RISE OF THE DREAD MOON discussion

[The Admiral]

Yes it does include cultists that have already cast the spell.

Thanks.

[Nlinindoll]

So you'd say then if there is no note in a room with monsters indicating that there are instant kills or monsters behave a certain way or "if disguised..." then you'd treat it as just an ordinary situation. Monsters move towards the heroes and attack them like they would any other time and the heroes can do whatever they like (here it would simply be a temptation to "break" the disguise strictures and thus forfeit the disguise when it might be useful later to keep it)?

I'm saying that's "rules as written".... it's what the instructions say.

Though, as always, creative Zargons are welcome to home-brew and adjust for their own story. But based on the story Avalon Hill is trying to tell, it's only specific enemies that change behavior based on the heroes being disguised.

Then again what are the disguises? Are they magical? I was imagining like the "psychic paper" in Doctor Who, that transforms into whatever the target is expecting to see. But if they're just old clothes to make you look like a neutral villager then I suppose anyone who is in the habit of attacking neutral villagers wouldn't care one bit if you looked like one.

My desire to keep Heroquest in the genre of "low fantasy" or sword & sorcery as opposed to "high fantasy" dictates that the disguises would be simple old elven clothing. No magical disguises at my table.

[Aki]

Probably playing with the App is not the best way, because no one read the notes until the end and obviously and I missing something, however I've restart quest 2 right now and yes, except the room with the Elf, you can't search when you are in disguise, but the no one monster attack me, even if I killing someone via silently kill in the same room

Are you saying you could search for treasure in the room with the inactive elf?

And are you saying that in rooms where there are no designated inactive monsters they still ignored the disguised heroes?

Yes

[The Admiral]

Interesting, because that is not how I read the rules. And why write specific notes and Plaza rules if everything is affected any way? It would certainly make disguise last longer if you can keep killing monsters with small attacks.

[Nlinindoll]

I asked for clarification / reported this as a possible bug on the AH Discord.

[The Admiral]

I asked for clarification / reported this as a possible bug on the AH Discord.

Good, I think we need it. It got me thinking that if all monsters are inactive, and you can search without activating them, then in theory, you could go round the whole board without fighting anything? I can't think that was intended.

[Kurgan]

What if you attack (or damage or even kill) a monster and another monster sees it, will they not suspect something? Can you search the entire area (I compromised and said the monster will limit the area they allow you to search without raising suspicion).

What if you attack (but miss)? The App it is being reported, takes a maximalist approach, hence the confusion, if that's not what the designers intended.

[Aki]

If you kill a monster adjacent another nothing happens

With the silently kill you can't fail attack, if you failed an attack, with a staff for example, onestly I don't know

So I trying only one quest with disguise, but is little bit boring, so now I run the good old way, in the future when they fixed these bugs, I certain want try again the disguise mechanic

[Kurgan]

The App (1.82) may not be 100% accurate to the written book, but I did notice it allowed disguised heroes to freely search in the same area with a monster that could be "stealth killed." Other than these Quest Note designated monsters (and those "automatically inactive" in Plazas) it seems all other monsters 100% ignore disguises and attack the heroes as normal. Also use of ANY "special" automatically cancels the Disguise, despite it including things beyond what the book describes (it only says prohibited weapons/armor and spells, but here potions, other equipment like smoke bombs and treasures like the elven cloak also cancel it). Also there may be some scripted event(s) that still happen even though the book says they don't happen unless you're undisguised.

And yes, the App "gives away the game" because if you enter an area with monsters, you can click to see if the "search" options are greyed out ("monsters are present"). If you don't see that, then there's a stealth kill possible. Zargon of course is not advised to either hide this information or share it with the players in the book until they move adjacent to one of those monsters (or it's Zargon's turn to start moving monsters and they move to attack).

So what did the designers truly intend?

[The Admiral]

The App (1.82) may not be 100% accurate to the written book, but I did notice it allowed disguised heroes to freely search in the same area with a monster that could be "stealth killed." Other than these Quest Note designated monsters (and those "automatically inactive" in Plazas) it seems all other monsters 100% ignore disguises and attack the heroes as normal. Also use of ANY "special" automatically cancels the Disguise, despite it including things beyond what the book describes (it only says prohibited weapons/armor and spells, but here potions, other equipment like smoke bombs and treasures like the elven cloak also cancel it). Also there may be some scripted event(s) that still happen even though the book says they don't happen unless you're undisguised.

And yes, the App "gives away the game" because if you enter an area with monsters, you can click to see if the "search" options are greyed out ("monsters are present"). If you don't see that, then there's a stealth kill possible. Zargon of course is not advised to either hide this information or share it with the players in the book until they move adjacent to one of those monsters (or it's Zargon's turn to start moving monsters and they move to attack).

So what did the designers truly intend?

That is pretty much how I read the rules. They set out in detail how to become, maintain and lose a disguise. The Plaza rules tell us monsters on the plaza are inactive and how they become active. Some quest notes tell us about inactive monsters and how they interact with disguised heroes. That is it. I certainly wondered if a search would be allowed with inactive monsters present, and while the RAW do not allow this, I wondered if it was the intention for this to be possible, and it seems from what you are saying that it was. There was nothing in the booklet about all monsters being inactive.