Hero Quest Survival Mode

[wallydubbs]

So I was reading the forum about the Forbidden Caverns in Return of the Witch Lord and how the undead constantly respawn in squares maked with X.

This reminded me of Call of Duty Black
Ops, Zombie survival mode. For those who haven't played, there's generally between 1 and 4 players running around a map surviving an endless onslaught of zombies and hellhounds. I'm thinking of implementing a mode of play for Heroquest that adopts this scenario.
In Black ops, Zombies, the characters gets points for killing zombies and use those points to open doors and buy perks along the way.

I'm envisioning the 4 Heroes in a set map starting with base standards, monsters will have spawning areas where they appear in waves around the board. Each wave of monsters increases in number and difficulty. There would be a set number in each wave, but the next wave wouldn't start until all monsters are cleared from the board.
The heroes can search for Treasure in any room as long as no monsters are in there with them, but each wave/round the Treasure deck replenishes. Wandering Monsters and Hazard cards would only be added back to the Treasure deck at the end of each round/wave along with all the other good cards. Each room can only be searched once per round. The heroes must rely on the Treasure Deck to supply them with gold and various perks, at first.
Along the way heroes can buy weapons and armor in a room that has a weapons rack in it, using the gold they accumulate each round with searches. Buying things would require an action for the heroes turn.
There would also be rooms with an Alchemist Bench, where the heroes can buy potions from the Alchemist shop.
Also there would be a Treasure chest that the heros would pay for to draw a random Artifact card.
The Sorcerer's Table would also be in one of the room. This would allow the Wizard and Elf to replenish and change spell sets for a certain amount of gold.

There would also need to be an end game, such as an exit door the heroes can't open until they've accumulated enough money. But the Genie would be able to override this... unless I have the heroes pay for each door they open, the Genie could just do this for free.

The problem however, this being a set map (I'm not even sure which map to use yet), once the traps and secret doors are detected, the hero will no longer need to perform those types of seaches.
Or perhaps, taking this a bit further, heroes might get board of their environment and there could be a series of maps the heroes have to go through. In each there would be window areas where the monsters spawn from instead of them being present on the map. Heroes constantly clear maps of present monsters, but very rarely are there quests where the heroes have to stay mobile to escape an onslaught of monsters.

Another option for the weapons rack and Alchemist bench would be for the heroes to pay a set price, if you have Equipment cards, like from the European circuit, you could randomly draw an equipment item or potion.
Heroes would be allowed to trade or pass artifacts to adjacentheroes, as being drawn randomly the Dwarf could draw an item specifically meant for the Wizard.

At some points I'd also like to add Choas spell scrolls... perhaps, instead of a Wandering monster, as they'd already be chasing the heroes in waves, there can be random Choas spells cast on a hero who draws it...

Has anyone tried to modify the game in this way, just for fun perhaps. Or would anyone want to add anything to this idea, I'd like to hear it.

[Thor-in]

Your basically talking about being a Gladiator against Zombies. I think the arena is run kind of like this, I'll have to double check the rules. However here is the link to it.

http://aginsinn.yeoldeinn.com/gladiatorquest.html

I'm sure you could also modify it so that way you could do a points system for every Zombie you kill, like running a gauntlet.

[Jafazo]

I can't remember exactly when but me and my best friend used to play a version like this a long time ago. It evolved as we played it so in truth there are versions, and we never really named it, but here's what we did.

The HQ board was used as one giant battle arena. We put heroes on one side, monsters on the other side. Heroes rolled to move, monsters used their movement squares. The goal was simply to fight and win, that's all. The rooms didn't block movement so the white walls were ignored, but if anything was used that ordinarily reads as, "In a hall or room." the boards imagery applied. Little by little we added things like placing the candle from the alchemists bench in the middle and players could pick it up and drop it into a hall or room to do 1 body point damage to all monsters in that area, monsters could do the same to heroes.

We also did a survival mode type battle where we placed the Heroes in a large room and monsters would periodically appear in certain squares, sometimes strategically surrounding the Wizard etc and Heroes simply fought to survive. We recorded every single fight and numbered them 1 through ? It turned into a speed type game where we'd do the fights in the same order every time to see how far we could get. Each Hero who participated then got a medal with that number on it designating how far he's gotten. Eventually we let it play a role in quest packs where a certain numbered medal was needed to basically get stuff. Like, you'd find a chest that couldn't be opened unless you held a 75-Medal. We let the town offer discounts and other benefits for your medals etc. We also required teams of Heroes to unlock certain Rank Medals to unlock special quests. It was fun as kids.

We enjoyed playing HQ in ways other than its intended version and that was a driving point in why I added certain rules and modifications to some of my versions.

[Pancho]

Lots of good ideas there Wallydubbs.
My advice would be to keep it fairly simple and as close to the Zombie survival mode as possible; that game is oddly addictive and a huge amount of fun. The high octane nature of it would be difficult to achieve with HQ, but a lot of the other elements could be done.
Let us know how you get on if you playtest anything.

[lestodante]

it could be set on a multi-stage similar to the Dark Company quest. Four boards and each time the heroes pass from an area to a new one all the previously killed monsters will come back. There are TEMPLES room to recover BP and spells and also new room for buying weapons and potions or other special items (scrolls for example).

[Anderas]

Important to have few or no blocking doors, otherwise what would stop the heroes from staying in a room and blocking the doors?

So lots of access to every room is needed, to make the survival strategy "keep moving".

Then I imagine this would be lots of fun!

[Pancho]

Important to have few or no blocking doors, otherwise what would stop the heroes from staying in a room and blocking the doors?

So lots of access to every room is needed, to make the survival strategy "keep moving".

Then I imagine this would be lots of fun!

The zombie survival games make the players use a fairly large space with multiple entrances, so that they need eyes in the back of their heads if they want to survive. Lots of doors and windows that they have to keep running between to blast the onrushing critters.
So if 4 heroes are used, you would ideally need more than 4 entrances to each defensible space. That would require either a large room, or a complex of smaller rooms that the players are forced to have to revisit periodically (for potions, weapon upgrades etc). If they don't venture forth from their hidey-hole they'll die anyway.
A few double doors here and there could work wonders too.

[wallydubbs]

The map, I was planning, would be mainly circular with few dead ends; monster spawn points.
Although there should be a maximum number of monsters allowed on the map at the same time, monsters can spawn ahead of the heroes, this would prompt them to keep moving.

Although I can totally see the heroes holding up in a room, with the Wizard casting Courage on the Barbarian at the door, with the Elf and Dwarf holding off the next door for monsters that spawn ahead... Courage, though, would only last 1 wave. Once all the monsters are clear the heroes get a turn or two to move ahead and search for Treasure.

Some rooms will have monster spawn points in them.