Chests? How do they work?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I'm sold on Zenithfleet's point and HispaZargon's follow up just confirms it and for the purposes of Polishing the Second Edition am planning on updating the rulebook accordingly, however for me there is just one point still open (which doesn't make any difference to my proposed modification)

[SE rules] If I search a room treasure and that room contains a chest should Morcar reveal the contents of the chest to me at that point or not until I open it?

It terms of this method of play taking longer, technically yes, but bearing in mind the number of chests in your average quest and the fact that, as with opening doors, opening chests is a 'free action' the increased length of time is negligible (and in some instances non-existent) so that doesn't concern me.

Opening chests
Heroes may open a chest by moving onto an adjacent square. Heroes do not have to open a chest if they do not wish to. Opening a chest does not count as a move. Having opened a chest, a hero may keep moving, if they have any squares left to move.

As soon as a chest is opened, the Evil Wizard player must tell the player what they have found.

Any treasure found should be recorded on their character sheet.

Monster cannot open chests.

[burglekutt]

We play like this:
First search in a room: draw treasure card from the golden deck
- more money, less hazard, average potions
Second search in a room: draw treasure card from the silver deck
- less money, more hazard, less potions

Only two searches per room allowed. Period.

Except for furnitures (except tables).
One search per piece of furniture: draw treasure card from the blue deck
- less money, more hazard, more potions

Plus one search per corridor part (from one corner/crossing to the next): draw treasure card from the black deck
- very little money, very much hazard, few potions
--> the corridor treasure search is for the very greedy and bored heroes.

I have 6 sets of treasure cards, that I divided into these four decks.

This is fantastic.

Need the stats of each of the four treasure decks.
How many cards in each deck? I'm guessing at least ten in the non Golden Decks?

You would place one token in that room if it was searched only once so that players could go back to that room later to try the Silver Deck or furniture, assuming they were to afraid to earlier.

A "Searching Monsters Deck" could be a cute addition for treasure.
Some Hazards for that could include:
Stuck by Poison dart = minus 1movemnt for the rest of the game or until anti-poison is applied.
Enemy's still alive! = Monster attacks for 1bp damage before dying.

Anyway please elaborate or make a different thread, thanks!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

For me the chest mechanic is easy. You search for treasure and get what's in it. If it's trapped, you get hit by the trap (unless you search for and disarm first) but also get the loot (assuming it didn't just kill you). That's according to the NA rules.

Whilst that is a valid way to play*, with search for traps in a room including finding traps on chests and search for treasure in a room including the chest contents, for me, and it may just be my own experience of starting from First Edition, this turns chests into just another piece of furniture, as whether the quest notes state that a chest is trapped or contains a bag of 100gc or both, plays out exactly the same as if the room is trapped or contains a bag of 100gc or both.

Personally, Treasure Chests have always been special, eyes light up when a door is opened revealing a room with a chest, "ooohs" escape lips, cunning plans on how to ensure your hero is one to claim the loot are formed, whilst insisting that it doesn't matter as we are all on the same team (that claim feels much more satisfactory when issued with a heavy pocket), other pieces of furniture like a table just don't have the same fun value, so reducing a chest to just furniture isn't a positive.

*perhaps a little pedantic, but this isn't strict NA rules either as under NA rules there aren't any instructions for disarming chest traps, the chest trap section refers the reader to the disarming traps section and that covers standard "floor" traps and not chest traps, so strictly speaking anything in this area is interpretation, assumption or home brew.

And it is perhaps interesting that the treating a chest like a normal piece of furniture interpretation is present only in the North American edition, European First and Second edition, Japanese edition and even Advanced HeroQuest treats chests using distinct rules to general searching, in terms of needing to be adjacent, opening the chest and so on, NA rules are unique in this respect.

My preference is to continue to ignore the NA aberration and treat chests as their own entity, you search a room and get the treasure (ignoring any chests) and independently you handle a chest through opening from an adjacent square mechanism and get the loot (handling the trap if one exists)

[The Admiral]

And it is perhaps interesting that the treating a chest like a normal piece of furniture interpretation is present only in the North American edition, European First and Second edition, Japanese edition and even Advanced HeroQuest treats chests using distinct rules to general searching, in terms of needing to be adjacent, opening the chest and so on, NA rules are unique in this respect.

My preference is to continue to ignore the NA aberration and treat chests as their own entity, you search a room and get the treasure (ignoring any chests) and independently you handle a chest through opening from an adjacent square mechanism and get the loot (handling the trap if one exists)

I know you have said this before, and while I can accept you see this as an interpretation of the rules, I do not see anywhere in the EU rules where it actually says this. I would love you to actually point me to the specific rule where it says this, because I wish this was the official rule, but I just don't see it.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

And that is a valid point, and I agree that it isn't explicitly stated, but there are frequent references throughout 1st edition rules (and 2nd edition) to opening chests, so you would expect that rules around the act of "opening" exist, the only such rules that are specified in the rulebook refer to opening doors, my assumption is that "opening" works the same whether it is a door or a chest, which I admit is an assumption.

You can open a door by moving onto the square in front of it. You do not have to open a door if you do not want to. Opening a door does not count as a move. Having opened a door, you can keep moving, if you have any movement spaces left to move

Traps are triggered whenever a character moves onto a trapped square or opens a trapped chest without searching

However if you don't accept that assumption, then it must be a coincidence that Advanced HeroQuest released later in the same year, developed by the same team at GW who worked on HeroQuest 1st/2nd editions, adopts exactly that same interpretation. Even the Japanese edition which featured a whole host of changes, kept the opening mechanism for doors and chests largely unchanged, stretching the "coincidence" to breaking point.

Playing the Devil's Avocado for a moment, if we reverse the assumption and state that opening chests is NOT intended to be covered by the same "opening" rules as doors in 1st / 2nd edition, then I ask you what IS the official rule that we are supposed to use to open chests, and where is that explicitly stated, or were we told what was in chests as some sort of "Have A Look At What You Could've Won"? Is the Wand of Recall included as a Quest treasure card only as a tease because there is no way of getting it out of the chest?

To paraphrase Holmes, when you have established that no rule is explicitly stated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!

[Kurgan]

Searching for Traps in 1st/2nd edition of HeroQuest actually removes the Furniture Traps automatically, right?

In the published NA/Remake HeroQuest rules, such searching identifies the trap location, nothing more (still needs to be disarmed as a separate action for each individual trap, and searching for treasure without that disarm automatically triggers the furniture trap... since you can't choose to search part of the room and not another part of it with your Treasure searching action). Many things are simply different between the two versions. I know, you pick the one you like best, or create a "greatest hits" remix (or something brand new!) if you don't like it.

So many fans complain that NA/Remake HeroQuest treats secret doors and trap searches as separate actions (and prefer one treasure search per room rather than per hero)... but they also want it to be possible to have each piece of furniture be searchable individually... OR treat opening the chest as something separate from searching and finding. I guess the bottom line is some want to find the treasure in a certain way and they want that specific thing you do to see the treasure be the most dramatic event? Or people just like what they like. I get it, some things I want the game to do for me and I won't worry about them, while others I want to do or "role play" them.

Why would anyone want to open a chest, with monsters present? (without them I guess they're in a hurry to get the treasure, for fear another hero will "take it first" despite the rules stating large rewards should be divided equally, and stuff intended for one hero only will go to that character anyway) Perhaps they are hoping that inside is the weapon needed to kill the monster or a potion that will help them survive this fight? I guess in that case they are knowingly taking a greater risk that it will be trapped and they will be hit with it, period. It might be empty or only contain gold or something else irrelevant to the fight at hand even if it's safe! I could see maybe the "heist" role play of the heroes distracting the monster while you rush in and grab the money bag and run, perhaps that creates a fun moment for the players, I could see that. But players fighting over the treasure really isn't a thing in the NA/Remake rules.

The Japanese edition, if I recall correctly, didn't even require that a room be clear of monsters before you search, it was an "optional" rule to increase the difficulty. And this one also did require walking up to the chests to open them, as I've said many times. Interesting, if you want to borrow those rules to enhance your other edition, go for it I say.

[The Admiral]

Bareheaded Warrior.
These are my opinions of your points:
1) To me your first quote is clearly referring to the door pieces. I see no inference.
2) AHQ is a different game with different rules. We cannot take those rules to make assumptions about HQ rules.
3) Japanese HQ is a substantially different game to every other version. It has numerous major differences, so again I would not use that a a point of reference.
4) Your second quote though provides a very strong argument. It refers specifically to opening a chest. It was from the very loose 1st ed EU rules which I haven't looked at for decades, but there it is. Why else put traps in front of a chest?
So I would say if you play that version you do physically open the chest.

That's how I have always played it anyway.

[Kurgan]

I like the way the Japanese edition handles the Crossbow. But I admit I'm going against the intention of Avalon Hill (to be fair, I also reject their interpretation of Courage's duration) interpreting the Remake rules in that way. You might try to say that AH doesn't "really" have the definitive interpretation of the NA rules. Yes, they have Stephen Baker to consult with, but if I recall correctly, he didn't have much to do with the other regional editions, just the original (and I don't see him fighting with them over the rules... it's their project now and he's along for the ride, still an important contributor, I love his narration in the story ads).

[The Admiral]

I like the way the Japanese edition handles the Crossbow. But I admit I'm going against the intention of Avalon Hill (to be fair, I also reject their interpretation of Courage's duration) interpreting the Remake rules in that way. You might try to say that AH doesn't "really" have the definitive interpretation of the NA rules. Yes, they have Stephen Baker to consult with, but if I recall correctly, he didn't have much to do with the other regional editions, just the original (and I don't see him fighting with them over the rules... it's their project now and he's along for the ride, still an important contributor, I love his narration in the story ads).

I agree re crossbow. I have always played it can't attack adjacent diagonals.

What is the AH interpretation of courage duration?

[Kurgan]

According to Avalon Bill, Courage only lasts for one attack in the remake edition.

The Line of Sight thing becomes a little more confusing this way. Before I would have read it like EU 2nd edition, where the spell only applies as soon as you start attacking (and continues until there are no more monsters left you can "see," meaning they are dead or ran out of the room/corridor). But you could cast it on someone and they would wander through the quest with the spell dormant until they began to attack THEN you have to worry about it running out because the monsters go away.

Now if the Spell is cast on someone and there are no monsters around it is wasted. Or if the spell is cast, but before he gets his attack in, those monsters run away. Otherwise AH's interpretation is that it's like 1st edition (single attack) but now with more opportunities for it to be wasted.