Gone but not forgotten: Games Workshop Specialist Games

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Gone but not forgotten: Games Workshop Specialist Games

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

Pierzak posted:

Games Workshop announced a remake/rerelase of Warhammer quest!

For iPhone/iPad.

Sweet, I hope it rules. I've just started playing my copy of Warhammer Quest again and it's just as good as I remember. One more reason to eventually buy an iPad, I guess.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2012 19:49

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 04:02

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

There's really only one super broken healing spell that I can think of, which is the 2 power point one that heals everyone 1 wound. Since it can be cast basically every turn after the monster phase, it can lead to really stupid situations where the heroes attack, all get dropped to 0, then get healed for 1, and repeat, with virtually no end to what should be a total party kill, barring exceptionally terrible power rolls--like so many that the wizard has to expend all his power store, which is unlikely.

What is causing you trouble? All the other forms of healing have limits that actually matter. If it's that spell, it isn't hard to fix it so it's not ridiculous--even increasing the cost slightly makes it more in line with the other spells.

And what's the dwarf's deal? His toughness and armor aren't so much higher than everyone else's that he should be invulnerable.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 17:05

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

Zombie #246 posted:

This here, I found on BGG, creates a much more dynamic system of generating dungeons for warhammer quest. The combat mechanics are mostly the same in the other documents though.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ad_SJ7_DWpPIwf4e2M9MlbDY07Cco8kNMsHOnzTKBRA/edit#bookmark=id.ej1se64mkruw

Is that the guy who did the massive rewrite? Some of that stuff is really interesting, but it's like an 80+ page rewrite--we are incorporating some of it in baby steps. The unexpected event table for in combat is great and makes more sense than suddenly finding a dying prospector in the third round of a battle.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2012 13:30

A Strange Aeon: Mar 26, 2010; You are now a slimy little toad; The Great Twist

Wolfsbane posted:

Now you're asking. I actually haven't played in a couple of years, and it was considering getting back into it that led to me thinking about alternatives. Purely from memory then:

The main problem I had with the healing system was that it made HP pretty irrelevant. Everyone was either on full (if it was a few turns since combat) or 1HP (since there was no point being on more). It may be something that's fixable with a few tweaks to the magic system (and gladiators. gently caress gladiators). I'll have a look once I have the rules in front of me.

The Dwarf - I seem to remember that he hits toughness 5 around level 3, and with some decent armour and maybe a magical shield or something he can easily hit toughness 11 total. That means any monster that rolls one damage die and has S5 or less (basically all low level monsters) is 100% unable to damage him, which takes a lot of the fun out of combat. The sort of monsters you'd need to have a 50% chance of doing damage (say S6 2D) tend to be able to cream other level 3 characters if they turn up in multiples. The only option seems to be using a ton of skaven until the rest of the party catch up, and I don't own any skaven

There were a few other things too - I had to rewrite enemy magic a bit, since enemies having instant-death spells is a bit harsh on level 2 (I think that's where orc shamans start arriving). Basically the whole combat system feels like it suffers from being a straight port of a wargame rather than a custom written board game, and I was hoping for suggestions on a better system to swap in.

I was looking at Descent, either merged into Warhammer in some way or just to play instead. I think I ended up not getting it because 2nd ed was coming out. Any reason for preferring the 1st edition? I imagine there's probably stuff about it in the board games thread now I think about it.

The HP issue just has to do with the turn structure--because the Heroes get to act first (barring unexpected events that turn up Ambush monsters), and you can use magical healing after the Monsters go, even if at 0. But I honestly think it's just that one healing spell--the other spells aren't nearly as powerful or come with huge risks. One costs 4 and heals one warrior 1d6, another costs 5 and allows every Warrior to roll a d6 and heal that many--but if any Warrior rolls the same number, nobody gets healed anything at all. And there's Resurrection, which costs 6 and can bring back a Warrior who died turns earlier--but they lose any accumulated gold and treasure, which is a huge cost.

Other forms of magic healing, like the Elf's starting potion, are pretty rare. You can find some similar potions in the treasure deck, I believe, but the potions the Elf can buy in towns are pretty random and heal 1d6 each, not to full like his starting one. And provisions and bandages can't be used at 0, though they can be okay. Trying to bandage a fallen Warrior is a total 50/50 crap shoot, so you can often just waste your item and not heal the guy at all.

All of this is balanced, at least in my experience, with the Power roll every turn. Many warriors will be very wounded in battles, and relying on the Wizard to spend his Power to heal them. This prevents the Wizard from constantly just burning everything with magic. And the Wizard gains gold for healing other warriors, so I think the designers anticipated this situation as well.

For the Dwarf thing, even the level 2 monster chart starts bringing out many more Minotaurs, Ogres, Chaos Dwarf Blunderbusses, etc. I haven't really seen the Dwarf becoming invulnerable, just very sturdy--he's probably the best of the four basic warriors (though the Wizard is pretty different from the other three, so maybe shouldn't be compared directly), but I don't think he's so much better. Getting to 11 toughness and armour isn't super easy--most of the armor you can buy is super expensive and if you're extraordinarily lucky to find enough magic armor and shields to get that high, I think you've earned it.

I confess, I've only played it as a board game, not with a GM--TPKs aren't uncommon if you get unlucky, which I think is in keeping with the spirit of the game.

Monster magic is incredibly dangerous--the Orc Shaman instant death spell isn't super likely to come up, since you need a 4 on 2d6 (from memory) and then another 1 on a d6. But that's why Warriors get luck, to mitigate something like that. More dangerous, in my opinion, are the numerous Orc spells that target the Wizard specifically and prevent him from casting magic on his next turn. This makes it impossible to do the standard magical healing that the warriors depend on, and can quickly cause a TPK. Orc Shamans should be the priority target, and once per adventure attack items saved just in case they show up.

I like Warhammer Quest way, way, way more than any other Dungeoncrawl type board game I've played. I'd look at Descent 1 with the Road to Legend expansion or something, though it's not very similar--Descent 2 is not at all what you're looking for. It has a completely different feel from Warhammer Quest.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2012 14:12

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