Two First Light rules quirks.

[Parzival]

There are two which are relevant.

1. Furniture and movement and visibility

Page 10 of the First Light Rulebook

What about furniture?
In the original HeroQuest, furniture was used for atmosphere— it didn’t obstruct movement or line of sight. Zargon, if you and your table want a more strategic experience, you can treat furniture as though it blocks line of sight and cannot be moved through.”

This is an interesting bit to me. The 2021 Rulebook doesn’t addressed furniture physicality at all; I have no idea what earlier editions said. The Companion App has long had an option to turn on or off furniture as physical objects. I had naturally assumed that as physical things they blocked movement, but never thought of them as blocking line of sight. (For the fireplace, cabinet and bookcases, it was moot, as they were against the walls anyway.) To me, you should be able to shoot or cast spells over an intervening table, desk, altar, tomb, chest or chair, etc..

I assumed that most people even back in 1989 treated furniture as solid, blocking objects. (Sing out if you didn’t.) So I didn’t see this as a necessary rule. I’m led to assume people contacted Avalon Hill with questions, or at least they thought people would do so.

2. The Dwarf’s Starting Weapon

In the 2021 set, the Dwarf starts with a shortsword (Attack 2).
In First Light, he starts with a Hand Axe (Attack 2).
Of course, one has to consult the equipment card to see that the difference of a Hand Axe is that it can be thrown— but only once, after which it is lost.
Here’s the quirk: The rules don’t state what happens to the Dwarf’s Attack value after he throws the Axe.
Now, in the 2021 Quest Book, we know that Heroes deprived of weaponry are all Attack 1 — though that is never stated in the Rule Book. But without that Quest Book, what are the players and Zargon supposed to assume? That the Dwarf can no longer attack? That the Dwarf retains his Attack value, but simply can no longer use a range ability? That his Attack value goes down?
Consider the Wizard— he has a dagger with Attack value 1, and his card says he has an Attack value 1. What happens when he throws that Dagger isn’t addressed in the 2021 Rule Book either… once again, the Quest Book has to give the deciding vote.

I call this an Oops on the part of Avalon Hill. But it’s probably a very old Oops— did the original ‘89 game note what happened when a Hero had no weapons? I assume the Quest Book was essentially the same, but did the then rule book address it?

SIDE NOTE
It’s odd to me that in the passage about furniture, the First Light Rule Book mentioned the original game at all. After all, the intended market for First Light would be new players whose families shop at Target. Would they be likely to even know there was a 1989-92 edition of this game, or what its rules said? Seems a bit unnecessary to bring up at all.

[Kurgan]

Since 1989, the Furniture has been 3d dimensional plastic. Yes, heroes move "through" doorways despite the fact that the cardboard doors were a little too narrow to easily just push a figure through most of the time so you just pretended. The nature of much of the furniture (other than tables and perhaps bookcases or cupboards) was that balancing the figure on top of them would be tricky, so you'd either be placing the figure off to the side or hovering them above the piece.

If you can move "Through" furniture, why not say you can just rest on top of it as well?

But First Light is unique in the history of HeroQuest up till this point as the included furniture are all just flat tiles (except the narrow doors once again). So while it's not so realistic that the hero can stand up top of the Weapons Rack let's say, players might wonder, "Is this a legal move in this game?" so that's probably why they bothered to mention it.

Yes, like one person was talking about it on Avalon Hill discord prior to this, and they did include a setting "intangible furniture" that you could toggle on in the app (I presumed it was included more as a debug feature... there are situations were quests call for certain furniture to "move aside" to allow you passage into a room, and other times a character may get "stuck" and refuse to ever move from a certain area, blocking the path). Nevertheless, they admitted one other place of flexibility.

As for the Hand Axe, no hero ever started with one before, and the HandAxe didn't exist in the NA edition at all (but did in the earlier EU 1st edition). The idea that the Dwarf could throw his only weapon at a monster (and lose it) is a bit comical to say the least, but then it means you'd be immediately wondering about unarmed combat (whereas in the EU edition all characters had a base attack rather than 1 base attack replaced by a "starting weapon"). So the dwarf just had 2 attack, period, and adding a hand axe wouldn't have changed anything, just allowed him to throw it away and lose it (similar to how the Wizard in the NA edition has a base attack of 1 and if he throws his dagger away he still only has 1; while in the EU he had 1 and adding a staff boosted him to 2 plus diagonal).

I think adding the Hand Axe was a nice little thing because perhaps few people ever buy a hand axe (since they don't want to throw it and therefore lose it, and a swortsword is cheaper for basically the same strength, but a broadsword isn't much more and is clearly superior) and because the figure shows it (of course the figures show other things that you don't start with... for example the Barbarian has some really long sword and the Wizard shows a staff but they start with a broadsword and dagger respectively; longsword didn't exist in the EU edition either, nor did the dagger).

The NA edition doesn't really address what happens when the heroes have no weapons until the one where they get captured. What's meant to happen is that every hero has a base attack value of 1 in the remake and a base defend value of 2. That's what happens to you when you go into "shock" for example (except base movement is cut to 1d6 instead of the normal 2d6).

I could be wrong, but if FL never addresses the issue of unarmed combat, that is a bit funny in this case.

First Light assumes (and mentions) that the 2021 HeroQuest exists. But you're right, if the rule is only mentioned in the GS quest booklet, the players would have to know to go online to download the PDF to see that in that specific quest, otherwise Zargon is just making it up on the spot. There's no other way to lose weapons in these quests is there?

[Parzival]

Thanks for the feedback. It was indeed an odd toggle when I saw it, back when I first got the set. I decide to have the furniture be physical impediments because that seemed to me to be logical. At the time, I never really noticed whether or not the rule book mentioned it. It was only when I read the First Light rulebook that the statement jumped out at me, and I went back to check the 2021 rule book and saw it was missing!

I could be wrong, but if FL never addresses the issue of unarmed combat, that is a bit funny in this case.

First Light assumes (and mentions) that the 2021 HeroQuest exists. But you're right, if the rule is only mentioned in the GS quest booklet, the players would have to know to go online to download the PDF to see that in that specific quest, otherwise Zargon is just making it up on the spot. There's no other way to lose weapons in these quests is there?

No weapon loss possibilities that I recall in the entire quest. I don’t think the foes had Rust mentioned as a Dread Spell.
I will say despite that, these quests are quite challenging, and are not the “training” quests one might expect. FL is brutal.

And no, I can’t find any reference to weapon loss in FL. Oops.

[Kurgan]

They were probably focused on the thought that they had finally solved an old player complaint that the Dwarf wasn't carrying a more fitting and unique weapon to match his model... and didn't consider newbies might need filling in on "unarmed combat."

If you don't let him throw it, there's no issue. I could imagine him just not being allowed to fight (until he'd bought another weapon in the next quest) by some Zargons, until they went online hunting for answers. Defaulting to "base attack" as in the EU editions would be interesting, I guess that's another possible outcome for a Zargon who doesn't have the official answer readily at hand.

[lestodante]

I have always applied the rule that a hero with no weapon rolls the same amount of combat dice as written on his character card to attack BUT must roll black shield instead of skulls.
The same apply for defense.

[Kurgan]

Ah, like he's using the weapon as part of his defense, interesting. Otherwise I'd say "he lost a weapon, he didn't lose armor" so his defense should be unaffected.

I pictured the Wizard doing all kinds of kung fu to stay alive once he tossed his dagger...

[Parzival]

Ah, like he's using the weapon as part of his defense, interesting. Otherwise I'd say "he lost a weapon, he didn't lose armor" so his defense should be unaffected.

I pictured the Wizard doing all kinds of kung fu to stay alive once he tossed his dagger...

Yeah, that’s an odd bit of disconnect. If the Wizard has a 1 starting out no matter what, then he might as well take a potshot with the dagger, because his melee combat doesn’t change either way.

I’ve often wondered why the weapons aren’t additive to combat ability in the same way that armor is for Defense. Instead, they’re simply a replacement for whatever combat ability was had before— which kinda nerfs the Barbarian. He can take the Battle Axe, of course, but so can the Dwarf and the Elf, and his Defense is no better than theirs… so that 1-2 points of BP is his only advantage. Not that extra BP are anything to sneeze at, but they’re still lackluster in terms of player choice. On the other hand, the monsters aren’t tough enough to warrant a change to the weapon rules to boost hero attack stats from a different base.

[Bareheaded Warrior]

I assumed that most people even back in 1989 treated furniture as solid, blocking objects.

As a player since 1989, I have to agree with you, we always treated furniture as solid, blocking objects, because even though the rulebook never stated it, it seemed obvious when playing the game that a square containing a physical piece of furniture was occupied, and this property meant that you could use furniture positioning to effectively change the shape of a room. In terms of blocking line of sight, it never occurred to us initially that any furniture blocked LOS, until many games in when there was a quest, official or homebrew I don't recall, with a cupboard or bookcase across the room rather than the usual against the wall, at this point we ruled that "tall" furniture, the bookcase & cupboard, DID block LOS (and the fireplace always has to be placed against a wall).

In terms of starting weapons, heroes in the original game didn't have starting weapons, they just used the dice indicated on their character board, until they got equipment upgrades, and if they lost their equipment then they reverted back to the stats on their character board, so this is more of a remake question only.

[Parzival]

I assumed that most people even back in 1989 treated furniture as solid, blocking objects.

As a player since 1989, I have to agree with you, we always treated furniture as solid, blocking objects, because even though the rulebook never stated it, it seemed obvious when playing the game that a square containing a physical piece of furniture was occupied, and this property meant that you could use furniture positioning to effectively change the shape of a room. In terms of blocking line of sight, it never occurred to us initially that any furniture blocked LOS, until many games in when there was a quest, official or homebrew I don't recall, with a cupboard or bookcase across the room rather than the usual against the wall, at this point we ruled that "tall" furniture, the bookcase & cupboard, DID block LOS (and the fireplace always has to be placed against a wall).

In terms of starting weapons, heroes in the original game didn't have starting weapons, they just used the dice indicated on their character board, until they got equipment upgrades, and if they lost their equipment then they reverted back to the stats on their character board, so this is more of a remake question only.

What about the quest which begins with the heroes deprived of their equipment— were they all still at their starting Attack numbers, or did that quest reduce all heroes to Attack 1? Or if the Barbarian found Orc’s Bane, was he reduced to Attack 2 when using it (albeit twice)?

[Bareheaded Warrior]

What about the quest which begins with the heroes deprived of their equipment— were they all still at their starting Attack numbers, or did that quest reduce all heroes to Attack 1? Or if the Barbarian found Orc’s Bane, was he reduced to Attack 2 when using it (albeit twice)?

Under the original rules in the Legacy of the Orc Warlord quest the heroes start without any equipment so they use the stats on their character board for attacking and defending.

Under the original rules the Barbarian equipped with Orcs' Bane would roll two combat dice in attack rather than the three indicated on his character board (and attack twice against orcs) but there is nothing in the rules that states that just because you are carrying a weapon you have to use it, so presumably the Barbarian player could choose when attacking whether to use Orcs' Bane for a specific attack or to not use it and use his character board stats (and it would be a rare occasion that it would be worth using Orcs' Bane!)

I'm not saying that I find this particular aspect satisfactory, just stating the original rules, at my table I have reduced the Barbarian's character board stats to two combat dice in attack and defence, same as the Dwarf and Elf, and have instead given him a special ability, like the Disarm special ability of the Dwarf or the Spellcaster special ability of the Elf and Wizard, that I have named "Battle Rage".

Battle Rage

A character with this ability rolls an extra combat die when attacking in hand-to-hand combat and one less combat die when defending in hand-to-hand combat due to their ferocious but reckless combat style.

Having this ability rather than just starting with three combat dice in attack means that the Barbarian can make effective use of a number of weapons that are available to him which would otherwise be pointless (like the Spear, Broadsword and Orcs' Bane) and it means that he retains the differentiation provided by his special ability even when the other characters have "upgraded" their equipment.