, this might need an explanation in the text. The seasoned HQ player assumes these are different actions. They even are in your rules, they are just grouped in the same category to limit action choice.

I have played the Ulag quest solo yesterday using "2 different actions among Move, Fight, Cast, Search". This works really well. Hitting back on the Wandering Monster feels good, "Cast + Fight" is not OP since spells are limited. But for the most part it just plays as normal.

[MonsterMotor]

20+ years is an impressive timespan. When I read through these rules, they certainly awaken the impression of a real old-school HQ playstile. Just 2 general questions on them:

1. It is not clear to me what the advantage may be to distinguish between line of sight and field of view. Rest assured I don't want to initiate a deeper discussion on this ever problematic "vision" topic here, but I am just curious about the general purpose of this distinction.

2. Why did you choose to deviate from the plain, universal buy-sell price ratio of 2:1 for many items?

[Thrasher79]

Hi,

Yes, it really has been a long time. We've been playing with the same group since 2001. Many of the rules have developed over time. I still remember writing the first house rules on scraps of paper. Among other things, the alchemy system was originally created on one of those scraps of paper.

To answer your questions:

1. Field of View is everything a figure can see. In the same room, that means everything in the room. In different rooms, it depends on the viewing cone and so on.

Line of Sight means that a figure is within your Field of View and you can draw a line to it that is not blocked by another figure or a similar obstacle.

I only need Line of Sight for ranged attacks about 90% of the time. That's where Line of Sight is important. Otherwise, Field of View is usually what matters.

2. I usually divided the price by two and then rounded down. After all, the merchants have to make a living too!

I also noticed that I made two mistakes in the potion prices. In those cases, the buying price is higher than the selling price... Unfortunately, I made a typo there.

I'll correct the errors I've found and then make a new version available.

If anyone finds any other mistakes, please let me know!

Regards Thrasher79

[Onan]

The Game Master gradually sets up the game board as the Heroes explore. Only what lies within a Hero's
Field of View is set up. If a door is opened, the Game Master first sets up the entire contents of the room,
including the monsters. Only then may the Hero continue their turn.

This is unclear. Do you set up only those monsters that are in the hero's FoV, or the entire room?

Barbarian: Black Shields also count as Skulls.
Dwarf: Only Skulls count.
Elf: Only Skulls count.
Wizard: Only White Shields count.

I've also been playing around with modifying the chances to hit per dice. This works really well. And it represents nicely the advantage of a good weapon in the hands of a skilled warrior. But I have switched to standard D6 for it. Attacking on shields makes sense when looking at probabilities, but the symbol is not well suited to represent a hit.

[Thrasher79]

Hi Onan,

Regarding point 1:

Yes, this can be a little confusing at first. The Game Master sets up the entire room. However, a Hero can only attack monsters within their Field of View, for example when using a spell that requires it.

In practice, setting up the entire room has proven to be easier. For a while, we actually tried placing only the monsters within the Hero's Field of View. But that was quite demanding for the Game Master and wasn't particularly easy for the Heroes either.

We handle it as if a Hero simply sticks their head through the doorway when opening a door, allowing them to see everything in the room, at least briefly. That's why I specifically included the rule that the entire room is set up when a door is opened.

Regarding point 2:

Of course, you can also handle this with standard D6 dice. Essentially, the result is the same.

I have some monsters and also artifacts that are better at attacking or defending. There is a German dice shop where you can buy different Combat Dice with different arrangements of symbols. But I don't want to go down that route. Otherwise, I'd eventually end up with what feels like 10 different types of dice on the table.

In our group, every Hero has their own personal set of dice, and so do I. Some of these sets contain a mix of different coloured dice from the original game and the Barbarian Quest set. Each set consists of Combat Dice and 2D6.

To make sure everyone can represent all the different possibilities with their own dice, I decided to change which symbols count.

Here's an example: My Dwarf currently has a Warhammer that allows him to roll 4 Combat Dice when attacking. For 2 of those dice, Black Shields also count as hits. However, these two dice must be designated before rolling.

So he simply takes 2 white dice and 2 blue dice from Barbarian Quest, and he's ready to roll his attack. When defending, he can use exactly the same dice without having to swap anything.

I want to keep rolling dice as simple as possible, especially when it comes to the number of different types of dice needed. That's why making use of the existing symbols was the easiest solution for me.

Best regards,
Thrasher79