[Heroes] - New Set of Hero Sub-Classes

[Chancellour]

The Hook: Completely new set of Heroes. Each main class (Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard) each divided into 4 sub-classes. Each sub-class has its own unique abilities and attributes.

Why? A couple friends and I pulled out HQ a couple years ago for nostalgia's sake. We played through Quest 1 and had a ton of fun. However, we had a common feeling that the base characters were a little bland - even considering the possible upgrades throughout all of the campaigns. I spent countless hours creating these characters and would love to share with anyone who might have an interest. We've also spent many hours play-testing these characters for balance. There are still some bugs to be worked out, but things are pretty stable thus far.

Here's a list of the new heroes:

BARBARIAN
• Berserker
• Paladin
• Shadow Knight
• Shaman
DWARF
• Cleric
• Slayer
• Protector
• Dwarven Spirit
ELF
• Assassin
• Ranger
• Bard
• Vampire
WIZARD
• Elementalist
• Necromancer
• Blood Mage
• Chaos Warlock

Here is the PDF with everything laid out: http://www.filefactory.com/file/64gwloz8zv3b/n/HeroQuest_-_New_Characters_pdf

With these new characters, we found that their power was slightly increased over the vanilla heroes. So, we made some rule changes in favor of Zargon to re-balance everything. These changes, as we've found, have made a profound impact on the depth of the game and to date, we have loved every minute of play.

The rule changes are outlined in the PDF, but here are some high level alterations:
-Zargon's army defends as the heroes (using white shields)
-Zargon's army has increased hit points (all monsters below Fimir)
-Each of Zargon's turns where he is not actively controlling monsters, he gets a chance to roll for a wandering monster. This really ups the tempo of the game.
-Give heroes tactical/statistical advantage for making quick work of their enemies. Once a new set of monsters is sighted, there is a single round of play where bonuses are granted for a 'surprise attack'.
-Introduced 'critical' damage chances. Gives the whole combat system a new level of depth.
-Changes the line of sight rules when an object obstructs the vision between two characters. The recipient of the action (being attacked or has a friendly spell directed toward) now has the option to 'duck' behind objects or stand tall to receive the action. This makes placement even more strategic.
-Directionality of monsters/heroes now has meaning.

Anyway, I just wanted to share. Any type of feedback is absolutely welcome!

Thanks,
Joe

[Templar]

Nice!

I have started doing something similar a few weeks ago when I got Baldurs Gate 2. A lot of the special roles are similar...prbably due to the classic fantasy clichés that fits HeroQuest so well

Anyways, good work! I think I will work in the rolling for wandering monster in my games as well. Personally I would keep the black shields in defense for the monsters, but that's your call

[Chancellour]

Yeah, the monsters defending with white shields came from the fact that the new heroes in their base form were just too powerful. Almost any room would get wiped out in a single hero turn with very little consequence of taking damage during Zargon's turn.

However, the critical aspect takes it back toward the black shield defense for monsters.

Each attack has a critical chance. So, if I'm a Paladin attacking an orc with 2 combat dice and a "black shield critical chance", it would go something like this.

-Paladin rolls 2 attack dice. (2 skulls show)
-Paladin rolls his critical die (black shield shows - successful critical hit)
----What this means is that 2 hits were registered, 1 critical, and 1 normal. The critical hit MUST be defended by a black shield and the normal hit MUST be defended by the white shield.-----
-Orc rolls 2 defensive dice (1 white shield, 1 skull)
----Orc blocks the normal strike, but is still hit by the critical strike.

The critical attacks really changed the game. It bridged the gap between monsters defending only with whites. It also opened up a lot of possibilities as far as Zargon allowing monsters to be immune to critical, hero buffs that enhance critical chances, etc.

[econmaniadude]

There is a problem with your system of how you do critical hits (assuming you do them as described above).
Look at these these three cases:

in all cases we will assume you get 2 hits and the monster defends with 2 dice

case 1: a hero gets 2 regular hits (monster defends with white shields)
chance of causing 2 wounds: 44%
chance of causing 1 wound: 44%
chance of causing 0 wounds: 11%

case 2: a hero gets 2 critical hits (monster defends with black shields)
chance of causing 2 wounds: 69%
chance of causing 1 wound: 28%
chance of causing 0 wounds: 3%

case 3: a hero gets one critical and one regular.

Now you would hope that the percents would be between the two cases above, but here they are:
chance of causing 2 wounds: 28%
chance of causing 1 wound: 61%
chance of causing 0 wounds: 11%

The problem is that when the monster is defending and rolls a black shield, does that mean he succeeded against the critical attack or does it mean he failed against the regular attack?

One possibility is that you keep having monsters defend with white shields, but for each critical you roll, you can force a monster to re-roll a successful block.

For example, if you got one regular hit and one critical and the monster rolled one successful defense, you could force him to re-roll it. If he rolled two successful ones, you could force a re-roll on one of the two die. That would take care of the issue.