Making Hard Mode versions of quests

[BarbarianZargonGuy]

Hello everyone! I've got the new Heroquest stuff and have started to play it with a friend after not having played it since a child. As a child, my older brother was Zargon, while I controlled the Barbarian, my step-brother the elf, and my step-sister the Wizard. We played the game super wrong, mainly because of my older brother. He setup the board completely in advance, putting everything on the the board, except for traps and secret doors. You couldn't open a closed door without a toolkit. Defense dice just flat out didn't exist, for heroes or monsters. It was a total mess that ended up being super hard. Quest 7 was actually impossible for us to beat, but I still liked Heroquest.

So now that I've got Heroquest again, I'm running it as Zargon for a friend and we're actually playing it the right way. Defense dice get rolled now and exploration happens! He made it through Quest 1 by the skin of his teeth, but everyone was intact. The upcoming quests are known for being easier though. I've been running some test runs of these quests by myself and started my own group of heroes who started at quest 2. Even though they're starting 1 quest later than my friend's group and so have less treasure as a result, they have been steamrolling the quests. With quests 2, 3, and 4 completed, my heroes are already in the following positions:

Barbarian: Battle-Axe, Helmet, 70 Gold, PoH (4), PoH(1d6), PoD
Dwarf: Broadsword, Helmet, 65 Gold, PoH(1d6)x3, PoS x2
Elf: Shortsword, Helmet, Shield, 80 Gold, HB, PoD, PoH(4)x2
Wizard: Dagger, Staff, 260 Gold, PoH(1d6)x2, HB, PoD

PoH is Potion of Healing. PoD is Potion of Defense. PoS is Potion of Strength. HB is Heroic Brew. All the stuff from the treasure deck and found potions. As you can see, the heroes are already getting to be quite well armed, perhaps a bit too quickly. This has been operating under the sell your gear for 50% value rule as well. For treasure searches, good treasure cards are removed from the deck before being found, while bad ones get put back into the deck. The deck is then shuffled before each drawn card, so it's never guaranteed to get all the good cards just by searching enough.

It doesn't seem to matter though. Most quests resulted in killing all the monsters easily enough and then just casually searching for treasure once all the monsters were dead. In Quest 4, 6 wandering monster cards were drawn and it didn't really matter. The only room that caused trouble was the final one. So for each quest, I'm looking to make a few changes just to spice things up a little bit. A little for difficulty, but also for fun.

Gargoyles in every quest!
My first idea is to put 1, maybe even 2 since I have 2 Gargoyle minis, in each quest. Most of the time, these would be stone and not come to life. Since my friend started with quest 1, he got to see the Gargoyle right away, and realize how strong it is. By including fake Gargoyles in every quest, it can keep him guessing. Then, when he encounters the next real Gargoyle in Quest 5, I imagine it will be quite the shock! Every Gargoyle will be a wonder if it's just an actual stone statue, a monster, or a statue waiting to come to life! Maybe some can even contain little traps and treasures.

Quest 2: The Rescue of Sir Ragnar
This quest is easy. Far too easy, even for the 1st quest and remember, it will be my friend's 2nd quest, so he already has a few potions and his Elf even bought a helmet already. So here are the changes I'm thinking of. First off, purely for aesthetic reasons, I'm thinking of adding a fireplace on the far wall, of the western room, in the Northeast quarter of the map. Also in the NE quarter, but this time the eastern room with 2 orcs, I'm thinking of placing a spear trap in the upper right square. It's not likely to go off, but depending on the direction the heroes enter the room from, it might go off if they try to circle around the orcs. Also, just to put a little more trap presence on the board. Seriously, just 1 trapped chest? Weak.

In the far west room with the A message, I was thinking of adding an extra goblin there. A lone Goblin there just feels like a waste of time. At least if luck goes against the heroes, maybe a Goblin can get a hit off then.

In the SW quarter of the board, the Eastern room with 1 Orc in it. Here I'm thinking of adding 2 Gargoyle Statues! 1 in each upper corner. These Gargoyles would be stone however and are unable to attack or be attacked. In the room to the west of that one, the one with 2 orcs and the table, it definitely needs a little more. I was thinking a Goblin Shaman might work. I want dread magic to make an appearance early and show up often! 2 Orcs also isn't a particularly threatening room. The Goblin would be placed in the upper left corner of the room. It would have normal Goblin stats, but would know the spells Tempest and Fear. Again, nothing too threatening, but some magic fun to back up the Orcs.

My final change I'm considering involves the Gargoyles coming to life! Upon reaching Sir Ragnar, he will tell the heroes that he can't go with them. That he knows about the terrible Gargoyle Guardians that he saw on the way in and that escape is impossible. Naturally, the heroes discovered that these Gargoyles are fakes and so Sir Ragnar is willing to go with them. However, when Sir Ragnar reaches the square right before the door, the Gargoyles will start to shake and come to life! They immediately take a move... of 1 space. Their awakening is slow. They will gain back 1 movement point of their stat each turn. Otherwise they are both normal Gargoyles. I figure this should be enough to cause the heroes to flee for the exit at that point and not stand around try and game the system for treasure cards. Also, if somehow he explores the SW quarter before the NE and the Orcs & Goblins are alive for the alarm, I don't have to activate the Gargoyles!

These are all of my proposed changes for Quest 2. Now, onto...

Quest 3: Lair of the Orc Warlord

I feel like there are less changes needed for this one. Perhaps a spear or pit trap in the far left hallway, just to keep the hero on their toes if they're not searching for traps. For the Gargoyles, I'm thinking of putting 1 in the room with the lone Abomination and the Fireplace. It would go in the upright corner. If a hero searches for treasure in this room, they will find that both of the Gargoyle Statue's claws are outstretched. If the hero pushes down on them, the Gargoyles mouth will open and a dizzying gas will come spewing out of the Gargoyle. It floods the room and all heroes in the room when it happens will take 1 Mind Point of damage! I want to do this to introduce the possibility of Mind Points mattering more than they did in the base game. Really though, there will be no other way to deal MP damage in this quest, and the point of the trap is just to make him a bit more nervous for the quest. Perhaps in later quests I can introduce more mind attacking enemies, but not yet.

The 2nd big change would be the 2nd Gargoyle, which I would place beside the treasure chest at the very end. It is purely stone and would do nothing. It does force the heroes to come at the treasure chest from the square with the pit trap though. This does matter as I have house-ruled that treasure chests must be opened by being beside them. This leads to the big question of Quest 3 though, what is in that treasure chest? There is no note, but it feels pretty lame to just draw a treasure card for it. So I'm thinking of making a big change here. Inside the chest will be the artifact, Orc's Bane! As we all know, Orc's Bane is a terrible artifact that the heroes don't get until the end of Quest 11. Then Quests 12 and 14 are just full of the undead. It barely gets any use, not that it's good anyway. So I might as well let the heroes get it sooner. I'm also thinking of making the Orc's Bane wieldable by the wizard. It's a magical blade, so it's not a stretch to imagine it as lighter and not hindering the Wizard. It would also let the Wizard hero feel a bit more impactful, especially since the Wizard's Staff isn't found until Quest 12.

Which leads us to the final quest being edited for now...

Quest 4: Prince Magnus' Gold

Most of this quest is very direct and straightforward. There's more traps now, though most are out of the way and avoidable. This quest is freshest in my mind and I can tell you all that my group of heroes made it to the final room without taking any damage. They lucked out on not stepping on the Spear trap when confronting the Orcs in the SW. Aside from that, nearly every group of monsters got alpha striked right off the table. Only the 3 Orcs in the Fireplace room didn't die outright, but they still botched their attack. While I'm open to suggestions for all quests, it's in Quest 4 most of all they I find myself not sure of what to do. I could put a bookcase or shelf in the empty western room with the 2 Orcs. Maybe 1 of each, just to make it so the Orcs can't be surrounded as easily.

The 1st surprise Gargoyle would be in the empty small room. The next would probably be in the room with the secret door. Both just statues this time.

The final room is really the only interesting battle in this quest. Since there's 6 enemies, the entire room cannot be alpha striked, no matter what. The Chaos/Dread Warrior in this quest is given a name, Gulthor. Yet he's just a regular Chaos Warrior. I feel like I should make some sort of change to him, whether it be a stat boost or some spells. For spells, I'm thinking of Firestorm, Lightning Bolt, Fear, Cloud of Dread, and Summon Orcs. Obviously not all of them, but perhaps 2. Firestorm and Lightning Bolt would be interesting for an evil warrior that doesn't care about the well being of his minions. Cloud of Dread and Fear would allow for some MP play, but I worry that Cloud of Dread might be going too far for this early in the quests. Summon Orcs is meanwhile self explanatory. I think it could be interesting if Gulthor immediately casts Summon Orcs when the door is opened. Then maybe he unleashes a Firestorm when all the heroes are in the room. Who cares if a bunch of Orcs get caught in the storm with them!?

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I'm looking forward to see what ideas all of you here might have for ways to spice up these, and the upcoming, quests.

[cynthialee]

I just do one simple thing to make quest hard mode....
Monsters defend on White Shields, Bosses defend on any shield.

They will need to be well geared (3 Attack and 5 defend with Heal Potions on hand), and they are going to have to crawl the dungeon and do it tactically every step.

[Anderas]

I once long time ago made an adaptable Version of the base game quests

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EFTFEQODOC1RSmIw0rTOYRu_t2eAAlND/view?usp=sharing

Today, I lost the editor (Powerpoint - no more license), so no updates are made anymore

[Kurgan]

Try a replacement like OpenOffice.org ? It has a PP replacement called calc.

[Anderas]

Tried, it mixes everything

[BarbarianZargonGuy]

I once long time ago made an adaptable Version of the base game quests

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EFTFEQODOC1RSmIw0rTOYRu_t2eAAlND/view?usp=sharing

Today, I lost the editor (Powerpoint - no more license), so no updates are made anymore

That's pretty amazing. I'll have to give that a very thorough lookthrough. At a glance though, it looks pretty great.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Started my own group of heroes who started at quest 2. Even though they're starting 1 quest later than my friend's group and so have less treasure as a result, they have been steamrolling the quests. With quests 2, 3, and 4 completed, my heroes are already in the following positions:

Barbarian: Battle-Axe, Helmet, 70 Gold, PoH (4), PoH(1d6), PoD
Dwarf: Broadsword, Helmet, 65 Gold, PoH(1d6)x3, PoS x2
Elf: Shortsword, Helmet, Shield, 80 Gold, HB, PoD, PoH(4)x2
Wizard: Dagger, Staff, 260 Gold, PoH(1d6)x2, HB, PoD

PoH is Potion of Healing. PoD is Potion of Defense. PoS is Potion of Strength. HB is Heroic Brew. All the stuff from the treasure deck and found potions. As you can see, the heroes are already getting to be quite well armed, perhaps a bit too quickly. This has been operating under the sell your gear for 50% value rule as well. For treasure searches, good treasure cards are removed from the deck before being found, while bad ones get put back into the deck. The deck is then shuffled before each drawn card, so it's never guaranteed to get all the good cards just by searching enough.

I don't have the HQ2021 set so am limited in being able to comment directly, but from over 3 decades of HQ experience the problem here looks to be a too high rate of acquisition rather than quests being too easy.

Some simple recommendations that I use to reduce the rate of acquisition that I think may be relevant for HQ2021 (granted without seeing the rules!) are below.

1) The original game system quests were reasonably well balanced between difficulty of monsters faced, treasure gained, equipment purchased in that you earned enough treasure to purchase all the equipment once (I suspect they applied some sort of formula to calculate monster difficulty and therefore gold value), the introduction of the buy-back rule, was done because it makes sense in the real world, but unfortunately the effects of this new rule on the rate of advancement wasn't taken into account, it effectively halves the cost of equipment and therefore doubles the heroes rate of advancement making the game too easy, scrap it!

2) Restrict treasure searches to once per room (not one per hero per room), this change was introduced so kids didn't feel like they had missed out, but the unintended consequence was to quadruple the treasure yield making advancement too fast and the game too easy

3) If at the end of a quest you are still holding some unused potion cards from the treasure deck, then do NOT put those cards back into the Treasure Deck for the next quest. This introduces a neat self-balancing aspect, the harder your heroes are finding the game the more you have to use the potions, the more are in the deck for the next game, the easier the game the less you need to use them so you get less.

This would eliminate 3 of your PoH(1d6), 2 of your PoDs and 1 of your PoSs and reduce further potion acquisition until you start needing/using them (it also minimises complications around potion stacking effects as there is only 1 of most potions available)