Converting Warhammer Creatures to HeroQuest

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Marchomer wrote

I'm trying to do a balanced conversion like yours, converting warhammer monsters in heroquest ones (using the 5th edition of warhammer fantasy battle bestiary) with an algorithmic approach.

I'm interested in seeing what you come up with, I've converted a few WFB creatures to HQ in the past, but it's been all guess work, I couldn't find enough similarities between statics in both system to do any maths with

Marchomer wrote

And making use of the possibility to use mere D6s (in a heroquest combat dice, the skulls actually display a "4+", white shields "5+"...),

I did at one point make a little chart that compares D6 results to HeroQuest Combat Dice and several other 6-sided combat dice I use in my games, I'll see if I can find it for you

[Marchomer]

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

I'm interested in seeing what you come up with, I've converted a few WFB creatures to HQ in the past, but it's been all guess work, I couldn't find enough similarities between statics in both system to do any maths with

Is a sort of "pre alpha release"  and is thinked like a "one way" conversion to create a different and bigger Heroquest bestiary. In addition this system needs the use of D6s in place of the combat dices and the arrangement of possibles special rules.

Modifications to get an Heroquest monster using the Warhammer statistics

Movement: Movement +2
Body:         Wounds
Mind:          Leadership - 4,5 rounded upwards (min. 1, the undeads always have 0)
                   OR
                  Leadership * 4/5 if the monster is a spell caster
Attack:       As much combat dices as the Weapon Skill or Ballistic Skill
Defense:    Toughness / 2 + 1 (or ½ in case of a decimal result)

Combat dice setting

Attack:       7 - Strength, min. 2 (example: 7 - Strength 3= 4, hit with 4+)
Defense:    Armour save, min. 6+, max 2+


All the enemies became a little bit stronger than the heroquest average, but heroes with extra skills + the use of your Fate Points rules, could re-balance the game.
Problem: powerful monsters (like greater deamons) tending to became TOO POWERFUL MONSTERS!

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

I did at one point make a little chart that compares D6 results to HeroQuest Combat Dice and several other 6-sided combat dice I use in my games, I'll see if I can find it for you

Thank you very much dude!

[Billiam Babble]

Surely there must have been an official GW article on this in times gone by?

(Suddenly flashing back to Imagine and WD articles to conversions between utterly incompatible systems)

I was about to suggest something simple like having a ascending comparson chart of standard monsters (i.e. normal man, orcs and skeletons, chaos warrior, boss creatures) from both systems and just fill in the differences (does that make sense), but I can see I've already turned what could be a simple formula into a bestiary BMI chart. ;) Yes, I see, algorithms are much better.

Even the relationship between Warhammer Quest (descendent of HQ and AHQ) and Warhammer seems strecthed when it comes down to Wounds - but that goes right back to the fundamentals of the differences between wargames and RPGs, I guess.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

In case you're all wondering I moved this to it's own thread to stop the Dragon Strike one going too far off topic.

It would be nice to be able to convert Warhammer profiles over to HeroQuest but the systems are so different problems are bound to arise in any system used to convert between the 2. Your formulas as they stand create creatures slightly (and in some cases massively) more powerful than their standard HQ equivalents. This isn't such a problem as long as you make sure all the creatures stats that you use in your games are converted via this process (IE your using them instead of the original HQ monsters and not as well as them) and you beef-up the Heroes stats to a similar degree (my Fate Point rules alone won't be enough)

I long ago abandoned the idea that Warhammer Fantasy Battle profiles could be converted directly to HQ stats. However you might crack it yet, so to help you here a few suggestions based on my own workings on the subject

Defence in HQ is effected by how much armour a character is wearing and thus should be based on the Warhammer Armour Save roll rather than Toughness, some thing like the following should work:
No Armour Save = Defend 2
+6 =  Defend 3
+5 = Defend 4
+4 = Defend 5
having said that creatures with Toughness higher than 5 should probably get +1 Defend as well.
Also compare the Save given by each kind of armour in Warhammer to the number of Combat Dice  a Hero gets to roll in HeroQuest for the equivalent armour type

Mind, as I've mentioned before is equivalent a Resistance to Magic/ Save Vs Magic stats like you see in D&D based games, Warhammer (apart from the Ward Saves granted by some magic items) doesn't really have an equivalent. Leadership incidentally, is a measure of the creature's bravery which HeroQuest has no equivalent Stat.

Body Points is where my own workings on converting from Warhammer really fell down, the problem being that Body Points are the equivalent of Hit Points in D&D games, thus how much damage a creature can take before it dies, therefore the Warhammer stat that Body Point needs to be worked from is in fact Toughness (which represents how much damage a model takes to be injured/killed). The function of Wounds in Warhammer Fantasy Battle is in fact not quite (as you might think) the same as Body Points in HQ (in fact some expansions for HQ included rules for creatures that had both Wounds and Body Points)
A creature with multiple wounds in Warhammer should of course get extra Body Points when converted though.

Your 'combat dice setting' is an interesting and very clever way to fit the Warhammer stats into the HeroQuest combat system, but I'm afraid you've got your conversion equivalents the wrong way round.

The number of Dice rolled should be based on the Warhammer 'Strength' stat (the number of dice rolled in HQ effects the maximum amount of damage you can potentially do) the likely hood of doing said damage in HQ is down to how many Skulls are on the dice and there for the 'Dice Setting' should be based on Warhammer's WS and BS stats (depending on if it's a close-combat or ranged attack respectively) because WS and BS in Warhammer represent how good a model is at hitting an opponent.  

For example, lets pretend I have some custom made Combat Dice with 2 Skull, 2 Shields and 2 blank sides. And lets say I also have some of the original HQ Combat Dice with 3 Skulls, 2 Sheilds and 1 Monster Shield.
Now lets roll these dice, lets say we roll 4 of each
so, both the 4 custom '2 skull' dice and the 4 HQ Combat Dice can potentially do up to 4 damage when rolled.But each of the custom has a 1-in-3 (2-in-6) chance of rolling a Skull, while each HQ dice has a 50-50 (3-in-6) chance of rolling a Skull. Therefore both rolls can potentially do the same damage but the HQ dice are more likely to do damage than the custom dice.

Please note that in Warhammer ranged weapons have their own set Strength and do not rely on the user's Strength. Therefore the creatures Strength should not be applied to Ranged Weapons when converting to HQ  

Sorry hope that all makes sense and is useful.

Marchomer wrote

Problem: powerful monsters (like greater deamons) tending to became TOO POWERFUL MONSTERS!

I don't see this as a problem really, creature like Greater Daemons and Emperor Dragons are supposed to be extremely powerful and require whole armies to defeat in combat. 4 Adventurers alone won't (and shouldn't) have a chance against something that powerful.
I have (and plan to do so again) ran adventures where the Hero's faced a Greater Daemon. But in one instance (with a Baalrukh/Balrog) they didn't have to fight the Greater Daemon to complete the quest (just escape from it) and in another (were the Heroes faced a Great Unclean One) there were 6 players with very powerful characters and a large number of henchmen at their disposal (and the henchmen did get disposed) and even then the Heroes only narrowly managed to defeat it by running into a corridor too narrow for the huge bloated demon, just out of range of it's Stream of Corruption attack and throwing fire balls back into the chamber. At lot Fate Points and healing-spells were spent in that battle and the Heroes where close to death for most of it!

Billiam Babble wrote

Surely there must have been an official GW article on this in times gone by?

Hmm
not that I'm aware of ...

Billiam Babble wrote

Suddenly flashing back to Imagine and WD articles to conversions between utterly incompatible systems

There where 2 articles like that in Warlock Magazine for converting monsters from other game systems to Fighting Fantasy, I'll see about digging them out but, I have good reason to believe that most of the conversion methods may well be horribly inaccurate due to the author's ignorance of the mechanics of a certain popular RPG game system.    

Billiam Babble wrote

Even the relationship between Warhammer Quest (descendent of HQ and AHQ) and Warhammer seems strecthed when it comes down to Wounds - but that goes right back to the fundamentals of the differences between wargames and RPGs, I guess.

Actually Warhammer Quest and Warhammer Fantasy battle could easily be converted between, there was an article spanning WD199 and WD200 which explained how to convert your WHQ character into a Hero for your 4th/5th edition Warhammer Army.

In earlier times the gap between RPG and Wargame rules wasn't as wide as you might thing WFRP 1st edition stats can easily be converted to WFB 3rd edition (and vice-verser) which allowed all the rules for the forces of Chaos in Rogue Trader, Warhammer and WFRP to be published together in the 2 classic Realm of Chaos books. And 1st and 2nd edition Warhammer included roleplay rules in the core rulebooks.

As for Advanced HeroQuest, despite the claims in the preview in WD115, HQ and AHQ aren't compatible and (with the exception of 1 short list of equivalent rules) AHQ doesn't have a system to convert between them. AHQ is in fact not (as it name suggests) a more advanced version of HQ, although it is more advanced AHQ has an entirely different set of rules to HQ (the situation is the same with SpaceCrusade and Advanced SpaceCruade).
However, I haven't looked into it yet, but it is conceivable that their might be an easy way to convert between Warhammer and AHQ.      

PS if anyone has any questions regarding the latter part of this post (eg where I talk about converting between games other than Warhammer and HQ) please start a new thread in the appropriate Forum Section and include a quote.  

[Marchomer]

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

In case you're all wondering I moved this to it's own thread to stop the Dragon Strike one going too far off topic.

It's my fault! I digressed too much!

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

I long ago abandoned the idea that Warhammer Fantasy Battle profiles could be converted directly to HQ stats

Mee too.. but I'm recurrent! I would like to succed in this project because I've got some Warhammer stuff, and I would like to utilize it as much as possible. (And because I like very much strange mathematical conversions).

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

The number of Dice rolled should be based on the Warhammer 'Strength' stat (the number of dice rolled in HQ effects the maximum amount of damage you can potentially do) the likely hood of doing said damage in HQ is down to how many Skulls are on the dice and there for the 'Dice Setting' should be based on Warhammer's WS and BS stats (depending on if it's a close-combat or ranged attack respectively) because WS and BS in Warhammer represent how good a model is at hitting an opponent.

Yes, I realized this error too, this is the first bug I want to fix (actually with this correction the monsters tend to became less powerful )

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

Please note that in Warhammer ranged weapons have their own set Strength and do not rely on the user's Strength. Therefore the creatures Strength should not be applied to Ranged Weapons when converting to HQ  

I know, I 'm taking into consideration

For all the other suggestions, critiques, personal experiences: THANKS A LOT!
Like I said before, this is a "pre-alpha", and I need to know the others points of view, it helps me so much! As soon as possible I will post an upgrade of the conversion, and I'll try to testing it. I'm hopeful!

[MortiS-the-Lost]

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

I did at one point make a little chart that compares D6 results to HeroQuest Combat Dice and several other 6-sided combat dice I use in my games, I'll see if I can find it for you

Here it is, hope you find it useful ...



Please note that the Star in place of the Black/Round/Monster Shield is part of the way my group's houserules work, we currently use the normal HeroQuest (White) Combat Dice and Battle Masters (Red) Combat Dice, but ideally would like to have dice with the Star (Special) symbol. The other dice you see in the little chart are borrowed from the D&D Boardgame or painstakingly handmade using blank dice, carving tools and ink

also check out: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.664610.n2.nabble.com/Alternative-Combat-Dice-for-HeroQuest-td5374435.html#a5374435

[Billiam Babble]

Really nice chart, Mortis!

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Thanks I originally made it to show my players how many of each symbol appears on the dice, I have no idea if it's of any use/interest to you guys on the forum, but I thought it was worth posting (at the risk of more people asking to see more of my house rules)

[Marchomer]

Thank you Mortis! Some ideas is growing up in my mind... 
(I have got the D&D Boardgame too)

[Second update]

Statistics

Movement: Movement +2
Body:         Wounds
Mind:          Leadership - 4,5 rounded upwards (min. 1, the undeads always have 0)
                   OR
                  Leadership * 4/5 if the monster is a spell caster
Attack:       As much combat dice as the Strength
Defense:    Save:  0  = 2
                           6+ = 3
                           5+ = 4
                           4+ = 5
                           3+ = 6

                  With a Toughness of 5+ add 1 dice
                 
Combat dice setting

Attack:       7 - WS or BS or Weapon Strength , min. 2 (example: 7 - WS 3= 4, hit with 4+)
Defense:    6+ (Like HQ monsters), if the creature wears an heavy armour: 5+ (like HQ characters)

Modifications

*If a weapon in Warhammer, adds +1 or +2 to the Strength of the creature. In HeroQuest it means that you must add a +1 dice to Attack.

*If a creature got more than 1 Attack, in HeroQuest it means that you must add a +1 dice to Attack for every Attack above the first.

*Ignore: Panic, Fear, Stupidity, Unbreakable, Immune To Psychology, Stubborn.

*Use house rules for: Terror, Hatred, Frenzy and special abilities (Regeneration, Breath Weapon... )

- - - - - - - - - - -

Unlucky, I've not found a way to convert Mind Points in a different way (unless you use Warhammer 3rd edition where every creature got more statistics).
Yes, I know... Leadership cannot be 100% associated with Mind Points, but in Warhammer, great leadership means will power too and I think that a creature with great will power can resist better to a "mind attack" so this system doesn't work too bad.

This update seems to work, most of the Warhammer creatures got average statistics and few wounds, so the conversion results to be quite balanced. The conversion is very easy and quick and this algorithmic approach has the advantage to generate a new creatures set with proportioned power between each other. (I don't know if I've been understood... an example: If in WH a goblin=1, a saurus=4 and a dragon=8, a system like this assure you to respect these proportions in HQ too)


[Third update]
Movement:
In WH the speed of a creature increase with his size, not in HQ, where the speed decrease with the size (from 10 to 4). So this is the the new movement:

Small size  (goblins, giant rats...)  10
Medium size          (men, orcs...)    8
Big size        (minotaurs, trolls...)   6
Cavalry   (dragonogres, wolves..)  10
Bad ones (dragons, stegadons...)  12

Scouts add a +2 (Skinks for example move 12 squares)
Undeads like zombies, mummies or similar move 4
Boars move 8 (or they would be equal to wolves)

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Excellent, looks like it should work just fine now, I'll give it a try when I get time.

good point about the Leadership to Mind conversion, also I'll look into WFB 3rd profiles to see what might work for Mind.
I'm thinking Will Power maybe, but 2nd edition WFB also had CP (Constitution Points) which is described in the Battle Magic book as "Magical Stamina" which has another similar, magic-based function

on a related topic I am working on a system to convert D&D stats to DragonStrike, which mean they could in turn be converted to HeroQuest, this opens up a whole new realm of creatures we can add to our games!

[Marchomer]

Some example of special Skills:

-Curse
When the monster dies, he explodes dealing a Fireburst Trap (see “Wizards of Morcar”).

-Fog
The monster is invisible and can't be detected unless he attacks.

-Paralysis
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 round.

-Fear
The characters in the line of sight of the monster must, roll 7+ on 2d6, or he will immediately flee.

-Regeneration
The monster restore 6 of his Body Points per Round.

-Energy Drain
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 Mind Point.

-Fire Breathe
Replace an attack, The Fire Breathe deals 4 attack dice (usually 4+) to every creature under the flamer template.

-Poison
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 Body Point.

-Vomit
The monster can use this skill only one time. This attack deals 5 attack dice (usually 4+), the target can't defense.

-Scaly Skin
Add 1 Defence dice.

[Marchomer]

[Fourth and last(?) update with summary]

Movement

In Warhammer the speed of a creature increase with his size, not in HQ, where the speed decrease with the size (from 10 to 4).

Small size  (goblins, giant rats...) 10
Medium size           (men, orcs...) 8
Big size        (minotaurs, trolls...) 6
Cavalry   (dragonogres, wolves..) 10
Bad ones  (dragons, stegadons...) 12

Undeads like zombies, mummies or similar move 4.

Body
Wounds

Mind
Leadership - 4,5 rounded upwards (min. 1, the undeads always have 0)
Leadership * 4/5 if the monster is a spell caster

Attack
As much combat dice as the Strength

Combat dice setting
8 - WS or BS or Weapon Strength, max. '3+' (example: 8 - WS 3= 5, hit with 5+)

Modifications
*If a weapon in Warhammer, adds +1 or +2 to the Strength of the creature. In HeroQuest it means that you must add a +1 dice to Attack.

*If a creature got more than 1 Attack, in HeroQuest it means that you must add a +1 dice to Attack for every Attack above the first.

Defense
Save:  0  = 2
         6+ = 3
         5+ = 4
         4+ = 5
         3+ = 6
               
Defense dice setting
Monsters defense with '6+' + modifications , max 4+ (example: light armour and/or shield: 5+)

Modifications
*Any combination of scaly skins, light armours, shields, light protections...: +1
*Any combination of heavy armours, shields...: +2
*Toughness of 5+: +1

Details
The conversion of a special skill and the use of the Psychology depend on the good sense of the GM.
Sometimes two different creatures may have the same statistics when converted, in that case the GM could differentiate them modifing something (for example reducing the Movement of the creature with the slowest Initiative)  
Some examples of Skill:

-Scout
Add a +2 to Movement.
-Curse
When the monster dies, he explodes dealing a Fireburst Trap (see “Wizards of Morcar”).
-Fog
The monster is invisible and can't be detected unless he attacks.
-Paralysis
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 round.
-Fear
The characters in the line of sight of the monster must, roll 7+ on 2d6, or he will immediately flee.
-Regeneration
The monster restore 6 of his Body Points per Round.
-Energy Drain
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 Mind Point.
-Fire Breathe
Replace an attack, The Fire Breathe deals 4 attack dice (usually 4+) to every creature under the flamer template.
-Poison
If the monster rolls a “6” during an attack, the character hit lose 1 Body Point.
-Vomit
The monster can use this skill only one time. This attack deals 5 attack dice (usually 4+), the target can't defense.
-Scaly Skin
Add +1 to the Defence dice setting.