JUNGLES OF DELTHRAK discussion

[Daedalus]

Now we can question is throwing weapons are ranqed weapons. I suppose they count as but who truly knows...

I know d&d rules consider weapons like Daggers and Hand Axes as melee weapons, that can the thrown, but are not considered ranged weapons. This is HeroQuest so it could be different.

Well the dagger & spear in Hero Quest counts as both melee & capable of ranged. Unless they get more specific it’s open to interpretation whether the thrown part of that is just disabled with Berserker. So if I’m not mistaken the only truly ranged weapon heroes can buy is the crossbow? I think they just want to avoid abuse of skills to make the crossbow somehow shoot better with Enrage or Retaliation.

I think Jelsabob has the right idea. Only the crossbow is considered a ranged weapon. Here are some key supporting references:

. . . For instance, daggers and crossbows are special weapons due to their ability to hit a monster from a distance.

Thrown and projectile weapons are subsets of weapons that hit from a distance, not at range. Assuming range is synonymous with distance is only half correct. (See range defintion below.)

crossbow : This long-range weapon gives you the attack strength of 3 combat dice. You may fire it at any monster that you can see. However, you cannot fire at a monster that is adjacent to you. You have an unlimited supply of arrows. May not be used by the Wizard.
dagger : This sharp knife gives you the attack strength of 1 combat die. A dagger can also be thrown at any monster you can see but it is lost once thrown.
hand ax : This hand ax allows you to roll 2 attack dice. It can also be thrown at any monster in your line of sight but it is lost once thrown.

All three weapons use line of sight to hit from a distance, but only one can fire a missile. (See projectile definition below.) A crossbow is the only weapon described as a long-range weapon since it alone uses arrows--projectiles--in the fullest sense of the word.

No, H axe and spear are NOT ranged weapons, they are melee weapons that can be thrown, a subtle, but distinct difference.
A ranged weapon is one designed solely for shooting or firing at targets at distance.

This is mostly the best interpretation, but there is also a broader understanding of range. The definition of range and the supporting word projectile can also generally be applied to a dagger or hand ax, but a crossbow especially matches well for ranged:

range
5 a (1) : the horizontal distance to which a projectile can be propelled

projectile
1 : a body projected by external force and continuing in motion by its own inertia
ggespecially : a missile for a weapon (such as a firearm)

Only the crossbow card is specified as a long-range weapon and thus is the only weapon currently prohibited by the Berserker card. Weapons like the dagger and hand ax don't include short-range weapon on their cards. Though these thrown weapons could be considered ranged missiles in the general sense, they lack the specificity of the crossbow as a missile-firing weapon. This comparison leaves the dagger and hand ax as poorer candidates through examination of the definition of range and thus should best be discounted. This means the Berserker may not only fight with a dagger or hand ax, but he is also allowed to throw them.

Of course, this is Heroquest we are talking about at the Inn so I expect not everyone will agree.

[Just found another key reference:

^{*Ranged Enemies}
When Zargon has the option to place a monster on the board, they may place a standard monster or a ranged version of that same monster type (in this quest pack, that means Skeletons and Goblins). A ranged monster rolls Attack dice equal to thier standard attack score against any non-adjacent target in their line of sight. If their target is adjacent, they roll 1 Atack die.

Like a crossbow, ranged monsters have an unlimited supply of missiles but may not use their ranged attack against an adjacent enemy. A thrown weapon behaves in an opposite fasion; it is lost when used to attack at a distance, but it uses the same attack score agaist an adjacent enemy. (Note that a the attack score and any special ability on a monster's card determines its Attack dice, irrespective of the weapon depicted on the figure.) - edit]

[LucaRocks]

Wow what a great breakdown!

This information only makes me wish for more ranged weapons. Maybe a slingshot for 1 attack at range. Or a magical range attack item that only the wizard can use and doesn't run out as easily as spells.

(And yes, I know the warlock wand is ranged but I do not let the wizard use that)

[SirRick]

I think the Wizard does need some sort of Wand similar to the Warlock, but maybe weaker, or an artifact dagger that teleports back to the user when thrown. There have been too many times the Wizard just stood around and did nothing in my games, which is why I often have a Crossbow-wielding healer instead of the Wizard unfortunately.

[Daedalus]

Yeah the way I understand the Spawnlings is that you stack the tiles on your hero's character card... and if you just use your attack, it hits and destroys all of them at once if you roll even one skull. Is that right?

I have scoured the various videos currently available. The rules for Spawnlings are spread over two separate pages; Page 5 discussing the Spawnling tiles, and Page 48 (I think) under Monster Notes. Both deal with how and when Heroes take damage from the Spawnling tiles; at the end of a Hero's turn, they take 1 point of BP damage for each tile on their card--and you cannot defend against these attacks. That's pretty much all I can find.

This makes me think that AH assumed that it was a straightforward process for eliminating the tiles. i.e. A normal attack, where the Spawnlings have 0 Defense. If it were more involved, I'd have thought they'd spell it out. Particularly since the go to some pains to make sure that the way Spawnlings are spawned, moved, and damage a Hero, is quite clear.

I suspect that the cumulative tiles equate to 1 enemy with x BP, where x equals the number of tiles. Thus, a Hero with 3 tiles on them would effectively "Fight" one 3 BP enemy, with no defense roll. Like any other enemy, each skull rolled for the Hero's attack, would reduce the BP of the target by 1 point.

NOTE: I cannot prove this, as I have found no direct reference in the rules that I have seen. There could be more details on a page which has not been shown yet (or that I missed). So yeah, while absence of evidence is not in itself proof, neither is it confirmation that the rule for eliminating a Spawnling tile is meant to be any more complicated (or esoteric) than a typical attack roll.

But admittedly, without clarification from AH, we are all really just guessing.

Very cogent reasoning. There's also the Spawnling card to reference, but there isn't much more to it.

There is one point that I may differ on--until Avalon Hill says otherwise. While I agree a straightforward mechanic is assumed to remove Spawnling tiles from a hero card, I don't think setting the Spawnling BP equal to the number of tiles--though clever--is intended. If it were, I think the Spawnling rules would have specified it as an exception to vanilla combat. Rather, I believe each Spawnling tile is considered a monster that must be attacked separately, needing nothing more than the standard rules found under the Attack action of the Instruction Booklet.

There are a couple of reasons that I believe attacking each Spawnling separately on a Hero's card is the best interpretation. First, when placed on the gameboard, a Spawnling tile behaves as a monster, both occupying a square space and moving (though not on Zargon's turn). While it is on the gameboard, a hero may attack it as an adjacent monster, but may not apply any extra skull results to any other adjacent Spawnlings on the gameboard. Each Spawnling must be attacked separately. The most direct translation for attacking Spawnlings on a hero card is to use the same rule as for the gameboard.

Second, there is already a rule that handles more than one figure in a square which applies to the spiral stairway and pit trap squares. It can be intuitively understood that a hero's square can be covered with the same allowance to account for this new instance of multiple combatants. The standard rules for a hero attacking a single monster can apply here without further adjustment.

Third, found under Spawnling Tiles ( p.5 of Jungles of Delthrak): "Spawnling monsters are found throughout the quests. . . ." This, along with the Spawnling monster card, underscores that each Spawnling is a monster and should be attacked as one, individually.

Attacking Spawnlings individually on a hero card is playing on hard mode, while attacking them as a single, multiple-BP monster is playing on easy mode. I thing both can work, and Avalon Hill probably playtested both options. Hopefully, this issue will be brought to their attention and a clarification will be announced. Then again, maybe the ambiguity was purposefully left in for us to decide for our own games.

[QorDaq]

...Snip...

Attacking Spawnlings individually on a hero card is playing on hard mode, while attacking them as a single, multiple-BP monster is playing on easy mode. I thing both can work, and Avalon Hill probably playtested both options. Hopefully, this issue will be brought to their attention and a clarification will be announced. Then again, maybe the ambiguity was purposefully left in for us to decide for our own games.

You make some solid and thoughtful arguments here.

To my thinking, your solution has us not simply playing on Hard Mode, but potentially Nightmare Mode. While the tiles are limited, there are enough of them (Did I count 15? Though only like 5 of a particular type), to be a TPK engine. On a typical turn, where a Hero has access to but a single attack action, which is not guaranteed to remove a tile in any case (My terrible dice rolling is legendary in my gaming groups), the possibility of going down really quickly is high. Particularly given that EACH tile deals automatic damage. This could be especially brutal when it comes to some of our squishier Heroes.

Were a Hero to get swarmed, it could take the whole party doing nothing but trying to keep them alive, to survive the turn. Plenty of encouragement there to not allow that to happen of course. And, it would take a couple turns to get to that point. And, I don't recall seeing multiple enemies with the Spawn keyword appearing in a given quest. So it could admittedly be an edge case scenario.

However, with Zargon receiving a Spawnling-related "Special Action" (Spawn 1 tile or Move all tiles) at the end of each Hero's turn--which is to say outside of Zargon's normal turn--which is also when a given Hero takes damage from any tiles already on their card, it may not be such an edge case after all.

This certainly does not have any particular bearing on Avalon Hill's intent, we just don't know what that may be at this point, but I think it bears keeping in mind when interpreting these seemingly vague new rules.

It's a cool mechanism, whatever the intent, and I look forward to playing with it. Which, incidentally, those with the AtOH box can rather easily playtest now using the Arena rules introduced in that expansion. I've even updated my Arena Team Lists on BGG to aid in that effort.

Suffice it to say, and as you point out, Daedalus, AH is not above making things intentionally ambiguous with some guidance, so there is absolutely room to interpret the Spawnling rules to suit any group's preferred play style.

[wallydubbs]

I think taking out the spawnlings would need to be determined by the difficulty of the game. The other monsters don't seem unreasonably tough like Ogres, Giant Wolves and Polar Warbears. I mean after Against the Ogre Hoard 4 attack dice seems reasonably tame.
If you're attacking spawnlings from an adjacent square I'd say 1 attack per turn, yeah, unless maybe they're all on the same square... but if they're all on the hero: snakes spiders and centipedes, you'd need 3 s to get them all off in one whack. It really ramps up the difficulty if you're needing a skull per turn to get them off.

Sometimes the heroes roll really bad. I just went through the Great Citadel in Keller's Keep and it took the Barbarian 4 turns to put down an orc because he whiffed on 2 of his rolls and the 3rd was blocked. Waiting until a hero rolls 3 skulls to could take way too long, leaving a hero incapacitated for over 5 turns.
In a sense this does add a bit or realism for creepy crawlers getting under a heroes armor, but it could also be fairly time consuming.
If you're wanting to do 1 spawnling per turn it might give the Berserker and Monk a bit of a shine for their multi-attack abilities, but I can also see other heroes needing to use heroic Brew to speed up the process.

I'm not gonna tell other people how to play their game, but for me I'd leave it as 1 to take out each spawnling and it can be done on the same turn.

On a different note I think this is really the quest pack when Venom Antidote and Anti-poison Quill's could come in handy. A lot of the prices were lowered from the Game System to Rise of the Dread Moon. So having a cheap venom antidote would really come in handy, but it seems like Avalon Hill just wants to disregard it as a potion. But I could see a hero holding onto that Anti-Poison Quill from RotWL and using it here, Zargon would have a choice to make.

[Kurgan]

Spawnlings:
I would say that if a hero has Spawnlings on his hero card, and he rolls ANY skulls at all, that should wipe out all of the Spawnlings in one go.

Now if the Spawnling is a tile that is moving around the board and the Hero walks up to one to attack, then yes, the hero's attack would only hit that square and so only kill that single Spawnling (with any skull(s). The only way to kill a group of Spawnling tiles on the board at once would be to have some kind of attack that hits multiple squares at once (such as the spinning attack skill of the Berserker, or the whirlwind air style of the Monk).

New/Old Potions:
With the exception of FH and MOTM, none of the expansions is really expecting you to integrate anything else other than the GS, so it can work on its own and if you introduce other items, it becomes Zargon's job to smooth out any anomalies. That said, it's quite possible that the heroes HAVE played another expansion before this one and have lingering items from that one and will wonder about using them here.

The rules don't say that the other anti-poison items outside this expansion work against Venom or vice versa with the anti-venom potion. But for the sake of versatility when you combine the packs that's a sensible enough patch for Zargon to apply I would agree. If one is cheaper of course the heroes will go for that one. We have no indication that the Alchemist Shop of JoD is meant to be offered anywhere else (or that you should get to use any Alchemist shops from other expansions while playing JoD, but technically Frozen Horror and MOTM say you can use any Alchemist Shops between quests from any expansions you own...

Since there's always the possibility that there are leftover potions from another expansion while you are playing this one, for those, either they are just forever useless or maybe the player asks (for that one off) and Zargon just says sure, it works. Or you are expected to get rid of them?

In theory though the base rules would want you to sell back the unneeded/useless potions (at half price) back to the Armory. At least that was what they implied by making them "Equipment" cards. Zargon can do whatever he likes at his table, but ROTDM (that introduced the Alchemy deck in the first place) says you can sell back any items to the Underground Market, so long as they are sold in the underground market. It lists the Alchemy deck potions that have gold values as among the items that are sold there, so you could reason that while it doesn't list the new JoD Alchemy cards there, you could add them to that deck. Then you could stretch and say the Underground Market is active in JoD between quests too, so why not... it works if you want it to. But I agree with those who say they used the Alchemy cardbacks this time more for stylistic reasons since there are no re-agents and no explanation just a basic Alchemist Shop listing.

But Zargon would have to say ahead of time "these items are no longer of any use" or something and possibly ruin some surprises (but at least the Heroes can recover some gold at that point to buy other things... you never quite know what you will need!), so each will do what he or she thinks is best, those are my

[HispaZargon]

Here I send you a simple scheme I have done, for everyone interested, showing all the posible paths, in terms of 'Quests', which the Heroes I guess may follow during Jungles of Delthrak campaign, based in the leaks available.

Please, if you detect any error don't hesitate to tell me.

BEWARE because of course THIS FILE CONTAINS SPOILERS:

2024_HQ_JOD_Questbook_Paths.pdf

Edited by HispaZargon: Questbook had an errata already confirmed by Avalon Hill on 09/Jul/2024, so this paths scheme is not correct anymore. The fixed scheme can be found here.

[Kurgan]

So how about for every skull you roll, that removes a Spawnling from your hero card? Another hero could smash them off of you the same way... Spawnlings that are tiles on the board treat like any other monster (just that they roll no defense).

[Kurgan]

Thanks SpookyHappyFun on HeroQuestFans Discord for giving the final piece of the Jungles of Delthrak "puzzle," ... THE SAPPHIRE SKULL!

When shrouded in darkness, it emits a soft glow.

This legendary relic is crafted from precious cobalt gemstone.
It imbues you with poise and assurance. While wielding
this artifact, roll 2 Attack dice against any one monster in your
line of sight.

The bolded part is finally known!