Posted by
MortiS-the-Lost on
Oct 11, 2012; 3:37pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Can-I-has-MortiS-Quest-and-other-HeroQuest-Questions-tp7578818.html

I quite often get eMails with questions like the following one and I don't have time give individual responses, so I think it's about time I addressed the common questions about the game called 'MortiS Quest'
Is it possible to get a copy of your Mortis rules? From what I've been reading in the forums, you address many of the issues I had with the overly-simplified rules
Firstly (and with no offence meant to anyone who has emailed) you don't need to eMail me questions to get answers, in fact posting your questions to me on the forum is a lot better way of getting answers not only from me, but from other HeroQuest players and even members of my own personal gaming group who actually play MortiS Quest with me (and may have insights into it I do not as the GM).

So, is there or will there be a copy of the MortiS Quest rules made available to the public?
The sort term answer is (and I feel mean saying it): NO, sorry. But the good news is the long term answer is YES, kinda.

That of course needs some explanation … I'll start by explaining what MortiS Quest is and what I'm planning to do with it. MortiS Quest (as you might have guessed ) started life as a bunch of house rules for HeroQuest most of which were designed to add more advanced RPG elements to game and also to cover miniatures interacting with elements of 3D my dungeon. After a year or so these rules got a little out of hand and we realised we'd expanded the game far beyond a simple set of house rules to the point where we were looking at something on the verge of becoming whole new system. Now a lot of these rules (at least the simpler ones) I have already posted on the forum, admittedly in quite a scattered manner and mostly in response to people asking for advice on their own house rules.
At this stage the basic elements of what made MortiS Quest different from regular HeroQuest (aside from the 3D dungeon rules) were the following, given here in the order we added the working versions to the game. (Note that I've only listed my own house rules here and not ones I've borrowed from other people's house rules)
1 Both Heroes and Monsters defend on the 'White Shield' and the 'Black Shield' becomes the 'Special' symbol which links to certain special abilities of Heroes and Monsters.
2 The rules for various monsters from the HeroQuest expansions and Fan made sources were tweaked, allowing Trolls to Regenerate, Dragons to Breath Fire, Bats to Fly, Spiders to Poison, humanoid monster to be armed with different weapons and so on.
3 The concept of a Hero being unconscious when at 0 Body Points and dead once into the negative was introduced. To recover from being unconscious a Hero needed to roll 1 White Combat Dice at the start of their turn - if they managed to roll a Special they came round and regained 1 Body Point
4 Fates Points were introduced and my players started calling the game MortiS Quest
5 Thief and Cleric classes where added at a basic level using existing HeroQuest rules and a more flexible system for choosing and using the HeroQuest Spell Cards was introduced. Basic versions of other Classes including Halflings and Rangers.
6 Unconsciousness rule were revised - If a Hero's body points went below 0 and they still had Fate Points they were considered unconscious rather than dead.
7 EXP was introduced with Heroes gaining 1 EXP for each body point they managed to 'knock off' monsters in combat. This was linked back to the Fate Points rules with every tally of 5 EXP gained earning a Hero an extra Fate Point.
8 More complicated rules for Spotting and Disarming Traps were added - borrowed directly from The D&D Adventure Board game.
9 Different movement Dice were introduced for different races - Human 2D6, Elf 3D4, Dwarf 1D12, Halfling D8+D4
10 The HeroQuest spell card system was scrapped in favour of one based on the magic rules from Warhammer 6th edition and a system of rolling under Mind on 2D6 to successfully cast with doubles being a 'Miscast' - Mistcast spells could not be cast again for the rest of the adventure
11 A 2 Fate Point penalty was given for going unconscious making death more of a risk again for Heroes with lots of Fate.
12 A rather shaky advancement system was added allowing Heroes to exchange certain amounts of Fate Points for Stat increases, new spells and special abilities
13 A new Multi-deck system replaced the basic Treasure Deck based somewhat on the workings of Dungeon Quest
14 Agility Rules were introduced allowing Heroes to jump over traps and pits using a roll of their Movement Dice
Note that you can find more details of all these rules (and others I might have forgotten to mention) all over the HeroQuest section of the Forum - I acknowledge something should be done to index all these rules to make them easier to find.

In 2010 Me and my Players realised how complicated it had all become and decided something needed to be done. Rules were inconsistent between different Hero Classes and the system relied too heavily on Special Dice. So I stripped the entire game back down to it's bare bones and built up a whole new system that borrowed rules from HeroQuest, Dragon Strike, several versions of D&D, Warhammer, Dungeon Quest and many other games, to make what I consider to be my ideal fast playing dungeon crawler RPG. This became known as MortiS Quest 2nd edition, it's still being tweaked and added to even today, but we are working on getting it into a publishable format that will be usable by other gaming groups which will consist of 3 books: The Hero's Handbook, The Game Master's Guide and The Battle Bestiary - this will all be eventually published under the name ENDUNGEONED and made available as a pay-to-download PDF (I think I deserve a little money for all this work after all). Rules for 3D dungeons will not be included in ENDUNGEONED as not everyone has a 3D dungeon and not all of them work in the same way (and besides it would make the books twice as long).
It was Fabio Martino who last eMailed with questions about MortiS Quest and finally made me decide to get on with making this post. He also included a few more general HeroQuest questions which are not answered in the above text (or anywhere else on the forum) so I'll try and answer them here:
The use of magic and how the wizard does seem underpowered/does have much to do. Do you in anywaychange how the wizard is used to give him more variety?One method I've found most effective in basic HeroQuest for re-balancing the Wizard a little is the following:
First of all, get hold of as many fan-made spell cards as you can and/or make up a few extras of your own (if you have multiple copies of HQ throw all your extra spell cards into the mix too). Allow the Wizard to pick any 6 spell cards they like, even multiples of the same spell (have the Elf pick 3). Use HeroQuest's basic 'Cast and Discard' system as normal but with the following change: Instead of casting a Spell a spell caster may choose to attempt to re-gain a 'spent' card by rolling 2D6 and attempting to get under their Mind Points, if they succeed they regain the 'spent' spell card.
The rules for the Wand of Recall of course need to be tweaked a little if you use this method - I suggest making it allow the Hero to roll 4D6 and pick the 2 lowest scores when trying to 're-gain' a spell - or alternatively giving it a set number of 'charges' (I suggest 4) it can use each game.
I also think I will start using the Fate Points after the first core game. Any advice?I've found that Fate works best in conjunction with a basic experience system like the one mentioned above (each 5 Body Points worth of Damage a Hero causes to monsters earns them 1 Fate Point). You can either start your Heroes off with no Fate to begin with and make them earn it or have them roll 2D6 to see how much they start with
If I just have me and three friends, would you have the players use only 3 character? Or do you have a way to still use all 4 characters? And if so, how? Make 1 player use 2? The dwarf id sort of geneic, so who ever plays the elf(?) also plays the dwarf?HeroQuest (and pretty much all RPGs) work best with one character each. Out of the original HeroQuest line-up you can normally afford to drop the Elf without effecting the game too much (but you should always let the player decide which Heroes they want to play). Most GMs will 'scale' an adventure if they have less or more players than the adventure was written for - this is easy enough to do, just take away a monster or 2 from any larger encounter if you have fewer players or add a few extra monsters if you have more players
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~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~