AHQ reforged Qs

[Stabsam]

Hi there,

I had some time to actually play the game. I was using Slevs updated reforged rules and had some uncertainties how some of the rules work.
I am also not sure if Slev has enough time to read through the forums, so i would like to know, how some of you reforged players interpret the following rules:

-1. when creating a character, can i purposefully choose the same equipment allowances to buff the brutal damage? (i.e. 3 ticks possible and all 3 ticks in the same wep) It seems a little bit op to create +3 brutal damage that easy.

-2.how do you access more heroic feats, besides choosing the combatant?

-3.combat phase: can a character move twice, or does he need to move and run since you cannot do the same action twice?

-4.fearsome rule: does the fearsome rule apply when the hero moves into the deathzone of a monster to attack it- or does it only come into play when the hero already starts his combat turn in a deathzone of a fearsome monster?
by the way. I had a barbarian with bravery 5 and thought it would be a good idea to run him into an undead dungeon ( not knowing that all enemies are fearsome). Most of the turns he couldnt attack, since i interpreted the rule that he also needs to make a bravery test when he approaches them. The result was he barely could attack and it also made the game kinda boring cuz i was just rolling dice after dice to finally hit once while the monsters had a great time on beating him up.

-5.enemy mages and spells: my interpretation was, to roll up a random spell then use his materials if he had enough. If he didnt have enough materials he couldnt cast the spell. And he also needs to do a test on his Intellect. Is that correct?

-6. when using the BLOCK ability, does it block 3 damage dice of a hit or only 1 damage dice of 3?

The following arent really Qs rather observations:

-7. The newest update suggests to roll 2 dice in the GM phase, if there is no battle phase. One for wandering monsters and 1 for traps. And in addition to that also the dungeon level is added to create more danger on higher levels. In my experience this seems a little bit much. I rolled once and a roll of 1 was wandering and 12 was traps.

-8. That is not really a question but i think the lowered toughness feels very good. Also the amount of monsters, that are created by party amount feels very good and allows to play solo heroes!

-9. The table for rolling for rooms gives you almost always either an hazard room or a lair. Well i feel its a little bit to busy. i would like to have a higher chance of finding just an empty room in contrast to always having something happen!

-10. the only thing i still dont really like is, no matter how many damage dice you roll, you only roll 1 dice to see if you hit.

by the way. i though about creating an ogre to avoid the fearsome rule in soloplay!

best Markus

[ampersand]

I'll try and clear up a few things. im not totally fluent in the newest version. but ill try...

1. when creating a character, can i purposefully choose the same equipment allowances to buff the brutal damage? (i.e. 3 ticks possible and all 3 ticks in the same wep) It seems a little bit op to create +3 brutal damage that easy.

character creation is done in steps. so you accumulate 3 bonus points at the start.

"For one Bonus Point you may
gain the ability to use one
Weapon Allowance. You may
not use more than one Bonus
Point on the same Weapon
Allowance."

you also accumulate other bonus points later on. that are not stackable. but you can get additional weapon allowances that arent via bonus points ie race and paths. so i would view these as stackable. IE spend a bonus point on warhammer. - choose dwarf which grants the warhammer allowance giving you 2 ticks.

2. how do you access more heroic feats, besides choosing the combatant?

these are split by proficiency feats and mastery feats. which are accessible via training between quests

3. combat phase: can a character move twice, or does he need to move and run since you cannot do the same action twice?

"Manoeuvre (Minor): The figure
may Move a number of spaces up
to their current Speed
Characteristic in a Combat Turn."

"During a figure’s Activation, they
may take one Major or two Minor
Actions. The two Minor Actions
may be the same. However, only
one Action may be a Vigorous
Action. "

-4.fearsome rule: does the fearsome rule apply when the hero moves into the deathzone of a monster to attack it- or does it only come into play when the hero already starts his combat turn in a deathzone of a fearsome monster?
by the way. I had a barbarian with bravery 5 and thought it would be a good idea to run him into an undead dungeon ( not knowing that all enemies are fearsome). Most of the turns he couldnt attack, since i interpreted the rule that he also needs to make a bravery test when he approaches them. The result was he barely could attack and it also made the game kinda boring cuz i was just rolling dice after dice to finally hit once while the monsters had a great time on beating him up.

"If any figure begins its turn in a
Combat Phase in the Death Zone
of a Fearsome opponent, that
figure must pass a Bravery test, or
the figure will cower."
nothing about moving into.. only starting.

-5.enemy mages and spells: my interpretation was, to roll up a random spell then use his materials if he had enough. If he didn't have enough materials he couldn't cast the spell. And he also needs to do a test on his Intellect. Is that correct?

based on the components they have this should determine what you can and cant do. and yes an intelligence roll is made for monster spells like any other spell. if not... why would they even need to have intelligance as a stat?

-6. when using the BLOCK ability, does it block 3 damage dice of a hit or only 1 damage dice of 3?

"A Block Point may be used to
deflect Damage form an attack.
You may declare this after Damage
has been determined, but before
Damage have been assigned. All
Damage dealt by that Attack are
ignored, but any other special
abilities they would have triggered
are not. "
i think the ALL bit might clear it up

-7. The newest update suggests to roll 2 dice in the GM phase, if there is no battle phase. One for wandering monsters and 1 for traps. And in addition to that also the dungeon level is added to create more danger on higher levels. In my experience this seems a little bit much. I rolled once and a roll of 1 was wandering and 12 was traps.

not sure where this is. but..
"GAMESMASTER PHASE
As the GM will have
no Figures to use,
they will only be able
to take a Dungeon
Turn. The GM Rolls
1D12. On a equal to
or less than the
current Dungeon
Level, they may Draw
a Dungeon Counter.
The use of Dungeon
Counters is explained
in The Gamesmaster
section. "

if you point out what you are referring to. ie book and page i might be able to help better.

-8. That is not really a question but i think the lowered toughness feels very good. Also the amount of monsters, that are created by party amount feels very good and allows to play solo heroes!

i think this was the whole point of making it scalable. also based more around the WFB stats than the original AHQ stats. i think it works better too.

9. The table for rolling for rooms gives you almost always either an hazard room or a lair. Well i feel its a little bit to busy. i would like to have a higher chance of finding just an empty room in contrast to always having something happen!

change it for yourself. i myself dont like the sprawling multi layered dungeons.. also.. my table is only so big. just tweak the tables to suit your games. i dont think slev will be offended. but most stuff he does. is normally for a reason. and part of that reason could be the amount of none event dungeons that could occur in the vanilla rules.

10. the only thing i still dont really like is, no matter how many damage dice you roll, you only roll 1 dice to see if you hit.

well you only hit someone once... hit them with a feather or hit them with a flaming broadsword. its obvious you only have to hit once.. of course some abilities grant additional attacks. which make sense.

anyways. hope this helps.. for now. and hopefully ive replied pretty accurately.

[Stabsam]

Everything seems very clear to me now. Thank you!

Only the part with the weapon allowances and equipment boni seems still not total clear to me. I read your part, which refers to the bonus points.
And compared this to step 5 in the character creation.

5. Equipment Bonus Abilities
If, during Hero Creation (and only
during Hero Creation, not later by
some other means), you gain an
Equipment Allowance more than
once, you gain a single bonus.
From the bonus chart.
Note that you only gain a single
bonus, regardless of how many
times you receive an Equipment
Allowance

So i came to the conclusion that, you can only get 1 equipment bonus on each category through making ticks in weapon/ armour allowances. Therefore i can only get cleaving 1 for my broadsword- not cleaving 3.
Though in the abilities of the berserker it states "Abilities :
• Berserker
• Gain Cleaving with one Melee
Weapon of choice."
I am assuming since this is an ability, i still would be able to push for cleaving 2.

[ampersand]

its stackable via other means. you can only spend 1 bonus point on a singular weapon allowance. but can gain further stacked ontop of this based on race and the paths you choose.
this is clearly to combat what you are suggesting from your original question. so stacking it more and more at character creation. you still only get 1 bonus. so therefore makes it a wasted option. Slev has clearly put a limit around this to prevent what you suggested.

I am assuming since this is an ability, i still would be able to push for cleaving 2.

1 from the weapon and 1 from your double allowance. yup!

[RECIVS]

i think the lowered toughness feels very good.

I hadn't seen your post. May I ask what do you mean by this exactly?

[Stabsam]

Yeah ofc. In the orig. i think skaven have a toughness of 6 or 7 and a couple hitpoints. So in battle you roll first to see if you hit comparings ws- this leads to a 50/50 ish situation in the beginning. Then you roll the amount of dmg dice which isnt usually enough to kill anything if you didnt totally max your character on strength and a good melee weapon. So normally you would need at least need 2 complete attack phases of 1 hero attacks to kill anything. And with the vintage toughness of 6- 7 you have another 50/50 situation- now a not a math guy but i know that it will take some time to kill anything while you are swarmed. So the meta is to stand in the doorway and to switch turns with 1 or 2 enemies while rolling dice. And often it will not lead to as success due to 2 50/50 situations in a row. Therefore this whole procedure feels dull to me because you just roll dice after dice without having any influence on the outcome. And this aspect of having no influence is increased by a lot by the high toughness of even weaker enemies like skaven.
With the lowered toughness you can be pretty sure that a hit will also do damage to weaker enemies but there is still a smaller chance of a miss, while rolling dmg. And you will have the option of a new decision sooner, which leads to a feeling of more freedom of choice to me. While the higher toughness keeps you constantly trapped in a situation,in which you roll dice. This situation and the feeling of frustration should be saved for more difficult enemies or lower areas and not just straight off the start.

[RECIVS]

Then you roll the amount of dmg dice which isnt usually enough to kill anything if you didnt totally max your character on strength and a good melee weapon. So normally you would need at least need 2 complete attack phases of 1 hero attacks to kill anything. And with the vintage toughness of 6- 7 you have another 50/50 situation- now a not a math guy but i know that it will take some time to kill anything while you are swarmed.

I don't recall anyone else ever saying that AHQ is not deadly enough. Are we talking about the same game here? I may be missing something, but I'm afraid I'm not following you. In the vanilla game, a starting adventurer with ST5 and a sword can attack with three damage dice, which means he can potentially kill a skaven warrior with one blow (and vice versa). In contrast, a clanrat warrior can't possibly kill a starting adventurer with one blow in Reforged (and only the stronger adventurers can kill a clanrat warrior with one blow), which clearly contradicts what you're saying. In any case, it seems you're not considering there's usually more than one adventurer in an encounter.

I think we already covered the subject here. I still hold the same points of view.

So the meta is to stand in the doorway and to switch turns with 1 or 2 enemies while rolling dice. And often it will not lead to as success due to 2 50/50 situations in a row. Therefore this whole procedure feels dull to me because you just roll dice after dice without having any influence on the outcome.

I know. The real problem is the botleneck issue, not the TH scores.

And this aspect of having no influence is increased by a lot by the high toughness of even weaker enemies like skaven. With the lowered toughness you can be pretty sure that a hit will also do damage to weaker enemies but there is still a smaller chance of a miss, while rolling dmg. And you will have the option of a new decision sooner, which leads to a feeling of more freedom of choice to me. While the higher toughness keeps you constantly trapped in a situation,in which you roll dice. This situation and the feeling of frustration should be saved for more difficult enemies or lower areas and not just straight off the start.

I think you're (still) not factoring in that unlike the monsters, the adventures gain FPs and treasures, and that they get to train, trade, and hire henchmen after each expedition. Therefore, skaven warriors will become easier to defeat as the adventurers gain experience and increase their stats but only to a certain extent in order to keep the game engaging even for the most developed characters (hence the 50-50 chance of causing damage regardless of how skilled or strong the attacker might be), which I find very ingenious. Lowering the whole PV scale (as Slev did) alters the said balance, and that's what keeps you trapped in a situation in which your adventurer(s) can't reach the top tier of the spectrum and unleash their full potential without breaking the game, which may be frustrating indeed. As said in the thread linked above, I believe better results may be obtained with less complications and without sacrificing compatibility with the original system.

I don't remember having much freedom of choice in Reforged encounters anyway. That's been one of my main complaints against it all these years.

[Stabsam]

Well, it seems we have different opinions. I enjoy slevs variant more!

[RECIVS]

Well, it seems we have different opinions. I enjoy slevs variant more!

Opinions? Really? I thought we were discussing facts and math. I'm afraid what you said in your post two days ago is contradictory and makes no sense, and that's not an opinion.

It's perfectly fine if you prefer Slev's variant, but I'd suggest getting your facts straight first. You might have gotten the wrong idea about how his system really works.

[Stabsam]

What? There is no contradiction for me. I just explained why i think slevs variant is the better version of the game. And ofc its just an opinion.

It seems you are a very radical Advanced Hero Quester and a danger for public players!