Where do you disarm a chest trap from?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

The NA rules says to be ON the trap square (and you don't trigger it, unless you fail your disarm roll) so I take it the same way with any furniture trap.

So I put the hero on top of the furniture tile (possible to do in the classic set with the Dwarf figure balanced on top of the treasure chest! not an achievable feat in the new one unless you just hold him there with your hand or grab some sticky tack, lol).

But doesn't furniture block movement in the same way as a closed door blocks movement, so you'd be breaking a rule with either interpretation, which suggests it needs a revision?

The only controversy I see is whether you have to roll for movement and expend actual squares to get to the trap square.

This would theoretically allow the hero to land on ANOTHER trap square on the way to the one he was trying to disarm. It also presents the absurd situation (in expansions) where there are two trap squares and he can dodge one of them to get to the one that is further out (then again using your imagination you can imagine he auto-jumps one trap to disarm the other).

Yes, the search rules, especially trap handling, aren't great in Second Edition and were upgraded to seriously flawed in the North American edition, which is why I have rewritten them entirely.

Then again a lot of people insist you should have to walk adjacent to a treasure chest to search it (or to open it, or to get what's inside) expending actual movement squares to get there (and risk falling into trap squares on the way which can only occur in expansions, last I checked, other than the clear error in Lair of the Orc Warlord NA/remake edition where a Pit Trap is next to an unmarked treasure chest) and maybe that goes hand in hand with their "more roleplay" adaptation of the game mechanic?

It is the standard rule in European versions but was missed, misunderstood and/or confused in the NA edition which sort of implies that the hero does have to be next to the chest, but that you don't have to move the figure, resulting in the hero potentially being in a different position than the figure represents which just seems daft...

In EA rules disarming a chest trap is simple (but not great), Search for Traps (and Secret Doors) - this remotely finds and disables chest traps automatically (so they never need to be and can never be disarmed), then you use standard movement to position yourself adjacent to the chest and use a free action to empty it.

In NA rules searching for traps reveals the presence of a trapped chest, and then tells you to got to page 21 for instructions on disarming the trapped chest, but page 21 only includes instructions for handling trapped squares and not trapped chests (or trapped doors), so no rules for disarming trapped chests or doors exist in the NA edition, so you are on your own there!

See the Search – The Binding Topic topic for a full discussion on this as a proposed solution.

[Kurgan]

Just like doing a death save with a Healing spell on Zargon's turn I take the "you can't stand on top of furniture" as an exception being made in the case of disarming.

The rules allow for many exceptions to things that otherwise are universally true because of a special case. To me that's all this is, nothing more.

It would be positively silly to put a trap on the square NEXT to the Furniture Trap, because if any hero searched for traps EVEN ONCE they would have found ALL of the traps in the room and had them pointed out. Then they have to forget this happened, walk up to it and fail. I guess all you'd be doing here is requiring that they disarm the trap NEXT to the chest FIRST before disarming the furniture trap?

Putting traps in front of chest right now only trips up people who forget the basic rules and let their role playing imagination take over (and still don't bother searching for traps first before gaining treasure).

I mean, if opening a chest and taking what's in it is not regarded as an action, why search for treasure at all?* You could be in the midst of a pitched battle inside a room with lots of combatants and someone just walks up to the chest and opens it, taking what's in it and walking out! That would be kind of funny actually, but a totally different style of gameplay than has already been established for so long under the NA rules. Maybe in Stephen Baker's early "competitive little boys edition" concepts this worked?

* Even if this were so, don't you still have to "search for treasure"? So making opening the chest and looking inside and taking what's there into separate ("free") actions only complicates what should be a simple procedure. Why? Are you hoping that at some point in the chain of actions that the hero screws up and gets hit with some damage?

Maybe it's extreme, but to me this would be like someone coming up with a system to make combat more complex. Like maybe you have to first "ready" your weapon. Then you have to "aim" the weapon and then finally "fire" (or "swing/thrust") the weapon. Maybe at one point you could miss and hit your friend, or hit your own foot, or the monster has a chance to "dodge" even before you get to the point of defending? This would be a very interesting concept but to me turns it into a different game (or at the very least, homebrew). People already go down this road a bit with attempts to nerf the crossbow or compensate for how they think "dual wielding/two handed" encumbrances should work. I don't personally mind that HQ isn't "perfectly realistic" in this more complex method of handling things. Instead it's just move then attack (or vice versa) or search or disarm. Do the thing with a dice roll (if needed), boom, done. Or imagine with casting spells if it wasn't as simple as declaring it and reading the card. Like you had to first meditate, gather your ingredients, say the words, take careful aim and focus on the target, etc. adding more steps and the possibility of something going "wrong" at each stage or ensuring failure if one of them is neglected... is that more "fun"? Then again, CyberPunk is a popular game too...

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Just like doing a death save with a Healing spell on Zargon's turn I take the "you can't stand on top of furniture" as an exception being made in the case of disarming.

The rules allow for many exceptions to things that otherwise are universally true because of a special case. To me that's all this is, nothing more.

Yes but the difference here is that whilst exceptions to general rules are common in HQ (and similar games), card text overrides rulebook text, "in this quest falling block traps work differently", "exception: you can share a square in a pit" (as digging a hole in the ground causes an immediate TARDIS like effect) and so on, they are stated exceptions, this isn't.

Because the rules don't make sense as written you have assumed that they must be an exception, which is fine but it is your assumption, not the rules. If placing heroes on top of furniture is your way through it, that is fine, but that isn't the rule, and good luck with balancing your Dwarf on top of the door to disarm door traps...

It would be positively silly to put a trap on the square NEXT to the Furniture Trap, because if any hero searched for traps EVEN ONCE they would have found ALL of the traps in the room and had them pointed out. Then they have to forget this happened, walk up to it and fail. I guess all you'd be doing here is requiring that they disarm the trap NEXT to the chest FIRST before disarming the furniture trap?

Putting traps in front of chest right now only trips up people who forget the basic rules and let their role playing imagination take over (and still don't bother searching for traps first before gaining treasure).

In North American Edition that may be true, (technically it trips up people that step on the square), it isn't the case under SE. Moving adjacent to a chest and opening it, is the standard rule (still).

I mean, if opening a chest and taking what's in it is not regarded as an action, why search for treasure at all?

To find treasure that is hidden in the room, rather than just located inside an obvious, visible and in no way hidden treasure chest. I retrieve my toothbrush from a bathroom cabinet every morning, I don't have to search my whole bathroom every day. Equally if some nefarious "hero" wanted to steal the contents of my bathroom cabinet, they would just need to walk in and empty it, no searching required, if however they wanted to steal all my valuables hidden and otherwise then they would need to search my house to find them (which reminds me I probably need to find a better hiding place for my HeroQuest)

You could be in the midst of a pitched battle inside a room with lots of combatants and someone just walks up to the chest and opens it, taking what's in it and walking out! That would be kind of funny actually, but a totally different style of gameplay than has already been established for so long under the NA rules. Maybe in Stephen Baker's early "competitive little boys edition" concepts this worked?

You could be in the midst of a pitched battle inside a room with lots of combatants and someone just walks up to a door and opens it and walks out! And...

* Even if this were so, don't you still have to "search for treasure"? So making opening the chest and looking inside and taking what's there into separate ("free") actions only complicates what should be a simple procedure. Why? Are you hoping that at some point in the chain of actions that the hero screws up and gets hit with some damage?

Who is making opening the chest, looking inside and taking what is in there into separate ("free") actions?

Under SE rules it is a single "free" action, under NA it is an intrinsic part of the search for treasure single action, under Gold Edition rules it is a single "Loot" action. Did I miss something here?

[Kurgan]

I can balance a heroquest figure on top of anything I wish. I just hold it there with my hand and roll the die with my other hand. I guess if you only have one hand, get a friend to help (respecting our friends in the disabled community).

To refresh my memory I looked at the 2nd edition European "Rules of Play." Disarming a furniture trap is as simple as Searching (Traps & Secret Doors accomplished in a single action). The furniture trap is rendered "harmless." Doesn't say you have to walk up to it (no mention of that on the toolkit card either), but I have never played it this way because I don't play using the European rules.

I have always recognized that there are many different rulesets for HeroQuest and many more fan attempts to create a "unified ruleset" across versions (your "Gold Edition" for one). Some rules are more vague than others and widespread homebrewing and imagination account for the many different interpretations of otherwise black & white descriptions. We'll never achieve a full consensus on that, so it remains the domain of every Zargon/Morcar/Grimdead to set those straight at his or her own table. So I am going to keep having my players stand on top of squares and roll dice to remove them as an action (that doesn't require a movement roll) since that's how I interpret the NA based rules I use.

[wallydubbs]

It doesn't say anywhere that you need to be next to the chest to disarm it, but just for the sake of logistics, I would implement at least a house rule, but that's just me.

[Kurgan]

The NA rules to me are pretty straight forward on disarming. You move onto the trap square. Roll, and if you fail, you spring the trap. If you succeed, the trap is gone and you can on a future turn search for treasure (if it was a furniture trap) safely. Some houserule this to say you automatically get the treasure at this point without having to search (I don't). So not everyone wants to add extra steps to getting treasure out of trapped chests, some want to make fewer.

The part that's vague is whether "move" just refers to your entire turn (or the movement of you placing the figure onto the trap square) or whether you're meant to roll your movement dice next and expend squares walking your way to the trap tile and then onto it. Some interpret it to mean you do the latter, while we just teleported you onto the trap tile as long as it was within the same room/corridor. Most would agree after disarming the trap in this fashion, you don't then get to roll for movement and walk around somewhere else on the same turn (and in the case of using up movement squares, that the disarming action ends your turn).

The only time our interpretation caused an issue is when you had an area that was cut off by multiple traps (this happens at least once in Frozen Horror), presenting a loophole of the hero choosing the far trap to "teleport" him further away and possibly avoid multiple traps in the process you were probably meant to have to jump/disarm in turn. Here I could see Zargon intervening to prevent a kind of cheesy shortcut.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Yes, I agree that is the kind of situation where your approach breaks down a little.

Picture the scene, Elf low on BP, erring on the side of caution, "blind jumps" (allowed in your ruleset) the square behind the door into an apparently empty room with a second door on the opposite wall, ending his movement and then searches for traps, revealing an unsprung pit trap on the square he just jumped and an unsprung trap on the second door.

On his next turn, as he doesn't have the ability to disarm the trap on the door, and presumably can't avoid it by jumping over the door, he instead searches for treasure, perhaps hoping for a Potion of Healing instead gets a Wandering Monster, a Chaos Warrior that is placed adjacent to the unsprung pit trap and attacks, killing the Elf.

Next in turn is the Dwarf who walks up to the entrance to the room, under NA rules he would face the choice between
a) Using his action to disarm the pit trap, but would then leave himself open to attack by the CW on the EWPs turn
b) Staying put and leaving himself open to attack by the CW on the EWPs turn
c) Attempting to Jump the Pit Trap, if successful he gets the "jump" on the CW and attacks first, but if the jump fails then the CW will attack and get a bonus

This is a good example of meaningful player choice, but under your ruleset another option is present

d) Declares he is disarming the door trap on the door on the opposite side of the room, so he teleports over the unsprung pit and the CW and ends up balancing on the door, lets say he choses with this option and his disarm is unsuccessful so his turn ends with him balanced on the door.

On EWP turn the CW moves onto the square adjacent to the Dwarf/Door, but he can't attack, as the Dwarf isn't on an adjacent square...and on the Dwarf's next turn what can he do, there isn't an unoccupied square to move into, he can't attack the CW as they aren't adjacent, can he open the door from his position on top of it, if he can and does what happens if the revealed room has a monster in the doorway?

I'm not sure that this is a situation where the EWP needs to intervene in play, it is a situation created by a rule interpretation/modification that shouldn't be applied in the first place, prevention is better than cure

[Kurgan]

I wouldn't treat a hero who is "on" the door (doors with traps appear infrequently in the game) to be untargetable by a monster. He could still be attacked in that square by any monster adjacent to the door.

Quirks in individual expansion quest design I think show a weakness in that particular quest, less a problem with the basic rule mechanics per se. Agreed that I'm using some house rules here (we both are), so there can be unforeseen consequences in some rare cases. I just don't see this particular one as that much of an issue, but thanks for bringing it up.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

But he isn't on a square, he is on top of the door and doors are placed between squares...

[The Admiral]

Good question, and in all my HQ life it has been done from a square next to the chest/piece of furniture, and that is certainly how I will continue. But the new rulebook does not back me up. The rules do not say that furniture blocks movement or line of sight.

So if you allow movement onto a chest to disarm it, you must also allow movement and los through a cupboard.

I won't be doing either.