by wallydubbs » February 13th, 2020, 11:26 am
Theoretically all the heroes are equal, but the Wizard is a bit different: he's severely handicapped because he cannot buy many things from the armory, but he can cast spells, which other heroes are limited by comparison. But by grading what the heroes can do in equal measure we can find a suitable price for spells. Spells take up the majority of the artifacts in Keller's Keep and Return of the Witch Lord.
If we're being generous to Mind Points we can say both body and mind points are worth 150 gold each. Combined all heroes add up to 10. This leaves the Wizard with his spells and the heroes with their armor and weapons. Not taking into account artifacts we have a hero with a Helmet (125 gold), plate mail (850 gold), a shield (125 gold), a long sword (350 gold), and perhaps a secondary weapon, which we'll say is a crossbow (350 gold) add that up and we have 1,800. If the heroes are indeed all equal, we can say to a certain degree this is what 9 spells are worth.
However not all spells should be worth the same. There's a top tier spell in each group (Genie, Heal Body, Courage and Water of Healing), a middle one that's not as powerful but still useful (Tempest, Rock Skin, Ball of Flame and Sleep) and a bottom tier (Swift Wind, Pass Through Rock, Fire of Wrath and Veil of Mist).
1800 ÷ 9 = 200. Middle tier is worth 200, bottom tier we'll say 100, 300 for top tier.
So for Keller's Keep artifacts we have:
Spell Scroll Ball of Flame- 200 gold
Spell Scroll Courage- 300 gold
Spell Scroll Fire of Wrath- 100 gold
Spell Scroll Genie- 300 gold
Spell Scroll Heal Body- 300
Spell Scroll Sleep- 200 gold
Spell Scroll Tempest- 200 gold
This, of course, is not perfect, as if a body point is truly worth 150 gold, Heal Body should be 600 in value. However Heal Body costs an action to use and can't normally be used to save a hero that just reached 0 body points.
Fire Ring- 200 gold
Reason- you can only use it twice and only on fire spells. With a little bit of luck you can escape a Fireburst trap and Ball of Flame unscathed. So the only sure way to avoid damage is in use against a Firestorm spells. But there really aren't that many spells you can use this against. So it's of very limited use.
Magical Throwing Dagger- 200 gold
Reason- it's an automatic one hit if thrown, but I imagine you can try stabbing with it as well. At maximized effect a Genie can make 5 hits, but it also has the unlikely potential to flop. Enemies also have the ability to defend. This negates that, but only gives one damage. So it's an instant kill for small monsters, but not entirely effective against big ones.