Where do you disarm a chest trap from?

[Daedalus]

Traps within a room can be found from anywhere in that room as long as no monsters are within line of sight. Chest traps are no exception. Traps are disarmed by placing your Hero's figure on the trapped square, then rolling a white combat die. No exception is noted for chest traps in the disarm a trap rules, either. Following the NA ed. rules, it seems you either need to crowd your figure in a chest square as best you can or balance it on top of the rounded chest. Kinda like a balancing mini-game within the game, where the low Dwarf still has a disarm advantage, oddly enough. To solve this inconsistency, my group placed the disarming Hero adjacent and in front of the trapped chest, where we allowed damage to be applied. My question is, where does your group place your Heroes?

[drathe]

Also on the square in front of the chest. As a hero cannot occupy the same squares taken by furniture, this was the logical place to stand when disarming them.

[Ethica]

I always saw an inconsistency in the rules that you could obtain the contents of the chest by searching for treasure from the other side of the room and yet sometimes there are pit traps around the chest. It doesn't matter much because strangely players tend to walk right up to chests to open them, but technically they don't need to.

[Daedalus]

Yeah, even if pit traps were to completely surround a chest in every available square, a Hero could still simply search for treasure safely from across the room and empty the chest. Only if the chest itself was trapped would the Hero spring that particular trap, or be required to move there for trap removal before obtaining the treasure. A similar snafu applies to finding a secret door in a 1-square wide corridor, if it is located on the other side of a trap. The assumed movement doesn't account for the actual path necessary to get the job done. That's broken.

The assumed movement rule is an over-simplification that becomes a necessary evil. It disrupts the suspension of disbelief in HQ when its limits are stretched. You gotta ignore it... oh well.

Or you could house-rule the issue, so that the assumed movement while searching for treasure or secret doors requires springing of traps that are necessarily on the way to that treasure or secret door. (That situation is already sort-of backed up by the rule where the chest itself is actually trapped, and a Hero has to move there to remove it.) As I play a Hero is placed by default in the front, adjacent square of a chest while removing chest traps, I'll also count traps (pit or otherwise) that are not removed on that same, front square as necessarily on the way if a Hero searches for treasure in the chest.

[Ethica]

It doesn't bother me that you can find secret doors beyond pit traps without springing them, as what the hero could be doing is visually checking the area for signs of a secret way. This means that the location of the secret door is identified but it isn't opened until the hero gets to it (again contrary to the rules, grrrr).

[Daedalus]

I'm bothered by secret doors that are found at a distance, which can be as much as 23 squares away at the bottom of the board! That ain't much of a secret. More like it has an EXIT sign above it. It grates upon my suspension of disbelief when a secret door is found down a corridor that far outstrips the dicovering Hero's movement. The assumed movement idea of finding things without actually moving the figure can easily be broken. Place some traps or a lot of move squares in between, and it just doesn't jibe. A house rule is justified here (so I made one).

[Goblin-King]

In the Danish rules a trapped treasure chest is automatically disarmed if the player searches for traps in the room.
Translation:
"Some of the treasurechests contains traps. The quest book describes what will happen in these cases. If a player searches for traps in a room with a treasurechest-trap, the trap is disarmed"

Seems like a fair rule to me. The player were already careful by searching before greeding for treasure. No need to punish him further by having him disarm the trap. This also encourages players to search for traps instead of just opening the chests. Players might think: It might be trapped, but if I search for and find a trap I'll still have to disarm it anyway - F*** it!

[Bareheaded Warrior]

Two different answers for two different editions

Traps in HQ, with the odd special exception in some Quests notes can be set off by stepping on a particular square, opening a chest or a door

Under SE

If a player searches for traps in a room that contains a trapped treasure chest the trap is found and rendered harmless

As, under SE, opening chests is handled in the same way as opening doors, I would assume, although it isn't stated, that door traps are handled the same way as chest traps.

And traps on squares are also rendered harmless or automatically set off when found (depending on the trap type) so in SE the disarm mechanism never actually applies to traps that haven't already been set off (which does raise the question as to why it is called "disarm")

Under NA (which I assume is the edition that the OP is discussing)

"As a Hero you can only search for traps if there are no monster visible to you", no mention of Line of Sight so I don't agree with that part of the OPs statement (although it has no bearing on the disarm question)

Having search for traps, Zargon points out the suspect squares, or the suspect chest (and again you would assume that he also points out suspect doors but this isn't stated). Once you have discovered the suspect squares/chest/doors the rules refer you to the Disarm section on page 21

This section of the rules states that to disarm a trap you must move onto the trapped square, which is fine for traps located on a square but there is no reference to how you disarm chest or door traps. You cannot move on the trapped sqaure in the case of chest traps as the square has a chest onto and you can't move onto furniture, and in the case of door traps you cannot move onto the door square as doors are located in walls that sit between squares, so a gap in the rules.

As an SE player personally I would assume that, as you need to move adjacent to a chest or door to open it, then you would have to do the same to disarm them, but under NA rules, whilst you DO have to move adjacent to a door to open it and therefore the assumption that you have to be adjacent to a trapped door to disarm it seems reasonable*, strangely you don't have to move adjacent to a chest to open it under NA edition rules, in fact you don't have to open a chest at all. The contents are just 'recovered' when you search the room containing the chest for treasure.

*Although if chest traps are automatically disarmed when found then why not door traps?

p18 does state "A treasure chest or piece of furniture may also contain a trap. If you search for treasure without first searching for traps, you will spring the trap" which could be taken to mean that searching for traps in a room that contains a chest trap automatically disarms it, so the question of where you place your figure to disarm it never arises.

To be fair the whole handling of search and disarm in both editions is poor and I don't agree that it is a necessary evil, just an evil, see this thread for more suggestions on reworking this flawed aspect of the game Search – The Binding Topic

[Daedalus]

As an SE player personally I would assume that, as you need to move adjacent to a chest or door to open it, then you would have to do the same to disarm them, but under NA rules, whilst you DO have to move adjacent to a door to open it and therefore the assumption that you have to be adjacent to a trapped door to disarm it seems reasonable*, strangely you don't have to move adjacent to a chest to open it under NA edition rules, in fact you don't have to open a chest at all. The contents are just 'recovered' when you search the room containing the chest for treasure. . . .

While the NA rules don't explicitly instruct a Hero to move adjacent to a chest to open it, there is this:

■ As a Hero, you must first verbally declare your search. Do so by saying "I am searching for treasure." Searching for treasure means you are looking around, opening things, searching for interesting objects and gold coins, regardless of of what square you are on in the room. Do not move your Hero figure when you search.

Even though a player needn't go through the tedium of moving a Hero figure over specific spaces for a treasure search, the Hero does this in game. This specifically includes opening things (such as a chest.) Said Hero must logically be adjacent during his search while opening things, just as with a door.

The NA difference is the Hero strangely ends this assumed movement from the original position of his treasue search. This hand-waving for simplicity of play keeps all treasure searches universal, whether the treasure is generally discovered as a Treasure Card or specifically tied to a furniture piece.

Despite the Hero figure not having been moved on the gameboard for a treasure search, I feel the correct interpretation is to move the figure adjacent to a trapped chest if the trap is sprung. Springing a trap always ends a Hero's turn, so in the case of interrupting the assumed movement during a treasure search, that would be adjacent to the chest where it was opened

[Kurgan]

Don't get me wrong when I am discussing here the rules as written vs. how people may choose to play, but there are errors in the originals, and some of that betrays some interesting changes in the process of the development of the game. Anyway, without getting too ranty on it...

The NA rules says to be ON the trap square (and you don't trigger it, unless you fail your disarm roll) so I take it the same way with any furniture trap.

So I put the hero on top of the furniture tile (possible to do in the classic set with the Dwarf figure balanced on top of the treasure chest! not an achievable feat in the new one unless you just hold him there with your hand or grab some sticky tack, lol).

The only controversy I see is whether you have to roll for movement and expend actual squares to get to the trap square. This would theoretically allow the hero to land on ANOTHER trap square on the way to the one he was trying to disarm (which requires a sudden memory lapse since the same Trap search would have revealed those already unless they were the undetectable "Wandering Monster Traps" which are never found in rooms and only one time do you ever encounter a chest in a corridor that is actually meant to be treated as a room, so there!). It also presents the absurd situation (in expansions) where there are two trap squares and he can dodge one of them to get to the one that is further out (then again using your imagination you can imagine he auto-jumps one trap to disarm the other).

The original way I played it, which a lot of people online seem to disagree with me on, is that as long as the Trap is in the same corridor or room as the would-be disarming hero, you just warp/teleport on top of that square from wherever you are and then roll you die. Others insist you should roll movement, and walk up to be adjacent to the square that the furniture trap is.

Then again a lot of people insist you should have to walk adjacent to a treasure chest to search it (or to open it, or to get what's inside) expending actual movement squares to get there (and risk falling into trap squares on the way which can only occur in expansions, last I checked, other than the clear error in Lair of the Orc Warlord NA/remake edition where a Pit Trap is next to an unmarked treasure chest) and maybe that goes hand in hand with their "more roleplay" adaptation of the game mechanic?

I can agree with those that say perhaps in the "original version(s)" (prior to release in 1989 in the UK) of HeroQuest, you had to walk adjacent to Treasure Chests to open them "like doors" and in that context, putting trap tiles adjacent to Treasure Chests would have made a certain amount of sense. We never see this mechanic used in the original "game system" (before it was called a "game system" again in 1989, before the 1990 NA edition). You could also search corridors for treasure (hence the boot tile, which appears on the Treasure deck, this was changed in 2nd edition of 1990 in the EU).

The idea of putting trap tiles in front of Treasure chests (instead of the proper way which is to make it a furniture trap, that is the trap is ON the furniture and is triggered by searching for treasure before FIRST searching for and disarming the trap that is on it) gets revived in some of the expansions. Kellar's Keep contains at least one (possible two, I forget) instances of trap tiles being placed next to Treasure Chests, again, forgetting the way the rules had developed. Infamously the 1990 NA edition of Lair of the Orc Warlord (quest 4), places a pit trap next to an unmarked Treasure Chest (this was a clear error, which you can see by comparing the NA version to the EU editions both 1st and second... and yes, the Remake HeroQuest repeats the NA error as it was a straight reprint of that version, warts and all, minus the word substitutions to remove GWS IP).

The Draft Notes for BQP/EQP are even more revealing on this topic, because they show that the designers in 1992 (not the same team who put together the previous quest books of course, but still working at Milton Bradley/Hasbro in the US) understood that the original mechanic prevented them doing funny things like they wanted to do, like tricking heroes into walking up to Chests and falling into traps. They were considering changing the rules, so that you HAD to walk up to individual pieces of furniture to search them individually. This mechanic was to have special importance in the first Elf quest (and you can see traces of it left in the final notes of the released version which say that the chest is empty but the tomb contains the quest goal, spoilers, sorry). Originally of course each room could only be searched ONCE by each hero, but the new mechanic revision was probably supposed to allow a single search for the entire room (probably drawing a card) and then an individual search of each piece of furniture, requiring the hero to be adjacent (which either drew nothing or what the note said). I actually got to play a quest this way at GenCon, and while interesting, it greatly slowed down the quest, because so many rooms have multiple pieces of furniture in them where this could have been implemented. In reality the rule mechanic was abandoned and like many other things left on the cutting room floor due to lack time/budget and manpower, was never fully implemented. Only a few quests would have actually benefited from it (solo quests in particular).

So with that in mind I still say that trap tiles next to a piece of furniture IS an error in the original(s). It's a designer thinking in his or her head that the rules are going to treat Treasure chests like doors, that have to be approached to be opened. A hero is going to search for traps, that doesn't require hopping onto each square to search it individually. They are going to detect the trap and just go around it (if they needed to at all) or in the case of one of the Frozen Horror solo quests which absurdly surrounds a chest with spear traps, which actually makes sense IF they had implemented their proposed rule alteration. Then the hero is going to disarm the trap they wish and that's all. Actually they can just search for treasure, without ever even approaching the chest. HeroQuest is a game that wasn't just created by one man, but passed through many hands, and was a collaboration. Research shows this process took many different turns and later packs re-examined these original ideas and didn't always clean up after itself prior to release.

At one time in my youth I tried playing this way, because walking up to a chest feels like a very "role play" thing to do, acting out what you're doing, much like setting a piece horizontal when it gets killed, balancing a piece on top of a piece of furniture or balancing a chest on top of a figure that is "carrying" it. (all fun things to do, especially as a kid playing the classic set which allowed such things much easier than the new plastics). We figured searching just tells you what's in it, but you have to walk up to actually "pick it up" (which the rules clearly say does not expend an "action"). It simply took longer and was more anticlimactic, and it also allowed someone to find the treasure and then another hero to "steal" it (not so much a problem for us since usually we didn't have 5 players and so controlled multiple heroes almost every time, even 4 to a person). I can imagine this sort of thing being part of Stephen Baker's original "competitive" idea of HeroQuest (he admitted in interviews that he imagined little boys trying to outsmart each other on the board then slowly realizing they had to work together to actually win... before the NA edition basically structured the game to direct this cooperation and make it much more explicit).

Zargon can do what he wants at his own table, so to me, this is much like many other popular "tweaks" and homebrew, custom, houserule, mod changes that people like to talk about or try out, that in my own experience, doesn't really enhance the game so much, but each to their own if you want to put traps next to chests and require walking up to it to search it and/or to get what's inside. Much like nerfing the crossbow in so many ways, or not allowing shopping between quests (due to being "underground" or whatever), people want it to increase the challenge and enhance the realism. To me it just makes the game take longer with very little improvement in other areas, but again, what's fun to one person is boring and tedious to another. Do what you like!