Need help finding some house rule solutions

[mitchiemasha]

I have seen players get a bit bummed by how he progresses compared to the others.

Then that player has the wrong character... The wizard player should be too busy mulling over their use of spells to care, did they waste any, was that the best order, figuring out ways to implement them in the future, what to save, when not to save etc. Rather than being upset the others are choosing what weaponry to buy next. If they already know the character well, everything should be way into expansions by that point, not starting at the beginning.

[Stig]

My evil wizard deck, 168 cards in total:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m4fkz1rb32o3 ... 2wKaa?dl=0

I use a sand timer of 10 minutes, then the EWP draws a card. Stops the heroes messing around!

[Showdown35]

I'll throw a couple simple options out there for you. I play as Zargon, and these two little house rules have alleviated the issues you posed for my group surprisingly well!

Wizard - I allow spellcasters to attempt to "re-cast" a spell by rolling combat dice. I've given each spell a power level (1, 2, or 3) depending on its effect, and the Wizard must roll that number of combat dice. If any black shields are rolled, the re-cast fails. If none are rolled, the spell succeeds, but the Wizard loses a mind point for each skull rolled.
This has the bonus effect of making Mind Points have a little more function during gameplay. It offers a way for the Wizard to continue casting after his spells are gone, but makes it risky to re-cast the more powerful ones. My players tend to spam fire of wrath (level 1), which I think is just dandy, as it fits the fantasy theme of a fire slinging wizard, and gives him something to do later on in quests.

Threats for idle heroes - Very simple. Whenever I have a turn in which I have no monsters on the board, I get to roll one combat die. If I roll a black shield, a random "patrolling monster" enters the board, walking in from around a corner, or out of an unseen room. If I have 3 consecutive turns with no monsters to move, I roll 2 dice instead of one.
The threat of a patrolling Chaos Warrior really get my heroes moving and eager to explore quickly!

[ShadowHawk]

Thank you Showdown and Stig, both are options I'll explore.

[hightechartist]

The small tweak I made to the Wizard is that they have the ability to throw “magic darts”. These behave exactly like the thrown dagger piece of equipment, except they effectively have an unlimited amount that they don’t have to pay for.

I also have an artifact called the “Tome of Magic Missles” that upgrades their magic darts to the power of a crossbow. Saving that for if/when the Wizard seems to be struggling.

[lestodante]

I was thinking to make him able to launch unlimited fireballs but at the cost of 1 mind point each.
But only once he found the Flaming Staff, another custom artifact.

[Pancho]

I was thinking to make him able to launch unlimited fireballs but at the cost of 1 mind point each.
But only once he found the Flaming Staff, another custom artifact.

I did something similar, adding the staff to Kellar's Keep essentially giving the wizard a fiery missile weapon from that point on. Two combat dice per attack. I didn't think of adding the mind point cost, but I am seriously thinking about it after your post. Hmmm.

[hightechartist]

My only problem with unlimited fireballs is that it doesn’t make sense if the Wizard doesn’t have Fire as one of their schools, which is why I went with the element-neutral magic darts/missiles.

[lestodante]

Thats's why I sayd he must be equipped with the Flaming Staff (custom artifact card coming soon).
Also we could add a dice roll when he casts a fireball: on a result equal or higher than his actual Mind Points he will lost 1 MP. So the weaker is his mind, the more probabilty he can lose 1 more MP when shooting another fireball.
For example: at first he has the standard 6 MP, he uses the Flaming Staff to cast a fireball and only if he rolls a 6 he will lose 1 MP and will go to 5. The fireball is cast anyway.
When he has 4 MP and casts a fireball by using the staff he has 50% of possibility to lost another MP because on a roll of 4 , 5 or 6 he will lose one more MP.
If he has only 1 MP left he can't use the power of the Flaming Staff.
For obvious reasons, artifacts or amulets that increase MP will not be considered to pass the dice test (or we could let the Wizard roll 1d10 or 1d8 for the test if he has more than 6 MP).
What do you think?