Ye Olde Inn

So finally an advantage to having the "Elven chain mail" instead of Borin's Armor... (or a Cloak instead of Chain Mail...)

Kurgan wrote:So finally an advantage to having the "Elven chain mail" instead of Borin's Armor... (or a Cloak instead of Chain Mail...)

A shame Against the Ogre Horde comes before Mage of the Mirror... there are no Pits of Darkness in the Elf Quest pack.

Well, assuming you play them in the "correct according-to-the-fans" order.

Normally it would be UK people playing AtOH and US people playing EQP and neither would be the wiser!

The Cloak (of Protection) would be available from the beginning if you integrated it from the EU rules (like I did, and made it a more expensive bit of gear that anyone can wear, not just the Wizard). To compensate, I made the Wizard's Cloak give a Champion Wizard (3-5 quests complete) a Green die for defense.

Pits of Darkness can be nasty, but at least they're not a guaranteed loss of BP, like the regular Pit Traps (or Hazard "temporary pits" for that matter).

Kurgan wrote:Well, assuming you play them in the "correct according-to-the-fans" order.

Normally it would be UK people playing AtOH and US people playing EQP and neither would be the wiser!

The Cloak (of Protection) would be available from the beginning if you integrated it from the EU rules (like I did, and made it a more expensive bit of gear that anyone can wear, not just the Wizard). To compensate, I made the Wizard's Cloak give a Champion Wizard (3-5 quests complete) a Green die for defense.

Pits of Darkness can be nasty, but at least they're not a guaranteed loss of BP, like the regular Pit Traps (or Hazard "temporary pits" for that matter).

Well it's due to the fact that the Barbarian and Elf quest packs have no story line in relation to the other quest packs, so it seems natural to put it after the established storyline. It's also due to the fact that the Elf and Barbarian quest packs were not playtested, which ramps up the difficulty, so it makes sense to put them last.
On the other hand Against the Ogre Horde and Mage of the Mirror both incorporate Ogres, so it's possible to try and link them.
The Ogres in Mage of the Mirror have 10 Body Points, which is greatly enhanced compared to Against the Ogre Horde. So by playing MotM first it can be reasoned that the heroes have, in essence, learned to kill Ogres more efficiently.

The storylines, however, don't quite line up. In AtOH, Morcar (Zargon) is manipulating the Ogres to raid the Empire. But MotM is taking place in the Elven Kingdom and the Ogres attribute nothing to the plot line.
In fact, Zargon's whole involvement in Millandriel's abduction is suspect at best. For all we know, Sinestra may be acting alone.

It would seem after the Ogre fortress was compromised the remaining Ogres fled to the Elven Kingdom, joining Sinestra's army.
The alternative would be that these 2 events are going on at roughly the same time: Zargon counseling Sinestra on how to be evil while Festral manages the Ogre Horde, who lent a garrison to the Elven front.
In this case the priority of the heroes would be split. On the one hand they are loyal to the Empire and Ogre's raids need to be stopped; but the life of the Elven princess is at stake and thus the future of the Elven Kingdom...
I can see how the latter would seem more dire.
But then we're left with the discrepancy in the Ogre Body points, which makes you wonder what is Sinestra feeding them?

Following their defeat thanks to the missions led by the Empire's Champions which decapitated their leadership - leading to a crisis of leadership and civil war, the Hordes have been shattered and their threat greatly diminished. Following these events many Ogres went AWOL and went into business for themselves. Some of these became mercenaries for hire, and a few migrated to Elven lands. Promises of new power, meat, and the hint of vengeance drew them into Sinestra's secret experimental 'Super Ogre' program.

Her Alchemists have sought to make up for past failures and are giving them new enhancements and supplements, making them far deadlier than ever before.

I think it is fair to say that Ogres pop up whenever there is an opportunity to fight and feed, with no sense of allegiance to anything other than themselves, not even other Ogres, so I'm not sure we can draw any conclusion from the presence of Ogres.

wallydubbs wrote:But then we're left with the discrepancy in the Ogre Body points, which makes you wonder what is Sinestra feeding them?

wallydubbs wrote:In fact, Zargon's whole involvement in Millandriel's abduction is suspect at best. For all we know, Sinestra may be acting alone

That is sacrilege, all evil emanates from Zargon, Mentor's evil twin (who may or may exist solely in the mind of Mentor)!

But reluctantly back to Pits of Darkness which give me a headache.

They are described in the original text as working in the same way as normal pit traps with the following exceptions and then provides a big chunk of text (including some exceptions that aren't in fact exceptions) that you could be excused for thinking that the two things are not that similar after all!

Note: I've numbered these for ease of reference

Against the Ogre Horde wrote:Pits of Darkness
The Pit of Darkness Trap works in the same way as a normal pit trap with the following exceptions:
1) if a character crossing a Pit of Darkness space rolls a skull, he plunges 30 feet onto a hard floor
2) once he falls, a character will suffer damage depending on how much armour he is wearing. Characters not wearing any armour must roll one combat die to see if they lose a Body point; those wearing Chain-mail or Borin's Armour must roll two combat dice: and those wearing plate mail must roll three combat dice.
3) A character may climb out of a Pit of Darkness on his next turn if there is a free space on any one side of the Pit of Darkness.
4) Pits of Darkness may not be disarmed
5) but characters may jump over them like ordinary pit traps.

1) "Crossing" presumably means "jumping", and a 30 foot drop you would assume renders combat impossible between those in the pit and those not in the pit, but in fact, no exception is made, normal pit combat rules apply.

2) Presumably this is body armour that is being referred to here (although "Body armour" isn't actually defined in the game). As this is the EA edition there is no such equipment as "Plate Mail", it is "Plate Armour", so no one ever has to roll 3 combat dice, but skating over that technicality (I use the term Plated Mail so it all comes out in the wash for me) why does falling 30 feet for someone who isn't wearing body armour result in a potentially more damage than falling into an unspecified but presumably shallower pit?

The logic that Plate/Plate Mail/Plated Mail is heavier than Chainmail or Borin's Armour and hence has a movement penalty in the standard game which the others doesn't makes sense in-game (whether this is actually realistic or not is a different question but for those googling myth busters and plate armour, consider for a moment that real life plate armour could be worn over chainmail, not the case in HQ, it is one or the other, which suggests that "Plate"/"Plate Mail" might have been intended as some form of mail armour reinforced with added plates and not 15th century plate armour)

3) In what way is this an exception to the normal pit trap rule? If a character can climb 30ft (~ 6 squares of normal movement) vertically without consuming any of his movement allowance suggests that perhaps it is a shallow 30 foot hole

4) Remembering that "disarm" in this edition doesn't actually mean disarm, it means removing the pit from the board after the trap has been triggered and the pit placed (so in a NA port, you wouldn't need this "exception", as you can't remove pits after placement anyway)

5) So not an exception then.

In summary the mechanics of this trap suggest it is a normal pit trap but with potentially extra damage (so just make it 3CD in damage) but this is contradicted by the description.

And this "update" to the normal pit trap doesn't answer any of the outstanding questions around normal pit traps such including:

Does a character in a pit block missile attacks? You would think not, being 30 feet down, but then that isn't listed as a difference so presumably, a character in a normal pit trap doesn't block missile attacks also...

Can a character jump over an occupied pit (dark or otherwise) and if so how are you supposed to handle a failed roll in that situation? - presumably they can't

Many of us reasoned (from the 1990 illustrated Armory Board of the NA edition) that "Plate Mail" already integrates chainmail (and bracers, come to think of it) hence why you can't combine it with Chainmail.

And yes, we all realize it utilizes the pop culture/Hollywood fueled trope that the metal Armor is really really heavy and hampers movement (think of movies and books where they use cranes to lower Knights onto their horses... and while Jousting armor was heavier and more cumbersome than armor worn in war, it wasn't anywhere near that extreme in real life earth history). The picture also doesn't show the leg armor. Now you could imagine that the armor they find is ill-fitting (rather than some "general one size fits most" type of armor that did in fact exist in history, I recently learned... always thought it had to be custom made in all eras) or they're just not used to wearing it. Ultimately HeroQuest is not trying to simulate life in medieval Europe so much as give players a taste of feeling like they are play-acting the fantasy they read about in novels, comics, tv shows and movies of the era (like most good games out there do). Those who dislike its portrayal of things are free to modify (and have done so all these years).

Plus in the opposite direction you can say that these are HEROES... exceptional individuals, not your common modern schlub who might not even know how to put the armor on by himself and couldn't hit a target with a crossbow at long range or would be clumsy with a sword, etc. These are like peak athletes who probably trained with this stuff from childhood (except maybe the Wizard I guess!). When the Knight hero was released I strongly agreed with the idea that he should have a bonus wearing armor, though like many others I was concerned that he might be "OP" having no hindrance whatsoever with Plate. As it turns out it's just like having a second copy of Borin's Armor in the party at that point (and you get a third one in a sense with the Elven Chainmail from MOTM). Considering the difficulty of the monsters at that stage, it's not such a big deal.

But yes it will be interesting to see how things are handled. I figure they can more or less leave it as is and have the same effect. Players will figure out the rare exceptions. I do think that the remake of WOM should add the same explanatory text (and the necessary tiles) because those quests use the icons but forgot to explain them, and can't assume everyone who plays it also owns ATOH. AH probably reads threads like this just to check and make sure what fans have discussed on the matter too, which I am thankful for!

I think the idea of some downsides to having armor later on (and variable ways that traps can do damage) is an interesting little wrinkle in these quests.

Here's my take. I see the pit of darkness rule as penalizing heavy armour. The heavier the armour the harder the fall. That makes sense to me. Plate armour is heavy. We know this because it physically slows down the wearer. Now, Borin's armour gives the protection of plate but doesn't slow you down. We can therefore assume it's not as heavy. This for me precludes the 3 dice. How heavy is it though? Chain mail heavy, feather light? We don't know, therefore I would be happy with 1 or 2 dice. It is armour, so I personally would go with 2.

The rules for the Pit of Darkness in the British quest book of "Against the Ogre Hordes" are written very imprecisely.
It says: "... Once he falls, a character will suffer damage depending on how much armour he is wearing. Characters not wearing any armour must roll one combat die to see if they lose a Body point; those wearing Chain-mail or Borin's Armour must roll two Combat Dice; and those wearing plate mail must roll three Combat Dice. ...".

It does not explain what must be rolled to obtain a particular result.

drathe interpreted the British rule text to mean that more armor is a malus when he wrote: "... For each Skull rolled, one Body Point is lost. ..."

Is this possibly a wrong interpretation?

Because in the German translation it is written:"... Wie sehr er sich dabei verletzt, hängt davon ab, welche Panzerung er trägt: Heroen ohne jeden Schutz würfeln mit einem Würfel, um sich gegen den Verlust von Körperkraft-
punkten zu wehren. Trägt man ein Kettenhemd oder Borins Rüstung, so wirft man zwei Würfel. Und wer einen Harnisch trägt, darf sich sogar mit drei Würfeln gegen Verletzungen wehren. ..."
"...How much he injures himself depends on what armor he wears: Heroes without any protection roll a die to defend themselves against the loss of Body points. If one wears chain mail or Borin's armor, he rolls two dice. And if you wear plate mail, you may even use three dice to defend against injury. ..."

The German translation also leaves unclear what must be rolled to achieve a particular result.
Where the German rules text differs from drathe's rules text, however, is that more armor is a bonus in determining damage from the Pit of Darkness.

So what might be the correct interpretation of the original British rules text? What makes more sense?
Armor as a malus and roll skulls or armor as a bonus and roll white shields?

Wolfheim wrote:The rules for the Pit of Darkness in the British quest book of "Against the Ogre Hordes" are written very imprecisely.
It says: "... Once he falls, a character will suffer damage depending on how much armour he is wearing. Characters not wearing any armour must roll one combat die to see if they lose a Body point; those wearing Chain-mail or Borin's Armour must roll two Combat Dice; and those wearing plate mail must roll three Combat Dice. ..."

Well I'll be! It was in the quest book all along. 2 dice.

I would think you would roll the correct number of dice and then lose a BP for each skull rolled. That's how we played it.