Last time I wrote about my general
impressions of Advanced Heroquest (AHQ). This time I’ll get a little into the
rules.
I have to
open with a caveat. I didn’t grow up with AHQ so I cannot claim to be some kind
of rules-guru. Also, AHQ is written in that distinct 1980’s-GW fashion, which
is to say rather haphazardly. Rules are scattered all over the place, often
ambiguous and occasionally missing entirely. This doesn’t mean that AHQ is a
bad game – absolutely not, for the same reason that WFB 3rd Ed.
isn’t a bad game, despite having a, shall we say, rather loosely worded
ruleset. It just means that you have to take responsibility for your own fun,
and figure out what works for you. See here for a more coherent version of what I’m
saying.
It does,
however, mean that there’s a fair chance that I’ve misunderstood and/or
overlooked something, so don’t take my word as gospel. This write-up is
probably more useful as a description of the rules I play by at the moment. Please comment if you find anything you
don’t agree with – you are probably correct, and I’d be very interested to
learn what I’ve missed.
The AHQ
rules can be loosely grouped into three categories: campaign rules, rules for
generating dungeons and rules for exploring said dungeons. Today I’ll
concentrate on the last category and only briefly cover the two others.
Dungeons
can be randomly generated or designed beforehand by a GM, and the game is
probably at its best when you use a combination of both.
Before
starting a campaign, the players select their characters. There are eight
pre-generated characters in the rules, but otherwise characters are randomly generated.
There are two classes: fighter and wizard, and three races: human, elf and
dwarf – all with certain strengths and weaknesses.
Players
also get a small amount of money to buy gear. They’ll need the usual armor and
weapons, but they’ll also need to buy arrows and spell-components for any
archers and wizards in the group. Arrows can sometimes be reused, but a
spell-component is always expended when the wizard casts a spell, and
restocking can be a major drain on the party’s coffers. Finally, the players
can buy various types of adventuring gear, which might come in handy (rope for
rappelling down into chasms, for example).
The party
then enters the dungeon…
 |
| Most dungeons are set up this way. A short corridor branching off into the darkness. |
Play is
divided into exploration- and combat turns.
During
exploration turns, all characters move at the same speed (orthogonal moves
only). When they end their turn on a board section with an unexplored exit, or
when they open a door into a new room, a new part of the dungeon is randomly
generated (or laid out, if using a pre-defined setup). The heroes can also search for hidden treasure in rooms and
hidden doors in dead ends and rooms with one door.
All this
time, the GM can spring ambushes and traps on the heroes using dungeon counters. These are randomly
drawn at certain times (there’s a chance to get one each turn as well as when
the heroes search for hidden doors
and treasure).
Whenever
the heroes run into monsters, the game switches to combat turns. The heroes and
GM then roll for initiative, which determines monster set-up as well as who
goes first. Most monsters can’t open doors themselves, but every so often the
heroes will run into a sentry who can open doors, and who will usually make a
break for it to try and gather reinforcement, which can be really bad news for
the good guys/nasty burglars (depending on your perspective).
 |
| Roll for initiative! |
During
combat, a characters movement is determined by its speed characteristic. If a
model moves into the death zone of an
enemy, it cannot move any further until its next turn.
Unless they
are using ranged weapons or long weapons (such as spears), models can only
attack enemies in their death zone. Ranged attacks require a clear line of
sight, buy you can see through an
adjacent friendly model.
When
attacking in hand-to-hand combat, you compare the weapon skill (WS) of the
attacker and defender on a table to get a to-hit number. Ranged attacks are
based on ballistic skill (BS), range to the target and any cover.
If you roll
equal to or higher than the target number on a d12, you then roll a number of
damage dice, depending on your weapon and strength. Each roll that equals or
beats the targets toughness causes a point of damage. Most normal enemies have
3-4 wounds.
Critical rolls to hit (a natural roll of 12, or 11-12
with a two handed weapon) will give you an extra attack (or halve the targets
toughness, in the case of ranged attacks), while fumbles (1 or 1-2 for two-handers) gives the enemy a free attack
(/hits an ally, on a ranged attack). Natural 12’s on the to-wound-roll can also
cause additional damage.
The heroes
can try to escape a fight, and can even leave the dungeon at any time (assuming
they can make it safely to a set of stairs leading out), but monster lairs will
be restocked when they return, if they don’t clear them completely.
Slain
monsters leave treasure behind (mostly gold), and all lairs have a treasure
chest, which might even contain magic treasure.
Heroes are
reasonably tough, but not invulnerable by any standard. They do have one
great advantage in that they get fate
points (two to begin with), which only the toughest baddies have. A fate
point can be spent to negate all damage received that round or to avoid death
from a trap or hazard.
 |
| I hope you’re not all out of fate… |
Fate points
refresh every time the heroes leave the dungeon, but rewards are greater for
completing dungeons quickly, and, as I said in part one, each time the heroes return
to town they have to pay rent!
Not all
rooms contain monsters – many are simply empty, and some contain hazards. A hazard might be a chasm the
heroes have to leap over if they want to get to the chest on the other side; it
might be a statue with eyes of precious stone, that may come alive and attack
if tampered with; or it might be something else entirely.
 |
| Do you feel lucky? |
Eventually
the heroes will find a quest room,
which contains a large amount of baddies and the stairs down to the next level
of the dungeon or the final boss-monster.
 |
| The lair of the evil Skaven Sorcerer. And yes, if you are unlucky, this is about what you might encounter in a single Quest Room. |
And… that’s
basically it. Well, not really, but it’s about what you’d need to follow an
adventure report, so I’ll stop now.
In the
third, and final, part, I’ll write a bit about campaigns and give a few final
thoughts on the game, though it may be a while before I get around to it.
Croaker
