Warhammer Quest

Greywolf's House Rules

by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock

8 AUG 95 -- Version 3.0

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The following are various house rules that I've been employing for local games of _Warhammer Quest_, with a particular interest in trying to use this game as a /role-playing/ game rather than just a board game. As "house rules", of course, there is nothing that could possibly make them "official" in any regard, or necessarily "better" than anything anyone else might come up with. However, I do put a great deal of work into trying to make enjoyable gaming sessions for those who show up to play, and I've done my best to hone the rules I've played by. Here are the latest results of that ongoing effort.

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1. EXPERIENCE POINTS

Rule: Players should keep track on their character sheets not only of Gold totals, but a new category for Experience Points as well. When Warriors defeat Monsters, instead of getting a number of "Gold Coins", they receive an equal number of Experience instead. If the rule is used whereby the Wizard gains 5 Gold for each Warrior he heals, he now gains 5 Experience instead.

Experience may be spent in the same way as Gold on training. However, it may not be spent on the purchase of equipment or the like. The benefit is that Experience is not lost due to various Events or Hazards that would result in the loss of possessions, and that there is no limit to how much Experience a Warrior can "carry".

If the Warriors trigger some Event that would lead to them finding a "bag of gold", they sell a treasure card, or similarly obtain treasure, then this is still treated as "Gold". Gold may be spent on training (in combination with or instead of experience, as desired) or on new equipment, as before.

Rationale: Doesn't it seem odd when all these giant rats, giant bats and even giant spiders carry little gold pouches clutched in their claws, or that gold coins shower out of thin air every time the Wizard heals somebody? Gold is equated with experience in Warhammer Quest as an abstraction, but an unnecessary one, in my opinion. It is not all that difficult to make this rule change to make things a little less bizarre.

Furthermore, what if you want to have a character type who is not obsessed with gold? Consider the Troll-Slayer -- Even he shouldn't be overly obsessed with worldly goods, considering his death-wish, yet due to the gold-driven advancement system, special concessions have to be made to handle this character type. This new system doesn't punish ascetics quite so much.

Also, what if the Elf were, say, to shoot a Monster across the Firechasm, and have no way to collect the "gold" that Monster had? This way, there's no need to physically collect the gold -- He gets the Experience. (Now, however, he might have trouble getting any special Treasure Card that Monster might have had...)

2. NO RESURRECTION

Rule: The Resurrection spell should be removed from the deck of spell cards available to beginning Wizards, and cannot be selected from the expanded spell list at subsequent levels.

Rationale: This is more a matter of personal taste, but the Resurrection spell works better in a simplistic board game than a /role-playing/ game in my opinion. Death is a serious matter, and it is all too frequent in Warhammer Quest. To make it possible to instantly bring Warriors back with this spell only cheapens the situation.

Furthermore, consider the primary limitation on Resurrection: All of the Warrior's gold and treasure is lost. This is evidently put in to serve as a sort of counterweight, lest death become a /complete/ triviality, but this doesn't make sense if the players should get the bright idea of simply ransacking the corpse before reviving it.

If you /do/ keep this spell, and if you're using the Experience rule, I'd recommend that the Warrior lose all his /Experience/ if revived.

3. WIZARD'S HEALING

Rule: No experience is gained from using Healing Hands.

Rationale: It simply bogged things down too much to have the Wizard player going around the table saying "Okay, how many wounds did I heal you? And you?" trying to tally up how many experience he got. For Heal Wounds, the exchange is a bit more straightforward, though. The Wizard tends to advance in Battle-Level quickly enough anyway.

4. SKILL SELECTION

Rule: Rather than randomly determining which spells to select or which special skills to gain at higher Battle-Levels, players may /choose/ their skills.

Rationale: I think the randomization factor is over-blown. By /choosing/ skills, the players can have a better say in determining how their Warriors develop. If they can't make a choice, though, the dice are always handy for a quick decision-maker. For the Wizard -- Well, he already has some degree of freedom in choosing spells anyway.

5. INTELLIGENCE ATTRIBUTE

Rule: Each Warrior has an additional characteristic: Intelligence. To determine Intelligence, roll 1D6. Anyone may re-roll a result of 1, but if it ends up as 1 again, that result must be kept. "Scholarly" Warrior types (Wizard, Warrior-Priest) may add +1 to the roll. "Barbaric" Warrior types and Dwarves (Barbarian, Dwarf, Slayer, Chaos Warrior) must subtract 1 from the roll.

When a situation would call for an "Intellectual Initiative Test", test against this statistic instead of Initiative. The suggested method is to roll 1D6, add it to your Intelligence, and report this result to the GM. If the result is equal to or greater than the target value (a default of 7 should be assumed for most situations, with modifiers as appropriate), then the Warrior has succeeded.

Rationale: Why should the Wizard be just as smart as the Barbarian? Basing intellectual things off of the same statistic that determines your chance of dodging out of the way of a falling boulder doesn't seem quite ... intuitive. Being swift in mind is not equal to being swift in body.

Note that one could still end up with a particularly smart Barbarian, or a particularly "dim" Wizard, by this standard. It's possible to end up with an Intelligence score of 0 or 7, with modifiers. This doesn't mean that a particular character is necessarily a complete imbecile or a genius on account of the die roll. It's just that in situations where quick wit is required -- where problem-solving is beyond the scope of the /player/ to take a role -- this provides a way of resolving the outcome.

If you despise random determination of this attribute, perhaps some flat values would be more in line: Intelligence of 5 for "scholarly"-types (Wizard, Warrior-Priest), 3 for "barbarians" and Dwarves (Barbarian, Dwarf, Slayer, Chaos Warrior), and 4 for everybody else. This would help to make the differences suitably minimal and generic, while offering just /enough/ differences between the Warrior types to ... well ... make a difference. =)

As another thought, one idea might be that players could have the option of trading off Wounds for higher Intelligence (but not the other way around), if they have a more intellectual type of character in mind, or else choosing which die is applied to which statistic. (Roll two dice. One of them is your die roll for Intelligence. One is for Wounds. You choose which.)

6. LUCK POINTS

Rule: Luck Points, when spent, no longer allow a re-roll. Rather, the Warrior may simply choose whatever he wants the replacement roll result to be.

Alternatively, if a Warrior is targeted by an enemy spell (one which uses a random chart to determine the spell effects), a Luck point may be spent so that the spell has no effect whatsoever this turn. If the spell would have affected more than one character, his Luck point only protects himself from the effects.

Luck may also be spent at the player's discretion to help out a Warrior other than the player's own. There is no requirement that the Warriors be in the same room or even be aware of each other's situation, as the use of Luck is not a conscious action.

Rationale: The death rate is high enough as it is, without actually having a Luck point ... but then finding that is completely wasted even when you use it, thanks to a freaky die roll.

7. POWER CHART

Rule: The Wizard may add his Battle-Level to his power roll, even at Battle- Level 1. To keep track of current his current power level, he should have a numbered table handy, on which he can place a counter to represent his current power rating. If there is more than one spell-caster, he should report the die roll to all other casters, and they should set their own charts as appropriate.

A sample "chart" layout (with marker) follows:

0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | **** | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

Rationale: This isn't really so much a /rule/ as an /innovation/. First of all, once you start adding +1 (or more) to the power die roll, there are certain values (7 and more) that you can't represent on a d6. Sure, you could pull out a d20, but as the Wizard is rolling power each and every turn, it can be a minor delay while he tries to find the proper side to put up on his card.

Just printing off a piece of paper with 0 to 17 on it and gluing the paper to cardboard, and then giving the spellcaster a plastic piece to keep track of his current level worked wonders to expediate the process. If you're short on Power tokens (or just don't want to bother messing with the tiny things), a second chart for keeping track of reserve power could be handy, too, though at sufficiently high Battle-Levels you'll need a wider range of numbers.

As for my interpretation of adding one's Battle-Level to the current power level, this arose because of a perceived ambiguity in the rules. It appears that a beginning Wizard just rolls 1D6 for his Power, but later in the rules it indicates that at subsequent levels, he adds his current Battle-Level to the result. Does that apply for level 1 as well? I'm not sure, but why not? My Wizard characters were initially dying off so quickly, I figured it couldn't hurt.

8. EXPERIENCE DISTRIBUTION

Rule: Whomever kills a Monster gets the full experience point value (equivalent to the Gold value listed). He is under no obligation to share this Experience with other Warriors, but the player may decide of his own accord to do so, as long as he resolves the distribution quickly. (If it requires a calculator and an argument over what to do with the remainder, the GM reserves the right to revoke this privelege to expediate game play.) Others may not attempt to pressure the player into dividing Experience.

Rationale: For a while, the party's leader tried dividing up Gold because it seemed like the fair thing to do. However, this took a good deal of time, especially when players argued over their contributions to the fight. Just giving someone the points wholesale may not always be fair, but it's /quick/. In theory, things should even out somewhat ... though in practice, the Wizard's "Freeze" spell often serves to kill off monsters on their last legs, much to the chagrin of fellow Warriors.

"Experience" isn't a physical commodity, and therefore from a role-playing basis, the Warriors shouldn't have anything to argue about in character. If a player should decide on his own to give other Warriors their share, that's fine. However, if he has to spend time doing the calculations, and if arguments break out over how to do things, it just detracts from game play.

9. POTIONS

Rule: Potions may be quaffed at any time, even if a Warrior is in combat, so long as he has a hand free (i.e., not webbed). The Elf's Potion may be "thrown" at another Warrior to heal him, but other potions cannot be so casually used -- They must either be applied to an unconscious Warrior by an adjacent Warrior, or else used by the bearer on himself, while conscious.

Rationale: The "insta-heal" potion of the Elf is a real life-saver for beginning Warriors, but it leads to rather strange situations if ALL potions are treated in the same way. This seems to be the best compromise: to treat the Elf's potion as a special case, while trying to treat other potions a little more "realistically". I used to require potions to be consumed outside of combat, based on my interpretation of an obscure passage in the rules, but I've changed my mind since then, to make potions slightly more useful.

10. ARMOR FITTING

Rule: One size doesn't fit all. If armor should be acquired as a treasure card, roll 1D6. On a roll of 1-4, it is human-sized. On a roll of 5 or 6, it is Dwarf-sized. (This only applies for a full suit -- It does not need to be determined for gauntlets, gloves, boots, helms, shields, etc.) The Dwarf can't give his chainmail to another Warrior to wear, or vice-versa, unless they both happen to be Dwarves.

Rationale: I tried adding some new treasure cards with non-magical items, and included some armor. The Dwarf (acting as leader at the time) planned on taking the armor for himself, and passing his chainmail on to the Barbarian (who was taking a break from leadership for the time being). I decided that this seemed just a /wee/ bit implausible...

Now, the die roll for determining the size assumes an average random dungeon setting. If you're gaming specifically in a Dwarven stronghold, it might very well be assumed that most if not all armor encountered would be suited for Dwarves. If you have a GM, it might just be best left up to GM discretion to determine what makes sense.

11. GHOSTS

Rule: Ghosts are worth 200 gold (experience) if defeated.

Rationale: If giant rats, bats and spiders can carry little gold pouches, why shouldn't Ghosts have any gold value, of all Monsters?

12. MUMMIES

Rule: Mummies take double damage from fire-based attacks, and do not apply their Toughness against such attacks. A normal torch may be used against a Mummy (in lieu of a normal weapon) to inflict 1D6 Wounds (no modifiers), but without a Strength bonus for the bearer.

Rationale: This is just to be consistent with how fire-vulnerable Mummies were in AHQ and WFB.

13. GOBLIN FANATICS

Rule: Goblin Fanatics automatically strike first when they are placed on the board.

Rationale: If they /don't/ get to strike first, they're generally just squashed, resulting in phenomenal gold rewards for whomever happens to have the highest Initiative.

14. RAISED AND LOWERED AREAS

Rule: On board sections (such as the Idol Room) where there are raised/lowered sections, combatants at different "levels" are not pinned by each other, though they may attack each other normally. Combatants on a "staircase" section are considered to be at the "higher" level.

Rationale: This is just to give some meaning to multi-level layouts other than just pretty looks.

15. CRITICAL HITS

Rule: When determining damage taken from a blow, if a defender's Toughness, armor, etc. fully absorb the damage, then for each natural roll of 6 on the damage dice, 1 Wound still gets through with no modifiers.

Rationale: I've been rather frustrated with the "SuperDwarf" phenomenon, as I think of it. A Dwarf in the party acquired the Armor of Taakan, and has, since then, been invincible against anything that rolls less than 2 damage dice; even in the latter case, he's often able to get through without a scratch! Armor should be very useful, but shouldn't render the wearer invincible. This was devised as a compromise, so that even heavily-armored Warriors still have /some/ chance of being hit, even if the damage is miniscule, so you don't have the situation where you can throw an entire ARMY of Skaven at a Warrior, and even if each and every one of them rolled a natural 6 to hit, and natural 6 for damage, they couldn't even bruise the Warrior!

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