TPK, total party kill

[Gold Bearer]

My system avoids the issue as I limit what my Heros can carry.
They can wear three pieces of armour, (helmet, mail and bracers) can carry 7 items of equipment (weapons, shield, toolkits,) on one each per hand, belt slot, two on back and one each leg. Twenty potions at once, 5 spell scrolls and two medallions/talismans. No more than 1000 gold to be carried as well.
Any excess items they can't carry are left back at base as such, and if they die, replacement Hero inherits these items.

That's a nice way to do it, I might have to steal it!

I say that Morcar teleports their quest treasures back, I want an unbreakable progression somewhere and mourning the loss of a cool item isn't fun.

Potions I make them roll for at the start of a quest, Use it this quest or it's gone, Keep for now but roll again at the start of the next quest, Gone bad, discard now.


Edit: I said Morcar instead of Mentor, maybe they really are the same person.

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

Many think they are the same person!!!!! Time will tell.
Having to leave items at base is a great way of incorporating a rest stop/Inn function.
Each Hero pays 25 gold each time in between Quests, and it's a place to store stuff so it doesn't get lost if they die in quest.
It's a place where they get to meet men at arms for hire, gamble, visit the healer (roll a die for varying one-quest effects), buy equipment, pray at the church (to use the Blessings Deck) but potions.
Fixes that awkward issue of story continuity when the Heros are on a epic quest leagues away from the empires capital, yet it's insinuated that they go back in between every quest to buy stuff?? Now they just go back to the local town/village.

[Gold Bearer]

Many think they are the same person!!!!! Time will tell.

They're not, they spell and pronounce their names differently. How will time tell? It's up to each of us to decide and I decided no because it's silly and the sticker album says they're not the same person, and that Mentor is an Elf.

Having to leave items at base is a great way of incorporating a rest stop/Inn function.
Each Hero pays 25 gold each time in between Quests, and it's a place to store stuff so it doesn't get lost if they die in quest.
It's a place where they get to meet men at arms for hire, gamble, visit the healer (roll a die for varying one-quest effects), buy equipment, pray at the church (to use the Blessings Deck) but potions.
Fixes that awkward issue of story continuity when the Heros are on a epic quest leagues away from the empires capital, yet it's insinuated that they go back in between every quest to buy stuff?? Now they just go back to the local town/village.

I have settlements of different sizes. I keep altering the rules around how much variation there is and what's available, I'm never happy with it. Out of all the HQ things I've made that's the hardest to get right.

I do like the idea of limiting what they can carry and storing spare stuff in town in case of rust type spells.

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

Yes sometimes it's difficult to get the balance right on things, what seems a good idea at first often works out differently in practice.
I made an axe that makes the dwarf go berserk if he rolls black rolls on an attack.
He has to re roll any black shields scored, and if the re rolled are BS again, enters berserk mode.
He then swaps out can't defense dice for additional attack dice and attacks every monster in room, with them counter attacking if he doesn't kill them.
It seemed benign at first, with me thinking it wouldn't happen often.
I was wrong, it happens every other room, and because he is stocked with healing potions, he has no problems clearing my dungeons.
I'm now working on a tweak for it.

[wallydubbs]

Yes sometimes it's difficult to get the balance right on things, what seems a good idea at first often works out differently in practice.
I made an axe that makes the dwarf go berserk if he rolls black rolls on an attack.
He has to re roll any black shields scored, and if the re rolled are BS again, enters berserk mode.
He then swaps out can't defense dice for additional attack dice and attacks every monster in room, with them counter attacking if he doesn't kill them.
It seemed benign at first, with me thinking it wouldn't happen often.
I was wrong, it happens every other room, and because he is stocked with healing potions, he has no problems clearing my dungeons.
I'm now working on a tweak for it.

Oh that was your card? Yeah I found that on here and printed it out, applied it to the Old game. I made it an artifact found in Against the Ogre Horde. You didn't go into detail as what Berserk mode is for the Dwarf, so I made up a rule for it in my group: When the Dwarf goes into Berserk mode he can't perform any other action but attack until the bloodlust is sated and if he starts his turn adjacent to any monster or hero, he'll automatically make his attack. This would be a good enough penalty worth a Mind Point.

Since this was the old game without any extra heroes, I also applied the house-rule of increased mind points gives a hero an extra set of spells. If the Wizard moves up to 7 mind points he gets 4 spell sets, Elf gets 5 mind points for 2 spell sets. If the Dwarf moves up to 4 mind points he may use Earth spells.
On that same note, if a hero loses a mind point (like from the poison treasure card or other) they also lose a spell set.

[BlackJax]

I take it from the earlier comments that not everyone limits the items (equipment/treasure/quest treasure etc) based on the physical cards then? I always thought that was the way the game was supposed to work, although that might only be the UK version as that is the one I'm familiar with, so that you don't really need to worry about excess items?

If heroes have any potion treasure cards unused at the end of a quest then rather than forcing them to discard them, I just make a note of those on their character sheet and then they start the next quest with those same cards which means that the more potions that the heroes don't use or need the worse the treasure deck is (less good cards so proportionally more bad cards) so it balances itself out, or if the players are struggling then the use the potions quicker so they come around more often. And you can't really hoard them as there is only one of each potion type (apart from 2 healing potions).