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The Dungeon Crawl Tournament Problem

Posted December 30th, 2009 at 02:49 PM by Xn F M
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Originally Posted by Xn F M View Post
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Originally Posted by Toad Rocket View Post
Jotun: You heard me! In a hero heavy game Jotuns attack and high life should be a smashing success. Also has a multi-attack. Eight attack dice should chop down a Feral troll pretty fast.
Thats 485 ponts.
I know Ullar doesn't have alot going on in the single-general dungeon crawl, but Jotun, really? I don't see that pary making it past the first room with a ranged squad in it ~50% of the time. (In a party vs party scenario you might have something though . . .hmmm . . . party vs party scenario .)
I'm sort of following up on myself here but the idea of party vs. party scenarios seems to me like it might be a decent solution to the problem of how you create a dungeon crawl style tournament. The way I see it there are a few basic issues that need to be solved to make a dungeon crawl style tournament possable:

1) One player is playing the adventuring party, and the other covers the local baddies. The party needs to pick up stuff to increase their power level, and the baddies become more numerous and belligerent as the scenarios advance. (read: both players are playing a silghtly different game)

2) Point costs do not scale equally on both sides or even from unit to unit in this type of game. In testing the dungeon crawl I've been putting together, I've been having issues with up to 350 points worth of heros getting regularly stomped by 195 points of opposing units (for example: spiders x2, mohicans x1, sonya). I don't think it's possable to create a scenario where two players both get to chose their armies with different sets of restrictions and have it ballence without prohibitively extensive playtesting.

3) Dungeon crawls are supposed to become more difficult as you go, and likewise the party is supposed to become more powerful. If this element of the archetypical dungeon crawl is kept, then the player that gets the monsters round one, will likely receive a loss. True this can be countered by playing each round both ways, but that would double the overall length of the event.

I see the party vs party scenario as a good way to address issues one and two. Both players would be playing with the same goals, and they would have the same army building restrictions. It doesn't really address issue three (though the parties can be made more powerful as you go, more on that later) but I'm not sure if that's fully solvable without playing each scenario twice.

My idea:

Have each player bring a "party" of heros to the event. After each win, a player will be given a set item glyph to use in the next round (the same would go for losses) to simulate their party leveling up.* Of course there should be some scenario-based maps involved in the event.

While this doesn't simulate a dungeon crawl in the same way that the scenarios in MS3 appears to, the party vs. party encounter is still a DnD staple.

*I'm recomending set items simply to reduce the number of ways people could cheat. Assuming you're running a swiss stlye tourney both players at a given map should be able to use the record of the player across from him to determine which items he has.

(Yes, I do realize that this isn't much any different from a "heros only" tournament but it does feel like the most elegant solution to the problem [assuming there even is one, I'm not discounting the idea the the MS3 rules will have something in them that would make coming up with something on our own unneccesary.])
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Chardris1287's Avatar
I had thought about a way a party or character could level up for the new DnD set. What if there was an experience point system? I just thought this up, so there are more likely than not going to be flaws in it. This would only apply to heros but Each hero would level up after gaining 5 experience (XP) and XP could be accumulated by killing enemy units, XP and Levels could be signified by placing colored markers, (like wounds, but not exactly wounds) onto the cards or just do it pencil and paper style. If a hero kills a common squad that could be 1 XP if he killed a unique Squad that could be 2 XP. If he killed a unique hero or common hero that could be 3 XP. Once he has accumulated 5 XP the player could then decide which stat he wants to increase. Like he could add, +1 to his max life, +1 to his attack die roll, or +1 to his defense roll. After he levels he will need to gain another 5 XP to level up again. I would consider a cut-off level at maybe level 3 or 5 depending on how long/hard the scenario will be. This way the party will get stronger and the "local baddies" can also get stronger without the party of heros being overwhelmed. I know this is a major change in how heroscape works but I think it would have a more dungeon crawl experience.
Posted December 30th, 2009 at 09:44 PM by Chardris1287 Chardris1287 is offline
Old
kolakoski's Avatar
The Dungeon Crawl experience is more a function of the map than the units. A series of linked small maps (as few as 2) for the 2 opposing sides to fight within could easily work in a tournament setting. If you must play good versus bad, you could list units or Generals as good or bad and have players bring 1 army of each alignment.
Posted February 1st, 2010 at 04:00 PM by kolakoski kolakoski is offline
 
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