Removing Falling Block Traps

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

I simply use this method regarding all traps
When triggered, place trap tiles/for spear traps do as written and roll for damage.
When found by searching, place a skull tile on each trapped square. Voice a relevent warning regarding each square, so for a pit say "floor looks dangerous"
In areas with multiple traps you may need to voice multiple different warnings (floor/ceiling/wall)
Note I only allow searching up to the next junction in a passageway.
I don't place anything under a trapped chest but tell them it looks suspicious. It's for them to remember!
I also use trapped doorways, but again just point out they look dangerous.
If they are then disarmed, remove tile
If not place and do damage as normal.
I also allow a special action of searching a square beyond a doorway as long as no monsters in the room, I don't like the mechanic of traps behind doors that are not able to be found.
Of course we have Explorer now so they can use him to find these nasty surprises.
Plus I house rule Monk can use Speak with stone in any occupied rooms to find traps. It stops him from using that bloody Strength of Mountain punch!!

[Kurgan]

Against the Ogre Horde was released first, as it's referred to in the draft notes of Mike Gray's team at the US MB as they worked on the "hero" themed packs. They had photocopies of both ATOH and WOM to work with, hence why you had miniatures (and some concepts, mostly art) re-used from those in the EQP and BQP (and more borrowing was planned for the WQP and DQP!). This was obviously done to save cost/time and they didn't assume that most kids were importing the other expansions from Europe anyway.

The swinging axe trap persists, so other than the symbol looking similar that's about it compared to the far less dangerous Swinging blade trap. The first is like a pendulum that makes the trap permanently dangerous (until disarmed) while the swinging blade is basically an area of effect version of the spear trap, to my mind (the "Log trap" in the fan made Evil Wizard Deck on this site is very reminiscent of it of course that's something the Evil Wizard plays on a whim, no possibility to disarm or detect it beforehand).

Not to get back into the weeds again with the Treasure chest stuff and how it ought to be, but if treasure chest opening is treated as a free action (I don't personally see the point outside of EU 2nd Edition The Trial... unless someone really wants to loot the chest in the midst of a battle, maybe in competition so other heroes can't get it first?) but that would allow the hero to get extra treasure because even after opening the chest for free, he could still search the (monster-free) room for treasure and get a card (and if you limit the room to only one treasure search, winner really does take all!). It doesn't matter if all three chests are in the room, the first hero, with sufficient movement can open all of them! (and if he does his search for traps action first, he's fine to open all three and get everything though someone else could take the card search after). If I were myself to use some version of this, I'd probably also stipulate that any monster that is a adjacent to a chest protects that chest from being opened by a hero (though no such restriction is involved with doors, it just feels right). Also makes me think of another very small point, if we treat Treasure Chests like doors, then shouldn't they obstruct line of sight for the purposes of missile file? Not that it's a big deal to maneuver around the chest to hit someone, but still. Of course now we know that some don't consider furniture to ever have obstructed movement, much less line of sight (only closed doors) to the point where AH felt the need to clarify this in the First Light rules. Will we ever tire of arguing the rules (away from the play table)? Certainly not, thank goodness.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

TheLastChaosWarrior,

In your "method for all traps" that you kindly shared, I have a few questions to help me understand...

1. Why the need to voice a relevant warning, if you are placing the skull tile anyway then surely they are warned?
2. What relevant warning is voiced for traps in expansions like the Swinging Blade trap in Against the Ogre Horde as none is specified?
3. If you are located on a corner on or between two passages, can you search up to the next junction in both directions?
4. Does "up to the next junction" include the next junction or does it stop before the junction?
5. You state that you use this method for all traps and yet you don't place a skull tile under a trapped chest or door, surely for consistency it would be easier to do the same and place a skull tile under these also? (and this would make your statement "If they are then disarmed, remove tile" consistent)
6. When you say "If not place and do damage as normal" do you mean that if you fail a disarm roll when you are on an adjacent square to a pit trap (for example) that the pit tile would be placed and the hero would fall in even though he is on an adjacent square and not the trapped square, or that the pit tile would not be placed and he would suffer 1BP loss?
7. If, in (6) it was a Spear Trap instead of a Pit Trap would the disarming hero suffer a 1BP loss or have to roll a combat die, losing a BP if a skull is rolled or would you just move him one square forward onto the Spear trap and handle as if he stepped onto it?
8. "a special action of searching a square beyond a doorway as long as no monsters in the room" does this mean that from a room you could search the square beyond the doorway into a passage, provided there are no monsters in the room, even if there are monsters in the passage that you are intending to search?


Kurgan,

We are not treating chests like doors, we are saying that the free action of "opening" is used both to open doors and open chests (and for that matter the free action of "looking" is used to look through opened doors and into opened chests)

[Bareheaded Warrior]

MonsterMotor & Zenithfleet

I was rereading your earlier posts on this topic and finally the penny dropped, my apologies for the delay. At the time I didn't fully understand what you were saying MonsterMotor, and your insistence on handling the pit and falling block traps differently distracted me from the main thrust of your interpretation. Ironically it was Zenithfleet's comments, despite the fact that the two of you weren't in agreement around your different interpretations, that made the penny drop for me.

In short, I think I have found a way to reconcile your two interpretations...but it is subtle, here goes.

1. All traps once found by a search are rendered harmless apart from the pit and falling block traps, and they are the only ones with markers, so these are the only relevant ones for this topic.

2. As Zenithfleet pointed out the text does seem to go to great lengths to discriminate between a trap found by a search and a trap triggered by being stepped on despite the fact that in both cases the result appears to be the same in that the relevant tile is placed (this last bit was my comment which whilst partially accurate is also wholly misleading)

A careful reading of the tool kit card, finally made the penny drop

The tool kit enables you to remove any trap that you find. Roll one combat die. On the roll of a skull the trap goes off and you lose one Body point. Once you have rolled the die the trap is removed.

3. It specifies the removal of a found trap.

4. There is a conditional element that may result in the trap going off (being triggered)

5. Finally the trap is removed

6. Note also that the card doesn't specify where the hero using the tool kit is located in relation to the trap (in fact in the first edition on the tool kit card, in the rule book and on the screen it doesn't actually tell you where the tool kit user needs to be located when he does the disarm)*

So the rulebook states that the marker is placed when the trap is found by a search, but the text on the tool kit indicates that it may (conditionally) be triggered by a certain roll during the disarm process which logically MUST mean that the trap that you have found by searching and which has been placed on the board is not yet triggered when you start the disarm process but MAY end up being triggered by the disarming process

This means that the marker must be dual-function in the sense that it is used represent both the found but not triggered trap (the pit trap or the falling block trap) AND the "feature" that is placed after the trap has been triggered (the pit or the blocked square).

In this context the last sentence on the Tool Kit card now makes sense, it means that irrespective to the face rolled on the disarm die the trap is removed, either you roll a or , so the trap marker is removed as the trap is disarmed or you roll a in which case the trap is removed but the marker remains as it now represents the triggered trap, the permanent feature resulting from the trap being triggered.

It is this dual-function aspect of the marker that I had failed to appreciate and this explains why, in the first edition, the components list describes the two markers as "falling block/blocked square marker" and "pit trap marker" respectively.

For the "falling block/blocked square marker" I had always interpreted this to mean it is the same marker used for (state 1) a falling block trap and/or (state 2) a blocked square on the board indicated as such on the Quest map but I now realise that it actually means that the same marker is used to represent (state 1) a falling block trap, (state 2) a "blocked square marker" resulting from a triggered falling block trap and (state 3) a blocked square on the board indicated as such on the Quest map.

Equally, the "pit trap marker" is also dual-function and is used to represent both (state 1) a pit trap (found by search but not yet triggered) and (state 2) a pit that results from the pit trap being triggered (although that should probably have been referred to as "pit trap/pit marker")

Further to this I have now realised that the falling block / blocked square marker, when it is being used to represent (state 2) a "blocked square marker" resulting from a triggered falling block trap and (state 3) a blocked square on the board indicated as such on the Quest map are functionally identical and both CANNOT be removed.

Equally the "pit trap marker" when it is being used to represent (state 2) a pit that results from the pit trap being triggered is also functionally identical to the state 2 blocked square marker (& state 3 blocked square marker) in that it CANNOT be removed from the board.

The only time one of these markers CAN be removed from the board is when they are being used to represent state (1) a searched for and found but not yet triggered trap, in which case they can be removed either by the Dwarf (automatically) or by a tool kit user (conditionally).

*Even though the first edition doesn't specify where the tool kit user needs to be located in order to disarm the trap, logically he must be located on the trap tile. To explain this consider use the pit trap as an example. The tool kit user, failing the roll to disarm, will trigger the trap resulting in him falling into the pit and suffering the 1 Body point loss that we would expect from falling into a Pit trap, exactly as the Tool Kit card states. In the example of the Falling Block trap then this is less clear, although for consistency we should probably consider the same approach, but in this instance triggering the trap would result in the falling block falling onto an adjacent square so the tool kit user would NOT suffer any BP loss. I imagine that either a limit on space for text on the card precluded the complete explanation or the falling block trap was originally designed to fall onto the "trigger" square and cause 1BP loss in exactly the same way as the Pit trap (and for that matter pretty much all other traps in the first edition) but was later upgraded to be non-local and more dangerous in its effects (although the non-local effect meant it was highly unlikely to land on anyone so could pack a much bigger punch) but the card was never updated.

This interpretation of moving the Tool Kit user onto the trap tile in order to attempt to disarm it, appears at first glance to be inconsistent with the commonly understood rules for the Dwarf to disarm a trap however looking at it in this fresh new light the text around the Dwarf disarm might not actually be intended to mean that he can disarm any traps automatically by simply being in the same room or passage, the reference to "remove any visible trap" might in fact be referring to searched for and found traps as opposed to hidden ones which couldn't be disarmed as they haven't been found i.e. where the marker has been placed on the board (in state 1), and the "can always disarm traps that you find" along with "in the same room or passage" piece may simply be referring to traps that you have found through searching which would be located in the same room or passage as that is where your search happens.

Perhaps the designers felt that as the tool kit card states that failure to disarm the trap resulted in it being triggered and the disarmer suffering the effects of the trap (certainly in the case of the pit trap) then it was obvious that the disarmer must be located on the trap tile when attempting to disarm the trap and if that was the intention for the tool kit user then why wouldn't it be the same for the Dwarf with his automatic "tool kit"

So if all of this is correct then Zenithfleet you don't have to house rule to prevent Pits and Blocked Squares from being removed from the board as the rules don't actually allow that, they only allow the removal of Pit Traps and Falling Block Traps and NOT the resultant features, the Pit and the Blocked Square.

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

TheLastChaosWarrior,

In your "method for all traps" that you kindly shared, I have a few questions to help me understand...

1. Why the need to voice a relevant warning, if you are placing the skull tile anyway then surely they are warned?
2. What relevant warning is voiced for traps in expansions like the Swinging Blade trap in Against the Ogre Horde as none is specified?
3. If you are located on a corner on or between two passages, can you search up to the next junction in both directions?
4. Does "up to the next junction" include the next junction or does it stop before the junction?
5. You state that you use this method for all traps and yet you don't place a skull tile under a trapped chest or door, surely for consistency it would be easier to do the same and place a skull tile under these also? (and this would make your statement "If they are then disarmed, remove tile" consistent)
6. When you say "If not place and do damage as normal" do you mean that if you fail a disarm roll when you are on an adjacent square to a pit trap (for example) that the pit tile would be placed and the hero would fall in even though he is on an adjacent square and not the trapped square, or that the pit tile would not be placed and he would suffer 1BP loss?
7. If, in (6) it was a Spear Trap instead of a Pit Trap would the disarming hero suffer a 1BP loss or have to roll a combat die, losing a BP if a skull is rolled or would you just move him one square forward onto the Spear trap and handle as if he stepped onto it?
8. "a special action of searching a square beyond a doorway as long as no monsters in the room" does this mean that from a room you could search the square beyond the doorway into a passage, provided there are no monsters in the room, even if there are monsters in the passage that you are intending to search?


Kurgan,

We are not treating chests like doors, we are saying that the free action of "opening" is used both to open doors and open chests (and for that matter the free action of "looking" is used to look through opened doors and into opened chests)

1 For thematic purposes. Ceiling/floor/wall looks dangerous.
2 Ceiling looks dangerous?
3 No
4 Before
5 Really? The board is congested enough without having to pick up furniture to place a tile and then again remove it. Imagine having to do it with doorways surrounded by minis? No thanks. I like to touch my minis and furniture as little as possible. Consistency needs to be balanced with gameplay fluidity.
6 and 7. Traps are disarmed when standing ON relevant square, not before it. As per rules and App.
8 You must be hard to play with if you micro analyse every single written rule and pull apart everyone's suggestions! Use your common sense!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

TheLastChaosWarrior, my apologies I thought you had shared your method to invite comment and feedback, but I will treat it as a broadcast only in future. Incidentally my own house rules are in my link below and I welcome feedback, questions, criticism, comments and suggestions from anyone so that I can amend, adapt, simplify, polish and improve my house rules in order to give those at my table the best possible experience of the game.

Now that we have this hopefully shared (and for me new) understanding of how the traps work in at least the 1st edition, we are in a position finally to attempt to answer both the OPs (Zenithfleet) question and possibly the OOPs (mitchiemasha) question (as this was originally two topics but has been rolled into one)

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.

In fact, if you find a pit trap or a falling block trap with a search, the trap tile is immediately placed on the board, but it IS in a found but not yet triggered state, the pit has not opened and the block has not yet fallen i.e. it is still a trap. 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...if you are successful, but if you are the tool kit user and you fail the roll then the trap is triggered and the consequences suffered resulting in a pit ("open pit") or blocked square ("fallen block"( i.e. the "feature" not the trap) which cannot be disarmed/removed. This also eliminates any confusion between a "fallen block" and a "blocked square" as neither can be removed.

Also, on a point of clarity, I've never been convinced that the Barak Tor "thing that may or may not be a falling block trap" is in fact a falling block trap because...

1) It is referred to in the Quest Notes as a Falling Rock trap rather than a Falling Block trap
2) Falling Block traps are depicted on the Quest Map using the falling block icon in combination with an arrow on an adjacent square, this example uses the falling block icon without an arrow on an adjacent square - it instead has (C)
3) the Quest note appears to make an exception to the general rule where moving onto the square indicated by the falling block icon would normally trigger the trap and instead states that it "will collapse after the last player to pass under it, thus blocking the way"

So I would treat that as a quest specific feature or event, not a falling block trap, so wouldn't reveal anything if that passage was searched (for traps & secret doors) and it would go straight from being "hidden" to being a permanent feature with no in between state hence the "will collapse, thus blocking the way" bit.

So... falling block traps UK edition. By the rules the dwarf and tool kit can remove these.

Page 12 5th line

Pit traps and falling block traps are placed on the board when found

Dwarf...

you may remove any visible traps in the same room or corridor

As the quote still refers to the falling block trap as a trap even though it no longer is, technically the dwarf can remove this. The mechanic should state somewhere that the falling block is now no longer a trap, unless they want it to remain so.

The rest of the paragraph on page 12 goes on to say about the tool kit and the dwarf. How they can remove a trap from the board. As the opening line says "falling block traps are placed on the board", they can be removed. I guess thematically, if the tool kit holder was to attempt to remove the falling block trap, after it had fell, rolling a skull signifies more rocks falling on them.

Thanks to the Quest for the Spirit Blade, where falling block traps aren't falling block traps, we've never revealed falling block traps when searching, just simply pointing out the dangerous square, which we have to remember.

Also Barak Tor, which waits for the last Hero to pass. If the dwarf can remove this as the rules suggest, it break this quest feature. THOUGHTS???

Pit traps and falling block traps are placed on the board when found

Correct the pit trap (represented by the pit trap marker) and falling block trap (represented by the blocked square marker) are placed on the board when found BUT they have not yet been triggered so are still TRAPS as opposed to "features"

Dwarf...

you may remove any visible traps in the same room or corridor

Again correct, but you can remove "visible traps" i.e. those represented by the placed marker that have been found ("visible") but have not yet been triggered ("traps") otherwise, as you correctly point out, they would not be traps anymore they would be permanent features so could not be disarmed/removed.

Regarding the text on the Tool Kit card I think that is correct in respect to the Pit Trap, failure to disarm it would lead to the trap being triggered and the hero falling into the Pit and losing a BP but in the case of the falling block trap, failure to disarm it would lead to the trap being triggered and the block falling onto the square adjacent to the hero, so he wouldn't suffer any damage, but in both cases the failure would result in a permanent feature being placed instead of the found but not triggered trap, as you just inadvertently triggered it.

My thoughts around the Barak Tor one are above.

[TheLastChaosWarrior]

I have to apologise for my previous reply, especially for the last sentence., it was uncalled for and unnecessary.
I should learn not to post when I'm in a bad mood.
Sorry mate.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

No hard feelings and I appreciate the apology.

[Daedalus]

I just wanted to join in and say I agree with Bareheaded Warrior's assessment of trap tiles. I've also seen the EU rules functioning better this way, but for me it was a matter of organization of information rather than the tool kit that convinced me. It's good to learn of this validation. Though I rely on the NA ruleset with its faults, it's reassuring to see how the editions tie together.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

And it is interesting to track and compare the development of the rules around handling falling block traps and pit traps across the various editions.

1st edition

a) you search and find then place the corresponding marker (in this instance it represents the "found" but not yet trigerred trap which can be disarmed/removed) OR
b) you trigger the trap and place the corresponding marker (in this instance it represents the "feature" which cannot be removed).

In the first instance (a) the Dwarf or another hero with the tool kit can attempt to disarm it, by moving onto the trigger square, success leads to the trap being removed, failure leads to it being trigerred.

The issues with the 1st edition are...
1) the confusion around using the same marker for both the "searched for and found but not yet trigerred" state of the trap and the "active" feature and the fact that you cannot tell the difference aside from relying on collective memory
2) the lack of rules around how monsters interact with these traps
3) the confusion caused by not explicitly stating that you need to be on the trigger square to disarm the trap combined with the wording on the tool kit card not being applicable to the falling block trap
4) the use of the falling block icon in Barak Tor without being explicit around this not being a standard falling block trap

2nd edition

a) you search and find then place the corresponding marker (in this instance it represents the "found" but not yet trigerred trap which can be disarmed/removed) OR
b) you trigger the trap and place the corresponding marker (in this instance it represents the "feature" which cannot be removed).

In the first instance (a) the Dwarf or another hero with the tool kit can attempt to disarm it, by moving onto the trigger square, success leads to the trap being removed, failure leads to it being trigerred.

[so far the same as the 1st edition]

2) The 2nd edition introduces rules around how the monsters interact with traps, however these don't logically make sense. Why would a monster be able to move through a square containing a trigger for a pit trap or a falling block trap without trigerring it, provided that the heroes don't yet know that the trap exists but they cannot do the same once the heroes know that the trap exists, even if it hasn't yet been triggered! Also the range of options available to monsters to handle falling block traps (that haven't yet been triggered) are limited, they are not the Dwarf so cannot disarm them automatically, they cannot use the Tool Kit so cannot disarm them that way, so their only option is to deliberately trigger the trap.

3) The 2nd edition does state that the Dwarf or Tool Kit user needs to be on an adjacent square to the trigger square to disarm/remove the trap (removing any confusion that existed in the 1st edition), but the change to needing to be adjacent to the trigger square means that the text on the tool kit card around suffering damage as a result of failing to disarm the trap makes no sense for either pit or falling block traps, the only two trap types that it applies to.

The 2nd edition also shares these same issues as the 1st edition...
1) the confusion around using the same marker for both the "searched for and found but not yet trigerred" state of the trap and the "active" feature and the fact that you cannot tell the difference aside from relying on collective memory [same as 1st edition]
4) the use of the falling block icon in Barak Tor without being explicit around this not being a standard falling block trap [same as 1st edition]

And in addition it introduces another issue
5) In addition the introduction of a limit to the number of traps that the Dwarf can disarm in a single turn, without introducing the same limit for the Tool Kit user, seems to be both pointless and inconsistent because all other free actions, opening doors, looking, opening chests, disarming traps - for the tool kit user - or jumping pits can be done any number of times in a single turn - provided they are successful or automatic - so why introduce another inconsistency?

House rule note: I would recommend Zenithfleet's suggestion for both the 1st and 2nd edition, of placing the marker face down to represent (a) the "found" but not yet trigerred trap which can be disarmed/removed, as it certainly helps resolve this issue (1), it does create a minor issue in that you cannot tell by looking at the board whether the face down marker is a pit trap or a falling block trap (and you may need to know if you want to jump it) but that is a minor issue as the EWP does know and can inform if needed (and you can always peek under the marker).

NA edition

Under the NA remake (and I'm less familar with these rules so may need some help here!)

a) you search and find but do not place any marker to represent the "found" but not yet trigerred trap which can be disarmed/removed
OR
b) you trigger the trap and place the corresponding marker representing the "feature" which cannot be removed.

1) Whilst this change removes the confusion in the earlier editions around using the same marker for both the "searched for and found but not yet trigerred" state of the trap and the "active" feature and the fact that you cannot tell the difference aside from relying on collective memory, it introduces a very similar issue in that you are reliant on this same collective memory but in this case to remember the location rather than the state of the traps.

The rest I'm not really familar enough to comment but I did notice that this edition seems to restore the need for the disarmer to be on the trigger square, so a return to the 1st edition rules here!

House rule note: I know that the markers in the NA edition are double sided so I'm not sure whether Zenithfleet's suggestion would be applicable in this edition?