Another search suggestion; WD+D6

[burglekutt]

Maybe giving the Dwarf a reroll would help to make him better at searching.

The Dwarf is the best at picking locks & Disarming traps, doesn't mean he has to be the best at finding them.

The Dwarf, Barbarian & Elf are already super star athletes in this game to an unbelievable level with their 4Att battle axes & 5 Def Plate mail. The Elf with his Heal Spell/ other spells making him even more valuable than any of them....where's the Wizard love? Where's the MindPoint love when we invent a Hobbit hero, Thief, Monk or Psionicist hero? What good are all those MindPoints? Lol

Can we do something in this game for the Wizard besides having him make diagonal 2 attacks in a door way or standing in the background throwing expensive 1Att Daggers doing no damage? Embarrassing!

[MonsterMotor]

Can we do something in this game for the Wizard besides having him make diagonal 2 attacks in a door way or standing in the background throwing expensive 1Att Daggers doing no damage? Embarrassing!

I see your point - a long-standing question. Personally, I would not go down the route to give him an improved search ability. On the other hand, I did not find any other reasonable way to strengthen the wizard apart from rebalancing the entire set of spells. I think you know of my work. It's not perfect, but it raises the wizard pretty well to the level of the other heroes and makes him equally fun to play, plus, the spells are relatively well balanced against each other. Other people improve the wizard, e.g., with mana systems, but that is an unnecessary complication in my view.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Implementing MPs for searches is tough & I've been trying to do it for years because MPoints suck in the game

Whilst I agree that Mind Points suck in the game, I don't feel that rectifying that has anything to do with searching. Mind Points are clearly stated as being related to magic, spells and resistance to magic and spells and have absolutely nothing to do with searching for reasons that I have outlined previously.

This just came to me how Mind Points should be used for searching even though the Wizard & Elf technically shouldn't be better than the Dwarf or Barbarian at finding Traps in a dungeon.

I feel on this point we seem to be going around in circles a little. I think we both agree that the implementation of Mind Points in the game is lacking, but we also seem to agree that Mind Points have nothing to do with searching (the game itself states that they relate to use of and resistance to magic - so nothing to do with searching) and that using Mind Points for Searching seems odd, even by your own admission, as the heroes that have higher mind points, aren't the ones that you would expect to be better at searching. Trying to fix the round hole with a square peg, feels a little like making a house rule that uses Mind Points instead of Attack Dice for standard combat and then complaining that the Wizard is the best at fighting but it should be the Barbarian but he is the worst.

Leaving that aspect to one side...(and perhaps a different topic on Improving the use of Mind Points)

If you make the finding of secret doors conditional, then quests that locate the objective behind a secret door (and many official ones do) then the whole quest potentially degenerates into a long "retracing our steps again to search for the secret door" session once players have already explored the dungeon and realised that the objective must be hidden behind a secret door, located somewhere in the dungeon!

I realize this allows a hero to find the Trap, be moved on to the Trap, & then to Disarm the Trap but hey, that's the end of his turn & aren't we trying to speed up the Searching process? Just don't allow this in corridors if the Traps are really far away.

Sometimes I find it helpful when trying to fix a problem to spend some time working out what the problem actually is. I'm not clear whether you are trying to change the search mechanism in order to address deficiencies in the Mind Point implementation or to speed up the search mechanism. If it is the latter then do you feel that there is an issue in the game that searching takes too long, or if there is an issue is it actually that the game contains too much searching?

It is a subtle distinction, but if I complain that I have to spend all day at work making widgets, then speeding up the widget-making process would still result in me spending all day making widgets (more of them granted), but what I really want is to have to make less widgets so that I can knock off at lunchtime and still get paid!

This sequence feel counterintuitive to me.
1. Find Trap (technically the trigger)
2. Move to Trap
3. Disarm Trap

If you can spot a trap trigger from halfway down a passage then it isn't really hidden and might as well be placed on the board when the area is revealed. It just becomes a different type of monster, one that doesn't move. The whole point of a trap is that it is something different from monsters, contains the element of surprise, catching you off guard, wrecking all your best laid plans, by plunging you down a pit just as you were rushing to save the day!

Surely, this makes more sense?
1. Move
2. Find - I use the term "Detect" but only because I like the sound of the phrase "Detect & Disarm", rolls off the tongue
3. Disarm

If you want to reduce the time spent searching and use a sequence that makes more sense then can I recommend the following...and it retains the surprise element and the tension that a trap should offer, picture the scene from many a film when a character hears the click and realises he has just put his foot on a landmine...

#7 Search for Traps and Secret Doors
The “Search for Traps and Secret Doors” action is scrapped.
The EWP will declare when a hero moves onto a square adjacent to a secret door and places an open-door piece and anything else that is revealed beyond the door.
The EWP will declare when a hero moves onto a trapped square, attempts to open a trapped door or chest and the hero player must immediately roll to detect & disarm (see #3 Action Dice Mechanism) either disarming or setting off the trap.

#8 Search Action
A hero may choose to conduct a “search” action in a room (not in a passage) that contains no monsters. The EWP will place the hero figure on the nearest trap, if one exists, and the hero player must carry out a detect and disarm roll. If no traps exist, the EWP will place the hero figure on the square adjacent to the nearest secret door and follow the rules above. If no traps or secret doors exist, then the hero figure is not moved, and the hero player may draw a treasure card as usual (unless the EWP declares a special treasure from the Quest Notes). At this point, the room is marked off (any face down marker will do) as searched and cannot be searched again.

#3 Action Dice Mechanism
All actions outside of combat, damage and movement are resolved using the new Action Dice Mechanism outlined below.
Roll the number of combat dice shown and succeed if you roll at least one
• Disarm Trap - 3 dice [Toolkit gives an extra die; Dwarf gets 2 extra dice]

[burglekutt]

[ way to strengthen the wizard apart from rebalancing the entire set of spells. I think you know of my work.

Yeah I digg your work, gonna check it again.

Personally, I would not go down the route to give him an improved search ability.

Gonna have to look over your Search mechanism to make sure but it needs to include that all three items are discovered at once. The MPoint roll is just a way to accommodate that, though I also like the idea of higher MPoint/ Spell users having a Cantrip that gives them a slight edge. So they'll feel cool not being as "strong" or able to Disarm Traps as well as others:D

I'm not clear whether you are trying to change the search mechanism in order to address deficiencies in the Mind Point implementation or to speed up the search mechanism.

Would love MPoints, but will settle for speed where all three items are discovered at once.
Your Search mechanism where the hero is placed on the item in the room starting with Traps is fine, but all three items should be discovered as a reward for risking damage at least. He disarms the Trap(or doesn't) sees the SecretDoor & pulls a Treasure card. It should be a reward or a pity gift for dealing with the Trap.

A Hero may make a COMBINED search for traps+secret doors+treasure in a room/corridor. When a hero carries out a Search action, roll

Love the idea of this, and agree WM shouldn't be in the Treasure Deck, it should be a roll or use the Evil Wizards Deck. The Treasure Deck should only have Hazards, otherwise WM can be to devastating.

Yes to increase difficulty;

Its funny, you got Stig here broadening the search mechanism, me trying to almost abolish it & everybody in between lol, because if I agree MPoints aren't appropriate, I'd have ONE search covers all! Except for quest specifics or Chests, I've always liked the suspense they create.

Someone should make a poll for Search preference to see where we're all at!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Just scanning the earlier posts, it appears that the search mechanism that you would be happy with needs to satisfy the following criteria:

1. One single search action that covers it all (secret doors, traps and treasure)
2. Chests being handled through a separate mechanism
3. Reduced time spent on searching

All of which make perfect sense to me (although I would probably specify a few extra criteria personally)

The mechanism I have proposed covers secret doors, traps and treasure within a single mechanism, chests are handled through a separate mechanism and the time spent on searching during a game session is considerably reduced down to about 25-30% of the original Second Edition (the 1990 remake increases the number of searches even more).

However you've now added a new criteria that all traps, secret doors and treasure are discovered at once.

Your Search mechanism where the hero is placed on the item in the room starting with Traps is fine, but all three items should be discovered as a reward for risking damage at least. He disarms the Trap(or doesn't) sees the SecretDoor & pulls a Treasure card. It should be a reward or a pity gift for dealing with the Trap.

This one I don't understand logically or how it would work in game.

Let's walk it through using the first example that Stig provided earlier in this thread, of a room containing 3 traps.



So under your mechanism...(assuming I understand it properly and I may not)

[*]The Elf would declare that he was searching
[*]He finds the Pit trap, fails to disarm it, falls in, suffers 1BP damage and his turn ends.
[*]Despite his turn having ended, he continues to search by presumably climbing out of the pit and he finds the Falling Block trap, which he fails to disarm, causing the block to fall, loses some more BP and is pushed into an empty square in the next room, through the open door, which is then sealed by the falling block, ending his turn (again).
[*]Despite his turn having ended (twice) already and him being located in a different room which is now sealed off by the fallen block, he continues to search the original room, finding a Spear Trap which he manages to disarm successfully (which may or may not end his turn depending on your ruleset but by now that is probably immaterial), especially impressive as he is now searching in a different room that is sealed of from the room that the trap is located in.
[*]Finally having cleared all the traps one way or another, he draws a Treasure Card as a reward for all that risk and damage, he draws a Trap! card and suffers another BP lost.
[*]Which square would the figure be placed in at the end of this search, the same square that he started in, or the square in the other room, assuming of course that he survived all that damage and wasn't killed by his reward?

Under the mechanism that I am proposing...

[*]The Elf would declare that he was searching
[*]He finds the Pit trap, fails to disarm it, falls in, suffers 1BP damage and his turn ends

The room has not been successfully searched so the same hero on his next turn or another hero on their turn can carry out another search attempt

[burglekutt]

[*]He finds the Pit trap, fails to disarm it, falls in, suffers 1BP damage and his turn ends.
[*]Despite his turn having ended, he continues to search by presumably climbing out of the pit and he finds the Falling Block trap, which he fails to disarm, causing the block to fall,

That's some serious Mr Magoo sh*t! ha ha ha... but I meant only one trap a turn lol!

I was suggesting that if we did it your way, the Elf would enter the room, search, be placed on the closest trap (pit) & Disarm it, succeed or not, a SecretDoor is found & Treasure card could be pulled, but I see that using your system would make my idea impossible and hilarious with a Pit trap!

My system would be the Elf steps into the room, searches, sees ALL the traps, the SecretDoor & pulls a treasure card. His turns now over (movement/search).
The next hero (Wizard) now knows where everything is and can avoid all the traps to use the SecretDoor (presumably above the bookcase) or decide to disarm the Rock Trap if there is no SecretDoor.

If the Rock trap is disarmed, the heros move on their way. If it falls blocking that doorway, then the Wizard takes the Damage(turns over) & the next hero just walks over through the SecretDoor presumably above the bookcase. Unless this room has no SecretDoor door and that's fine, they all just leave the room walking around the Pit & Spear traps the whole time.

Your system demands three of your heros using each of their turns to disarm each of the three traps before another search can be conducted. A minimum of 5 searches/actions to get the Treasure & SecretDoor( if there is one), before this room is cleared? You've mentioned before that rooms rarely have three traps but, lets plan for the worst.

You're presuming all your Heros have Toolkits, & lots of health to spare. Worst case scenario though is they're all standing around waiting three full rounds for the Dwarf to do it.

I do understand where you're coming from that Traps are sorta pointless in this game except when in combat & I do agree that to realistically search a room for treasure you'd need to disarm all the traps first, but there are other ways to force our heros to confront traps.
Make a line of traps (fill that space between the Pit & Spear), Place in hallways, doors etc.

If I had to meet you half way though, how about: Don't roll a to even PASS by a trap? Or WORSE, each square adjacent to a trap(not diagonal) requires a roll to pass by it?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

My system would be the Elf steps into the room, searches, sees ALL the traps, the SecretDoor & pulls a treasure card. His turns now over (movement/search).
The next hero (Wizard) now knows where everything is and can avoid all the traps to use the SecretDoor (presumably above the bookcase) or decide to disarm the Rock Trap if there is no SecretDoor.

If the Rock trap is disarmed, the heros move on their way. If it falls blocking that doorway, then the Wizard takes the Damage(turns over) & the next hero just walks over through the SecretDoor presumably above the bookcase. Unless this room has no SecretDoor door and that's fine, they all just leave the room walking around the Pit & Spear traps the whole time.

I understand that now. I had assumed with your forum language being set to British English that you were using the original "UK" HQ rules but I forget sometimes about the 2021 remake that uses the "NA" ruleset from 1990, my bad.

So your proposed change is simply that a single, combined search action, would reveal the location of all traps, secret doors and result in drawing a treasure card. Would this combined search be apply to both rooms and corridors? can a room or corridor be searched more than once, do rooms and corridors both contain a treasure card or only rooms?

As practically every member of this forum has their own house rules, which to be fair was expected and encouraged by Steve Baker back at the birth of HQ, I would recommend that you document them, share them and add a link in your signature. This approach has a number of benefits, it makes these conversations much easier, and it allows you to incorporate any questions, suggestions, clarifications and comments into your document which in turn leads to bad rules being dropped and good rules being further polished which helps us all.

My own are linked to in my signature as HQ Golden Rules.

Your system demands three of your heros using each of their turns to disarm each of the three traps before another search can be conducted. A minimum of 5 searches/actions to get the Treasure & SecretDoor( if there is one), before this room is cleared? You've mentioned before that rooms rarely have three traps but, lets plan for the worst.

You're presuming all your Heros have Toolkits, & lots of health to spare. Worst case scenario though is they're all standing around waiting three full rounds for the Dwarf to do it.

Correct, if a room contained 3 traps, 1 secret door (and the single treasure card) then it would take 5 actions to "clear" that room (not a minimum of 5 actions, just 5 actions) compared to the 1990 remake ("NA edition") rules where it would take 1 search for treasure action, 1 search for traps action, 1 search for secret doors action plus up to 3 actions to disarm the traps found (although you may not need to disarm them all) so 3-6 actions. The difference under my system is that you would need those 5 actions only when the room has 5 features of interest, which is very rare, for the rooms that contain treasure but no traps or secret doors, around 90% of all rooms, you would clear it with a single action, where the official rules would still require 3.

If you do the maths then 90% of rooms require 1 search as opposed to 3 results in a significant reduction in the amount of game time spent on searches.

And yes all my heroes have the ability to disarm traps, the Tool Kit and being the Dwarf just give you an advantage.

I do understand where you're coming from that Traps are sorta pointless in this game except when in combat & I do agree that to realistically search a room for treasure you'd need to disarm all the traps first, but there are other ways to force our heros to confront traps.
Make a line of traps (fill that space between the Pit & Spear), Place in hallways, doors etc.

I don't think traps are pointless at all, I think that traps and the handling of them adds a whole new dimension to the game and it would be a lot less rich without them. My issues are more around the search mechanism which is counter-intuitive and clunky, in my opinion. (For a full list of search flaws see Search – The Binding Topic)

The issue with other ways to force heroes to confront traps that you mention is that it ignores all the official and unofficial pre-written quests that already exist, essentially it isn't backwards compatible!

[dragon5145]

BW is probably right that OP's method of apply MP to search isn't the best but still servicable. MP being a measure of magical aptitude looks to be an expansion addition, the old NA edition rules say MP is a measure of hero's intelligence, wisdom, and resistance to magical influence, there is no mention of aptitude in GS rules. At least in the early pages where it is explaining terms, page 5 or 6 approximately.

I would suggest a fixed range of search for the heros, maybe adjust range for race if you want, that would result in 3 ranges at most dwarf, elf, human.

As such maybe let heros roll equal to starting or current MP, adjusting what means for a success based on the particular hero, maybe as follows:

Dwarf = success. Skilled with traps and dungeoneering, fantasy dwarves usually
live in mines or hollowed out mountains, understands
stonework
Elf = success. Accounts for heightened senses, and slight survival skills due to being a fighter
mage and also devoting some time to arcane studies
Barbarian = success to account for substantial survival skills and danger sense
developed in wastelands
Wizard = success has heightened intelligence and wisdom but spent most time
studying magic so not as familiar with traps and such as the others.
This method ties search to MP and maintains a chance for failure as well as a WM, but maintains a success probability for the search of over 90% for all four heros.
Extra successes could be used to increase the red die roll if you wanted to potentially reduce missed things or not.
The major disadvantage is the increased WM due to rolling more dice, but I am sure enterprising EWPs could find ways to mitigate that. If they want to.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

MP being a measure of magical aptitude looks to be an expansion addition

It was explicitly spelled out in Against the Ogre Horde which is an expansion, however with a lot of material in expansions it is often impossible to work out whether it was intended to be an official clarification of an earlier version or an official change to an earlier version, either way it is official (at least within the Classic edition which is one that I use as my base).

However my real objection to using MP as the attribute linked to search ability is demonstrated by stepping through the logic that those who suggest using it actually follow.

Step 1: Rank the heroes in terms of their search ability, top to bottom

(I'll use your example here without commenting on whether I agree with or disagree with your ranking or reasoning)

1. Dwarf - highest average chance of success due to skills and experience
2. Barbarian - second highest do to survival skills and danger sense
3. Elf - third highest due to heightened senses, but decreased due to some time spent on magical study
4. Wizard - lowest due to most of his time spent on magical study

Step 2: Link the search ability to MP

Which gives almost a completely opposed ranking to the one you have already laid out.

1. Wizard
2. Elf
3. Dwarf
4. Barbarian

Step 3: Try and figure out some complex dice system taking into account facing, numbers of dice, dice types in order to try and eliminate the inconsistency introduced by choosing to link to the wrong attribute in step 2.

Result...something far more complicated than it needs to be, making it harder to learn and remember and the probabilities harder to calculate!

Surely it would be far simpler just to do step 1 "the ranking" and then as step 2 just assign dice outcomes that match the ranking, for example (and I'm not bothered at this stage about which exact dice, dice type, number of dice, success criteria, would be best, this is just a simple example)

Roll one combat die

1. Dwarf = Success on or
2. Barbarian = Success on or
3. Elf = Success on
4. Wizard = Success on

You end up with a cleaner, simpler solution.

[dragon5145]

MP being a measure of magical aptitude looks to be an expansion addition

It was explicitly spelled out in Against the Ogre Horde which is an expansion, however with a lot of material in expansions it is often impossible to work out whether it was intended to be an official clarification of an earlier version or an official change to an earlier version, either way it is official (at least within the Classic edition which is one that I use as my base).

However my real objection to using MP as the attribute linked to search ability is demonstrated by stepping through the logic that those who suggest using it actually follow.

Step 1: Rank the heroes in terms of their search ability, top to bottom

(I'll use your example here without commenting on whether I agree with or disagree with your ranking or reasoning)

1. Dwarf - highest average chance of success due to skills and experience
2. Barbarian - second highest do to survival skills and danger sense
3. Elf - third highest due to heightened senses, but decreased due to some time spent on magical study
4. Wizard - lowest due to most of his time spent on magical study

Step 2: Link the search ability to MP

Which gives almost a completely opposed ranking to the one you have already laid out.

1. Wizard
2. Elf
3. Dwarf
4. Barbarian

Step 3: Try and figure out some complex dice system taking into account facing, numbers of dice, dice types in order to try and eliminate the inconsistency introduced by choosing to link to the wrong attribute in step 2.

Result...something far more complicated than it needs to be, making it harder to learn and remember and the probabilities harder to calculate!

Surely it would be far simpler just to do step 1 "the ranking" and then as step 2 just assign dice outcomes that match the ranking, for example (and I'm not bothered at this stage about which exact dice, dice type, number of dice, success criteria, would be best, this is just a simple example)

Roll one combat die

1. Dwarf = Success on or
2. Barbarian = Success on or
3. Elf = Success on
4. Wizard = Success on

You end up with a cleaner, simpler solution.

When it comes to the MP definition, I didn't mean to disagree with the concept just pointing out it probably came from an expansion. I personally like it as it just added to what MP represents and most games be it board, trading card, or video games are updated or tweaked as expansions come along along with new mechanics, take the yeti hug from Frozen Horror for instance.

As for the rest, even I am not sure I would want to use the method I wrote, unless the particular group really enjoyed rolling a lot of dice.(yahtzee anyone ) My first draft, which I apparently didn't post had success just like what you wrote except the barbarian an elf both used , but found the oddd of success for the barbarian too low. I didn't want to use as part of success because most others in this topic were using as a trigger for WM. As for the ranking not being correct I do not necessarily agree, my method was intended to try and account for MP as well as the character's skill and other factors for success in the search. Based on probability of success they are close but my ranking should still hold up. With multiple dice and only needing one success it is said to be easier to calculate by subtracting the probability of failure from 1. Ie 1-(failure chance). This results in
Dwarf ~99% chance of success
Barbarian ~ 97% chance of success
Elf ~ 93% chance of success
Wizard ~ 91% chance of success

So the the only advantage this method has is it has a much smaller chance of failure of the search some of the other methods in this topic discussed while disadvantages include but not limited (lots of die rolling, the need to figure out how to handle a success and WM on the same roll, and the small but possible chance for a straight up failure nothing found no WM at any time for and ). I agree that simplicity would probably by better in which case the simplest method would be to throw out the possibiltiy of a failed search except when you get a wandering monster. Roll and means wandering monster and the result dictated the number of things found traps or secret doors. Now that I think about that may have been the suggestion in the original post, too lazy to go back and look while writing this unnecessary diatribe .