EU 1st, 2nd editions vs. NA (and remake) Rules revisited...

[Onan]

Wow, great! Thanks, Kurgan! Now I need to cross read all the cards with 2nd edition. The one that immediately strikes me is the courage spell.

Here are the 2nd edition cards in digital form:

https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/cards.html?r=EU


I will put the 1st edition cards in the same Format.

[Onan]

OK, here are the HTML versions of all cards from the 3 different versions. Thanks Kurgan. Could you please take a better picture of the screen? I can hardly read it, and it is parts of the rules (the traps).

1st Edition: https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/cards.html?e=1st
2nd Edition: https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/cards.html?e=2nd
US Edition: https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/cards.html?e=US

Monsters, equipment and quest treasure are identical between 1st and 2nd Edition, except that there are no Bracers and Cloak of Protection in 1st Edition.

3 Spells differ between the versions:
Courage
1st: This spell may be cast on any one player. That player may then throw two extra dice the next time he attacks. The spell is then discarded.
2nd: This spell may be cast on any one player. That player may then throw two extra dice each time he attacks, until the spell is broken. The spell is broken when there are no more monsters visible to that player. The spell is then discarded.

Sleep
1st: This spell will put one monster or player to sleep. They may try to defend themselves by rolling one die per Mind point. If they manage to roll a shield they are unaffected. Once put to sleep they must roll a six at the start of their turn before they can move again.
2nd: This spell will put one monster or player to sleep. He may try to defend himself by rolling one die per Mind point. If he rolls a shield he is unaffected. Once asleep he may not defend if attacked. He will awake if he rolls a six at the start of his turn, or if attacked.

Rock Skin
1st: This spell may be cast on any one player. That player may then throw two extra combat dice the next time he defends. The spell is then discarded.
2nd: This spell may be cast on any one player. That player may then throw two extra combat dice in defence, until the spell is broken. The spell is broken when that player is wounded. The spell is then discarded.


The wandering monster card has a slightly different text and misses the "return to treasure pile" instruction in 1st Edition:
1st: As you are busy searching a monster stalks up on you and attacks. The Evil Wizard player should place the wandering monster, shown in the Quest Book, for this adventure in any square next to you. The monster attacks immediately.
2nd: As you are busy searching, a monster stalks up on you and attacks. The Evil Wizard player may place the wandering monster shown in the Quest Book for this adventure in any square next to you. The monster attacks immediately. Return this card to the treasure pile.

Trap! cards miss the the "return to treasure pile" instruction in 1st Edition. The Trap! with the pit trap doesn't close automatically in 1st Edition:
1st: The stone beneath your foot begins to give way and all too late you realize it is a trap. You fall into a pit and lose one Body point. You may climb out and move as normal on your next turn.
2nd: The stone beneath your foot begins to give way and all too late you realize it is a trap. You fall into a pit and lose one Body point. You may climb out and move as normal on your next turn. The pit then closes. Return this card to the treasure pile.

Cards with a gold value miss the "return to treasure pile" instruction in 2nd Edition.
1st: A meagre haul of just 10 gold coins is found in the pocket of a smelly, worn jerkin. Record the money on the back of your character sheet and return this card to the treasure pile.
2nd: A meagre haul of just 10 gold coins is found in the pocket of a smelly, worn jerkin. Record the money on the back of your character sheet.


Regarding the changes of the spells:

Sleep: I guess the players complained that the EWP rolled defense for the sleeping monster, so they added the "no defense" rule. Waking up if attacked leaves uncertain if the monster also wakes up on a missed attack. I guess so, else the rule would be pointless because the 1BP monster would be dead anyway. Maybe wake up on attack was introduced to prevent PvP: The wizard puts the barbarian to sleep and the punches him to death while he keeps sleeping.

Rock Skin: 1st Edition was very weak. A one time bonus of 2 defense dice in average only prevents 0.67 damage, and only if the monster has a good hit. The EWP might also decide to let a weak monster attack first in order to waste the player's defense bonus, then attack with the strong monster. So this is a buff to make this spell efficient.

Courage: Again, the one time attack bonus is quite weak. It slightly increases your chances of killing a 1BP monster, but you need careful planning to make it work. Also, if the wizard goes last he would rather have a weak attack now than a very strong attack on the buffed player's turn. So they changed it into something much better, which in most situations gives 2 or 3 attacks with +2. But in "Return of the Witch Lord" there are some quests with all undead at once, so the courageous hero gets the bonus for all of them. It also introduces line of sight discussions. So this fix is a bit questionable in my opinion.


Regarding the changes on the treasure cards, you have to check the changes in the rules in parallel. The rules about treasure cards have the following differences:

1st Edition:

Treasure Cards

Some of the treasure cards are of gold or jewels. The character who finds one of these should record the value of his character sheet and return the card to the bottom of the treasure card stack.

Some treasure cards show potions. You can either use such a card immediately (returning the card to the bottom of the stack), or keep it and use it later at any time. Return the card to the bottom of the stack as soon as it is used.

The other treasure cards show traps or wandering monsters. These cards should be read out and the instructions followed immediately.

2nd Edition:

Treasure cards

Some of the treasure cards are of gold or jewels. The character player who finds one of these should record the value of the treasure on his character sheet. The card is then discarded. It is not returned to the treasure card pile.

Other treasure cards show traps or wandering monsters. These cards should be read out and the instructions followed immediately. Trap cards and wandering monster cards are returned to the treasure card pile. The treasure card pile is then shuffled before another treasure card is taken.

In first edition the "good" treasure cards are returned to the treasure card stack when they are found or used. The potion cards say to discard them after use, while the rules say to return them. Discarding is not defined by the rules, so in 1st Edition discarding a treasure card probably means returning it.

In 2nd Edition discarding is defined as something different than returning. The rules say to discard cards with gold value when found, and the potion cards say to discard after use. So the good cards don't return to the treasure deck.

1st Edition says nothing about shuffling the cards before drawing, only that when setting up the game, "The shuffled treasure cards should be placed, faced down, within reach of the player characters." In this case it doesn't matter if a card is returned to the treasure pile or discarded. The card would only come up again if the players performed 25 searches. Maybe the hint on the good cards to return or discard them was just meant to prevent players from keeping the cards between games and to make sure the treasure deck is complete in the next round. Players would not want to keep Nothing, Traps and Monsters, so it would not be necessary to remind players to return them.

In 2nd Edition the treasure card pile is shuffled before another treasure card is taken. With this rule it becomes relevant if a card is returned or not. With only the bad cards returning the search becomes more and more dangerous. This is a significant rule change, and it only works if the good cards don't return to the deck, and if the bad cards do return. So they changed the texts on all treasure cards. Good cards are discarded (not returned), bad cards, instead of saying nothing what do do with them, are to be returned. Unfortunately they forgot to edit the Nothing card. Maybe this happened because they adapted this rule from the US edition, where you don't have a Nothing card.


The last change is about the pit trap Trap! card. Maybe in 1st Edition you were supposed to put a pit trap tile under the searching hero. Since the card would only come up once during a quest, you would not run out of pit trap tiles. Well you could in theory, because you have 4 pit trap tiles and some quests (Melar's Maze, Fire Mage and Bastion of Chaos) use 4 pit traps. But with the new shuffling rules this could cause real problems with only 4 pit trap tiles.

[Kurgan]

Never thought about the pit not closing!

Running out of tiles would happen if nobody decides to disarm the Pit trap (a failed disarm attempt still removes the trap, after all). A trap within a corridor or in front of a door would always be ripe for removal I would think (compare to how usually you clear a room of monsters before progressing, but if you don't do that, you run out of monsters in many quests).

I'm pretty sure the NA edition didn't come out before 2nd EU edition, but I guess I can't prove that.



Here you go... (1st edition GM screen back):

[Bareheaded Warrior]

(a failed disarm attempt still removes the trap, after all)

Still no. I did respond when you made this claim on a different topic Where do you disarm a trap from? but sadly you didn't respond (or at least you haven't yet...), but repeating the same claim on a different topic doesn't change the fact that it isn't correct

[Onan]

From 1st edition and 2nd edition Tool kit card:

The tool kit enables you to remove any trap that you find. Roll one combat die. On the roll of a skull the trap goes off and you lose one Body point. Once you have rolled the die the trap is removed.

Thanks for the new Screen picture, Kurgan! This time I can read it.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Onan, I'll refer you to the same post as I referred Kurgan to earlier Where do you disarm a trap from? for a fuller explanation but in brief...

Taking the Pit Trap as an example, the pit trap marker is used to represent BOTH:
(a) the "searched for, found, but not yet triggered pit trap"
AND
(b) "the pit that results from the trap being triggered".

A disarm attempt can only be made once the marker representing (a) has been placed on the board, a successful disarm attempt results in the pit trap being removed [as per the wording on the card "the trap is removed"] so the marker representing (a) is removed, a failed disarm attempt results in the pit trap being removed (a) [as per the wording on the card "the trap is removed"], and being replaced with the pit marker (b).

As the same marker is used for both (a) and (b) in a failed disarm attempt the trap is removed but the marker remains on the board, it is just what it represents that changes from (a) to (b). The card states that the "trap is removed", it doesn't state that the "trap marker is removed".

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Just want to point out that the UK (EU) rules for treasure searches are unclear. Some believe you can only search once per room, but to that I say, "Prove it!" I don't think there's any such restriction. A case can be made either way for the UK 2nd edition.

Without wishing to reignite this whole debate...I just want to be clear on my position on this topic as it is subtle.

Searching an area for secret doors and traps reveals ALL secret doors and traps in that area, so a second search would find nothing, so would be pointless. So whilst not explicitly prohibited I don't think repeatedly searching the same area for secret doors and traps and finding nothing is the way in which the Designers' intended the game to be played, so there is effectively a restriction even if it isn't explicitly stated.

According to the rules, searching an area for treasure reveals EITHER the things indicated in the Quest Notes for the area if there are any OR if there are no such Quest Notes for that area then it results in a Treasure card being drawn.

If, for example a quest note exists for that room that indicates the searcher should take the Spear card, then a second search for treasure in that same area, could result in a number of different outcomes depending on your interpretation...

a) First searcher takes the Spear card, a second searcher takes the Spear card from the first searcher, a third searcher takes the Spear card from the second searcher...ad infinitum [I don't think that is either a practical or an intended outcome]

b) Subsequent searcher finds nothing [this outcome is clear, simple and aligns the Search for Treasure with the Search for Secret Doors and Traps rules - my preferred option]

c) Subsequent searcher draws a Treasure Card...ad infinitum
[In the First Edition the "good" treasure cards are returned to the bottom of the treasure deck so this would lead to an infinite reward in the first searchable area, again this seems unlikely to me to be the intention, but I think we both agree that approach is not the intended one in the First Edition or if it is then it is flawed.]

[In the Second Edition the "bad" treasure cards are returned so the reward would be limited to one of every "good" card in the deck recoverable in the first searchable area, (up to 400gc and 7 potions) which whilst not as bad as unlimited treasure again this seems unlikely to be the intention. If you exhaust the treasure deck of all the good cards in the first searchable area, typically the room with the staircase, why would you ever search for treasure again in the rest of the quest? Why add quest notes detailing items that can be found in rooms later in a quest when players would have no reason to search for treasure having exhausted the deck of good cards already? Except the original Quest Designers did exactly that, for example, Lair of the Orc Warlord, note C indicates that the first to search for treasure finds a Spear, so the expectation is that a player would search for treasure, but if they have already gained 400gc and 7 potions from the first room in the quest, the one with the staircase, why would they be searching for treasure again, knowing that the deck contains only WMs and Traps?)

So in summary whilst I agree that the text does NOT explicitly state that you cannot search a specific area for treasure or for secret doors and traps more than once, allowing you to do so and find nothing is pointless and allowing you to do so and draw a treasure card each time, leads to issues in game play and crucially nowhere in the rules does it tell you that subsequent searches for treasure of the same area leads to more treasure cards being drawn or to put it another way...

...some believe you can search a room for treasure as many times as you wish, drawing a treasure card on each occasion, but to that I say, "Prove it!"

[BlackJax]

I think this is the thread I have been looking for.

I'm thinking about purchasing the game and wasn't sure whether to get the original that I remember so fondly from back in the 90s or the new version, my research has shown me that they aren't compatible with each other in the physical sense as the new one has 25mm squares instead of the original 20mm squares but what I'm less sure about is whether I could buy the new one and still play it with the original rules, or buy the original and play with the new rules, are they compatible in that sense?

Looking like I have a lot of reading ahead of me, before I decide!

[Kurgan]

All of the classic pieces will work on the modern board. If you own the classic game system and apply a modern expansion to it, sure, the models are a bit larger so they crowd their squares a bit more, but not much more. The new furniture is the same size or SMALLER in some cases than the original and they really didn't take up the full space they were supposed to on the map anyway (a bookcase was only 3 squares in actual footprint, but technically it covers six in game). Yes the new tiles are a bit larger but they're used sparingly and don't present too much of a problem.

So personally unless you are really concerned about the styles "matching" (I'm not, I have been mixing reaper miniatures and 3d printed ones with my classic set for years before I got the remake edition) it's not too bad.

The mechanics are literally the same, with only the smallest of tweaks (that can easily be ignored if you prefer how it was in 1990). Yes, the new version is written as a kind of hybrid, like 95% NA edition, 5% EU 2nd edition. If you wanted to use the old cards, you easily could and running the app you can kind of work around and use the honor system for most things to make it work the way you want to, if you have your old rules.

Before the remake edition came out, I had a custom board made, that was quad fold and simply scaled up the 1989 board to use 1x1 inch squares. I use it to this day and I've never had any issue with the size of either classic or remake pieces. The 2021 Abominations do crowd squares, but that's due to their design... one arm stretched forward and the spear stretching backward. Trying to scale up the board so large that they don't crowd is going to give you an absurd mega board that won't fit comfortably on many tables (the Mythic or SQT/PoT variant of this figure works a lot better, though nothing beats the classic Fimir!).

The remake edition of ATOH doesn't care at all that you can't reasonably stack the skull tiles under (or on) the bases of the Ogres efficiently. It also doesn't care in the Arena Mode that it can be confusing keeping track of all the characters on the board that have "activation" tokens next to them. The amount of tracking tokens that get added in Jungles of Delthrak is kind of absurd (Venom tokens and Spawnlings for instance). People come up with their own systems of course... each to their own!

When it comes to cost, when I bought my last vintage game system it was running something like $180 on average plus shipping, compared to a brand new Remake GS for $135 plus shipping (but the deals out there regularly put the remake edition around $90 or sometimes even less!). The Remake edition does feel a little plain, at the very least you want to sleeve the treasure cards and paint the furniture. It really needs a printed out Armory Board as well (much nicer than shuffling cards).

[Onan]

Welcome aboard, BlackJax

The material is compatible with all rulesets. You could simply buy the version that is easiest to get or with the style you like most and try different rules. The cards are slightly different, and it's hard to get players to accept the card effects from another ruleset once they are used to it.

Also, you will probably use the provided quest book as is, and this also makes a big difference.

But cards and quest books are available for download and printing for all rulesets. So I'd say the look and feel of the board and minis is more important when deciding which one to buy (first ).