Why are doors marked in Yellow and Blue (with the square ends)? Arent these treated in all cases as normal doors? i.e. no yellow or blue key is needed, and monsters may open them, since it's all one area?

Depends on which dungeon you are doing. For example, #6 the Gauntlet, there is a yellow and blue rune door with no keys. I think this is to prevent the Heroes from opening those doors, because otherwise they would be done and gone with the level in 2 turns. Another one is #20, Two by Two, where the Heroes have to activate different sets of locks (the encounter markers) to open the yellow and blue doors.

Having either a yellow or blue door there typically means that there is something special about the dungeon level and how to open the doors. Its all still one revealed area.

#6 was my biggest head-scratcher, since there's no way to open them. Ok so they could have effectively used a wall then instead of doors, if such a thing existed, cuz that's what they are in that map.

poobaloo said:

Yeah, I think in that case they used the doors basically as walls. They couldn't use rubble or water, because there would be ways around those. Not much way around a looked rune door you have no key for.

Hi,

poobaloo said:

You mean The Gauntlet, right? No, using rune doors instead of walls makes perfect sense there; in fact it's the whole point of that dungeon! Remember that named monsters can open and close rune doors, making this dungeon a headache for the players if played right. Imagine the party has finally run around the dungeon to the monster mob, only to watch the level leader open the door, go through it and close it again. Now the party has to go back to the start to kill him...and has to split up too, to prevent the leader from playing even more cat and mouse with them.

-Kylearan

****. We played that level and I forgot named monsters could do that. However, I'm pretty sure this wasnt the intention, in a similar way to "Trial by Fire", in which it is just a bit silly if the named monsters there can open the rune locked doors.

Paul Grogan said:

I'm of the opinion it was the intention. There is no other reason for the runelocked doors and Grimfang is incredibly pathetic. Having him duck through the doors really does force the heroes to 'run the gauntlet', possibly several times...

Note that Triangle tipped runelocked doors differentiate between areas, and square tipped rune-locked doors do not. See page 32 RtL rulebook. Hmm, yes, checking I see that the Trial by Fire doors are not new areas. Note however that the Hellhound should be lucky just to get a turn and neither the Dragon nor the demon can reach their doors initially. But it does seem that these Masters can open the doors as they are not to unrevealed areas (see below).

To be honest, we've never played this level through,anyway. In 5 encounters in three different campaigns the heroes have fled, 3 times as soon as this level was drawn (upgraded Beasts)- and that when we hadn't thought of the named Masters unlocking these doors.IMO Trial by Fire is just one of several levels that are really tough on the heroes if the right monsters have been upgraded. Just as there are some that are almost always a cakewalk, so there are some that are much harder than usual.

However, named monsters definitely can open runelocked doors, but not to new areas. From the FAQ Pg 1

Runelocked Doors and Named Monsters
Named monsters may open and close runelocked doors, whether or not the heroes have the runekey to that door. However, named monsters still cannot open any door leading into an unrevealed area.

God, I wish I had remembered that when we played this level. The Heroes waltzed through the level because I was constantly trying to bring monsters around the corner to attack.

Kylearan said:

Oh, that's right! Yes, that dungeon makes much more sense that way!