Ye Olde Inn

Here is something I came up with a few weeks ago...thought some of you might enjoy this.

For those heroes who use spells, we all agree that, for most of them, they need to be more
useful during the game (i.e. they should be able to cast more spells). Here is a way to do that.
One they have used up all their spells, they can still attempt to cast a spell. They would need to
roll a number of combat dice equal to their Mind Points, and at least half of the dice rolled
would need to show a white shield. If this happens, they can cast any one of those spells they
had already cast. This could be done for every attempt once their normal spell-use is finished
for that quest.

OR....here is another way to work it.
Once the hero has cast all his spells, he gets one spell back every 3 or 4 turns. It's easy to keep
track of how many turns goes by before he gets another spell back, and it's not overly powerful.

You've inspired me
I use Phoenix's The Imperial Academy spells. Therefor, they get better. So reusing the same spells would be a big advantage....
Maybe a non combat ability? What about famaliars?

Reciently, my GM has given all spell casting heroes an added ability called focus. It takes the place of searching/attacking/casting for a turn. They roll a number of dice equal to their mind points. As long as they roll more shields than skulls they can "relearn" one spell at random from the spells they have already cast. Its a cool ability and only works sometimes. We don't break the ability by using it too much, but if something like that got granted to some unscrupulus players they would spend 12 turns in between each room focusing back all of their spells.

-SadKitchen

mo - still thinking about familiars - I haven't forgotten about you...just not sure what to do with that one yet.

As far as a character attempting to regain all 12 of their spells by just standing and focusing...remember that the
evil wizard can check for a wandering monster when the characters to certain actions, searching, for instance. I
know its not in the rules, but I've always played like that. If a character just wants to stand around trying to
regain spells, you can always throw a wandering monster into the room...that'll get them moving pretty quick.

How would familiars work in HQ? They barely work in DnD. As for the wandering monster checks, that would definitly deter to over focusing. But I normaly don't even need it as I play my Elf more as a Barbarian with less body points and a spell scroll. I believe I average 1/3 spells per quest.

-SadKitchen

You can make them spend mind points to regain the spells. That way, they have less and less of a chance as the game goes on to successfully roll agains ttheir remaining mind points.

i posted an alternative magic system a while back, originally for my priest but i converted it for the elf and wizard too (i recently reused it for my necromancer as well which has led to a few tweaks) basicaly:
make four copies of each spell, shuffle them face down as a deck, draw as many cards as you have mind points, as you cast a spell place it on the bottom of the deck, draw a new spell each turn. at the end of your turn, if you have more spell cards than mind points, put extra cards from your hand back into the bottom of the deck.

this lets the characters have a steady stream of spells, without constantly having access to big hitters all the time (you cant cast genie every singly turn) and also makes mind points a much more desireable trait (who cared about talisman of lore really?) as any extra mind points also increase your hand size.

sadkitchen wrote:Reciently, my GM has given all spell casting heroes an added ability called focus. It takes the place of searching/attacking/casting for a turn. They roll a number of dice equal to their mind points. As long as they roll more shields than skulls they can "relearn" one spell at random from the spells they have already cast. Its a cool ability and only works sometimes. We don't break the ability by using it too much, but if something like that got granted to some unscrupulus players they would spend 12 turns in between each room focusing back all of their spells.

-SadKitchen

I keep a set of "House Rules" so that any bending of the standard rules gets squashed by the DM & noted in the house rules, ie; only one Hero conjurer in each quest, we find that two swamped the board with "conjured up" beasts to support each conjurer, even though there is a limit of 3 beasts per conjurer on the board at any time. Do the same with any spell caster exceeding your DMs ruling. Perhaps one Focus each room, or is that too much? Flesh's mind point limit sounds good too.

Ken - good idea with using Focus once per room - like many other things in HQ, you do it once per room and that's it.
Keeps the length of rules short and simple, and keeps the game moving.

I agree that mind points should be actually USED. I didn't find any use for the talisman of lore, either, except to give to the weak-minded Zebs so that he didn't get taken over...