Need help finding some house rule solutions

[ShadowHawk]

Hello all:

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm trying to find some good house rules on two subjects, the issue of fixing the wizard, and a way to stop the heroes from dragging the game out when all visible enemies are dead.

To the first, Wizard House Rules:
I found Slev's "A Way to Fix the Wizard - Cantrips" and "Heroquest Revised Edition" and CynthiaLee's "The Wizard Clearing House of House Rules" threads.
What has the community found to work the best from these solutions in their playtesting?
Also, are there other threads dealing with the subject of fixing the wizard that I missed?

As to the second, I've seen mention of fate tokens implying a fate system but for some reason my search-fu isn't turning anything up when I search for these terms. A fate system sounds like a solution, as I've seen it used in other games like Descent 2nd Edition.

Any help in pointing me in the right direction is appreciated.

[Jalapenotrellis]

What's wrong with the wizard? He seems to play fine and I've gone through 11 of the quests... He seems to be getting extremely powerful by the end of them once he has wand of magic, cloak, And still has the option for the ring of magic and Wizards staff coming up....

[Pancho]

Hi Shadowhawk.

I’ve found two good methods in regards to your second question.
The first is Evil Wizard Cards; http://english.yeoldeinn.com/downloads/ ... wizard.pdf
The rules for using these is included in the link.

The second is to impose the house rule that each room on the game board can only be searched for treasure ONCE. I.e once per game, not once per player. However, each piece of furniture allows one additional search if the Hero is adjacent.

These simple rules make HQ much more fun for the Evil Wizard Player, speed up play, and also clarify the rules on searching (especially treasure chests), which were very vague in the EU rules.



As for beefing up the Wizard, I’m kind of with Jalapeño on this. The Heroes are pretty well balanced to my mind, it’s just that the Wizard plays quite differently to the other three. You need the right player playing the role, somebody who is patient, intelligent, tactically aware and actually interested in fantasy magic. A few tweaks to make him more survivable is to use the upgrades to the Courage and Rock Skin spells (I think these were found in the US edition). Allowing healing potions to be drunk at any time also helps.

[Maurice76]

The main problem with the Wizard is that he doesn't have any staying power, due to his low hitpoints. This means his role is strictly for offense and support, which gives him a maximum of 9 actions (i.e. his Spells, before his offense and support role comes to a halt) to do that in if you only use the base rules.

Slev's Advanced Rules do beef him up and give the Wizard more lasting flexibility - but it really requires the player to know the arsenal of Spells and Skills, before he can make an educated choice between the numerous different Spells. My brother enjoys this, but other players might be turned off by this.

Slev's Advanced Rules also come with a "Danger" for each dungeon. The EW can roll colored dice each of his turn when there are no Monsters present on the board, or when the EW skips the turn for all Monsters present. For each rolled, the EW may draw an event card, which he may play directly or save for later use. Usually these are detrimental effects for the Heroes, so they are more or less pushed forward to finish the dungeon in good time, rather than to dally around.

[lestodante]

Maybe this artifact can be useful to your Wizard, it allows him to increase his number of spells from 9 to 12.
But you will eventually require a double set of spells because the Elf should still have to chose his own set (or you need the Elf Spells too).
It is also intended to have the same stats of a normal staff, 2 dice in attack and diagonally.
But I didn't want to fullfill the card with a lot of text. Any suggestion to improve it is well accepted.
You can let him find the Elemental Staff after he survived some quests or make him pay for a course (a solo quest) at the School of Magic to upgrade his skills.
Ohhh and also don't forget to give him the Diploma of Wizardry after he finished his studies! viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4056&p=91970#p82557
Other interesting ideas can be found in the topic [Solo quest][Wizard] The Magic Trial: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=4992
In my opinion as the other players will equip themselves more and more, the Wizard should also be more powerful by collecting new spells and special artifacts.
He will be able to use also the 3 set of spells from the Wizards of Morcar expansion as soon as he collect a special amulet that must be completed with 3 gems and each gem added to the amulet will give him one new set of spells (Protection, Detection and Darkness).
A deeper and interesting way to handle magic can be found at "Yet Another Magic Rework" post: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=4337&start=10#p87694

[Maurice76]

"This ancient Staff, which can be used as a regular Staff, allows the Wizard to own all four Elemental School Spells. It cannot be used in combination with any other magic staff or wand. Can only be used by a Wizard".

[Anderas]

The Wizard is strong in the beginning, but is falling behind later.

So I have 9 spells per spell group, starting with 3 per group. The Wizard can buy one spell more for 100 gold, ramping up slowly together with the rest.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xKEXMu ... p=drivesdk

[cornixt]

I came up with viewtopic.php?f=38&t=2800&start=10 but never really finalised it. The wizard is a difficult character to use in a game that is aimed at people who don't want to play difficult characters, and doesn't really scale up at the same rate as the others.

One thing you'll find on this site is a lot of homebrew stuff and very little consensus on which is best! There is very little that is outright bad on its own.

[mitchiemasha]

The thing with the Wizard is... Although he's pretty much as strong at the beginning as he is later on, it's the player learning how to use him well. The other players get stronger where as the wizard needs to use his MIND to figure him out. If you're already over 12 and well accustomed to these style games, that doesn't work out.

and a way to stop the heroes from dragging the game out when all visible enemies are dead.

Take a look at the links in my signature...

The CHAOS DECK (Evil Wizard Event Deck) is the best solution, If you don't have time to print one or amend it to suit your rules, use the CHAOS TOKENS, from ADVANCED HEROQUEST (I sell these on ebay), if anyone wants a set, I'll do it for postage covered. With the Tokens you can tweak the rules as it's not on the card (see the table in my sig for how I use them).

Make the dungeons of your quests extremely hazardous. Make every roll a threat. The roll of double 1... Call out a hazard e.g. “You stumble on a loose stone!” “Rocks fall from above!” “In your desperate attempt to escape, the floor greets your face!” Now every roll is a threat. A Hero must roll even if deciding not to move. A Hero may still move but rolls 1Cd6, Skull: -1BP. WS: Blocked. BS: Stunned, no attack. This makes for some very concerned Heroes, battered and wounded, rushing to leave the dungeon. The idea stemmed form the opposite of Monopoly, a double 6 being exciting but not reflected in HEROQUEST. They're less likely to waste turns, especially with the surprises Chaos Tokens can unleash.

[ShadowHawk]

Thank you to everyone who replied, very much appreciated.

@ Pancho & Mitchiemasha - I'll give the evil wizard deck a shot. Seems like a good Threat mechanism and uses some of what I've seen in the few systems used in Descent. Oh and Pancho, the search once per room was a house rule I now, in reading your post, recall imposing in the distant past.

@ Anderas - I opened the link you posted but the card zip contains no spells, just equipment, potions, and artifacts. I used the link in your signature and found the cards. I like the idea of the Wizard having something to spend gold on to expand his options, such as new spells.

So I didn't make it clear in the original post, but I normally play as Zargon, been that since I was kid. I have seen players get a bit bummed by how he progresses compared to the others. I don't want to over power the wizard, but I do want some level of progression for the player and a bit more action. Frail and deadly is more fun than frail and wimpy/limited. Also, it sucks when they are all out of spells.

In the past, I want to say I made cantrip cards, one for each element, that had a recovery timer of 3 rounds (I made the player "tap" the card to 270, and then rotate 90 degrees counter clockwise at the start of the wizard's turn). They were weak spells, like "Gust" was a wind cantrip that could push a light enemy away 2 spaces into a pit trap/wall/other enemy. The timer prevented the player from spamming it, and the damage or effect was minimal enough to prevent the wizard from just playing cantrips, but useful enough that the wizard could do something other than stab with his dagger or staff.