Searching for Multiple Traps

[Timothias Lindmann]

Hi all,

When a character searches for traps in a room or corridor, are they able to reveal all traps in that area with the one search action, or just a single trap?

[mako-heart]

Sup Timothias?
As I understand all traps are pointed to not revealed in the line on sight. The NA rules may vary from the UK version oh and welcome to the Ye Olde Inn!
Revealing the nature of the trap is up to you, I use the , "these tiles look suspicious" VS the that ceiling looks unsafe or that floor looks unstable, also it is not in the rules to place trap markers out on the game board for unsprung traps. Your player characters need to remember which tiles were unsafe and if they forget they need to waste another action.

[Goblin-King]

Yes, the entire room/corridor is revealed in one search.

[Timothias Lindmann]

Thank you for the replies! That is a great tip, thanks.

I have the UK edition, which is along the lines of:

The player searches the whole room/corridor. Traps are put onto the board when the search happens. Spear traps are not put onto the board, as they are rendered harmless when found.

In Kellar's Keep there is a corridor of particularly well-hidden traps, and the GM instructions are to only reveal the nearest one when a search takes place.

So this makes me think that yes, if a trap search takes place, all spear traps are disarmed and all pit traps and blocks are placed on the board at once.

I just thought this might mean that characters seldom fall for spear traps - but I have just had another read of the rules, and it does say that they cannot search if there are monsters in the same room/corridor, so I can see a few traps going off in those situations.

Been so long since I've played, looking forward to getting back into it!

[Sjeng]

Welcome to the Inn! Good to see more interested people coming here

I reveal all traps too, EU version, except falling block traps. Those I point out with a reversed block tile. Then upon disarming, it either falls down and blocks the passage, or it's simply removed upon success.

[Timothias Lindmann]

Thanks, Sjeng - I really like that approach. It's been an absolute pleasure to stumble on these forums and website.

[chaoticprime]

Welcome to the Inn! Good to see more interested people coming here

I reveal all traps too, EU version, except falling block traps. Those I point out with a reversed block tile. Then upon disarming, it either falls down and blocks the passage, or it's simply removed upon success.

Has one of your players ever actually triggered a trap, then? If you lay them out on the board when spotted, they may as well not even be in the game. Why not just put all the doors out on the board at the start of each adventure, while you're passing out back-rubs.

[Redav]

Late but I reveal pits and spears are negated. I don't reveal falling block or falling roof traps (like in one of the last original quests). Nasty I know but I figured that especially with a falling block, it's there for a reason other than simply soaking up body points. I might try the idea of saying that the roof in this corridor looks a bit suspicious but not point anywhere. Maybe they might have success dodging it?

As far as my house rules are concerned (shameless plug), I think I might adopt the idea that spear traps are as per the original rules but pit traps can't be removed like a Pit of Darkness from AtOH. Or maybe a combat die test determines whether a trap can be permanently closed or is jammed open?

[Sjeng]

I reveal all traps too, EU version, except falling block traps. Those I point out with a reversed block tile. Then upon disarming, it either falls down and blocks the passage, or it's simply removed upon success.

Has one of your players ever actually triggered a trap, then? If you lay them out on the board when spotted, they may as well not even be in the game.

Yes they have. When there are monsters, they can't search. Monsters can ignore traps, or lure the heroes in one.
When they can search, they find traps. If they don't, they risk triggering them. They can also trigger them upon an unsuccessfull disarm. I think that's the way the rules were meant.

[HispaZargon]

Rules about searching actions in HeroQuest are probably the most vague designed in the official rulebook. I guess the original designers intention was simplify them as much as posible since the game was intended to be played by kids. However, it is true that if we would like to have more consistent rules for adult eyes, a revision of those rules seems to be a must.

To achieve that, since long time ago I try to implement a bit deterministic philosophy about all 'searching' actions in HeroQuest, including some realism improvements but always trying to speed up as posible the searching tasks at the same time, without complicating them too much.

Then, about searching multiple traps, my position is clear: the heroes should not be able to find a trap that they cannot move to without falling in other trap through such theoretical movement. So yes, I think such undiscovered trap should be only found in a later searching if moving there is posible (in other words, if the trap blocking the movement there was already disarmed or is intentionaly jumped to do this second search).

I extend this rule also for secret doors searching and treasure chests inspections, but this last one is another topic, I guess.

There are many reasons why I consider important to add this fix to the rules, most of them obvious in terms of realism, but there is one reason not so obvious that I think is also important, which is this rule improves the exploration experience when playing. Imagine the typical case of three spear traps in a single-square-width corridor, each separated by one square free of traps. Well, according to the official rules, if a hero searches for traps there, he will find the position of the three traps, so probably he will see going through such corridor too dangerous and would like to choose other path to continue the adventure. The hero gets a lot of information about the dungeon with just one action. However, with the fixed rule, the hero will only find the first trap, so the corridor will look for him less dangerous and maybe he will decide to disarm or jump the trap and go such direction. Of course if he don't search again for traps and continue moving he will activate the next trap, but he had selected such corridor and he will need to make more decisions, improving the gaming experience: I fthe seond trap is found, will he continue through the corridor because he had already disarmed/jumped one trap? or will he decide to come back and choose another path to continue the adventure? I mean, I think the rule incentivates a bit more the exploration and decisions part of any HeroQuest game, which I think are one of the most important the game has.