Magic Potions Don't make Projectile Attacks Stronger ?!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Potion of strenght is showing a character flexing his biceps, so it comes naturally to think to more physical strenfgt. On the other side, since the image is just an example, I agree on teh fact it amy give more concentration to shoot a more accurate hit with a missile weapon. So I would agree with both solution but I prefer the first one for some reason.
curious, if you notice the new crafted Heroic Brew from Rise of the Dread Moon, they have specified you may perform two weapon attack instead of one... what other kind of attack it could be?

The more I think about this, whilst I agree with your logic wallydubbs and lestodante, the more I'm inclined to treat the image as just an illustration (like the Borin's Armour - Helmet example) and just assume that the potion makes your attacks (missile, thrown, hand-to-hand) stronger as this seems the simplest interpretation.

On your point about Dread Moon's Heroic brew, you are correct, the only other logical option would be an attack without a weapon, and it would make no sense to alter the card just to exclude those, certainly odd wording!

[Kurgan]

I would treat Heroic Brew as allowing two attacks even when you were just fighting with your bare hands... but wouldn't presume it gives you the flexibility to attack with two different weapons either against the same target or multiple... (like shoot one monster far off with the crossbow then smash another in the face with your battle axe on the same turn).

BUT, someone will say "it says two attacks, not two attacks with the same weapon only" and Zargon makes the call and the hero players abide by it, as they must!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Kurgan, it is starting to feel like you make the same, or at least a similar point, on every thread "Zargon makes the call and the hero players abide by it, as they must!" and I make the same response as I always do, which is that whilst that statement is correct* it isn't relevant in a discussion between Evil Wizard Players on the best interpretation (or modifications) of the rules, so doesn't add to the discussion. I was just thinking that perhaps we could put it in our signatures to make more efficient use of space!

*Technically it is the Evil Wizard Player that sets the rules, Zargon is a character in the game

Agreed Heroic Brew only effecting attacks with a weapon makes no sense.

But back to the original topic I agree with you that, not withstanding some sound logic points made by others, for simplicity the Potion of Strength should give two extra combat dice on attack (irrespective to which, if any weapon, is used) as it is effectively a Potion of (Attack) Strength and that is what it does, and illustrations are just illustrations not rules, so I won't be amending my house rules on this particular topic.

I already have documented approaching forty flaws, more if you consider all the various ones under search/disarm, many with modifications to clarify or resolve them so making progress, just some of the chewier ones left!

[Kurgan]

Even Avalon Hill does it all the time... someone asks what the "real" meaning is, what their intention was behind something in the rules... they give an answer, people argue about it and they say "But whatever Zargon says goes..."

Absolutely it does not answer what the original intention was. I think that right now with Avalon Hill, a group that really didn't exist in its present form before 1998 (HeroQuest was off the market by 1994 in most of the world), they are making it up as they go along, partially informed by fan feedback, partially by draft notes (which they have all of that still exist), etc. But to me their statements about what stuff means in the legacy/classic quests is just as relevant as fan guesses for the most part. Could it be that they are looking at Stephen Baker's drafts from 1988 (or whenever he started) to answer those? Likely not, since they are working with the North American edition from 1990 as their base (and some things tossed in from the 1990 second edition EU to be fair). They have ignored certain things from the drafts of '92, and they recognize that most customers out there have never seen (and will probably never see) the '92 draft notes and probably never even played the later expansions.

So I take what they say with a grain of salt. Yes, we can speculate all day long, and it's kind of fun trying to detect where they made a legitimate mistake or changed their minds and then forgot to update something to go along with it. I look at the example of the "pit trap next to the unmarked treasure chest" in Lair of the Orc Warlord. That is an absolute 100% mistake which one can see clearly if they compare the EU original to the NA edition (the latter of which the remake edition copied without adjustment). But was it a typographical error in transcription or was it that they were half-way through revising that part of the quest and didn't finish before it went to press?

We can see in the '92 draft notes that they discussed various rule changes that would have sometimes dramatically changed the gameplay but these changes were not included in the final version. We simply don't know why they were not included. Was it because they thought better of it and realized that the (final version) was superior? Was it because they just ran out of time and it was a matter of releasing it as is, even if in draft form rather than the revised (and superior) form? Or was there a miscommunication (or even rivalry) within the designer group such that someone's ideas got tossed without the other knowing (whether intentionally or by accident in the confusing rush of meeting the deadline)?

Some of the stuff is vague and sometimes it does look like they were trying to clarify something in the previous version and ended up making it less clear (take a modern example with the Playtest version of the Druid's Bear Form spell during the haslab campaign vs. the final Mythic release... they were clearly trying to clarify the ranged question but ended up nerfing the spell entirely if you take it literally which they might have intended but I suspect wasn't).

I could easily imagine a version of HeroQuest where magic spells are the same as magic potions, meant for a single use only, and heroes can only carry one weapon at a time, and have to walk right up to treasure chests to open them. A child could play that way without instruction. Many of us have had our own interpretation of the rules and we just played that way for years and that was the game to us, so it's hard to be confronted with a challenge to that ("you're playing it wrong!"). Maybe we don't want to change. But then maybe an ambiguity or outright error gives a loophole for different styles of gameplay that people prefer.

To me it could go either way... "magic" just does what it does, it doesn't matter if the mechanism is known or realistic or historically accurate. When Roleplaying (an area that HeroQuest dips its toes into but never takes the full plunge, officially, maybe seek WarhammerQuest's advanced rules for that?) this sort of this comes up right away and people start trying to argue which is the best and which fulfills the meaning more accurately. People start speculating based on what the artwork shows or the choice of words on one card vs. another. We're trying to guess intentions because we have this sense that the game designers had a nice clear vision for the game that is best for play. I want to know that too, I'm interested in it. But sometimes good things get discovered by accident. Sometimes the first draft wasn't the one that caught people's attention. Sometimes the editor (many creative writers hate editors, but they're necessary to make a saleable/workable product!) is the one who really did make it what it should have been.

We have the freedom always to ignore what the designers intended (one of their intentions was to let you decide!) but that doesn't mean they didn't have an intention or that there isn't a method behind their madness in what we see. I don't believe there are no flaws or mistakes in the original game. But I also know the tendency to say this or that is definitive, I realize everyone (including me) is stumping for what I think the designers intended.

Did they intend magic spells to make all attacks stronger or to exclude ranged attacks? Maybe they did, or maybe they didn't. Maybe they forgot all about ranged attacks when writing the card, for all we know. Maybe they didn't bother because they figured Zargon would just decide?

Zargon often has to deal with two often competing desires... 1) to let the hero players have a good time 2) to challenge and defeat them if he can without outright "cheating"

Under #1 I'd say "well, this is a rare occurrence, I'll let them get the maximum enjoyment out of this little trick they want to pull." Under #2 I'd say "they are trying to exploit something in the game rules to their advantage! I need to make sure they can't take full benefit from this!" Under #1 I am thinking about fun (and it's "fun" for me to see them enjoying themselves), while under #2 it's me having fun seeing them sweat and stress out about the challenge... it's "less fun" if it's "too easy" or they feel like they have found a loophole in the game that let's them bypass the challenge I've set for them as the condition for victory.

Yes, Zargon can make up whatever he wants and change the rules on the fly, but most would say no, he shouldn't do this, he should just stick to "the rules" decided on beforehand, follow what's in the book and only make changes if something is broken or there's a controversy he has to referee. A dungeon master in another game might literally be like a "god" who can do anything and he just decides not to be malevolent and capricious because then it will ruin the experience and make the other players unlikely to want to play his game again (self interest: give them a challenge but still make them think they have a decent chance to win).

[Kurgan]

My preference is that Magic Potions that make attacks stronger make ALL attacks stronger, not just adjacent/diagonal attacks with weapons (even barehanded). I don't extend it to spells. I respect that others will disagree and decide it only applies to hand weapons at close range, I just don't play it that way. I would treat a Spell much the same way. A couraged Elf would have his fists do +2 attack dice, but also his shortsword, his Spirit Blade and his Crossbow as well if he chose to use them. Zargon and players may quibble about "stacking" bonuses. What if you use a potion at the same time as a spell, and maybe there's more than one spell or potion (not necessarily copies of the same potion) at work at once? But I think whether the magic stops working because the attack is at range, is not something I agree with, even though those who say it's less realistic and therefore shouldn't happen (as opposed to its too strong and shouldn't be allowed because it makes the game too easy for the heroes) and the "realism" argument has some merit to it (unlike some other "realism" arguments people make to shift the rules in a certain direction).

As far as what was "intended" I literally think it can go either way. Literally it doesn't say it won't work for ranged attacks (many approach the rules this way, if it says you can't you can't, otherwise you can). It doesn't even say you have to be using a weapon for it to work. Then again others take a minimalist approach... if it says you can do something you can, but unless it says you can, you can't! But does the potion say any attack or does it exclude ranged attacks? Heroquest doesn't talk about ranged attacks the way, say, Space Crusade (1990, another MB game loosely based on the Warhammer universe) does (firing vs attacking to differentiate melee at close range vs. long ranged shooting... though that game never says you can't shoot adjacent enemies so most players treat it that you can in that game!).

I do think that the rules evolved from (obviously) Stephen Baker's unpublished original concepts for the game, to the 1st edition to the 2nd, to the Adventure Design Kit and EU expansions and into the NA edition (and the Japanese edition), and differences crop up in other official material. Here I treat the regional editions as their own games not necessarily an "update" like a linear progression since I think there were different people working on these versions. The designers of EQP/BQP were planning to revise some basic rules from the game system back in '92 (even if most of them didn't get published in the final version and were not picked up by the remake editions either) for their packs at least. But if you didn't own those, how would you know about those revisions? If you didn't buy or read about the Rogue Heir of Elethorn's lore card, would you know that's how multi-attacks were "supposed" to work, or guess that you couldn't have two Elves in the party at the same time (since they specifically REMOVED the paragraph explaining only one Elf per party in the 1992 Mage of the Mirror booklet)? It used to be they were thinking if you own those expansions you can use the assets from that in your other expansion, but what if you don't "own" it but your friend brings it over? What if it's 2002 and you can just pull up the PDF file on Hasbro Customer Care even if you have no plans to buy it, and reference those supplemental rules?

Back to the main question about the Magic potions and ranged weaponry...
The illustrations and some flavor text added in the PC game (if you care about that) implies the magic potion makes your muscles bigger, implying it "should" only work for thrown or other muscle powered weapons and probably NOT for a crossbow which just involves stringing the thing and then firing it with a trigger pull which wouldn't be affected by muscle strength (though I guess you could load and aim it faster, or maybe hold it steadier with stronger muscles?).

Would a power like Genie that involves rolling dice be affected? I think most of us have never thought of that because we figure the Genie is the one attacking the enemy, not the hero (you "THROW" the genie harder at the enemy, doing more damage??). So its limited by imagination and our comparing these things to the other fictions they are evoking (a double edged sword since sometimes they don't match at all... Gandalf the Wizard used a sword in battle, quite effectively too).


So I think if we want to "end the debate" to determine that the minimalist (it says you can) vs. maximalist (it doesn't say you can't) is the "right" approach, it's still ambiguous. The official stance of Avalon Hill now is that there is a right way, their way but that Zargon can do whatever he wants is also the right way (so there's two right ways). Zargon of course could decide "we are going to follow the rules as written of which I am the final interpreter and when it is ambiguous I will just make it up according to my own experience and imagination, period" if he wants.

Unless we can get Stephen Baker or someone else who was involved in writing the rules circa '89-92 on here or see some more notes we haven't seen before, it will remain a mystery. It's the opinions of Avalon Hill's people on how they see the game today vs. various fans making their own interpretations influenced by the biases on how they think the game ought to be.

Now when it comes to new, original creations of the Avalon Hill team, I'm much more likely and ready to take their word about their intentions at face value, since it is literally their own creation and recent too (no looking back to remember what they were thinking three decades ago or reading between the lines of some scribbles on photocopied paper).

We can all visit Avalon Hill's Discord and get an answer from Avalon Bill that is "official." We can go onto Twitter and ask "Zargon" or the AH twitter what is the "right way" and get an answer. Most players will never see that of course, unless it gets put into the Companion App (which has its own quirks, it isn't always 100% accurate to the printed rules, for example potions there work like spells, you can launch them at people from a distance instead of needing to hand them to the person adjacently on the gift giver's turn and then they use them, not counting the whole "honor system" which lets you use half the spells and nearly all the equipment however you want to even if it says "reference the card"). The power is still in the hands of the players and like it or not, the "Zargon has the final say" theme is still printed in two of the expansions, showing the designers back in '92 recognized that this was an important part of the game. There's a certain expectation that at least the skeleton or core of the game rules will be respected when one comes to the table, otherwise you're just making up your own game entirely, of course, but what does that precisely look like? Each table will have a different version of that, and that's okay.