HeroQuest Remix, a D&D Adventure System Game
Many, many years ago a ten year-old boy wound his way through the labyrinth of Toys’R’Us. Clutched in his hand were the wadded up bills from a recent and very lucrative yard sale: thirty whole dollars! The money felt hot in his hands, burning with an intense desire to be spent on something, anything. After about 5 laps through the store something caught the boy’s attention, something huge. There on the shelf was a box, a board game box, but this was not monopoly, or clue, no this was different.
The artwork alone on the front of this board game was blowing the boy’s mind. It depicted Conan, decked out in his fur underpants, fighting alongside some magic wielding friends against horrific monsters. The Title read “HeroQuest.” Nervously the boy hefted the massive box from the shelf and flipped it over. What he saw on the back of that box changed his life forever. Tiny plastic army men, made to look like the very heroes and monsters depicted on the box were included inside, along with a dungeon, doors, furniture, and all manner of cards and strange dice. The boy’s heart began to sink, there was no way he could afford such an incredible game, but as he raised his eyes to the shelving he clearly read “$24.95” and a great excited breath was released.
The rest, as they say, is history. 14 quests, 2 expansion packs, and a boatload of custom adventures later the boy grew up to become a dungeon master of fairly adequate renown. He spent the next 2 decades playing games and building games of all types. When he had a boy of his own, he dusted off his old copy of HeroQuest and shared the excitement and adventure with the next generation, and it was good.
On a whim I picked up a copy of Legend of Drizzt, and was very quickly blown away by the fast game play, and the complete lack of a dungeon master. It didn’t take long for my son, now a teenager, and me to start converting the first 14 quests of HeroQuest over to the D&D adventure system. It wasn’t something we thought about doing, it was something that had to be done.
Inspired heavily by http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/solomani ‘s Firestorm Peak campaign, I started my own campaign in a revised and slightly remixed HeroQuest. I’m looking forward to sharing the process and the campaign.
First off, many of the monsters I will be using are snatched right from these forums, a big thank you again to http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/solomani and to http://www.boardgamegeek.com/user/chromaticdragon as well as anyone else I forget to credit. I plan to create several monsters myself as well, and in order to scale difficulty with level gain I will create enhanced versions of the lower level monsters to keep pace with the party. I don’t want to speed of play to diminish with level ups as a result of too many monsters on the board at once, preferring smaller groups of more powerful/interesting foes. It is also a design goal to create unique game play effects for a few of the 14 quests.
The Heroes:
Originally HeroQuest only had 4 heroes: Barbarian, Elf, Dwarf, and Wizard. But we formed a group of five heroes and selected characters from all three board games and from the forums. My son loves Aegis, Warforged Paladin, created by Brian Grell http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/813142/dungeons-dragons-castle-ravenloft-board-game . In fact we all love this character because of his insta-tank skill.
Our final party roster looks like this, with some RP conversion notes for HeroQuest (AKA warhammer setting):
Dragonborn Wizard (Heksan), an intelligent Saurus, working for the Empire.
http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Saurus
Warforged Paladin (Aegis), the spirit of a dead knight trapped in the body of a dwarven war golem.
Dwarven Fighter (Vistra), female dwarves are discouraged from being warriors or adventurers, she left the dwarven kingdom to serve the Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_(Warhammer)
Human Archer (Catti Brie), reformed thief, turned Imperial Scout, selected for special reconnaissance training
Drow Ranger (Drizzt), an exiled Druchii Ranger, his high ideals and moral code forced him from his homeland, through persistent heroic deeds he hopes to earn the trust and acceptance of the Empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Elves_(Warhammer)
Made Some “Blank” character sheets for everyone, that way we can just level them up as we go.
House Rules:
1. Players choose 1 character and use it the entire course of the campaign. Only in death can they pick another character.
2. New characters start at level 1 with no treasure items.
3. When a monster is defeated the character draws 1 “blessing” card from a deck containing the blessings and fortunes, and rolls once for treasure. Only done once per character per turn regardless of how many monsters were defeated.
4. Characters start with 2 Healing Surges per adventure. If they use 2 surges and are still defeated they retreat back to town and permanently lose 1 healing surge for the remainder of the campaign. Loss of the last surge means they have failed in their mission to defeat the forces of chaos.
5. Permanent death occurs when both surges are used and no healing is applied to a downed character.
6. Three items are drawn from the deck in between quests these items can be purchased with party gold in between adventures.
7. Two event cards are drawn in-between adventures to represent inter-adventure activities and events. http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/64402/ninjadorgs-dd-advent…
8. Small creatures, oozes, and serpentine shaped creatures are not affected by cramped passageways and tiles.
9. When disengaging from a monster or villain if the character ends their move not adjacent to the monster, the monster gets a free attack. Engaged means the character is adjacent to any monster on the board.
10. If more than one character is engaging a monster both characters get a +1 flanking bonus to hit. This bonus applies to monsters as well.
11. Using standard level up benefits: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0swR_EZ3AV8/TsEqdNIqWKI/AAAAAAAAA5…
12. Monsters should be played as intelligently and logically as possible. For example fire elementals are not affected by fire attacks but take +1 damage from water attacks. Water elementals ignore environmental effects due to size (like the narrow passageway) etc.
13. Line of Sight is enforced.
14. Each player rolls for their own character whenever a trap, hazard or other event is drawn that affects them. This represents the idea of reflex save and such (which is abstracted in AC).
15. Area of Effect attacks vs. monsters are rolled individually – so one attack role per monster.
16. Trap related abilities work on locked doors and chests.
Let’s see how it goes.
