Established House Rules

[Bareheaded Warrior]

This site, and others, are packed with house rules, but which in your opinion are the most common, most agreed upon, most established and also as an extension of that what parts of the original rules are flawed and most in need of a house rule.

Flaw, proposed solutions, comments?

I will shortly be introducing this great game to a new generation of young players and wanted to patch any holes, before they start playing rather than confusing things once they get started.

[torilen]

Get ready for the onslaught...

[mako-heart]

shouldn't be able to qwaff at anytime in my mind. It should be an action. Not much too flawed , I also think searching for treasure in a pit trap is some how flawed and there are some who question line of sight through secret doors. Passing potions is something that should be declared as an action . Zargon has to make it clear what is what right away. shooting missile weapons over tables is up to you, if that is allowed then get ready for the argument for shooting over the dwarf. Take a stand and make your house rules know or your players will think your making $hit up as you go.

[knightkrawler]

We never agree. I can think of no houserule that didn't open a can of worms when presented. Mine are the best out there, of course.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I probably should have mentioned that I will be using the US rules by default, as, at the risk of a torrent of disagreement they appear to be favoured over the UK rules on the whole.

"Take a stand and make your house rules known or your players will think your making $hit up as you go" - I agree entirely which is why I'm trying to do as much as possible in advance now, although like the best laid plans it may well come apart on contact with the enemy!

1. Quaffing a potion or similar should be an action as should exchanging items between players (in fact the latter probably should be a whole turn action like searching)
2. Searching; scrap searching for treasure in a pit trap. Also the logic for searching a passageway/corridor or a chamber/room in general assumes movement yet you can search the whole area for treasure then on your next turn trip over a trap the second you take a step. I intend to replace the search for treasure/trap/secret doors with a single search action that covers the whole area, but may reserve an 'examine' action for specific objects / features in the area such as a well or statue.
3. Movement - many mentions in house rules of scrapping the roll 2D6 option for movement, just make it a fixed amount either a standard 12 or as a speed/move characteristic
4. The issue around attacking diagonally seems to add complexity and not much value, scrap and these and allow all attacks to be against adjacent targets

What about combat, I love the special combat dice but find them a little limiting but these seem core to the HQ experience so I'm not sure about toying with them?

Combat especially between low skilled protagonists, such as elf ranger versus a goblin, seems protracted, I hit you, you hit me, too much roll with no impact or roll then blocked...more like an endurance slog between super heavyweights than fast and deadly as I would prefer.

Also related to combat is the issues around blocking doorways and such tactics, pinning rules need perhaps?

And I haven't even mentioned magic yet!

[sajungzak]

NA rules definitely. As far as houserules...

1) Drinking a potion, like opening doors, does not count as an action. I can think of two reasons off hand. First, a hero may drink a health potion to save their life even if they have already performed an action. Second, it would slow the game down that much more. Besides, the Actions are clearly defined on the character cards.

When I was a kid, my Dad houseruled that heroes can only equip, buy, or trade/gift equipment between quests. Now that I am Zargon, I rule that a player may make one equipment change per turn. This way they cannot change their armor after attacking with say the battle axe, but allows some freedom. This does not count as an action.

A hero may also give items from their inventory to any other hero they can 'see'. This also does not count as an action. I will even allow a nearby hero give a health potion to a dying hero. (no spells)

I will however allow a spell caster to cast a healing spell if their own BP reaches zero and no health potions are available.

All of the above is made clear at the start of the first quest.

2) I don't see any problems with the rules for searching. If a hero can search for all at once that would ruin a lot of good traps.

This may be a houserule, but if a hero searches for treasure before disarming any traps, in a room or corridor, the trap will be sprung.

3) Having a fixed movement for heroes would speed things up, but then what to do with those pretty red dice? And how would you decide who gets to move how far? Start at 13 and subtract one for every weapon/armor maybe battle axe subtract 2 and minus one for every four potions and 500 gold coins. Just thinking 'out loud' here.

4) The diagonal rule makes the longsword worthwhile. If any melee weapon can attack diagonally, then the longsword would have to reach two squares and heroes would have to be at least 3 squares away to fire a projectile.

5) Do not mess with the combat dice.

I would recommend not having your monsters step up one at a time to the executioner which is the barbarian blocking the doorway. Move them around to get the best advantage once he steps in, but there is no rule that a monster has to attack. This has worked for me every time. If your player wants to create a stalemate, and you still want to play with this person, then I am sorry.

[Malcadon]

I think the one rule that is the most disputed is how movement rates are govern. People ether roll 2d6 or establish a fixed rate.

With the heavy similarities between HeroQuest and Dragon Strike (with fans usually buying DS for the props) has inspired a number of houserules based on the DS rules. This includes the way the natural terrain form The Vally map effects movement and line-of-sight. Converting DS monsters to HQ, with the inclusion of added special rules like Flying and Regeneration. Fans tend to use the rules for Feats of Strength & Dexterity wholesale — even using d8, d10 and d12 for the rolls, despite Combat Dice being the signature die for HQ. Yeah, Dragon Strike had a lot of shortcomings, but fans make good use of its rules.

Another common houserule people embrace, as American & Canadian fans learn about the UK set, is the inclusion of the Spear and Hand Axe within the US inventory. They are usually treated like Shortswords, but they can be thrown, and the Spear also attacks diagonally. The inclusion of such expensive throwing weapons tend to inspire rules for recovering thrown weapons, as well as to make the simple little Shortsword shine alongside the other two items (usually to be used alongside a larger sword or something). With the notion of the spear in play, fans would combine the idea of the Spear and the Battle Axe, to make a Halberd (basically, a Battle Axe that can attack diagonally). Even if fans have never been exposed to the UK inventory, we would still make new items, as the lack of advancement rules make equipment more important, and we love giving our Heroes new toys! Which leaves me to...

Yet another houserule people try to incorporate is some sort of advancement system. The approach to this is so varied, its not easy for me to note any examples! I have seen so many rules for this, but there are few, if any, systems that are simple and cogent enough for the game. I think most people try but give up!

The way the reach weapons are presented (by making attack diagonally), few fans, if any, objects to this. On the other hand, if there was no rule for this — it was never established or became obscured in the 1st ed UK rules — so weapons only boost your attack, and everyone can only attack adjacently, then fans would likely have ruled that all melee attack could make adjacent and diagonal attacks long ago! It would have likely been as prevalent as the movement rate rules above. But this is in the realm of "what if" speculation.

[Sjeng]

Our HEROQUEST houserules:

- Adjacent = all 8 surrounding squares. These are divided into orthogonal and diagonal squares. Weapons that may be used diagonally have "reach".
- Ranged weapons may not be used on any adjacent targets, including direct diagonal squares.
- Ranged weapons may be fired over low furniture such as tables at the cost of one attack die. The table blocks half of the monster, so your chances of hitting it are reduced.
- The first square behind any door may be searched for traps when standing in front of the door. The rest of the room is not searched in this manner. Counts as an action.
- Monsters cannot walk over sprung pit traps, but may attempt to jump them.
- Lots of added weapons in the Armoury.
- Some added cards: see my cards topics. We have 2 scroll and 2 potion cards in the treasure pile that let you draw a card from the scrolls and potions decks. You hold on to these scroll/potion cards until used. They may only be reshuffled into the pile after use.
- The equipment stack also hold the extra added weapons from the expanded Armoury.
- We have new Artifact cards too, EU style versions of all EU and NA artefact cards from all expansions. A few are slightly tweaked.
- More monsters for future quests
- Added all Chaos spells too. I'm mixing up the NA and EU quests, leaning more towards NA.

[Goblin-King]

Nothing is common or agreed upon

One houserule we use is that weapon and armor can only be equipped/changed between quests.
The exception is if you find something new during a quest. Then you have the option of equipping it immediately.

[TMU]

One houserule we use is that weapon and armor can only be equipped/changed between quests.
The exception is if you find something new during a quest. Then you have the option of equipping it immediately.

We have that you can stack as much armor that common sense allows, and a 2 weapons