buffing the wizard

[Goblin-King]

Don't forget we have a conflict of game systems/rules here. In the European Edition, the Wizard is fairly balanced. When the game was released in the Americas, some of the regular monsters and most of the boss monsters were given increased BP. Although three of the four Heroes deal well in this new game environment, the Wizard with his lower BP and lack of equipment (the Wizard has more of a weapon/armour restriction too) doesn't fair quite as well. He's a far more challenging Hero to play and few that I've played with use him effectively.

Yeah, I play by the european rules where wiz can do pretty good even during the Trial (Hardest quest in the game ). I can see how he is more unbalanced in US rules.

I personally like the solution of creating a couple of wizard only items. Here are a couple of suggestions. Basically the crossbow but enemies use mind as defense:

Star Wand
This wand gives you the attack strength of 1 Attack die.
You may fire at any monster you can "see".
You may however not shoot at a monster that are adjacent to you.
Monsters defend by rolling 1 die per Mind point.
May only be used by the wizard.
150 gold

And the upgrade:

Sun Staff
This staff gives you the attack strength of 2 Attack dice.
You may fire at any monster you can "see".
You may however not shoot at a monster that are adjacent to you.
Monsters defend by rolling 1 die per Mind point.
May only be used by the wizard.
300 gold

My only concern is that they might make the fire deck unattractive...

[cynthialee]

pretty cool

But I really do not understand weapon limits.

Does a warrior not know how to pick up a staff and smack folks with it?

I could see limiting the ability to throw fireballs with the staff to the wizzard but anyone should be able to assault others with any weapon.

[Goblin-King]

Weapon limits are really not CAN'T use as much as it is WON'T use...

So yeah, the barbarian wouldn't dream of using a stick in battle and the wizard is a sissy douchebag who refuses to dress in heavy pieces of metal!

Besides that it's simply a game balance issue. If the wizard could use everything why ever choose the barbarian?

[Ethica]

The barbarian is allowed to use the (regular) staff if he wants. The only things that are wizard only are magical items such as the cloak of protection, which on the barbarians back is a simple piece of clothing. As for the sun staff it requires magicl nous to operate.

[cynthialee]

Cause the barbarian has more hit points...

When my game group plays RPG's what tends to happen in the (very) long run is that the guy who started as a mage eventually becomes a mix classed character that typically is a Wizzard/Rogue or a Wizzard/Warrior. The guy with a warrior eventually becomes also mixed in abilities as the warrior players tend to lust that wizardly might, almost invariably they learn a few low level spells.
Rogues tend to become over time warriors with theft and social skills.

My point here is that it makes no sence to me that a warrior and a wizard that hang with eachother all the time would not pick up a few of the other guys skills. They would in time learn a thing or two from eachother.

[Tott]

i think the wizard was fairly poorly designed in the original game. when you compare the three other characters they were all melee fighters that could use their primary abilities (swinging a sword) as many times as they liked and had very easy accessable upgrade paths. at the very start of the game all of them can swing their sword as many times as they like, give them a weapon and they can now swing their swords as many times as they like for even more combat dice . the wizard can cast nine spells at the start of the game. no matter how many quests you play he will still be casting the same 9 spells at the exact same strength. the american version had to create and add special mage only weapons and armour to try to address this, even still they just brought the wizard up to the other characters starting stats. he still had the same 9 spells at the exact same strength. no improvement of his specific abilities. the wizards of morcar added three new spell sets, but again limited the wizard to using only 9 spells. still no real way to upgrade the wizard.
i also found it very frustrating that the wizard could only cast each spell once, the barabarian can swing his sword an infinite number of times, the wizard can cast a spell one time each. not really a master of magic to be honest.
i always thought that the wizard needed a way to both buff his spells and to cast them repeatedly without making the wizard so strong that he overpowers the other characters (if the wizard could cast genie every single turn as often as he likes, he wouldnt need the other heroes!)
link some spells to mind points, thusly any improvment to mind points (from items such as talisman of lore) would also buff those spells.
have the wizard (and elf) have multiple copies of each spell shuffled in a spell deck. they then draw a hand equal to their mind points, when a spell is cast it goes to the bottom of the spell deck and another card is drawn to replace it. this should allow the caster characters to have an infinite supply of spells with always being able to cast a stream of genies and fireballs etc and allows them to progress by increasing their mind pool as opposed to attack and defence dice.

[cynthialee]

I could favor a spell point system.

Say start the game with 9 spell points. Every 5 quests the hero completes he gains Another spell point. Limit the casting of any spell a set number of turns between castings.

[cynthialee]

OR.....
At the end of each quest the mage is allowed to transcribe the spells he did not cast that quest into scroll spells that he may take on the next quest up to a maximum of 6 of any one type of 'scroll spell'.
This would tend to add in more spells available to the mage for future quests that are more dificult.

As for the mage being able to solo with the genie spell ussable once per turn...
yeah I don't think so. The mage does not have the hit points to stand up to a room full of monsters.

[Daedalus]

Weapon limits are really not CAN'T use as much as it is WON'T use...

So yeah, the barbarian wouldn't dream of using a stick in battle and the wizard is a sissy douchebag who refuses to dress in heavy pieces of metal!

Besides that it's simply a game balance issue. If the wizard could use everything why ever choose the barbarian?

Cause the barbarian has more hit points...

When my game group plays RPG's what tends to happen in the (very) long run is that the guy who started as a mage eventually becomes a mix classed character that typically is a Wizzard/Rogue or a Wizzard/Warrior. The guy with a warrior eventually becomes also mixed in abilities as the warrior players tend to lust that wizardly might, almost invariably they learn a few low level spells.
Rogues tend to become over time warriors with theft and social skills.

My point here is that it makes no sence to me that a warrior and a wizard that hang with eachother all the time would not pick up a few of the other guys skills. They would in time learn a thing or two from eachother.

maybe ease some of the weapon and armor restrictions on the mage.
Pretty sure if the mage can cast spells with a staff in his hands then a long sword should be no issue. Also a helm should be allowable as it does not stop your hands from doing thier thing nor does it interfer with speach.

If you'd like to have a Wizard be able to swing a sword, that's OK to house rule to make your game the way you want it. I wouldn't do it without a penalty, however. A Wizard with 4 Body Points and a Heal Body or Water of Life spell effectively has access to 6 or 7 Body Points (or more). A Hero with 8 spells and 6 or 7 Body Points is way more capable than a Barbarian with 8 Body Points and no access to spells. Leaving in some armor restrictions for the Wizard does help to promote balance with the Barbarian, however.

As a suggestion, allow the Wizard to use previously restricted weapons with fewer combat dice; a Wizard is too busy studying heady magic to spend a proper amount of time to train with an unfamiliar weapon, anyway. I'd say big two-handed weapons should still be excluded right out as they are just too heavy and unwieldy for a slight-of-build wizard. One-handed weapons could be used with 2 fewer dice if weilded with one hand, down to a minimum of 1 combat die. Should a Wizard use both hands for a one-handed weapon such as a broadsword or longsword (like in the game's art), then only 1 combat die need be deducted. A shortsword is too small to be used with two hands.

This would allow a Wizard to use an Artifact such as Orc's Bane. Even with a minimum one-die attack roll, both could be combined for 2 dice against an Orc. Spirit Blade wielded two-handed by the Wizard could do 3 combat dice against undead monsters- not too shabby for an egghead.

Consider also increasing the cost of Armory weapons if you lower restrictions. Such increased cost would reflect the additional training needed for a Wizard to wield the weapon with any level of effectiveness. I'd double (or triple) this cost as a trainer would charge more for an unexperienced spell-boy.

As for the Helmet idea, that would make a fine house-rule as well in my opinion. The art of the game supports this idea, specifically with the Necromancer from The Wizards of Morcar expansion. I would double or triple the cost of a Wizard's Helmet to 250 or 375 gold coins so that the stlye and function was sufficiently acane; the Wizard doesn't have much to buy in the armor department, anyway.

[Goblin-King]

Just to toss some more ideas into the fray...
Maybe the wizard could gain additional spells per completed levels by adding the Wizards of Morcar spells (or if you have 2 copies of the game, allow to choose 2 of the same deck).
But other vice he follows basic wizard rules.
For example:

quest 1-5 = 3 decks (Only basic 4 decks)
quest 6-10 = 4 decks (Basic + copies of basic deck + Wizards of Morcar player decks)
quest 11-15 = 5 decks (Basic + copies of basic deck + Wizards of Morcar player decks)
quest 16 + = 6 decks (Basic + copies of basic deck + Wizards of Morcar player AND evil wizards decks)

Not sure of the balance of the decks and levels as I'm not really familiar with the WoM decks