Removing Falling Block Traps

[Fullork345]

Interesting, I was looking at the book and it looks like an alternative could be to only count tg the icon. They dont seem to block any entrances then.

[Jalapenotrellis]

Hmm, not looking at it now, but pretty sure there was a reason I had to change the rule. We will go back to the NA version in the NA expansions.

[Zenithfleet]

Edited by HispaZargon: due to topic similarity, all posts from new thread "Falling block traps in the UK/EU game" have been moved to this older thread "Falling Block Traps in UK version".

EDIT: After posting this I found an older topic on the same lines: http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3595&sid=654282c3108930b0313c653a5d04a658

G'day all,

Some may be aware of my dislike of the trap rules in the classic UK/European ruleset. Even as a kid I thought they were nonsensical and made some of the traps ineffectual.

For reference, if you find a pit trap or a falling block trap with a search, the trap tile is immediately placed onto the board in an active state. There's no "detected but not yet triggered" state for a trap. The pit opens, or the block falls. Then, if you're the Dwarf or have a tool kit, you're able to disarm it--which means removing the active trap from the board. The open pit can be cleared away. So can the fallen block.

I have many issues with these rules. But what has always struck me as strange about them is that, at least for falling block traps, the quest map designers don't seem to follow their own rules.


When a falling block trap is included in a classic UK/EU quest its purpose isn't usually to damage a hero, but to close off a route and force the party to move in a certain direction. Or it will be intended to split up the party and force them to explore the map separately. It's usually employed as a design tool to make the heroes go where the designer wants them to go.

For example, in Melar's Maze (base game) the northern falling block trap is probably meant to split off one hero from the rest of the party. The Mummy stops the block trap from being found with a search, and one hero will end up having to get past the Mummy and then take the long way around to reach the central room. The other heroes will have to explore other parts of the Maze. It suits the whole "maze" aspect of the quest (a true classic of HQ design in my opinion).

Another example occurs in the first Barak Tor quest (base game) - the one where you accidentally wake up the Witch Lord. There's a special falling block trap that only falls after 'the last person' passes under it. It's meant to block the route back to the stairs, so that players will have to take the long way round and pass through the Witch Lord's tomb. For plot reasons this is important; the next two quests assume that you've disturbed his nap, so you need to, well, actually disturb his nap before you leave. If the block trap wasn't there it would be possible to obtain the Star of the West and then go back the way you came, without ever entering the tomb at all.

(In practice, 'the last person' is an ambiguous instruction and the quest isn't as railroady as it might seem. One or more heroes might find the secret door in the starting room and go that way instead. Once long ago I took HeroQuest to school for a board game day. One guy took the Wizard off on a lone journey through the secret doors, only to run into the Gargoyle. Much panic ensued. It's also possible to get to the Star of the West by the secret door route and leave by the same path without ever disturbing the Witch Lord--although it would probably require some metagaming. The players would need to be familiar with the map or to have played through the quest before, so that they know which tempting door should be deliberately ignored, or at least know not to step inside the tomb room.)

Most tellingly, when you return to Barak Tor in the final quest of the base game, there's a blocked square tile in the upper left corner - right where the falling block trap was in the previous visit. It's clearly the very same cave-in, still there, as if it were permanent once it fell.


But... the rules as written don't fit this.

By RAW, once a block falls the Dwarf (or Mr Toolkit) can simply remove the fallen block from the board. The falling block traps become minor timewasting nuisances and don't have much impact on the heroes' movements at all.

In Melar's Maze the Dwarf can just get rid of the fallen block and let the lone hero facing the Mummy rejoin the party.

In Barak Tor the fallen block that's meant to make sure the players meet the Witch Lord can simply be cleared away... which not only mucks up the apparent intention, but makes the random blocked square in Quest 14 a bit puzzling.

It feels like the quest designers thought of falling blocks as permanent once fallen, yet the rules don't treat them that way.


There seems to have been some untidy revision to the disarmament rules at some stage (the Dwarf has different rules on his character board vs the 2nd edition rulebook) and I wonder if this is another legacy of it. I know a lot of playtesting was done with actual kids (i.e. boys) to find out what level of complexity they could cope with. Maybe having detected-but-not-triggered traps was proving too complicated for the average test group. Maybe the trap rules were simplified at a late stage and ended up a bit inconsistent with the planned quests?

How do other UK/EU players deal with falling block traps? Do you just clear them away and go on your merry way, as per the official rules as written? Or do you treat them as permanent?


Incidentally, long ago I house-ruled that once a falling block trap has fallen, the block can't be 'disarmed' either by the Dwarf or by a Tool Kit. It's a cave-in and it's permanent.

I later added a rule that pit traps and falling blocks are placed on the board upside down when found by a search, to show that they haven't been triggered yet. They can be disarmed while in that state, but not once someone walks onto them and triggers them. (Before that, I put pit traps out when found, and just pointed out squares with the rare falling block traps.)

Because I've played with this house rule for so long, I sometimes misinterpret UK/EU quest maps. Recently two heroes got permanently stuck in an Ogre Horde quest because I forgot that I was using a house rule. A few years ago I complained about the 'Eyes of Chaos' White Dwarf quest being impossible to complete due to a falling block, but have belatedly realised that no, it wouldn't be a problem if I were playing rules as written. D'oh.


EDIT: After posting this I noticed that the Adventure Design Kit also seems to assume that falling block traps are permanent. It warns the young quest designer to be careful about putting a falling block in a dead-end hallway because a player might get stuck there.

[MonsterMotor]

EDIT: After posting this I found an older topic on the same lines: http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3595&sid=654282c3108930b0313c653a5d04a658
For reference, if you find a pit trap or a falling block trap with a search, the trap tile is immediately placed onto the board in an active state. There's no "detected but not yet triggered" state for a trap. The pit opens, or the block falls. Then, if you're the Dwarf or have a tool kit, you're able to disarm it--which means removing the active trap from the board. The open pit can be cleared away. So can the fallen block.

I don't see anywhere in the rules that detecting a falling block trap and indicating the square on the board means that the trap is triggered immediately. The game merely did not contain a marker to indicate these traps. But after the trap is triggered, the fallen block is not a trap any more and, thus, cannot be cleared away, so it permanently changes the structure of the dungeon.

The trap in the Ogre Horde quest you refer to is obviously an error in the dungeon design that can seal the way to the exit. Similar errors are known from other quests, e.g., in the Halls of Vision of the Witch Lord expansion.

[Kurgan]

Due to some of the issues with the crossover to the NA rules in the remake edition, I think I'm going to just allow the Dwarf (or another hero with a toolkit; all of them are champions already anyway) to remove a triggered Fallen Block Trap, and possibly a Pit trap as well.

Succeed at the roll, and you remove the trap safely. Fail the roll and you take 1 BP damage and remove the trap.

However they do give you permission to finally use the "search a pit trap as a room unto itself for secret doors..." to provide a way out of a sealed room. Might have to use that if it were to come up!

[Zenithfleet]

EDIT: After posting this I found an older topic on the same lines: http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3595&sid=654282c3108930b0313c653a5d04a658
For reference, if you find a pit trap or a falling block trap with a search, the trap tile is immediately placed onto the board in an active state. There's no "detected but not yet triggered" state for a trap. The pit opens, or the block falls. Then, if you're the Dwarf or have a tool kit, you're able to disarm it--which means removing the active trap from the board. The open pit can be cleared away. So can the fallen block.

I don't see anywhere in the rules that detecting a falling block trap and indicating the square on the board means that the trap is triggered immediately. The game merely did not contain a marker to indicate these traps. But after the trap is triggered, the fallen block is not a trap any more and, thus, cannot be cleared away, so it permanently changes the structure of the dungeon.

The trap in the Ogre Horde quest you refer to is obviously an error in the dungeon design that can seal the way to the exit. Similar errors are known from other quests, e.g., in the Halls of Vision of the Witch Lord expansion.

It's a bit ambiguous, like a few other things in the rulebook. However, I'm not the only one to read it this way.

Here's how I interpret the rules as written:

First, there's no "detecting a falling block trap and indicating the square on the board" in the 2nd ed UK rules that I have. That's in the North American rules, but not the UK/EU rules.

In the 2nd ed UK rulebook I have, page 12, under 'Secret doors and traps' at the top of the page, it says:

"Trap tiles are only placed if found by a search or if triggered by a character moving onto the trapped square. Pit traps and falling block traps are placed onto the board when triggered. Spear traps [...] there are no tokens for spear traps. Trap tiles may be removed from the board by any character who has the Tool Kit equipment card and is adjacent to the trap. The Dwarf may automatically remove any trap tile he is adjacent to."

This paragraph is all about trap tiles and what to do with them.

The first sentence says you place trap tiles onto the board when you find or trigger them.

The second sentence says you place falling block traps onto the board when triggered. In the context of the previous sentence, and the next sentence (which talks about spear trap tokens), it's implied that a trap tile is placed for a falling block. The only possible tile in the EU game is the actual block that falls.

Therefore, the fallen block is the 'trap tile' for this kind of trap.

Now strictly speaking, the second sentence doesn't say you place pits or falling block traps onto the board when found by a search. It only says you do so if triggered. But the first sentence says you place the tile in both cases. And later, under 'Traps', the rulebook says: "Traps are not put on the board until a character player either searches for traps or moves into a square containing a trap".

The general intention is clear that there's no intermediate stage of found-but-not-yet-triggered in the EU rules. If you find it, you place a tile. If you trigger it, you place a tile. Spears are the exception because they go 'poof' when you find them or step onto them.

The next bit talks about removing trap tiles. The preceding three sentences defined the trap tile for a falling block trap as the block that falls. Therefore, you can remove the trap tile (the block) in the same way as removing a pit trap tile. Both are trap tiles.

But it's not as neat and clean and lawyerly as I would like, so it's possible to interpret it differently.


However, another bit of context for the intended meaning is that in the base game there are only three kinds of trap: pit, falling block, and spear. The game doesn't include tiles or tokens for spear traps (and it says so). That leaves only two other traps. If the game also didn't include tiles for falling block traps, then the only kind of trap with a 'tile' you can remove with the Dwarf would be a pit trap. In that case, this whole section would probably have been written differently. Pit traps would be a unique, special kind of trap--the only one with a tile, and the only one that the Dwarf can get rid of. (The game might even say "there no tokens for falling block traps" in the same way that it says it for spears, but then again it might just leave it to be inferred.)

Of course, the counterargument to that is to say the writers were just leaving it open for other kinds of trap with special tiles to be added in expansions...

[MonsterMotor]

Well, under the heading "The Screen," the 1st edition rules clearly define when a trap is triggered, namely when a hero steps on a trapped square or opens a trapped chest without prior search for traps. Details about the traps are written on the back side of the screen. I also checked that German and English editions are concordant here. Maybe the 2nd section book you use is less clear here.

[Zenithfleet]

Well, under the heading "The Screen," the 1st edition rules clearly define when a trap is triggered, namely when a hero steps on a trapped square or opens a trapped chest without prior search for traps. Details about the traps are written on the back side of the screen. I also checked that German and English editions are concordant here. Maybe the 2nd section book you use is less clear here.

There's more about traps in the 1st edition than just the 'Screen' section. In fact, the 1st edition makes it clearer that the Dwarf and the Tool Kit can remove fallen blocks.

If you have a look under 'Searching' on page 12, there's a subheading 'Secret doors and traps'. It says:

"Trap tiles are only placed if found by a search or if triggered by a character moving onto the trapped square." [emphasis mine]

Then it says:

"Spear traps are always disarmed when found, so there are no spear trap tiles. Pit traps and falling block traps are placed onto the board when found. They may later be disarmed and removed by the Dwarf or any character with the Tool Kit equipment card."

Therefore, if you find (or trigger) a falling block trap you place a trap tile onto the board. The only possible tile supplied with the game is a fallen block (a blocked square). You can remove that tile with the Dwarf or the Tool Kit. Therefore you can clear a fallen block off the board. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Same with pit traps. If you find it with a search you put the pit trap onto the board, and then you can get rid of the tile with the Dwarf or the Tool Kit.


To be clear--you don't 'trigger' a trap when you find it with a search. You trigger it when you step on it. But finding it and triggering it both do the same thing: they place the trap tile onto the board. The only difference is that if you find it, you don't get hurt, because you're not standing on the same space. Although falling blocks could actually be more dangerous if you find them with a search than if you trigger them. Usually they fall on a separate space marked with the arrow. If you happened to be standing on the arrow square when you searched, you would get hit by the falling block, which normally doesn't happen.


If you think that's a silly way to play, then I absolutely agree with you, and I house-ruled it long ago. And the quest designers don't seem to have followed it when designing their quests. But it does seem to be the intended rule.

The main difference between the 1st and 2nd ed rulebook when it comes to traps seens to be that the info on the inside of the Evil Wizard player's screen was copied into the 2nd ed rulebook. The details of pit traps, falling block traps and spear traps are all in the 2nd ed rulebook under their own headings, as well as repeated on the screen. (Which made the screen pretty much redundant, but oh well.)

[MonsterMotor]

To be clear--you don't 'trigger' a trap when you find it with a search. You trigger it when you step on it. But finding it and triggering it both do the same thing: they place the trap tile onto the board. The only difference is that if you find it, you don't get hurt, because you're not standing on the same space. Although falling blocks could actually be more dangerous if you find them with a search than if you trigger them. Usually they fall on a separate space marked with the arrow. If you happened to be standing on the arrow square when you searched, you would get hit by the falling block, which normally doesn't happen.


If you think that's a silly way to play, then I absolutely agree with you, and I house-ruled it long ago. And the quest designers don't seem to have followed it when designing their quests. But it does seem to be the intended rule.

Yes, this is the key example where the specific description of this trap reveals that it is erroneous. So, what remains is to follow those rules that work and interpret the rest using common sense to have them working properly in all possible situations.

[Zenithfleet]

Yes, this is the key example where the specific description of this trap reveals that it is erroneous. So, what remains is to follow those rules that work and interpret the rest using common sense to have them working properly in all possible situations.

I don't quite understand what you mean. What reveals that it's erroneous?

There's no contradiction in the rules as written that I can see. They're silly rules, but they do fit together. The trap tile you place on the board for a falling block trap is a fallen block. Trap tiles can be removed by the Dwarf or with a Tool Kit.

The contradiction isn't within the rules. It's between the rules and the quests. The quests mostly seem to be designed on the assumption that you can't get rid of a fallen block.

At least until you get to Ogre Horde. It's possible that the game-ending falling block traps in that quest pack are errors, but they could equally well just indicate that the designers reread the actual rulebook and started properly following it, putting in falling blocks that would only be temporary nuisances if played by the rules as written.

My guess is that the rules as written were intended to keep things as simple as possible for young players, like most of HeroQuest. It was repeatedly playtested with kids by just handing them the current prototype, saying "Here you go" and leaving for a couple of hours. Baker had to keep stripping out complexity until he hit a level the age group could cope with. I think that's why traps have no 'found but not yet triggered' state, even though that would make much more sense. The NA rules team added that in, but then their version of HQ appears to have been aimed at a slightly older audience.

Under your interpretation of the rules, what happens when a player searches for traps and finds a falling block trap? (I don't mean house rules; I mean interpreting the rules as written.)