by HispaZargon » Tuesday February 13th, 2024 12:49pm
In my opinion the rules for Swinging Blade Traps described in Against the Ogre Horde quest book include some errata which, unfortunatelly, are not too blatant.
The problem with them is that they are a mostly direct transcription of the European original rules, without any fine adaptation. They explain how the Heroes can disarm the trap by means of a toolkit and they also say that the Dwarf can disarm them automatically, which, as said, are exactly the same rules explaine in the original classic quest book. This could look Ok, BUT I think no...
The classic European rules from the basic game stated that any Hero can disarm any discovered trap if they own a toolkit and they roll any Shield in 1 die. In the case of the Dwarf, he can do it even without a toolkit. Then, probably EU designers realized this did not fit well with a trap affecting more than one square, so they decided to polish the disarming rule for AtHO by means of triggering the trap if the disarm roll failed instead of losing 1 BP, but keeping the Dwarf special ability unchanged. Anyway, after polishing the general disarming rule here, it is become the same as the general one under NA rules so makes no sense writing it in the AtOH questbook, it is redundant, but Hasbro unfortunatelly kept it there.
My first impression when reading the remake rule was that maybe AH asssumed that the blade cannot attack the Dwarf because of his short height and that's why he can disarm it automatically, but it does not make sense because there is no especial inmunity rule for the Dwarf in case of the blade trap is activated by other hero next to him... and no further rules for the Druid/Warlock heroes which are also short heighted...
Then, I think there is not any justified reason to give the Dwarf the special ability of automatic disarming, except it has been just a bad adaptation of the European rule from AtHO... it is so clever if reading the rule for the rest of the Heroes, because it just repeat the general disarming rule written in the Game System rulebook. In other words, I think the disarming last paragraph "The Dwarf may automatically disarm..." should be totally deleted from the questbook, just allowing the use of the regular disarming rules from the Game System.
Additionally, I think the blade trap should be discovered just in the room or corridor where the golden blade icon is placed, as in the original questbook, because otherwise the blade layup of Quest 4 (and maybe also Quest 6 in the lower left corner room) did not be compatible with the new rule since all the blade icons (gold and white) MUST be in the same room or corridor to be detected...
Another posible errata in my opinion is on page 27 of the questbook... Why the parchment and Note D talks about an iron gate? This change has been stupidly introduced in the remake, the original texts just talked about a "gateway" to refer to the upper left corner door, and the remake do not include any one-square door... except those made of Stone, so makes no sense, but wait, moreover... if the iron gate is supposed to be the one accesing the Ogre fortress, why Note D says that the Orc statue is guaring the door if the 'iron' door cannot be seen from the statue location??? Imagine the Heroes entered the dungeon from outside passing through the upper right stone door, they could find the iron door without meeting the statue... it makes no sense as written the Note D in my opinion. Additionally, it had been welcome if it had been clarified if the Heroes may defend normally against the Fireballs or not, but it looks like they can defend as normally like against any other monster with ranged attacks.
Another errata... on page 29, Note C: It is not told what type of Potion of Healing finds the Heroes there. In the classic questbook they found a 1-6 BPs potion of healing, so maybe we should assume the one they fing in the remake is the same as the ones from the Treasure deck of Game System. Same errata found on page 31 Note D, page 33 Note C...
Page 30, the map shows FOUR treasure chest icons.... but Game System box only includes three models.
Page 43, I guess the map icons for double-square doors, stone doors, new tiles and ogre throne should had been also showed here to make your own maps.
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