In search of a good Rule Set. Please suggest me one...

[CavemanLogic]

5. More spell variety for every caster in the game.

I have yet to add any actual new spells to my game. But I do have a Spellbook Item available for purchase, which grants an additional set of three Spells to a spellcaster at setup.


Spellcaster Spells
Setup: The Wizard selects 3 spell sets from among the 4 Elemental Spell sets. The Elf chooses a set of three spell cards from amongst the eight Elf Spells. The Elf can not cast Elemental Spells.

Items: Spellcasters may purchase their Spellbook item for 1,000 Gold. This grants them an additional set of three spells from the ones available to them. The Wizard Spellbook allows the Wizard to start each quest with all four Elemental sets. The Elf Spellbook allows the Elf to start each quest with six Elf Spells instead of three.


There have been quite a few additional Spell sets released through the years. Dewayne Agin's Hero Spell Colleges are classics. Find them halfway down this page:

https://north-american.yeoldeinn.com/cards.php

He expanded the Air, Earth, Fire, and Water spell sets to 12 Spells each. He also created 12-card sets for Amber, Amethyst, Bright, Celestial, Gold, Grey, High, Ice, Jade, and Light spells.

The graphics are a bit outdated, but you could update them to the HQ 2021 style using Mark Forster's HeroQuest Card Creator online app:

https://public.markforster.info/Heroquest/Tools/card-maker/

And Banjo Oz does some incredible work. He has rebalanced and expanded the four Elemental Spell sets, and created new Warlock Spells and Druid Spells. See here:

https://banjogames.wordpress.com/2024/09/17/heroquest-elemental-spells-re-balanced/
https://banjogames.wordpress.com/2024/05/08/heroquest-new-warlock-spells-and-dread-spells/
https://banjogames.wordpress.com/2024/02/18/heroquest-more-druid-spells/

Cheers!

[CavemanLogic]

6. A penalty suggestion when heroes are slacking after killing all visible monsters.

Ah, yes. A mechanism to bring back the danger of dungeon delving when the Heroes have cleared out all the visible Monsters, but have yet to open the next door. I use a variant of spacefrontierboy's Treasure Deck as Evil Wizard Deck, as posted on BGG:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2901923/treasure-deck-as-evil-wizard-deck


Zargon’s Treasure Deck
Each time Zargon starts a turn with no Active Monsters on the board, Zargon will roll one Combat Die. On a Skull result, they will shuffle the Treasure Deck and draw a card. If the card is a…

Wandering Monster – Choose the Hero with the most current Body Points who has an open space next to them (Zargon’s choice if there is a tie). Place a Wandering Monster in that space. The Monster may immediately take its turn. Return the card to the bottom of the deck.

Hazard! – Zargon chooses a Hero. That Hero performs a Mind Test. If they fail, they lose one Body Point or one Mind Point in their higher stat (Hero’s choice if there is a tie). The Hazard deals either physical damage (as normal) or mental damage (the depths of the dungeon has the Hero spooked or mentally shaken). Do not perform the Extra Damage roll on a 6 result. Return the card to the bottom of the deck.

...Optional (for fewer die rolls): The Hero with the most current Body Points (Zargon’s choice if there is a tie) is overconfident. They trip a Hazard and lose 1 BP.

Gold, Gem, or Jewels – No effect. Return the card to the bottom of the deck. As the Heroes continue exploring deeper into the dungeon, these cards will start becoming scarcer in the Treasure deck, emulating the increased danger of delving deeper. As these cards disappear from the deck, the probability of Zargon drawing a more harmful card goes up.

Any Potion – Take a Skull token. Return the card to the bottom of deck. Turn the token in on your next turn with Active Monsters to give one Monster +1 Attack Die. Limit: One token per Monster attack.


Cheers!

[CavemanLogic]

PS: I have seen somewhere some colored dice but I do not know how they are used. Is there a system that uses them?

Power Dice are alternate layout Combat Dice for HeroQuest. They have various amounts of Skulls, White Shields, Black Shields, and Doubles of each of those three symbols. I mentioned the Spielwarensaloon.de dice above. I ordered from them over two years ago, but had to use Google Chrome's Translate feature to translate the German Site into English for me. Also note that when you check out and choose your Country from the drop-down list, the Country names are not *quite* in alphabetical order (due probably to the translation from German to English). United States is listed below the "V's", for instance.

Anyway, I love their dice, and covered them quite extensively here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3160403/specialty-dice-double-symbols-variant-for-upgraded

Here are the rules I use:


Power Dice
Setup: At the beginning of the Quest, each Hero may randomly draw one Power Die per Quest that they have completed, up to a maximum of five dice. If they have completed between six and 10 Quests, they may instead *choose* a number of dice equal to their number of completed Quests above five, with random pulls from the bag to fill out their remaining complement of five dice. At 10+ completed Quests, they are maxed out on Power Dice, and may simply choose their five dice to use each Quest.

Example: A Hero who has completed seven Quests will choose two Power Dice to use (7 Quests minus 5 equals 2), and then draw three more random Power Dice to use for that Quest.

Use: Any time a Hero would roll Combat Dice, they can choose to add one Power Die to their roll. Once they use a Power Die, it is given to Zargon to use in the same way. Once Zargon uses it, it goes back into the bag and out of the game for that Quest. Any unused Power Dice are returned to the bag between Quests.


Here is a rulesheet from ReproQuest Shop, another seller of Power Dice, with somewhat similar rules.


(https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8017190/cavemanlogic)

Another Power Dice rulesheet was uploaded to the Ye Olde Inn Facebook Group a while back by Roberto Vern. It has 10 different Power Dice sets, and works a little differently, allowing Heroes to keep unused Power Dice between Quests (Zargon must discard theirs though). But you still draw up to five total Power Dice for the next Quest.


(https://boardgamegeek.com/image/9425395/cavemanlogic)

Forges of Nuln sells their own set of 10 Power Dice, which *mostly* match up with the Spielwarensaloon dice, but match the Ye Olde Inn Facebook image above. Plus they sell a deck of Old World Armory cards: 75 Weapons and Armor, all of which use keywords, and many of which use Power Dice. For instance, the Claymore is a two-handed Weapon costing 510 Gold, Attacks with four dice (#2: Black/White, #9: Ivory/Red, plus two standard Combat Dice), has "Impact" (if you cause at least 1 wound it deals an additional wound), but it is "Slow" (allows the defender one reroll of any number of their Defense Dice). It is a two-star weapon, meaning if you begin a Quest with it Zargon gets to draw two Power Dice from the bag. The Old World Armory page on Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1791260074/heroquest-old-world-armoury-equipment

He also sells two expansion decks: Arcane Items and Potions, both of which use Power Dice as well.

Power Dice are a fun addition to the game!

Cheers!

[BlackJax]

I am in search of a new Rule Set that can be implemented in HQ and make the game more interesting. I would like a ruleset that affects the following aspects of the game:
1. Mind points which in turn affect spell damage, spell defending checks and visa versa.
2. More realistic Health Points for monsters
3. A character progression system with character skills that can be learned as you move on, dice getting stronger.
4. Replace dice movement with something more realistic.
5. More spell variety for every caster in the game.
6. A penalty suggestion when heroes are slacking after killing all visible monsters.

I shared my own rule set previously but responding on a point-by-point basis...

1. Mind

For the Mind question I found that the way Mind points work in the original, a mirror to Body points, doesn't really work when you try to actually use it in the game (which probably wasn't spotted back when the original game came out as Mind points weren't really used), for various reasons, so instead when I introduced a common dice pool mechanism for all tests*, I switched from Mind points to Mind being an "attribute" like Attack that determines the number of combat dice that a character rolls to perform a Mind test (or to perform, or to defend against, Mind Attacks) and it then becomes quite easy to think of ways to use this in the game by converting certain spells to use Mind combat like Sleep, Mind Lock, Dominate, Mind Blast and other to use the Mind value like Healing Spells restoring up to the Mind value of the caster, or summoning a number of Skeletons equal to the Mind value of the caster and so on.

*Quick explanation of the Common Dice Pool mechanism.

The "attribute" linked to the test tells you the number of combat dice to roll and you generally need 2 or more skulls to succeed.

+ Move test uses the Move value (for monsters this is 1/2 the move value on their card, for heroes = 5, = 4, & = 3) and is used for jumping, escaping pinning and similar
+ Strength test uses the Strength value (Starting Body points minus 3) and is used for forcing open jammed/locked doors, opening tombs, lifting portcullises and similar
+ Attack test uses the Attack value and is used for attacking
+ Defend test uses the Defend value and is used for defending
+ Mind test uses the Mind value and is used for Mind attacks and defence mainly

For example: To jump a pit, the Dwarf player would need to take a Move test, rolling three combat dice (as the Dwarf has a Move attribute of three) and would need to score 2 or more skulls to succeed and jump the pit.
counts as one skull so the attempt would fail.
counts as two skulls and the special skull can be rolled again once, scoring another so the total skulls would be 3 so the attempt is successful.

2. Monster Body points

Not sure if this is "realistic" but we use

2BP for
3BP for Gargoyles (and typically for named Villains)

We did try using more monster BP, eg Orcs with 2BP and Mummies, Fimir, Chaos Warriors etc with 3 and gargoyles with 4BP but the extra admin of managing the counters was a pain so instead we dropped them back down and instead tweak the meaning of the dice faces for both heroes and monsters like this:

as "shields" for all defensive rolls to cancel out a skull
as "skulls"
as a "special skull" that counts as a "skull" but can be rolled again, once, counting as a normal "skull" if rolled again.

This really hits the spot!

3. Character Progression System

We added a load more single use equipment that can be bought like Elixir of Life (1000gc), Potions, Magic Arrows/Bolts, Fire Flask and so on to extend the existing progression system so you can keep boosting your heroes through spending gold on equipment into the expansions.

4. Replace Dice Movement

I'm a big fan of HeroQuest's concept of an Adventure Board Game rather than an RPG so I like and have kept the board game aspects like roll to move and the simple built in "initiative mechanism" that you get with variable movement for heroes but fixed for monsters.

That said we do have a Rapid Move rule

Rapid Move allows a character to sacrifice their action on a turn if they want and use that to move a number of additional squares up to their Move value

5. Spell Variety

The UK edition including expansions comes with almost 50 spells which feels enough to me.

6. Snake Eyes

If you roll on your movement roll then the evil wizard player may immediately place a Wandering Monster on the board

Which provides a gentle prod to stop heroes dawdling (and causes a problem for the Wizard if he keeps hanging back!)

[markforster]

There was mention of the tool for creating cards here https://public.markforster.info/Heroque ... ard-maker/. I am the creator of said tool and I wanted to give an important update regarding that link!

That URL / Link is where i was hosting the app (on a personal server) while in early development and while looking to find a more reliable host.

The app is now hosted over at https://mark-forster.itch.io/heroquest-card-creator. Itch are way my reliable in terms of uptime that you can expect on my personal server and i update the app regularly there. Within the coming months i will be deprecating it and it will no longer be accessible at https://public.markforster.info/Heroque ... ard-maker/)

If you have been or are still using the app over at https://public.markforster.info/Heroque ... ard-maker/ i would advise you consider exporting your library in full (top right hand menu) and re-importing into the version hosted over at itch.io otherwise when I take it down you may lose access to your library for good.

Reach out if you have any questions