NA 2nd Edition errata suggestions

[j_dean80]

I believe NA and EU rules agree when it comes to monster placement.

[Oftkilted]

I believe NA and EU rules agree when it comes to monster placement.

The EU and NA rules actually didn’t agree on when monsters were placed.

EU: 1st Edition p.12
‘As soon as a door is opened, the evil Wizard player must place any pieces shown for that room or passage on the map in the Quest book (apart from traps and secret doors).’

The wording is basically the same for EU 2nd edition, though it is on p.8 and 9 under “Opening Doors”

NA: How Zargon Reacts to Movement p.13
‘When a hero “looks” down a corridor, place on the game board any closed doors, blocked square tiles, and monsters that are directly within the Hero’s line of sight. (See page 15 “SEE” for clear line of sight.) When a hero opens a door, place on the gameboard the monsters, treasure chests, and any other items that belong in the room.’

NA: “SEE” p.15
‘[...] Heroes and monsters are only visible if an unobstructed straight line can be traced from the spellcaster to the target.’

The oddity is that when “looking” only what is directly in your line of sight is revealed. However when looking into a room from the door, the entire room is placed, even if the visibility line would cross the wall from the center of the heroes square to the center of the monsters square.

[Kurgan]

I feel like I never understood the "look through the door" thing in the NA edition. I can understand using it to target someone through the doorway with a crossbow, throwing dagger or spell. But when you open the door, you're forced to step through (in which case Zargon places everything in the room that doesn't require a search), right? But if you're NOT forced to step inside (door can open without you going in) then it would make sense to say you can "look through" and only see what happens to be in your line of sight. So you may see some of the things, and decide if you still want to go in there, and possibly start blasting away at SOME of the monsters that are confirmed to be in there.

As far as looking down a corridor and there are three orcs in a line, I always placed them that way. I wouldn't just place the first one, and wait until he got killed then place the next one, etc. I wouldn't allow you to shoot the orc behind the one in front of you, though. Just treating the corridor the same way as the room... once you move into it, everything gets revealed (that doesn't require a search). Right? I guess if that needs to be spelled out, go for it. But give us a reason why "looking through just the doorway" makes any sort of sense. "looking" would be automatic based on what your figure is doing in most cases, you're not having your guy walk around with a blindfold on just so he doesn't "reveal" anything dangerous!

The "line of monsters in a corridor" thing really doesn't confer any special advantages on Zargon, because its not like the monsters can shoot through one another to hit the Heroes. I guess in a few situations it might make a slight difference, but under more restrictive interpretation where you only see the closest monster, if that monster were to move forward and step one square to the side, it should reveal the next one, and then that guy gets to move, etc. so it would seem Zargon could "work around" that rule, if it were imposed upon him. In fact, it's easier than that, just have the "closest orc" move a couple of squares away from the Heroes and boom, his partner(s) are revealed and can be moved. If you can see one, you can see them all, even if you can't HIT them all.

Many rule clarifications appeared in later quest packs. If I had to make a list it would be this:

0) "No Traps" in "The Trial" doesn't mean no "Hazard" cards from searching for treasure. Or should Zargon actually remove these cards from the deck for this quest only?
1) Selling stuff back to the Armory at half price. Of course we can.
2) Passing potions and other items between Heroes (adjacent, not adjacent to monster).
3) Swapping between Shield and a weapon that can't be combined with a shield.
4) Selling unused potions to the Alchemist Shop between quests (obviously would only apply to potions with prices, ie: the ones from KK/ROTWL).
5) Thrown weapons other than dagger being lost when thrown (and can't be recovered?).
6) searching for secret doors while in a Pit (why?).
7) Searching for Treasure in corridors/passages (you can't do it, but why not?)
8) Shooting projectiles over tables, chests, and the Dwarf's head (taller monster over a goblin's head?).
9) What exactly can a "Commanded" Hero do? Card makes it sound like he can just attack. What about spells, potions? Can he cast "Pass through rock" and trap himself in a wall or leap into a pit? Does killing him "break the spell"?
10) When you open a door, do you HAVE to step inside?
11) Can you "backtrack" on the same turn?
12) Searching for Secret Doors in a room when Monster(s) in the room but not in LOS (infamous Hero screen to block monsters while you search)?
13) Should the Treasure deck be shuffled each and every time someone draws a card, or just at the beginning of each quest and when you draw a "bad" card? Must you draw the top card?
14) If you have a corridor and there is an open pit trap somewhere in the middle of it, does this restrict you searching the ENTIRE corridor? What about if you're inside the pit? This situation may only come up in later quest packs, but I'm curious what they would say.

A lot of rule clarifications could be made about Mercenaries, but there really aren't any in these sets. Still, I could ask:

15) What can NPCs (Sir Ragnar, etc) do? More specifically, what happens if you use a healing spell on them? Can you pass them a potion? Give them a piece of Equipment to use?

A few clarifications about Ogres would be nice, but since there are no Ogres in the remake and no word of any attempt to remake this quest pack, I guess those can wait...

Of course they can make any decision they like with any or no rationalization for it. I don't know if Stephen Baker had any say in the NA rules, but it would be interesting to know if he remembers what they "intended" back in the day.

Edit: I should say, there are many unknowns about the new quest books in the Remake. We know there are new Artifacts, and the new Heroes may feature in the storyline. But beyond that, we don't know, and could reasonably assume there won't be any new rule situations, but there could be if the map design varies much from what has been established.

[Oftkilted]

No treasure in corridors ... the reason? Likely because there are four searches possible in each “location” (in a standard sized party.) And there are only ~8 good results from the deck. Once they’re gone ... there’s no reason to search for treasure. (Unlike the original EU deck that returned all treasure cards to the deck, and returned positions after they were used.)

In a “never ending deck” the money gathered by searching all corridors and all rooms when returning everything would get rather crazy.

[Kurgan]

Can you search the "starting room" (stairs entrance) for Treasure like all the others?

No treasure in corridors ... the reason? Likely because there are four searches possible in each “location” (in a standard sized party.) And there are only ~8 good results from the deck. Once they’re gone ... there’s no reason to search for treasure. (Unlike the original EU deck that returned all treasure cards to the deck, and returned positions after they were used.)

In a “never ending deck” the money gathered by searching all corridors and all rooms when returning everything would get rather crazy.

I honestly forgot about the "one search for each of four heroes in EVERY room" thing. I always played it wrong and either allowed unlimited Treasure searches or just 1 per room.
I agree that "unlimited cards + unlimited searches" would get nuts.

Your comments seem reasonable, I'm going to think about this a bit more, though...

There are actually 14 good results from the NA Treasure deck. 2x Gem!, 2x Gold! (15 pieces), 2x Gold! (25 pieces), Heroic Brew, 2x Jewels!, Potion of Defense, 3x Potion of Healing, Potion of Strength... and the rest (4 hazards, 6 wandering monsters) are bad, and only the bad get recycled in. You're absolutely right that the "good" cards don't get returned to the deck until the next quest, even if you use up a potion you found.

I'm also taking that Q&A literally when they were treating Holy Water and Potion of Speed as "Equipment" rather than Treasure (a decision I disagree with, but whatever), but even so, that would be 2 more possible "good" results, at best. We know the makeup of the EU treasure deck is different, and they oddly chose to put the "4 body point" Healing Potion as an example, rather than the NA style one.

Not every quest is going to have every possible room. But you could say at most you've got 14 good searches. If you find a quest treasure (using the NA definition of "quest treasure" here to mean whatever is in the quest notes), that takes the place of a card draw. But you could search the same room later to get a card, and it could be a wandering monster.

I guess unless you're getting a gold bounty for killing wandering monsters, there's no benefit to trying to keep searching after all the "good" ones are gone.

I got curious, so I checked...

It's easy to see that you would tend to exhaust the searches with the number of rooms and four heroes (dead ones, or those who exited the quest early can't search!). Should we count the "starting room" of each as a searchable treasure room? If not, subtract one. Some quest treasures are tricks, you just find that the chest is empty or the weapons are broken or the chest only has a trap in it. Meaning you could search it again and get a card, even if you got nada the first time.

If there's a quest treasure in a room (even if it's an empty chest, etc) that uses up one of the four searches, but not a card, leaving a good card for a future search while supplies last. Once in awhile, at least in the included expansions, you will find a "room" that is actually a corridor (but blocked off with stones to make it into a room) and thus treated as one.

Quest 1 - The Trial has 11 rooms (4 quest treasures)
Quest 2 - 10 rooms (2 quest treasures)
Quest 3 - 9 rooms (2 quest treasures)
Quest 4 - 10 rooms (1 quest treasure)
Quest 5 - 10 rooms (4 quest treasures)
Quest 6 - 8 rooms (1 quest treasure and 1 room explicitly can NOT be searched)
Quest 7 - 10 rooms (3 quest treasures)
Quest 8 - 12 rooms (1 quest treasure)
Quest 9 - 13 rooms (2 quest treasures)
Quest 10 - 10 rooms (1 quest treasure)
Quest 11 - 13 rooms (1 quest treasure) - bounties from wandering monsters!
Quest 12 - 10 rooms (1 quest treasure)
Quest 13 - 9 rooms (2 quest treasures)
Quest 14 -10 rooms

So you're right, you can empty the deck (in the GS) every time without searching corridors. Every Treasure search after the quest treasure has been found, isn't a guaranteed good card, and if you're shuffling every single search, you may never get all the good cards, though.

Now when we move into the (included in the remake) expansions, KK Quest 5 has only 3 rooms (1 quest treasure). So you can only get 11 of the "good" cards this way, assuming you didn't "waste" a search on a bad card. I'm not saying you have empty the deck every time, of course. The same quest has six corridors. This would appear to be the exception, and we can't speak for any unknown quests in the two new "books." If they follow the trend, they will probably have an average of 10 rooms, with 1-3 quest treasures and no real issues there.

[Kurgan]

There is one actual map error in the NA version of a quest, detailed in this thread.

Which reminds me, what's the intention behind a room with an "Empty" (or unmarked, and thus assumed to be "Empty") Treasure Chest? I mean where it says "Empty" in the notes, or it says nothing or there's only a trap inside? Surely this doesn't mean only one search is possible in this room, period?

Because that means with the Four Searches (1 per living Hero) rule, you could search, find the "Empty Chest" (nothing) and then you're.... searching the rest of the room, and find something? Of course I guess it makes sense still, because 1 Hero could search and find the "empty" chest (or just search a chest-less room and find some gold), next Hero could search and find some gold, another searches, finds a wandering monster, then (after the monster is cleared out of the room), last hero searches and finds a potion. The "you found nothing" card only exists in the EU version.

Easy justifications... the treasure wasn't IN the chest, it was next to it, you goof! Or the chest had a false bottom that you didn't notice on the first try, etc. "It was so well hidden, it took multiple passes to find that stuff." So unless Wandering Monsters and hazards were killing me, I would probably just have my guys search each room once to find all possible quest treasures, and then exhaust the good cards (everybody keeping track of course) using the 4 searches per room option.

The Empty Chest thing becomes more of an issue in the later (not-yet-remade) Quest packs, because there are actual unused Artifact cards that seem like they "should" have gone into certain unmarked chests. Of course these Expansions also added new Treasure cards, increasing the number of good (and bad) cards to the total, but that's not an issue with the Remake. No indication is given that there will be any new "treasures" (only Artifacts) to go with the two new Quest books.

[j_dean80]

I’ve always played NA rules but have always placed all monsters in the corridor. It would put Zargon at a disadvantage not to. He already has a tough enough time getting attacks in.

[Kurgan]

16) I always assumed that if you successfully cast "Sleep" on a monster, it's as if he's not even there (for "Searching" purposes). But the same would not apply to "Tempest." Is that correct?


I've also assumed potions are stackable. So if you had a Potion of Strength, and Potion of Defense and Heroic Brew, even if had already had Rock Skin AND Courage cast on you, all the effects would take place.

But with Heroic Brew, it's two attacks... so in the case of Courage, that means both those attacks would have the 2 extra dice (as long as you can still see a monster), but would both or only the first attack be impacted by the Potion of Strength?

I always assumed Holy Water isn't just an adjacent ability, but can be used on a LOS undead monster too. Chuck it at 'em! We had a house rule that you could toss potions, but had to roll to see if they caught it (or fumbled and lost it forever), obviously the "passing potions" was a lot more restricted in the official clarifications.


17) If the Hero dies who is escorting Sir Ragnar... who gets to control the NPC after that? The player that had the "dead" Hero character? That was my natural assumption (kind of like the original Mercenary rule that they could continue even without the Hero who brought them).

[lestodante]

No treasure in corridors ... the reason? Likely because there are four searches possible in each “location” (in a standard sized party.) And there are only ~8 good results from the deck. Once they’re gone ... there’s no reason to search for treasure. (Unlike the original EU deck that returned all treasure cards to the deck, and returned positions after they were used.)

In a “never ending deck” the money gathered by searching all corridors and all rooms when returning everything would get rather crazy.

This was a mistake from the early 1989 version. In the 2nd edition (released in 1990) all treasures are discarded and all the Wandering Monsters and Traps are returned into the deck.

[Oftkilted]

No treasure in corridors ... the reason? Likely because there are four searches possible in each “location” (in a standard sized party.) And there are only ~8 good results from the deck. Once they’re gone ... there’s no reason to search for treasure. (Unlike the original EU deck that returned all treasure cards to the deck, and returned positions after they were used.)

In a “never ending deck” the money gathered by searching all corridors and all rooms when returning everything would get rather crazy.

This was a mistake from the early 1989 version. In the 2nd edition (released in 1990) all treasures are discarded and all the Wandering Monsters and Traps are returned into the deck.

It wasn’t as much a mistake as a change in path.

The original cards also refer to the same rule. It wasn’t just a Rulebook change, it was also a change in the actual cards.

Here’s one of the 1st Edition cards: