Maurice76 wrote:arch8ngel wrote:I wouldn't suggest the marker be of any significance other than noting the specific room or hall that contains the dagger. Then it is simple retrieved whenever the room is clear of monsters.
But I don't think play style of the heroes factors into whether I think the token mechanic would work. If heroes are looking to steal thrown daggers from each other, then that is kind of up to them.
So, who gets the weapon, if it's just a token in the room/corridor, that's automatically retrieved when the room is cleared?
Suppose playorder is Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf, Wizard. Elf uses a throwing dagger and a token is placed in the room. The next round, the Barbarian kills the last monster, so the room is cleared. Does the Barbarian get the weapon now, since it's his turn in which the room became empty of monsters? Or is it the Dwarf, who's the first to
start his turn in an emptied room? Or is it the Elf?
In a cooperative group, the dagger would be returned to the Elf, but what if the group isn't cooperative? How are you going to determine who gets the weapon then, if standing on top of the token isn't the way to determine this? I don't think an uncooperative group would accept a mod-rule that states it's going to be returned to the Hero who threw it, when the weapon is just there up for grabs on the floor and the original owner isn't the active Hero.
My original comment was along the lines of "the thrower automatically gets it back after combat is concluded" without wasting time or effort on some kind of strict searching rule that would require any additional game mechanics to be considered.
There isn't really a need to over complicate it, unless you want to let your heroes pick up the dagger mid-combat and throw it again (i.e. a standing-on-the-tile-retrieves-it rule)
Personally, I think the best balance with "permanently lost when thrown" daggers is to simply allow them "one throw per combat incident" in the form of the token marker being automatically retrieved by the original owner once the area is clear of monsters. (i.e. if the flee they leave it behind)
Do that with a 2-sided token to represent a maximum of 2 "safe" throws per quest (i.e. side-1-up on the board, side-2-up on the board, third throw gets no token) and I think you have a fair balance with the original "disposable" throwing dagger rule -- that is, you don't turn it into a weaker crossbow for the wizard while still making "throwing" a viable combat action more of the time.
I'm going to give some version of this a try when I get a group going at work this Friday.
(and will likely couple it with a crossbow with an ammo mechanic akin to the autocannon from Space Hulk -- at least with respect to depleting ammunition -- might be interesting to add the "critical miss"/"jam" concept on particularly bad rolls as well)
EDIT: with respect to "uncooperative hero parties"... why worry about it? Zargon sets the house rules, in my opinion, and if heroes are already adversarial to each other, I don't really care too much if they agree with a rule Zargon is putting into force. Doesn't really sound like a fun group to play with in the first place, to be honest.