Plate Armour

[Kurgan]

Revisiting an old post, but while the idea of giving a Plate Armor wearer different dice is an one I resist (I think you should use special HQ style dice... even if they have adjusted faces to impact probability like the german colored dice... and the standard d6s), you COULD give them a single d10 or even d8 as a simple fix to make the problem of nobody wanting it with the halved movement.

So it's not 1-6, but still. A mere 2 movement penalty seems too light. The original game designers wanted the Plate to have some restriction, rather than an automatic upgrade. So with a combination of blowing the Rallying Horn (giving bonus movement), using the Paladin class and saving up your speed potions/swift wind spells, you can make it more tolerable.

If the players want to have the extra benefit of the Plate and work hard to compensate for the penalty, I'll give it to them.

[Karlssonontheroof]

Edited by HispaZargon: Thread merged with thread "Alternate movement penalty for Plate Mail (Chainmail too)" since both threads treat the same topic. All posts from the second thread have been moved to this thread.

Would like some opinions on my alternate way of dealing with movement penalties for armour, using Body Points as a measure of a Hero's strength.

Chain Mail - movement cannot exceed the Hero's starting body points.

Plate mail - movement cannot exceed the Hero's starting body points -1.


This means that Chain Mail reduces the average movement from 7 to approx;

6.5
6
5.5

And for plate mail instead of 3.5 to approx

6
5.5
4.7


Would this add too much complexity? / Messing around just to add a little differentiation between Heroes.

The other option would be -1 movement for chainmail and -2 moment for plate mail. But this makes them too slow I feel. I want chainmail to have a minor movement penalty.

[Kurgan]

For Plate you could do it like this:

Barbarian -2, Dwarf -3, Elf -4, Wizard -6
(as in squares off their 2d6 movement roll)

Is Plate nearly twice as "heavy" as chain? You could do it like this for Chain: (no penalty), -1, -2, -3
And make Borin's armor the same as Chain, and Elven Chainmail you could do whatever you want. Maybe make no penalty for the elf, and Chain penalty for the others.

[Karlssonontheroof]

Thanks. Any comment on using Body points to adjust for this restriction?

[iKarith]

Thanks. Any comment on using Body points to adjust for this restriction?

If you really want to have a movement penalty, this seems like a good solution.

As a player, my heroes have Borin's Armor and gave it to the barbarian. Nobody else will ever wear plate because my movement rolls on TWO dice often feel painfully low on bigger maps. I would not enjoy half speed movement.

[wallydubbs]

I'd say restrict the Wizard and Elf from wearing plate mail altogether while adding a movement penalty of -2 spaces for the Barbarian or Dwarf.

Another option is that the hero wearing plate mail may roll 2 movement dice, but can only choose 1 in determining how many spaces he will move.

[Karlssonontheroof]

So we have some mechanics to reduce movement.

1) subtract from the movement dice rolls.
2) restrict the maximum movement
3) adjust the dice rolls (roll 2 dice pick the best or roll 3 dice and remove the best).

Here are my comments on the mechanics.

1. Pretty simple, easy to implement. However in order to have differentiation between the Heroes having a different penalty per hero type might be a bit much complexity? And then a different penalty ladder between plate and chain is another step on complexity.
A drawback I see is that it proportionately hurts hero movement more on low dice rolls.
Eg. -2 to movement is a 50% reduction if you roll a 4 and only a 20% reduction if you roll a 10.
Low dice rolls suck already.

2. Does it add to much complexity, due to cross referencing body points and different maximums per hero?
This method hurts only the higher dice rolls, which is good and gives more utility of armour to the strong Heroes.

3. This mechanic is the closest to official rules and quite simple. I like it but feel like it punishes the Heroes from wearing plate too much (average movement would be about 4.5 I think), also it does not allow differentiation between the Heroes (good for simplicity though). This should have been the official rule.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Revisiting an old post, but while the idea of giving a Plate Armor wearer different dice is an one I resist (I think you should use special HQ style dice... even if they have adjusted faces to impact probability like the german colored dice... and the standard d6s), you COULD give them a single d10 or even d8 as a simple fix to make the problem of nobody wanting it with the halved movement.

So it's not 1-6, but still. A mere 2 movement penalty seems too light. The original game designers wanted the Plate to have some restriction, rather than an automatic upgrade. So with a combination of blowing the Rallying Horn (giving bonus movement), using the Paladin class and saving up your speed potions/swift wind spells, you can make it more tolerable.

If the players want to have the extra benefit of the Plate and work hard to compensate for the penalty, I'll give it to them.

Note: it is Plate Mail Armour not Plate Armour

I have removed the -D6 movement penalty as it is too strong in my opinion and have instead introduced a -1 penalty to jumping and cliff-hanger rolls (I use the 'red dice' for these types of tests that are related to movement as opposed to combat).

In case you were wondering cliff-hanger rolls happen when you attempt to jump and fail on a bottomless pit or chasm, you hit the far side taking a BP of damage and catch the edge and must then immediately take a cliff-hanger test 2+ you pass and pull yourself out (on the the far side in most cases, except Ice Ledge in Frozen Horror which is slightly different as you can slip in without jumping), fail and you are DEAD. The jumping penalty whilst fairly minor combined with the cliff-hanger penalty makes choosing Plate Mail armour generally beneficial, but really not in this specific but rare circumstance.

[Kurgan]

Note: it is Plate Mail Armour not Plate Armour

"Plate Armour" in the EU edition, "Plate Mail" in the NA edition, technically. Whatever you call it, we know what you mean!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I wasn't so much being pedantic about the name but the function.

The term 'plate armour' for many invokes imagery around ‘medieval knights' in full jousting panoply, in the 16th century, wearing a full suit of steel plate armour, typically over a suit of (chain) mail armour, with some form of padding underneath however in HeroQuest I’m not convinced that is what is being referred to.

HeroQuest (both UK/EU and US) it is explicitly stated that chain mail and plate (mail) armour CANNOT be combined, both could have been listed as +1DD and allowed to be combined, stackable, but that isn’t the way it has been implemented in any edition of HeroQuest (as far as I am aware).

My assumption is that the reason for the adoption of the term Plate Mail in the ‘updated’ US Edition over the UK/EU editions ‘Plate’ was to make the distinction that the reference is to a piece of armour that is essentially chain mail with added metal plates riveted on in strategic places that enhance the armour (breastplate, back plate etc), as opposed to a full suit of 16th century steel plate armour.

Judging by the imagery in HeroQuest (and I know elsewhere that we have said that is only indicative rather than definitive – Borin’s Armour depicts a Helmet debate – but the artwork is a significant part of the appeal and flavour of HeroQuest) if you look at the equipment cards or the armoury it looks to be based on an earlier (granted this is fantasy) age than the Warhammer/GW universe’s 15th century (which is common to most fantasy – GW’s universe is the exception not the rule) and harks back to some earlier period, maybe somewhere between Roman and Viking ages.

I’m not insisting on historical realism, this is a simple fantasy game, but the de-warhammerification of the latest HeroQuest version does give us the opportunity to lean towards (or possibly return to) an earlier and more common standard of fantasy equipment than being forced to fit the GW mold.

My point was really around bearing this distinct in mind when talking about movement restrictions and similar, from Wikipedia “a complete suit of 16th century steel plate weighed around 15–25 kg and the wearer remained highly agile and could jump, run and otherwise move freely as the weight of the armour was spread evenly throughout the body” as I don’t think that is a problem partly because this isn’t a game of historical accuracy but more importantly I don’t think that the Plate Mail armour in HeroQuest was ever intended to be this type of armour but just an earlier, perhaps cruder type of armour that may have been heavy.

That said for me personally in a combat situation (i.e. with monsters on the board - maximum movement restrictions don't really mean so much outside of that context) you are probably talking about typically covering maybe a 10m distance in a few seconds, any armour that literally doubles the time it takes you to do that must be impractically heavy and you would probably be incapable of jumping a pit or even surviving a Quest without dying of exhaustion due to the weight of your armour - monsters need not apply!