Ye Olde Inn

by **Gold Bearer** » December 27th, 2015, 11:00 am

I made lesser versions of the wizards of Morcar so they can be used as non-boss type monsters and arranged a lot of the spells into groups of six to make different types of 'mancers'. I didn't use any of my spells for this because I want my custom content to be as modular as possible so it's not a complete clusterfcuk. This way people can use what they like without needing to refer to other rules. I can't believe how well the standard spells fit. It uses all the official spell groups though, from both versions.

Necromancer Fear renamed to Terror, storm master Lightning Bolt renamed to Lightning Blast, high mage Dispel, Escape and Rust renamed to Remove Spell, Teleport, Decay and mage of the mirror Mind Blast renamed to Mind Numb. Rust, Fear, Summon Orcs, Dispel, Escape and Lightning Bolt are from the chaos deck. If you're using my Talisman spells there's already a Lightning Bolt and Invisibility so you could rename the existing ones to Lightning Strike and Vanish.

If you don't want to use both the Remove Spells (there's two in wizards of Morcar) you could give the astromancer Treasure Hoard and let them discard any cards of the three, then reshuffle. Now I just need to find some nice spell card images for the backs.

Mancer M6 A1 D3 BP2 MP4 Three random spells.
Mancer Champion M6 A2 D4 BP3 MP5 Four random spells.
Master Mancer M6 A3 D5 BP4 MP6 Five random spells.
Mancer Lord M6 A4 D6 BP5 MP7 All six spells.

Geomancer Earth spells, Earthquake, Twist Wood and Wall Of Stone.
Airomancer Air spells, Hurricane, Lightning Blast and Thieving Wind.
Pyromancer Fire spells, Firestorm, Hypnotic Blaze and Wall Of Flame.
Hydromancer Water spells, Mirror Magic, Rust and Soothe.
Cryomancer Blinding Sleet, Chill, Ice Storm, Ice Wall, Mind Freeze and Wall Of Ice.
Psychomancer One of each chaos sorcerer spell token, Command, Fear and Madness.
Chronomancer Decay, Deep Sleep, Flashback, Future Sight, Slow and Timestop.
Biomancer Cloud Of Chaos, Restore Chaos, Shield Of Protection, Summon Orcs, Summon Wolves and Warewolf's Curse.
Astromancer Dispel, Escape, Lightning Bolt, Remove Spell, Skate and Teleport.
Nyctomancer Arrows Of The Night, Chains Of Darkness, Mind Numb, Spirit Of Vengeance, Summon Undead and Reanimation.
Phosphoromancer Cloak Of Shadows, Disappear, Double Image, Invisibility, Remove Spell and Strands Of Binding.

Necromancer M6 A1 D3 BP2 MP4 Three random necromancer spells.
Necromancer Champion M6 A2 D4 BP3 MP5 Four random necromancer spells.
Master Necromancer M6 A3 D5 BP4 MP6 Five random necromancer spells.
Necromancer Lord M6 A4 D6 BP5 MP7 All six necromancer spells.

Orc Shaman M8 A2 D2 BP2 MP4 Three random orc shaman spells.
Orc Shaman Champion M8 A3 D3 BP3 MP5 Four random orc shaman spells.
Orc Master Shaman M8 A4 D4 BP4 MP6 Five random orc shaman spells.
Orc Shaman Lord M8 A5 D5 BP5 MP7 All six orc shaman spells.

Storm Master M6 A3 D2 BP2 MP3 Three random storm master spells.
Storm Master Champion M6 A4 D3 BP3 MP4 Four random storm master spells.
Master Storm Master M6 A5 D4 BP4 MP5 Five random storm master spells.
Storm Master Lord M6 A6 D5 BP5 MP6 All six storm master spells.

High Mage M6 A2 D2 BP2 MP5 Three random high mage spells.
High Mage Champion M6 A3 D3 BP3 MP6 Four random high mage spells.
Master High Mage M6 A4 D4 BP4 MP7 Five random high mage spells.
High Mage Lord M6 A5 D5 BP5 MP8 All six high mage spells.

The lords have the official wizards of Morcar stats except I changed the movement of three of them so that they're compatible with my movement rules. With the new movement rates they're better balanced and more consistent with the other stuff anyway. In the official quests the orc shaman and storm master can move 7 and the high mage can move 5.

I'm putting them down as monsters but a mancer would make an interesting hero as well. You could just choose a type and stick with it or allow the player to change freely between quests or quest packs. I've also included some options for deciding randomly before every quest. I didn't use any necromancer spells if you want to include the necro.

Hero astromancers would be better with Treasure Hoard and Clairvoyance to replace Escape and the second Remove Spell. Escape doesn't work for heroes and this way there won't be a mancer with two useless spells if there's no monster magicians, and they fit the astromancer perfectly anyway.

For hero biomancers I'd probably change the number of summoned orcs to D3 instead of D3+3 and tone down the wolves (M12 A3 D1 BP1 MP1), give all the nyctomancer's summons 1BP and let the necromancer's summons defend on white instead of black shields to even them up a bit. Biomancers are very deadly as standard and necromancers are quite weak.

Mancer
M8/2D6 A1/ D2 BP5 MP5
All six spells of your type. Can't use ranged or two handed weapons other than a staff but can still throw. Can't use shields, helmets or heavy armour (armour that slows movement with the standard rules). Can use any items that the wizard can use. Starts with a dagger in my rules or a staff in the US rules so he/she can attack diagonally with one dice.

Veteran: Roll a combat dice when you cast a spell that you haven't cast this quest, on a white shield you can discard a different spell, on a black shield you can discard a different spell at the cost of 1MP.
Master: On a white shield you can discard a different spell or at the cost of 1MP no spell, on a black shield you can discard a different spell, on a skull you can discard a different spell at the cost of 1MP.
Legend: On a white shield you don't discard a spell, on a black shield you can discard a different spell or at the cost of 1MP no spell, on a skull you can discard a different spell.

Option 1: Player decides.

Option 2: Roll a dice to determine if the they're an elemental mancer (earth, air, fire, water and ice) or non-elemental mancer for the coming quest then roll again to determine which type, if you roll 1-3 followed by a 6 you can choose from any type.

Option 3: (With a necromancer.) Roll a dice to determine if the they're a necro/elemental mancer (earth, air, fire, water and ice) or non-elemental mancer for the coming quest then roll again to determine which type.

Option 4: (With a necromancer.) Roll two dice to determine if the they're a necro/elemental mancer (earth, air, fire, water and ice) or non-elemental mancer for the coming quest, one for the elemental mancers and one for the non-elemental mancers (whichever is highest), if both dice are a six then you can choose from any type, otherwise if both dice are the same score roll again to determine the mancer type an choose from those.

Option A: Decide a type and stick with it.

Option B: Decide before each quest pack.

Option C: Decide before each quest.

Alternate stats to make them more like the official necromancer:
M6/Lowest 2 of 3D6 A1 D3 BP5 MP7
Starts with bracers instead of a dagger/staff.

The equipment rules should work well. Fully tooled up would be chainmail, bracers, cloak of protection, broadsword and staff, or Borin's armour, bracers, cloak of protection, spirit blade and staff with the quest treasures.

Other than Escape there shouldn't be any problems using EWP spells for heroes. Deep Sleep, Terror, Madness, Warewolf's Curse and any spell that includes a mind test probably shouldn't affect 0MP undead. Maybe Deep Sleep, Fear, Terror, Madness and Warewolf's Curse shouldn't affect any undead. This would make psychomancers next to useless in undead themed quests or a pack like return of the witch lord so I'd reroll or change that result to letting them choose for those quests if you're deciding randomly. Reanimated undead should be controlled by the player as if they'd been summoned. You'll need to decide what equipment monsters have and what their stats would be without it for Decay, Rust, Thieving Wind and Twist Wood. You have to do that in the elf quest pack anyway, I don't think it gives full rules for Twist Wood.

These rules could be used for the elf as well (three random spells) or a new hero, an adept. You could allow them to change any spells from the first draw for random replacements. These could also make good mercenaries.

To be perfect, it would just need renaming of the spells to their original naming, so that it is usable with the original Heroquest cards,
And then each of them needs an entourage in order not to be a one turn kill.

I wouldn't leave this to the questmaker as it is here where the failures are happening. If you deliver each of them with their group, let's say, one questimator line, then you have something that someone can reuse without thinking.

by **Gold Bearer** » December 28th, 2015, 2:37 pm

Anderas wrote:To be perfect, it would just need renaming of the spells to their original naming, so that it is usable with the original Heroquest cards,

But there's two different Fears, Summon Orcs, Escapes, Rusts, Lightning Bolts, Dispels and Mind Blasts because it uses both versions. I renamed them so the player will know which ones to use.

Anderas wrote:And then each of them needs an entourage in order not to be a one turn kill.

I wouldn't leave this to the questmaker as it is here where the failures are happening. If you deliver each of them with their group, let's say, one questimator line, then you have something that someone can reuse without thinking.

I could give them a suggested group I suppose but to add variety I'd need to include my custom monsters and I want to keep everything separate. That's up to the quest maker anyway.

I think I'm going to create a new evil human faction, along the lines of the Zhentrim in D&D. I've got some other monsters that could be used for that as well. I'll give the high mage and storm master to chaos.

by **Anderas** » December 28th, 2015, 3:30 pm

Ah so here's the problem. If you state fear, i'd go to my own system and use the spell from there. So no two versions available here.

At least I can reuse one name. The Name Nyctomancer was new to me.

by **Gold Bearer** » December 28th, 2015, 4:08 pm

I changed round the spell names slightly to make it simpler. There's less changes now and the listed ones that have a standard EU one with the same name are all from the chaos deck.