GimmeYerGold wrote:As Zargon (or Morcar) Have you asked yourself this question: "Why won't my heroes bother disarming traps??!"
The bottom line is that the cost of an action is *more* costly than any negative consequences--they'd rather take the Body damage penalty of a sprung trap than fork over the time (or money, in the case of buying a tool kit), to attempt to disarm a trap safely.
My group never had this issue. We were accustomed to D&D, so taking the time to disarm traps was part of successful dungeon-crawling. It appears your Morcar/Zargon event deck is contributing to their behavior, but your fix is a good way to deal with it.
GimmeYerGold wrote:One simple house rule: I propose making disarming a trap a free action, like opening a door.
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2) This also simplifies the conundrum of a trapped chest. Regardless of the outcome of the disarming attempt, a Hero can take their "search for treasure" action after the free action of disarming, and take the treasure they've earned. (By the book, this would be a 3 action process, search for traps, disarm trap, search for treasure!)...
Overall, your houserule deals with this nicely. I do feel in this case it is a little counter-theme to abbreviate disarming a trap while leaving the search for treasure a full action. I mean, searching for treasure at a chest by opening it is very similar to opening a door, which is already a free action. Picking up the treasure is also a free action in the rules (NA at least.) I'm inclined to pass off a search for treasure adjacent to a chest as a free action, instead. However, I can see that it's simpler to to use your blanket disarm free-action to make things run more smoothly in all cases.
GimmeYerGold wrote:3) With this house rule, it's possible for a hero to begin their turn by searching for traps, then move to the trap, and attempt to disarm that trap, (and even continue moving after that!) all in one single turn....
GimmeYerGold wrote:...I guess the house rule proposed here is now a mix and match of both UK and NA rules.
Wth keeping most of the vanilla NA rules, the differences of this House Rule from the vanilla UK rules are these:
1) Spear Traps and Treasure traps are not auto-disarmed when searched for.
2) Trap tiles are not placed on the board until they are sprung, only gestured to their position beforehand.
3) Hero must move *onto* found trap to disarm it.
4) chance of failure to disarm, not automatic success
4) Toolkit and Dwarf have diff chances of success.
5) A failed attempt springs the trap.
6) (Something else I'm overlooking?)
If disarming a trap is now a free action, the question is, besides adopting the UK rules wholesale, can we change anything else to improve on the improved? Do the remaining NA rules maintain a fun and thematic effect?
I see a seventh difference (#4 was repeated.) Since a Hero May perform an unlimited number of free actions in a turn, more than one discovered trap may be disarmed in a turn as a Hero continues his move. The EU rules limit a disarm attempt to just one a turn.
Consider the extreme case of eight traps placed consecutively in a single corridor, as in The Eastern Passage, Quest 7 of the NA version of Keller's Keep. With a decent move roll and some good luck, it is possible for the Dwarf to disarm all of the traps before the false door in a single turn. For me, this shouldn't be possible due to thematic sensibilities. I'm more comfortable with a one-disarm-a-turn limit. You could amend your houserule to match the EU limit easily enough, if that's what you want out of it.