Plate Armour

[gootchute]

Agreed Daedalus, "equipping" a suit a plate armour would take ages.

Unrelated, but Advanced HQ allows heroes to equip or remove a suite of armor be taking an entire exploration phase, where exploration phases are assumed to take up much more time than a combat phase (combat happens when monsters are on the board). Changing armor is not allowed in combat.

To interpret this into HQ as a house rule, I would allow heroes to remove or equip armor be sacrificing an entire turn. This may only be done if the hero cannot see any monsters. In this way, it would take two turns to remove chain and equip plate, which gives the monsters a chance to interrupt the process and prevent the armor from being equipped.

[slev]

Agreed Daedalus, "equipping" a suit a plate armour would take ages.

Unrelated, but Advanced HQ allows heroes to equip or remove a suite of armor be taking an entire exploration phase, where exploration phases are assumed to take up much more time than a combat phase (combat happens when monsters are on the board). Changing armor is not allowed in combat.

To interpret this into HQ as a house rule, I would allow heroes to remove or equip armor be sacrificing an entire turn. This may only be done if the hero cannot see any monsters. In this way, it would take two turns to remove chain and equip plate, which gives the monsters a chance to interrupt the process and prevent the armor from being equipped.

For what it's worth, I put that into HQR. It prevented the barbarian from switching plate to chain, then moving, before switching back to plate.

[whitebeard]

Considering that he is still "carrying" the plate mail. He should only get 1 red die for movement.

[slev]

Not explicitly stated in the original rules, now does in my rule set

[cornixt]

I'd never considered people putting on or taking off armour during a quest. It's impracticle for a start. I've dealt with the "weapon for every occasion" issue by limiting the number of items that can be carried and counting weapon swaps as an action (no more crossbow/battleaxe combos) but I guess I should add armour swaps to the list of things that can only be done outside of a quest in case it comes up. No one has picked plate mail because the movement restriction is too bad. Maybe that should be altered to something like "roll two dice and pick the highest" rather than just a single die roll.

[QorDaq]

House Rules for my old HQ group (I GM'd), was that Exploration turns could take pretty much as long as they needed to (Including resting and the like), with the following exception: Depending on the quest I would impose a time limit in real time of about five minutes of dickering about, after which I'd roll 2D6, on Snake Eyes a Wandering Monster encounter would take place. Again, depending on the quest and what was going on I might fudge the time frame a little, or increase the chance of an encounter. For longer time frames, resting for 4 hours or whatever, I'd make a roll every few hours again depending on the quest.

Additionally, because my players would search every corpse they downed, I'd give them a 1 in 6 chance per body searched of finding a serviceable item (weapon, armor, a few coins, or whatever), based on the monster model. Invariably they would still have loads of cheap swords, helms, boots or what have you.

So, the carry weight house rule was: Reasonable normally equipped gear +1 item per Body Point of the Character. An item being something like armor, and axe, sword, shield, etc. Potions and the like counted as 1/5 of a Body Point each.

With that in mind, if the party was "resting" in a location, major chores like putting on Plate Maile was possible but risky because of potential encounters. And, having multiple armors took up loot space for selling back at town.

[Patroclus]

Regarding Plate armor. Since I have just began to play again with my sons, I bought plate armor and quickly realized the movement penalty is not worth one defense die. If you think putting on platemail takes a long time imagine pulling on a 60lb chainmail huebark. Carrying a spare suit of either kind should result in movement penalties.

-1 movement dice is a real pain but 6 dices for defence is imbalanced(4 plate+1 helmet+1 shield). You can houserule it and “activate” the -1 dice penalty only in combat rounds or else your game will move very slow.

in my opinion, 6 dices for defence are too much. You can give them chain mails as treasures, magic artifacts with skill tokens for example +1 attack dice for 3 times in a quest. Avoid to play with overpowered heroes.

ps: About the movement, let the heroes move in any order they want each turn. Or else, the wizard will stay all the time out of the room. What wizard could take the risk to move in a corner of a room full of orcs if he is not sure that the other players have enough movement to cover him?

[cynthialee]

The answer to 6 dice defense is Chaos Warriors with Crossbows, and Spell Casters.

Do not be afraid to re-equip your monsters once the Heroes have advanced to the point of 6 dice defense.

In combat games with ranged weapons, speed is life. Equip fast monsters with ranged weapons in large groups.

The back of the first quest manual has an empty map with the suggestion to make your own Dungeons...Go all out.

Once the heroes are strapped with artifacts and pockets full of potions, equip monsters with equivalent gear. Give bad guys magic items that only work for the minions of Chaos, or sized for monsters only.
An Ork with a sword that is called 'Heroes Bane' this sword works just like 'Orks Bane' except it provides two attacks against heroes and only minions of Chaos can wield it. Add to the ork a Borins armor equivalent that is sized for an ork only. Now call this dude the commander and give his men throwing knives...Or better yet bows! A Chaos Warrior with a pocket full of heal potions and a battle ax enchanted with 'Heroes Bane'.
And my ultimate favorite: Crossbow wielding Goblins with 3 'Goblin only' heal talismans each. Use them in the large rooms and double wide hallways and it is deadly. Heroes in this game are lucky that there are no outdoor wide open battles. In combat simulations range weapons combined with superior speed is the winning factor. An army of archer Goblins would be unstoppable. Ork warlords would beg them for mercy, Fimir would be useless, Chaos Warriors would turn to their Chaos Wizard friends and beg for a mystic solution..

[MadMickyG]

We use the critical damage by rolling all skulls (minimum 3CD weapon), so you roll gain. MY daughters barbarian has done 9BP in a hit using a bastard sword.
No reason, the bad guys cant get that ability. Both sides use the player/monster support Combat die bonus, so strategy attacks by the evil wizard can have goblins doing up to 4 CD for attack and boost their defence as well.
The monk I have can get 7D in a stance, but still gets hit. Could just be I roll crap.
But upping the attack of monsters, or their gear is a good thing.
I currently have modified a few Orcs, so there is 1 Orc barbarian and 1 Orc monk. I have a goblin monk too.
As I have made Orc archers, they can be Orc Rangers if required.
These guys have all the skills that Hero classes have. So 6 defence dice is nothing.
Not to mention the Gorgon I have.

And my son wants to see Chaos archers. He understands when the ranged bad guys appear, something could easily hit the fan.

[Daedalus]

... No one has picked plate mail because the movement restriction is too bad. Maybe that should be altered to something like "roll two dice and pick the highest" rather than just a single die roll.

I like it, however...
From an old thread: Plate Mail movement penalty

Plate Mail is usually neglected by canny Hero players because of the steep restriction of just 1 red die for movement. This often results in a death sentence when escape is vital.

A simple modification is to still allow a Hero wearing Plate Mail to roll 2 red dice for movement, but one must be discarded (the lower one, or just one if they are equal)....

It's only slightly better - I still can't see myself wearing that to be honest.

Now a house rule can't be expected to please everybody, but here's another go at it that is hopefully more tempting:

Plate mail is so heavy that you must roll two red dice for movement twice and use the lower result while wearing it.

You're twice as likely to roll a lower than average result, and half as likely to roll a higher result...right? Overall, it yields a higher average movement than the better of two dice, I think.