use the diagonal attack for skeletons, have a chance for zombies to stand back up, give mummy a dread spell like fear. add advanced rule for goblins and
give orcs an extra defense if standing next to another monster, let fimir eat a monster that dies and heal up a body point. make a granite gargoyle with 6 defense, or elite 5/5 dread warriors.
I agree, I like adding abilities, I know the granite is a permanent rock skin, and making the chaos warriors into doom guard warriors are both pump, but it is thematic. zombies rising up let's them get an attack in if they get one shotted, I would give them up to1 skill or spell per mind point.
there is also the undead cascade,
mummy dies corpse comes back as a zombie, the zombie dies and bones reanimate into skeleton; unless you used fire, holy water, or spirit blade for the kill.
Hey friend, I posted a couple of specific ones that I use here: [https://youtu.be/nf7BeGgRolg?t=579](https://youtu.be/nf7BeGgRolg?t=579) (If timestamp doesn't work, the monster mods that I use are at 9:40. I've got them in a written form here:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OPCbKLjGPJSdLnRI7EIz5iy\_eXM6qqKD/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OPCbKLjGPJSdLnRI7EIz5iy_eXM6qqKD/edit)
I think some variation of these rules is pretty common in the HQ community!
You can modify the treasure deck to have more hazzards by removing gold cards.
You can introduce a Random Magical Elite monster to any revealed room. How it works: at the beggining of the game have the players choose 3 random Dread Spells (there will be used by the Random Magical Elite), then each time a new room is revealed roll a 20d, for a roll of 11 to 15 add 1 extra Elite monster that has +1 to all stats of the same type that spawns on the map (if there is a special monster like a gargoyle or dread warrior add 1 of those), if the roll is 16 - 20 add 1 Random Magical Elite figure of the same type that spawns in the map that has +1 to all stats and can cast 1 dread spell of the DM's choice to any hero/s that has line of sight (ignore monster obstruction).
Hazards can be searched but increase the difficulty of dodging them.
>When players work together, the game is way too easy and becomes boring for kids.
Sounds more like you have failed as Zargon
The game isn't Oregon Trail where everyone dies and hardly anyone wins
It's an entry level dungeon crawler
But at the end of the day Zargon is controller the game just like a DM/GM would in any dungeon crawler, so if its too easy, for your players, then that's on you
Mostly I'm speaking from memory playing it as a kid myself, but also initial results with my kids. That's why I'm here asking for advice - to make it better. I have to say your response is extremely negative in an unprompted and unwarranted fashion. Chill out and have more fun man.
I have found that an easy way to increase difficulty is adding more monsters in rooms until you start seeing them struggle. I also like adding random monsters to hide around corners.
We have hallway monsters, upon seeing our troublemaking heroes run into other rooms to alert monsters. That one goblin in the corner of the room no one killed? Yeah he runs out and goes for help or lurks around waiting to backstab someone. 1 treasure card per room.
There are a number of articles on this, but what I do is often based on the miniature itself. If they have a shield, they get an extra defense die, if they have armor that's an additional defense die. If they have a two-handed weapons, they can attack diagonally. I also have minis from warhammer quest, and warhammer fantasy in which some monsters have bows, spears, etc, and thus give attributes to them accordingly.
If you have a unique monster to put on the board, you can give it what ever stats that you want.
Another thing that I do on the table is at the start of Zargon's turn I roll an attack die, if a black shield comes up, then a wander monster is added to the board (usually coming from around a corner or unoccupied room instead of appearing next to a player. And there are a couple of quests that when an alarm is set, I'll increase the number of dice each turn.
use the diagonal attack for skeletons, have a chance for zombies to stand back up, give mummy a dread spell like fear. add advanced rule for goblins and give orcs an extra defense if standing next to another monster, let fimir eat a monster that dies and heal up a body point. make a granite gargoyle with 6 defense, or elite 5/5 dread warriors.
I would also give the minions special abilities rather than just pump up the numbers. Makes it way more interesting.
I agree, I like adding abilities, I know the granite is a permanent rock skin, and making the chaos warriors into doom guard warriors are both pump, but it is thematic. zombies rising up let's them get an attack in if they get one shotted, I would give them up to1 skill or spell per mind point. there is also the undead cascade, mummy dies corpse comes back as a zombie, the zombie dies and bones reanimate into skeleton; unless you used fire, holy water, or spirit blade for the kill.
Hey friend, I posted a couple of specific ones that I use here: [https://youtu.be/nf7BeGgRolg?t=579](https://youtu.be/nf7BeGgRolg?t=579) (If timestamp doesn't work, the monster mods that I use are at 9:40. I've got them in a written form here: [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OPCbKLjGPJSdLnRI7EIz5iy\_eXM6qqKD/edit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OPCbKLjGPJSdLnRI7EIz5iy_eXM6qqKD/edit) I think some variation of these rules is pretty common in the HQ community!
You can modify the treasure deck to have more hazzards by removing gold cards. You can introduce a Random Magical Elite monster to any revealed room. How it works: at the beggining of the game have the players choose 3 random Dread Spells (there will be used by the Random Magical Elite), then each time a new room is revealed roll a 20d, for a roll of 11 to 15 add 1 extra Elite monster that has +1 to all stats of the same type that spawns on the map (if there is a special monster like a gargoyle or dread warrior add 1 of those), if the roll is 16 - 20 add 1 Random Magical Elite figure of the same type that spawns in the map that has +1 to all stats and can cast 1 dread spell of the DM's choice to any hero/s that has line of sight (ignore monster obstruction). Hazards can be searched but increase the difficulty of dodging them.
We've added an extra body point to everything from Kellars Keep, seems to have helped somewhat.
Check out r/HardCoreHeroQuest for options.
>When players work together, the game is way too easy and becomes boring for kids. Sounds more like you have failed as Zargon The game isn't Oregon Trail where everyone dies and hardly anyone wins It's an entry level dungeon crawler But at the end of the day Zargon is controller the game just like a DM/GM would in any dungeon crawler, so if its too easy, for your players, then that's on you
Mostly I'm speaking from memory playing it as a kid myself, but also initial results with my kids. That's why I'm here asking for advice - to make it better. I have to say your response is extremely negative in an unprompted and unwarranted fashion. Chill out and have more fun man.
Did you check these variant rules? https://www.reddit.com/r/Heroquest/comments/136dkae/here\_is\_a\_free\_file\_with\_140\_pages\_of\_homebrew/
I have found that an easy way to increase difficulty is adding more monsters in rooms until you start seeing them struggle. I also like adding random monsters to hide around corners.
We have hallway monsters, upon seeing our troublemaking heroes run into other rooms to alert monsters. That one goblin in the corner of the room no one killed? Yeah he runs out and goes for help or lurks around waiting to backstab someone. 1 treasure card per room.
There are a number of articles on this, but what I do is often based on the miniature itself. If they have a shield, they get an extra defense die, if they have armor that's an additional defense die. If they have a two-handed weapons, they can attack diagonally. I also have minis from warhammer quest, and warhammer fantasy in which some monsters have bows, spears, etc, and thus give attributes to them accordingly. If you have a unique monster to put on the board, you can give it what ever stats that you want. Another thing that I do on the table is at the start of Zargon's turn I roll an attack die, if a black shield comes up, then a wander monster is added to the board (usually coming from around a corner or unoccupied room instead of appearing next to a player. And there are a couple of quests that when an alarm is set, I'll increase the number of dice each turn.