Ye Olde Inn

I read this suggestion somewhere, But don't think much of it. The other characters may not be able to move far enough to defend the wiz. I prefer barbarian,dwarf, elf, then wiz. Anyone see an advantage to wiz first with clear line of sight for spell casting? First to step in a trap(with fewest body points.)

Systemic Necrosis wrote:I read this suggestion somewhere, But don't think much of it. The other characters may not be able to move far enough to defend the wiz. I prefer barbarian,dwarf, elf, then wiz. Anyone see an advantage to wiz first with clear line of sight for spell casting? First to step in a trap(with fewest body points.)

I prefer the Wizard first. The trap thing shouldn't be a problem as long as the party is doing thorough searching. The issue with the Wizard going last: most of the monsters get killed before his turn, making playing the Wizard pretty boring. He ends up only using his healing spells on the other heroes and is a support character at best.

Putting the Wizard out first lets him have a chance to shine. If played correctly, he can be a pretty potent killing machine. The Wizard has some pretty effective attack spells if he's allowed to use them. Can't play him conservatively, holding the big spells for the boss fight. There might not even be a boss fight in the quest, or if there is, the Wizard may not get more than 1 shot at the boss before it's defeated. I've seen too many times of a Wizard completing a quest with most of his spells left. If used properly he'll finish with 1 or 2 left. Daggers/Magical Throwing Daggers come in handy for those distant monsters.

The Wizard going first isn’t a terrible idea, but being the first one to step into a room (particularly if there is a trap on the other side of the door) is potentially a problem. You can’t search for traps in a room unless you are in the room first, and if monsters are in the room, you can’t search at all. If the Wizard opens the door and then casts a spell without going in, I could see this working. This type of tactic works better with the Warlock, or any Crossbow wielding Hero in my opinion.

I feel the Wizard going second or third in order is optimal. The Wizard can only cast spells at targets in his line of sight. Of the 12 base spells, 5 are attacking spells, and 7 are support spells. The Wizard gets 9 of these spells. In a lot of cases, if the Wizard is first, the only Hero in the Wizard’s line of sight is directly behind him. If someone else (with more Body Points) charges into the room first, the Wizard can assess the situation and act accordingly. He can blast a monster, buff a fellow Hero (the ones in the room or behind him), move in and attack from a safe position, or whatever else he chooses to do.

I'm never sure with these types of conversations whether we are discussing the "fighting order" of the heroes, i.e. the order of who leads and who follows, or the "turn order" as they don't have to be the same thing, for example the Wizard could go first in the turn order, so his spells take effect on his fellow heroes before the EWPs turn, and he avoids the double attack penalty for searching, but still remain behind his companions...

I took it as turn order, but that's also a good point. The original booklet suggests turn order basically greatest to least body points, which I think a lot of people just assume without question (much how for years our group never had the Elf pick anything but the Earth spells)... and it often also translates to them pushing into rooms in that order as well (but need not always be the case!), if they are keeping in mind the stronger emphasis of the NA/remake edition on the heroes working together as a team, rather than as casual rivals as the EU editions lay out (at least at first).