Use of Hero Points in MRQ

Christopher Graves said:
Why not just use the HPs to allow bumps in success levels in a manner similar to Heroquest? Is this unbalancing in MRQ?

Personally I think it is. I did used to use that in earlier versions of RQ but that had 5 levels of success and I ruled that you couldn't bump more than one level.

If you wanted to run a really high-fantasy campaign then maybe you could use HPs to bump success levels because then you can demand critical successes to succeed against overwhelming odds and have a reasonable chance that the PCs could pull it off. It's a million-to-one shot after all.
 
Of course if a GM wants a player to succeed... do it (perhaps just announcing that the player has now one less HP—but it can be argued that it has to be the player's wish to be "heroic" too...).

After all, they are called "Hero Points". As Deleriad says, in 'high' fantasy "million-to-one shots" add to the tension and feel of the genre.

"I just need to shoot the arrow through the small eye-bolt on the tower to swing over and save the princess...".
 
Christopher Graves said:
Why not just use the HPs to allow bumps in success levels in a manner similar to Heroquest? Is this unbalancing in MRQ?

It probably is. It works in HeroQuest because the result is a combination of your roll and your opponent's roll, so bumping up a level merely increases the level of success. RuneQuest works slightly differently and many things simply depend on the result of a single roll.

It might work in Opposed Rolls, though.

I allow my players to reroll any roll, whether theirs or their opponent's by spending a Hero Point. It has saved them from many a fumble or critical.
 
In HeroQuest, one single critical roll does not end a contest. In RuneQuest it might. This option is present in BRP - but BRP has one more success level, the special success - at a cost in Magic Points, and I will use it heavily in BRP Mecha. But in that case we are speaking of 60mm gatling guns or energy weapons that can blow up a battleship, so the players must have a way to avoid the effects of a critical hit.
 
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