So I just checked the original versions of Mage of the Mirror Quest #4 (the Elven Prospector) and Quest #10 Hidden Realms (part 2) and the glitches are in the original. It's possible to get hit by the falling block trap and NOT get stuck, but if you move the wrong direction, you will be stuck (Quest 4 its worse because there are two ways to get caught, while Quest 10 you have to fulfill a very specific set of circumstances). By default you can't search for treasure in corridors, so unless you had Pass Through Rock spell or the Elven Cloak of Passage (from a treasure search) you're out of luck.
Then again if you had hung onto the Pass Through Rock Spell Scroll from playing Return of the Witch Lord earlier, you could do it, but there's no guarantee that the Hero who gets trapped will have these things. I suppose you could also allow multiple instances of the Cloak (is the card held until used up, or returned to the deck in the next quest and kept written down on the character sheet of the one who found it?). A Hero could be carrying two cloaks, and pass through the wall to give one to the other Hero (and expend two uses on his and one on the spare for the one he's rescuing).
Using house rules you could allow a treasure search in the corridor/room and happen to have that on the top of the deck so he would have something to get himself out. Random spell scroll draws from the treasure deck are another house rule, again if combined with searching in corridors.
The ATOH dead end issues, like you pointed out, would only exist in the NA conversion, and NA conversions also mean you get access to spell scrolls (if you saved them from an earlier quest or use a custom treasure deck that allows them to crop up randomly), but there's no saying you will have one handy in the right situation.
BUT let's be fair to the player. Even without any coaching from Zargon or peeking at the map in advance, the Quest 4 Hero who gets hit by the falling block trap will nevertheless "see" the entire corridor(s) he's in while he's making his "choice" what direction to move away from the fallen block, and unless he's gambling that there's a secret door to let him escape (there isn't), he'd be foolish not to go back into the room. He could "see" there is nothing of value there worth risking being trapped forever. In Quest 10 it's a little less clear. He'd have to use a pure blind leap to take him through the (presumably already opened) secret door into the next room (and be trapped forever inside it, unless he has a pass through item or spell). So if the player is still thinking (not being so flustered after blundering into the trap), he probably will not get trapped.
In the same way, the ATOH traps, I think only one of them doesn't give you a chance to see that it's PROBABLY going to trap you forever, and so you can save yourself with the one square movement. Perhaps Zargon could simply, when revealing the room/corridor you see as the block falls say that "there will be no escape once you choose to move this direction..." if the young hero doesn't get the hint.
I haven't checked the other published quests... so the problem isn't quite as bad as I thought.
Without some deus ex machina on Zargon's (merciful) part, the trapped Hero would have to be left behind and is considered dead. Maybe remix the quest where the remaining Heroes have to go rescue him, armed with their cloaks/scrolls (and maybe a healing potion since he's so weakened from starvation).
Does the Elixir of Life teleport the dead body out of its stone tomb in order to revive it? It's Zargon's call... Speaking of teleporting, it's unlikely you'd still have the Ring of Return in hand, but that could be another way to escape.
See:
List of Artifact Locations (Spoilers)
Posted: April 15th, 2021, 4:20 am