Rebalancing the New Spells - a deep dive

[manaknight14]

With the new Wizards of Morcar releasing next year, I'm sure a lot of us are hoping the designers made some adjustments to the new selectable spells and the spells used by the enemy wizards. However, what few images we have seen make it appear that there are not many changes coming, aside from possibly matching the rules of some of the evil wizard spells to the Dread spells of the same names from the original US core set. While I'm certainly excited to see more details of the new expansion as they are revealed, I've had a lot of time to think about what house rule changes I would make to these spells if no significant changes are made by Avalon Hill. The things I generally value in a house rule for HQ are: balanced effects that are neither useless nor overpowered, consistency between similar spells and effects across expansions, and avoiding game-breaking edge cases. I'm also a person who does a lot of probability and statistical analysis for a living, so I invite you all to come with me on a waaaaaaay too deep dive into each group of spells in this expansion (which I will do separately to avoid making one titanic post), starting with the Darkness spells.


Arrows of the Night is the spell that originally prompted me to go down this rabbit hole. While it is a unique asset as an attack spell that forces the enemies to defend with their mind points, most veteran players seem to regard it as underpowered. There are ways we can measure exactly how powerful a spell really is based on how much damage it can be expected to deal, but it's not as simple as one might think. Take the most straightforward attack spells as an example: Fire of Wrath and Ball of Flame. Fire of Wrath is very simple, right? It deals 1BP of damage which the target has a 1/3 chance of blocking, so its expected damage output is 2/3 or 0.67. Ball of Flame deals 2BP which can each be blocked like Fire of Wrath, so its value should be twice that of Fire of Wrath or 1.33, right? Not so fast. What if you are playing the UK version of HeroQuest? Unless you're casting it on some kind of unique boss enemy, the monsters there only have 1BP to lose so the value of the spell has a cap. If you do the math this capped value comes out to 0.89, which is essentially the "kill probability" of a Ball of Flame spell in that system. But in the US system some monsters do have multiple body points, so Ball of Flame becomes more valuable. If you average it across all the monsters available in the core game system, its value increases to 1.04. Add in the new monsters that Avalon Hill is including in the new version of the Wizards of Morcar expansion and you further increase its value to 1.09. What about a more complex spell like Genie, where you have to consider the DD of each type of monster you might use it on? I'll spare you the trouble of reading through all my spreadsheets, but between the multiple BP of core set monsters and Avalon Hill adding some beefy new threats like the Minotaur and Golem, Genie goes from 0.90 in the old UK days to 1.23, a 0.33BP difference.
Now we come back to Arrows of the Night. Despite being considered underpowered, we have to remember that it was designed for use with the UK system where even the weakest attack could kill any monster with a lucky roll. If you do the math, the value of Arrows of the Night using its existing rules in the UK system was 0.63: weaker than Fire of Wrath, but not by much. Combined with the other spells in the Darkness group, that might have made it useful enough to get picked in the UK system. The problem is that when you move it into the US system, it doesn't scale well. Its value only increases to 0.69, which doesn't cut it any more. In order to retain its usefulness, it should scale by as much value as the Genie spell, because the Air group is similar in structure to the Darkness group (one attack spell, one "miss a turn" type of spell, and one other spell). So the desired value of Arrows of the Night in the new expansion would be 0.63+0.33=0.96. I experimented with some alternate rules for this spell, but it turns out that if you simply give it a third attack die, its value becomes 0.95 which is extremely close to ideal. I know some others have proposed an approach like making the target defend against a fixed 2BP hit instead of rolling attack dice. This would raise the value to 1.26, which is even more powerful than Genie and probably makes the Darkness group overpowered when you add the utility of Cloak of Shadows vs. Swift Wind. Using 3AD also fits for a few qualitative reasons as well. The card image shows three arrows being fired, not two. The one standard weapon that fires arrows (the crossbow) also uses 3AD. Avalon Hill's inclusion of the Golem provides a new monster with 3BP and 0MP, so giving this spell just enough extra power to have a slight chance of one-shotting a big target that can't defend against it. The third AD also adds enough utility to make it worth using on the occasional Dread Warrior or Gargoyle instead of only undead enemies.
TL;DR: change it from 2AD to 3AD and you're good.

Chains of Darkness is probably fine the way it is. Discount brand Tempest is still a really good spell.

Cloak of Shadows is also probably good as it is, as long as Zargon is good at reasoning through a lot of complicated situations it can create. Do you let heroes fire through it to hit monsters on the other side if they're not actually inside the cloak? Will you allow a character who can see in darkness (e.g. Crown of Shadows) to be immune to its effects? The only real problem with this spell is if the heroes cast it in a place that renders the quest unfinishable due to its permanence. If the goal of the quest is to find a special treasure, casting this spell in that room might make finding the treasure impossible. A boss the heroes are trying to kill could hide in the cloak and not come out. On the one hand, making this spell such a dangerous double-edged sword might be a feature and not a bug. On the other hand, the easy way to avoid this is to make the cloak wear off after some period of time, preferable one sufficiently long enough that whatever confrontations might be taking place in the cloak's proximity can resolve themselves. I would avoid making it dismissible by the caster, because the cloak is so absolutely powerful that allowing the caster to turn it off whenever they want would be ripe for abuse (e.g. cast it right before Zargon's turn, monsters can't do anything on their turn, then turn it off so the heroes can attack).

[MonsterMotor]

With the new Wizards of Morcar releasing next year, I'm sure a lot of us are hoping the designers made some adjustments to the new selectable spells and the spells used by the enemy wizards. However, what few images we have seen make it appear that there are not many changes coming, aside from possibly matching the rules of some of the evil wizard spells to the Dread spells of the same names from the original US core set. While I'm certainly excited to see more details of the new expansion as they are revealed, I've had a lot of time to think about what house rule changes I would make to these spells if no significant changes are made by Avalon Hill. The things I generally value in a house rule for HQ are: balanced effects that are neither useless nor overpowered, consistency between similar spells and effects across expansions, and avoiding game-breaking edge cases. I'm also a person who does a lot of probability and statistical analysis for a living, so I invite you all to come with me on a waaaaaaay too deep dive into each group of spells in this expansion (which I will do separately to avoid making one titanic post), starting with the Darkness spells.

Sure, the spells of this expansion are long known for their very particular problems. I, too, had already worked through this topic some time ago and adjusted the Wizard of Morcar spells to remove their flaws and also achieve balance with the standard spells of my own HQ ruleset, most of which also differ a lot from the original ones for various reasons. I bet many people have done such things over the past 30+ years.

Now, without intent to join a deep discussion here, I just want to concur with you that the Cloak of Shadows needs to have a time limit; otherwise it may cause situations where the gameplay can lock up. All other aspects of balance are less critical in my view and more a matter of taste. I generally found the Cloak of Shadows spell the hardest one to balance with the others.

[manaknight14]

Sure, the spells of this expansion are long known for their very particular problems. I, too, had already worked through this topic some time ago and adjusted the Wizard of Morcar spells to remove their flaws and also achieve balance with the standard spells of my own HQ ruleset, most of which also differ a lot from the original ones for various reasons. I bet many people have done such things over the past 30+ years.

I'm with you. I know I'm not the first one to attempt rebalancing these spells and I'm sure I won't be the last. What I was surprised by was that I hadn't seen a prior post or thread that attempted to work through all the spells in a coordinated or analytical way. It was mostly scattered musings about individual spells. I figured I would share my thoughts with two goals in mind. One, others who like a mathematical/synthesis approach might appreciate my work and like to adopt some of it for their own. And two, putting it out in public gives others a chance to give feedback, in case I missed some important detail that could make my analysis better.

[manaknight14]

On to the Detection spells. This is probably the spell group with the least amount of "math" available to consider, because most of the spells here are about acquiring information rather than dealing, preventing, or healing damage.


Clairvoyance is a spell that I originally thought was fine as is, despite its use cases being rather niche. Yes, you could scout out a room before entering it in order to make a plan before the door is open, but there were other valid scenarios, like if you had accomplished your main task but had not yet explored some side room, and wanted to know if there was anything in it of interest or if the monsters inside it were too much for your remaining BP and spells to deal with. However, I have since started to agree with the many people who have suggested that the spell should also reveal traps and secret doors in the selected room. It makes the uses for the Clairvoyance spell much less niche, and more in line with some other spells and abilities we have seen. Mage of the Mirror introduced a Potion of Vision which allowed the user to see traps and secret doors without using a search action, so it makes sense that a spell with a name that literally means "clear vision" should be able to do the same. The main difference between the two being the potion's effect persists for multiple turns but only reveals things the user can see from their physical location, while the spell only works once but can be used to scout any location no matter how far away the user is. There is also no reason Clairvoyance can't be used on a room that has already been opened or even entered, which means with this extra function it can be used to scout for traps across a door boundary or while monsters are present, which is a big deal if you haven't already homebrewed some other solution to these scenarios. These features are what make the secondary use of the Druid's Pixie spell so valuable, so adding the traps and secret doors to this spell makes it a nice way to have that function without having a Druid in your party. Some have said it should also reveal what would be found via treasure search in the selected room (either revealing any special treasure or the top card of the deck), but I am opposed to this suggestion because it creates too much overlap with the function of another spell in this group.

Future Sight is a pretty versatile spell as is, but I agree with some previous comments that it should be able to be cast on any hero instead of just the caster. Aside from hero-specific transformation spells like the Druid's Shapeshift and the Warlock's Demonform, buff spells outside of Wizards of Morcar have almost always been able to be cast on targets other than the caster if desired (the Dread spell Skate is the only one I can think of that is self only as written). Making it targetable would allow the Wizard to select this group without severely handicapping the attack portion of this spell. A mathematical approach to this one is difficult without a huge amount of playtesting, so I might have to revisit it once the expansion is actually released. Zargon may also need to have some house rules about whether the scope of the spell should be expanded beyond things that are literal movement, attack, or defend rolls. Disarming a trap? Jumping a trap? Resisting a Dread spell? All are plausible acts that Future Sight's do-over effect might be applied to. As with Clairvoyance above, one thing I would definitely not allow using Future Sight is a re-draw from the treasure deck, because of overlap with another spell. Which brings us to...

Treasure Hoard. As written, this spell is terrible. If the user is required to draw three treasure cards from the deck and take them all, there is a 75% chance that at least one of them will be something bad, and that's if you haven't already removed some of the good cards via searches in other rooms. That's way too much potential downside risk for a spell in a group that is already difficult to justify selecting. I have seen a variety of alternative rules proposed, but none of them quite strike a good balance. Give the caster the option not to take the cards after seeing them? They're still going to end up needing to refuse it a large percentage of times. Ignore any bad cards and draw until you get three good ones? That might actually be too powerful. Draw three cards and only take the good ones? Draw three and choose one? Draw one but you can choose to redraw up to two times? These last three options are all possible, but there is a scenario none of them account for: what if there is a special treasure in the room? As written, Treasure Hoard offers no benefit to that situation, which is a pretty big hole in its use case. I have tried a few ways of modifying the various rule proposals into something that would add some benefit when a special treasure is present, but they all end up turning into some form of another spell that already exists: Treasure Without Doom. While it only exists as a spell scroll in Mage of the Mirror and offers a smaller upside than Treasure Hoard, the fact that it has zero downside risk and even works when special treasures are present makes it a much more useful substitute. As with Future Sight, it's difficult to get a strong recommendation on this one without a ton of playtesting, but the simple solution of substituting in the existing Treasure Without Doom spell makes the most intuitive sense.

[MonsterMotor]

Sure, the spells of this expansion are long known for their very particular problems. I, too, had already worked through this topic some time ago and adjusted the Wizard of Morcar spells to remove their flaws and also achieve balance with the standard spells of my own HQ ruleset, most of which also differ a lot from the original ones for various reasons. I bet many people have done such things over the past 30+ years.

I'm with you. I know I'm not the first one to attempt rebalancing these spells and I'm sure I won't be the last. What I was surprised by was that I hadn't seen a prior post or thread that attempted to work through all the spells in a coordinated or analytical way. It was mostly scattered musings about individual spells. I figured I would share my thoughts with two goals in mind. One, others who like a mathematical/synthesis approach might appreciate my work and like to adopt some of it for their own. And two, putting it out in public gives others a chance to give feedback, in case I missed some important detail that could make my analysis better.

Certainly, do go ahead with your analysis. I'll read it with interest, too.

And I am somewhat hesitant to recommend it here, but if you seek some inspiration from my work, you'll find a link in here:
https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6622

The rework of the spells was a core component of the Tactical Heroquest ruleset. However, those spells do not fit directly with the standard HQ rules any longer, as they are much stronger and fully tied into the entire rule overhaul. You will notice this immediately.

[manaknight14]

And I am somewhat hesitant to recommend it here, but if you seek some inspiration from my work, you'll find a link in here:
https://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=6622

The rework of the spells was a core component of the Tactical Heroquest ruleset. However, those spells do not fit directly with the standard HQ rules any longer, as they are much stronger and fully tied into the entire rule overhaul. You will notice this immediately.

As you have said it's a bit apples-and-oranges to what I'm doing (you reworked the core system, while I'm trying to make things fit the core system better), but I'll have to give your system a thorough look later because you never know where a useful idea might be found.

[manaknight14]

Today I cover the final group of new spells for the heroes, the Protection spells.


Dispell is a weak spell at best, and in some cases is outright useless. You target an enemy spellcaster and force him to discard one of his spells at random. First, this requires you to know that the enemy is a spellcaster in the first place. This may seem obvious enough when you're up against the four wizards in this expansion, but what about when you're up against something that appears to be a normal enemy but is a special one that has spells? Think of that one Fimir/Abomination in Kellar's Keep or the old Dread Warrior in Jungles of Delthrak. Zargon isn't obligated to tell you they have spells beforehand, so you're flying blind with regards to whether or not this spell can be used. Additionally, Zargon isn't obligated to reveal how many spells the enemy has or what they are, so you may blow Dispell on a relatively unthreatening spell card, or might waste it entirely if the enemy has already used all his spells and you aren't aware of that. The example of the monster from KK presents yet another issue: what if the monster has multiple uses of the same spell? Making the enemy discard a spell "card" is difficult to interpret there. Meanwhile, Mage of the Mirror introduced a Dispell card of its own that is much more interesting and useful. It does not cost the user an action, and is used to counter an enemy spell that is already being cast. This means the Dispell user is allowed to know exactly what spell they are attempting to block, with the tradeoff being that it requires an opposed die roll to determine if the Dispell is successful. Depending on Zargon's interpretation of the term "spell," this version of Dispell may also be used to counter the magical spell traps present in Wizards of Morcar, most of which are otherwise unsearchable and unblockable under the rules as written (and I consider anything generally undetectable and unavoidable to be an undesirable in the name of game balance). Between this utility that is applicable both generally and specifically to this expansion, and maintaining consistency between expansions, the obvious choice is to replace this spell with its namesake from Mage of the Mirror.

Invisibility is an interesting spell with strengths and weaknesses, especially since there is a similar Elf spell in Mage of the Mirror called Disappear. Both describe the recipient as being able to move around "unseen," but have very different wordings:

• Invisibility only refers to being used on the caster, while Disappear can choose any target.
• Invisibility only works for one turn (or only Zargon's turn if you cast it after moving). Disappear can last for multiple turns, but risks wearing off any time the recipient moves.
• Disappear explicitly says the user cannot take any actions without revealing himself, but can open doors. Invisibility only says the user can't attack, but the spell wears off before the user has an opportunity to take an action anyway. Whether doors can be opened is not discussed.
• Invisibility says the unseen hero cannot be affected by attacks and spells. Disappear adds that the hero cannot trigger traps.
• Neither spell says anything about whether the unseen hero can move through monsters (a la Veil of Mist, the other spell that describes its user as "unseen") or vice versa.

Given how similar these two spells are in their descriptions, my preference would be to harmonize them in some way so that their effects are identical in a way that is useful and balanced. I don't feel the need to preserve their effects as different just because they have different names and different spell groups (think of Water of Healing and Heal Body for a comparable pair of spells). I haven't had the opportunity to playtest such a "merged" spell, but my first attempt at constructing one from the above bullet points would be as follows:

• Allow the caster to choose the target, as in Disappear.
• Use Disappear's rules for how long the spell lasts.
• The unseen hero definitely should not be allowed to attack or cast spells. Disarming traps should probably be disallowed as well. However, if the hero is allowed to do simple interactions like opening doors as in Disappear, I think allowing for trap and secret door searches would make sense. Zargon might even rule that such a search could be done in the presence of monsters, which adds an active utility to this spell beyond just hiding from danger for a time. Whether searching for treasure should be allowed is a tougher call, especially when it comes to how you would handle something like drawing a wandering monster or a hazard. I'm inclined to say that treasure searching while invisible would be too powerful, but I'm open to suggestions on this part.
• I would maintain that attacks and spells cannot target the unseen hero. However, I would rule that spells with an area effect like Firestorm, Lightning Bolt, or Cloud of Dread could still hurt the hero (Zargon needs to not be a jerk in these cases though, and only use such spells when they are reasonably targeting other heroes). I would also say that the invisible hero can trigger and be affected by traps while moving around. Whether triggering a trap should also cause the Invisibility/Disappear spell to deactivate is a tougher call.
• I don't know whether I would allow the unseen hero to move through monsters. That would take away from the little utility that Veil of Mist has. However you could argue that Veil of Mist would still have something to offer because it guarantees you can move through monsters for one turn, while Disappear has the risk that it could wear off at any time. However, I would definitely rule that monsters can pass through the unseen hero unless the hero chooses to deactivate the spell. Otherwise heroes can game the system by standing in front of a monster in a hallway or corner and then casting the spell to prevent it from attacking other heroes, which does not reflect the intent behind this spell.

Finally we come to Wall of Stone. Unlike the other two spells in this group which I approached from more of a synergy/consistency view, this one definitely has a mathematical value that can be balanced. The original Wall of Stone had 1BP and 6DD, though it is worth noting that all walls were said to defend with white shields. We can do some calculations to figure out how many attacks from monsters it would typically take to break through this wall. Using the standard monsters in the core set, the wall would be breached after an average of 4.5 attacks. However, the US version of Wizards of Morcar will be introducing some new monsters that have 4AD to swing with. When these are added the mix, the survival time of the wall drops to 4.1 attacks. This isn't a huge difference, but is there a way we can get closer to its original value? Many of us are familiar with Phoenix's version of this spell, which upped the BP to 2. This change would increase the survival estimate to 6.1 attacks, which is a bit too much. However, if we add this extra BP but also reduce the wall's defense to 5DD, the survival rate becomes 4.7 attacks. I tried a variety of other DD/BP combinations and nothing came closer to the original 4.5 survival rate than this one, so 5DD/2BP seems like the way to go. 5DD also seems to match with other stone/construct targets we have seen like the Gargoyle and Golem, so I like that consistent theme in addition to the balanced math.

[manaknight14]

Today I will be moving on to the spells for the four evil sorcerers, starting with the Orc Shaman (or Warcaster) since this appears to be the enemy wizard that requires the least amount of rebalancing work. Most of the spells for this enemy are focused on calling and buffing other monsters, especially other Orcs. This is especially powerful in the Shaman/Warcaster's solo quest, where enemy Orcs already have 4AD/3DD as their base combat stats.

Orc Berserker is an awesome spell, maybe even too powerful if you use the rules as written for defending against multiple attacks. If this spell is used in the Lair of the Orc Shaman, you basically have a Polar Warbear being thrown at you for one turn. Personally I would prefer to house rule that multiple attacks are allowed multiple defense rolls in general rather than try to modify this spell specifically.

Sharpen Blades is also incredibly powerful if enough Orcs are around, and doesn't really need rebalancing. The only question about it is an interpretation one. It applies to all Orcs in the same room as the caster, but does that mean "in the room" at the time the spell was cast or at the time the attack is made? For example, if an Orc was in the room at the time the spell was cast but then wanders into a hallway to attack a hero, should the Orc still get the extra AD? If an Orc comes into the room after the spell was cast, should he get the extra AD? Both interpretations are reasonable and neither one is more powerful than the other (though I would advise not allowing both of these Orcs to get the bonus), so it depends whether Zargon considers the spell to be cast on all the Orcs the caster can see, or if the spell creates a field of effect that radiates from the caster.

Shield of Protection is also really good as is. See the discussion for Sharpen Blades above, as the same interpretation question applies.

Spirit of Vengeance is a unique spell that is very powerful. It's a 4AD attack and normal defense applies, but the caster doesn't need line of sight to the target or even have to be in the same room. It can literally target any hero or mercenary on the board. Many have compared this to the heroes' Genie spell, because the old UK version of Genie could also target any enemy on the board. The US version changed this to require line of sight, but I don't think the same change is necessary for Spirit of Vengeance, since it balances its range utility by having one less AD than Genie.

Summon Goblins and Summon Orcs are the trickiest ones to deal with. This version of the Summon Orcs spell only calls two Orcs, and they have to already be on the board in the caster's line of sight, which is not particularly useful. It's more like a "Move Orcs" spell. It would be more useful and consistent to replace this with the Summon Orcs spell from the US system, but that spell is much more powerful so we have to be careful about game balance. The US version of Summon Orcs has a 3/6 chance of summoning 4 Orcs, a 2/6 chance of 5 Orcs, and a 1/6 chance of 6 Orcs. In normal conditions this brings an average of 14AD worth of monsters to attack the heroes. The UK Summon Orcs only calls 6AD to the fight, so this is a pretty big difference. However, you might notice that the difference between these two values is 8AD, which is exactly the same as the four Goblins that the Summon Goblins spell can bring in. So the simplest way to balance this is to replace the Summon Orcs spell with the US version and just drop the Summon Goblins spell entirely. That is the approach I would recommend, though Zargon should be aware that it's not a perfect like-for-like substitution and the following points should be kept in mind.

• If this is the Lair of the Orc Shaman quest, the Orcs summoned will be more powerful than normal which is an imbalance to the substitution. However, that is not the only quest where this character appears, so I would focus on making sure the spells are balanced in general use.
• All the summoned monsters will also be subject to the other buff spells the Shaman/Warcaster can use, which was not true when some of them were Goblins.
• A smaller number of monsters with more AD is generally more difficult to defend against than a large number with less AD, though it also presents fewer targets that need to be killed.
• From a style/lore perspective, removing Summon Goblins does take away from the tendency of WH Orcs to "send the Gobbos in first."

[wallydubbs]

I think a fix for Cloak of Shadows would be to allow the spell caster to disperse the spell at any point. He has the power to create the spell, seems like he should have the ability to remove it. It's up to Zargon if this would require an action or not.

With Treasure Hoard my cousin cast it on a hero, who searched a room with a quest treasure in it. I just counted the quest note treasure as 1 card and had him draw 2 additional cards.

When it comes to Dispel, based on the name alone I allowed this spell several alternate uses: in addition to randomly discarding an enemy's spell; if a hero is afflicted with a Dread/Chaos spell, this spell will remove it; it may be used to disarm a magical trap (I allowed only Wizard's trap search to detect magical traps); or disarm magically sealed doors (my own implementation where heroes need to use a mind point roll to open certain doors). I understand wanting to give it the same use as the MotM Dread Spell, but that's what Potion of Magic Resistance is for.

Invisibility should have longevity, maybe based on the heroes mind points. I would allow it to encapsulate the Veil of Mist power too, but the difference is that a hero under Invisibility cannot catta k, while the hero with Veil of Mist can. If spells can interlap with Chains of Darkness/Tempest, Fire of Wrath/Ball of Flame it's reasonable to do the same with Invisibility and Veil of Mist. The "unseen" feature of Disappear, Invisibility and Veil of Mist suggests it. Veil of Mist just doesn't restrict another hero's action.
Personally, I feel if any of these spells require limitations on who can use what, Disappear should only be accessible to the Elf as it probably requires a constant sense of mental acuity to keep the spell active. Invisibility is just a trick to bend light.

A lot of these spells I've played with the utmost flexibility, which have opened up interesting scenarios: like Clairvoyance, I allowed the Wizard to look at the next card in the treasure deck when looking into a room. This was East Gate of Keller's Keep (my group's Wizard had a tendency to always use it on the middle room), so when he checked the middle room to see Dread Warriors and Fimirs, I pulled up the next Treasure Card to reveal a Magical Trap (Fire Burst).
In this same quest the Elf picked spells of Protection, thinking to use Dispel against Borrok. I also allowed Invisibility to allow the Invisible hero search options. So the heroes used the Fire Burst trap to their benefit, sending in the Invisible Dwarf to do a treasure search, trigging the Fire Bust trap while the other heroes blocked the doors, preventing the monsters from escaping. The Fire Burst didn't kill all the monsters in the room (only 2 Fimirs) but weakened the Dread Warriors enough for the heroes to get through the battle. It offers fun times that the heroes will potentially pull off once or twice a campaign, so I allowed it.

For the record, based on the wording of the Crown of Shadows, the hero wearing this artifact should be allowed to attack while inside it.
I think there was a rule amendment in Jungles of Delthrak allowing heroes to vary in turn order. Every hero gets 1 turn per round, but the order can change. I can see this benefitting Future Sight if allowed to cast on another hero.

In reading the Warcaster's spells, Shield of Protection would be rather nasty if it was a Wizards spell that could effect all heroes. I would've given this to heroes and just forget about Invisibility altogether.

[manaknight14]

Today I'll cover the spells for the Storm Master.


Blinding Sleet is a unique twist on the "miss a turn" family of spells. Given his theme, it almost feels criminal that the Storm Master doesn't have access to the Tempest spell, but the designers at the time probably wanted all of the evil wizards' spells to be new to the UK system and not include anything already represented in the elemental spells. Blinding Sleet feels like a cool substitute, affecting an entire room full of targets with the tradeoff of only allowing them to attack adjacent figures instead of allowing no actions at all. Personally I would probably allow for spells to be used as well, provided they only affect an adjacent target or the caster himself, but even as is this spell is pretty good.

Earthquake is a really nifty spell, inflicting a guaranteed 1BP of damage on everything in its path. Not even walls can stop it and it has the potential to modify the flow of the quest map which can lead to some creative scenarios. Great as is.

Hurricane is a spell that only serves to make an enemy character move somewhere. This does appear to have some uses, namely to push a hero away from the Storm Master. If used in a room the range of pushback has limits, so my guess is the intent would be to either hope that the hero is moved far enough that he doesn't get back to the Storm Master on his next move, or push him into a corner where other monsters can surround him. The more likely use case would be to push a hero down a hallway, but there this spell has an issue. It says the hero's movement can be stopped by another figure being in the way. Given how heroes tend to stack up at doors and in hallways, there is a high probably of Hurricane having little or no room to push a hero before it gets blocked. Meanwhile, this expansion also has a Hurricane trap which functions differently. These push all figures in their path back 8 squares, unless they hit a solid wall or a trap. The spell would have a lot more utility if it functioned like the trap in my opinion, because the Storm Master could use it to clear a doorway or other similar blockade. It also feels weird for an expansion to contain two Hurricane effects that work differently, so I would modify the Hurricane spell to work like its trap namesake.

Lightning Bolt requires a difficult conversation, because this is very different from the Lightning Bolt Dread spell in the standard US box. This one has a limited range (6 squares), and makes a 3AD attack roll which the targets get to defend against as usual, which has an expected damage output of 0.72. The US version has unlimited range and is an unblockable 2BP hit to everything in its path, which is way more powerful and a guaranteed kill to any mercenaries in the line of fire. Switching to the US version would be a big power jump (almost three times as strong as the Wizards of Morcar version), but if you have already been playing through other expansions in the updated game you will have already seen lots of other spellcasters using the beefier Lightning Bolt spell, and I feel like it would be an insult to the Storm Master to give him a nerfed version.

Thieving Wind is a spell that is probably fine as is, unless you want to refine what items it can and can't be used on. Could it be expanded beyond "equipment" items to include things like potions? Is it able to steal items currently being worn or in the user's hand, or is it limited like the Ice Gremlin's ability to steal is? In the extreme case, should artifacts be immune? I would certainly say yes to that last one. These details are probably just up to Zargon's discretion, and don't really require changing the spell itself.

Wall of Ice. Okay, now we get to a fun one. Like the Wall of Stone I discussed earlier, the standard version of this has 6DD and 1BP. In the UK system, this resulted in an obstacle that could survive an average of 5.3 attacks from heroes and mercenaries. The US version comes with a larger number of mercenaries including a more powerful crossbowman, so this reduces the Wall of Ice's expected survival time to 4.5 attacks. Is there a way to modify its stats to put it on the same par in the US system? It turns out the best way to do this is with the same change I proposed for Wall of Stone, giving it 5DD and 2BP. This makes its average lifetime 5.2 attacks, which is really really close to the original.
However, this spell also has another angle to consider. There is a similar spell in the Frozen Horror expansion called Ice Wall, but it works very differently. Rather than creating a single two-square wall object, it creates four individual squares of ice. The wording of how these ice blocks work is a bit vague. It says they block "movement" but not "line of sight." It also says it takes 5BP of damage to destroy them, but doesn't mention the wall having any defense against attacks. Is there any way to harmonize these two spells into something coherent? Using 0DD and 5BP has an expected lifetime of 3.6 attacks, which (to my surprise) is much weaker than the Wall of Ice from Wizards of Morcar. However, a big difference is that Ice Wall creates one-square objects that have to be destroyed individually, not a single object that takes up two squares. What if the Ice Wall squares also got 5DD, but only had 1BP because of their smaller size? It turns out that a 5DD/1BP square stands up to an average of 3.5 attacks, which is almost identical to the 0DD/5BP version. I think I like adopting this 5DD/1BP idea to Frozen Horror's Ice Wall, because it means that fire spells like Fire of Wrath and Ball of Flame are particularly useful against it, which is something I always felt was missing from the original rules. As for Ice Wall's line about line of sight, there are a couple of ways to take this. It certainly should mean that heroes can see what's on the other side of the wall due to its transparency, but it is a solid object so there is no way ranged weapons like crossbows should be able to pass through it. The question is whether or not this implies spells should be able to target figures on the other side of the wall. The Storm Master and Frozen Horror could exploit this to their advantage, but so could the heroes. This is probably up to Zargon to decide, but I think I like the idea of being able to fire spells through the Wall of Ice, if for no other reason than making it functionally different than the Wall of Stone.