Ye Olde Inn

Our party is pretty new to HeroQuest. We played the first few quests. But are running into well, not sure to call it a problem... thing is, seems our party has figured out how to play this game. I play the DM and notices the party has this tactic of just opening a door and standing in the door with the barbarian killing monsters with extreme ease. Same with corridors, just have the barbarian in front and it blocks everything... and as most corridors are only 1 square width the monsters have no choice but to get slaughtered one by one...

Now, I tested this with some improvisation. During Quest 2 (rescue of Ragnar) I added a sealed barracks that released no less than 8 orcs in addition to what the quest specifies. The party went to the middle room (the one with stairs Ragnar needs to reach), the barbarian blocked one side, the elf the other (because I split the orcs to attack from both sides (as there is a corridor around the entire middle room) but yea to no avail... the wizard and dwarf didn't even really need to do anything.. At Ragnars location there is the first abomination the party encounters, when I placed the figurine the party thought "ooooh, exiting". So did I.. then the barbarian attacked and rolled 3 skulls. (no kidding he did), I didn't roll any block so the abom was basically one shotted, talk about ant climatic.

- Is this game suppose to be so easy?
- Why are almost all hallways only 1 square width? Unless we play it wrong, this makes the amount of monsters irrelevant as you can only attack one by one...
- Is standing in a door a valid tactic, or should this be disallowed?

I read the rule book multiple times, I don't think we do anything "wrong"... just that it feels something is off difficulty wise, and without tension it starts to feel a tad dull.

So this is half true, but there are ways around it

1. You can make the monsters stronger
2. You can add abilities for monsters to utilize (move/attack/move) etc - allows for many monsters to attack a single target blocking a doorway
3. Someone on the Inn had the idea of a successful hit 'pushing back' a hero - so if the Barb is blocking a doorway and takes >=1 BP of damage it would move him back a square and push anyone else back a square...etc
4. Combining 1,2 & 3 in a single turn could swap the tables significantly - having them all surrounded and being hit by multiple targets every turn if they're over confident

There are also the evil Wizard cards mechanic you can add so the Hero's don't exploit the unlimited time while no active monsters are up. I've used all of these methods to up the difficulty when my group plays and so far its worked out very well as far as preventing a rapid loss of fun due to ease of play. I typically kill 1-2 Hero's every quest which I feel is the sweet spot and sometime they just barely squeak their way to the stairwell....which is where the difficulty should be roughly I think

Yes that's the gemeplay many uses. But if the Heroes use tricks you also should.
Add diagonal attacks to some monsters (these orcs have long swords so they can attack diagonally too).
Small bows (these Goblins can make ranged attacks with 2 combat dice).
A Wandering Monster is approaching from behind the heroes.
A chaos sorcerer appears and cast a spell on the barbarian...
There are many solitions.
Find an Evil Wizard Deck, this will add some spice to the game and the heroes will have less time to wander into the dungeon and to plan their moves.

Also, just cause the Barbarian stands in the door doesn’t mean your monsters have to be mindless and go attack 1 at a time. Wait the Heroes out if they won’t move. If they have a crossbow then hide around the corner out of los.

My parties usually split into groups of 2. I would think the other players would be getting bored.

A quick search of door blocking technique or block the door strategy, meat shield, etc. and you'll find many suggestions for this well known issue. Putting in undetectable secret doors that can open to hidden rooms of extra monsters is something I'd use. Give monsters diagonal and ranged weapons more often, and put spear/pit traps in the doorway. It's not necessary but some put in double wide doors, or forcibly separate the heroes (that's a little more extreme). I think swapping out monster abilities and sprinkling in a few trap rooms will solve the issue with the least amount of hassle.

It's not cheating because the instruction booklet/rulebook itself recommends the strategy for the heroes. Other than at least two heroes sticking together (when one of them has high defense/body points) they can use it throughout their careers. Zargon has to deal...

Planetdune, assuming you have played strictly following the rulebook, every hero may search for Treasure once in every room, so another possible difficult & realistic booster change is limiting the Treasure search to only one hero per room.

HeroQuest was designed for kids. Most of the challenge is learning the game and working together, and the surprises you can throw at your friends in custom quests. The quest packs however will destroy everyone. The difficulty, as others can attest, increases greatly especially as you near the end of the franchise c. 1992. They'll need every trick they can get.

But yes, if it's "way too easy" and getting boring, Zargon should do something to spice things up, as above. I'm usually for adding things, rather than taking things away.

I have put the following rules in place (at least these are my house rules specifically made to address the issues that you have mentioned) and as I introduced these gradually and play tested them extensively, I never really noticed what a difference they made collectively to the game until I recently started using the Companion app for a campaign that obviously is just vanilla and the difference is significant!

Most of these have already been suggested but that isn't surprising as most of the ideas originated in this forum anyway.

1. All Goblins are armed with either a spear (allowing a diagonal attack) or a bow (2AD ranged attack) which gives Zargon the option to put three monsters into attacking a door blocker, two spear armed Goblins attacking diagonally or to use ranged attacks along the long diagonals to take pot shots or a combination of the two)

Note: Prior to running a Quest you need to mark each Goblin on the map to indicate whether it is using a bow or not, I tend to roll a red die for each and if it is a 5/6 then that Goblin is bow armed (and add one to the roll for every non-Goblin in the same room) or you can just make it up!

2. Skeletons are armed with a scythe which allows them to attack diagonally (exactly as a spear like above)

3. Mummies can cast a Fear spell once (which can seriously hamper your door blocker, especially the Barbarian who is especially vulnerable to mind attacks)

4. The pass-through rule that allows movement through a square occupied by a friendly figure is suspended if that figure has an opponent in an adjacent square (this represents the fact that you cannot step aside to let someone pass you if you are in combat and has some beneficial side effects)

5. Advanced Combat Rules – including Push back rules (see below for details)

6. Limit searching to once per room, although that doesn't really impact on the door blocking issue, but it does slow down advancement which increases the difficulty

I've included these ones specifically as they don't involve significant re-engineering of the Quest maps, monster placement or extra monsters from the quest book, but there are options there also if you want to go down this route, such as double width doors and placing a pit trap outside a room, alarms that open additional doors or summon wandering monsters etc

Advanced Rules – Combat

38.1 Free Attack

If an opponent attempts to move away from a square that is adjacent to you (not diagonals even if you have a diagonal attack weapon) and you have no other opponents on an adjacent square, then you are granted an instant free attack roll that can be defended against as usual.
• You cannot make a free attack if you are in a pit
• This attack does not end the victims turn (unless it kills it!)

Note: This is an exception to the usual “attack only on your turn” (in much the same way as a Wandering Monster attack)

38.2 Follow Up

If you attack an opponent in an adjacent square and your attack results in that opponent being killed, you may choose to follow up by moving into the now unoccupied square.

Note: This movement MAY result in a free attack directed at you – see above.

38.3 Push Back (apologies for the length of this rule but in most scenarios, it is straight-forward but whenever I publish the short version, someone always says “but what happens if there are three Orcs in a row and …”)

If you attack an opponent in an adjacent square and your attack results in that opponent losing at least one body point, then you may be able to push them back.

Note: in normal play this is optional, you can choose whether to push back but if you do push back then you must follow up.

• You cannot push a monster back if that monster has the ‘no pushback’ attribute (Mummy, Troll/Fimir/Abomination, Dark Warrior, Gargoyle and potentially some bosses – see Quest Notes).
• You cannot push back a monster that is in a pit
• You cannot push back a monster if you are in a pit

38.4 Where can I push them back to?

You can only push a monster back into a square that it could normally move to using a single point of movement i.e., there are up to three possible squares that you can push an opponent back into, the square adjacently behind or the two to either side.

You cannot push an opponent back through walls, through closed doors, or into squares covered by furniture or squares that are diagonal, these squares are considered blocked. If all three of the valid squares are blocked, then you cannot push your opponent back.
• If the square behind your opponent is unoccupied then you push them back into that square
• If the square behind your opponent is occupied but either or both squares to the sides of your opponent are unoccupied then you push them back into the unoccupied square – if both are unoccupied then you can choose which square to push them back into.
• If all the valid squares are occupied, then you may only push back your opponent if you can free up one of those squares by moving any ONE figure to a square that is adjacent to it, is unoccupied, is not blocked and is not pit or chasm.
• You can push a monster back into a pit if the pit is unoccupied
• You can push a monster back into a chasm as these are never occupied

Feel free to try any or all of these and let us know how you get on!

Not sure if this has ever been suggested for this problem: The monsters/Evil wizard has seen this
tactic used many times (he he he) and so they have planned for it. There are traps are certain
doors, or even all the doors, that the monsters can trigger from outside in the hallway. Just be
sure to pick your monster and move them to the trigger...just to make it "fair and realistic"...no
complaining from the players that the trigger just happened to be right next to where the monster
was. A nice axe or sword to face...an arrow or two to the back...that'll take 'em down a peg or two.

The time thing is a real issue. At one stage my brother and I would just set up the Heroes at the door to the next room as soon as any traps were sorted. Why bother with all that movement dice rolling? Next door, set them up. next door, set them up. Want the perfect position for a Wandering Monster treasure card? Just set everyone up, time is no limit.....booooring!

Now we use a version of the EW cards, the Heroes have to get everything done as quickly as possible. Sure, take your time setting up a perfect plan at the door, and stand at the door for as long as you like, you WILL pay for it.

The quests are so much more fun now, and the EW player gets a new aspect of play to keep their play more interesting.