What Is HeroQuest?
HeroQuest is a dungeon-crawl board game for 2 to 5 players. One player is Zargon, the evil sorcerer: they read the secret quest notes, place rooms and monsters as the heroes discover them, and run every monster. Everyone else plays one of up to four heroes, working together to complete a quest and get back out alive.
The current edition is the HeroQuest Game System published by Avalon Hill (Hasbro) in 2021. Its Quest Book holds 14 quests that form a campaign: heroes keep their gold and equipment from one quest to the next. Think of Zargon as the director of a film who also plays every villain. They know the script; the heroes find it out one room at a time.
Classic edition (1989–1990): the original game was designed by Stephen Baker and made by Milton Bradley with Games Workshop. The 1989 UK/European box calls the villain Morcar; the 1990 North American box renamed him Zargon and made the monsters tougher. The 2021 game follows the North American rules, with "Chaos" renamed "Dread": the Fimir became the Abomination, the Chaos Warrior the Dread Warrior, and Chaos spells became Dread spells.
What's in the Box
The 2021 Game System contains:
- A double-sided gameboard of rooms and corridors, the Quest Book and the rulebook.
- 4 hero miniatures: Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf and Wizard.
- 31 monster miniatures: 8 Orcs, 6 Goblins, 3 Abominations, 4 Dread Warriors, 1 Dread Sorcerer, 1 Gargoyle, 4 Skeletons, 2 Zombies and 2 Mummies.
- 15 furniture pieces and 21 doors, plus tiles for traps, secret doors and blocked squares.
- 97 cards: 24 treasure, 23 equipment, 14 artifact, 12 Dread spells, 12 hero spells, 8 monster and 4 turn-order cards.
- 6 white combat dice and 2 red six-sided dice for movement.
- Zargon's screen (with the monster chart on it) and character sheets for recording each hero's progress.
Meet the Heroes
Each hero card lists four numbers. Attack and Defend are how many combat dice the hero rolls. Body Points are physical health. Mind Points are "wisdom, intelligence, and resistance to magical influence". All four heroes roll two red dice for movement.
| Hero | Attack | Defend | Body | Mind | Starts with | Spells |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barbarian | 3 | 2 | 8 | 2 | Broadsword | None |
| Dwarf | 2 | 2 | 7 | 3 | Shortsword | None; disarms traps without a tool kit |
| Elf | 2 | 2 | 6 | 4 | Shortsword | 3 (one school) |
| Wizard | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 | Dagger | 9 (three schools); can't wear most armor |
The Barbarian is the strongest fighter and the hardest to kill. The Dwarf is the trap expert. The Elf fights as well as the Dwarf and casts a few spells. The Wizard is fragile but carries most of the party's magic. Quest packs and hero packs add more heroes, from the Knight to the Explorer; see The Heroes.
Setting Up a Quest
- Zargon reads the quest first, silently. The parchment text is read aloud to the heroes; the notes and the map stay behind Zargon's screen.
- Lay out the board and put Zargon's screen between Zargon and the board.
- Each player chooses a hero and takes the miniature, hero card and a character sheet.
- Sort the cards into piles: treasure, artifacts, monsters, Dread spells, equipment, and the four hero spell schools (Air, Earth, Fire, Water). Shuffle the treasure deck.
- Choose spells. The Wizard picks one school, the Elf picks one of the remaining three, and the Wizard takes the last two. For a first game the rulebook suggests Fire for the Wizard and Earth for the Elf. See Magic & Spells.
- Place only what the heroes can see from their starting point, usually the stairway. Traps, secret doors, treasure and anything behind a closed door stay hidden until found.
The rulebook suggests seating the Barbarian on Zargon's left, then the Dwarf, the Elf and finally the Wizard on Zargon's right.
How a Round Works
The player on Zargon's left goes first, and play passes clockwise. When every hero has had a turn, Zargon takes one turn and may move and act with every monster on the board.
Your Turn: Move and Act
On your turn you do one of two things:
- Move, then take one action, or
- Take one action, then move.
You can't split your move around the action: no walking three squares, attacking, then walking the rest. Monsters follow the same rule.
To move, roll the two red dice and move up to that many squares (the average is 7). You don't have to use all of it. You can't move diagonally or through walls or monsters, but you can pass over other heroes. Monsters don't roll: each has a fixed Movement on the monster chart.
Some things are free and don't use your action: opening a door you are next to, looking around, drinking a potion and picking things up.
The Six Hero Actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Attack | Attack one monster next to you (not diagonally, unless your weapon says so). Ranged weapons and spells need line of sight. |
| Cast a spell | Elf and Wizard only (among the core heroes). Each spell can be cast once per quest. |
| Search for treasure | Rooms only, with no monster in the room. Each hero may search a given room once. Zargon reveals special treasure from the quest notes; otherwise draw a treasure card. |
| Search for secret doors | Searches the room or corridor you are in. Only allowed when no monster is in sight. |
| Search for traps | Reveals traps in your room or corridor. Also needs no monster in sight. |
| Disarm a trap | Needs a tool kit (any result but a skull on one combat die), unless you are the Dwarf, who needs no kit and fails only on a black shield. |
The treasure deck is not all good news: almost half of it is wandering monsters and hazards. Monsters, for their part, can only attack or (for certain monsters named in the quest notes) cast a Dread spell. They never search, open doors, move or attack diagonally, or spring hidden traps.
The Combat Dice
Every combat die has six faces with three symbols:
- The attacker rolls their Attack dice. Each skull is one hit. No skulls means a miss.
- The defender rolls their Defend dice. A hero blocks one hit per white shield; a monster blocks one hit per black shield. Every other face blocks nothing.
- Each unblocked hit costs the defender one Body Point.
That one difference matters a lot: a hero blocks with a third of their dice, a monster with only a sixth. Most heroes defend with 2 dice (more with armor, fewer while standing in a pit).
Example: the Barbarian (3 Attack dice) attacks an Orc that rolls 2 Defend dice. The Barbarian rolls skull, skull, white shield: 2 hits. The Orc rolls black shield, skull: one hit blocked, so the Orc loses 1 Body Point. Over many attacks, 3 dice against 2 monster dice wound at least once 75.0% of the time.
For exact odds on any attack, use the Dice Roller.
Body Points, Mind Points and Death
- Body Points drop when you take hits. At 0 your hero dies, unless you immediately drink a healing potion or cast a healing spell on yourself. Once you are dead, your friends can't bring you back during the quest.
- Mind Points measure wisdom and resistance to magic. Some Dread spells and quest effects test them.
- Between quests, heroes who completed the quest get back all their Body and Mind Points and every spell they cast, then may spend gold in the armory. A quest only counts as complete when the heroes reach the stairway (or the exit the quest names).
Classic edition (1989–1990): the classic spell cards let a hero shake off spells such as Sleep or Fear by rolling one red die per Mind Point and needing a 6. Check your 2021 cards for the current wording.
Reading the Board
- Doors all start closed. Once opened, they stay open for the rest of the quest.
- Line of sight: you can see a square if a straight line from the centre of your square to the centre of that square doesn't cross a wall, a closed door, a hero or a monster. Brushing a corner is fine.
- Traps come in four kinds: pit, falling block, spear, and chest or furniture traps. Walking onto an unfound trap springs it. A falling block seals that square for good.
- Secret doors appear only when a hero searches for them in the right room or corridor.
Try a Fight: Combat Simulator
Step through a fight between the Barbarian and a Goblin, rolling each set of dice in turn. The dice here use the real face mix: three skulls, two white shields and one black shield.
Classic edition (1989–1990): the Goblin here uses the classic monster chart (Attack 2, Defend 1, Body 1, Mind 1, Movement 10). Your 2021 monster chart on Zargon's screen is the final word on current numbers.
The exact odds behind this fight: the Barbarian kills the Goblin with a single attack 81.3% of the time, while the Goblin's 2 dice get a hit past the Barbarian's 2 white-shield dice 44.4% of the time.
Zargon and the Companion App
The printed rules always need a Zargon player: with fewer than five people, one of you still runs the dungeon. Zargon isn't trying to "win" so much as to run the quest fairly and make it tense. See Playing Zargon.
Hasbro's free HeroQuest Companion App (iOS and Android, launched November 2021) adds narration (Mentor introduces each quest, Zargon reacts), sound, and Body and Mind tracking. Its Digital Zargon mode takes over Zargon's job, so up to four players can all play heroes, or one player can run all four heroes alone. You still move the miniatures, roll the dice and handle the cards. See Playing Without Zargon.
Common Beginner Mistakes
- Splitting the move. Move then act, or act then move. Walking up, attacking and stepping back isn't allowed.
- Searching with a monster in view. All three searches need the coast to be clear, and treasure searches need an empty room.
- Hoarding spells. Spells come back after every completed quest, so a spell saved "for later" that never gets cast is wasted.
- Leaving the Wizard in front. With 4 Body Points and 2 Defend dice, the Wizard can't trade blows. Let the Barbarian and Dwarf take the doorways.
- Forgetting the walk home. The quest isn't complete until the heroes get back to the stairway.
Where Next
- Combat & Tactics: exact odds, monster matchups and positioning.
- Magic & Spells: the four schools and the spell draft.
- The Core Quest Book: the 14 quests in order.
- Dice Roller: roll combat and movement dice with exact odds.