Dice with a bonus side

[cornixt]

The limited availability of the different coloured dice got me thinking about a better dice format. The standard HQ die has three skulls, two white shields, and one black shield [3, 2, 1]. There are various ways to add variety by adding rerolls, counts-as, etc, or even just increasing the number of dice rolled. But what if we broke the die down further? Then we could replicate the effect of several sets of the coloured dice (that of varying probabilities) with a single set.

Instead of three shields in two different flavours, you could get away with only two shields: one white and one black, but heroes get to use white and bonus to defend. These leaves one side of the die open for:

Bonus side. The bonus side can act as anything depending on the rules you set for the weapon/hero/monster/trap/etc. Maybe the barbarian goes into a rage and it counts as a skull for attacks, or the giant pavasse held by a hero makes it count as two shields, or the unreliable blunderbuss fails to fire if it is rolled.

The dice still have the [3, 2, 1] properties and are fully backward compatible, but now have a wider variety of uses. You really have to get over the idea of the black shield being used by the heroes though, I know that would be hard for some players who have a fairly rigid idea of how HQ should be - or they can use the bonus side as a white shield, but that would limit them a lot more.

You could go even further and add different coloured skulls, but that is a topic for another time.

[Anderas]

I like that proposal of having a bonus side that you can use for anything. Yes it is needed, most people use the walrus for that. But actually having a bonus side on a die makes it more flexible, because you can also boost the walrus with it.

Yes, I like it. i posted an idea over there in the other thread.

[Stig]

This is an awesome idea. I think a star symbol would be perfect.

[ShadowHawk]

It's a good idea.

My take, is rather than alter the die with a sticker or order a new die, why not make a special/critical die that gets added to the regular dice for roll. Now you have six sides to play with, and can make bonus or critical symbols that apply to certain characters or equipment. For example, a Dexterity Crit symbol will add a shield in defense or a skull in attack for the Elf, but not for the other heroes. Or it applies for an attack when the Barbarian attacks with a crossbow rather than with a sword. Or the Dex crit adds a bonus to a hero trying to disarm a trap. A strength crit could apply to an attack with a sword, or just the Barbarian and Dwarf, or when leaping over a pit trap, etc. etc. You can even make it that certain pieces of equipment remove a crit, say heavy plate prevents a hero from being able to access the Dex crit in any situation. Or certain situations stop the die from being added, such as a wondering monster attack. So you'd have flexibility for the application of the criticals, the bonus percentages and even when the die should be added.

I'd suggest the following with such a die:
1 - Strength Crit
2 - Dexterity Crit
3 - Mental Crit
4 - Constitution Crit
5 - Blank or a Crit I'm not considering
6 - Blank or an Error Crit which has a negative effect on the roll

Would be easy to purchase a separate die that can be added to the game.

[Maurice76]

It's a good idea.

My take, is rather than alter the die with a sticker or order a new die, why not make a special/critical die that gets added to the regular dice for roll. Now you have six sides to play with, and can make bonus or critical symbols that apply to certain characters or equipment.

That seems overly complicated, while it could easily also be introduced using regular dice. The Dexterity Crit for instance can be mimic'ed by rolling an additional white die, where the counts for the crit.

[ShadowHawk]

That seems overly complicated, while it could easily also be introduced using regular dice. The Dexterity Crit for instance can be mimic'ed by rolling an additional white die, where the counts for the crit.

Even better. Cheap, quick, easy to implement.

[Anderas]

There are some here who don't like to use monster Defense for hero Defense or Attack.

Also, you can't implement something that uses the special symbol to extend the Walrus. Like, if you roll the question mark, it counts as two walruses.

That said, if you design your personal rules along the line you laid out, you can be sure to be compatible with the other Heroquest versions around here.

[Jaekaelae]

One doesn't need to remove symbol for the dice. There is an option to make a symbol golden for example. And there can be two golden symbols golden skull and golden shield on a dice. It might be so that only one of the combat dice have golden symbols or one dice have golden skull and one has golden shield. Possibilities are almost limitles. Hero's skills or ablities dictate if golden symbols are trickered or not. To my experiense I would say there should be only one special dice with two golden symbols. In normal use golden symbols does nothing as long as neither attacker nor the target has an ability that is trickered if spesific golden symbol is scored. This way there is no need to heavily modify the attack dice or change the game system, old rules would work just fine.

Even the walrus side can be easily used as a special symbol. A spell, a potion or a weapon might give player a permission to use walrus side as a skull which increase the success change from 3/6 to 4/6. I use armour class or armor value in my Heroquest. If model has AC of 1 it defences with walrus symbols (1/6), AC 2 means it defences with white shields (2/6) and model with AC 3 success with white shields and walrus symbol (3/6). Some weapons might decreace target's AC.

[lestodante]

I agree with you but I prefer to add a coloured die for that purpose. Because in this way the player do not have to take attention if the gold symbol is activated or not, he just roll the dice caring only about the score while the coloured die will instead increase or decrease the character's skills.
But of course you can just add a mark on one side of the die to get special scores or use the walrus.