New to Frostgrave!

[Mr Hall]

Good evening Adventurers!

Mr Hall here and I've just gotten on board with frost grave.

Thought I'd post my progress here, and ask a quick question.

When you are designing your Wizard, are you "theming" them, like having a specialist wizard? Or are you just choosing the spells you think are cool/competitive?

[Awesome Adam]

You kind of do both. You have to pick 3 from your primary, and only 1 each from 5 additional schools, so you'll always be specialized to a degree.

Now a successful wizard is mindful the casting numbers when choosing his spells. Elemental Bolt is sweet, but it's not very useful is you need to get a 16 to cast it.

I also highly recommend taking 1 direct damage spell (Elemental Bolt, Bone Dagger, Grenade, etc..) and 1 movement spell (Teleport or Leap) no matter what primary school of magic you choose.

Anything with a casting number higher than 12 isn't going to be dependable for a starting wizard and is gong to need a few adventures worth of upgrades until it is.

I should mention that there is a strategy about taking a high casting number spell you eventually want to use at character creation, even though you have no real chance of using it until later down the line. Brew Potion is a great example of this. It's a great spell, but if it's unaligned or opposed, you'll rarely have it be successful unless you invest advances into it. Taking it at 1st level allows you to advance it after each game, and have it at a manageable casting number after your first half dozen adventures.

[Mr Vampire]

I tend to theme my wizards, but select the spells so there is a reasonable variety for what may arise in a game. I think even a themed wizard often still ends up with a bit of a grab bag of spells because of how he spell selection rules work.

[Eric the Shed]

First up welcome to the lead adventure forum...

Good question ...

I to am putting together my first band and have been playing around with the various schools, cogitating, musing, and deliberating my first choice of wizard...

I have even built a sheet of spreads but still none the wiser

[Mr Hall]

Thanks everyone, some great tips there!

I'm just re-writing my Witch (wild theme) list-

How does this work?
(And By the way, my idea for my Wizard, is similar to a rough and ready version of Rhadaghast the brown from the hobbit, talks to the animals, is one with the Bears- sort of thing)

So-
Animal Companion 8 (theme and I like the idea of my warband having a bear in it)
Familiar 8 (perhaps a little Raven plus extra health is nice)
Control Animal 12 (purely for theme I'm aware bee potion may be more useful, but I can learn that before it's important right :p)
None Dart 10 (the most thematic offensive spell I could manage)
Leap 10 (wizard grows wings quickly and flys away)
Strength 12 (embude with the strength of a bear)
Heal 12 (because, woodland wizard, and it just feels right)
Monstrous Form 12 (the idea is to have the image of a great bear or wolf here)

As you can tell, theme is very important, but I don't want to be signing my death certificate too early :p

[Awesome Adam]

Very themed, low casting numbers, some movement and offense. I approve 

[Elbows]

This is (oddly) another reason I think card decks for the spells would be fantastic.  Being able to randomly draw spells would add an entirely different aspect to the game.

[Mr Hall]

Thanks very much Adam, I realised when I was drafting up the first time, I had t taken into account the casting values.  I'm much happier with it now.

A spell draft event like Privateer Press do would be really good, I'll just have to wait for my Card Deck to arrive, then I'll probably try and run one

[Jiron]

Hello,
nice theme. When I have started with Frostgrave, the choice of school came really easy. I knew I'm gonna go for Chronomancer, Elementalist or Illusionist. When I saw the spell list, I went for Elementalist. I decided I will theme him the way of Elemental Martial Artist (inspired by Exalted or Avatar - not the James Cameron one). So I went for "selfempowering" spells. And I ended with these:

Elemental Bolt
Elemental Hammer
Elemental Shield
Strength
Fleet Feet
Leap
Heal
Awareness

All under 12 and very much in theme. Now this guy is level 34 and I have two more warbands... but that's another story.

[Mr Hall]

Love it! I came up with a Geomancer style one- based on an Earthbender from Avatar! 

Really excited to use him after my Witch!

Everything was rock/earth based.

Elementalist
Wall
Shield
Destructive sphere (imagine him punching the ground ala Jax (Mortal Kombat)

Animate construct from Enchanter
Crumble from Chrinomancer
I went with plane walk from Sunmoner because although proxy at a low level, could be useful later on- and imagine him moving like magneto, but with Rock stairs

Mud from witch
Bones of the earth from Nexromancer

[Xintao]

Love it! I came up with a Geomancer style one- based on an Earthbender from Avatar! 

Really excited to use him after my Witch!

Everything was rock/earth based.

Elementalist
Wall
Shield
Destructive sphere (imagine him punching the ground ala Jax (Mortal Kombat)

Animate construct from Enchanter
Crumble from Chrinomancer
I went with plane walk from Sunmoner because although proxy at a low level, could be useful later on- and imagine him moving like magneto, but with Rock stairs

Mud from witch
Bones of the earth from Nexromancer

Wow that is very thematic. I love it. I have to tell you I might have to steal that.

[Laniston]

Something I've learned after playing this game a lot is that because your spellcasters can generally only cast one spell per turn you will start to find your leveling up plays almost more into the theme of your wizard than what spells you first went for.  My summoner for example has focused on lowering the casting cost of Summon Demon and raising his health.  This makes getting major demons more accessible and frequent and means even if I roll a 1 to cast summon demon all that shows up is an imp. (however imps have killed more stuff than any of my major demons have)

The casting costs are important to factor in but also consider that after only 9 games a spell that was a 14 to cast might now be a 5 and turn into a bread and butter spell for your casters.  It's pretty easy to gain at least 1 level per game even if you perform pretty poorly. 

[ChaosChild]

Thanks everyone, some great tips there!

I'm just re-writing my Witch (wild theme) list-

How does this work?
(And By the way, my idea for my Wizard, is similar to a rough and ready version of Rhadaghast the brown from the hobbit, talks to the animals, is one with the Bears- sort of thing)

So-
Animal Companion 8 (theme and I like the idea of my warband having a bear in it)
Familiar 8 (perhaps a little Raven plus extra health is nice)
Control Animal 12 (purely for theme I'm aware bee potion may be more useful, but I can learn that before it's important right :p)
None Dart 10 (the most thematic offensive spell I could manage)
Leap 10 (wizard grows wings quickly and flys away)
Strength 12 (embude with the strength of a bear)
Heal 12 (because, woodland wizard, and it just feels right)
Monstrous Form 12 (the idea is to have the image of a great bear or wolf here)

As you can tell, theme is very important, but I don't want to be signing my death certificate too early :p

I put my witch's spell list together with no real thought on a theme, I was going for a good mix of useful, easy to cast spells. As it turns out, you have 6 of the same spells I started with.

Good theme.

[Mr Hall]

Xintao- Thanks! Go for it, I'm super excited to use it, and I think it would be a lot of fun!

Lanniston- I know, as I get more experienced at the game, I'll probably do that, trying to theme more for personality, which is what I'd prefer TBH, it seems more "realistic", if such a thing can be...

ChaosChild- Ha! How did it play?