Feedback Requested: Tactical Movement and Melee Combat Rules

[deepthaw]

Hey all, been working on some rules to expand tactical options in both movement and combat and am looking for feedback. I’ve not played as much as everybody else so you’d probably be better equipped to point out any impacts to the game these might have which I’ve not considered.

Goals:
HeroQuest rooms can get very cluttered and clogged especially through doors or in narrow hallways. Despite this, it is somewhat incongruent that a player can simply move past monsters freely solely by virtue of rolling well for movement, and that players have few, if any, methods to hinder enemy movement short of simply placing the strongest character in a choke point. (The classic barbarian in a door.) Zargon has little motivation other than “fair play” to avoid walking his strongest creatures around the party to target the weakest hero, unless again - the barbarian is physically blocking the door or hallway. This makes these bottlenecks too effective and necessary even for those groups which wish to avoid them.

Adding “threatened” squares also makes movement more tactical by allowing figures to contribute to a battle through careful positioning. Assisting attacks is intended to allow a pack of monsters on the other side of a door or choke point to be able to collectively threaten the barbarian (or whichever figure is clogging the path) while also giving heroes ways to contribute to battle with particularly “tanky” enemies without simply making countless attack rolls that will generally fail. Limiting assistance via those threatened squares will hopefully keep assistance from being so common and easy to get that it becomes a too useful.

A final consideration is reducing the overwhelming utility of the crossbow vs other melee weapons. It is currently a far superior choice to a long sword or other melee weapon even for close range combat. Even with these changes it will remain a highly useful weapon, but will function closer to its intended purpose. Another potential benefit would be increasing the value of movement related spells which presently find minimal use.

These rules are partially inspired by both opportunity attacks from assorted editions of dungeons & dragons as well as the tackle zones from Blood Bowl. Older wargamers will probably recognize this as an implementation of the zone of control concept from those games. Look at how similar rules have functioned in those games as a guide to what I hope to achieve.

The Rules:
I've moved them into a Google Doc located here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Fv6 ... sp=sharing

Again, let me know what you think. These kind of rules are a step more complicated than stock HeroQuest but I hope that the additional tactical considerations are worth the complexity for some players.

[deepthaw]

(images moved to google doc in above message)

[burglekutt]

Please comment on my last two posts here in "Rules" & ill give a good response. Right now I'm drunk, but so far I'm not seeing a major problem with your "tactics" idea so far.
I've seen others mess with this idea before to some degree & it has merit. I've always been interested.

[MonsterMotor]

Well, concerning the assist action mechanics, this is certainly something where you can assess the benefits or drawbacks by calculating the odds. I would guess that in most situations it is more beneficial to attack than to assist, but you could do some math and tell us more about the results.

Then, there was a recent discussion on zone of control mechanics in this thread here:
https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6453

Some details in there were different from what you propose here. I don't remember exactly where that discussion ended and have no time to read through everything again now. But I remember that I was not in favour of using such kind of mechanics, whereas others found them worth considering. If still in doubt after reading that discussion, I would suggest you playtest your combat rule ideas with your group for a few quests and then report back here. It is clear that zones of control reduce the combat dynamics on the game board, which is often the opposite of what is intended by introducing such a house rule into HQ.