Hello all!

As a long-time 1st Ed. player (always a Hero, btw) we adopted a couple of house rules to add to our personal enjoyment of the great game.

We typically played 1OL vs 4Heroes (sometimes 3…) and at least 3 of us players were the same, the OL and 2 of us Heroes.

We loved the exploration aspect of the map, so we would allow the OL to "reveal" the map as we opened doors and discovered new areas. This gave him a little advantage, but we didn't mind. The fog of war was fun and thematic to us.

Our small balance attempt for this was that we, the Heroes, got to draw 3 from the huge pile and pick our favorite amongst the 3, forming the team.

I think I'll miss that…and the fact that you were "forced" to use someone you may not have been totally comfortable with…or knew how to exploit

So, once the Conversion Kit is in my hot, chunky hands, I think we'll stick to that method.

Every Hero draws 3 and chooses their favorite. Otherwise…certain Heroes may never get used!

I totally understand where you're coming from with the "Some characters may never get used." I reference 1st Edition Brother Glyr. Nobody wanted to use him as a tank cause of his 8 hps but after going through the old 1st edition character generator I realized how amazing his starting 3 defense was. Coupled with starting chainmail for a total of 5 def at all times, the little dude was unstoppable only to traps (how he actually died the 1st time, lol). I was also lucky to draw that one melee skill that allowed for +1 def when you called a battle action… I'm getting away with myself here.

There are tons of characters that sadly never saw the light or dark of the dungeon in my group cause everyone always defaulted to the "power houses" of the game like Mad Carthos or Nanok of the Blade (my friend loved playing him and she would never use anyone else). When I got a chance to play a hero (Always an OL, never a hero, lol) I would switch it up and see how other characters did in the dungeons.

This is exactly the same thing we always did with D1e, and will do with D2e. 4 piles of 3 random heroes, and you must pick one for each pile. It helped not only to potentially select heroes never used, but also generated some interesting combinations.

Love it! It does make for great, unsuspecting combinations!

You may want to make a small addendum to the 'pick three, choose 1' rule with the new Classes. As each Party can only have one of each 'class', I might recommend something like the following:

A: Draw 3, pick 1. If there are more than 2 Heroes and the initial Draw does not allow a possible combination (all Warriors), then one player may re-draw.

B (my preference): Sort each Hero into four piles based on Archetypes. Each player chooses one Archetype and draws 3, keeping 1.

Whilst I did the same thing in 1e, I wouldn't necessarily do the same in 2e. Class has much more impact and this can be long lasting in 2e. As such, I would either allow people to just choose the class they wanted or allow players to choose archetype and have one of the two classes assigned randomly.

Yeah, you guys make a good point…

I think separating them into Archetype piles might work out best for us…

Therefore, the only thing you can choose is which type you will be. The character will still be a sweet surprise

Kalidor said:

I plan to do it slightly less random than that when I get my kit. Basically each player picks an archtype and is dealt 3 of the heroes of that archtype to pick from.

Apparently other people said the same thing!

We did the draw 3 pick one thing in D1e, also, and I suspect we'll do the devide into archetype then get 3, as well.

The one thing we also would do, me being the kind and understanding Overlord I am, would be that a player could mulligan their draw and get 3 different heroes to pick from…but only if everyone had to redraw, too. This was always fun to watch as one player would either be stuck with a character they didn't want because somone els refused to give up Nanok; or one or two players would grumble over their lost characters to help the one player who didn't want their's. You know, because I'm a kind and understanding Overlord.

Karui_Kage said:

That's a good point. I was definitely planning to continue using the draw 3 pick 1 method in 2e, but I hadn't considered the need to properly distribute archetypes. I like plan B as well, and will likely use that. Cheers!

While initially I will most likely follow suit (splitting up heroes based on archtype) and then draw 3 choose 1, I think it would be fun to go completely random. Once I have played the game, understand its nuances, etc., I think it would be interesting to try and attempt a campaign with a totally f**ked up party. Imagine having to play, due to a bad draw, 3 warriors and 1 healer, or all mages, or whatever …

I think it could actually be very instructive, and teach you how to compensate for shortcomings in your team. Further, I think it will result in coming up with some creative strategies that you might not otherwise think of.

Since basically any hero can wield any weapon (granted they may not be able to make full use of it), it may also result in different approaches to the game.

When I get around to this, I will let you all know the results. Should be fun.

any2cards said:

How will you deal with this problem: "Ok, I'm a Mage, I'll choose..the Necromancer." "Sounds good, I'll take the Runemaster." "In that case, I'll play…f*ck."

I think if you plan on more than 4 players you do the same character selection as is done in Battlestar Galactica. Once an archtype is chosen, it cannot be chosen until all archtypes have been chosen once. It makes sure an even distribution of the archtypes.