Ethica wrote:Having a rule that you can drink a healing potion at zero body points to stop yourself from dying makes the game really easy and it makes the number of body points your character has irrelevant. If american rules allow it then that balances the fact that our monsters only have one body point.
Easy-cheesy. Dying less often goes over really well with the original 12-year old market. The starting number of Body Points is somewhat relevant, as it determines when you will need to use a Potion of Healing each Quest (if available, and they always aren't available). Since monsters with multiple Body Points are generally found more often than Potions of Healing, I'd say the potion-cheese contributes towards balancing out monsters with only one Body Point, but it doesn't make things even. Still, certain Quests will prove exceptions. As I never played the European rules set, I'm merely stating my opinion here.
The problem I have is players are rewarded with a potion-hording mentality. A Hero should never use a potion until reduced to 0 Body Points, as any other behavior is wasteful. This departs from the fantasy immersion experience, where a Hero would naturally want to use a Healing Potion at very low Body Points. Then I consider how few Body Points each Hero starts with, how often Potions of Healing are found, and the Beer and Pretzels nature of the HeroQuest boardgame. So I shrug the rule off and get back to the slaughter.
