Searching for Multiple Traps

[Bareheaded Warrior]

the heroes should not be able to find a trap that they cannot move to without falling in other trap through such theoretical movement. So yes, I think such undiscovered trap should be only found in a later searching if moving there is possible (in other words, if the trap blocking the movement there was already disarmed or is intentionally jumped to do this second search).

I extend this rule also for secret doors searching and treasure chests inspections, but this last one is another topic, I guess.

Apart from sounding more complicated, but not necessarily being more complicated, how different is this to the rule included in some Quests, where traps are particularly well-hidden so only the nearest trap (including trapped chests or secret door) is found when you search.

That option has the advantage of being an existing official HeroQuest rule that we would just be extending the application...

[Kurgan]

Yeah it feels like a loophole. We had a quest where a literal wall of traps was put into a room requiring the heroes to jump over. However by using the "Disarm" action after discovering them they could use this to magically jump over some of the traps and get past them to the end. I don't consider it that much of a cheat since it was more like a lucky roll to jump over, however this scenario probably won't come up very often.

Agreed that unless it's some special quest note that you can only search one trap at a time (say because of magical darkness obscuring your view) then the heroes should be alerted to this ahead of time. There is a quest in which Zargon is told NOT to tell the heroes this, but I think that's kind of a dirty trick, because they have to find out via trial and error (at least they're only spear traps and so won't necessarily hit every time, but still, I think that was Kellar's Keep that did that, wasn't it? a lot of dirty tricks in that pack!).

Normally when you search a room for traps you find any and all of the traps there (special traps that can't be found by searching in the expansions are simply never found this way, period). Just as searching for treasure searches the entire room (the idea of searching each individual piece of furniture individually on each turn for treasure and getting something is an idea discussed in the draft notes for EQP/BQP but never implemented, a lot of fans like these sorts of ideas but they slow down gameplay considerably if heroes are going to be doing this in each room with more than one piece of furniture, keep that in mind!), so too searching for traps will find all of the traps in the room but they must be disarmed individually.

Searching for treasure without disarming all of furniture traps means that you will trigger all of them at once! That's how the base game works and I don't really mind it, but when you are creating your own quests you may want to keep that in mind.

If Zargon ever feels that the heroes are cheating by exploiting some loophole in the rules, that's either the fault of the quest maker (if it's Zargon, he should just get over it unless it really does ruin the entire adventure, ask any good GM what to do) or it's just one of those things he has to make a decision on... what's the most fun that keeps things going?

I know we had a debate on here some time ago about Disarming. I always played it such that you don't have to expend movement squares to disarm a trap, you just automatically drop on top of the square as long as you're in the same room or corridor. Some would interpret "move onto the square" (is that the precise wording?) means that you have to roll enough on your movement dice to actually move up to and then stand on the square and thus any traps you might encounter on the way would trigger and stop you from disarming as your action. I guess that is "more realistic" but if that's a better game experience for you, that's your call to make as Zargon.

When searching for traps you will know all the squares, and this will only be a problem if you forget which squares were "dangerous." You can't disarm a trap unless you have first detected it. Now jumping ANY square was another draft note rule clarification that was discussed (but never officially implemented), so in theory you could "jump" your way to the disarm square but you still might get an unlucky roll (or not choose your squares wisely) and land on the trap on the way. But knowing ahead of time and then requiring them to jump.. to cover for a poorly thought out or ill-designed Quest layout, would be nice to know ahead of time. "In order to get to this trap you'll have to jump this other square first" seems reasonable enough for Zargon to do and a reasonable compromise.

I too am one who doesn't think adding complexity for the sake of realism (at the expense of making the game take longer) is always an improvement with HeroQuest, but each to their own.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I wasn't suggesting that HispaZargon's proposal was a "loophole", just that it is functionally similar to an existing rule that appears in a small number of official Quests where you search but find only the nearest trap, rather than all traps, in an area. I was thinking that applying that existing rule more widely by making it the standard might be a better way of arriving at broadly the same or at least a similar result, and would be another step towards the goal or fixing or plugging gaps in the official rules which is my current objective as part of the "Polishing the Second Edition" project.

Searching for treasure without disarming all of furniture traps means that you will trigger all of them at once! That's how the base game works and I don't really mind it, but when you are creating your own quests you may want to keep that in mind.

This is correct for NA edition only, other editions trigger a chest trap when you open the chest without having searched for traps first, so individual, as you can only open one chest at a time.

We had a quest where a literal wall of traps was put into a room requiring the heroes to jump over. However by using the "Disarm" action after discovering them they could use this to magically jump over some of the traps and get past them to the end. I don't consider it that much of a cheat since it was more like a lucky roll to jump over, however this scenario probably won't come up very often.

If Zargon ever feels that the heroes are cheating by exploiting some loophole in the rules, that's either the fault of the quest maker (if it's Zargon, he should just get over it unless it really does ruin the entire adventure, ask any good GM what to do) or it's just one of those things he has to make a decision on... what's the most fun that keeps things going?

I know we had a debate on here some time ago about Disarming. I always played it such that you don't have to expend movement squares to disarm a trap, you just automatically drop on top of the square as long as you're in the same room or corridor. Some would interpret "move onto the square" (is that the precise wording?) means that you have to roll enough on your movement dice to actually move up to and then stand on the square and thus any traps you might encounter on the way would trigger and stop you from disarming as your action. I guess that is "more realistic" but if that's a better game experience for you, that's your call to make as Zargon.

I'm just trying to understand this last bit, 'movement' in HeroQuest involves rolling the red dice (for heroes at least) and moving the hero square by square to your destination, so I don't see any reason why moving to a square to disarm a trap would be any different from moving to a square to open a chest or attack a monster, open a door or any other reason, but your house rule/interpretation allows a hero to automatically drop on top of the square as long as they are in the same room or corridor as the trap without expending movement squares.

In a scenario where a hero enters a room, searches for traps and discovers a row of traps across the room from wall to wall, and another trap adjacent to a door at the opposite side of the room, you would allow that hero (on their next turn) to 'declare' a disarm action and indicate the trap by the door on the opposite side of the room, across the "wall of traps", and allow them to port directly over the line of traps without having to disarm or jump any of them? Having used their disarm action (assume it was successful and the trap tile is removed) could they then choose to move as usual afterwards having not expended any movement points? What about the next hero that enters that same room following the first hero, would they have the option to follow the first player and port directly over the wall of traps, or would that option have been prevented by the removal of the trap on the far side of the room by the first player, and they would have to jump or disarm to follow the leader? That would be an interesting situation where successfully disarming a trap would inhibit movement.

Unless I have misunderstood, which is quite possible, it sounds like your house rule has introduced a loophole to be exploited that wasn't present in the original rules, so I don't think I'll be adopting that particular house rule personally.