Some spells, skills and other additions - thoughts?

[micksandals]

I'm going to be running some Heroquest games for a group, and I've been coming up with some additions that I think are interesting. I'm interested to know what you guys think:

Spells
The "system" I'm using involves PC spellcasters starting with a number of Mana points (based on their Mind points) which they can spend before each quest to arm themselves with a selection of spells. Stronger spells cost more Mana points. Spellcasters can also "spend" Mind Points to recall spells and cast them again, but with limitations. The "cost" of these spells isn't listed, because I don't have it to hand, but it goes from cheap to not-so-cheap:

Some of them are based on (or completely lifted from) the original game, others are not. And some of them are specific to a particular race (Human, Elf or Orc).

Fleet of Foot: Roll an extra D6 and add the result to your movement the next time you move.
Reparo: Fix one trap visible to you on the board.
Heal self: Restore 1 Body Point to yourself.
Summon Wisdom: For each Hero who passes a Mind Test (excluding yourself), gain 1 Mind Point.
Bark Skin: The spell grants +1 Combat Dice in defence. The spell is broken when the Hero is wounded.
Iron Fists: Immediately attack one enemy in close combat with 3 Combat Dice.
Entangle: Your enemy target is entangling by magical vines. Until the end of your next turn, that enemy attacks with 1 fewer Combat Dice.
Genie: Immediately gain three treasures.
Guided Hand: All Heroes may reroll one die in attack between now and the end of your next turn.
Teleport Enemy: Move one character in your line of sight from their current position to another square also in line of sight.
Headwind: Reduces the movement of all Enemies to 1 red dice on their next turn.
Portal: You may place an open door. If this leads to a room or passage, you and any other characters (including enemies) may pass through it as normal.
Swift Wind: Doubles the movement of the target (which can be yourself) the next time they move.
Tempest: Causes one Enemy to miss its next turn
Transfiguration: You may transform one Hero (including yourself) into a common type of Enemy that you have encountered in the current dungeon. That Hero will attack and defend as that Enemy, and will not be attacked by other Enemies of that type unless he or she attacks first. The Hero must roll 1 die at the start of each turn. On a roll of 6, the Transfiguration ends instantly and the Hero takes his or her turn as normal.
Heal Body: Heal up to 4 Body Points for any Hero, including yourself
Burning Fists: Immediately attack one enemy in close combat with 4 Combat Dice.
Energy Transfer: You can transfer 1 Body Point from one Hero to another - including yourself
Soothing Aura: Restore 1 Body Point to every Hero in the same room or corridor as you.
Resurrect: Resurrect one fallen Hero (excluding yourself), who will reappear with all Body and Mind points restored in a square adjacent to you.
Ball of Flame: Attack one enemy in line of sight, at a maximum range of 5 squares, with 4 Combat Dice. Cannot be used in close combat.
Rock Skin: The spell grants +2 Combat Dice in defence. The spell is broken when the Hero is wounded.
Teleportation: Move yourself to any empty, previously explored square on the board.
Turn Back Time: Immediately after a Hero's turn, undo all effects of that turn and allow them to replay it.
Turn to Stone: Cast on one Enemy within your line of sight. Both you and the Enemy roll 1 die and add the number to their Mind points. If your total is higher, the Enemy is turned to stone. They may not move, attack or be attacked. The spell is broken when the Wizard loses sight of the Enemy.
Amber Mist: Everyone in the same room or corridor as yourself must pass a Mind Test or reduces their attack and defence by 1 Combat Dice until the end of your next turn.
Inferno: Cast on an area of nine squares. Any Enemy or Hero in the centre of the area is attacked with 3 dice. Any Enemy or Hero in the remaining squares is attacked with 1 die.
Revitalise: Restore all of your lost Body Points.
Warp Reality: You may replace the contents of one room with another. Every thing and everyone, excluding yourself, is transported.
Healing Aura: Restore 2 Body Points to every Hero in the same room or corridor as you.
Doppelganger: You clone yourself, creating an exact duplicate in an adjacent square. On your next turn, both may move and perform actions separately. Roll 1D6 to determine how many turns this effect lasts.
Mass Ressurrection: Cast this to resurrect any number of fallen Heroes, each of whom reappear with all Body and Mind points restored in squares adjacent to you.
Evisceration: Immediately attack one Enemy within your sight with 4 Combat Dice. The Enemy may not defend.
Avada Kedavra: Instantly kills one target. Cannot be cast more than once per quest for any reason.

Psychic Blade: While Phase Shift is active, attack one character in close combat with 3 Combat Dice. They defend with 1 Combat Dice. This causes the Phase Shift spell to end.
Phase Shift: You become invisible and intangible, unable to attack or be attacked. Roll 2 Combat Dice each subsequent turn; a roll of 2 Skulls causes the spell to end.
Bewilder: No enemies with fewer Mind Points than you may attack you until the end of your next turn.

Summon Golem: You summon a Golem to an adjacent square. The creature has the following stats:
Move: 4; Attack: 3; Defend: 3; Body: 2
Force Lightning: Attack one enemy in line of sight, at a maximum range of 5 squares, with 3 Combat Dice. Cannot be used in close combat.
Force Push: Roll 1D6. Any enemies adjacent to you are pushed away from you a number of squares equal to your roll. If this causes them to move into another character, that character is in turn pushed back.

Giant Foot of Gork: A giant foot stomps the enemies in front of you. Target a 2x4 square range, anyone within that range is attacked with 3 Combat Dice.
Fists of Gork: Every other Hero in your party gains 1 Combat Dice the next time they attack.
Cunning of Mork: When attacked in close combat, you may immediately cast this spell.

Runes:
In lieu of magic, Dwarf characters can visit the Runesmith in between quests. Again, cost is not listed (mainly because I don't know how expensive they should be)

Rune of Smiting: When inscribed on armour, this rune improves the dwarf's attack. When rolling to attack, replace one white combat die with the red combat die; black shields rolled on the red die count as white shields.
Rune of Adamant: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune improves the dwarf's defence. When rolling to defend, replace one white combat die with the red combat die; black shields rolled on the red die count as skulls.
Rune of Valya: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune allows the dwarf to heal instead of wounding an enemy. When attacking, and before the enemy rolls to defend, the dwarf may remove one die showing a skull and heal a single body point. The enemy does not need to defend against this skull.
Rune of Flight: When inscribed on a weapon or armour, this rune increases the dwarf's speed. Each turn, roll 1D6 and add this to the dwarf's movement.
Rune of Light: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune improves the dwarf's effectiveness against the Undead. When attacking, roll one additional combat die when attacking an Undead enemy.
Rune of Orcsbane: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune improves the dwarf's effectiveness against Greenskins When attacking, roll one additional combat die when attacking an Orc or Goblin enemy.
Rune of Verminbane: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune improves the dwarf's effectiveness against the Skaven When attacking, roll one additional combat die when attacking a Skaven enemy.
Rune of Spellbreaking: When inscribed on armour this rune allows the dwarf to combat the effect of magic. When a spell is cast, the dwarf may roll one combat die. If a white shield is rolled, the spell fails and its effects are ignored.
Rune of Dismay: When inscribed on armour, this rune instils fear in the dwarf's enemies. When attacked by an enemy with fewer than 2 mind points, that enemy must re-roll all skulls.
Rune of Dragon Slaying: When inscribed on a weapon, this rune improves the dwarf's effectiveness against Dragons When attacking, roll one additional combat die when attacking a Dragon.

I also have some potions, which I'll post up separately.

I'd love to hear your thoughts/suggestions.

[QorDaq]

I always liked the idea of Spell Points (And of course MP is a natural starting point).

I'd actually be curious to hear more about that in terms of cost and if straight up MP is the sole number Spellcasters work with? I liked the idea of how Spell Points worked in Warhammer Quest, though if you have terrible luck with dice rolls (Probably the real reason I always ended up as the GM in whatever game...*Grin*...), you could get burned time after time never quite rolling enough during any given turn to really cast much. Regardless, I'd enjoy hearing a little more on the mechanic you are using.

The idea of Rune stones, is also pretty much straight out of WHQ, but it's a good one in my opinion.

As for Potions, I had also come up with a list of potions. My thinking being, that instead of being "Forced" to drink a poison potion as soon as you find it, Players would roll on a table whenever a Potion of any sort was drawn. After all, Healing potions are often saved until needed, as are other Potion types, so it never made sense to me that people a) always know what a Potion is and does, and b) only auto drink the Poison.

maj!

[micksandals]

I always liked the idea of Spell Points (And of course MP is a natural starting point).

I'd actually be curious to hear more about that in terms of cost and if straight up MP is the sole number Spellcasters work with? I liked the idea of how Spell Points worked in Warhammer Quest, though if you have terrible luck with dice rolls (Probably the real reason I always ended up as the GM in whatever game...*Grin*...), you could get burned time after time never quite rolling enough during any given turn to really cast much. Regardless, I'd enjoy hearing a little more on the mechanic you are using.

I'm keeping it pretty simple (this is not a group of hardcore D&D types).

I have a group of 4, and each is going to play 2 characters (but only one character per quest) to give a bit of variety and hopefully stop someone ending up with a character they don't like playing with. It also means that more than one person gets to play the spellcaster or the tank or whatever.
The four available races are human, elf, dwarf and orc with each race having slightly different base stats and starting abilities. There are no classes per se, but at character creation there are three skills that can be selected - spellcaster, ranged and dual wield.

Body Points and Mind Points are chosen at character creation (with a min/max based on race), and the Mind Points determine how many Mana the spellcaster gets. A spell to Heal 1 BP might cost 1 Mana, Avada Kedavra which kills an enemy outright cost 20; the most powerful starting spellcaster would be an Elf Mage with 2 Body Points, 1 base Attack die, 1 base Defence die and 8 Mind Points. He/she would have 18 Mana, making that spell just out of reach for now.

As the character's Mind Points increase from quest to quest, through artefacts or encounters, their Mana would increase and give them an opportunity to use more spells.

As for Potions, I had also come up with a list of potions. My thinking being, that instead of being "Forced" to drink a poison potion as soon as you find it, Players would roll on a table whenever a Potion of any sort was drawn. After all, Healing potions are often saved until needed, as are other Potion types, so it never made sense to me that people a) always know what a Potion is and does, and b) only auto drink the Poison.

When a player finds an unlabelled potion, they can choose to open and possibly sample it. They roll a Combat Die and 2D6 and I refer to the table. There are are couple of particularly nasty substances and a couple of particularly powerful substances, but there's only a 3% chance of stumbling across those. The others range from a helpful Potion of Healing through to some less-useful Goblin urine.

There is an ability - Potion Master - which allows the character to avoid the dangerous substances. A Potion Master is also able to "learn" how to make a potion, if he or she has access to two copies of the same potion. After discerning the ingredients, he or she would start each quest with a copy of that potion.

[Daedalus]

That's a lot of spells. Considering you're group isn't yet experienced with what is available, I'd say break the largest group into smaller, related sets. This will keep things more in line with regular Hero Quest and also aid the player of a spellcaster in the decision process. Aim for what the last sets of three already do, such as the Orc spells.

Another break you could afford new players is creating just 1 Hero each for starters. There's already plenty to decide and check out without doubling the work before play starts. After a Quest or two new Heroes can be created, with the players better able to recocnize what they want.

I'm not on board with your most powerful spell, Avada Kedavra. Rancor, ancient dragon, despoiler of kingdoms and your nemesis for several Quests, lunges at the Heroes...and dies. This boss eraser (no chance for spellcasting) can be anti-climatic, with the other Heroes relegated to attending to the minions as a side-show. Also, like Tempest which only lasts a turn for counter-balance, this spell is a better value against increasingly powerful bosses, without a cap.

I'd offer some kind of counter-roll for the boss and cheapen the mana cost. [Maybe a target suffers BP damage equal to the caster's MPs, which is defended normally. -edit]. If that is an over-nerf, you could invest the full effect in an artifact or something. After it's initial use, the toned-down version is then used as a spell for more regular use.