Meet the Rogue
The Rogue comes from The Rogue Heir of Elethorn, an Avalon Hill hero collection that shipped on 1 December 2022. The box holds two Rogue figures and twelve cards. The Rogue is an elf, and the pack's title ties it to Elethorn, the elven homeland of Ladril, one of the companions in Mentor's story of Rogar the barbarian.
Elethorn matters in the wider Avalon Hill line too: The Mage of the Mirror begins an "Elethorn saga" and Rise of the Dread Moon concludes it, so the Rogue is a natural pick for those two packs.
The Rogue's exact Attack, Defend, Body and Mind values and its abilities are on its hero card and the pack's cards, and this page doesn't reproduce them. Where you need a number, look at the card. What this page gives you is the rules and odds a quick, careful hero plays around: traps, searching, movement and line of sight.
Reading the Rogue's Hero Card
- Attack is how many combat dice you roll when you attack. Every skull is a hit.
- Defend is how many combat dice you roll when something attacks you. As a hero you block one hit for every white shield, and two of the six faces are white shields, so each die blocks a third of the time.
- Body Points are your health. Every unblocked hit costs one, and at zero you die unless you drink a healing potion or cast a healing spell on the spot.
- Mind Points stand for wisdom, intelligence and resistance to magic. They matter when one of Zargon's Dread spells tries to put you to sleep, frighten you or take control of you; the spell card says how you resist.
Compare the card with the core heroes. Note in particular how its Body Points stack up against the Elf's 6 and the Wizard's 4, because that tells you how close to the front the Rogue can safely stand.
| Hero | Attack | Defend | Body | Mind | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Barbarian | 3 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 2 red dice |
| Dwarf | 2 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 2 red dice |
| Elf | 2 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 2 red dice |
| Wizard | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 2 red dice |
| Rogue | see the Rogue's hero card | 2 red dice | |||
The Rogue's Turn
- On your turn you move, then act, or act, then move. You can't move part of the way, act, and then finish moving.
- Heroes roll two red dice for movement and may move up to the total (an average of 7 squares). There are no diagonal moves, and you can't move through monsters or walls, but you may pass over other heroes.
- Your action is one of six: Attack, Cast a spell, Search for treasure, Search for secret doors, Search for traps or Disarm a trap. Opening doors, drinking potions and picking things up don't use your action.
A hero who isn't the party's main fighter often earns its keep with the four "quiet" actions: searching for treasure, secret doors and traps, and disarming traps. Those actions have firm limits:
- You can search only when no monsters are in sight.
- Treasure searches happen only in rooms, and each hero may search a given room for treasure once.
- Almost half of the treasure cards are wandering monsters or hazards, so a search is a gamble, not free money.
Traps: The Exact Odds
Whatever the Rogue's own cards say about traps, these are the core rules every hero plays under. Searching for traps reveals the ones in your room or corridor; after that you can avoid, jump or disarm them.
- Pit trap: springing it costs 1 Body Point, and you fight with one fewer die while you're in the pit.
- Spear trap: roll one combat die; a skull costs 1 Body Point.
- Falling block: roll three combat dice, lose 1 Body Point per skull with no defense, and the square is blocked for good.
- Jumping a found trap costs 2 squares of movement and works on any result except a skull.
- Disarming needs a tool kit and works on any result except a skull. The Dwarf needs no tool kit and fails only on a black shield.
How Often Each Trap Goes Wrong
What the chart shows: a found trap is far cheaper than a sprung one. A falling block hurts 87.5% of the time and costs 1.5 Body Points on average; finding it first costs one action. And if the Dwarf is in the party, let the Dwarf disarm: it fails one time in six, against one time in two with a tool kit.
Movement: How Far Can You Get?
Every hero rolls two red dice for movement. The Rogue can't count on a long move any more than anyone else, so when a door or a fallen friend is a set number of squares away, check the odds before you plan around reaching it.
Chance of Rolling at Least This Many Squares
Seven squares or more comes up 58.3% of the time; nine or more only 27.8%. If you must reach something this turn, act first and move second only when the action can wait. Otherwise move, then act.
Line of Sight
Spells and ranged attacks need line of sight, and so does the rule that stops you searching while a monster can see you. A square is in sight if a straight line from the centre of your square to the centre of the target's square doesn't cross a wall, a closed door, a hero or a monster. Touching a corner is fine.
Who Can the Rogue See?
The same rule works for you as well as against you. A wall between you and the room's monsters means you can't be seen, but it also means nobody behind you can cast past you. Stand so the party's spellcaster has a clear line.
The Rogue in the Party
- With the Barbarian or Knight: let the heavy hero take the doorway; the Rogue follows and deals with whatever the fighter leaves standing.
- With the Dwarf: split the work. One searches for traps while the other searches the room for secret doors, then the Dwarf disarms.
- With the Wizard and the Elf: keep their lines of sight open. Two heroes standing shoulder to shoulder in a corridor can block each other's spells.
- Treasure: each hero searches a room once, so a party that spreads its searches finds more. Agree beforehand who carries the gold.
Try It at the Table
- Before your first quest with the Rogue, read its cards and sort them into "fighting" and "everything else". That split tells you what kind of turn the Rogue is meant to have.
- Lay out a room with three monsters and a wall stub, and check line of sight from each hero square with a ruler. Then rearrange the party so the spellcaster can see every monster.
- Count how many search actions your party takes in one quest, and how many traps were sprung rather than found. If the second number is bigger, the Rogue (or the Dwarf) should be searching earlier.
Where Next
- Getting Started for the full list of actions and traps.
- The Mage of the Mirror, which opens the Elethorn saga.
- The Monk, the next hero in this guide.