If I were to make the perfect dungeon board game, I would...

[Goblin-King]

Not a bad idea as such, but not without problems.
It promotes time wasting:
Better charge fully up before moving on - waste 6 rounds...
See monster, keep running to charge up...

You could add some conditions to prevent abuse, but then we are quickly making it too complex.

[Big Bene]

I'd say, give the mage a certain amount of "mana" (or whatever).
Example:
A beginner wizard has 50 mana at the start of each quest, and gains 5 more points of starting mana with each experience level.
A beginner elf starts with 30 mana and gains 3 per level.

You can use tokens (glass crystals, cards, cardboard counters, whatever) for this or just note it on the character sheet.
Each spell costs a certain amount of mana.
The wizard can regain mana only between quests.
If the game has an advancement system, the starting mana increases as the wizard becomes more experienced.

As long as you have enough mana, you can cast the spell (even the same spell more than once).
That should be all rules there are for magic.
More complicated rules, like "cool down", or a test for the spell to work, can still be used, but should be restricted to special spells as part of the spell description.

[slev]

Based on the last two posts:
A certain ammount of mana to start with.
Gain additional mana each turn in which there are Monsters on the board.
Can burn MP for more mana.

[Goblin-King]

And I just realize; a huge problem with reusable spells are the healing spells.
They are without doubt the most powerful spells in the game! Being able to heal again and again changes the game at it's core.

[Big Bene]

The healing spells are the most powerful ones of HeroQuest, but we are not talking about Heroquest here. Every aspect of the "perfect" Dungeoncrawler we imagine here can be as close to or as far from HQ as we like.
Then again, even if the healing spells are still the most powerful, they just have to be also the most expensive.

[slev]

Healing will have an oppertunity/resourse cost. What that cost is sets the level of healing available within the system, which sets the amount of damage needed to present a challenge.

[Anderas]

I never would give the wizard a fully charged magazine of 50 points to spend in the beginning. It forces ak47 behavior. Save it until it is important, then empty the full magazine in a second.

One point per round to a maximum of 5 would be equally good like the cool down time. Add additional penalties for healing, djinn and other strong spells and you are there. Healing for example could cost the action not only of the Wizard but also of the target, and then it could be one use only. These kinds of balancing penalties are easy to implement.

But yes, you definetely need some mechanism to prevent recharge waiting behavior. Draw a evil wizard card each turn there is no Monster in line of sight, for example. They could have an incredible amount of wandering monsters and traps and such included.

[Goblin-King]

The healing spells are the most powerful ones of HeroQuest, but we are not talking about Heroquest here.

Oh yeah, you are right! Guess I was a little dizzy; lot's of interesting discussions going on in different threads these days

BUT... A "mana-magazine" only really stretches the problem of the wizard wanting to save enough ammo for the boss battle that may or may not come.

[The Road Warrior]

In WQ you roll a die each round to determine the amount of spell power you have available.
That's not bad. The wizard is powerful, but also unpredictable in power level.

For a long time the Bright Wizard was my favourite Hero in the WHQ app. I really like this magic system and have been thinking about how to change HQ magic to something similar to this. The healing spells are the real problem but...

And I just realize; a huge problem with reusable spells are the healing spells.

... you already know that

The healing spells are the most powerful ones of HeroQuest, but we are not talking about Heroquest here. Every aspect of the "perfect" Dungeoncrawler we imagine here can be as close to or as far from HQ as we like.
Then again, even if the healing spells are still the most powerful, they just have to be also the most expensive.

So my perfect Dungeoncrawler has:

• a WHQ style magic system
• a HQ style combat system - quick and easy. I don't want to roll three sets of dice every time I attack something.
• Random movement - this is being discussed somewhere else. I would favour d6 + modifier for each character
• a Roleplay-lite town system for inbetween quests - I mentioned this earlier. I want to see what happens to my Hero outside of the dungeon

I'm undecided on modular tiles vs gameboard. I think the HQ board is far more flexible than some people give it credit for.

I definitely prefer written quests to randomly generated ones. But a randomly generated system does lend itself to much more re-playability. Has this been discussed yet

[Schmidt]

Just move the boxes then you don't need to take out the cards and put it into another box.

Actually, that way i could become friends with the concept of cool down time. The stronger a spell is, the less often you may use it. I like it.
You may need a mechanism to prevent that the group is waiting rounds and rounds for the wizard to cool down. What do you do there?

I think the kick of the Barbarian is overpowered. Monsters shouldn't lose BP through kicking.

You must be imagining a wooden box or something, but it's just a rectangle on a piece of paper.