Stances?

[Nuadha]

A friend gave me a ton of Heroscape dice, so I have a lot of white dice as well as the original red and blue dice.   I am thinking of a house rule that would allow martial characters (barb, dwarf, etc.) to take aggressive or defensive stances and modifying the red and blue dice to represent the stances.    Red dice would have 4 skulls but only 1 shield and 1 eight arrows of chaos (my black shield) and the blue dice would have 2 skulls and 3 shields (+1 chaos symbol).   When they attack they choose a die type but will also use that die type to defend.

If I do this, I am thinking I will change to having monsters defend on white shields, as the aggressive stance could be too good when it almost guarantees killing a goblin or Orc.

[uncle phil]

I've just published a book on self defence and martial arts..

http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/epsdbook.html

..so feel compelled to observe that it is not Stances that win a fight, but moves.

Have you seen "The Imperial Academy" HQ stuff? His rules allow fighters to have "Combat Cards", which I think are used like spells but represent special attacks, opening gambits or finishing moves. That might be a good route to look into

[Nuadha]

So you would say that having a maneuver that you can only use once-a-day, despite going against different opponents, would be a better representation than being able to do more aggressive or defensive maneuvers at will?   I have personally not liked the idea of combat cards (or in 4e terms "daily powers") because I figure if you know how to do a leg sweep, you don't forget it after you've used it.   If it worked on an orc on room 1, why wouldn't you try it on an orc in room three?    For magic, it makes sense.    Magic can have weird rules since it is magic and if the rules of magic in your world says you can only cast stone skin once-a-day, then that is just how magic works in your world.

   The stance is really only representing the type of maneuver the warrior used last, not a particular way of placing their feet.     It seems to me that it would add a nice tactical element to playing the martial classes that they are currently lacking.  

My main concern is that game-balance-wise, the aggressive stance (or maneuver if you prefer) would be too powerful.  

[uncle phil]

Stance is the wrong term on several levels. Given that you involve younger people in your games it is perhaps important that playing has a positive effect on their vocabulary. Move or Maneuver is probably the term that you are looking for and has the advantage that it will be equated with terms such as "finishing move" from games such as Mortal Kombat.

Wrt to games mechanics, I wasn't going to propose that cards necessarily be one use. Either the card could be "regenerated" or its use based on some form of dice/ability roll. For example, something like a leg sweep might work in a fight, but would not be possible everytime since it would depend on the target's leg placement, relative sizes and even if the target has legs. Likewise, while it might work once in a fight, other combatants in the room would doubtless be expecting such a move once it has been used.

[MortiS-the-Lost]

You might be interested to see these 'play and discard' HeroQuest Combat Cards

[guzzi]

So what are the suggested rules of play for these cards?

MortiS-the-Lost wrote

You might be interested to see these 'play and discard' HeroQuest Combat Cards

[MortiS-the-Lost]

guzzi wrote

So what are the suggested rules of play for these cards?

that's a good question - there doesn't seem to be any rules for how these cards are used in game

I think they are intended to be used in a similar way to the Order Cards in Space Crusade

I'd suggest printing off a single set of the Hero 'Combat Cards' and letting the Barbarian choose (or maybe randomly draw) 4 cards, the Dwarf 3 cards and the Elf 2 (the wizard doesn't get any as he's not a warrior type). The Hero can then choose to play 1 of their 'Combat Cards' at the beginning of their turn.

As for the Chaos 'Combat Cards' I'd suggest using them some what like the Alien Event Deck in Space Crusade - put all the Chaos 'Combat Cards' in a stack face down and allow the GM to draw a card from the top of the deck at the beginning of their turn and play it immediately that turn.

To be honest these Combat Cards are rather incompatible with the way my Houserules work so I never gave much thought as to how they are used in game

I've also found a 2nd PDF containing more of these combat cards

PS if you find these interesting you may also want to check out SamuelF's HeroQuest Event Deck

[guzzi]

I think these cards will make this simple game more complicated. Might as well play AHQ or WHQ and be done with it.