Ye Olde Inn

Since I got back into playing HeroQuest regularly (starting about the time of the Pandemic) I started using and adding new house rules or homebrew. Some of these have changed and some I plan to change, but here is what I am currently using. It starts to seem like a lot when I type it all out! So far we've only been playing official quests... and we've completed Frozen Horror, Mage of the Mirror, Rise of the Dread Moon, and Crypt of Perpetual Darkness. We have also played Into the Northlands and Knightfall as part of those campaigns but also side quests to Rogar's Hall and The Plague of Zombies (using the version "finished" with suggestions from Stephen Baker in modern day). Lately we've been playing Jungles of Delthrak and recently began Against the Ogre Horde (two campaigns going at once, with different parties of heroes though some of the same people show up for both sessions whether on Friday or Saturday).

A little background: I grew up playing the NA (US) edition, but I took a break of about 15 years before getting back into it. I didn't know the EU editions very well (only having discovered them around 2002/2003) and only recently got my hands on copies of some of them a few years back. I can't claim expertise on all variants. I'm sure I've also copied someone else's house rules and not remembering exactly where they came from in all cases. So not trying to steal credit from anyone here, please understand!

For the past going on four years I've been streaming live games of HeroQuest on Twitch (before that we played remotely over Zoom but the games were not recorded). Some of the rules explicitly were designed for the live streaming format (and wouldn't work so well outside of it). Other rules I've come up with but don't use because they don't work so well with the streaming format.

Anyway:

General Tweaks and adjustments and my own interpretations of things:

Courage spell goes into effect immediately but it checks at the beginning of that hero's turn to see if he can "see" (have Line of Sight to) any monsters to keep it going. This means I let that hero wipe out the monsters he can and then rush into the next room/corridor to try to see more monsters.

Crossbow: I don't allow it to hit the eight surrounding squares of the character wielding it, but those out from those squares within line of fight.

Regarding Line of Sight in general I say that it is not blocked by "low" furniture (tables, treasure chests). I waver back and forth between whether it should be blocked by tombs and sorcerer's tables. Furniture always impedes movement for me (unless you use an Uncommon Feat or some magical means to bypass it).

When looking through an open doorway with a corridor parallel to you, I say that you don't see the entire corridor (until you step out into it) but just the three squares traced from your figure out the door.

Expanded Armory:
I've added new items like the Rallying Horn (boosts movement of nearby allies, but can trigger wandering monsters if used too often), Torch (when lit you can ignore Hazard cards you draw when searching for Treasure, also functions as a makeshift weapon for one quest), Sling (usable by Wizard, though weak), Greatsword (Barbarian only, two handed and diagonal 4), Bastard Sword (3 dice, boosted for Barbarian), Cloak of Protection (usable by anyone, but expensive), Halberd (3 diagonal), Mace (same as shortsword but more expensive, because the Cleric can use it), Flail (see Mace; attacks diagonally), Spear (diagonal), Buckler (shield but you can use excess shields rolled to do a 1 die counter attack), Rapier (combined with dagger you can do a 1 die counter attack when the enemy misses an attack against you), Tower Shield (like plate mail but handheld... and rolls 2 green dice against projectile attacks), Longbow (4 dice at range, two handed). My bracers are way more expensive (and so is my Cloak) compared to what AH introduced in the remake edition. As each new expansion is "unlocked" I allow those things for sale. However I have gone back on this and decided that if the expansion doesn't mention using other Alchemist Shops, then only the one provided can be used.

Alchemy:
I've incorporated the Alchemy ingredients and deck from ROTDM into JoD. In theory this also means I'm allowing them to buy Potions from that deck as well (and of course these versions can be used by any Hero). I let them find one Re-Agent kit (when the Wizard wasn't in play), but otherwise the Wizard has to do all the crafting.

Unthreatened Movement:
I liked this idea and so when there are no monsters on the board heroes MAY move up to 6 squares (if they're a 1 red die hero) or 12 (if they're two). I didn't insist on it at first but the heroes have kind of worked out that if monsters appear while they are moving, they roll their normal dice and then subtract any squares they've already moved from that total (if they've already gone over, they stop). "Celerity" (Elven Potion of Speed) adds 12 squares of movement to whatever they normally get.

"Uncommon Feats"
Once per turn a Hero may suggest something that is technically not allowed or defined in the rules, but might be plausible within the fictional world that game takes place in. If Zargon approves (and lately as Zargon I have stipulated a penalty of some kind for failure, and the harder the feat the more dangerous the penalty, or if I suspect that the hero is abusing it) then they roll 1 combat die... a skull being success and anything else being failure. Maybe you want to leap up on top of the table to attack the monsters on the other side with a surprise attack (perhaps with a bonus die), but if you fail, you fall down and they get to attack you instead (maybe you defend with one less). More rarely I'll employ "Villainous Feats" wherein a monster gets an opportunity to do something, again, plausible, in response to something broken in the game or to subvert some advantage the heroes have taken. An example is the heroes revealing a room full of monsters and then refusing to ever enter that room, I might roll to see if the lead monster can bash the door down.

I created some new heroes, loosely inspired by the ones in the computer game HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil though the only one we've used so far (a few times now) is the Paladin (he gets Holy Water and Holy Flame, 5 body points, a slight movement bonus with Plate armor though this was created before the official Knight so he's not quite that buffed when it comes to armored movement!). I've also used a "reskin" of the Orc Bard as an Orc Pirate (same basic abilities and stats).

Since we didn't know any better at the time (websites all said "metal armor" but the cards didn't say that, just he refuses to wear armor), I let the Monk use bracers. I also invented a new weapon he could use, numchucks (2 dice, diagonal weapon).

Upgrade system
I really wanted an excuse to use those "German Colored Dice" (Or "Power Dice" as they are popularly called now), so I came up with some ways.

Read more about it in this thread.

I like the idea of Champions in the first edition and took it to another level. I decided if they are easy quests it should be 5 otherwise 3 is good. Much of the upgrades I provided to the heroes were based on preparing to play the extremely difficult Frozen Horror (with brand new heroes!) and Mage of the Mirror. Over time the upgrades haven't really been needed to balance the difficulty, but they are fun, and have required me to upgrade the bad guys as well. You can find the thread where I talk more in depth about these. Essentially I wanted to give the combat type characters opportunities to deal more damage and do more fighting while magic type characters will get more magic. The weaknesses of certain characters will also be somewhat lessened, again, and playing to their strengths. The next level after Champion is "Knight" (yes, I called it that before the Knight hero was released) which requires a total of 10 or more quests completed.

Many of the buffs involve swapping out various colors of dice (usually black for attack and green for defense). I've also used Purple at times, but have yet to use the other colors much.

Due to the nature of our streaming games once a character sheet is begun I allow it to be handed off and used by another player since we may not always have the same people at each virtual session. I've also allowed there to be five heroes before (though I prefer to keep it to four unless there are more than four players joining me; and not counting mercenaries of course).

Wizard and Elf Buffs:

I let either of these characters, when there is no special treasure (and in some desperate situations even when there is) search a room with a Sorcerer's Table to restore a lost spell (and the Wizard to gain a random Spell Scroll if all his spells are full already). When the room contains an Alchemist Bench without a special treasure (and again, in dire situations sometimes even when there was) I let these heroes draw a random Potion from the Potions Deck found at Ye Olde Inn.com (I have added more healing potions to the pack, not just the d6 ones but also the +4's and +2's) but don't count "Poison."

After these heroes have completed at least one quest successfully I was giving the Elf one random bonus potion (again a safe one, no "Poison" but now I don't have a use for "posion!") and the Wizard two. I kind of forgot and stopped doing this for awhile because in our stream the Twitch chat has the ability to "buy" potions for heroes (whether random, healing 1d6 specifically or "utility" potions meaning non-healing) with their channel points "Gold Coins" (that build up over watch time, though followers get more and paid subscribers get a multiplier).

Roll Color:
Twitch chatters can cash in a "Combat Dice color change" so that the next roll of combat dice will be the color in question. In theory it can be any of the colors that exist for official or homebrew out there, but it was meant to substitute white with either black, green, blue, yellow, orange, or purple (originally I painted the faces of a d6 to represent this with a physical roll rather than a digital one as it is now).

I use the Ron Shirtz "Combat Cards" from this site to distribute 2 each to the Barbarian and Dwarf (3 when they become upgraded) before each quest. I don't give Zargon any, as the Twitch chat can "buy" these for him (and he's not limited except by the number of cards in the deck!). The heroes lose any unused Combat Cards and draw new ones each new quest. The chat can also "buy" random Combat Cards for any hero.

Speaking of which...

Zargon Buffs:
When most of the heroes are upgraded, I roll 1 combat die for each monster I place on the board (I started out limiting myself only to Game System monsters and excluding summoned or Wandering monsters) and if it's a black shield they become an "elite." Elite Monsters roll black dice to attack and blue dice to defend.

The Twitch Chat is also able to "upgrade a monster" so while making one an elite is an easy update, I can also take an existing elite and make them even stronger. Thus far I've enjoyed swapping out the regular monster with the elite token to one of the "translucent" monsters from SQT or PoT and giving them channel dread or some fire spell(s), maybe allowing them to pass through walls or teleport around.

As the heroes have become very powerful I've now taken to rolling a blue die to check for elites (doubling the chances it will happen).

I let my "boomerang goblins" (thanks Avalon Hill, via the ATOH remake and JoD) throw their weapon that can hit multiple targets in an arc. So one such goblin could attack all four heroes at range in a room with 2 dice. Early on I had goblins that "missed" their roll lose their boomerang and switch to their normal hand weapon until such time (if any) that they could retrieve the boomerang. I reasoned that the new goblins are more highly trained experts and this isn't going to happen.

For the "bomb goblins" I imagined the thrown grenades having a blast radius of four squares that could be used to hit multiple targets. Also when killed these monsters explode (again in a four square blast radius). They might also uncommonly move up to hero, plant a bomb on them, and then run away.

I've also contemplated using the "Boss Dice" (the pre-2008 version of the Orange dice) for bosses to make the fights last longer and be a bit more tense, although many multi-stage monsters probably don't need it much.

I use the Evil Wizard Deck from Ye Olde Inn but I've also added a few cards of my own (duplicates of a couple of the cards, plus an "evil" version of Heroic Sacrifice where the bad guy throws one of the other monsters in the way of the attack meant for him, and another where the bad guy I specify gets blue dice defense for the rest of the quest). I only get three of these in my hand at a time as Zargon though, unlike the Chaos Combat Cards that the audience can "buy."

When the chat "buys" a bonus monster for Zargon, I use a randomly drawn tile from a bunch of tiles I printed out (inspired by Space Crusade's "Blip tokens") that shows glowing eyes in the darkness (and moves 5 squares on Zargon's turn) until it becomes adjacent to a hero (or is attacked at range) and then is revealed. If it's a Monster it will have a gold "bounty" value attached if destroyed (inspired by the Japanese edition and also Space Crusade once again) but it might be a harmless rat who runs away or a potion ("don't shoot the potion!") or scroll that was rolling around. If it's a "good" thing I draw another tile to place elsewhere (but if both are good, oh well...). For now my bag of tiles contains only monsters found in GS/KK/ROTWL, but I plan to expand it to include others, even monsters that may not normally appear in that expansion!

I house ruled the "disguises" a bit in Rise of the Dread Moon (partially because I didn't understand exactly how they were intended to work at first, and then kept up with it because it was more interesting to me). Basically a monster (who isn't instantly stealth killed while you're in disguise) rolls to see if they become suspicious about you when you enter line of sight (roll a skull on one combat die) and begin to follow you, maybe block your path. If they witness you attacking another monster, they will then proceed to attack that hero when they are able. If monsters are just milling around, I would have these "suspicious" monsters move to where those monsters were to make them "roll for suspicion" as well. At a certain point I had a large mob following the heroes until they were cornered. That was fun!

There were lots of little quest specific things I wanted to do (like using a modified version of the Arena rules for the "tavern brawl" at the start of Crypt of Perpetual Darkness) but that's basically it for now.

Most recently when we use Animal Companions (until recently I forced there to be 4 heroes if the quest was written with that in mind, but now I give them the option to use animal companions for those quests that were built with them in mind if there are less than four), I have applied the "Heroic" incapacitated rules to them (but not the heroes). When it comes to the Animal companions AND the Ogre Mercenaries (whom I allow to be "bribed" with Ogre Grog into serving the heroes not just with regular gold) I allow them to regain a lost body point by killing an enemy since they're all carnivores (or as with Ogres, just not too picky about what they eat) with the exception of the undead.

Kurgan wrote:
General Tweaks and adjustments and my own interpretations of things:

Courage spell goes into effect immediately but it checks at the beginning of that hero's turn to see if he can "see" (have Line of Sight to) any monsters to keep it going. This means I let that hero wipe out the monsters he can and then rush into the next room/corridor to try to see more monsters.

Crossbow: I don't allow it to hit the eight surrounding squares of the character wielding it, but those out from those squares within line of fight.

Regarding Line of Sight in general I say that it is not blocked by "low" furniture (tables, treasure chests). I waver back and forth between whether it should be blocked by tombs and sorcerer's tables. Furniture always impedes movement for me (unless you use an Uncommon Feat or some magical means to bypass it).

When looking through an open doorway with a corridor parallel to you, I say that you don't see the entire corridor (until you step out into it) but just the three squares traced from your figure out the door.

I like all these well enough and placed similar restrictions on the crossbow/door coverage in my games. Courage is an interesting one too. Flavors it like a waning fury that needs to be maintained with more conflict.

Unthreatened Movement:
I liked this idea and so when there are no monsters on the board heroes MAY move up to 6 squares (if they're a 1 red die hero) or 12 (if they're two). I didn't insist on it at first but the heroes have kind of worked out that if monsters appear while they are moving, they roll their normal dice and then subtract any squares they've already moved from that total (if they've already gone over, they stop). "Celerity" (Elven Potion of Speed) adds 12 squares of movement to whatever they normally get.

I cannot quite settle on movement. I don't like the spread of 2-12, I also don't like the initiative system dissolving when I try to add any consistency with characters moving a set number of spaces a turn, even with a roll added on.

I don't even really like the initiative system as it is because a hero can mostly cross any of the rooms in the game on a roll of three or four, and most fights occur by far in a room with one exit. The chance of a low move roll doesn't let the monsters have a free turn very often (hell, they aren't even on the board all that often if you follow base game rules and play methodically) for me to see the use in rolling constantly. I get splitting movement and combat and this might be one of the best "solutions" without changing a lot of the base game.

I have been toying with some kind of group initiative, like in old school DnD. Anytime monsters are encountered, each side rolls a D6. The larger group gets -1, so does any group with platemail present. Certain factors can give you a bonus, like if you're sneaking, or you picked the lock on a door instead of bashing it open (I have been toying with a lot of extra rules too).

"Uncommon Feats"
Once per turn a Hero may suggest something that is technically not allowed or defined in the rules, but might be plausible within the fictional world that game takes place in. If Zargon approves (and lately as Zargon I have stipulated a penalty of some kind for failure, and the harder the feat the more dangerous the penalty, or if I suspect that the hero is abusing it) then they roll 1 combat die... a skull being success and anything else being failure. Maybe you want to leap up on top of the table to attack the monsters on the other side with a surprise attack (perhaps with a bonus die), but if you fail, you fall down and they get to attack you instead (maybe you defend with one less). More rarely I'll employ "Villainous Feats" wherein a monster gets an opportunity to do something, again, plausible, in response to something broken in the game or to subvert some advantage the heroes have taken. An example is the heroes revealing a room full of monsters and then refusing to ever enter that room, I might roll to see if the lead monster can bash the door down.

This is a neat way to handle edge cases. I do something a bit similar, letting players spent more movement to climb on furniture or use their action to flip a table over for cover. I let the stronger characters use an extra attack die when throwing small furnishings at monsters (chairs, smaller tables, barrels, etc. I have some extra furniture I scatter in too).

Love the new hero ideas. Paladin is a natural fit in a game with such prominent undead, and the orc bard is a natural-looking pirate replacement indeed. I might design my own alternate with that as a basis. It would be awesome if some missions had water segments where the party had to navigate using a raft. The pirate could be an impromptu captain in these situations, allowing for enhanced control and certain abilities that work well with naval combat.

Upgrade system
I really wanted an excuse to use those "German Colored Dice" (Or "Power Dice" as they are popularly called now), so I came up with some ways.

Read more about it in this thread.

Yeeessss my power dice are still on the way. I have two of each color coming. I intend to use them for weird stuff but I'll need to pick over everything that others have done before I know what I'm doing. I'll keep this thread in mind.

Your twitch chat stuff is inspired too. I love the engaging ways you've developed for the audience to help with the difficulty.

I house ruled the "disguises" a bit in Rise of the Dread Moon (partially because I didn't understand exactly how they were intended to work at first, and then kept up with it because it was more interesting to me). Basically a monster (who isn't instantly stealth killed while you're in disguise) rolls to see if they become suspicious about you when you enter line of sight (roll a skull on one combat die) and begin to follow you, maybe block your path. If they witness you attacking another monster, they will then proceed to attack that hero when they are able. If monsters are just milling around, I would have these "suspicious" monsters move to where those monsters were to make them "roll for suspicion" as well. At a certain point I had a large mob following the heroes until they were cornered. That was fun!

This is really cool! It would work well in my "sandbox" games where more content is mixed in and more monsters are on the board with varying levels of awareness. I'm gonna try to work it into the initiative system too. Maybe characters or even monsters could get a chance to sneak if the groups' surprise rolls are different enough.

Most recently when we use Animal Companions (until recently I forced there to be 4 heroes if the quest was written with that in mind, but now I give them the option to use animal companions for those quests that were built with them in mind if there are less than four), I have applied the "Heroic" incapacitated rules to them (but not the heroes). When it comes to the Animal companions AND the Ogre Mercenaries (whom I allow to be "bribed" with Ogre Grog into serving the heroes not just with regular gold) I allow them to regain a lost body point by killing an enemy since they're all carnivores (or as with Ogres, just not too picky about what they eat) with the exception of the undead.

I LOVE the flavor around your ogres. I might make them able to munch on nearby goblins for health or buffs, or let them eat their fallen friends.

There is a ton of good stuff here! I'll be checking back to steal some ideas.

Steal, I mean, "borrow" away!

Kurgan wrote:Courage spell goes into effect immediately but it checks at the beginning of that hero's turn to see if he can "see" (have Line of Sight to) any monsters to keep it going. This means I let that hero wipe out the monsters he can and then rush into the next room/corridor to try to see more monsters.

See point below about the difference between "seeing" and LOS, but that aside I also think that Courage should last longer than just one turn, but allowing it to continue for too long makes it over-powered, so at the moment I am playtesting the following...

The Courage effect lasts until you fail to inflict a BP loss on a monster on your turn (or you leave the dungeon)
The Rock Skin effect lasts until you lose a BP (or you leave the dungeon)

Kurgan wrote:Crossbow: I don't allow it to hit the eight surrounding squares of the character wielding it

Agreed, I don't allow missile weapons to be used against any target on any one of the eight squares surrounding the wielder (because those squares are ones that can be targeted by hand-to-hand weapons and hand-to-hand weapon range and missile weapons range should be mutually exclusive (as per the rulebook).

Kurgan wrote:Regarding Line of Sight in general I say that it is not blocked by "low" furniture (tables, treasure chests). I waver back and forth between whether it should be blocked by tombs and sorcerer's tables.

I also ignore furniture when it comes to line of sight with the exception of tall furniture (bookcase, cupboard, fireplace, closed door - if that is furniture) but then I also think that Quest Creators should position tall furniture against a wall! It does get harder with mid-level furniture like tombs and sorcerer's tables but I apply the "HQ 50% rule", if you can see at least 50% of the square, then LOS is good (although in this case it is vertical rather than horizontal)

Kurgan wrote:Furniture always impedes movement for me

Agreed, blocking movement is the function of furniture so that a Quest Creator can use it to alter the shape of rooms which would otherwise be fixed.

Kurgan wrote:When looking through an open doorway with a corridor parallel to you, I say that you don't see the entire corridor (until you step out into it) but just the three squares traced from your figure out the door.

Nope, this arises from a misunderstanding around the difference between "seeing" and "LOS". LOS is the one with the narrower definition that allows missile weapons to be targeted, "seeing" is the one with the wider definition that covers what is placed on the board. That said the NA remake caused this misunderstanding, not you!

Kurgan wrote: Unthreatened Movement: I liked this idea and so when there are no monsters on the board heroes MAY move up to 6 squares (if they're a 1 red die hero) or 12 (if they're two). I didn't insist on it at first but the heroes have kind of worked out that if monsters appear while they are moving, they roll their normal dice and then subtract any squares they've already moved from that total (if they've already gone over, they stop). "Celerity" (Elven Potion of Speed) adds 12 squares of movement to whatever they normally get.

Interesting...so...

"No monsters on the board then you don't roll the movement dice, just assume the maximum outcome, but if you then encounter a monster then you roll the movement dice and if your roll is greater than the number of squares you already have moved then you continue to move up to the limit of the roll otherwise your movement ends stop."

Whereas I just allow players the option, having rolled their movement dice, to sacrifice their action and gain an extra die of movement.

Food for thought that one...although I need to keep the movement dice roll under my house rules as I use it to generate Wandering Monsters...

Picture this, all 4 heroes in a line in a long passage (no monsters on the board), first hero moves the full 12 squares, revealing a monster hidden around a corner, all 3 subsequent heroes now have to roll the movement dice, why can't they just be placed in a line behind the first hero?

cardcardigan wrote:I cannot quite settle on movement. I don't like the spread of 2-12, I also don't like the initiative system dissolving when I try to add any consistency with characters moving a set number of spaces a turn, even with a roll added on.

I don't even really like the initiative system as it is because a hero can mostly cross any of the rooms in the game on a roll of three or four, and most fights occur by far in a room with one exit. The chance of a low move roll doesn't let the monsters have a free turn very often (hell, they aren't even on the board all that often if you follow base game rules and play methodically) for me to see the use in rolling constantly. I get splitting movement and combat and this might be one of the best "solutions" without changing a lot of the base game.

I have been toying with some kind of group initiative, like in old school DnD. Anytime monsters are encountered, each side rolls a D6. The larger group gets -1, so does any group with platemail present. Certain factors can give you a bonus, like if you're sneaking, or you picked the lock on a door instead of bashing it open (I have been toying with a lot of extra rules too).

I get what you mean here. I did briefly use a system below, which I don't use today but not because it didn't work, but it felt too much like a departure from the simplicity of the game but anyway it may be of use/interest to you...

1. At the start of each round, players roll their movement dice, and leave them face up in front of them (obviously you need more dice)

2. Play then proceeds starting the character (hero or monster) with the highest movement score and once they have completed their turn then play moves to the character with the highest movement score.

3. Resolve draws as follows:

If multiple monsters have the same score then the EWP decides their sequence

If multiple heroes have the same score then the seating order takes precedence

If multiple heroes and monsters have the same score then heroes take precedence

The Magical Throwing Dagger can only be thrown, and it can hit any of the surrounding squares too (no restriction on adjacent). There is no point in throwing a regular dagger at an adjacent enemy, but there could be a possible scenario in which you'd want to throw one at a diagonal enemy, so I'd have no problem with allowing that.

Thrown weapons are lost when thrown anyway (I know, for a long time I thought when it comes to bigger weapons, maybe they aren't lost... maybe you just go search for treasure in the area they were lost and find them again?) so I'd have no issue saying sure, you can throw it at "close range" too.

Bareheaded Warrior wrote:
Nope, this arises from a misunderstanding around the difference between "seeing" and "LOS". LOS is the one with the narrower definition that allows missile weapons to be targeted, "seeing" is the one with the wider definition that covers what is placed on the board. That said the NA remake caused this misunderstanding, not you!

I guess I'm of the mind that if your character can see it, your character can hit it. I know there's levels here... there's stuff that's placed out on the board (which your character may not be able to reach), the stuff that's nearby but you don't have clear "line of sight" to target with a spell or missile attack (other figure, block tile, or "tall" furniture in the way), and everything else you can target.


The only time I use "initiative" if you want to call it that, is when we're playing in the Arena (ATOH, though I've also used it for JoD for some one off scenarios). However I am toying with the idea of when we finally get a chance to play the European edition on the streams (thinking of playing with 1st edition) each round the players roll off to see what order characters go in, including Zargon, oops, I meant "Morcar"!). Might make PvP combat more interesting. Yes, I know using 1st edition means I'd miss out on "the Trial" but I think that can be adapted from 2nd edition without too much trouble as a one off.

When rolling off I'd use a system inspired by what they give us in 1st edition... but the roles are already assigned. If a player is controlling more than one hero, yes, you roll for each of those characters, while the Evil Wizard simply rolls once which covers all the monsters under his control. There are no mercenaries or animal companions here but if there were I'd just lump them in with the hero who was controlling them. In the case of a tie, those roll off to see who goes first. Repeat EVERY ROUND. Yes, it would take longer, but I think it would make the combat more fair (and suspenseful!) since again, PvP is allowed. So you'd play the first two arenas, the Maze, the Trial, then proceed to quest 2, etc.

I could see things calming down after awhile, but since we can get new players coming in, they might join and have other ideas (hopefully people handle it in the right spirit and we don't have rage quitting, etc!).

I don’t use the initiative rules that I mentioned above for HQ, I developed them for a spin-off HQ Arena game a long time ago, I was just suggesting them as I thought they might be of interest or use.

Kurgan wrote:I guess I'm of the mind that if your character can see it, your character can hit it. I know there's levels here... there's stuff that's placed out on the board (which your character may not be able to reach), the stuff that's nearby but you don't have clear "line of sight" to target with a spell or missile attack (other figure, block tile, or "tall" furniture in the way), and everything else you can target.

I’m not quite clear on what you mean here, “if you can see it, you can hit it” I understand that and it is a simple approach, but then you go on to mention potential targets that you can see but don’t have a clear “line of sight” to, so presumably you can see it, but you can’t hit it. If I’ve understood that correctly then I think you are saying…

1. If you can see it, and you have a clear line of sight, then you can hit it
2. If you can see it, and you don’t have a clear line of sight, then you can’t hit it

Which I agree with, but my question was more around “what determines whether you can see something?”

The case of Monster E

In the simple example above, our Dwarf, armed with a crossbow, has just moved to his current position from the direction marked with the arrow, and has opened the door.

Monsters A and C would be on the board as he has a clear line of sight to them (and could target them with his crossbow), B and D would be on the board because he has a line of sight to them, which whilst blocked for the purposes of targeting them with his crossbow, still count un “seeing” because the line of sight rule for “seeing” doesn’t include any reference to figures blocking line of sight. Monster F would not be on the board, but monster E is a far more interesting case.

Monster E would be on the board, despite our Dwarf not having a line of sight to him because his line of sight is blocked by the wall.

We know that he is placed on the board as the rulebook clearly states this, but what the rulebook is missing is the reason why he is placed on the board.
I think this is an example of a “hidden” rule where a rule that isn’t clearly stated (but probably should be), logically must apply to make sense of the rules that are stated. My assumption in this instance is that Monster E is placed because our Dwarf can “see” everything that is visible within the room that he is adjacent (or next to) whether he has line of sight or not.

Further I would extend this hidden rule to include passages, because of the “principle of reciprocity” or to put it another way “what is good for the goose is good for the gander”!

I define line of sight as you trace an imaginary straight line from one miniature to the other, and there can't be any other characters, tall furniture, walls, or closed doors in the way. It gets a little tricky when we're having lines that come close to the corners of walls and things like that. I seem to remember AH's latest take on it was rather than forcing the idea of every miniature being a circle from which you had to go from the very middle of that circle to the very middle of the target without any intersection, instead they were thinking if you can draw a straight line from any part of the square you're occupying to any part of their square, then it's a legal "line of sight." I favor that one, and in cases where it's questionable, Zargon makes the call. Space Crusade is a little stricter about this than HQ, but in that game, interestingly enough, it says that disputes between players over LOS is resolved with a roll off between them. Of course SC doesn't have a GM in the strictest sense (the Alien/Chaos player is an active competitor to the space marine/eldar players).

I have a red painted stick I was using, but most of the time I Just hold up my pencil and if it looks like you could reasonably say this one traces to that one, I allow it.

So yes I guess in shorthand I've been saying "see" synonymous with "unobstructed line of sight" based on the pencil method. I realize that may not have been what every designer had in mind when they wrote those words going all the way back to 1989, but it's how I handle it now.

PS: By "walls" I mean not just the white outlines of rooms but also those formed by rubble or blocked square tiles. Hope that helps clarify what I'm talking about!

Unfortunately whilst that does help clarify how you determine line of sight, what I was referring to wasn't that, it was...

(1) the difference between what blocks line of sight for targetting with missile weapons (what you can hit) and what blocks line of sight for seeing (what you can see)
(2) Other things that you can see even though you don't have a clear line of sight

Line of sight for targetting with missile weapons (what you can hit) is blocked by walls, closed doors, blocked square markers and other figures whereas line of sight for seeing is blocked by walls, closed doors, blocked square markers but not other figures.

This is why, in the example, the Dwarf can see and hit monsters A and C (so they are placed on the board), can see but not hit monsters B and D (so they are placed on the board), cannot see or hit monster F (so it isn't placed on the board), but interestingly (point 2) cannot see or hit monster E and yet according to the rules monster E IS placed on the board!

Bareheaded Warrior wrote:This is why, in the example, the Dwarf can see and hit monsters A and C (so they are placed on the board), can see but not hit monsters B and D (so they are placed on the board), cannot see or hit monster F (so it isn't placed on the board), but interestingly (point 2) cannot see or hit monster E and yet according to the rules monster E IS placed on the board!

Yeah, that's exactly why in my games I changed a bit the LoS rules (not "seeing" rules) by extending it with the "looking down a corridor" vague rule suggested in the NA rulebook. This led me to assume that the shooting figure may lean inside its sqaure, and if the center of another figure can be seen from any corner of the shooting figure, the figure can be shot. Then, in my games I would allow the Dwarf to shoot monster E (however monster E cannot shot the Dwarf, because he cannot target its center due to the wall), but of course this enters in conflict with the center-to-center confusing LoS rule described in the rulebook, which does not match with the infamous diagram.

LoS, traditional topic!!