Thought for Any Spell-Casting Heroes

[sadkitchen]

Sadly, I agree that the mana is too powerfull.

(I put courage at 3 because it lasts until the hero doesn't see a monster, while ball of flame is a one time effect.)

-SadKitchen

[torilen]

By the way - forgot to get back to this...the revision that I made, with having to roll a number of
combat dice equal to Mind Points to attempt to get extra castings of spells...

I meant to write that the player needs to roll anything except skulls on at least 3 dice, and then the
number of dice not showing skulls increases by one with each attempt.
SO - ethica - this is why I thought it was a 50/50 chance to get a spell back.

Silly me.

[Daedalus]

Sadly, I agree that the mana is too powerfull.

(I put courage at 3 because it lasts until the hero doesn't see a monster, while ball of flame is a one time effect.)

-SadKitchen

Have you seen this thread regarding the duration of the Courage spell?
http://www.yeoldeinn.com/hqforum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=257

[Daedalus]

I came up with this a while back. It has a focus-like action, but unlike mana points, it contains a built-in penalty for over-use:
   Spells previously cast can be re-established as an action.  Roll a number of attack dice from 1 up to a character's current Mind Point total.  A skull is a success.  A spell costs 1 or more successes to re-establish, depending on its effective  strength (ex. Fire of Wrath = 2 success, Genie = 4 successes).  Successes don't accumulate, and dice may not be added after the initial roll.  Re-tries are allowed as a new action.  For every black shield rolled, lose 1 Mind Point.  Too powerful?  Every white shield loses a Mind Point, instead.
   Ideally, spell cards would need an icon sticker showing the number of successes required. Otherwise a single reference sheet with the spells listed below would suffice.  Re-establishing a cast spell during combat denies the caster an attack for the turn.  Outside of combat, other actions would be delayed (not much of a penalty under the Baker rules). To further discourage over-zealous players from attempting to regain spells to often, I play with another house rule that uses wandering monster patrols. It can be found in this post: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=807
   There's some tactical choice in deciding the number of dice to roll (in combat, at least).  Roll too few, and the spell isn't recovered, wasting an action.  Rolling too many increases the chance of black shields which weaken and eventually put a caster in shock. As this isn't much of a combat penalty for a Wizard, the effect can be increased to a coma, which will put a Hero out for the adventure (unless a restoration/vitality potion is drank).  Financial access to more restoration/vitality potions makes a caster more powerful by extension. I think drathe's reduction of most potion costs by 4/5 would work well with this.

Suggested number of successes needed for spell reacquisition method mentioned immediately above:

Hero spells:

              Fire of Wrath ........ 2      Pass Through Rock .... 1      
              Ball of Flame ......... 3      Rock Skin .............. 2
              Courage ........... 5/2*     Heal Body .............. 5

              Veil of Mist ........... 1      Swift Wind ............. 1
              Sleep .................. 2      Tempest ............... 2
              Water of Healing .... 5       Genie .................. 4

* Use 5 if useful against multiple monsters, use 2 if good for 1 attack only

Chaos spells:

        Fear .................. 1        Tempest ........... 2         Ball of Flame ...... 3
        Sleep ................. 2         Rust ............... 3         Escape ............. 3
        Cloud of Chaos ...... 5        Command ......... 4         Summon Orcs ..... 5
        Summon Undead .... 5        Lightning Bolt ..... 5         Firestorm ......... 6

Naturally, more spells means more powerful spell casters, especially the Wizard. As the Wizard needs a boost, this rule should add to the fun. As a play balance issue, it may be too much for early Quests, thus the white shield option for loss of Mind Points.

[SonandDad]

Interesting thread here.
Puck and I have had many a discussion over spells, both hero and monsters. Also had a problem with Puck searching for treasure (i.e he didn't), then found the spell college on this site. In the rules of the college, Spell casting heroes can increase their mind points with gold spending, (need to search to find it Puck) between quests and as the mind points increase then the number of "types" of spells that can be carried into a quest can be increased and also by spending more gold (Puck searching like crazy now) then the number of spells in each "type" can also be increased. Therefore allowing spell casters the choice of a number of spells but stops 1 spell being used over and over again. Make the caster think (using their mind points ) about which to use and also when to use it as it is only available once.

I have made up some character info cards for the individual characters so that it is easy to keep track of their ability.

For the monsters we shuffle the cards before first use within the quest and then keepdrawing top card each time allowing randomness.

[ken]

The AHQ system is quite simple. The Wizard starts with 4 spells, then can purchase 1 extra spell each suceeding quest. I use this system for Solo play, using the standard HQ spells. Obviously, the more powerful the spell, the more gold it costs.