HS Dungeon Crawls - PC Ideas?

[Dragonranger]

I was reading the map thread and looking at the maps, and re-reading the SotM mini-campaign (which essentially is a dungeon crawl with 1 player as all the heroes and 1 player as all the enemies.) and was thinking about some possible crawls to run at Dreamation and Dexcon. So far I'm thinking you grab 5-6 Unique Heroes that total around the 700 point range (660 is the total party from SotM) and grab an equal amount of enemies - squads and heroes.

Going on that, I'm thinking just about every Unique humanoid Hero would make an excellent "Player Character" for a dungeon crawl scenario. The only things I count out are the following:
~All the Flag Bearers
~Jotun
~Brunak
~Krug
~Gurei-Oni
~Both Utgar Kyrie
~Khosumet

Just want to see if anyone else has given thought to this, as far as "building a balanced Party" as opposed to building them as a "balanced army."

[Cavalier]

I do not think that the play style of scape will be changing all that much. I also don't really get your distiction between 'party' and 'army' nor why you exclude any figures at all.

[Dragonranger]

Basically I'm looking at running a new variation of Heroscape at my local gaming con - something more akin to an RPG (which I have the feeling will be abit of what will play out in D&Dscape.) So I'm looking back at all the old stuff, and thinking "If I ran this like a Dungeon Delve (a one-shot RPG-style dungeon crawl of players VS the DM) what sort of group would I put together." The idea here being each Hero is played by a different person, and treating the character cards more like your character sheet.

[White Noise]

It's certainly an interesting idea. For this you'd probably want to use heroes that can function well on their own without having to rely on the player having other figures (because the player doesn't). Here are some suggestions:

Sonlen
SGT. Drake (either one)
Kaemon Awa
Agent Carr
Migol Ironwill
Crixus
Retarius
Sir Dendrick
Major X17
Kumiko
Shiori
Moriko
Syvarris
Morsbane
Brave Arrow
Cyprien
Me-Burq-Sa
Alistair
Major Q9
Major Q10

Pick five or six out of this group and you're set! I tried to pick heroes that are representative of different general's armies and different genres. I am aware that a few of these work better with other units around (i.e. Bonding), but these should all function fairly well alone. I was considering adding Kee-Mo-Shi and Ne-Gok-Sa but Mindshackle may cause issues, so I left them out. Feel free to pick and choose from what you like.

You may want to consider getting a greater number of points for enemy figures. Keep in mind that each hero will be taking a turn seperately, so unless each enemy hero or squad will be doing the same, you'll want to compensate for that. You may also want to consider allowing characters to pick up glyphs and carry them around like equipment.

[chas]

This is a fine idea, which will really catch fire when the new Master Set is out. Here's a thought, which you may want to look at down the road. Back in the original D&D days, we often expanded a party by giving each PC some followers/minions, which could be easily translated as giving each a squad as well. In HS terms, this would allow some bonding too.

[kolakoski]

Well met!

Without changing any rules, you could do a Classic Hero Crawl. The traditional D&D roles can be approximated.

Wizards: Elf wizards, Sonlen, Kee-Mo-Shi, Iskra, Ne-Gok-Sa, Runa, Sudema, Tul-Bak-Ra
Paladins: All the "Sirs"
Thieves: Ninjas
Clerics: Kelda, Raelin, Kiova, Sonlen?
Warriors: Too many to list
Archers: Syvarris, Kaemon

David

[Agent Minivann]

Originally Posted by Dragonranger

Basically I'm looking at running a new variation of Heroscape at my local gaming con - something more akin to an RPG (which I have the feeling will be abit of what will play out in D&Dscape.) So I'm looking back at all the old stuff, and thinking "If I ran this like a Dungeon Delve (a one-shot RPG-style dungeon crawl of players VS the DM) what sort of group would I put together." The idea here being each Hero is played by a different person, and treating the character cards more like your character sheet.

[voice="Inigo Montoya"]I don't think D&D Heroscape means what you think it means.[/voice]

Sure there might be some SotM style "campaign" scenarios in the new master set, but I don't think this is an indication of a paradigm shift in game play.

[obfuscatedhippo]

Dungeon Crawl would be interesting, though a very different experience than a normal Heroscape game.

You might want to have some D&D themed Special Powers:

Rogues (Ninjas/Tricky figures) - those figures with Phantom Walk/Ghost Walk that aren't undead

Maybe when Rogues are within 3 clear spaces of a glyph they can reveal the glyph without activation. This way, you can have Pit Traps, Massive Curses, etc.

Clerics - not sure who really falls into this except Kelda, but if you go very 'hero' passed, and you expect to get far into a dungeon - you'll need to recover Life. If you are setting a point limit for creating your adventuring party, maybe the player can spend 5 or 10 pts for a 'healing token' that can be held by the designated 'cleric.' Healing tokens are once of those After Moving but Before attacking, chose an adjacent hero abilities.

Fighters and Wizards are pretty much already there.

My other idea might be to incorporate a Common Squad, or at least 1-2 figures from a Common Squad. This way Wizards could have a familiar, and Fighters could have a follower or squire. Let a fighter type have a 1 figure worth of a Common Squad and give that squad figure bonding to the specific hero.

Example: Finn brings along one Tarn Viking for an extra 10 points. Finn gains 'Bonding' with that Tarn, so before taking a turn with Finn, you can move/attack with the Viking.

You could do the same thing with a Wizard's familiar and have a Wolf of Badru for 25 points walking along with the Wizard.

Just brainstorming.

--
You are of course, missing out on some of the awesome historicial/modern/futuristic figures when you go DnDscape, which is disappointing.

Peace,
*Kai

[Cavalier]

Originally Posted by obfuscatedhippo

You are of course, missing out on some of the awesome historicial/modern/futuristic figures when you go DnDscape, which is disappointing.

Peace,
*Kai

Nope, since D&DScape takes place in Valhalla, the charactes are still being summoned byt he Valkyrie. So my Drow can join up with my Romans and my Dwarves can team up with my Soulborgs. And in my house, my little black dragon can even team up with Spider-Man.

[Just_a_Bill]

You'll pretty much have to throw out the order markers altogether, and thus you'll want to exclude the figures that reference order markers. Possibly also exclude (or at least meticulously analyze) those that reference turns or rounds due to how the "every unit moves" paradigm changes the game's timing engine.

For me, that means you're no longer playing Heroscape, but rather some kind of homebrew dungeon crawl using HS figures and terrain. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; it might be fun and I might even try it myself. I just wouldn't call it Scape.

[BurnyFlame]

Dragonranger, don't exclude Khosumet, and make players start with any hero under 110 points. I have played a few variations similar to what you are suggesting, and have to say they are really fun! Also, from what I've experienced, really young players also may prefer this style, where party survival is more important than flat-out opponent army annihilation.

[IAmBatman]

One thing I think could be cool about a true Dungeon Crawl with Heroscape figures is taking low point heroes and then, as they gain "experience" allowing upgrades to higher point heroes along the same thematic lines.

Some examples of this:

Cleric: Kyntella Gwyn 20 - RotV Raelin/Kelda 80 - SotM Raelin 120

Rogue: Isam/Otonashi 10 - Shiori 60 - Kumiko 80 - Agent Carr 100 - Moriko 110

Soldier: one member of the Airborne Elite - RotV Sgt. Drake 110 - SotM Sgt. Drake 170 - Captain America 220

You get the point, and if you include Marvel figures in the mix, you can really allow for some pretty big time leveling up (which will equal more difficult enemies and enemies in greater numbers, of course!). For heroes without logical weaker starting points, you can also allow new "recruits" along the way.
I like the idea of adding "familiars" as well.

I think it'd also be fun to allow the heroes to turn gold earned on their quests into "equipment" purchases between missions, that would be represented by glyphs placed directly on their cards and giving them permanent bonuses (these would have to be priced fairly high). They couldn't be swapped between heroes, and there would be a limited number available for purchase - not to mention that when the heroes died, they'd lose any equipment they gained.