Ye Olde Inn

I'm gearing up starting HeroQuest with a bunch of friends who have never played it and/or who (like me) have played it so long ago (two decades ago) that they don't remember much of anything.

One thing that always annoyed me when I was a kid was the whole Elf using one of the Wizard's elemental choices but then later getting his own spells in the Elf Quest Pack. I'm thinking about just starting the elf out with his choice of three of those Elf Spells and letting the Wizard have all four elements. Can any of you lot foresee any reason why this might be problematical? Also, as far as I remember, there is no in-game explanation as to why the Elf suddenly has these new Elf Spells, is there? If there is, I'll discard this idea.

I can't foresee any problem off the top of my head. Of course...if you look at my expansion sets
(under the other expansion topics thread), I have greatly expanded the spell lists anyhow. AND,
I would allow any of those groups to be played from the start.

But that is just me.

The wizard is underpowered, anyway, so giving him all 12 spells is quite a good idea in its own right.
So if you have the Elf spells at hand, use them as you suggest.
I see no problem with that.

Oh, and welcome to the forum. Have fun playing!

Welcome to the forum!

What I'd do is carefully read and pick the Elf spells that aren't TOO powerfull, because otherwise the base game will be WAY too easy. Or I'd start out the original way, and after 5 quests introduce 3 handpicked elf spells, and at the end of the base game have the Elf take his pick of all the Elf spells. Just to even it out a bit.

Thanks for the welcomes and advice, guys!

I like the suggestion of handpicking the spells for the Elf and then allowing him to choose during the expansions. My primary concern was contradicting any in-game narrative by allowing him these spells right from the get-go. I couldn't remember if there was some sort of story of him gaining access to them. It sounds like there's not... which is certainly helpful in making this change, but curious. Why DID the Elf suddenly have access to a whole new set of spells in that quest pack with no story explanation? Ah well.

I suppose it's all about the theme of the quest pack.
MB obviously wanted to do a quest pack for each hero to go in depth with the character.
For the spellcasting Elf, a set of new spells is the obvious choice.

Perhaps Queen Terrellia made the spells available for Mentor to share with the Elf Hero. This boost would help him prove his worth and ultimately succeed. She did want her daughter rescued, after all.

Aside from that speculative fluff-subtext which of course wasn't stated, I also think it is okay to start the Elf with the Elf spells. The problem is cherry-picking from the eight available. Sjeng's suggestion is a good one. Another would be to require randomly picking the three spells for a Quest with the option of denying a few of the more powerful spells until later. At some later point free choice could be allowed, certainly by the time the Elf Quest Pack was reached.

I was thinking of doing the same thing for my HeroQuest group since the Wizard player is feeling a bit under powered. The elf spells are kind of unusual though and i wonder how they would play out. The Twist Wood spell seems kind of useless without the elven archers of the Elf Quest Pack, unless you decide that the base game monsters are affected somehow. Perhaps a fimir whose axe handle is warped can only attack with one attack die.

I was thinking about going through the Elf Spell cards and selecting the three that make the most sense in the context of the first set of quests and then once we get to the actual Elf Quest pack he can choose from the full deck.

Blackthorn wrote:The Twist Wood spell seems kind of useless without the elven archers of the Elf Quest Pack, unless you decide that the base game monsters are affected somehow. Perhaps a fimir whose axe handle is warped can only attack with one attack die.

Daedalus and I whipped up something regarding this topic here: http://www.yeoldeinn.com/hqforum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=378