Spells cost $?

[burglekutt]

Its overwhelming how many spells fans have made over the years and rarely is it brought up how having to many cards in your hand to sift through would be a nuisance, especially for a 8 or 12 year old kid trying to play.
So I suggest no more than 12 or 15 cards that can be duplicated with cash ie $50 for a token you place on that card indicating you can use that spell a second time. You can buy as many tokens as you can afford per quest & any unused tokens disappear at the end of that quest forcing the hero to buy more tokens each game. (Money sink)

These spells would be different than the originals & a lot less powerful in most cases.
Here's a basic list I came up with:

Courage = Gives a hero a plus +1 Att Die with melee weapons for two rounds.
Rock Skin = Gives a plus +1 Def Die for two rounds.
Swift Wind = plus +1 Movement Die.
Command = Two rounds maximum for control of a monster.
Pass through rock = Pass in & out through the same wall once?
Tempest, Genie = these spells need some work.
Ball of Flame = $40?
Sleep = $75?

Now here's the difficult part is deciding what type's of spells we need. I suggest a spell that does the opposite of Courage & Rock Skin to a monster by taking away one Attack or Defend Die from a monster. None of these spells can be cast on the same monster twice or are at least not cumulative.

Sap Strength = minus -1 Attack or Defense from a monster for two rounds.

All other spells would be a bonus to have and would be similarly designed so that they're not to powerful and cost money each quest.

I hope I'm making sense that you don't really need a bunch of spell cards in front of you to cover the basic mechanics of the game which is a pretty small list.
Movement = Spell that gives to a hero or takes from a monster.
Attack/ Defense = Again to give to heros or take from monsters.
Health = Again same thing.

So the Wizard really only needs 3 spells that cover these categories if you were trying to be minimalist.

Give/ Take Movement =
Give/ Take Att or Def =
Give/ Take Health =

Just saying that no matter how exotic of a name you give your spells, they really could simply be narrowed down to just these three lol.


Just thought this would make an interesting conversation about a money sink. Someone years ago thought this up so I thought I'd bring the subject up again.

[mukami]

Maybe instead of them being actual spells, they are scrolls the wizard has to spend gold to make. For example, A scroll of magic missile would cost roughly 50-100g and would do 1bp of damage or the Courage spell you described would cost 100g to create the scroll and work the same way as you described. The scrolls wouldn't disappear at the end of each quest, but you could limit the number carried, make them destructible (fire damage), and able to be stolen. This way it is a sound investment for the wizard player and gives them a little bit of a boost in later games without making the player op'd.

[burglekutt]

Maybe instead of them being actual spells, they are scrolls the wizard has to spend gold to make.

Absolutely agree that scrolls work good as spells. A one shot use.
Later a player might pay $ to go to the wizards imperial academy/school and trade out spells/scrolls.
Whatever the player feels more comfortable with using each quest over time.

Maybe he's a full on attack Wizard with one Heal Spell & TEN Ball of Flames scrolls...so what, he gets to use ONE roughly once per room and even those have a chance of missing! Doesn't sound as powerful as we think it sounds.
And I think the Wizard should be able to use at least TWO Spells per room minimum in my opinion.