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Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 20th, 2018, 9:19 pm
by Jazzdrummer
For some odd reason I'm having a real hard keeping track of who has searched a particular room. I know each hero can search a room once. Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to keep tabs on this? I would really appreciate it. :)

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 20th, 2018, 9:43 pm
by Fallensaviour
I used to use scrap paper and just mark B,D,W,E. ( just print off a spare map and mark it)
Barbarian,dwarf,wizard,elf.
I usually only play with two people playing two characters and its pretty easy to keep track.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 20th, 2018, 9:53 pm
by knightkrawler
I use blips that I scanned from Descent - Journeys in the Dark and made smaller for marking areas with differend searches.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 20th, 2018, 10:00 pm
by Jazzdrummer
I'm using 4 heroes but I mainly get confused when the heroes are split up and there'll be one hero in one room and another hero in another room. I just get turned around. Honestly it would be easier if each room could only be searched once.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 21st, 2018, 2:24 am
by Pancho
Jazzdrummer you are certainly not alone on this, I forget all the time. And making notes on it is a pain. Morcar's job can be painful enough without the Heroes bogging the game down searching every room one by one and taking forever to do it.

Your solution is spot on; just introduce the rule that each room can only be searched once. I've been doing this and it works really well.
Not only does it speed up the game and make the evil Wizard players task easier, it also fits the original theme of the Heroes getting greedy and racing each other for the spoils.

Important to note that I also allow one additional search for each piece of furniture in the room. If the quest notes state that the furniture has an item (quest treasure, potion, trap etc), then the hero gets that item, otherwise they get nothing. The Hero has to be stood adjacent to the piece of furniture. The room as a whole can still be searched once in the normal way, i.e by taking a treasure card.
Honestly, these rules iron out so many little problems with the basic game such as Heroes taking too long and the age old problem about how treasure chests and trapped furniture actually work.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 21st, 2018, 2:40 am
by mitchiemasha
YEAH. Ditch that rule. I also play "Each room is limited to 1 Treasure search plus however items of furniture are in the room." It adds more spice to the furniture. If an item is the weapons rack, they pick a card from the standard weapon deck, even though we have a huge shop armoury, it'd be a shame to waste that deck.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 8:45 am
by Jazzdrummer
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I will do exactly that. It seemed like the heroes were accumulating too much gold anyways.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 8:50 am
by whitebeard
My players do not "over search" and I attribute this to the risk that they are ambushed by a pair of wandering monsters. They generally search to make sure there are no special treasures, then move on.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: March 24th, 2018, 9:53 am
by Anderas
Nicely solved by the EWP deck again... however, for the topic: I just take notes on the quest map. As I print it freshly for each game there is no loss.

Re: Keeping track of who has searched

PostPosted: April 20th, 2018, 6:55 pm
by Daedalus
Jazzdrummer wrote:For some odd reason I'm having a real hard keeping track of who has searched a particular room. I know each hero can search a room once. Can anyone offer a suggestion on how to keep tabs on this? I would really appreciate it. :)

Spare skull tiles are generally plentiful. When a Hero searches a room for treasure, place a skull tile in the room so that it is oriented facing the respective player at the table. Now the room has a record of that Hero's treasure search for the rest of the Quest.