Another search suggestion; WD+D6

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I wasn't criticising the mechanism, just that I don't follow the logic, which a number of people posting on this topic seem to share, of (1) choosing an "ability ranking" for the heroes in this area, based on their knowledge of the HeroQuest world and its heroes, which generally features the Dwarf at the top and the Wizard at the bottom and then (2) choosing to try and integrate this with the MP attribute that is ranked in a way that is completely different to the ranking that they chose in step 1, with the Wizard at the top and the Dwarf close to the bottom.

The only way that I can explain this better (as I don't think I've done a great job so far!) is through an example. If you imagine that you were designing the game in the early days of development, or a similar game, and you decided that the Barbarian would be the best at attacking, the Dwarf/Elf next and finally the Wizard the worst (fair enough) and then for some random reason you decided to use MP as the relevant attribute, you would then have to create complexity by adding special rules that the Wizard rolls only half the attack dice that his MP value suggests (3), the Elf the same number of attack dice as his MP (4), the Dwarf one more attack dice than his MP (4) and the Barbarian three times as many attack dice as Mind points (6)! Wouldn't it be far easier and simpler, instead of choosing MP as the relevant attribute, as that doesn't remotely represent your ranking, just to state that the Barbarian rolls three attack dice, the Dwarf/Elf roll two attack dice and the Wizard one attack die? Apart from unnecessary complications what does the decision to align to the MP attaribute give you?

[dragon5145]

I wasn't criticising the mechanism, just that I don't follow the logic, which a number of people posting on this topic seem to share, of (1) choosing an "ability ranking" for the heroes in this area, based on their knowledge of the HeroQuest world and its heroes, which generally features the Dwarf at the top and the Wizard at the bottom and then (2) choosing to try and integrate this with the MP attribute that is ranked in a way that is completely different to the ranking that they chose in step 1, with the Wizard at the top and the Dwarf close to the bottom.

I didn't really as a criticism, actually your questions actually do help with further refining the my thoughts on this. I actually had a much longer response try to explain my thought process, but I got logged out just before so I'll try and redo it more concisely now. First thanks to your questions I realized I'd artificially raised the higher than was necessary. At the outset if this an "ability ranking", it is a ranking based on a success range based on hero background race and other things just as you said in combination with MP. I would like to point out that this might be a method that could not necessarily should be used, if someone finds it interesting and likes rolling lots of dice they are welcome to try it or not I am by no means pushing it, since some parts such as WM I haven't even started to flash out. The idea that MP could be tied to search comes from the definitions themselves, the two definitions I know indicate MP is a representation of wisdom, intelligence, magical aptitude, magical resistance and resistance to magical influence. And yes I believe there is enough nuance in the last two that can still both be written. For this idea my focus is primarily on the [url]wisdom and intelligencel][/url] part, I find it logical that these aspects of MP influence search ability. First I needed to decide on the base success range for heros, since is used for WM by OP I settled on for base. These base ranges are then adjusted for thematic or game mechinic reasons, even you said elf should possible be better due to heightened senses. I'll try to briefly outline below the change in success range and reason, the range changes unfortunately aren't completely linear since I don't want to use for 2 things in one test.

background of magic study unlikely to help in search other than increased intelligence
success =
fighter mage background mixed utility for search but with heightened senses so broaden
success range by one level
success =
disarm trap skill assume helps search broaden success range level by one/understanding of
stonework or underground structures so broaden success range level again
success =
Borderlands/Wastelands background survival there developed strong survival skills or
sense of danger broaden success range by one level if someone doesn't think it
warrants a success range increase that's fine I'll put success probability for both below
success(broadened)=
success(non broadened)=

Now for the actual ability ranking as it were based on probability of success
~ 99% chance for success
~93% chance for success
~ 91% chance for success
~ 75% chance for success
~55% chance for success

There I hope this helps you understand a little about my thought process for all this. Your questions did help me refine my thoughts on this. If you still don't like the adjustments based on hero quest world stuff throw it out out and just reuse the rules for disarm trap. The probabilities then become
99% 98% 93% 75%
All this system really did was substantially increase the chance for WM especially for the brainy type heroes and introducing the chance for a straight up failure on search even without triggering a WM. So I guess it's primary use would be to increase difficulty and time it took to complete a quest.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

The idea that MP could be tied to search comes from the definitions themselves, the two definitions I know indicate MP is a representation of wisdom, intelligence, magical aptitude, magical resistance and resistance to magical influence. And yes I believe there is enough nuance in the last two that can still both be written. For this idea my focus is primarily on the [url]wisdom and intelligencel][/url] part, I find it logical that these aspects of MP influence search ability

Even without considering the precise definitions of terminology, your chosen ranking of "search ability" is;






The ranking based on MP is;






You can clearly see that the two rankings don't line up, obviously this can be adapted and made to work, but why go to the effort and complication in trying to adapt a square peg to fit a round hole, when you could just choose a round peg in the first place by dropping the insistence on using MPs.

Incidentally I'm not sure why a who as you pointed out previously would have substantial survival skills and well developed danger sense honed through a lifetime lived in wastelands would be the worst at finding hidden threats like traps...

The other point to consider is that if you make finding secret doors in a given area conditional (as opposed to automatic as in the original rules) then you could easily miss a secret door in a pre-written quest that is essential for completing the quest, and might end up having to search every single area over and over again.

[dragon5145]

I am sorry if it seems I was trying to force the use of MP into search, I was just trying to demonstrate a possible different method of using it than the OP's original method. Which consisted of using a and had the area said search covered decided by MP. This also made the worst at search do to the small area he searches. The system determines how many things found by the result of the die roll, others have indicated there should be a standard to the priority of the things EWP reveals things, as such the priority should be Secret Doors, Traps, then treasure in the case of rooms. This precludes the chance of missing a secret doors except in the case of a total search failure which means no success and no WM, while possible has low probability. As I said at the start of this post, I was just hypothesizing an possible alternate way of applying MP to a system that was already using it. That said, I agree with you that it is better to not use MP for search, there has got to be other and or better ways to increase the utilization of MP in the game. My preferred idea for handling searches closely resembles the method you use in your rules. I've mentioned this on another post in a different topic.

[burglekutt]

Setting MindPoints aside, a bigger problem is us agreeing on how many turns do we wanna spend Searching rooms?
It surprises me any of us would wanna spend more than one turn doing this.

A Scenario using the original game:
#1 All monsters are dead, the Wizard Searches for Traps, sees a trap & can choose to disarm it or walk around it & explore more. God forbid the Wizard finds a monster in that hallway up a head because his action was used "Searching" and now must use the rest of his movement to run back to the room to hide behind the Barbarian! Lol

The monster runs into the room and attacks the Barbarian
#2 The Barbarian wastes his Search action killing a monster and instead of waiting around he decides to wonder with his movement out into the hallway to explore. While exploring he also comes across a monster around a different corner & realizes he used his action killing the last one, so he can't do anything either.

#3 Dwarf searches for treasure and scores! He runs out into the hallway to face the monster but realizes he too has no action and must quickly make a deal with the Barbarian as to who has more BodyPoints for this future ass beating one of them is about to take.

Etc etc you see what I'm getting at. I can't count the times heros looking for adventure and action simply left Searching to weaker heros.

Preferably I'd like one search to discover all things. Whether you do as BHW suggests and force the hero on to a trap to disarm, no matter what happens, all things are discovered. Having to risk disarming one trap should be punishment enough for our heros this room especially if the trap moves around the room as needed according the the heros Search roll. Allow me to explain:

Here's me trying to convert BHW idea with you others on a single CD search roll:
= Hero is placed on trap to disarm (if there is one). Otherwise finds SecretDoor & treasure card.
= May pass through a trap (once), but other heros must "Disarm" to pass through. Finds Secretdoor & treasure.
= All heros may ignore traps and move through SecretDoor. Finds treasure.

Problems solved treasure found, lets move on!
Something like this.

Just this month I started toying with the idea of traps not having a designated square at all! but instead would be found by chance. Haven't really thought it through but thought one of you might be interested. Maybe every room may of may not have a trap, its dependant on a roll?


Either way we need to speed this crap up and hopefully get it done in one or two turns max & no hero wants to walk out of this room without an "Action" available.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Burglekutt, I agree with your point around how much time do we want to spend searching and a big part of that is down to the number of search opportunities rather than just the time taken for each individual search.

If we assume four heroes, ten rooms and ten corridors in a given quest, then under the classic rules in first edition that would be 20 treasure searches and 20 combined trap and secret doors searches (up to 40 in total) and in the second edition, they revised the rules and reduced the number of available searches (maybe feeling that the first edition has too many) down to 10 treasure searches and 20 combined trap and secret doors searches (up to 30 in total) which was an improvement but in the NA 1990 remake, you can search each room for treasure once per hero, and you can search every corridor and every room once for secret doors and again for traps, which would be 40 treasure searches, 20 trap searches and 20 secret door searches (up to 80 in total) hence the nickname "SearchQuest".

So for me the idea that someone might want to introduce the concept of a conditional search i.e. a search that doesn't find anything even though there may well be stuff there to find, so you have to search the same area again OR restrict the search area / radius even more than it is already so you have more areas to search feels entirely the wrong direction to me and I think you are agreeing.

Note: You could argue that the figures that I have given are maximums and don't reflect the actual number of searches performed (which is true) but the main reason why players don't search at every opportunity (heroes presumably would, who doesn't want to find treasure, secret doors and traps - at least find them the easy way) is because it takes too long and is too dull. So in effect you are giving player the choice between choosing the long dull version of the game (and hoping that they don't choose to just play a different game) or for their character to suffer lost body points and reduced treasure. Not a great choice!

However I feel that your proposal has a few issues or perhaps I just don't understand it!

The outcomes are only significantly different in rooms where a trap exists, and most rooms don't contain a trap, (and an even smaller subset contain more than one trap) so in most cases when you roll, the roll is pointless as the outcomes are the same, so why roll?

How do you pass through a trap during a search when you aren't moving?

If you roll a so all heroes can ignore all traps, will the heroes know whether there were any traps in that room, what happens if they return to or pass through that room again?

And how would this work in corridors, the same but without the treasure card?