Jumping on the bandwagon

[Markus Darwath]

I guess this probably is a good moment to summarise, so the situation is, Hero (who is not the Dwarf – at least 3 out of 4, and doesn’t have a toolkit – and lets face it who does?) encounters an unsprung trap that cannot be moved around, common enough in most corridors, doorways and similar.

Two proposed solutions

1. Expand Disarm functionality so that ALL Heroes can disarm a trap (unsprung trap), but the Dwarf and those armed with a Toolkit get a bonus

This creates a significant strategic and logistics change in the exploration part of the game. It's likely to make dealing with traps overall easier, and thus traps themselves become less relevant.

I get your point made in the previous post about too much in one turn, and would add a new amendment to my proposal that attempting to disarm a trap ends your turn whether successful or not (if not it would trigger the trap ending your turn anyway – apart from the Spear Trap but I’ve removed that inconsistency in my own rules anyway)

That would seem a bit more balanced, but could you still do it in the presence of an adjacent monster? That seems like it would be an extreme complicating factor.

2. Expand the SE rules for jumping pits and similar obstacles to cover jumping unsprung traps (as per US Edition-ish)

Need to consider the following:

Odds

In general jumping an unsprung trap and leaving it active is less thorough than disarming it, so the chances of success for disarming must be lower than for jumping

I can agree with this. The basic rules for disarming a trap are on the generous side (other than the inability of a non-Dwarf to do it without tools.)

I could see: Dwarf has 3 in 6 without tools and 5 in six with tools. Others have 2 in six with tools. This still leaves the tool-less Dwarf with the same chance to jump as to disarm, but I feel this is balanced in that a) he's really good at disarming traps and b) he has stumpy legs, so while he's not -worse- at jumping than the other heroes, it does reflect more effort on his part. Also, the only time I can see that a Dwarf would be jumping rather than disarming is if he's low on BP and being pursued.

Trap Types

Need to consider exactly which unsprung trap types can be jumped, and which can’t, are the odds for jumping the same – Spear, Pit, Falling Block, Furniture (these may not all be the same) traps, also need to cover trap in the base game that are present but not explicitly called out – traps that spring when you open a door, the traps that cause rocks to fall from the ceiling/roof but don’t result in a blocked square (I label these ‘Deadfall traps’ in HQ Gold but they exist without a distinct name in vanilla HQ) and need to consider new traps types introduced by expansions – Swinging Blade, Swinging Axe, Wandering Monster Traps and so on. Can those that cannot be disarmed, be jumped?

Unfortunately, these are all issues that Zargon would have to rule on, as the situations already exist if playing NA/remake rules. I would say much depends on how Zargon chooses to interpret the trap's trigger, at least with regard to already published material. Those building new quests should perhaps pay more attention to these kind of details.
Pressure plates or simple tripwires could activate any number of trap types and be easily avoided, but not so much with more complex triggers. Magical triggers would be very unlikely to be jumpable, and may also account for traps that can't be disarmed.

I don't see how one could "jump" a trap that is set off by opening a door, as you'd have to open it in order to have a space to jump to. Likewise, I don't see furniture traps as relevant to jumping. I suppose one could attempt to jump over furniture, but why? I'd think that furniture traps are more based on interacting with the furniture rather than just being near it. (Interesting note; I've always interpreted furniture as items that block movement / figures can't occupy those spaces, but the companion app actually allows it, at least with chests.. haven't tried with tables and such.)

Blind Jumping

Discussed as an option by HQ designers but never implemented, logically if you can jump over a square that has been indicated as potentially trapped, then you can jump over a square that you might have reason to believe is trapped, even if you haven’t searched and discovered an unsprung trap (the obvious example being a square behind a door)

I have no trouble with blind jumping. Again, it would be up to Zargon's interpretation whether some traps would have worse odds or not be jumpable.

Double Jumping

Some trap in expansions, like the ‘long pit trap’ could be discovered and potentially jumped the long way round, that is two squares in width, does a search reveal a ‘dodgy’ floor that is two squares long, what are the odds of jumping it, does a failure result in you being in the first or second square (and can you blind-double jump)

If using a standard game area search, then yes the whole trap would be revealed and the odds for double jumping would be as written. If using a square-by-square full-turn action incorporating movement, as I have suggested, then the search would only reveal the first encountered square as trapped. Basically Zargon stops the hero short as they are about to step onto the trapped square, interrupting their movement at the adjacent square.
(at this moment I have become aware that I haven't really thought about whether finding something automatically ends your turn or if the hero may choose to simply note it and carry on searching).
I suppose one could attempt a blind double jump, but that seems rather random.

Unsprung Traps in Corner
Not actually covered in the US rules although that may be considered ‘rule lawyering’ but need to consider jumping unsprung traps with or without a monster in the landing square(s)

It's not a written rule, but the companion app does allow jumping around corners. It also reveals part of the next hall before you actually reach the junction square, so the monster in the landing square would be revealed before the jump was attempted.

[burglekutt]

Never liked that the Dwarf started with not needing the Toolkit & that other heroes couldn't disarm a Trap at all without it.
Instead how about:
Dwarf = Don't roll a to succeed.
With Toolkit = Don't roll a

Any other hero: Don't roll a to succeed.
With Toolkit: Don't roll a

Jump/Dodge? = Don't roll a to succeed.

Pit Traps are different from others because they last & can be a problem latter.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I guess this probably is a good moment to summarise, so the situation is, Hero (who is not the Dwarf – at least 3 out of 4, and doesn’t have a toolkit – and lets face it who does?) encounters an unsprung trap that cannot be moved around, common enough in most corridors, doorways and similar.

Two proposed solutions

1. Expand Disarm functionality so that ALL Heroes can disarm a trap (unsprung trap), but the Dwarf and those armed with a Toolkit get a bonus

This creates a significant strategic and logistics change in the exploration part of the game. It's likely to make dealing with traps overall easier, and thus traps themselves become less relevant.

A change yes but I'm not sure it does make traps less effective as under my proposal all traps will be found and you have a 5+ chance of disarming successfully, so ignoring Tool Kit and Dwarf bonus traps will be effective 67% of the time.

In general, although the rules vary between editions and trap type, under the official rules, whilst players could choose to never search for traps thus making them 100% effective, that presumably wasn't the way the game was intended to be played or there wouldn't be a "search for traps" action. If you assume player search for traps when they can and have a base 50% chance of handling them safely then they seems roughly equivalent to 67% effective.

Assume can and do search 70% of the time then 30% effective + 50% of the other 70% = 30% + 35% is 66% so they are both in a similar area of odds

And in my experience player typically search less than the optimum amount of time (from the point of view of their character's safety) for the sole reason that searching for traps at every opportunity is so boring and time consuming, and the rules of a game should really aim to increase rather than decrease the fun!

Bareheaded Warrior: You actually summed it up pretty well. Trap jumping is for when the hero(es) lack a tool kit, the trap blocks their path, and the Dwarf is unavailable. I don't at all see what is problematic about this idea, especially for beginning heroes.

For one: hero lacks a tool kit, dwarf is unavailable, and their path is blocked by a trapped door. Is the solution really to attempt to jump it? The NA edition rules are silent on this scenario...

Pressure plates or simple tripwires could activate any number of trap types and be easily avoided

"Easily" is a fairly relative term but look at the in-game odds. To avoid a Spear Trap using the jump option gives you a 50% chance of failure. Having jumped it the next hero would have to do the same and the next and the next. What are the odds of all four heroes successfully jumping the trap trigger? 1/16. So your statement, which I agree with, doesn't match the in-game reality.

I get your point made in the previous post about too much in one turn, and would add a new amendment to my proposal that attempting to disarm a trap ends your turn whether successful or not (if not it would trigger the trap ending your turn anyway – apart from the Spear Trap but I’ve removed that inconsistency in my own rules anyway)

That would seem a bit more balanced, but could you still do it in the presence of an adjacent monster? That seems like it would be an extreme complicating factor.

Agreed in reality, but in HQ you can perform plenty of complicated tasks with a monster next to you without penalty, opening doors or chests, jump a pit, retrieving potions from your pack and consuming them, stow and draw weapons, aim, shoot and reload a crossbow to name a few, so lets at least keep it consistent

Blind Jumping

Discussed as an option by HQ designers but never implemented, logically if you can jump over a square that has been indicated as potentially trapped, then you can jump over a square that you might have reason to believe is trapped, even if you haven’t searched and discovered an unsprung trap (the obvious example being a square behind a door)

I have no trouble with blind jumping. Again, it would be up to Zargon's interpretation whether some traps would have worse odds or not be jumpable.

But if you introduced the rules for blind jumping then the logical outcome for players to minimise the effects of traps would be to inform the EWP that they are blind jumping across every square of the dungeon which is just daft and time-consuming, so you are effectively telling players that there is an optimal way of minimising the effectiveness of traps, exactly what their characters should be doing if they want to survive, but asking the players not to choose to do that because it will wreck the game experience, you would be forcing them to metagame.

Never liked that the Dwarf started with not needing the Toolkit & that other heroes couldn't disarm a Trap at all without it.
Instead how about:
Dwarf = Don't roll a WhiteShield to succeed.
With Toolkit = Don't roll a BlackShield.

Any other hero: Don't roll a Skull to succeed.
With Toolkit: Don't roll a WhiteShield.

If you don't like all your hero's being able to Disarm Traps without a Toolkit:
Jump/Dodge? = Roll a WhiteShield to succeed.

Pit Traps are different from others because they last & can be a problem latter.

I'm trying to work out the difference between my proposal and yours but I'm struggling (apart from the obvious difference in dice used and yours being harder to remember!)

Mine is that all heroes can disarm a found trap with a roll of 5 or more on a red die, +1 for the Dwarf, +1 for Tool Kit and that found traps cannot be jumped, jumping is kept for jumping across obstacles like pits, chasms and similar as per the EU versions.

[Pelkone]

Our group has approached this question rather liberally; the Heroes can jump over a single square whenever and wherever. Doesn't have to be a trap even. The Hero simply needs at least two squares worth of movement remaining, and rolls a die. On a skull (or 4+) they successfully jump, essentially "moving" through both squares, but not making contact with the first one. "L-shaped" jumps are also fine. No need to make it too complicated.

I do not think this trivializes the Dwarf's ability to disarm traps, since it's actually much less of a risk for the dwarf to attempt to disarm a discovered trap with his ability, rather than all four heroes to try to jump over the dangerous square (in fact, we have a house rule that the Elf is better at this, but that hardly alters the big picture). Therefore, disarming does not need any rule alterations.

[Kurgan]

Leaping through doorways might seem a little nuts to some players, but then again those doorways are "big" enough to allow huge monsters to travel through, so maybe they are big enough for an intrepid athletic hero to "leap" through whether at that very spot or with a running start.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I feel like I'm struggling to articulate this one, so let me take you on a journey... to a long time ago (1989) in a land far, far away (USA)

Picture the scene, a bunch of geeky game designers, crowded round a copy of exotic European HeroQuest, in a dimly lit basement dungeon…ok enough of that

1) Searching for traps (and secret doors) under EA HeroQuest automatically disables some trap types (spear, chest, door) and automatically activates other trap types (pit trap and falling block trap)

2) The disarm function is exclusive to Dwarf and Tool Kit equipped hero and allows them to remove, not traps, but the features left by traps, pits and fallen blocks.

3) Our NA designers took issue with the ability to remove the features left by traps, pits and fallen blocks, as removing pits tha could be occupied and removing fallen blocks spoils quest design where the block is supposed to split up the party or stop them returning via tha route, so they scrapped it (and I agree)

But this leaves a problem, if disarm removes features and you scrap the removal of features, then you loose the whole disarm element in HQ and the Dwarfs distinctive ability, not good (I still agree)

4) So what can you use the disarm for...their solution was to change search for traps so that it only reveals the presence and position of hidden traps without activating them (I wouldn't have gone that way personally, but lets proceed. Also I think they missed a trick by not including tiles for suspicious squares, or just printing trap on the reverse of the trap tiles) this then creates a space in which the disarm function can be used to remove (or activate) unsprung traps.

However this approach has a few difficulties of its own

5) As disarm is exclusive to the Dwarf and/or a Tool Kit wielding hero, what are other heroes supposed to do when they search for and reveal a suspect square that blocks their path, they cannot disarm it, so are they supposed to just blindly walk into it? No, to resolve this problem our NA designers decided to extend out the existing jump functionality, existing in the EA version but restricted to only being used to leap across pits (not pit traps, but the pits, holes, they leave behind).

An obvious and better option would have been to extend out the disarm function to all heroes and make the Dwarf and Tool Kit users advantage be that they were better at disarming.

6) The decision to extend out the jump function brings with it a fresh batch of challenges

a) If all heroes can jump over unsprung traps and Dwarf and Tool Kit users can also disarm unsprung traps then at least one of the party will always have 2 options, a clear and better one to disarm and a vestigial ability to jump unsprung traps that will never be used (not a massive issue but inelegant)

b) If dealing with unsprung traps is handled through jumping, then how is that expected to work for trapped chests. Their choice of option here was to introduce an inconsistency by reverting back to the original EA rules for chest traps whilst changing the other traps to use the new mechanism (lame)

c) If dealing with unsprung traps is handled through jumping, then how is that expencted to work for trapped doors. Their choice of option here was to just not mention it and hope that no one noticed

d) The last obvious one for now is cumulative odds, imagine a party where the dwarf has been killed or is otherwise engaged and no one had yet purchased a Tool Kit (very common), and they search for traps and find one blocking their route, what do they do? Easy they jump it, first hero 50% of success, second hero faces the same challenge so he does the same 50% chance of success, third hero follows suit 50% chance of success. Simple, except the odds of all three heroes successfully jumping the trap is only 1/8, suddenly unsprung traps become geometrically more challenging then ever they were intended to be.

If they had chosen to extend the disarm function, instead of extending the jump function, then all traps whether standard, chest or door could all have been handled through the same consistent mechanism and the first player to attempt to disarm would deal with the trap, one way or another.

Hope you enjoyed the journey!

This is the motivation to modify the disarm mechanism, it has nothing to do with blind jumping*

the Heroes can jump over a single square whenever and wherever. Doesn't have to be a trap even. The Hero simply needs at least two squares worth of movement remaining, and rolls a die. On a skull (or 4+) they successfully jump, essentially "moving" through both squares, but not making contact with the first one. No need to make it too complicated.

*This is what I was referring to as "blind" jumping, apologies for the jargon. The issues with "blind jumping", and the reasons why I suspect it was considered but never implemented have nothing to do with trivialising the Dwarf's ability to disarm traps but everything to do with proportionality and fun.

Proportionality - because blind jumping was considered as a solution to the issue of traps located behind doors where they could never be searched for, however the response is not proportional, traps behind doors occur once in every few quests, blind jumping could be used between 1-6 times on every single turn of every single player in every single quest.

Fun - it forces the player to choose between the optimum strategy for winning, blind jump on every possible occasion, and a very longwinded and dull game session. Essentially asking the question, do you want to try and win or do you want to try and have fun is not a question that a game should pose to players.

If instead, you modify the disarm mechanism as suggested, and then scrap the search for traps (and secrets doors) functions - another example of good tactics getting in the way of fun - and instead just rule that if a character steps onto a hidden trap, opens a trapped chest or door, then they get a disarm roll and either they pass and the trap is neutralised or they fail and it goes off.

No need to make it too complicated

And I think L-shaped jumps are already fine in all editions of HQ

[Farwatcher]

I like the line of thought behind giving all heroes the opportunity to disarm traps, and I'm going to try incorporating it into my games. I think I'm going to try something different for the Tool Kit, though -- stealing from the Reagent Kit in RotDM, I'm going to see how it plays if the Tool Kit lets a player re-roll their Disarm attempt, but can only be used 5 times before breaking.

Now I think about it, giving all the heroes the choice of jumping or attempting to disarm a trap creates an interesting player choice. You know there's a trap in front of you: do you try to jump (50% chance of success, but if you succeed, the trap will still be there for the next player to deal with) or disarm (16% chance of permanently removing it)?

I allow blind jumping, but with two limitations: the maximum number of squares you can jump on your turn is equal to your number of Movement Dice, and if you fail on a jump roll, your movement ends (even if the square you failed to jump isn't trapped). This gives the heroes an option against undetectable traps and slippery ice, but doesn't make bunny hopping the optimal movement style.

-FW

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Whilst those are some clever modifications to mitigate the issues around blind jumping, personally when I discover issues in a fix I have applied, my first port of call is to try a different fix for the original issue rather than trying to patch the fix.

If the "Blind Jumping" fix has issues, before you try and fix it, perhaps look for a different fix to the original issue of "traps behind doors"

[Farwatcher]

Oh, I have a separate fix for "traps behind doors"*. Blind jumping is my fix for "undetectable traps aren't fun"; "look, I can tell you're positioning your monsters to force me to step on a trap"; and "why does my hero forget how to jump unless there's a trap in front of him?"

[*off-topic here, but I broke Search into three sub-actions: Hunt for Treasure, Sweep a room or corridor for traps & secret doors, and Check adjacent squares for traps. Hunt and Sweep can only be used if there are no monsters in the area being searched, but Check only requires that you're not adjacent to a monster.]

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Understood and very interesting, it sounds to me like we are both heading down the same route to resolve these issues, but I, for better or for worse, have gone a step further.

I take it that your "Check" action that works on adjacent squares is your fix for the "traps behind the door" situations as it enables you to check an adjacent square even if that adjacent square is in a different room or passageway.

In which case I have effectively taken your "Check" action and modified it so that it automatically kicks in during movement, rather than being an action, as soon as you step onto a trapped square or open a trapped chest or door. Your "check" (I refer to it as a "Detect") I have combined with "Disarm" into a single roll to save time and avoid complicating the odds. If you fail to detect it, it goes off, if you successfully detect it but fail to disarm it, it goes off, if you successfully detect and disarm it is made safe. Sounds long-winded when you break it down but all it actually is, is a roll of 5+ on a single D6 (and I could have used a White Shield on a Combat Die but I prefer the D6 because it makes applying mods easier)

Having incorporated search for traps and disarming traps into a "Detect and Disarm" roll as part of movement, I then extended this to include Secret Doors, these are found automatically when you step on the adjacent square you detect and open the secret door.

This enabled me to scrap the search for traps and secret doors action (or actions for NA players) entirely, so I don't need your "sweep" as I see that as "moving around an area looking for traps and secret doors", if the looking for traps and secret doors part of that is an automatic part of movement then this translates into simply "moving" and we have rules for that already. In an environment as hazardous as a Dungeon our experienced heroes would be in the habit of moving cautiously and keeping their eyes peeled for traps, so for me this is automatic and would pick up secret doors naturally.

Finally, search or hunt for treasure, in a room cleared of monsters

This states that it includes movement (assumed rather than actual but still movement from the characters point of view), so my assumption here is that if they are moving around the room searching or hunting for treasure and a trap is present then they are moved onto the trap square (the closest to their starting point if multiple, same for secret doors) and is handled exactly the same as any other movement onto a trap square, no need for separate rules.

If when searching or hunting a room that contains no traps or secret doors, then as always they just draw a treasure card.

Benefits

I have found that this approach comes with a number of benefits.

1) With only one search action you don't get inconsistencies around the search conditions (such as why treasure search can produce WMs but the others don't) and you don't drag the game out with "I'm using my action this turn to search for traps, then next turn I'll stay in the same place and search for treasure, oh I nearly forgot, and on the next turn I'll search for secret doors"...3 turns spent just searching the same room 3 times over looking for different things

2) Incorporating "detect and disarm" into movement means that characters are always on the look out for traps and you don't have the conflict arising when a character sets off a trap because they forgot to search that area and then they moan, do you really want me to slow the game down and bore everyone by me declaring "searching for traps" every single turn...

3) The first person to search a room, may not be the one who gets the treasure as, if there is a trap present handling this will end their search attempt, leaving the next player to search and grab the loot (unless there is a second trap and so on). This is great especially with younger players as they like to rush in a grab the treasure before their comrades, always a race, so it is a nice twist when the greedy one gets the trap and the next gets the treasure)

4) from the point of view of a quest design it allows you to control the odds of a secret door being found based simply on where you place it. If you need it to be found for the players to progress then put it in a single width passageway that the player have to go down, guaranteed find, if you want to make it a could be found could be missed, maybe leads to a shortcut, then place it in a room or alternative path or double width passageway where players who explore more thoroughly are rewarded with the secret door and its shortcut, finally you can always place it in on a dead end where only those who are the most meticulous will find it and have really worked for the treasures behind it. This is an improvement on the "find only if they search for secret doors" and then they don't search for secret doors and end up working their way through the next 6 rooms before realising that they must have missed a secret door somewhere in the last 8 rooms and thy spend the next hour retracing their steps and searching and searching.

5) Handling traps on squares and doors and chest in a consistent way makes for a smooth experience and is easier to remember, one method for all traps, it feels natural for players including the EWP and means that you can focus on what your character is doing, rather than which dice and what score he needs to roll to achieve it, focussing on the in-game play rather than the mechanics.

And incidentally it also fixes your "undetectable traps aren't fun"; "look, I can tell you're positioning your monsters to force me to step on a trap" issue without having to assume that every suspect object/area can be resolved by jumping...trapped doors, trapped chests, weak floor, dodgy ceiling/roof, chest level tripwire, magically activated trap, slippery ice...