HeroQuest

[LibraryOgre]

So, who has been playing?

I've been playing some off-script games with my son, 6. I've wound up with a few house rules, mostly to make it easier on his solo barbarian. The 4 year old was initially interested, but she's not quite up to playing the wizard she wants to be.

1) He can take a knee after a fight to get back 1 health that he's lost.
2) He can dual-wield if he has two weapons. Dual-wielding means he doesn't get a shield, but he does get to roll 1 extra combat die.
3) He can switch between the crossbow and his weapons at will, but it consumes his movement.
4) He has a single of Spell Casting, but it just holds 1 spell... as a barbarian, he doesn't know any spells.
5) Both kids loved the rats, so they can use their rat to get "advantage" on a search for treasure... pull two cards and take the better. Down side? The rat is vulnerable, so if it's not in their backpack, it can get hurt or killed.

I've also been generous with equipment, so he's got a helmet, a shield, a crossbow, and a Talisman of Lore (giving him 1 more mind point, so he's not so vulnerable to magic).

It's been a lot of fun. Lots of fighting goblins. He wants to face a dragon, soon.

[Trafalgar]

Does anyone have experience playing Hero Quest with kids? I am thinking about buy it for my son and daughter. (Ages 8 and 6)

[Cheesegear]

Does anyone have experience playing Hero Quest with kids? I am thinking about buy it for my son and daughter. (Ages 8 and 6)

I remember playing Hero Quest when I was a kid. I can't imagine the re-release was made more complicated than the original.

[KillianHawkeye]

I remember playing Hero Quest when I was a kid. I can't imagine the re-release was made more complicated than the original.

Same, although I don't think I was quite that young...

But one of the guys in my D&D group started playing 3.5e when he was 9, and HeroQuest is much simpler than D&D.

[Brookshw]

From what I can tell from the reviews, it sounds like the rules are the same as the original, which were very simple. I'm buying it for my 4 yro, and am confident she'll be able to play it with some help. Your kids should be fine.

[Brookshw]

Waiting for pre-orders to ship, will report back after trying it with my 4yro. Not sure about house rules, might let her run two characters. Like the take a knee idea.

[Trafalgar]

From what I can tell from the reviews, it sounds like the rules are the same as the original, which were very simple. I'm buying it for my 4 yro, and am confident she'll be able to play it with some help. Your kids should be fine.

I always subtract a few years off the recommended age when buying a game. Heroquest's recommended age is 14 which feels really high to me. I think I was DMing BECMI by that point. I can see a younger child not being able to handle being the GM (What was that called in Heroquest?)

I was thinking about doing an RPG, maybe a D&D 5e rules lite, but I think my kids will get a kick out of the miniatures.

One complaint I have, looking at the set online, is that all the Hero Miniatures are male. I will need to find some female ones for my daughter.

[KillianHawkeye]

One complaint I have, looking at the set online, is that all the Hero Miniatures are male. I will need to find some female ones for my daughter.

If they're the same size as the ones from the old HeroQuest, they're roughly the same scale as minis for D&D or Pathfinder or several other "made for RPGs" brands of miniatures. You could pretty much substitute anything you want.

[GeoffWatson]

One complaint I have, looking at the set online, is that all the Hero Miniatures are male. I will need to find some female ones for my daughter.

The Elf is female.
One of my friends showed us the game last week, and he got an add-on which included gender-swapped variant heroes, so you might get that.

[Anonymouswizard]

I remember playing Hero Quest when I was a kid. I can't imagine the re-release was made more complicated than the original.

Yeah, same here. My RPG experience went HeroQuest->BECM->3.5. I think I was like 10, which would have made my youngest brother six. For the PCs my main advice is 'young players shouldn't play the Wizard'.

Sadly £100 is out of my price range for the remake.


The Elf is female.


Honestly there should be male and female miniatures for each hero, I'm kind of tired of this stereotyping. Although I remember them all being male in the old version.

But yes, male and female versions of each, plus advice for deciding on what to two if two players want to be the Wizard (or one wants the Wizard and two want the Elf). That's what I'd have liked to see.

[LibraryOgre]

Waiting for pre-orders to ship, will report back after trying it with my 4yro. Not sure about house rules, might let her run two characters. Like the take a knee idea.

The six year old has to read the cards he gets. And I'm making him add up money at the end of the game.

[Trafalgar]

The Elf is female.
One of my friends showed us the game last week, and he got an add-on which included gender-swapped variant heroes, so you might get that.

I looked into it. You only get the gender swapped mini's if you paid into the kick starter campaign. I found this 3rd party set online (https://www.etsy.com/listing/965917185/heroes-female-heroquest-remake?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_c-toys_and_games-toys-miniature_toys-role_playing_miniatures&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQiAtJeNBhCVARIsANJUJ2GoQPXJGZc-HqO_YgjNUhQ1oU0LmTe780llL-lmzaeyzZr82vtASqEaAjJ-EALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_12560179910_119982990432_5069956379 54_pla-317092176223_c__965917185_341601256&utm_custom2=12560179910&gclid=Cj0KCQiAtJeNBhCVARIsANJUJ2GoQPXJGZc-HqO_YgjNUhQ1oU0LmTe780llL-lmzaeyzZr82vtASqEaAjJ-EALw_wcB). I like the dwarf but the price is a little high.

What annoys me is minis cost a big company pennies to make. If they already have already produced the gender swapped minis, why not sell them as an add on?

[LibraryOgre]

Does anyone have experience playing Hero Quest with kids? I am thinking about buy it for my son and daughter. (Ages 8 and 6)

The Mod Ogre: Merged this thread with the previous HeroQuest thread. Not a problem, just the one thread per topic rule.

As I said above, though, I've been playing it just fine with my boy, 6. His younger sister, 4, was interested, but not really able to play the wizard she wanted to, so unless I come up with some alternate rules for her, she has to sit out (her play was disrupting the game for the Boy).

I've house ruled some thing, but only some are for ease of solo play... some of it has just been "These are rules that should be in there, or, at least, that I always wanted."

[Trafalgar]

I guess the big question is whether to roll dice to move or not.

[LibraryOgre]

I guess the big question is whether to roll dice to move or not.

What I have done is, when not in combat, you can move to where you can see. When in combat, you roll to move. Otherwise, it's just annoying.

[Trafalgar]

What I have done is, when not in combat, you can move to where you can see. When in combat, you roll to move. Otherwise, it's just annoying.

I never had a huge problem with players rolling for movement. My problem is that players roll but monsters don't.

[LibraryOgre]

I never had a huge problem with players rolling for movement. My problem is that players roll but monsters don't.

It gets a lot more annoying, IMO, when you've got the dwarf, or the barbarian gets in Plate. You're limited to the movement of the lowest person, unless you want to split the party.

I do kinda think monsters get too much movement, though. I don't mind a static number, but they're all lightning-quick compared to heroes.

[Anonymouswizard]

I never had a huge problem with players rolling for movement. My problem is that players roll but monsters don't.

Eh, monsters not rolling saves on bookkeeping, and players rolling allows you to be 'stuck in combat' fairly organically. It avoids involving anything like attacks of opportunity and keeps the game simple. It's not player/monster transparency, but it's a fair sacrifice to make for playability. Exact values of monster movement might be a more legitimate problem, when I played with my siblings we lost the Barbarian on mission 2 because they got stuck in combat.

[Bavarian itP]

What annoys me is minis cost a big company pennies to make. If they already have already produced the gender swapped minis, why not sell them as an add on?

Don't expect anything smart from Hasbro, they already threw away a couple of million dollars by deciding to make the kickstarter exclusive to US and Canada.

[LibraryOgre]

So, we played again tonight... the wife as a warlock, one of her boyfriends as the druid, and the boy as his barbarian. It was a slight variation on the first quest... since we'd left the barbarian in a dark hole last time, we had her wake up there, and go through the door, where she found the druid and the warlock conveniently tied up in what is normally the entry for that dungeon. Being stalwart adventurers, they decided to explore the dungeon they found themselves in.

Ooooh, boy.

So, they get to the first door, and the boy decides his barbarian is going to kick down the door. He rushes in and gets into a fight with the orcs, but they go down pretty quick... and the abomination comes in from the next room. They take that down, and the goblin with him runs away (towards the Boss). The barbarian chases after him and shoots the goblin in the head. It's quiet.

The druid and the warlock search the rooms. And the barbarian, alone, goes to kick down another door. She runs into two Dread Warriors and YELLS (he is quite clear that she shouts as loud as she can) that she's found two big guys.

This has the monsters pour out of three rooms, plus the two Dread Warriors she's already facing. It is PAN DE MONIUM. Fortunately, the warlock and the druid make it to the barbarian, and they start retreating down a two-wide hallway. The barbarian, swinging 4 defense dice (2 + shield + helmet), is getting slowly whittled away. The Druid heals her a bit, but they're all in bad shape. The gargoyle and one of the orcs, stuck at the back, peel off and start to go through the rooms the party has emptied out... they're going to get behind them. The party drops the last Dread Warrior and runs for the gargoyle's room, finding stairs there. They run out the stairs, over some warding runes, and into safety.

Between the 3 of them, they started with 19 Body points. They left with 8, total, and that's after using up all of the druid's healing... if the druid hadn't healed them, it would be 2... and only 1 if the barbarian hadn't been able to take a knee after the first fight.

It was a lot of fun.

[Trafalgar]

So, we played again tonight... the wife as a warlock, one of her boyfriends as the druid, and the boy as his barbarian. It was a slight variation on the first quest... since we'd left the barbarian in a dark hole last time, we had her wake up there, and go through the door, where she found the druid and the warlock conveniently tied up in what is normally the entry for that dungeon. Being stalwart adventurers, they decided to explore the dungeon they found themselves in.

Ooooh, boy.

So, they get to the first door, and the boy decides his barbarian is going to kick down the door. He rushes in and gets into a fight with the orcs, but they go down pretty quick... and the abomination comes in from the next room. They take that down, and the goblin with him runs away (towards the Boss). The barbarian chases after him and shoots the goblin in the head. It's quiet.

The druid and the warlock search the rooms. And the barbarian, alone, goes to kick down another door. She runs into two Dread Warriors and YELLS (he is quite clear that she shouts as loud as she can) that she's found two big guys.

This has the monsters pour out of three rooms, plus the two Dread Warriors she's already facing. It is PAN DE MONIUM. Fortunately, the warlock and the druid make it to the barbarian, and they start retreating down a two-wide hallway. The barbarian, swinging 4 defense dice (2 + shield + helmet), is getting slowly whittled away. The Druid heals her a bit, but they're all in bad shape. The gargoyle and one of the orcs, stuck at the back, peel off and start to go through the rooms the party has emptied out... they're going to get behind them. The party drops the last Dread Warrior and runs for the gargoyle's room, finding stairs there. They run out the stairs, over some warding runes, and into safety.

Between the 3 of them, they started with 19 Body points. They left with 8, total, and that's after using up all of the druid's healing... if the druid hadn't healed them, it would be 2... and only 1 if the barbarian hadn't been able to take a knee after the first fight.

It was a lot of fun.

And that's why HeroQuest is so great!


https://youtu.be/Cx8sl2uC46A

[Brookshw]

The six year old has to read the cards he gets. And I'm making him add up money at the end of the game.

I like that. I use a very simple form of D&D for numbers, pretty good on 1-20, going to start adding in a few +1 and +2s here and there. Fun using these games to educational ends.

[Brookshw]

Session 1: failed. Gave my 4yo all 4 heroes to control, this resulted in turns taking too long and her losing interest, 2 characters would have been better. Will try again, and gestalt the characters (probably combining them wizard and dwarf, and elf and barbarian), combining body, abilities, and starting equipment, and adding 1 to the highest attack and defense of the combo.

Will probably allow auto-searching for treasure after the monsters in a room are defeated.

[LibraryOgre]

Session 1: failed. Gave my 4yo all 4 heroes to control, this resulted in turns taking too long and her losing interest, 2 characters would have been better. Will try again, and gestalt the characters (probably combining them wizard and dwarf, and elf and barbarian), combining body, abilities, and starting equipment, and adding 1 to the highest attack and defense of the combo.


I did a bit of this... a lot can get handled by equipment.

Start with an Elf or Barbarian.

1) Early on, give them a toolkit. That takes care of being kind of like a dwarf.
2) Healing potions should be a bit more common, especially if not an elf.
3) Good combat equipment. Get them a crossbow, a good weapon, and some armor. Even a shield and helmet make a huge difference.
4) Artifacts: There's one that gives you a bonus body point, and one that gives a bonus mind point. Give those early.

None of this requires houseruling beyond "You have a bit of extra gear"

I also let my guy get one of those "spell rings", and instead of letting him cast a spell a second time, he gets to cast one spell, once per adventure. He likes healing spells.

[Brookshw]

Session 2: failed. Need to lose "roll to move" outside of combat, slows it down too much to keep her engaged. Might change loot to looting a piece of furniture rather than the room.

[LibraryOgre]

Copypasted from another forum, so might be a bit redundant:

The boy's playing a solo barbarian (I'm giving a bit of aid when he's solo; he has a "familiar" who gives him a bonus chance on treasure finding and trap disarming; roll/draw twice and take the better). He mostly beat the first scenario when my wife and her boyfriend were playing with him, but they wound up running away from the gargoyle and one of his minions, and completely missing the section with the undead. So, he decides to go back down and get that gargoyle.

He gets trapped in the undead section (I had the door to the hallway shut, and the door to the undead open, if he messed with the candles), and decides, rather than try to get out, to fight everything (he is 6. Fighting everything is Awesome, so he does that). Fights through the undead, gets horribly wounded, bad rolls on healing potions... he's in a state. Then he tries to get out. And the door is closed. And he fails to lockpick it (I ruled he used disarm traps rules for that). So, he decides to take his hand axe and chop it down.

Unsurprisingly, the Gargoyle and his remaining henchmen (2 orcs and a goblin with a crossbow) hear him chopping down the door. ("This was supposed to be a stealth mission" was said several times; it ceased to be a stealth mission a LONG time ago, due to another incident with a hand axe, but he still said it). He's grasped the concept of the conga-line of doom, so he stays in the room and starts fighting the orc the gargoyle sent forward... then the gargoyle STEPS THROUGH THE WALL (I decided it was a neat Earth spell for the gargoyle to be able to use).

This should be the huge, climactic, moment. Outnumbered, surrounded, the toughest foe he's ever faced just got the drop on him...

And the gargoyle flubs the attack. ZERO skulls on his attack... boy doesn't even need to roll defense. His barbarian attacks... and rolls 3 skulls. And the Gargoyle, with his 5 dice, failed to roll a single black shield. All 3 points hit. Gargoyle goes down from a single shot. He butchers the two orcs, then, but is down to 3 Body points. He starts chasing the goblin. The goblin keeps moving to just in range, then shooting him. He's down to 1 Body point after a couple times... and decides to cut and run. He's done what he's set out to do, and now has a grudge against a goblin. I'm thinking I'll make the goblin a recurring enemy... give him some armor and better weapons, maybe some more body points and warlock spells (the warlock escape spell is awesome for an ongoing antagonist).

[tsj]

I have fond memories of Hero Quest and the re-release seems even better than the original
...with details such as the all plastic furniture versus the plastic/cardboard combo used for the original furniture models for example

[Anonymouswizard]

It's still going to take at least two weeks for my copy to arrive, more likely a month :smallsigh: what I get for not preordering I guess.

[Saintheart]

I am proud to say that for once my hoarding habit paid off. At least for 1 session.

I had the original HeroQuest in my early 20s, and its two expansions Kellar's Keep and Return of the Witchlord. Kept it over the full 20-30 years that followed, through jobs, courtship, marriage, and kids ... and I finally decided to execute my evil plan, dusted the box off and introduced it to 11yo son and 14yo daughter. Rush of memories came back as I brought out the pieces I'd hand-painted near on 30 years ago (only had patience to do the four PCs).

Bear in mind I had the UK version which gave all the monsters 1 Body point each, making them nowhere near survivable enough. Son took OG barbarian for high attack roll, daughter took OG mage Because Magic.

Even as we were playing the appeal, for me at least, was still there. The kids picked it up pretty quickly. With only 2 players on the unchanged first dungeon, the game balance and seeming intent to drain out the wizard just ahead of the final battle worked pretty well, it would've been an easy match with 4, but it was challenging enough with 2.

Because it was really, really simple combat I houseruled in that you get to roll an extra attack dice if you're hitting an enemy from behind. The original intent was to knock a body point or two off the kids. This backfired ... dreadfully ... as my son's experience with videogames and math ability meant he immediately optimised the use of his barbarian and started running in behind enemies to Conan smash every one of them from behind. Four attack dice when you've got one body point just isn't sustainable, the US version had more variation in body points and that certainly plays out as better on my experience.

But I also credit my kids' coordination at the end. Gargoyle was shielded by a wall and two chaos warriors. They'd burned pretty well all their heals and were down to about a quarter of full body points. But daughter had held back a 'pass through walls' spell, cast it on the barbarian, and my son floated right through the opposition with his move action, rolled his dice ... and took out the gargoyle in one hit. Quest over. They were happy ... but they didn't want to play again mainly because it "takes too long", i.e. about 90 minutes all up for 1 mission, albeit that was because they explored every room.

HeroQuest is really solid as a very simple tactical combat introduction. Not too strong on the narrative as you'd expect, though some of the memory aids -- empty doorways replace closed doorways so you know where you've explored -- are intriguing and really help. Past about age 10, though, it dearly needs some combination of houserules, complexity, wandering monster/reinforcement mechanic, or tougher opponents to make it a real challenge. What it could really use is a time mechanism or other countdown of some kind, because without that the whole "you can only move, search for treasure, or search for traps in 1 turn" is kind of pointless. But if you want your kids to feel bad@$$ without having to absorb a full 3.5 or 5e ruleset, this game's good for that. And good for nostalgia, I can personally vouch.

[Anonymouswizard]

My copy has arrived! Now it's just time to wait until friends are down and I can inflict it on them!

Mostly liking the minis, although I'd have preferred heroic scale. Apart from the orcs, they just look wrong.

[LibraryOgre]

So, one thing I am experimenting with is skill checks... doing stuff outside the normal rules. So far, I've been working with "Roll combat dice equal to Mind Points, with varying difficulty based on what needs to be done."

[SarahCornel]

I'm still new here so your info was very interesting to me. Thank you.

[J-H]

This thread convinced me to put it on my birthday list. Where's the best place to buy it? I thought it was $90 on Amazon, but now it's $117 on Amazon.

[LibraryOgre]

Son got his first TPK tonight. I'm so happy.

I'm waaaay off book, but he's had this running rivalry with a goblin warlock named Blix, to the point of chasing her down several times, only for her to escape. Today, he cornered her in a dungeon she was excavating, and got a TPK.

His party:
"The Warrior", a barbarian
Boromir, a dwarf (I've replaced the dwarf special ability with traps with Earth Magic; I seldom use traps)
Petunia, a druid
Commander Rex, a bard

The opposition:
Blix, a warlock with a ring of spell storing (so she has two uses of Dark Wings, a spell he HATES)
Wendaugh, a dread wizard (like a regular wizard, but using dread magic spells; Wendaugh had a Wand of Magic, so could occasionally toss two spells in a round)
Igg and Ook, gargoyles. Igg had a potion of courage, Ook had a potion of healing.

So, the after-action on the TPK was
1) He concentrated too much on Blix
2) He should have killed the wizard early; the wizard smashed them with a lightning bolt, destroyed Boromir's crossbow, paralyzed two of them for a couple rounds, and filled the room with fire. The wizard was also the weakest and would have died easily.
3) He should have used more of his spells. He had 10 spells in his party (3 each for the dwarf, druid, and bard, and 1 for him in a magic item). He used 3 of them. When everyone was down, he had 3 uncast healing spells.

Needless to say, he's going to wake up in a dungeon, stripped of his gear and isolated from his companions. I'm also thinking I'll make a few rule changes... weapons add to your base 1 Attack die (so someone with a staff rolls 2 dice... 1 for the fist, 1 for the staff)... and I'm contemplating a special ability for the barbarian. Which of these do you prefer:

1) The barbarian can set their stance to Offensive or Defensive at the start of their turn. Offensive, and they get an extra attack die. Defensive, they get an extra defense die. But they can only change it at the start of their turn.
2) Berserker rage: For every point of damage they take, they get a bonus die they can spend on attack or defense. Take 3 points of damage, you get 3 bonus dice. You can choose to roll those dice after you see the result... roll an extra die to increase your defense when you need it, or throw an extra to make a kill more likely.

[Anonymouswizard]

First time taking the new edition for a ride, first time running.

A full party of four, but wow this seems to be a lot tougher than I remember. Not only is this the harder first quest that I'm not used to, but there's been some significant rules changes.

Chaos Warriors are now a lot harder due to their trio of hit points . Which wouldn't have been an issue, but the wizard wandered off by himself and ignored me saying 'you're a squishy wizard are you sure you want to open the door'. So the wizard is nearly splatted on turn 3, and the party spends eight turns fighting two Chaos Warriors in a narrow hallway. They only won so quickly became I houseruled in 'you can swap with somebody engaged with a monster if there's no other way for you to attack it'.

Then partway through that fight somebody opened another door and spawned a goblin and fimir.

Then they got attacked by a ceiling orc, missed the room with the gargoyle in it, got attacked by another ceiling orc, and we finally had to break while they were delving into the crypt, having finally learnt their lesson of 'there's probably a monster behind the door'.

[LibraryOgre]

"Ceiling Orc?" Wandering Monster?

[Anonymouswizard]

"Ceiling Orc?" Wandering Monster?

Yeah, the wandering monster for the first quest is an orc, and of course they appear right next to the character who drew the card. As my players notes it makes little sense, but is amusing.

[J-H]

I got HeroQuest today for my birthday, and promptly ran a game for the available players:
My 8 year old boy
My 5 year old boy, with my wife's assistance getting him set up
My mom and dad (70s, Scrabble or checkers is their speed).

Nobody wanted to play the wizard, so I pulled an orc mini and we had two barbarians.

My boys figured out what to do pretty quickly. My mom's elf went exploring, ran into a room with two Dread Warriors and everyone else in a fight 2 rooms away, and nearly died. She then used the walk through walls spell to escape. While the others went to deal with the Dread Warriors, she went exploring and found the gargoyle, two orcs, and another Dread Warrior, and died.

Mom: I was being brave.
8yo: Too brave.

The other 3 stayed in the Dread Warrior room and searched for treasure several times. One of them left, and then my older son's dwarf triggered a wandering monster, so I called it a ceiling orc (through a trap door). It killed him. Ultimately, the two surviving barbarians decided to escape the dungeon alive.
My 5 year old's character (Dragon the Barbarian) has 35gp and will be allowed to shop for equipment before the next game.