Advice for Dealing with Problem Players?

[sajungzak]

I was thinking about ways to beef up the wizard and it occurred to me, why don't you force the players to switch heroes between quests?
Get them on a rotation.
Plus, it might make losing a hero more palatable.
Obviously all heroes are not created equal. Sharing is the only fair way to to get all the players on the same level.
Hopefully, it will weaken their attachment to their characters without effecting their passion for advancing the game.

[Daedalus]

...The past two games, I feel like one of my players has had a serious beef with the way I run the game! I don't know if this is all about something else, but I wanted to share my experience here. He's currently playing as the Wizard....

I got to this thread late, but reading the underscored line made me go "Uh-oh." Lots of good contributions here and it seems you've solved your problem. Remember, changing back to the Barbarian is also a good solution.

[Bob-Bob]

Given the current subject of how to make the Wizard more powerful, I thought I'd add a suggestion:

Use the "beginner" and "intermediate" spells from the Japanese release. You see, that version of the game didn't let the Wizard use the regular spell cards until the "advanced" chapter of the game (Quests 9-14), while during the "beginner" chapter (Quests 1-3) he has access to a very rudimentary spell called "First Aid", and during the "intermediate" chapter (Quests 4-8) he and the Elf can use two more spells called "Heal" and "Holy Flame". These spells are not represented by cards, but are described on the back of the Elf and Wizard's character boards.

'First Aid' simply recovers 1 BP and can be used infinitely.

'Heal' = Roll 4 combat dice and recover BP equal to the number of white shields rolled. This too can be used infinitely.

'Holy Flame' = Roll 2 combat dice and deal damage equal to the number of skulls rolled. The target rolls defense dice equal to their MP. The Japanese rules specifically mention that this spell is very useful for undead monsters (Skeletons, Zombies and Mummies) since they have 0 MP. Once again, this can be used infinitely.

The key point in all of these is that they are slightly weaker versions of existing spells, but can also be used as many times as the Wizard player wants. I figure if at any point the Wizard runs out of regular spells, they could have these to fall back on. Then again, the Japanese rules also gave the Wand of Recall a different effect: Rather than simply allowing the Wizard to fire 2 spells, it lets him use any spell infinitely! Some of you might that think that's a little overpowered, but it seems to me the Japanese localisers really wanted to beef up the Wizard/make the game easier for the hero players overall.