Character Development

[sadkitchen]

So I was thinking of a few skills.

For the Barbarian.
Mighty Swing: Choose three squares in a row that are either adjacent or diagonal to the you. Attack all three spaces with your attack roll. Use this skill card only when equipped with a staff or longsword.
Fearless Charge: Roll an additional red die and add that amount to the number of spaces you can move this turn. You must make a melee attack this turn.
Battle Tactics: One hero in the same room with you gets to roll 1 additional defense die until the beginning of your next turn. You cannot be adjacent to any monsters to use this skill card.
Sucker Punch: Make an attack with 1 combat die, the monster you are attacking only rolls 1 defense die. You cannot use this skill card if you are equipped with a weapon and a shield.
Parry: Play this skill card when attacked. Roll 1 combat die. If a skull is rolled you block all skulls from the attack roll. If a shield is rolled roll defense as normal, but you cannot make an attack action during your next turn. You cannot use this skill card if unarmed or with a crossbow.

For the Dwarf
Cleave: Make an attack with +1 combat dice. If you kill the monster you are attacking and there is left over skulls then you can continue the attack on to another adjacent monster.
I have seen this one before: Successfully disarm a trap. You cannot use this skill card on a special trap. If you try Zargon will not take the card telling you that you actually haven't seen this type of trap before.
Steadfast: Play this skill card only if your body points have been reduced to 0 or lower. Raise your body points to 1.
Dwarfs' Endurance: Roll 1 red die. For the next number of turns equal to the roll of that red die, add the result of the die roll to your move.
Goblin's Bane: Play this skill card when attacking a goblin. When that attack resolves you may make another attack against a goblin. You may not use this skill card with a crossbow or when throwing a dagger.
Block: Play this skill card when attacked. Roll 1 combat die. If a shield is rolled you block all skulls from the attack roll. If a skull is rolled roll defense as normal except with 1 less die. You must be equipped with a shield to use this skill card.

For the Elf
Dodge: Play this skill card when attacked. Roll 1 combat die. If a shield is rolled you block all skulls from the attack roll. If a skull is rolled roll defense as normal except with 2 less dice. This can reduce your defense dice to zero if you have no armor.
Long Jump: Play this skill card when preparing to jump a square. You successfully jump the square in question.
Combat Casting: Play this skill card at the beginning of your turn. You cannot move this turn. You can cast a spell and attack, your choice on the order, this turn. You cannot use the Wand of Magic in conjunction with this skill card.
Quick Strike Play this skill card before attacking. The target of this attack rolls 1 less defense die when defending against your attack. This cannot reduce the monster's defense dice to below 1. You cannot use this skill card with a crossbow or when throwing a dagger.
Perfect Shot: Play this skill card before attacking. Treat all attack dice that do not show a black shield as skulls. This skill card can only be used with a crossbow or when throwing a dagger.

For the Wizard
Empower Spell: Play this skill card before casting a spell. Turn in an additional spell card of the same college that you are casting when you cast the spell. The spell in question deals 1 more damage, rolls 1 more attack dice, lasts 1 turn longer, or requires 1 more success to be broken.
Magic Blast: Play this skill card and turn over a spell card to Zargon. Make a 2 dice attack against one monster you can see.
This isn't What I Need: Play this skill card and turn over a spell card to Zargon. Zargon returns a random spell that you have already cast to you. Include the turned over spell in with the other spells when picking which one to get back.
Mage Armor: Play this skill card at the beginning of Zargon's turn and turn over a spell card. Until the end of Zargon's turn all damage you receive is removed from your Mind Points. If your mind points reach 1 this skill immediately ends and any remaining damage is done against your Body Points.
It's all in the Wrist: Play this skill card before attacking by throwing a dagger. You can make two attacks by throwing two daggers this turn.

Let me know what you think. I am thinking that Mage Armor and Spell Blast should be spell cards, but I wanted to get the ideas flowing.

-SadKitchen

[gravaillon]

I like to see that you're interesting by the talent skill cards !
And sadkitchen has well resume my ideas... In fact, the real difficulty is to make the skill cards very different from the spell cards, which it is not very easy in fact...
I could do the artwork and the cards if everybody is ok... But YOU have to find the ideas of the skill cards. I will make the cards for the sadkitchen's idea for now... But I want more ! Please, make a brainstorm guys !

[torilen]

I understand the want to not have to worry about rule books. With HQ, though, I think at some point you'll
end up having to add dice, if you want to really offer some high levels for development.

I offer a few ideas to hit before moving to adding dice:
1 - Change the needed roll, like you do for boss monsters. Allow the characters to move from white shields to skulls to
......anything but a black shield for defense...same progression for attacks.
2 - Allow more than one attack per turn, or more than one spell casting per turn.
3 - Of course, offer an increase in # of spells known
4 - Offer a way to increase the power of spells...perhaps make it a possibility, instead of a matter of fact - maybe they
......roll a red die, and have to roll a 4/5/6 in order to have the higher power for the spell when cast (acts sort of as a
......favor from the gods, or a fate thing)
5 - One really easy way to increase attacks, defense, and spells - magic items. I've mentioned this before in a thread or
......two - offer rings that give them special powers - not only is it a neat treasure to find, but it is not necessarily something
......that is permanent - it can be lost or stolen or destroyed. I can give you some ideas for this, if you need.
6 - Of course, offer ways to increase ability scores (body or mind) and/or split up the ability scores and give special bonuses
......for having a score above a certain number.
7 - Allow or encourage more actual role-playing - have the characters think out strategy for combats and attacks and play out
.....the monsters' reaction as it would be for real - goblins and orcs aren't very smart, for instance, and chaos warriors can't
.....move really well in all that armor.

Believe it or not - many of these ideas can be typed into two or three pages - I've done it before. Just make the thoughts simple,
and type them in such a way that does not take up space...don't include words the "the character will be allowed to..." or "the hero
can then...".

[cynthialee]

I am real partial to including the special dice.
Say after a certain amount of adventures the Hero may replace one of thier defence and attack dice with a more favorable dice. Eventually they may get enough power to substitute 2 more favorable dice in a roll.

[torilen]

I, honestly, would tend to agree with you. I love using all of the rpg dice available, especially
for creating a leveling system for more powerful attacks, defenses, etc.

However...I realize that those special dice are much more expensive, and typically not as
easily attainable. They are also not well known to those outside the normal rpg realm, and
so it would be harder for those who don't play rpg's to get used to them quickly.

That said - here might be some thoughts on using the "special dice" for creating a leveling
system for hero actions:

Roll Class Progression is as follows (vertically):
NOTE - the dice option in (*) offers the hero the option to have a minimum of 2, while giving up a
possible maximum
A - 1d2
B - 1d3
C - 1d4
D - 1d5 (or 2d2)
E - 1d6
F - 1d8 (or 2d3)
G - 1d10 (or 2d4)
H - 1d12 (or 2d5)
I - 2d8 (or 1d10 + 1d4 + 1d2)
J - 3d6 (or 3d5 + 1)
K - 1d20 (or 1d10 + 1d4 + 1d2 + 1)

Just some thoughts.

[Von Necron]

About the dice cost. At the local hobby shop yes expensive but get on amazon and type in pound of dice you get all sorts real cheap. Also search for blank dice again all types cheap

[cynthialee]

I was going to say that I meant special HQ dice but then I realized, those are even less known about and would be even harder to use as a common house rule addition.

[Von Necron]

I came across same sise white dice. filled in the die holes as best i could with layers of paint. Then painted skulls, shields and black shields on them.

[torilen]

If you really wanted to have a whole mess of HQ combat dice - buy a little bit of clay, chop and mold into the right
size squares, allow to dry, then paint white with the proper pics on the right sides. Easy enough.

(sorry - I'm really into making things with clay)

[Von Necron]

Have you made any clay minis you can post pics of?