buffing the wizard

[Ethica]

im going home to visit my parents this weekend, if i venture up into the loft, i may, just may be able to find my copy of heroquest (plus rotwl, KK, wom & Atoh) which i seem to remember putting in a fairly protective plastic box. hopefully i wont need pass through rock though...

Hold on.. You've been on the forum for over a year and you still have WoM in your parents loft! What's going on?

[Tott]

no one to play it with.
so wonewy. oh so wonewy.

[tasoe]

The rules I use to help the wizard out a little (and the whole group ultimately) are these: some of the spells do NOT count as an action. But they may be combined only with an attack on the same turn and not with another spell. Example: a wizard gets cornered by a group of monsters, he cast courage on himself and attack on the same turn. This means he doesn't lose a whole turn just to activate this spell. On the next turn he also activates rock skin and continues to fight.
I think its pretty logical to include all the activation spells on this list and not the casting spells which still count as an action (genie, ball of flame, sleep...).
My only problem is on the 2 healing spells. So far I'm counting them as an action but still sometimes it feels like I'm wasting a turn to cast them when I could cast them on the end of the fight (that is if the patient survives the fight). It goes without saying that you can't cast more than one activation spells on the same turn.

[Tott]

i tried out an online game called wizard101, its an free to play online game thats aimed a fairly young audience. however the magic system in that is very similar to the system i suggested, you have a deck of cards (spells) each spell can have several copies (some very powerful spells are unique per deck though) and draw spells from that deck. it works fairly simply and is a mixture of luck of the draw plus tactical decisions.

[cynthialee]

tasoe,
I like it.

Taking an action to cast some of the spells is lame. Especially the buffing spells. I can understand when the spell is going to do damage to an opponent. But buffs should be instant.

So the next time the mage gets played I am going to just issue him a 'scroll' spell and a healing potion or a staff and a healing potion out the gate. See how that works out for the hero. I know I am not too keen when folks wrinkle there nose at what should be one of the better heroes so offering incentive might help.

Or perhaps have the mage get a red shirt retainer that knows 1 school of spells with a few hit points and a half a$$ed defense and attack roll.

[torilen]

Hey - sorry its taken me so long - haven't had much time.
I've got some changes and additions to make to this stuff, but check it out to get
some ideas.
On the following link...another thread here at the inn:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=879&p=8055#p8055

I have posted an expanded
rules I created for HQ, as well as an expanded spell list. You don't necessarily have to
use the training system I have...just allow your players to choose a new training every
couple of quests, if you want.
Using this, your wizard could become beef...and then you can make your quests harder
by adding monsters, adding traps, adding actual role-playing events, and by adding
tougher monsters...there are quite a few on my expanded monster list on the same link.

I've been working on the additions and changes, and hope to update the downloads
soon...I'll try to let you know when I do. I've got more monsters I'm adding, and more spells.

Enjoy. If you have any questions or comments, just message me.

[Goblin-King]

Oh! Forgot to mention in my first post about making the dungeons themselves more wizard friendly...
You can also add some content that depends on mind points:

* Spellcasters or other special monsters can drain mind.
* Invent some traps that requires some sort of mind test to escape from.
* Magical locked doors or chests that reqires mind points to open
etc etc etc...

Of course these ideas are irelevant if you want to play through the pre-written quests

[cynthialee]

Sometime I will require a Hero to roll combat dice for each mind point, looking for a black shield, to find a treasure or secret door.

[Goblin-King]

Sometime I will require a Hero to roll combat dice for each mind point, looking for a black shield, to find a treasure or secret door.

Yes! Excatly like this. Do what you can to make it worthwhile for the player to be the wizard.

[cynthialee]

Requiring rolls against Mind Points on occasion also tends to keep the Heores togather. Especially once they figure out that some traps and treasures will only be found by Heroes with plenty of mind dice.

Back to buffing the Mage:
Maybe just issueing the Mage a staff to start with could make him worth playing as a starting character. No one else can attack diagonal out the gate. This would make him more desireable to start with. It really isnt that much of a buff as the staff is still just one dice. (although if you ever met my friend Brandon the SCA fighter guy he could prove to you that the staff is the best weapon of all with many bruises and abrasions for the lesson...)
But I am likeing the idea of 2 dice fire balls at will also...Maybe limit the range to the freebe fireballs to as many squares distance as the Mage has mind points.