Monsterstat xml tag definition

Monsters can have customized fight values. Monster stat tags can be found in quest books, single quests and icon packs. Most of it is optional. The minimum tag you can use is this one:

<monsterstat attack="3" defend="4" move="10" body="5" mind="4" name="Monster Lych" heroscribe_symbol_id="my_icon_id"/>

There are lots of optional stats you can define; so the maximum tag is this one:

<monsterstat attack="3" at_symbol="Skull" at_number="1" at_dmg_type="" at_reroll="" at_options="" defend="4" de_symbol="Walrus" de_options="" de_reroll="" list_of_spells="" type="undead" name="Monster Lych" move="10" body="5" mind="4" specialrule = "Put your special rule text here" heroscribe_symbol_id="my_icon_id"/>

All of the values are case insensitive, except for the name, special rule and the heroscribe_symbol_id.

Attack and defense

attack and defend stats. These are mandatory. Standard is to use numbers: attack=3, defense=4. Give a number and the model will use that many white dice to roll.

You can also use some of the customized german dice, if you do so you can define them like attack="WWBGO" . Every letter stands for one die; so here you have two white, one black, one green and one orange die. Today we have these dice defined:

• G or g for green
• W or w for white
• U or u for blue (sorry :-) )
• B or b for black
• P or p for purple
• O or o for orange (the newer definition)
• Y or y for yellow

On the monster card, those colored dice will be represented by colored cubes. Standard white attack dice will be represented by a number, except if the user specifically chooses the symbol style.

Body

body="5" will assign 5 Body Points to the model. If missing, the model will have one body point.

Mind

mind="4" will assign 4 Mind Points to the model. If missing, the model will have one mind point.

Move

move="10" gives the model 10 squares movement range. If missing, the model will have 6.

Name

mandatory: Give your model a name.

heroscribe_symbol_id

mandatory: Choose a symbol to display this monster on the map.

Dice Symbols

Optional: You can define the used symbol in at_symbol and de_symbol. If nothing is given, for attack the "Skull" will be taken, for defense the "Walrus" (black shield, bunny...).

Possible values for these are: "Skull" for the skull, "white shield" or "shield" to use the shield; "black shield" or "Walrus" or "Bunny" to use the black symbol. It is case insensitive.

Attacking model options

at_number="1" decides how often a model may attack during it's turn.

at_dmg_type="" Some effects deal "fire" damage or "ice" or "poison" damage. Completely optional, not taken into account anywhere except on some game cards ("this potion heals 2 BP of damage from poison"). If you want to put a keyword here, "fire", "ice", "air", "magic" and "poison" are good choices.

at_reroll="" Some models can reroll certain results. This is not yet implemented in the questimator. if it will be implemented, it can have the values below. "a" meaning one die, "all" meaning all dice meeting the condition.

• reroll a success

• reroll a mishap

• reroll a skull

• reroll a shield

• reroll a walrus

• reroll a die

• reroll all successes

• reroll all mishaps

• reroll all skulls

• reroll all shields

• reroll all walruses

• reroll all dice

at_options="" If omitted, the model can deal a normal attack. Possible options are "diagonal", "ranged" (both implemented); "spells", "gang", "steal" are standard options which are not yet implemented in the questimator; or you can put a free text. The effects of diagonal and ranged are depending on the room geometry and the number of monsters in the room. Generally they allow more monsters to attack during each turn. All those rules will appear on the monster card.

Defending Model options

de_options="" if omitted, the model defends normally. Possible options are "Master", "Guardian", "Phalanx", "immune".

master If a single defense die shows the right symbol, all damage is negated.

guardian If two or more defense dice show the right symbol, all damage is negated.

phalanx If two or more models with this keyword are in the same room and fight on the same side and the room allows for sufficient many parallel attacks, then they each get one white defense die more. This assumes that the controlling player is intelligent enough to use this rule to the max. not yet implemented in the questimator

"immune:" and then "fire", "ice", "magic"... all the stuff you can put into at_dmg_type; separated by comma. You can also put "all" and achieve that this monster cannot be killed. As this is unfair, you can add a comma and "except:". The list that follows will be used normally. Example: immune:all, except:magic makes a model that can be hurt only by magic. not yet implemented in the questimator

de_reroll="" if the roll for defense has a reroll option, put it here. Same options as at_reroll.

other options

list_of_spells="" If the monster attacks with at_options "spells", then here is the place to put a comma separated list of spell IDs. The spells will be shown in the Monster statline; at the end of a quest book and on the monster card.

For simulation purposes, those spells will be used by the questimator in the order of their damage potential, descending. simulation not yet implemented

specialrule="" This represents a free text that you an use to describe the special rules of your monster. It will be used in the monster chart at the end of the quest book, on the monster card and directly in the quest text.

image="" An image, choosen by name from a list of images. If it does not exist, the user is asked if he wants to upload one image for his card. Displayed only on the monster card. Traditional Heroquest monster images have colorful comic style and 4:3 format.

tags="" put as many comma separated tags here as you like. This helps filtering the monster list in the editor; it also helps targeting for some ingame effects ("Undead models are immune to this spell") Tags used today are:

Green, Undead, Chaos, Demon, Human, Special, Ogre, Sorcerer, Hero, Ice, Boss, Man-at-Arms, Elf, Beast, Soldier, Dragon, Golem, Skaven, Troll, Dwarf, Base, KK, Rotlw, ATOH, WOM (or woz), BQP, DarkCompany, EQP.

Feel free to invent any tag you like - just remember that a tag that you use only once is not a great help.

'card style=""': can be EU (white frame, everything represented by text; ICTClearface as headline); US (no frame, brown card, romic as headline, Monster stats in a row of white boxes). After "EU" or "US", you can add more format styles with a semicolon as separator:

• "boxes" forces the use of stat line boxes from the US style cards
• "us_headline" forces the use of romic even on EU cards.
• "eu_headline" forces the use of ICTClearface even on US cards.
• "rules" puts the any special rules under the stat line (original cards are empty there; rules are in the quest book only)
• "die_symbols" puts the dice as little cube symbols into the stat line instead of a number. This fits nicely if the german colored dice are used here and there.
• "min_symbols" forces a heart instead of BP and a blue diamond instead of MP everywhere
• "med_symbols" forces additionally a "no wizard" symbol instead of "may not be used by the wizard"; likewise it brings "no elf", "no dwarf", "no barbarian" symbols and also the "elf only", "barbarian only", "wizard only" and "dwarf only" symbols. It also replaces any occasion of "Discard this card after use" with a symbol. This is recommended.
• "max_symbols" forces addtionally a range symbol on every card that has a range mentioned. Range symbols are self, adjacent, diagonally adjacent, extended, ranged and magic range. If it is an equipment card, it adds also two hands instead of "May not be used with a shield" and one hand on every other card. This is not recommended as it forces too much look-up by the players.