Advice for Dealing with Problem Players?

[slev]

Quick thought on door only the Wizard can open: Magic portals (like Castle of Mystery), there are custom-made standees for this.

The link from one side of teh board to another is this portal. To open it, a character must roll. Either make it the opposite of Stone Doors from AtOH (3CD wiz, 2 for Elf & Dwarf), needing 2 Skulls to open, or make it like the US Portcullis (2D6, current MP or less).

Before it is opened, it is shown as a close portal standee. Once the party (probably the Wizard) open it, replace it with teh active and have done.

[cynthialee]

I have noticed over the years that even if the Wizard is powerful and can hold his own the player will tend to sandbag on the spells for 'just in case'. By the time the heroes get to endgame the mage is still flush with spells.
What I have seen as a pattern:
First couple of fights the big guy and midget take out the monsters as the group is smart enough to be in some semblance of a formation. Maybe one of the fighters is hurt but not bad enough to heal and the party is worried about the future events so spells are reserved for later.
As the dice are not always friendly and exploring happens the formation is totally messed up a few turns in, perhaps the group is even separated by now. The spook and ol' pointy ears get into melee without the 2 fighters eventually. Or if the movement dice are really rude, the spook is alone when he is jumped by a greenskin. If the mage does not die then the healing spells are used to heal his sorry but.
Now the group or remainder resolve to regroup and travel on.
Formation holds for a turn or two then the heroes encounter another fight. Warriors dispatch the bad guys and the spook probably throws a damage dealing spell as he feels kind of guilty about being so useless. But he knows if he can just find the end boss, he will melt that dudes face in a flurry of arcane wrath. Right about now he probably wants to unleash that wrath on the midget.
So they either split up the party due to ego issues or the ego issues are resolved enough to get over it, they reform and soldier on. If they split up they die. They finally find the end boss, the midget and the big guy storm in and deal some heavy damage. The spook is thinking 'YES My time to shine is here'! But it turns out he either can not get a good line of sight or worse he fires off his most powerful spell to have it just come short of killing the boss. Now Mr. pointy ear waltzes in and sends his one really good damage spell downrange at the softened up boss and the boss dies.
The spook still has a handful of spells in hand and his moment of glory was stolen by the pointy eared dude.

Or the spook is played by a player who doesn't understand the need to be selective of spell use and by the time they are halfway through the dungeon the mage is left with a single spell in hand that he has found no use for. Now the spook is just running around and dagger stabbing greenskins and hoping for the best. The other 'Dupes of Mentor' are left scrounging their gear for any spare scrolls, and potions in a hope to keep the spent spook alive and maybe armed for the end boss. They yell at the dude for wasting spells and admonish him to save the scrolls for the end boss. When they get to the end boss the spook doesn't realize it and he keeps doing simple dagger strikes. By the time they get the spooks attention to the fact this is the endgame room and they have him on board to finally cast that scroll the midget gave him, the big guy gets in a deadly blow and the spook is left holding that one good thing that could have shortened the battle substantially.

Scenarios by Cyndi

[GimmeYerGold]

haha nice scenario!

So, in your observation, playing as the Wizard means "damned if you do, damned if you don't?"

[cynthialee]

haha nice scenario!

So, in your observation, playing as the Wizard means "damned if you do, damned if you don't?"

It does seem so.
As the Wizard Player has no idea how big a dungeon is and how many monsters he will encounter he is forced into being selective with magic.
The foolish Wizard Player will not understand this and will just willy-nilly cast spells and deplete far to soon.

It is difficult to play the Wizard (especially in larger dungeons) and be truly effective for the group.

There have been a large number of proposed fixes via house rules over the years. Some of the fixes work somewhat and others work too well turning the mage into a demi-god.

A new one just came to mind as I am typing:
If the Wizard player casts a damage dealing spell and the spell out right kills the enemy the spell is retained. If the spell fails to deliver a death blow, the spell is lost. My idea being that the Wizard captures some of the life essence of the dead guy in that moment and it is enough energy to refresh the mages arcane power.

[torilen]

I'll make a suggestion here that a lot of people probably will not like a lot, but it could work.
I might suggest you add in some actual role playing to the game. I know...I know...it's a board game
and that's how you like to play it. I think it the players use their heroes as actual characters, they
might have more fun, even if they aren't the most powerful character in the game. Give them
personal goals, give them personalities...give them small special skills that only they can do
(as the dwarf is typically the one taking care of traps and picking locks).
Maybe it is just me personally...I don't know...but when I was playing D&D often, my character was
almost always one of the more underpowered in the game. I created characters to be just that...real
characters. I didn't focus on making a monster that would be perfect in every combat situation. And so,
sometimes, my character wasn't all that useful. I made him useful. If I couldn't make him useful, then
I simply played the character and his personality to the best of my abilities.
That, in and of itself, was a lot of fun.

Also...
I would see it as your job as the GM to make sure that the wizard can use all of his spells throughout the
game. If you want, post a list of the spells that are typically left at the end of the game, and we can
help you figure out ways for the wizard to use them...interesting and unique ways that might not always
involve direct combat.

[cynthialee]

Well imagining the Mage is spiffy awesome is not really a fix.

And being stuck with spells at the end of the game typically is a result of being overly conservative with spells not a failure to find use of them. When you do not know how far you have to stretch your spells it can lead to being selective in the application of ones spells. Thus it is not unreasonable that the mage ends the game with spells unused.

[cornixt]

The thing is that spells are a limited resource, while fighting and disarming traps are not. So the big defining feature of the Wizard is something where the player has to judge whether to use it up or not - then he gets bashed for either wasting it on using it trivially or wasting it by saving it for an event that never comes. It makes him a much harder character to play than "Barbarian smash!". That's why I think a number of reusable spells makes him more part of the group - he can help out at any stage.

[knightkrawler]

You could always double up the more mundane spells, split all spells up into single cards and then let the Wizard choose 9, the Elf 3.
It is basically what I've done for my four different spellcasters. Each has a deck (some individual spells are shared by one or more decks) of 16 spells, from which before each quest he must discard 4. This is not playtested yet, but it offers the chance to pick, let's say, 2 Balls of Flame or - crucially - 2 Pass Through Rock.
In theory, as cornixt said, this can make the Wizard player more adventurous and vital to the group.

[mitchiemasha]

So the big defining feature of the Wizard is something where the player has to judge whether to use it up or not.

When i recently got back into HQ, i played the wizard for the first time and realised that's what makes him so good to play. Those added choices make for a more to the game experience.

[knightkrawler]

Did I mention that I changed Line of sight for spellcasting?
Any one figure can be your target as long as it's in the same room or corridor section as you. I seperated this LoS from the ranged attacks' LoS.
It makes the wizard better, more important, more flexible, and it practically makes the player use more spells, at least in theory.

I see the point in keeping the wiz out of the fracas whenever possible, b ut where's the upside to that if he can't do anything?
It might be the main reason for some wiz players not using spells: because they freakin' can't, as the barb stands between him and the monster to protect him in the first place.