Warhammer Quest

House Rules

By Idraugnir

House Rules By Idraugnir

Gold and Experience

Rule:  In the Bestiality of the Roleplay Book, each monster has a Gold value.  A House Rule that most GMs practice is the separation of gold and experience.  The ratio from one to the other differs, but in the end it doesn't really matter.  The ratio that I use is one third of the gold value is actual gold and the rest is experience.
Most of the creatures in WHQ will not have gold, but every battle will reward experience.  Since experience is more important than gold, its value must be higher.

The gold is given to the warrior that kills the creature, even if he didn't do very much work.  The experience is given out as a lump at the end of the adventure (or Deep in multi-Deep campaigns).  The experience will be split between the warriors' that killed it.
The gold goes to the warrior that slays the monster since he is there to pick it up.  If he is feeling generous, he might give some of it away (especially if it was a wizard with the "Freeze!" spell.  The one lump sum is to keep the warriors from messing with both gold and experience during the game.  Since the experience of battling in the dungeon goes to everyone, the experience points must go to everyone too.

To keep this from being a daunting task, the GM should keep a tally sheet and a small calculator nearby.  This also allows the warriors to gain experience by doing certain things without necessarily knowing about it.  All they will see is the GM writing.
The calculator (I use a TI-83 plus) is for simplicity and to keep the warriors guessing is why the GM will be writing things down.  I use a HeroQuest Quest Book approach for my journal of experience to build a sense of separation between the players' eyes and the book.

When a warrior wants to go up a battle level, he must front at least one quarter of the value in gold.
When training, the warrior will need to pay for instructors and living expenses.  Even characters that don't train in a regular way (Wardancer) will have to pay for some things (like rehab).

Combined Warrior and Monster Phase

If there are no monsters in play, the party leader may chose who goes first, second, and so on.
When there is no immediate threat, the warriors move as a group and their natural speed has little value.

When involved in combat, the model (warrior or monster) with the highest initiative will move and attack first.  During his turn, a warrior may break from pinning only if he hasn't already attacked.  If a warrior decides to fire his bow and not move for this turn, he must state it before anyone attacks.  His attack is then made immediately.  This doesn't apply to monsters with missile weapons.
This represents a warrior crouching and letting go of a fast arrow before the regular combat commenced.  Since warriors and monsters will both fight at the same time, there is no need for seperate phases

Deathblows
If the first attack to actually hit the target kills it, then the deathblow may be carried into the monster next to it.  If it takes a couple of rounds in combat before the first hit, it will still cause the deathblow.  If the first hit isn't your first attack of the turn, it still causes a deathblow.
When the warrior performs a deathblow, he is assumed to have cleaved directly through his opponent.  If he missess his first hit, he will probably come back around with another of equal ferocity.  After a hit, wound or no wound, the warrior will not be attacking in the arch motion like before.
Only swords and axes can cause a deathblow.
It is difficult to imagine a hammer, mace, or spear performing a deathblow (but the spear might be able to but it would probably be a thrust that goes completely through the creature and hits the one behind it rather than an arch) so we do not allow them to.