Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Fantasy Adventures => Frostgrave => Topic started by: Puppies72 on 25 July 2015, 08:58:00 PM
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Hi all,
My friends and I want to get stuck in and have our first game (tomorrow) but don't want to spend ages agonising over spells until we get a better handle on the system, so my question is
Has anyone created standard quick start spell lists?
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I havent exactly, though I will be suggesting some on my blog in the next couple of days when I finish writing. If it helps, though, here are my notes from my initial thoughts on spell schools (I went with enchanter in the end)
Note that most of the Strike Deads are just to have something to put on a scroll , you could choose many things in those last slot.
Enchanter
Telekinesis
Enchant Weapon
Embed Enchantment
Write Scroll
Elemental Bolt
Brew Potion
Dispel
Strike Dead
Illusionist
Monstrous Form
Invisibility
Transpose
Mind Control
Write Scroll
Dispel
Leap
Brew Potion
Elementalist
Elemental Bolt
Elemental Shield
Wall
Leap
Telekinesis
Petrify
Write Scroll
Spell Eater
Chronomancer
Decay
Fleet Feet
Petrify
Spell Eater
Elemental Bolt
Mind Control
Write Scroll
Brew Potion
Thaumaturge
Dispel
Heal
Blinding Light
Mind Control
Create Scroll
Transpose
Leap
Brew Potion
Summoner
Leap
Possess
Imp/Summon Demon
Elemental Bolt
Brew Potion
Spell Eater
Heal
?
Necromancer
Spell Eater
Bone Dart
Bones of the Earth
Brew Potion
Fleet Feet
Leap
Absorb Knowledge
?
Sigilist
Absorb Knowledge
Write Scroll
Create Grimoire
Dispel
Telekinesis
Monstrous Form
Elemental Bolt
?
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Pick the spells at random (obviously keeping to the limits). ;)
You never know, you might find a completely overlooked but great combo by blind luck.
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I'd start by just make the 8 choices with the lowest casting numbers if I wanted a really quick pick.
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Thaumaturge:
Heal: The obvious first choice.
Restore Life: With a casting value of 20, it is best to take early in order to reduce the casting value as you progress.
Shield: A good way to provide added armor for your wizard (who can't wear armor) and his soldiers.
Wizard Eye: You can cast spells while remaining hidden from enemy marksmen.
Absorb Knowledge: Since the Thaumaturge isn't an offensive caster, he will likely receive fewer XP.
Teleport: To help your wizard escape if necessary.
Enchant Weapons: In case you encounter creatures immune to mundane weapons.
Familiar: Two additional Health for your wizard.
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Have you considered the advantage one player could have by taking all the spells he can that grant you extra fighters on the table... Animal Companion, Raise Zombie, Illusionary Soldier, and Animate Construct.
Potentially and extra 4 bodies on the table, giving a sizeable psychological advantage.
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Have you considered the advantage one player could have by taking all the spells he can that grant you extra fighters on the table... Animal Companion, Raise Zombie, Illusionary Soldier, and Animate Construct.
Potentially and extra 4 bodies on the table, giving a sizeable psychological advantage.
Note, though, that Animal Companion and Animate Construct count as a soldier re: maximum warband size, and that by a strict interpretation, you may at the earliest field them in the second game of a campaign (the spells do not specify if you can cast them BEFORE a game, and by default, this would mean you would have to cast them between two games). Nonetheless, considering the respective base casting numbers, this is a rather interesting option for a Witch.
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From the FAQ and the battle report on Joe's blog, you can cast Animal Companion/Animate Construct before your first game, but you must buy your warband first. All out of game spells can be cast before a game unless otherwise specified. They'd be useless in one-off games otherwise.
Your calculations seem to forget that apprentices can cast most of these as well.
Throw in Imp and Summon Demon for a potential 4 more bodies to the table mid-game! Well the imp isn't under your control but I'm sure you'll be able to summon it somewhere that won't be an issue.
Thought experiment:
Inn
Dog Kennel
Zombie x 2
Illusory Soldier x 1
Summoned Demon x 2
I make it a maximum controlled warband size of 17 before you start controlling random monsters or members of the opposing band. Any advances?
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Thought experiment:
Inn
Dog Kennel
Zombie x 2
Illusory Soldier x 1
Summoned Demon x 2
I make it a maximum controlled warband size of 17 before you start controlling random monsters or members of the opposing band. Any advances?
Only 1 zombie per warband, according to the spell, but otherwise it sounds reasonable. Summon Demon has to be cast in-game and has a significant risk, so I'm not sure this is the best possible strategy, but it's certainly possible.
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Only 1 zombie per warband, according to the spell,
Good call, we missed that in the game at the club - guess that means JamWarrior owes his opponent an apology. ;)
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Oops! How does one say sorry for an extra zombie? Best I hope manage to summon one next game against him so I can then not take it!
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No sample ideas for the Soothesayer?
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No sample ideas for the Soothesayer?
I don't really consider Soothsayer playable for anything but fluff reasons. It's the weakest primary after the almost-completely-pointless Chronomancer.
If I was going to play it though, I'd probably use
Mind Control
Awareness
Reveal Secret
Dispel
Fleet Feet
Transpose
Absorb Knowledge
Telekinesis/Leap/Raise Dead
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A tad hyperbolic a reaction there for the poor Soothsayer.
Mind control is a beast. You gain a soldier, they lose a soldier, net gain of 2 men on the ground for you. Plus cast it at someone just about to escape with loot and the loot is now yours!
Reveal secret is practically a free treasure and turns what would be a 3-3 draw into a 4-3 victory for you.
Combat awareness not only makes your troops hefty fighters but also makes them harder to hit at range.
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The problem with the Chronomancer, as far as I can see, is that most of its 'power' spells involve sacrificing an action... to gain an action. Take Time Walk - the hardest to cast spell, with extra damage for failure (making it nearly suicidal until you can put 4+ levels into dropping the dificulty). Yet all it gets you is... a chance to move again and cast another, different, spell. Which you could just have cast the first time.
Actions are a precious resource for wizards - you can only cast one spell each turn, so setting up elaborate chains of spells will be difficult to pull off. The chronomancer doesn't really do this any better than anyone else.
The Soothsayer I think has some value. Certainly, he has some awesome utility spells like Wizard Eye that would be valuable to a lot of other wizards as a starting spell. He just has quite a few 'specialised' spells like Reveal Invisible that are pretty corner case.
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The problem with the Chronomancer, as far as I can see, is that most of its 'power' spells involve sacrificing an action... to gain an action. Take Time Walk - the hardest to cast spell, with extra damage for failure (making it nearly suicidal until you can put 4+ levels into dropping the dificulty). Yet all it gets you is... a chance to move again and cast another, different, spell. Which you could just have cast the first time.
Actions are a precious resource for wizards - you can only cast one spell each turn, so setting up elaborate chains of spells will be difficult to pull off. The chronomancer doesn't really do this any better than anyone else.
Yep.
Time Store is OK, sacrificing a turn early on to get an action later isn't bad since it means you can stay hidden for a turn and do something that will have impact later - but 14 is still a real hard cast. You just have to hope you don't get Dispelled before you use the action.
Time Walk on the other hand doesn't seem to have any point and I wonder if it wasn't playtested into oblivion by accident. You give up your action (by casting it) to act later in the turn instead, so you essentially get to do a Move in the Wizard phase followed by your full action later. So for the cost of an 18 cast and extra 2 damage on a fail, you gain... a move action. If the spell cast on maybe an 8 and simply let you delay your action until later I could see it having some uses (sometimes you want your wizard to act later) but as it stands, it's a massive risk to simply gain a move action. It's almost completely inferior to Teleport, Leap, etc even from more difficult to cast schools, other than the niche use of acting later.
And the rest of the Chronomancy school is pretty janky, too.
I'm going to shut up now cos I have half written articles about most of this :P
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It's the problem i'd been noticing with the Soothsayer. A lot of his initial spells (across the schools) turn into either "situational only" or simply "Redundant".
Wizard Eye allowing you to nearly double your effective zone of threat (almost literally letting you cast from right across the board) with only a difficulty of 8. There's also three fairly cheap buff spells (+1 Initiative, +2 Fight and +3 Willpower). And as has been noted, Mind Control and Reveal Secret both have hefty impacts on objective grabbing (or walking your opponents 100gc Templar face first into a Worm).
But from there it seems to break down a bit. They struggle to get any direct damage spells outside of the Neutral +4 Range, which means they find it very hard to have a native way of tackling/handling random creatures that are immune to physical damage effects (the Enchanters Magic Weapon spell also being a +4).
Their Aligned schools of magic has one of them as the much maligned Chronomancer, who has its own list of problems noted above. It's full of either difficult spells to get off at +2, as well as many spells that can cost you activations. The only "universal" spells I can really seem to vouch for is the +2 Move (yet another buff ontop of the Soothsayers own buffs) or Crumble, which seems a lot like a poormans Teleport (not bad, but much more situational given it gives your opponent a door to benefit from too).
I wonder if I should drag this into it's own thread though, I could probably keep going on :-X
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A tad hyperbolic a reaction there for the poor Soothsayer.
Mind control is a beast. You gain a soldier, they lose a soldier, net gain of 2 men on the ground for you. Plus cast it at someone just about to escape with loot and the loot is now yours!
Reveal secret is practically a free treasure and turns what would be a 3-3 draw into a 4-3 victory for you.
Combat awareness not only makes your troops hefty fighters but also makes them harder to hit at range.
Not at all. Whilst Soothsayer has some ok spells, there is very little reason to take it as a Primary school as it offers so little and its aligned schools are equally weak as a set.
Mind Control is just as good when taken in an aligned school - since you're happy casting it at higher numbers (harder to resist). It is Soothsayer's best spell, and probably one of the more powerful spells in the game, yet ironically it doesn't make a huge difference casting it from a non-Soothsayer Wizard.
Reveal Secret is a decent spell but is kind of hard to cast without XP (even if you do get 2 chances at it, it's still far from a sure thing) and all treasure takes one of your guys out of the fight - there are only so many guys you can afford to lose - so it is far from free.
Combat Awareness is absolutely horrible. It casts on a 12 and requires touch range, and whilst more fight is always good, +2 fight is not a massive buff given the opportunity cost of casting it over another spell. Even Strength in the enchanter school, 2 easier to cast and castable at range, is often a hard decision as to whether to cast.
Awareness is an ok spell - just OK - it doesn't come into play very often and even then, initiative in Frostgrave is (somewhat counter intuitively) not always a big deal. At least it casts on an 8.
Every other spell that Soothsayers have is awful.
Wizard Eye is very range limited and requires LoS to where you place it plus only has a 180 degree FoV, making it very poor in practice. It won't let you see to the other side of a wall because you need LoS to the facing on the other side of the wall to cast it in the first place. Furthermore, since it does need LoS to somewhere where you may place it, you have to expose yourself to the enemy and spend an action casting it before you do anything offensive or defensive. It's a really bad spell.
Willpower has a decent effect, but either you'll be casting it after the fact when someone is already under the effects of a resistable spell or pre-casting it which means your opponent will simply choose another target. In practice there are almost always decent spell targets so that isn't a big deal. Add to that that many opponents won't even use resistable spells as there are other options and you have another narrow use spell.
Reveal Invisible is a decent spell with another very narrow use. Could easily be taken as a secondary spell from any other school's caster.
Forget Spell casts on a high number of 12 and can only target enemy casters who always have decent willpower (and will improve it with XP). Furthermore, as the opponent learns more spells, it becomes weaker and weaker. Plus you have to get LoS to their casters to use it. All round weak.
I wish Soothsayer was better as a primary, but unfortunately it isn't. It suffers from too many niche spells, casting numbers that are too high for the spells, and some outright poor spells. If Combat Awareness was the same as Strength for Enchanter, and if Wizard Eye was not useless (eg if Wizard and Apprentice could see through eachothers Wizard Eye, and/or it didn't need LoS to its casting point) Soothsayer would be fine.
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Reveal Secret is a decent spell but is kind of hard to cast without XP (even if you do get 2 chances at it, it's still far from a sure thing) and all treasure takes one of your guys out of the fight - there are only so many guys you can afford to lose - so it is far from free.
Combos well with Raise Zombie. Cast pre-game and use the free Zombie to get the treasure off the board.
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This seems a bit of a harsh over-statement. How can any spellcaster in the game be described as such when over half your spells come from a half dozen other schools and you can buy any spells you want as you develop? I think you're putting way too much emphasis on the meta-game, list-building aspects of Frostgrave when you make these kinds of sweeping, dismissive pronouncements.
I don't really consider Soothsayer playable for anything but fluff reasons. It's the weakest primary after the almost-completely-pointless Chronomancer.
If I was going to play it though, I'd probably use
Mind Control
Awareness
Reveal Secret
Dispel
Fleet Feet
Transpose
Absorb Knowledge
Telekinesis/Leap/Raise Dead