N18 AHQ as Necromunda Dungeon Crawl (dreamy madness on my part?)

SquadRaphael

New Member
Apr 3, 2019
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I had a strange idea last night: has anyone thought of adapting Advanced Heroquest rules for Necromunda dungeon crawls?? Hear me out!

In Necromunda, there's a whole lot of exploration of ruined Hive stuff, and it seems like not a stretch to say that a Warband might pick up a guilder assignment to go find something or other deep in the confusing labyrinth of crushed hive somewhere. Since AHQ offers random dungeon generation tools, stipulates mapping, and has you generate your own monster tables, it seems well suited to this sort of adventure.

Quest rooms = obtain archeotech for the guilder Traps seem to fit very well There are mechanics for hirelings across both games Verticality is a natural fit One could easily have a tunnel system lead to another dome or fully built table.

The trickiest thing seems to me to be monster tables.

Monsters we know would work:
Spiders
Zombies
Mutants
Ripperjacks / rats / leechy-looking things
Chaos demons (Plaguebearers, Daemonettes, Bloodthirsters)
Purestrain stealers (RUN AWAY!!)

Potential crossover baddies:
Genestealer cultists
Other outlaw gangers (Redemptionists, Ratskins, Spyrers, Arbites)

Am I forgetting about a Necromunda bestiary somewhere? Links appreciated. What do you guys think?
 
Had some insomnia this morning, started drafting rules!


Challenges:
Compatibility with Necromunda (1995) campaign // crossing over without imbalancing play
--Too much experience or credits playing Hivequest
--Not lethal enough
--Not converting stats


Questing party:
At least ½ of your gang must stay behind to guard your territory, and at least ½ of the party guarding the territory must be experienced gangers. The higher the rating of the gangers that go on your quest, the higher the rating of enemies they will encounter.

Quest level (QL):
Round to nearest 100 of the gang rating for the models in the questing party
Example: Leader, heavy, 2 gangers with a combined rating of 670 would be QL 7

Tasks:

Bestiary
Pull from ORB
Use QL as guide
Normal monsters ¼ ~½ QL
Quest monsters closer to 1:1 QL
Roll D12 on killing monster:
1 - no credits
2 - 5 credits
3 10 credits or ¼ PV, whichever is lower
4 - ½ PV or 40 credits, whichever is lower
5 - ¾ PV or 60 credits, whichever is lower
6 - Full PV or 100 credits, whichever is lower

+5 exp/wound

Rival gangs:
Underhive scum
Roll up a questing gang of your choice. For their point value, Roll a D6: 1 - QL + 1, 3-5 equal QL, 6 - QL -1

Rival gangs opposed leadership test, if both under L value by 2+, both gangs can agree to fight another day

Monster tables
Organize by QL
Organize by theme

Exploration tables
Passage lengths/room lengths/room types 1:1 with AHQ
Dungeon counters 1:1 with AHQ

Traps:
Redo based on Necromunda ORB

Stat conversions
 
How is this going for you? Saw the thread was similar to my own idea, although I have been using new edition rather than 95ed.

I opted for using a party of 4 (1 leader and 3 champs, link at bottom) but now quite like the idea of just using a cut down gang eg crew selection of 3+d3 for the scenario vs approx double points of gribbles stretched through dungeon.

My big issue is still the loot/encounter table or comparable method of somewhat recreating the treasure cards you could pull at end of fights in heroquest?

The other bit I have been musing over is amounts of loot carriable eg possibly 5 slots available with heavy taking 3 basic or 2h cc taking 2 slots and pistols and 1h cc as 1 slot needed to carry,with amounts of wargear at discretion during game. Also any weapons looted and then wanted to be used having scarce applied to them until end of quest as such.

Are you prewriting the quests or rolling as you play for corridors etc?
 
I would do another approach. Make a hybrid of Necromunda background material & Doom (Boardgame, 2004) gameplay.

Why Doom 2004? The rooms and corridors are present in abundance which can create large dungeons. Furthermore it's rules confer a run & gun gameplay though it leans heavily on resource management as your ammo might run out or your weapons might break.
For even more fast paced action take the Doom (2016) rules however it's board is too small for a dungeon crawl.


Now to the characters. I would suggest not to take a single Necromunda gang and choose every character from them. That's boring. Rather create character archetypes like from the Borderlands video game. Here just a quick example:

Brute (Goliath)
Most hit points (HP) , deals a lot of damage in close combat and in short, ranged shooting.

Scrounger/Junk Rat (Cawdor)
2nd most HP, expert in avoiding natural hazards (falling into pits, fungus patches, etc.) and mechanic traps.
Access to weapons which deal average damage.

Sniper (Delaque)
3rd highest HP, difficult to hit from afar, deals massive damage from a distance.

Support/Medic/Tech Savant (Van Saar)
Worst HP, med-kit, repair tools, ability to hack terminals and robots.
Access to worst weapons.


However, those archetypes are not set in stone. If you are a fan of the Xena series from the 90s like me, you may want to exchange the BRUTE with a BLADEDANCER/AMAZON (or whatever) and use an Escher model to be your frontline character.


Let's talk about the loot. I would suggest to take a poker deck and write down in a table what each card represents (loot, wandering monsters, traps, etc.).


Last but not least I need to mention the gameplay again. This is the most important aspect. You don't play Necromunda here but a dungeon crawl. So you have to throw the Necromunda rules out of the window because every model is way to squishy with those rules.
Better is everything which emulates a fun run & gun experience which makes it possible to mow down dozens and dozens of enemies like in the Borderlands video game. Hence the suggestion to use the Doom rules which include the RESPAWN rule which kicks into action when your characters bite the dust (would mirror the 2nd wind rule of Borderlands).

That's all for now.