Hi guys, been molding this variant with my play group for some time. We found it fun, but the OL will need a pen and paper to track the progress of the individual players, and constantly update them of their EXP accumulated so far. Unlike the advanced campaigns, leveling up here is much simpler and benefits players more directly.
I just wanted to share it with everyone here, for those poor sobs like myself who only have the original set (expansions out of stock in my area) but still wish to see more player progression instead of just getting better weapons and armour. Do note that this only works best if you are playing the original set. (or perhaps an expansion or two, but certainly not the advanced campaigns like RtL and SoB)
Here is the link: www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/56232/vanilla-set-extra-fun-variant
P.S: If your play group wishes to use this variant, please note that it should be used as a whole instead of selecting individual features. This is because some features benefit players and some benefit the OL. It balances out fairly much overall, but not if you guys choose to use only certain features.
Example: Players benefit greatly from leveling up, but the OL gets to do extra things without using OL cards like slamming shut doors as well as earn threats from hero kills. The players also have to start with only 275 gold (if 4 heroes) as they need to pool 100 gold at the start to buy the dungeon map from town, and also the hassle of torches which can easily blow out etc.