Line of Sight

[Kurgan]

I think of the EU game as being the "autotarget" system for missile attacks, while the NA rules are the "laser pointer" target version.

[Daedalus]

Hello everyone, I have a question about the line of sight. When a player is in a corridor with a few monsters up ahead of him, is the hero supposed to see the blocked hall behind the monster? I have always shown everything in the hallway, like all monsters and the blocked tiles, but this kind of confuses me about the whole line of sight concept. So is "seeing" what's in the hallway supposed to be different from line of sight? I mean always consider these as dark halls and they shouldn't know if there is a dead end ahead of them until they get a little closer and go past those monsters?

In answer to a fan question fielded by Avalon Hill at the second HQ Pulsecon panel, they intended to clarify that revealed monsters aren't considered to block line of sight when placing them on the gameboard . . . unfortunately, they neglected to implement thier declaration in the new Instruction Booklet.

So yes, continue to place that blocked square marker knowing that AH says it's OK, but there's not a word to confirm it in the rules. Or play rules as written and only place the nearest monster (because of distant darkness)--it's your call.

[knotschi]

the APP isn't the game, it doesn't incorporate any different weapons, armor, line of sight rules for combat etc. it just has an attack button, then you tell it if the monster was defeated or how much damage was accrued. It basically is a monster and game board room and hall revealer, and monster mover (and attack roller) on Zargon's turn, designed so that those who have never played can be surprised in a solo venture. It is a game aid for playing by yourself with the app acting as Zargon, but the human still needs to interpret the rule book.

Actually the app has built in logic for line of sight, but only for spells. For example when you try to cast a fireball, you can only attack monsters that are in line of sight.
I found it quite useful to play around with the app, opening some rooms with monsters and trying out a lot of different positions of my heroes to see from which positions I can cast fireballs on which monsters.

By the rules of the app it is possible if you have one hero blocking a door and one hero next to him (to attack diagonal), you can still position both other heroes in a way that they can attack with ranged weapons or spells when positioned properly.

[Kurgan]

Yeah, I wouldn't consider the App a definitive "clarification" to any rules, since it's all on the honor system. But it is interesting that they tried to account for "legal moves" with the spells. Crossbows function the same in 2021 remake as they always did in the NA rules of 1990. Meaning they don't say you can't fire at the close diagonal squares and don't say you can't, making it a gray area as to what was originally intended (one method of interpretation makes them much more powerful, and necessitate adding more homebrew rules to maintain equipment balance; the other does not).

[arntisdale]

By the rules of the app it is possible if you have one hero blocking a door and one hero next to him (to attack diagonal)

I've done it this way since forever. You can have a guy with a shortsword stabbing at the monster adjacent to him through a door, and a buddy with a staff next to him whacking at the same monster diagonally through the door. I'm pretty sure most folks here do the same.

Along the lines of weirdness of the app, here are a few things I caught that were ... well, weird.

The wording of the rapier suggests that it can be used to attack ONLY diagonally, and when you press the 'attack' button in the app using the bard, it's attack direction indicators only show the diagonals, not the adjacents. I just shrugged and continued to treat it like a 2 attack dice longsword (which is what I think it was originally intended to be)

So, you know how when you open a door into a corridor, you can 'see' the entire contents of the corridor without actually stepping through the door, right?
But, when walking around through corridors, I've always treated so that you had to step into the corner of two intersecting corridors to 'see' the full contents of the next corridor.
The app has me 'seeing' the entire contents of the next corridor if I step in a space adjacent to that corner space. Made me wonder...
How do you guys do it in your games? The way I described first, the way the app does it, something else?

[Kurgan]

The door blocking technique many of us Zargons complain about (often making the game too easy) was literally advocated for right there in the Instruction booklet in 1990 and still is in 2021, so we have nothing to say about it except come up with creative ways to lessen its dominance later on (secret activation rooms, double doors, monsters with diagonal/ranged attacks, traps in the doorway, etc) as it gets exploited by savvy players.

The way I've always played it and I believe is the correct way intended, is when you step into an intersection, you get to look down each corridor to see everything normally visible in that way. But you won't see the contents of a corridor until you step a square into it where you could LOS see it. Am I understanding you correctly?

Heroes don't have the option to "not look" to see things, so in that sense, they automatically trigger Zargon to reveal an entire corridor when they step even one square down it (or at the intersection) just as they trigger Zargon to reveal the entire room when they open the door (or open a secret door, which can only be done by stepping adjacent to it). "Looking" at any other time is only done as a way to establish LOS when intended to do a ranged attack (whether spell, crossbow or thrown dagger... add Handaxe and presumably Spear to that as well).

The Rapier being ONLY a diagonal strike weapon would certainly be unique, but is probably a glitch. It's not explicitly stated that it can't hit adjacent squares, nor is any logic given why this would be the case, so I'm in agreement that it's like a weaker longsword (or a non-throwable spear/non-artifact wizard's staff I suppose).

Someone should send that errata to Hasbro/Avalon Hill (I don't have instagram or twitter, so I cannot). Then again, they did finally respond to my email to Customer Service on Hasbro Pulse, so maybe that could work too, but it seems a much slower option to get their attention!

Looking is not an action, so if you were at an intersection of corridors, you could look down each one right away without having to wait until your next turn as if it were.

I have at times acknowledged the unique features of the MS-DOS HeroQuest game for clues on how to resolve vague rule issues, but I acknowledge it's a very different animal and so probably not appropriate except as a curiosity. When the rules don't make sense or there's a grey area, it's Zargon's call. I would like my homebrew fix or solution be somewhat close to what the designers would have intended, and sometimes there just isn't a good source on that, and in the end it doesn't really matter so long as it's fun for what you're doing.

But this Companion App is SUPPOSED to be the same as the physical game (to work in tandem with it) so these types of things that differ from the true game (the text in the Rulebook, amended by the text on the cards and quest notes in turn) are simply in error. That is, the App is not meant to be a second alternative version of the game, but simply an automated bot to take the place of the Zargon player.

Otherwise what are we supposed to imagine, that this particular Zargon is homebrewing weird rules in there about the Rapier? I doubt they intended that and in fact just screwed up. No other diagonal weapon functions that way and there's no clue given that this was intended any other way. And only us Mythic players really have this difficulty to begin with! Which is another odd thing. Why did they bother to put Mythic stuff in there if the majority of players, looking forward, won't have access to those things (except as an overpriced rarity on ebay) and it will remain as a forever "tease" of what they can't have? Unless as some speculated hopefully that these items would someday be re-released to the general public. I mean, let's face it, players have been able to use the Bard, Warlock, Druid and all their gear since the moment they put that info out for playtesting, we just have to provide our own analogs for the cards and minis. But, not everyone is so DIY minded, and will wonder why these things are there if they're supposed to be moving their own set around and those components are consciously absent. I guess they could have two editions of the app, one for mythic collectors and one for everybody else, or "select your version: retail/heroic or mythic."

[Kurgan]

Door blocking is a simple thing. You place a hero in front of a door, attacking the monster through the open doorway. But there's another hero next to you that can use his diagonal attack to hit the monster as well, while that monster (unless he too has a diagonal attack) can't hit him back, only the hero in front. You could also add a second partner in this door blocking enterprise for a total of three, at most, though you could have a character attack, then move out of the way for another to take his place and attack I suppose (a technique Zargon could always do with his monsters as well).

By the rules of the app it is possible if you have one hero blocking a door and one hero next to him (to attack diagonal), you can still position both other heroes in a way that they can attack with ranged weapons or spells when positioned properly.

I'm not quite sure how this would be possible. Yes, you can place a hero in front of one door and two other heroes flanking him on both sides... meaning the other two heroes can use diagonal weapons/ranged to fire at a monster inside the room. But the fourth hero would have no where to use his spells other than on the three "blocking" heroes (or on himself) and nothing to fire his ranged weapon at since they are blocking his LOS.

That is, unless the App is not adhering to the explicit NA rules in this case. To do what you're suggesting above, you'd need a second door way or the fourth hero to be literally inside the room with the monster.

[arntisdale]

I think the issue I have with the app is when to reveal the contents of a room/corridoor.
So, normally, a hero standing in a corridor can pop open a door, and this reveals the entire contents of a room, correct? Same thing if moving from room to room.
So, does that work in reverse? A hero standing in a room opens a door to a corridor and reveals the entire contents of the corridor, or do they have to step out one space first?
And finally (the one I was trying to get at in my previous post) if a hero is walking down a corridor (lets say one on an edge), and walking to a corner intersection with another corridor (lets say, corner of the gameboard), when does Zargon reveal the contents of the corridor that he's moving toward? I've always played it as the moment you step into the actual corner. The app has is as the moment you step into the square just before you get to the corner.

[HispaZargon]

I think the app follows the rules "looking down a corridor" and "looking through an open door" described in the NA rulebook, page 13, assuming the hero is looking through the door or from the corridor corner once it is placed in the last adjacent square. This rule is also included in the remake's rulebook (I don't know if the page number is the same).

Screenshot_20220106-185334_Adobe Acrobat.jpg

[Kurgan]

Trace a straight line from the hero until it hits a closed door or wall, and that is the extent of his sight. In the case of corridors, although not stated in the rulebook, the designers have publicly clarified it was always intended that you can see all the figures in a corridor, so them being behind other figures doesn't stop them from being placed on the board.

So in that sense yes, a corridor you can see it completely seen, unless from the standpoint of the hero his sight only passes to a single square of a corridor let's say. You wouldn't need to reveal the whole thing until his sight would encompass the whole corridor. Yes, a room gets revealed whether the Hero steps inside the room or not.