Ye Olde Inn

by **slev** » Tuesday August 18th, 2015 4:03pm

My concept was that Gem of Focus was for anyone, the Energy Jewel was Wizard only.
Since it only allows replenishment up to the MP limit, it's more beneficial in the hands of the Wizard.

The Energy Jewel (or Jewels), exists to allow the Wizard to cast several Spells in short order, but not all the time, since they're once per Quest, and ideally expensive. Being Wizard only, it sets the Wizard above the Elf in terms of magical power.

If you need an extra boost for the Wizard, you could add a further Wizard-only item to allow faster regain, but in that case, you'd likley want to trim the heals back on potency.

So if I am reading the Talisman of Renewal correctly, it only requires a Cast action to use, as compared to a nondescript action for the Gem of Focus, which means that with the Wand of Magic (rebranded to the "Forked Wand" in AlterQuest) the Wizard could use this twice in one turn to regenerate 2 Power in a turn, yes?

Also, I talked with my brother again about your two items from the previous page, and he apparently likes them. Which leads me to decide: the potential for infinite magic is only broken if the players decide to abuse their privileges and loaf around every door before opening it. One fix for that would be to use Evil Wizard cards or similar; the proper fix is for the players not to break the game over their knee, of course, but you can't always control that.

...Now I need to tinker with the Control spell Recall; it's inferior to the Talisman of Renewal / Gem of Focus in its current form if cast on the user. How about I replace it with...?

AEther Mastery

by **Anderas** » Wednesday August 19th, 2015 1:15am

I am now half through your immense Spellbook.

I must confess, this is a lot. Depending of the age of my fellow players, i would have to reduce the number of spells greatly; or the thinking pause will take forever each turn. But at least there is always something more to throw into the game if it gets boring otherwise.

I have seen more than one effect which must be a one-off.
If Monsters miss their action, miss their turn, are not allowed to move, reduce their defense to zero, cannot use magic: These are effects that can be ok one time; but not several times. Generally speaking, each and every effect that blocks the other player from playing must be limited; otherwise the danger is that only one of the two sides gets to play. Imagine the Fire Mage Balur's Quest: There is nearly nothing except the Fire Mage. If you have the spells to block Balur from doing anything for several turns, then there is nothing left in the quest at all.

So for our brainstorming here and in other threads; generally, this set of spells is useable as one-off magic: Each spell can be used once and may not be reused.

A System that allows for unlimited spellcasting must take into account that the game shall continue, no matter which side uses the spells. So either one adapts his quests to the spell system (If Balur is not alone, but in reality he is a Team of 3 Fire Mages, then it is ok to block out one of them completely) or these spells must be so difficult to cast that it really hurts the wizard. He could have little chance to cast 4-point spells, except if he invests mind points to reroll dice, for example. Then it becomes exhausting, and at some point dangerous to cast the 4-point-spells more than one time during a fight.

In general, i found spells in each spell group that i really like. The new Fire of Wrath and Fireball spells for example attack with black dice and have no defense roll. In total their strength remains the same - but i guess they are faster to play, because the dice rolling is taking place at the correct person, and they have more flavor as the dice involved are combat dice instead of movement dice.

by **slev** » Wednesday August 19th, 2015 2:02am

Count Mohawk wrote:So if I am reading the Talisman of Renewal correctly, it only requires a Cast action to use, as compared to a nondescript action for the Gem of Focus, which means that with the Wand of Magic (rebranded to the "Forked Wand" in AlterQuest) the Wizard could use this twice in one turn to regenerate 2 Power in a turn, yes?

You could have the Wizard gain two power if they cast no Spells, yes. You could change the Talisman so you regain 1 PP if you cast no Spells instead.

Also, to make sure I'm clear, the Energy Jewel's concept is something expansive the Wizard can buy more of.

Also, long-term upgrade options:

Tomb of Inspiration
At the start of each Quest, place Power on this card equal to your starting Power. You may spend this power as if it where your own. The Power on this card may not exceed this starting amount.
As a cast action, you may spend two Power to add one Power to this card.
If you lose this card, you lose the Power with it.
Wizard Only

Ring of Nature
The maximum Power you may keep is now your starting Mind plus two, rather than your Current Power.
If you lose this card, you lose any power in excess of your current MP.
Elf Only

by **Count Mohawk** » Wednesday August 19th, 2015 3:37pm

Anderas wrote:I must confess, this is a lot. Depending of the age of my fellow players, i would have to reduce the number of spells greatly; or the thinking pause will take forever each turn. But at least there is always something more to throw into the game if it gets boring otherwise.
-Snip-
So for our brainstorming here and in other threads; generally, this set of spells is useable as one-off magic: Each spell can be used once and may not be reused.

I have determined you are right and you are wrong.

Let's start with how you are right. When I first laid out this set of cards, my original idea was to allow the Heroes to take a selection of spells from the pool of 9 cards and just cast those throughout the Quest. I've been attempting to evolve the project into a much more diverse system, by which the Wizard not only can, but is actively encouraged to really throw his metaphysical weight around, but through your (and others') analysis it has become clear that there are too many problems right now with allowing that much freedom in spell choice. Stunlocking and heal-spamming are just the two most egregious ones.

So for the moment, I am going to regress the rules back from a mana-based system, as Big Bene put it, into a card-based system, albeit still more advanced than the official base system's rules. The Wizard will be able to choose a selection of spell cards from each of his spell groups, but he will only be able to cast each spell card once (Recall shenanigans notwithstanding). This will neatly solve all the issues we've been having by restricting the number of times he can cast any specific spell effect. For example, to stun a monster for two turns would require taking both the Air and Darkness spell groups and casting Tempest and Chains of Darkness back-to-back. I will be editing the first post, and the cards themselves, to reflect this change. I think you will also find this change to be of some use with your lower-speed decision makers, Anderas.

However, I still think it is possible to make a mana-based system of spellcasting work for the Wizard. Slev, your work has been very helpful in producing some ideas in this vein. I may choose to make a new thread when I have something more concrete down on paper, probably titled "Infinite Wizardry" if so. I intend to playtest both styles of Wizard against the HQR version of "Against the Ogre Horde" to see how they stack up.

by **slev** » Wednesday August 19th, 2015 4:51pm

I was actually thinking on Elf/Wizard differences today, and it reminded me of the WHQ rebuild I playtested last year.

The Witchunter had priest spells, each averaging 1 power to cast, and started easch quest with 8 power.

Meanwhile, the Bright Wizard's pyromancy spells cost an average of 2.5 power. He started with 4, and each turn, had access to a random amount (average of 4) power to use or lose that turn. Plus, he could spend a whole turn meditating and on a successful test, regain some power.

The priest had more combat skills, and so used his power strategically, while with a constant flow of power, the Wizard used his magic tactically and constantly, making attacks of opportunity where possible.

For Heroquest, the Elf should work like the above witch-hunter, whole the Wizard works like the, err, wizard.

The problem is that certain Spells NEED to be limited, so as to not break the game. Meanwhile, some other Spells need to be unlimited, or the Wizard's problems shine.

What you need is a selection of burn-to-use spells and a selection of unlimited use Spells.

That's why I created extra equipment and the Cantrips group for the Wizard in my advanced game.

by **Count Mohawk** » Tuesday August 25th, 2015 1:24pm

slev wrote:The problem is that certain Spells NEED to be limited, so as to not break the game. Meanwhile, some other Spells need to be unlimited, or the Wizard's problems shine.

What you need is a selection of burn-to-use spells and a selection of unlimited use Spells.

That's why I created extra equipment and the Cantrips group for the Wizard in my advanced game.

I updated the first post. I took another crack at rebalancing everything around the idea of allowing the Wizard to potentially cast an unlimited amount of magic, given an unlimited amount of time to regenerate his spell power. Your suggestion of having some spells be one-use-only was very helpful.

Edit 5:16PM: Added a Rules and FAQs download to the first post, which includes instructions on how a Wizard improves his mastery of the elements and philosophies.

by **slev** » Tuesday August 25th, 2015 3:56pm

Looking good!

Only things not covered are what ranks of mastery the various Heroes start as?

by **Daedalus** » Wednesday October 14th, 2015 4:21pm

Count Mohawk wrote:...while others are unique to the Scroll deck:

It appears you need to rename either the Scroll Deck Card or the Spell Scroll Card so they match.

Count Mohawk wrote:Now for some new thoughts! First: Although I (and others) love the artwork I produced for each of the 72 Spell cards, it occurs to me that a max-level Wizard would be fumbling with literally half the deck in front of him. Thus, shortcut cards!

You can keep the Spell cards themselves around to reference the full text, but I think it's much easier to only have to check three or four cards than as many as 36. The above piece of work is 3.75" x 5", which means you can very easily fit four of them on an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock, and with bleed besides. (I haven't decided what should go on the back yet.)

I'd say an abridged version of your Expanded Magic--Magic Selection Rules printed on the back for reference would be useful.