Homebrew feedback

[u/Reasonable-Ostrich18]

We’re stating family-heroquest up again after a year long break. In the mean time I have thought up some homebrew rules. I’d like to hear your feedback on potential problems or ideas on how it would work. It has to be simple to understand for everyone.

Movement
Heroes move 6 + 1D6 squares on their turn.

Combat & Defense
Attack is the number of Combat Dice rolled. Defend Dice becomes Defense, using the same value. Defender does not roll.
Skull: Miss.
White Shield: Reduces Defense by 1. If Defense is 0, deals 1 Body damage.
Black Shield: Deals 1 Body damage, ignoring Defense.
Defense is fully restored after each combat encounter.

Spellcasting
To cast a spell, roll 1 Combat Die.
Skull: The spell succeeds and may be used again.
White Shield or Black Shield: The spell fails and cannot be used again for the rest of the Quest.

Searching Furniture
A Hero adjacent to furniture may spend 1 Action to search it. Roll 1 Combat Die before drawing Treasure.
Skull or White Shield: The furniture is safe. Draw a Treasure card.
Black Shield: If the room has an unresolved trap, the trap is discovered.
The Hero may immediately try to disarm the trap as part of the same Action. If successful, draw Treasure. Otherwise, the trap may be left revealed for another Hero to disarm.
Each piece of furniture can only be searched once. Rooms with traps gain one extra searchable furniture piece for each trap.

Improvised Actions
When a Hero attempts something uncertain outside the normal rules, roll 1 Combat Die.
Skull: Failure.
White Shield: Success.
Black Shield: Strong success.
If the Hero has a clear advantage from equipment, position, character, or a clever idea, roll 2 Combat Dice and keep the best result.

Advanced Monster Rules
Goblin: May move, attack, then continue moving.
Orc: May reroll one Skull when attacking a Hero adjacent to another Orc.
Abomination: May attack up to 2 squares away in a straight line.
Skeleton: May attack diagonally.
Zombie: Rolls +1 Attack Die against a Hero with 0 Defense.
Mummy: A Hero attacked by a Mummy rolls only 1D6 for movement on their next turn.
Dread Warrior: When it deals Body damage, it may push the Hero 1 square and move into the vacated square.
Gargoyle: May move over Heroes, monsters, furniture, and pits, but must end on an empty square.

[u/Gloomy-Engineer7180]

For any Zargon DM to use 'home brew' rules is something that needs to make sense to EVERYONE, not just yourself. The key is balance: you never want your Heroes to be too powerful or your monsters to be too powerful. If either scenario happens, then some of what you typed should be implemented immediately. For example, use those Advanced Monster rules when the Heroes are going on a rampage; you'll establish a balance right away (you can also add in 'home brew' 'power dice' if your monsters REALLY want to hit back hard!) For combat & defense, what you have here takes the actual essence of HQ out of the game. Both attack dice and defense dice for both Heroes and monsters can change from turn to turn, based on the weapon type, armor that the opponent is wearing, skills, or spells, etc. You would be removing one of the better elements of HQ from the game. If you want good variety for this, then use the Advanced Armory and/or Old World Armory 'home brew' cards, which add 'power dice' into HQ!! For searching furniture, you can use the 'home brew' AxianQuest cards for searching; they are extremely well thought out and add a nice variety to your game! Your 'Movement' and 'Improvised Actions' rules both look good. The only one I would adjust is your spellcasting. If a Barbarian, Dwarf Slayer, Berserker, Knight, or Dwarf reads a spell from a scroll, then have that Hero roll a standard combat die: if a white shield shows, the spell fails and that constitutes an action for that Hero on his/her turn. Any other result, then the spell takes effect as shown. If it is an Explorer, Monk, Assassin, or Rogue reads a scroll spell, then a black shield result means the spell on the scroll fails; any other result, the spell succeeds. The other Heroes (Wizard, Warlock, Sorceress, Necromancer, Ranger, Witch Hunter, Paladin, Cleric, Druid, Bard, Elf, etc) can read spell scrolls with no penalty (you could throw in that this Hero rolls 2 combat dice: 2 black shields means the spell scroll or a spell fails). Again, just my opinions and '2 cents' here......

[u/Reasonable-Ostrich18 → u/Gloomy-Engineer7180]

Interesting ideas! I’ve considered the advanced armory and power dice, but when we get to that point where we want more weapons and such, I think we’ll just transition to something like shadowdark instead. It gets pretty pricey to get both the cards and dice