Wizards of Morcar 2024 Remake Ideas/Suggestions

[Kurgan]

Oh I see now, you want the words "and/or the Warlock" added to WOM's magic section so that this character can choose a set of "Darkness" (for example) Spells to replace their basic spells?

That seems simple enough. I was wondering what you were talking about because there's no other real modifications needed since it's already explained on the card how the Warlock functions in terms of equipment and artifacts, making her compatible with essentially all HeroQuest official material out there already that use the Wizard hero. There were some fans asking on social media awhile back whether the Warlock can pick one of the elemental spells (the answer would be no) and any such clarification might re-open that question. If a party consisted of the Wizard, Elf AND Warlock, that Zargon would have to compensate for the normal dividing up for spells, possibly, just as he would have to account for who gets the Wizard's artifacts (maybe there are two copies?) in the case of having both heroes in any other campaign. It's simply undefined and left up to the GM in all those cases. As detailed here only one artifact might really be fought over.

Avalon Hill seems to agree with you, as they changed "Potion of Restoration" to "Potion of Superior Restoration" and "Potion of Speed" to "Celerity."

Maybe they will change "Rust" to "Universal Acid" or something like that, to account for its greater power. I'd much rather they do something like that than just eliminate it and tell us to fish for the GS card (or nerf the spell to make it the same). To me it's unnecessary, because we can distinguish the two cards by their context and artwork. Just saying the name without reference to anything might confuse someone I guess, but these are powers Zargon is using, not the heroes, so it's not like someone is going to innocently write it on their character sheet (after handing back the card) and then forget which one they actually had (as could be in the case of the Speed or Restoration potions, I agree if they don't add a description for its effects to their sheet - and space is limited on those long campaigns!).

That said, thus far AH has not gone out of their way to add clarifications when using these new addon heroes to adventures (the sole exception being the Bard, which I would expect will continue to be the case when Spirit Queen's Torment is released into retail). Featuring the "Mythic" heroes in the Campanion App thus far has given them another source of playtesting data on these characters since they can literally be used anywhere the user wishes (except the Elf and Barbarian solo quests). I'm sure there are those who homebrew these heroes but the wider community that doesn't own the Mythic set probably doesn't get much use out of them and that may change with the retail releases... so I can kind of see your point there, but I don't think it's that tough.

[wallydubbs]

I'm hoping if they do remake Wizards of Morcar/Zargon that the spells of Darkness, Detection and Protection are updated and on par with the elemental spells. They're going to need some tweaking.

I'm having mixed feelings about it though. Avalon Hill did a good job with Rise of the Dread Moon, but all the other remade expansions were a bit of a letdown. Frozen Horror was a complete remake with 0 attempt to make it playable, Mage of the Mirror only has a few notes and treasure adjustments, but certain spells needed clarification, which weren't touched on. They actually tried with Rise of the Dread Moon and succeeded, but when it comes to another remake that desperately needs fixing I'm afraid they'll drop the ball again.
Leaving these spells as is would be a mistake. The Clairvoyance spell needs to change it's wording, but I think it'll work if the room revealed shows traps and treasure when the Wizard looks into it.
Future Sight works so long as it lasts through a heroes offensive and defensive rolls.
Treasure Horde could easily backfire, so they may change that around, though I'm comfortable with the risk factor.

Cloak of Shadows and Chains of Darkness could stay the same, but Arrows of the Night should be changed into 2 BP or 3BP of damage automatically without rolling.

Wall of Stone is fine, Invisibility needs some form of time limit and/or should allow for trap searches and such. I feel Dispell should have a 2ndary or 3rd use to disarm magical traps or cancel a spell that has already been cast.

Zargon's Wizard's, though, don't necessarily need Dread cards stationed to them, Dread spells could be assigned in the quest notes, this way they could mix and match the preexisting Dread spells. The lightning bolt and rust spells, though somewhat different from the game system cards, could be used instead. I don't think a big box like Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror is required, they could easily fit the Wizard and Mercenary figurines, cards and quest book in a small box like Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord.

[Kurgan]

Yeah I hear people saying they want the new "hero" spells buffed and possibly the "dread" spells nerfed. I agree that they don't seem very powerful compared to the Elemental spells under the NA rules, and so I'd be in favor of some tweaks there for sure, since the mechanic right now is that you choose a set of three (in one category) to replace one of the other spell sets, meaning the Elf forfeits an elemental choice (or three of the Elf spells) to pick Darkness, Protection or Detection (whatever the Wizard has left him).

I think if they are re-doing the entire thing to be a 10 quest affair, some of the nerfing might not be needed depending upon how the new quests are arranged (and what rewards are found in them). Even more so than ATOH they have a lot of room to play around with this one to make it something special that any HQ fan could enjoy.

It's certainly true that the cards are not needed strictly, as you say, but they are already a part of the legacy version, and I think there is some nostalgia to preserve there. Giving each bad guy SIX such spells puts him on a high tier. Since there is not an equivalent to each and every spell, having them use the GS dread spell cards is a little boring as solution to me. Certainly those who disagree can always just homebrew it and assign them other ways.

Would you say that the spells are better if they have some way to regain them? That alone could be a boost if certain spells can be regained (similar to how the Mythic heroes had this ability, otherwise you have to buy those expensive potions).

When all four Wizards are in play, that's a lot of spells for Zargon to manage, and being able to easily see who has what and what is being used up (there are 24 bad guy spells here, while the GS deck only provides 12 unique bad guy spells) so that's how I see it being a better system than changing it (putting text descriptions of each and every one of those spells on the page or requiring Zargon to flip around looking for them is not as nice as having the cards all laid out in front of him (and potentially the heroes as well). They could certainly choose to remove the "final showdown" from this set, but that would surely be a letdown to anyone who owned this set back in the day, wouldn't it?

The whole reason they give you four new wizard figures is precisely because these guys can show up together, otherwise you could just use your standard Dread Sorcerer (Chaos Warlock is used one other time to represent another evil character in this pack too).

Now if AH was really sneaky here, they could decide to make one of the sculpts look something like the Haslab "Witch Lord" exclusive figure, just altered somewhat. Or they could drop in the female Dread Sorcerer figure, if she hasn't already been introduced into one of the earlier retail packs (Prophecy of Telor or Spirit Queen's Torment for instance).

[wallydubbs]

If you provide 8 hero types for 4 players to choose from in the game (and no restrictions aside from not having 2 of the same) then you DO need to ensure that your game supports that choice.

And having two different spells (or items, artefacts, potions and so on) with the same name is an unnecessary cause of confusion. As I have said before "creating your own quests" has been an encouraged feature of HeroQuest right from the start, having to specify at the start of every quest you make(both your own and future official expansions), exactly which versions of "shortsword", "healing potion", "goblin", "rust" spell that you have and have not designed and play tested the quest against seems like an unnecessary barrier.

Actually I think we're up to 9 heroes: Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Dwarf, Elf, Knight, Rogue, Warlock and Wizard.

I don't really see the harm in playing with 2 of the same heroes at this point, when it comes to artifacts that can only be held by 1 hero, like all the Elven artifacts in Mage of the Mirror that could only be used by the Elf, splitting them between 2 isn't too terrible, but when it comes to Wizard's Cloak and Staff, you'd have to neglect 1 Wizard. Though I'm not sure the spells should be multiple players. If we add the spells of Darkness, Detection and Protection, then I'd be willing to try with 2 wizards.

[Kurgan]

Don't forget the Monk!

A duplicate of the Wizard's Cloak is given officially in Spirit Queen's Torment (if they did the same with the Wizard's Staff instead of saying "if you don't already have it" that would clear up that issue, officially).

Then again, if the Wizard has these items, and drops out of the game in favor of the Warlock, you could just pass them on to that new character, no questions asked! Artifacts need not go away once found (except in a few rare cases where they are destroyed, not counting those that get "used up" like the Elixir of Life, Ring of Return or the many spell scrolls...). If stolen, Zargon has is to make them a special treasure early in the next quest (it starts off by saying some artifacts are needed in later quests, but I take this as an all encompassing rule for Artifacts).

A lot depends upon your group and whether you're carrying stuff over from campaign to campaign or "restarting" at some point with base level characters and no special gear or gold retained from the past.

The way the App handles it seems pretty logical and simple but it defers the dividing up of loot & most shopping to the players, on the honor system.

[Vorimir]

WOM was a shortened version of what was going to be the north american Wizard quest pack. If you read the notes the Storm master is the first bad guy on it so I can see an easy mix between the five quest with what was originally planed with some modern tweaks.

[wallydubbs]

It's certainly true that the cards are not needed strictly, as you say, but they are already a part of the legacy version, and I think there is some nostalgia to preserve there. Giving each bad guy SIX such spells puts him on a high tier. Since there is not an equivalent to each and every spell, having them use the GS dread spell cards is a little boring as solution to me. Certainly those who disagree can always just homebrew it and assign them other ways.

Would you say that the spells are better if they have some way to regain them? That alone could be a boost if certain spells can be regained (similar to how the Mythic heroes had this ability, otherwise you have to buy those expensive potions).

I understand why the Druid, Warlock and Bard were given spells they could reclaim, as the spell sets they are given are designated strictly to those characters, unlike the Wizard and Elf who can alternate the types of spells they use. The Darkness, Detection and Protection spells are indeed lackluster compared to Element spells, but I do see your point: Inspirational Tale is only half of Courage but it is arguably the most commonly reclaimed spell. As the heroes grow in equipment the spell's chance of reclaimed is increased, but at the same time as the Bard moves to a higher weapon it becomes questionable whether it's even worth casting, +1AD to another hero or attacking with 3AD. But just the same if any of these spell sets are meant to replace the Elemental spells it doesn't rightly seem worth it. Plus the wording is rather ambiguous and requires clarification as well.

However the Evil sorcerer's spells aren't that great either. In fact, none of them resisted based off of a hero's mind points. So these spells too would need to be worked on too. However the High Mage's Rust spell is more powerful then the American Rust spell as it targets any weapon whereas the American one can only work on a sword or helmet. But a lot of the other spells require regular defence rolls, which are easy enough to avoid when the heroes are maxed out.

When all four Wizards are in play, that's a lot of spells for Zargon to manage, and being able to easily see who has what and what is being used up (there are 24 bad guy spells here, while the GS deck only provides 12 unique bad guy spells) so that's how I see it being a better system than changing it (putting text descriptions of each and every one of those spells on the page or requiring Zargon to flip around looking for them is not as nice as having the cards all laid out in front of him (and potentially the heroes as well). They could certainly choose to remove the "final showdown" from this set, but that would surely be a letdown to anyone who owned this set back in the day, wouldn't it?

I do see your point on how it would be easier for Zargon. I just thought some of these spells are unique to the Wizard's of Morcar expansion while a home brewer can mix and match spells from different expansions.

Now if AH was really sneaky here, they could decide to make one of the sculpts look something like the Haslab "Witch Lord" exclusive figure, just altered somewhat. Or they could drop in the female Dread Sorcerer figure, if she hasn't already been introduced into one of the earlier retail packs (Prophecy of Telor or Spirit Queen's Torment for instance).

When I played through Wizard's of Zargon I played it that the Necromancer was an admirer of the Witch Lord and the statue in his Crypt was that of the Witch Lord.

Avalon Hill as of late seems more interested in publishing newer content such as Jungles of Delthrak and next First Light. My fear is that they're not going to attempt to remake Wizard's of Morcar nor touch on the elusive Wizard and Dwarf quest packs. Don't get me wrong, I would be super excited if they made these, but part of me is worried that it's not going to happen.

[Kurgan]

WOM was a shortened version of what was going to be the north american Wizard quest pack. If you read the notes the Storm master is the first bad guy on it so I can see an easy mix between the five quest with what was originally planed with some modern tweaks.

Sort of. WOM was released before the Wizard Quest Pack development began. The same team that was doing the 1992 hero themed NA expansions used WOM (and ATOH) as references when creating their new adventures. But everything about it was changed... even if it used the four evil wizard minis from the European original. Combining the two would result in a 15 quest expansion.

WOM intended the new spells to be available for the Elf or Wizard. Yes, the spells are a bit "weak" for the NA system and could stand revision (tweaking for the bad guy spells is probably also in order though a bit less so as many find them very powerful, I do not have a problem with them being similar to NA GS spells... so I could see AH keeping them the same just changing the names of a few to differentiate them a little bit more in the text of the quest booklet).

I would not see these spells being given to the Bard, or Warlock or whatever, anymore than those heroes are intended to use the Elemental spells of the base system (they aren't; as always, Zargon can do whatever he wants at his table, but "rules as written" only the Elf and Wizard get their choice of spells, every other hero has a pre-set they start with, period).

The Wizard Quest Pack wouldn't have changed this paradigm... instead there would simply be more spells for the Wizard (or Elf) to choose from, with the possibility of the Wizard gaining more (via certain special perks). It was not a simple repeat of the WOM spell system. The four hero themed expansions were strictly an NA thing, done after the European packs were already out, not a copy and paste job.

So IF Wizards of Morcar was released pretty much "as is" (small tweaks like explaining what Pits of Darkness are, upgrading the monsters to NA strength, labeling a few unmarked treasure chests) and just tacking on the WOM stuff, you'd result with either two campaigns in the same book that are unconnected... OR you'd have a new optional system to bring with you from one to the other. You'd be picking and choosing what you wanted. So maybe the Wizard would be using Darkness and Protection spells with his Fire and Air, while the Elf would be using Water. I don't think it would be overwhelming for players, but the book would be rather thick, or else they might consider including two books in the same pack.

On the other hand I could see AH just releasing a brand new product that combines aspects of WOM and WQP into one. OR maybe more along the lines of ATOH and what Encarmine was saying last year... they'd just release a WOM remake with 5 new quests to make it feel up to par with past releases. And then either the WQP would never come out, sadly (unless fans really, really demanded it) and we'd just continue to see bits and pieces of stuff from those drafts appearing in their own original creations... like maybe we'd see a Wizard Quest Pack that was completely "new." They probably wouldn't call it the Wizard Quest Pack or the Lost Quests (kind of a scrapbook of new things, though that would be cool, if unprecedented) as a sandbox design kit... but maybe some other "Wizard" themed pack.

For a long time fans have wondered about the Wizard and Dwarf packs (naturally since there were four heroes and only two of them got their own themed pack, and the Wizard expansion was teased long ago with the Wizard being advised to save his gold for "powerful magical items" he could buy in some future expansion... a text that AH deleted from the remake release, I might add), and tried to console themselves with the idea that some previously released expansion is actually that, but to this date only a few people have seen the Wizard and Dwarf packs, which exist in draft form and as Encarmine commented, Hasbro has "everything." So they could turn around and release it. From what I've seen, I think it would be rather easy for them to craft WQP into a sellable release. They could include a few explanatory pages saying how this was taken from the historical vaults or something. Dwarf pack needs a lot more work... if you thought Frozen Horror and Mage of the Mirror were extreme in terms of difficulty, just wait. There are storylines that conflict with one another (then again, Tolkien could get away with this, just portray it as "some legends say..." "while others tell..." and we know AH loves creating loose ends, teases and such for us to insert our own headcanon). Maybe a "choose your own adventure" style would work for the Dwarf pack, similar to what they did with Jungles of Delthrak?

[Kurgan]

In the end I'd love to see BOTH Wizards of Morcar AND the Wizard Quest Pack (and Dwarf Quest Pack) get a commercial retail release.

However as it stands, I think we have a very excellent change of getting WOM before all is said and done... a remake + bonus content, and the rest seems up in the air. Doug wants us to post on social media what we want, so I hope people are saying that, saying they want to see the Dwarf and Wizard Quest packs finished and brought out. Now if they decide to do so, they are virtually guaranteed to be different than any fan completions of those drafts would be, I don't expect them to be 1:1 the same as the fan versions (which are trying to be more like what they would look like "if they were released in 1993"), but the basic structure, elements, etc. I think would be great to see, if nothing else than as a piece of HQ history.

When it comes to the Mercenaries that would be included, I hope they are red figures this time. Should they have bolt on weapons? I don't know what AH will do here, but if they follow the Frozen Horror remake system they should be including 24 mercs in the box PLUS the four wizards. That doesn't leave a whole lot of room for a full 'nother expansion in there (WQP had its own full set of monsters, hero, etc). Should they toss a Rogue in there? I wouldn't mind that at all! (maybe they could give us both the male AND female if they are not planning to reprint the Hero Collection anymore). There's no need to give us a new sculpt, because the old one was great, and that's what people would want (unlike the Druid which was criticized, or the Knight which was a purposely limited release). I think the Rogue is a different case this time than the Mythic characters. The mercenaries in red would be just fine, but if they wanted to, they could give us new sculpts, even while keeping the abilities the same. They probably would want to tweak their strengths a little. The mercs were much more fragile in this version but also much cheaper (the rehire discount being very generous and you also had the potion of charm). They left the door open for ANY mercenaries to be usable in Mage of the Mirror group quests too, so there's that. They should be at least as strong as those in FH, even if they are not identical, so they could tweak their abilities, stats, prices, and designs too if they wanted (imagining they'd have 6 of each of the four types). But can you imagine four heroes AND 24 mercenaries on the board at a time? That might be overkill, so perhaps some limits should be in order. The wizards are powerful but maybe in the face of 48 BP worth of mercenaries they wouldn't be so much of a challenge (so maybe their spells don't need any nerfing?).

When it comes to WOM, I don't actually hope for more radical changes, more just massaging it to fit with the NA/remake rules. I do hope they tweak the hero spells to make them more useful, and while I hope they keep the bad guy spells, some of those might need to be clarified or tweaked for balance. Explain the pits of darkness (borrowed from ATOH), and put something in those unmarked treasure chests. WOM feels very short, it's basically just a mission to fight each of the four wizards, and then a showdown/boss rush against them all, and very little story. Since they felt free to simply rewrite the ATOH prologue (which suggested you should be playing this after KK, ROTWL, AND ATOH, but that goes against their idea of not forcing people to think they have to play all of the expansions in a precise official order), maybe they would do the same here. I think as long as they preserve the cool aspects of the lore that people liked, that is all that matters.

Like ATOH, I fully expect they will put a lot of stock into the opinions of European fans who actually owned and played WOM back in the day (and this is what they ought to do). While I remember hearing a lot of people praising ATOH and remembering it fondly, I hear more negatives about WOM, saying it's a lot of unrealized ideas... a sandbox, a springboard for your own homebrews but not so great on its own. Certainly the makers of the WQP agreed and didn't just straight up continue or copy it, but used some of the assets and ideas to make their own basically brand new adventure, using the template they'd established in the Elf and Barbarian packs (and the WQP difficulty seems like the most reasonable of the four proposed hero themed packs).

So while I have my own ideas, for now I bet you they will treat WOM and WQP as separate projects. It would certainly be more work for them to release them as separate packs and having to create new content for WOM, but I bet that is what they will do. There is at least a hint of nostalgia for WOM, but most fans don't even know WQP exists (only they wondered about the blank spaces suggested by EQP & BQP but no WQP or DQP!).

[TechnoBiologist]

I read a lot of comments on how the three new spell sets for the wizard that were included in the original WoM pack are more weak than the 4 elemental spell sets and that they should be tweaked to be more strong. Instead of that, I like the idea that the at the start of each quest, the wizard can pick one of the three wizard spell sets above the three elemental spell sets and hence give the wizard player access to 12 spells each quest.
It would be nice if this special ability comes with something like a "wizards spellbook", that either can be found as an artifact at the start of the campaign, or can be purchased as a specif piece of equipment.

The second suggestion for the WoM remake is to add extra quests and maybe some new monsters for this expansion. Maybe it is possible to use some of the unpublished material from the original planned Wizard Quest pack or something.

And at last it would be nice to have a female wizard minature included as well.