Heroica Home Rules

[pathfinder of doom]

@ davee123: I guess I could see your point. When I said that, however, I was talking about how you could potentially just walk up to him and automatically get him. That's why I suggested what I did. Maybe you could make it a little easier by after you move your hero you can move the NPC. He couldn't fight but at least he would be moving instead of being in one isolated space.

@ Arigomi: I do see your point, and it was a good one to make. I guess I never thought about because 90% of the time I play battle Heroica where somebody is monsters and somebody is heroes. I think the "strength" idea for each character would only work in battle Heroica. In other styles alternate goals would be the best thing.

[davee123]

@ davee123: I guess I could see your point. When I said that, however, I was talking about how you could potentially just walk up to him and automatically get him.

I think if they were rescue-able characters they'd be difficult to get by virtue of their position on the board. I envision them locked behind a door (so you need a key), and guarded by several guards, off on a separate area of the board. Hence, you can spend your time trying to rescue him, but that's time you're not spending trying to complete a mission. So it's only worth your time to go off on such an excursion if they're super-cool (IE, if you get them early in the game, they'll make up for the extra turns it took to get them).

DaveE

[The_Box]

The only added feature that I can think of right now would pertain to gold. I feel that, at least in the first mission, gold is really difficult to obtain and getting 3 is even more of a pain. My rule is simply this:

Each player has 2 gold at the start of the game. Not at the beginning of each mission, just the beginning of the fist mission.

I do like davee123's take on a points system to win the real winner of the game, it makes all that hard work of defeating enemies and picking up treasure worth it in the end.

[pathfinder of doom]

@ davee123: Oh, now I understand. I had pictured them standing in the middle of a pathway waiting to be picked up. But now that I see this, I think that is a great idea.

@ the_box: That could be helpful. I have only ever bought a weapon once because I never have enough gold. This could be a great idea.

[Jareth]

Some ideas I've toyed with:

(A) Magic Doors/Squares. One issue we had with the Magic Doors is that playing two-player, we reached an impasse. We would each use our turn to remove the Magic Door blocking our path by opting to end our turn standing on the Magic Square-- but we would then move the Magic Door to block the other player from progressing. Since we were each trying to get to the same location, we just sat there trading the Magic Door back and forth.

Solution: When you step on a Magic Square, you move a Magic Door as normal. However, you then move the Magic Square to the location that the Magic Door was moved FROM.

(D) Thief Ability. The Thief is kind of lame, considering that his special power is *equal* to the power of the dagger (each other Hero's ability is slightly better than the power of the corresponding weapon). A few options (probably just choose one to balance the game a bit better):

- Thief takes 2 gold when defeating a monster

- If standing next to a door at the start of his turn, the thief can attempt to pick the lock (roll shield or sword), or lose the turn if he fails

- Thieves don't take damage from treasure chests (they simply disarm the trap)

DaveE

I LOVE the magic door idea

I think the thief ability is not understrength if you are playing multiple games, but these rules will be useful if you are just playing a standalone game.

[manta5]

Well although I don't have any of the games[live in Australia ] I have thought of some ideas for the relics.

For the Chalice of life instead of waiting to heal you could use the chalice to heal immediately.

For the crystal of deflection you could ignore an enemy's attack and use it to unlock a door.

For the helmet of protection can protect you against any attack!

And for the scepter of summoning you get an enemy you have defeated to come into the game to help you[staying one space ahead of you] with two health and two strength.

Once you use a relic you drop it two spaces behind you.

[Jareth]

Well although I don't have any of the games[live in Australia ] I have thought of some ideas for the relics.

For the Chalice of life instead of waiting to heal you could use the chalice to heal immediately.

For the crystal of deflection you could ignore an enemy's attack and use it to unlock a door.

For the helmet of protection can protect you against any attack!

And for the scepter of summoning you get an enemy you have defeated to come into the game to help you[staying one space ahead of you] with two health and two strength.

Once you use a relic you drop it two spaces behind you.

There are rules for some of the relics.

Chalice of life can be used to heal 2 points at the expense of loving that turn.

The helmet basically gives you an extra hit point.

There's no official rule for the crystal, but your idea is cool.

The scepter allows you to take a defeated enemy of another players "Hero Pack" (the thing that records what you character has) and place it anywhere on the board. I like your idea better than the official rule.

[Writer@Large]

Hi, folks! Happy to have found this thread. My son and I just picked up all four Heroica games (they've hit Toys R Us and Target here in the US), and he wants to have 5 friends over for his birthday so they can play through a mega game with me as the gamemaster. So I've been looking for ways to beef up the rather sparse rules.

One thing I see in this thread that I'd already been thinking about was what to do with all the spare Barbarians, the spare Mages, and even the spare Druid, since the idea will be to have the 6 boys playing a different class each. I thought I'd share my variant, the Henchman rule ...

First, you'll need this rule:

Literal Backpack: The four backpack “slots” in the Hero pack are literal; a hero can only carry up to four items at a time [weapons, rare items, keys, torches, potions]. Heroes do not put defeated enemies in their backpacks. Gold builds on the “color” bar and does not take up space in the backpack.

Then, the main Henchman rule ...

Henchmen: For the cost of three Gold, players can hire a Henchman. Henchmen do not go on the board, but instead are represented by a second backpack. [i have used brown 2 x 4 plates to make them, so that all Henchman Packs have 4 Backpack slots and a color bar, no Life points.]

When a Henchman is discarded, the player must consolodate all items into his Backpack. Items are discarded if they cannot fit in the hero’s Backpack.

Yellow Hench [barbarian]

-- Carry Extra Items [second Torch, second Key, additional weapons / potions]

-- “Distraction”: Discard the Hench to improve one combat role -- Skull becomes Skull/Sword; Skull/Sword becomes Sword; Sword becomes Shield.

Red Hench [Wizard]

-- Carry Extra Items [second Torch, second Key, additional weapons / potions]

-- “You Go First”: Discard the Hench to turn one movement roll of Sword into a Shield.

Brown Hench [Druid]

-- Carry Extra Items [second Torch, second Key, additional weapons / potions]

-- “Take a Hit”: When the player would be knocked to zero life, discard the Hench instead to lose no life this hit.

Thanks for this thread. There's a lot of great rule suggestions here.

[Writer@Large]

Here's another rule I'll be using. This assumes that you're playing all four sets together as concurrent adventures.

Marketplace:If you've built all four sets together, you end up with three "stores." Set these up as marketplaces next to each of the "camp" spots (the brown squares where players heal / rest between adventures). Players can only buy / sell at these points (between adventures). And since there's three opportunities to buy, don't necessarily offer all options at all marketplaces. I will be using the following division of items (using my Hench rule from above):

Marketplace 1 [After Draida Bay]: Staff, Axe, Sword, Dagger, 2 potions [Luck, Speed], 2 Hench [Yellow, Yellow]

Marketplace 2 [After Waldurk Forest]: Bow, Wand, Sword, Dagger, 2 potions [Health, Strength], 2 Hench [Red, Brown]

Marketplace 3 [After the Caves of Nathuz]: Bow, Wand, Axe, Sword, 2 potions [Luck, Strength], 2 Hench [Red, Yellow]

Players in my game will be given the opportunity to buy based on their "rank" in the prior adventure, determined by monsters defeated [with the Strength of the monsters being added to determine score], with "first to camp" being the tiebreaker."

[davee123]

This assumes that you're playing all four sets together as concurrent adventures.

Actually... I guess we've played all 4 adventures TRULY concurrently. So, rather than playing them in linear order, we just let you jaunt off on your merry way to whichever mission you want. The 3 times we've played, we each try to beat Draida Bay, and then one of us goes off into the Waldurk, and the other into Nathuz-- and then it's a mad dash from our respective missions to get to the final reward in Fortaan.

The only problem with it has been the Magic Doors, which all start in Waldurk, and in theory can be placed on any "dark" spot on the board (including non-Waldurk spaces). Hence the variant I proposed above, and also the obvious variant that the Magic Doors have to stay within the confines of Waldurk.

DaveE

[Writer@Large]

Actually... I guess we've played all 4 adventures TRULY concurrently. So, rather than playing them in linear order, we just let you jaunt off on your merry way to whichever mission you want.

I probably should have used the word "sequentially." ;)

That's how we'll be playing it. Almost like a D&D adventure. In fact, I'll be telling the "plot" to the kids as they play, so that they arrive in Draida Bay, where they learn that the fastest route to Castle Fortann is to cut through Waldurk Forest and then through the Caves of Nathuz -- full of danger, but also full of rewards. So the way I'm linking them isn't like the chart in the games, but as a progression.

I'm also inserting some custom-built tiles (like a flooded cave corridor) using some 2x2 "jump" pieces I got on eBay. I'm still pondering how to do additional monsters ...

Good point on the magic doors. I'll be using the "Waldurk only" rule.

Edited June 22, 2011 by Writer@Large

[Jareth]

I probably should have used the word "sequentially." ;)

That's how we'll be playing it. Almost like a D&D adventure. In fact, I'll be telling the "plot" to the kids as they play, so that they arrive in Draida Bay, where they learn that the fastest route to Castle Fortann is to cut through Waldurk Forest and then through the Caves of Nathuz -- full of danger, but also full of rewards. So the way I'm linking them isn't like the chart in the games, but as a progression.

I'm also inserting some custom-built tiles (like a flooded cave corridor) using some 2x2 "jump" pieces I got on eBay. I'm still pondering how to do additional monsters ...

Good point on the magic doors. I'll be using the "Waldurk only" rule.

I look forward to your new ideas. Especially "flooded" tiles.

I did have an idea for the 1x2 tiles with 1 stud that are used in draida bay. Perhaps on those tiles heroes can not jump over each other due to the narrowness of the bridge (or tunnel) Characters who loose a hit point when on a bridge do not get pushed back 1 space if there is someone behind them, UNLESS they loose all their hit points. In that case they get pushed behind the player adjacent to them.

[Jareth]

I just bought two "Lava Monster" games today for the parts, and I've been thinking about ways to use the monster in Heroica,

Just using hit point rules doesn't seem like enough for a large stature monster like this or a Giant (someone mentioned using the CMF caveman as a giant)

Here's what I came up with. When fighting the lava monster, roll two dice and take the worse of the two rolls.

It also occured to me you could use this rule in reverse as well. When fighting a scorpion the rule could be to roll two dice and take the better result.

[davee123]

When fighting the lava monster, roll two dice and take the worse of the two rolls.

That's an interesting idea-- perhaps some sort of enemy where the strength is equal to the number of dice that you have to roll when attacking it, and you take the worst of rolls? For the curious, that works out to:

    | Best of 2 | 1 die | Worst of 2 | Worst of 3 | Worst of 4 | Worst of 5 |
-----+-----------+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Win  |   75.0%   | 50.0% |    25.0%   |   12.5%    |    6.3%    |    3.1%    |
Tie  |   13.9%   | 16.7% |    19.4%   |   17.1%    |   13.5%    |   10.1%    |
Lose |   11.1%   | 33.3% |    55.6%   |   70.4%    |   80.3%    |   86.8%    |

You could perhaps have it such that rather than "hit points", they have a number of dice that gets reduced by 1 each time you defeat them, or some sort of item or weapon that reduces the number of dice you have to roll in order to achieve victory.

DaveE

[Jareth]

That's an interesting idea-- perhaps some sort of enemy where the strength is equal to the number of dice that you have to roll when attacking it, and you take the worst of rolls? For the curious, that works out to:

    | Best of 2 | 1 die | Worst of 2 | Worst of 3 | Worst of 4 | Worst of 5 |
-----+-----------+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Win  |   75.0%   | 50.0% |    25.0%   |   12.5%    |    6.3%    |    3.1%    |
Tie  |   13.9%   | 16.7% |    19.4%   |   17.1%    |   13.5%    |   10.1%    |
Lose |   11.1%   | 33.3% |    55.6%   |   70.4%    |   80.3%    |   86.8%    |

You could perhaps have it such that rather than "hit points", they have a number of dice that gets reduced by 1 each time you defeat them, or some sort of item or weapon that reduces the number of dice you have to roll in order to achieve victory.

DaveE

I LOVE that idea, but I think I'd only use it with a really big bad monster, like a dragon. I mean, look, even at three dice you have a 70% chance of loosing. This would really accentuate teamwork though. Everyone has to take a swing at the final monster, instead of the quickest character with a lucky swing defeating the boss.

Now I need to figure out how to make a microsized dragon.

[stilettoblade]

Now I need to figure out how to make a microsized dragon.

Lego already did that, I've been pondering how to use the awesome bite size dragon from Lava Dragon and I think this is definitely headed in the right direction.

[davee123]

Now I need to figure out how to make a microsized dragon.

I was thinking one of these, since they're conveniently Heroica-sized:

DaveE

[Grizzlby]

That's an interesting idea-- perhaps some sort of enemy where the strength is equal to the number of dice that you have to roll when attacking it, and you take the worst of rolls? For the curious, that works out to:

    | Best of 2 | 1 die | Worst of 2 | Worst of 3 | Worst of 4 | Worst of 5 |
-----+-----------+-------+------------+------------+------------+------------+
Win  |   75.0%   | 50.0% |    25.0%   |   12.5%    |    6.3%    |    3.1%    |
Tie  |   13.9%   | 16.7% |    19.4%   |   17.1%    |   13.5%    |   10.1%    |
Lose |   11.1%   | 33.3% |    55.6%   |   70.4%    |   80.3%    |   86.8%    |

You could perhaps have it such that rather than "hit points", they have a number of dice that gets reduced by 1 each time you defeat them, or some sort of item or weapon that reduces the number of dice you have to roll in order to achieve victory.

DaveE

I think a good utilization of multiple dice could add the bit of extra depth in combat that I've been looking for without mucking up the Lego-ness of it all with too many stats.

Perhaps each hero's attack phase begins with a roll to determine class specific attack abilities (a ranger's range, the number of times the agile thief strikes, etc) and then there are subsequent rolls to determine the attack's effectiveness (in this case, the power of the ranger's strike or multiple rolls to see if each of the thief's strikes hit, and if so, how much damage they do).

Obviously this is a bit half-baked at the moment but I think I'll be working on a rule set based slot around multiple dice rolls to play test later today.

[Jareth]

Since I have three Lava Monsters, When I set up a board for them, I will be using the rule that the first LM is fought as normal, the second is fought using two dice and the third using three. This way the monsters will get tougher over time. Oh, and I think I'll call them lords of illusion instead of LM

Also, I came up with an idea for the Barbarian. If you use the hit point rules, then have the the Barbarian defeat all adjacent monsters on a shield roll, instead of damaging them on a shield roll. I'd apply the same rule to the axe as well.

[Gyug]

I did some more tweaking of our house rules:

Our games are long crawls through all four sets connected together. As such, there's

several lvl2 monsters, several relics, and big lvl3 bosses. I also added small 6x6 mountain

and use the lava dragon as a lvl4 final boss.

Heroes start out as level 1, and gain one level when they defeat an equal-level monster.

We put the first of each "lvl X" monster killed on the "backpack" plate, so it is easy to keep track

of hero level.

Heroes have 4 hit points. Monsters have one hit point per level.

Heroes do damage equal to their level on a roll of '1/skull/sword' or '3/sword', and

equal to their level+1 on a 'shield' (if shield power not used),

Heroes take damage equal to the monster's level on a roll of '1/skull/sword' or '2/skull'.

Shield and weapon powers are not usable against monsters of a higher level.

(I'm currently testing whether taking the weapon type that matches your character

should let you use the weapon power on higher level monsters).

As usual, combat goes for multiple rounds, until the monster is dead,

or the hero takes damage and gets knocked back.

Hero vs. hero combat is allowed, but only if the attacking hero has bought a

weapon OR the defending hero is holding a relic. Combat consists of a single roll.

If the attacking hero takes damage, it is knocked back (as usual).

If the defending hero takes damage, it is knocked away from the attacker,

and a randomly selected relic must be dropped in the space the defending hero was in.

I wrote a python script to go through all the possible hero vs. monster battle outcomes.

These are the expected chances of winning (possibly after multiple rounds) & the

damage the hero can expect to take:

Hero vs. Monster:

lvl 1 vs. lvl 1: 67%, 0.50 hp

lvl 1 vs. lvl 2: 38%, 1.33 hp

lvl 1 vs. lvl 3: 24%, 2.42 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 1: 67%, 0.50 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 2: 67%, 1.00 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 3: 38%, 2.00 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 1: 67%, 0.50 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 2: 67%, 1.00 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 3: 67%, 1.50 hp

I've been looking at ways to make tough monsters harder.

I've come up with interpreting the "1 / skull / sword' die roll differently depending

on hero & monster level:

hero level < monster level : same as rolling '2 /skull'

hero level = monster level: the usual effect of rolling '1 / skull / sword'

hero level > monster level: same as rolling '3 / sword'

I also modify the die, replacing one of the '3/sword' sides with a '1/skull/sword'.

(This slows down movement through the game unless you use a separate movement die).

After doing that, this is odds of winning and the expected damage taken:

lvl 1 vs. lvl 1: 66%, 0.67 hp

lvl 1 vs. lvl 2: 22%, 1.56 hp

lvl 1 vs. lvl 3: 9%, 2.72 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 1: 67%, 0.33 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 2: 67%, 1.33 hp

lvl 2 vs. lvl 3: 22%, 2.33 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 1: 67%, 0.33 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 2: 67%, 0.66 hp

lvl 3 vs. lvl 3: 67%, 2.00 hp

As you can see, a lvl 1 going after a lvl 3 can expect to lose and come close to dying.

I think with this, the heroes now have a real incentive to level up (by going after the lvl2 monsters) before going after the lvl3 boss.

[davee123]

I wrote a python script to go through all the possible hero vs. monster battle outcomes.

Ohh, someone with developer skills! I'm actually playing around with possibly making an online JavaScript version of Heroica, and I'm playing with the AI. I'd send you a PM, but I see you're new, so I'm not sure if you can PM me back?

Anyway-- right now I'm trying to figure out the statistical weight of obstacles. That is, what's the path that a computer player should take when playing the game? Should he go an extra 16 spaces back and forth to obtain a key to unlock a door, or should he simply wait at the door until he rolls a shield? If two paths of equal length contain monsters of levels 2 and 3 on one path, and 1, 1, and 1 on the other path, which path is preferable? Etc.

Locked doors, rock piles, and magic doors aren't actually difficult obstacles to compute. But monsters seem to be giving me inconsistent results, depending on how I calculate them. Any thoughts?

At the moment, I've broken it into 4 parts:

1) The number of turns you lose simply by walking up to the monster and stopping. IE, if you're only 1 square away from a monster, and you roll a shield (assuming you can't use your special power or anything), then you move 1 square and stop, rather than moving your full 4. So you've lost 3 squares of movement, just because you had to stop and fight a monster (regardless of whether or not you won). Obviously, this depends on the probability of being close to the monster, and the probability of your roll.

2) The number of turns you lose by losing a battle. Basically, if you lose a battle (regardless of whether or not you lost all your health), you lose some amount of turns by having to move backwards one square, depending on the probability that you won the battle.

3) The number of turns you lose by having to stop and heal. If you lose all your health, you have to wait a few turns while you heal. And that's dependent on your health going into the battle, the probability that you lose, and the strength of the monster you're fighting.

4) The number of turns you lose by having to do (1), (2), and (3) all over again if you lose to the same monster repeatedly!

Mostly, those are straightforward, but I seem to get differing results. Also, there's a tricky issue when there are 2-or-more monsters adjacent to the square you're standing on. In that case, (1) basically would apply to ONE of the monsters, but not the other monster(s).

Any thoughts on how you'd approach that?

At the moment, I'm using a "guesstimate" based on some simulations that gave me:

Power 1 - 1.355968 turns lost

Power 2 - 1.603074 turns lost

Power 3 - 1.850181 turns lost

DaveE

[Gyug]

Ah, cool! The Heroica board always seems crowded, to the point where a melee class rolling "shield" for movement is usually a disappointment,

since you almost certainly run into something after 2 or 3 spaces.

Very interesting problem.

Let's define X to be the expected lost movement when you start one space away from a monster.

The average movement roll is (1+2+2+3+3+4)/6 = 2.5. You'll move one space, so expect to lose 1.5 movement points.

Under the official rules, you've got a 50% chance of taking out the monster with no ill effects at the end of your movement, so no additional loss.

Of the remaining outcomes, you've got:

17% chance you rolled a '1' and the monster is gone, and you moved back a space, so your lost movement is increased by 1.

33% chance you rolled a '2', so your loss is increased by 1, and you have to go against the monster again, so that's another X.

The equation would be:

X = 1.5 + (0.50 * 0) + (0.17 * 1) + (0.33 * (1 + X))

So X = 3. In other words, you can assume a monster space costs an extra 3 movement points to enter / pass by.

So if you had a dungeon like the following, where you want to move from A to B, but

there is a monster a X, it would be, on average, one space faster to go the long way.

######

#....B

#.#.##

#.#X##

#...##

##.###

##A###

I'd love to help with the javascript game -- email paul@gyugyi.com

Ohh, someone with developer skills! I'm actually playing around with possibly making an online JavaScript version of Heroica, and I'm playing with the AI. I'd send you a PM, but I see you're new, so I'm not sure if you can PM me back?

Anyway-- right now I'm trying to figure out the statistical weight of obstacles. That is, what's the path that a computer player should take when playing the game? Should he go an extra 16 spaces back and forth to obtain a key to unlock a door, or should he simply wait at the door until he rolls a shield? If two paths of equal length contain monsters of levels 2 and 3 on one path, and 1, 1, and 1 on the other path, which path is preferable? Etc.

...

DaveE

[Gyug]

Here's another rule for your consideration. It works fine with the official (non-Battle Heroica) rules,

and increases player interaction.

Random Encounters

If a player ends movement and nothing "interesting" happens (i.e. no combat, no treasure

chest, etc, basically anything that requires them to roll a die), then they roll for a

random encounter.

First, make a list of the movement-tile colors used in the game (For instance,

Nathuz would have: light tan, dark tan, dark grey, and brown). Randomly pick

one of these colors. (I put together die using spare movement tiles for the sides,

plus one side with a shield, which lets the player choose the color).

The player takes a lvl 1 monster from the box, and places it on a

empty tile of the matching color which is adjacent to a hero. If there is

a matching tile adjacent to the player's hero, it must be placed there.

If there is not, the player can place it on an open tile of the matching color

next to any other hero. The player then rolls to attack the hero according

to "battle heroica" rules.

If there is no matching tile next to any of the other heroes, the monster is put back in the box.

[Jareth]

Here's another rule for your consideration. It works fine with the official (non-Battle Heroica) rules,

and increases player interaction.

Random Encounters

If a player ends movement and nothing "interesting" happens (i.e. no combat, no treasure

chest, etc, basically anything that requires them to roll a die), then they roll for a

random encounter.

First, make a list of the movement-tile colors used in the game (For instance,

Nathuz would have: light tan, dark tan, dark grey, and brown). Randomly pick

one of these colors. (I put together die using spare movement tiles for the sides,

plus one side with a shield, which lets the player choose the color).

The player takes a lvl 1 monster from the box, and places it on a

empty tile of the matching color which is adjacent to a hero. If there is

a matching tile adjacent to the player's hero, it must be placed there.

If there is not, the player can place it on an open tile of the matching color

next to any other hero. The player then rolls to attack the hero according

to "battle heroica" rules.

If there is no matching tile next to any of the other heroes, the monster is put back in the box.

I like this. You could even make a custom die with the tiles.

[CorneliusMurdock]

I bought Fortaan and the problem I encountered is that the game ends up being a race to the final boss. There's no incentive to slay other monsters or stop for loot. And isn't that what adventuring is all about?

To fix this each monster is worth points equal to their strength and every gold is worth one point. The game still ends when the objective for the map is completed but it's the person with the most point who wins not necessarily the one who completes the objective. I haven't decided if the weapons should be worth points yet since they do help during the game...

The weapons are the other problem. By the time you can purchase them you're more than likely at the end of the game, so what's the point? So I took away the store and made them treasure chest drops.

You get the item on the color rolled and if you roll red, you take a damage. This gives you a reason to actually stop and open a treasure chest.

I think these are simple additions that should make competitive games a little more fun. I'm still working on co-op rules. I think the actual character abilities will need to be tweaked for that but we'll see.

This is what is so awesome about these games being made of Lego. You can change anything you want and it still looks great. Try doing that with monopoly.

Edited July 12, 2011 by CorneliusMurdock