keltheos said:

They actually address that in the rules

"While in the Catacombs, Heroes never pass further than the outer walls of Dragonfire Dungeon. The Hero still accumulates Catacomb cards as normal, but when he resurfaces in the dungeon, if the Hero has drawn so many cards that he would pass outside the dungeon, he only counts as many Catacomb cards as will take him to the outer wall. For example, if a Hero has seven cards but his travel marker is only five spaces from the dungeon wall, he determines where he resurfaces as if he has only five cards. Similarly, if the die roll would place the Hero outside the dungeon, he stops at the dungeon wall instead."  P. 21

 Ah. Some of the rules organization needs help, we glossed totally over that but still worked out the rule. ;)

keltheos said:

Yeah I usually always miss a rule here and there the first few plays.  Like the first few times we played runewars I missed the part where it explained that a round in a battle was considered all the initiative 1 figures, then round 2 is the 2nd tier and so on, instead the first few games we thought a round was 1-5 and you did it 5 times.  Needless to say not many armies survived to retreat in those first few games lol.

Any how, back on topic, I don't so much mind the deviation, the whole game is based on randomness and the fact that you have to pick your deviation before you roll helps a bit.  Also you have no control on when you will get the option of exiting the catacombs, so sure there could be the people who take two turns, gets a lucky roll and ends up 8 spaces closer to the middle, but just as likely you'll have a poor soul stuck in there for 6+ turns waiting to get out while hounded by all kinds of nasty things that await :)

Personally, I have no problem with the rules as written. As others have stated, I just assume that the character found a magic portal, corridors, or something similar that allowed them to move so far, so quickly. Given the danger of the catacombs, and the unpredictability of exiting them, that minor boon seems more than fair.

However, for those that want to house rule this, here's a suggestion;

If the deviation die roll is greater than the number of spaces the player traveled, the player ONLY deviates a number of spaces equal to the distance they traveled. For instance, if the player traveled 3 spaces, and then rolled a "6" for deviation, they only deviate 3 spaces (players still choose a direction to deviate before they roll, of course).

This keeps the mechanic very streamlined and still cuts down on the 'free movement' that seems to bother some people. In essence, it implies that diagonal movement is possible in the catacombs, possibly due to it's more irregular layout.

why look at it as move and deviate spaces?

It's all movement at the end of the day. the rules tell you how to work out the total movement broken up by move and deviate spaces, but it's all movement.

so if it's 1 movement and 6 deviate spaces then the guy has wandered around the catecombs with a momevement of 7. at that point forget about the labeling of it

it's just movement. then it makes a whole bunch of sense,

whos to say they poor guy didn't get scared and just leg it for 7 points of movement  ?

Why do you want to change that?

This is just a bait. You want to get faster to the middle of the board - come down to catacombs.

It lurks you. And if you go down, you have to face more powerful creatures - you will die quicker.

This is just another advantage to go down and in most cases you will regret that. :)

I will leave that as it is.

Having played a couple times with the rules as written, I did not mind the deviation.  The one event we did question was whether or not a person could come up out of the catacombs at the tower exit/entry points.   We did not see anything to the contrary in the rules, and since you are basically coming up a secret door anyway we allowed it.

It's not just a matter of realism, and I understand there is a lot of randomness. But it's also a matter of game design. The time issue in this game is every important and very tight. if you count the number of turns to get in the middle in the optimal situation with no corridors, you have like 2 or 4 extra turn (according to the original game) that you can spend going in the wrong direction or trapped somewhere. Which leave very little time to search the treasure room.

So the time is very tight and jumping 6 space ahead breaks the game. SInce you can chose your deviation side, Everybody will always enter the catacombs up/down and then deviate toward the treasure room. That is the optimal solution to maximise your movement toward the treasure room and gainning a lot of free turns.

This is why I found the mechanic broken.

As for die roll above movement equal movement deviation, that means that you will have a lot of chance to deviate and that you will always deviate (no chance to go straight). While with the original system I posted, the more you move the more you deviate. Which is similar to the original rules.

Me personally, Id rather play it as written, just because adding extra die rolls, charts, etc. tend to slow down the game more than is needed.  That being said, I don't have the game in my possession yet, but I can't see why you would need to fix "random" movement in a game where even death is "random" it seems.

larienna said:

No as broken as you think. It takes a turn to go down into the catacombs, and a turn to come up. Then you have to encounter the space you arrived on the turn after you come up. So the shortest trip to the catacombs still takes three turns:

Turn 1: descend to catacombs. Replace fig with marker. Do NOT draw catacomb card.

Turn 2: Draw catacomb card. It's an exit! Move forward one, deviate 1-6 spaces, and emerge. End your turn.

Turn 3: encounter the room you emerged in. DO NOT MOVE or SEARCH.

Turn 4: Finally, I can move!

So, at best, if you exit the catacombs on the first card you draw and then deviate 6 spaces, you only get an extra 4 spaces of movement for the cost of 3 turns.

And that will be the excpetion, not the rule. Average deviation will be 3.5 spaces. I need to count catacomb cards to see how many exit there are, but I imagine it's one out of every 3-4 cards, call it 3 for example's sake. It will take me 6 turns to enter, travel 3 cards, exit, and encounter the exit room. Let's say I deviate high average4 squares. Forward 3, over 4 = 7 squares at the cost of 6 turns. Sure, I got one extra square, but faced tougher challenges and the had no idea where I would resurface!

I may need to amend the above analysis after I ask a question. I'll start another thread for that. But stay tuned here!

Keep in mind that there are many encounters in the catacomb that halt your progress, or manipulate the direction of the journey through the catacombs, like the naga. While it might seem that you get further into Dragonfire Castle faster there's still a huge chance that you will become stuck due to cave-ins, torch goes out, Poisonus gas, snakes / spiders... It's balanced out. Other than that even though you can choose direction there are just too many scenarios where you will end up in the wrong part of the castle because you rolled a 5-6 or generally didn't find an exit from the catacombs at the right time.

The advantages of the catacombs are that you can't get stuck because of a bad tile that lead you into the outer wall, dead end or a path that takes you farther away from the goal. But the disadvantage is that you don't know where you will come up unless there's plenty of exit cards at the top of the deck, the amount of dangerous encounters outweights the amount of exits. The dangers will come in the form of preventing your progress, dealing high damage, change your direction, monster encounters.

The catacombs are balanced, far from broken as long the players follow the rules stated in the rulebook, otherwise it may become broken by house ruling.

It's common in my games that a player will be stuck in the catacombs far longer than he/she expects.

finally got the game, and tried few times catacombs...

now I understand why they chenged the deviation system: catacombs are really deadly, more difficult than the old DQ catacombs (sneak attacks, hidden traps etc.) even with more exits (6 vs 3). So they choose to allows players to choose the direction of the deviation.

I thought I would use the older DQ chart, but now I think that the new system is balanced.

I've heard this distance of deviation talked about elsewhere, but there was a simpler answer. If you think the standard deviation is too much...

When you and yours make deviation rolls, divide it in half and round up for 1D3 instead of 1D6.  Simple.

The catacombs is intended to be a highly risky shortcut, but personally some of those "deviations" are just too nonsensical in that lower level being sought for a shortcut and more control over one's movement. Of course we've also considered eliminating the "choice" in deviation as  balance for a smaller deviation. It fits better for wandering in the dark in a real catacombs.

We roll a second dice, divide it by 2 again: 1-2 go left from your direction of movement; 3-4 to the right; 5-6 continue in the direction you were moving.  Again, simple for a supposedly simple game.

How many people here play that an exit card from the catacombs must be used?  How many play that the exit is marked but can be ignored to continue onward in the catacombs?