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

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I agree with every word of your entire first chunk all the way up to the quote. I would guess that some EWP playtesting the game decided to get a monster to run off with the treasure (with or without the chest) to deny the heroes.

In terms of your two questions "what's the most practical and sensible way of playing it given the rules and components we have?" versus "how did the designers expect you to play it, and did they make their intent clear?" is certainly interesting, I too try to figure out the designers intent as a starting point but I also recognise that is some cases it may not be possible to determine with any certainty, so I always try to factor in the pragmatic and playability factor, if it is smooth, fun and keeps to the general principles or spirit of HQ, simple, minimal book-keeping and so on then we are good to go!

Now on the bits that we may not agree on.

Search
I initially assumed one search per area, because if you opt to search a certain area for traps and secret doors then it finds them all, so why on earth would you choose to search the same area for traps and secret doors again, knowing that you would find nothing.

And if you search an area for treasure, the rules state that you find the treasure item stated in the Quest Notes, a Spear, Orc’s Bane, a Shield, whatever (but these are all single entities) or, if no treasure is detailed in the Quest Notes, then you draw a treasure card (again singular). If you (or another player) did for whatever reason decide to search an area for treasure a second time, having already found and taken the Spear card for example, then you couldn’t take it again, as there is only one, so either the intention was to limit the search to one (of each type in the same area) or was to allow you to search the same area over and over again but get nothing on subsequent attempts, which is clearly pointless and wouldn’t persist.

It was that that made me think they meant it to be limited. The possibility of rinsing the deck for treasure never occurred to me until someone possibly on this forum suggested that you could do that in the First Edition, at which point I took that as a further reason for my assumption (it reinforced it).

Incidentally if a hero opens a chest and takes whatever treasure is detailed in the Quest Notes, say a Potion of Strength and 50GC, would you allow another hero to dip into the chest a second time and if so, what would they get…nothing, a second Potion of Strength and another 50GC, a treasure card?

Discard

Discard (in this context) means to remove a playing card from one's hand, the term specifies where you remove it from (your hand) but doesn’t specify where you discard it to.

When you draw a treasure card that has a “value” i.e. gold, jewels etc then the rule book instructs you to record the value on your character sheet then discard (specifically return the card to the bottom of the deck)

When you draw a potion card, you retain it until you use it and then you discard it (rule book states specifically to return the card to the bottom of the deck, potion card states to discard without specifying to where)

When you draw a trap, WM or nothing card, then it doesn’t state what you need to do with it, but what else would you ever do with it apart from discard it?

Note: just to confuse matters even further there appears to be more versions of the card deck in existence than just the two, first and second editions card sets, I have seen a version (I think Aug 1989, but not 100% sure) that have treasure cards where the wandering monster and trap cards both state “return the card to the treasure pile” – this same version has the diagonal attack capability for the shortsword.

If we are safe to assume that the treasure card will be discarded after it has been actioned, then you could assume either
a) All discarded treasure cards go to the bottom of the deck, as that is the only place specified in the rule book where treasure cards get discarded to
b) Discarded treasure cards go to either the bottom of the deck OR a discard pile depending on the type of the card

Whilst I think that (a) is the better interpretation because it is consistent across all treasure cards (and therefore simpler), it makes no difference at all to gameplay whether you go with assumption (a) or assumption (b) so I don’t care.

I think the difference between our position is that you are attempting to link the handling of the treasure deck to support a particular interpretation of the search rules, whereas I think that the my interpretation of the search rules stands (or falls) on its own merit, and the interpretation around the handling of the treasure deck is independent of that (and doesn’t matter).

I suspect that you are correct in that during playtesting one or more players returned “spent” treasure cards to the top of the deck, causing problems, so the feedback to the “rules” team may have been to specify in the text when discarding treasure cards, you need to return them to the BOTTOM of the deck and not the top so that is exactly what they did, in the rulebook, but only for gold and jewel cards and potions...in fact for potions the rulebook tells you twice to return them to the bottom of the stack, so they really wanted those back!

[Onan]

I can't beleive I just read through this long thread. It is very entertaining. It also shed light on some aspects that I took for granted all these years.

As kids (playing German 1st edition) we played only 1 search per room or corridor. We always thought that was the official rule. But in fact we didn't really read the rules. I learned it from my brother who learned it from a classmate. Sometimes searching the corridors was annoying. I remember searching every little dead end corridor and we wondered if it was already searched. Now with my kids we still play 1 search per room, but no more in corridors. They started searching furniture so I allow them to draw a tresure card for furniture, too.

And now you point out that possibly unlimited search was intented. What a shock! I will try this out. Would be cool if it works. It feels so simple and in line with the rest of the game.

Some points I'd like to add to the discussion:

1) Both 1stEd and 2ndEd state that the player "must" take the top Treasure card. This sound like an obligation, not like a reward. As if the player looked for some valuable treasure, which he doesn't find, but on top he is punished for his greed with a Treasure card. So maybe the idea was to make the treasure search a gamble. Find something special in an empty looking room (remember the Spirit Blade?) or one with a wepaons rack (Borin's Armor), or risk a trap or monster. And since no player will ever expect special treasure in corridors, no one has ever interest in searching a corridor.

2) One reason to get rid of corridor search might be the complications of corridors split by a blocked squre. For us it was always clear that the corridor ends at the blocked square. But strictly speaking it's still the same corridor behind it. I think they already struggled with this point when it comes to revealing a new corridor and to casting spells, where they treat rooms differently from corridors.

3) Should we put WM and trap cards under the pile or shuffle them into the pile? The German 2ndEd gives the ultimate solution: "Mische diese Karte wieder unter den Schatzkarten-Stapel", which translates to "shuffle this card back under the treasure card pile". So we have the best of both worlds, whatever this sentence is supposed to mean

4) Before all the treasure discussion there was a note on the fire spells. They don't define the type of shield, and people didn't know if and count, or for herores and for monsters. I think they meant for heroes and monsters. If they meant any shield, they could as well have said "1 damage per ". If they meant , you could as well skip the defense against ball of flame because it only gives the monster a 3% surviving chance. So they changed it to "on a 5 or 6" to make clear how good the defense is. But it is a very unelegant fix. The combat dice are much cooler than the normal d6.

5) No restrictions on Borin's Armor and the Spirit Blade to be used by the wizard in EU. This is of course the only true way to play I know somebody who thinks the wizard is the only true hero and the rest are losers. When we play only me and him, he puts all the heroes on the stairway, then after some turns uses only the wizard with all 5 artifacts and sends the rest home. I would expect the American weapon rules to be less restrictive than the European

6) We always played that a found pit trap is placed on the board and can be disarmed, but a sprung pit trap can't. It's the same tile on the board, and you have to remember which one can be disarmed. The rock traps were never an issue. In the base game there are only 2, and neither is meant as a trap. They simply block the path. I would not even reveal them in a trap search. Also in the expansion they are only blockers, but come more often. My kids don't like the disarm rules, so all found traps are considered harmless like spear traps.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I'm not sure about the German 1st Edition and whether that was a translation from the English 1st Edition or 2nd Edition but in the English 1st Edition you can definitely search both rooms and passages (I think we all agree on this point), in the English 2nd Edition they removed some of the references to "searching passages for treasure" but not all of them. My assumption here is that it was their intention to remove treasure searches in passages (why else remove the references) but as they didn't remove them all it has lead to some confusion, as there is text in the Second Edition rulebook around searching for treasure in passages so I understand why someone coming to the game using the 2nd Edition without having played the 1st Edition may interpret it as allowing searching for treasure in passages as they wouldn't be aware of the text changes between the editions.

For me personally I never felt that the complication around passages was caused by being split with blocked square markers, it was more around the fact that the search area never felt clearly defined, for example you could stand on a square on the corner of the board and with a single action you could search 43 squares (I think) even though your maximum movement was 12 and then you could still roll and move!

It is nice to hear that the confusion with handling the treasure cards seems to apply whichever language it is translated into! That said 1st edition only shuffled the deck at the start of the game, it was the 2nd edition that shuffled the deck at the start of the game and then after you returned a "bad" card so perhaps the translators for the German edition decided to just split the difference and combine the two approaches!

Around the restrictions on the Wizards use of Borin's Armor and the Spirit Blade, I have always been of the opinion that the Wizard cannot use them, partly just from a logical point of view, if he can't use the Broadsword and Plate armour then he can't use the magical equivalent but also because of the balance of the cards provided but also due to the balance between the party.

If you don't allow the Wizard to use Borin's Armour then it leaves 3 pieces of body armour to be divided between the 3 heroes that can use them, so one each (nice and balanced), giving them 3-4-4 defend dice plus the helmet and shield so an additional 2DD to be distributed (so on average 4.33 defend dice between the 3 "fighting heroes") which leaves the Wizard to use the Cloak and Bracers to give him 4 defend dice (slightly less than the average).

If you do allow the Wizard to use Borin's Armour then he would have 6 DD, leaving only 5 extra DD to be shared between the "fighting heroes" so average of just under 4 DD each, why would the non-combatant (or at least, the least combative) member of the party have the highest number of defence dice!

[Onan]

Around the restrictions on the Wizards use of Borin's Armor and the Spirit Blade, I have always been of the opinion that the Wizard cannot use them, partly just from a logical point of view, if he can't use the Broadsword and Plate armour then he can't use the magical equivalent but also because of the balance of the cards provided but also due to the balance between the party.

Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of the brodesode, there was an age where the only way a man could get 3 attack dice was to spend his childhood tied to a giant millstone. In this time the Spirit Blade was forged by the Dwarves of the World Edge Mountains and cooled in the Elven fountain of Lebin. This unique artifact allows people without a troubled childhood to use 3 attack dice.

In other words, I think the artifacts were designed before the armory equipment. And if there is only 1 weapon with 3AD then it's balanced to give it to the wizard. The 13 quests from the GS feel like they were not designed for geared up heroes. I like to play them using only the artifacts.

If you do allow the Wizard to use Borin's Armour then he would have 6 DD, leaving only 5 extra DD to be shared between the "fighting heroes" so average of just under 4 DD each, why would the non-combatant (or at least, the least combative) member of the party have the highest number of defence dice!

Because he was the first who searched the weapons rack in Karlen's (or Wardoz') hideout

[Bareheaded Warrior]

4) Before all the treasure discussion there was a note on the fire spells. They don't define the type of shield, and people didn't know if and count, or for herores and for monsters. I think they meant for heroes and monsters. If they meant any shield, they could as well have said "1 damage per ". If they meant , you could as well skip the defense against ball of flame because it only gives the monster a 3% surviving chance. So they changed it to "on a 5 or 6" to make clear how good the defense is. But it is a very unelegant fix. The combat dice are much cooler than the normal d6.

Good point, this was changed between editions, although off the top of my head I can't remember when it was changed and to what.

I always thought that where it didn't specify the shield type you went with the general rule of heroes roll for defence and monsters roll and whilst you are correct in the classic edition with 1BP monsters Ball of Flame was pretty much guarenteed a kill. There is already a topic for this discussion here Fire Damage Spells use a poor damage mechanism but you are correct in pointing this out as a difference, I'll just have to dig out various versions to try and track the changes...

[Onan]

Here at the old inn it is not clear from which edition the downloadable UK cards are. There are 2 rulebooks and 2 quest books, but only 1 set of cards. It would be really helpful if it was indicated from which version the cards are. Or even better, offer both sets of cards for download.

At least we know that it was change to or in the US edition.

[Kurgan]

They're 2nd edition cards. 1st Edition didn't have the Cloak/Bracers. I think the only materials from 1st on the main pages are the rules/questbook.

I own a late printing of the 1st edition so feel free to ask me anything...


Edit: You're saying the page should include a label indicating which edition they are from, and even better, include both versions for download. I agree with you. I know I'm not the only one who has a copy of this set, but if scans are needed, I have a scanner!

[Onan]

I own a late printing of the 1st edition so feel free to ask me anything...

Well, it would be great to have the text from all spells, artifacts and equipment to understand the differences to 2nd Edition...

Or maybe the cards are identical?

[Onan]

I'm currently working on a HTML version of the rules. This might be useful for rule discussions because you can simply copy text from there. Also, you don't have to stand on your head to read the rules like when you read the scans from the Olde Inn

https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/rules1st.html
https://heroscribe.github.io/heroscribe/rules2nd.html

US rules to follow...

[Kurgan]

I own a late printing of the 1st edition so feel free to ask me anything...

Well, it would be great to have the text from all spells, artifacts and equipment to understand the differences to 2nd Edition...

Or maybe the cards are identical?

HeroQuestadventures site claims to have scans (and they are high quality) of the items, but unfortunately the claimed "1st edition" scans of the cards are just an identical copy of the 2nd edition (where they copied and pasted the shield and helmet twice). You can even see the same imperfection in one of the cards proving it's just a renamed file type (mistake or placeholder that was never corrected).

I however own a vintage copy of 1st edition (the later printing that has the diagonal ability of the shortsword) so I can confirm that numerous cards have different text between the two versions. The cards you see posted on Ye Olde Inn are the 2nd edition versions.

My Courage for example lasts for only one attack, and my Rock Skin only for one defense. I don't have any Cloak of Protection or Bracers (only a duplicate of the Shield and Helmet each respectively). My gold treasures all say to return the card to the deck. Meanwhile "Trap!" and "Wandering Monster" cards do NOT say to return to the Treasure deck. But other than the Shortsword that lacked the diagonal text in early printings, I don't notice any other differences on these cards.

PS: I'm reminded that the only Hero spell that lacks the "is then discarded" text is Sleep. Therefore, infinite Sleep! (but pretty sure the general rule still limits spell usage in the respective rules of play booklets).