Article: Thoughts on the Frostgrave Campaign System

[Calmdown]

1) How many players in the campaign?  Learning on reading the rules that it is "open-ended" and/or removes the most powerful wizards on a regular basis, I assumed the design was hoping for larger numbers of 'bands.  Are you playing with Transendence?

4. We played eachother once, for a total of 3 games each, 6 games in total. We had intended to have a long running campaign, but instead we're starting again with our new houserules as things have already gotten out of control (Two of us are level 12 with a stack of magic items and warbands full of 80g+ guys, one guy is level 6, just lost all his magic items to a close call and still has essentially his starting warband, and one guy died then got wiped again the game after and lost people so is essentially starting a new warband for the second time in two games)

We aren't playing with Transcendence. If you make Transcendence the "goal", then you're essentially just seeing who can hit a few thousand gold and roll some lucky rolls first - and we want a nice campaign where everyone gets to develop and play games. Transcendence strikes be as something definitely more oriented towards RPG-style campaigns that possibly have a GM or expanded out of game rules where you cant simply buy the grimoires and rely on lucky rolls on a huge table!

I dont think the design was hoping for a large number of gamers. Wargaming is still small and niche, and this is a niche game within a niche. Expecting more than 4-6 regular players for a campaign game like this in our hobby is crazy!

2) I don't have my book in front of me, but the XP for kills is interesting.  Did you hit any scenarios with location or treasure bonuses?  Would you suggest leaving XP bonuses for scenario specific kills (like a worm) as similar to entering the null magic tower while leaving out generic kill points?

We played scenarios, yep (in fact, my 6-0 was Mausoleum so I got an extra 300g and 120xp....). I'd always leave in generic XP bonuses, because anyone can get them and that's great, and fun (Dave is adding XP for killing wandering monsters into his expanded campaign system). The problem is Wizards getting extra kill XP, because very few spells are killy and furthermore, if your playstyle is one of the other (awesome) classes like Illusionist, Thauamturge, or Sigilist, why should you too not be rewarded for using your spell powers on the battlefield? In a game this cool and varied, being pushed towards blowing people up as the best way of levelling is a real shame. For reference, the two of us who used offensive casters both earned about 400xp over 3 games from our nuking, vs the Sigilist and Witch who earned none - combined with the fact we were also winning (due in no small part to the fact that Elemental Bolt is very powerful when there is no time limit and you can sit around flinging nukes), we ended the day 6 levels higher than the nearest Wizard. That's why we though we'd remove the kill XP for wizards and just up the XP for casting in general, so that whatever option you choose to use from your magical repertoire, it's rewarded equally.

3) I think your wizards are supposed to be squishy and powerful, very happy to hear they can die easily if exposed.  That's a plus for me! (not a question, sorry!)

I agree, I'm happy that they can be KO'd, although the permadeath sucks. No one likes to see the star of the show die, and as this game is all about your Wizard, losing those 10 levels can lead to some very unfun situations.

4) Any Sigilists?  I thought the "extra money and XP while useless in battle" was an interesting route.  Had considered one with a speedy band as flat out treasure hunters.

Yep, Iain played one, and my Enchanter was basically a Sigilist in function (Enchant Weapon, Embed Enchantment, Telekinesis, Write Scroll, Brew Potion, Elemental Bolt, Dispel, Strike Dead and I found an Absorb Knowledge grimoire after my last game) - I designed him to have good out of game spells, and Telekinesis/Bolt for combat and treasure theft. Absorb Knowledge is also a really great neutral school spell as it's so easy to cast and is "free" since it's out of game. I almost played Sigilist on the day but went with my Enchanter instead at the last minute. Casting from scrolls is a very powerful mechanic.

Don't misunderstand me; ALL of the schools of magic are cool (though Chronomancer and Soothsayer are a bit underwhelming; a subject for another article) and are all powerful in their own way. But within the confines of the scenarios and the way the game is, there is little reason not to take a damage-based caster as you just get so much more XP for those spells as well as killing people being generally superior to debuffing them since wiping the table gets you all of the treasure.

[JamWarrior]

If dead killy elemental bolt wizards are a big part of the issue, were you perhaps playing on terrain that was too open?

And no accusations, just brainstorming here, you were rolling to shoot after rolling to cast the spell right?  I've not played with a shooty wizard, but with a casting roll, followed by a shooting roll, and then with your opponents combat roll and armour to beat, I thought shooty spells would get plenty of extra chances to fail.

Looking at the XP table I can see how 40XP per soldier kill could quickly add up if you are managing to rack up the kills with an offensive wizard.

[Harry]

Mmmmm ....

Don't disagree with you on any given point .... other than I don't really have a problem with houseruling it.

The time thing is an issue ... It is possible  once you have the advantage in the game to forget the treasure your side of the board and take out the other guys leaving you to clean up ... BUT he is not going down without a fight and you can end up taking significant danage to your guys ... which is going to cost some of your hard earned wedge to replace. You could get off the table with 5 chests and still not get enough gold to replace one specialist lost in the game. (obviosuly that was some very unlucky rolls on the treasure table.  
But if the average gold is 50gc in a chest (and it is somehwere there) you have a 50/50 chnace of redeeming the cost of one lost specialist by going after two chests on the other side of the table.
...and you could easily loose more trying to take out an entire warband. My experience is that this is a game of smasha nd grab ... take what you can, and stay alive. Risking all for even one extra chest whic might have  nothing in it (Fools gold) or even without that spell you have something like a 40% chance of it containing less than 50gc ... Life in Frostgrave is cheap .... but it aint that cheap!

The house rule I was looking at was rather than a set number of moves for a game my idea is to have a weather table so that you randomly roll for the weather each turn .... eventually you will randomly roll for a snow storm and that ends the game because you can not see, move or fight worth a damn in the white out. This means that no one knows if they have just a couple fo turns to grab some treasure and get off the board or if they have longer to go after the treasures on the other side of the board. It also means that the  wizard who is behind can get lucky and escape with a couple fo treasures ahead of a higher level opponent. What it defo mens is that you can not sit around and try destroying the opposing warbamd down to the last man as you will end up leaving with no treasure either when you are beaten by the weather.
Weather can also effect the elentalists super killy spells and just take thee edge off them being able to cast them every turn.
But this was more for additional random fun than a fix ... I just like weather tables.

Some wizards are more killy than others BUT most schools are aligned to another school with a killy spell even if they do not have one themselves ... so they can (and should) take one right from the start. Chronomancer/emchanter and Summoner all have access to the Elemtalists spells.The chronomancer, summoner and witch have access to the Necronacers spells and and the elementalist, sigilist and witch all have access to the enchanters spells... that only leaves the poor old illusionist, soothsayer and Thaumaturge and even these guys can take two killy spells with their last two spell slots from any neutral school. Given they can only cast one spell a turn ... just how many killy spells does a guy need. OK so they have an advantage if they are from their primary school but with the randomness of a D20 is a 70% chance of another wizard casting Elemental Bolt really that much worse than the Elementalists 60% chance? I mean he has to be stood in the open in line of site to cast it. He better be sure he kills him or the same spell is coming straight back at him. with only a 10% worse chance of killing him .... you got to ask yourself one question punk. Do you feel lucky?

It really isn't all about Killing. Cast 5 spells and get of the table with your three chests and you get 200 Experience you have to kill 10 thievs and thugs ... more than an entire warband to match that. Or four infantrymen / archers / crossbow men. Or two and a specialist ..... or two speciaalists .... none of those are easy. (unless you are playing an idiot walking around in the open? But even then you are risking your guys to go on this killing spree. .... and you get back into the risk v's cost analysis I mentioned  at the start. Remember your wizard is risking death or serious injury to take out anyone personnaly .... given the D20 sytem it is almost as easy for a grunt to kill a wziard with a lucky roll in a fight or with a missile it is a foolish wizard who risks getting into a fight or shot by a soldier for a poxy 40 experience points.

There is only one fix you need to consider with a campaign .... give all the soldiers and wizards a 50% chance of DEATH! (instead of the 10-20% in the game) if they get killed by being stupid. That will make folks think twice.


The balance between warbands thing .... The game is should be somewhere near balanced at the start .... I also like a campaign to be a slow burner. (I used to love D&D at low leves ...levels 1-3 was best ...when everyone had to be scared of dying) so I would be looking to reduce all the treasure for any campaign I played regardless of balance ... to stetch it out to more games. I will be writing traesure tables with small stashes ... and with common equipmet to upgrade a soldier a bit ... stuff like that. Whilst this will not chnage anything in the long run .... guys can still get ahead by luck or skill .... it will slow things down a bit because someone will not be able to get so far ahead after only on game....making it easier for the other guy to come back by luck or skill the second game .... too big a haul for kicking the other guys arse is always going to be a problem so minimising that .... through weather and treasure tables would be my suggestion.

You can't do much about the situation of one guy getting ahead ... this has been the problem with every gang based game I have ever played Legends of the Old West, High seas, Mordheim, Munda .... all the same ... all fair at the start but once one guy gets ahead or one guy falls behind it is very difficult to  catch up. But with more than two players you should be all set as there is alot in it for the other two players to gang up on the guy who is ahead to stop him running away with it ... just like in Risk. ... and some of that 'out of game' deals, backstabbing and alliances is some of the fun to had with a gang based game. This one looks on the face of it no better, no worse than any other. In fact the randomness of the treasure tables as they stand can mean a guy who is behind can catch up big time with some lucky treasure rolls on the one or two chests he got. In one game we played I killed the other wizard and kicked his arse but he still ended up ahead with a full recovery for all his guys and 300 more Gold than me and I lost men. GIT!

But what a tale to tell .... he risked all and ventured into Frostgrave ... he survived a bolt of lightening that would have killed a lesser man. He lost half of his retainers but still when he returned to his base and opened the chests he discovered items of such wonder that he forgot for a moment the inherent inbalance in any gaang based campaign.

[Dakota Mike]

Hmm, interesting read.  Couple thoughts:

I thought when your wizard died that your apprentice could take over?  I would think this would help mitigate wizard-death, or at least give a nice narrative.

An idea I am going to implement for when one player gets too powerful relative to the others is to basically do a battle or scenario where the powerful player takes on the role of the monsters and the weaker has their normal warband.   Then the weaker warband could gain experience and treasure to bring them up closer to the level of the powerful warband.  

So, the higher-level player gets to still have fun and use tactics with the creatures, but doesn't gain any experience for that game.  It would take a little fiddling but I think its easily doable.  One narrative would be the weaker warband campsite getting ambushed by zombies / wolves / ect.  Another could be the weaker warband exploring Frostgrave and simply only encountering monsters that day.  

I wouldn't want to have to do the catching up all the time, but I think it would still be fun and would make the campaign better.

[JamWarrior]

I thought when your wizard died that your apprentice could take over?  I would think this would help mitigate wizard-death, or at least give a nice narrative.

The apprentice can only take over if your wizard was level 10 or more, because the apprentice starts 10 levels below where your wizard was.  Again showing that big wizard level mismatches are intended feature of the rules for better or worse.

[Calmdown]

If dead killy elemental bolt wizards are a big part of the issue, were you perhaps playing on terrain that was too open?

Not at all. There are pics of the terrain on the blog. We're all Infinity players, so we probably use even more terrain and are more used to setting up restricted LoS tables than most As I said earlier, the problem isn't the spells - none of us felt that ranged attacks or the ranged attack spells were imbalanced in their own right - but the fact that those spells reward you with 40-150xp extra depending on what you shoot, as opposed to getting no extra single reward for something like a Teleport, Heal or a Dispel, just makes said spells a lot more attractive. If anything, nuke spells are the most boring spells of all, so rewarding them with extras and not rewarding anything else?

And no accusations, just brainstorming here, you were rolling to shoot after rolling to cast the spell right?  I've not played with a shooty wizard, but with a casting roll, followed by a shooting roll, and then with your opponents combat roll and armour to beat, I thought shooty spells would get plenty of extra chances to fail.

You'd think that, and you'd be partly right. They do fail a lot, because *everything* fails a lot in Frostgrave. But equally, +5 and +8 from the two most common nuke spells are very large bonuses, so you do win a lot. As an example, in the last game I played vs Aaron (where I wiped him) I successfully cast 5 Elemental Bolts - two naturally, and 3 with empowerment between my health and my staff of power. Two of them then failed to shoot him, two of them did some damage, and only one of them outright killed something. But then on the table next to me, Dave did roughly the same - casting all of his thanks to empowerment and magic items, but he rolled a bit better and killed something like 4 guys with his.

D20s are swingy, but don't underestimate those +5s and +8s either!

Looking at the XP table I can see how 40XP per soldier kill could quickly add up if you are managing to rack up the kills with an offensive wizard.

It really does, along with the +80s and +150s on the odd occasion, and then you combine that with kill spells also contributing to "wipe the opponent and get all of the treasure counters" which is another 50+ xp per counter depending on scenario, and suddenly you have 700xp games like my last one.

I thought when your wizard died that your apprentice could take over?  I would think this would help mitigate wizard-death, or at least give a nice narrative.

It doesn't really help at all. Especially if you are already behind. 10 levels can be huge, and in the early stages of the game (pre-10) you also lose all of your treasure too. Setting your Wizard back to 0 and keeping your treasure pre-10 might be an option here.

An idea I am going to implement for when one player gets too powerful relative to the others is to basically do a battle or scenario where the powerful player takes on the role of the monsters and the weaker has their normal warband.   Then the weaker warband could gain experience and treasure to bring them up closer to the level of the powerful warband.

Most of the problems I've talked about go away when you "passively GM" the campaign like this - which is something that Joe has intended I believe! All of my critiques are really aimed at people who don't want to GM their campaign either actively or passively and instead want to play it as a game with fixed rules.

Incidentally, when I raised this idea to Dave, he said to me "thanks but I don't want your pity scenario". Haha. I like it too, though

The apprentice can only take over if your wizard was level 10 or more, because the apprentice starts 10 levels below where your wizard was.  Again showing that big wizard level mismatches are intended feature of the rules for better or worse.

For better or worse being the operative part here. The thing is though, when you combine this with other incremental advantages such as improved warband members, items on warband members, and the big one - treasure and magic items - it isn't just the levels that kill you, it's the fact that the opponent has a pile of free empowers, auto cast scrolls, potions and so on that you just don't have that's as much of a problem.

[Mr. Peabody]

Just going to throw in my two pennies here... I haven't played FG yet, but as four members of our local club have just received their copies, it looks like it will be on the radar here for a while to come.

A turn limit for scenarios is an excellent idea as it puts the focus of play squarely on the objectives. No harm also having a straight-up fight scenario in the mix as well, if folks want one.

I'm surprised a game about wizards & spell-casting doesn't reward the use of magic more evenly. Would a simple XP gain per spell successfully cast work?

[Calmdown]

Just going to throw in my two pennies here... I haven't played FG yet, but as four members of our local club have just received their copies, it looks like it will be on the radar here for a while to come.

A turn limit for scenarios is an excellent idea as it puts the focus of play squarely on the objectives. No harm also having a straight-up fight scenario in the mix as well, if folks want one.

I'm surprised a game about wizards & spell-casting doesn't reward the use of magic more evenly. Would a simple XP gain per spell successfully cast work?

In the basic rules you get 10xp per spell cast. 40xp per kill, 80xp per apprentice kill, 150xp per wizard kill. Obviously the Wizard could get this XP for melee kills too, but in practice it's basically an extra reward for casting a nuke spell.
.
We're removing all those kill xp bonuses and upping the xp per spell cast to 20, so that all spells (and hence all strategies - nuking strategies, illusionist tricksy strategies, healy strategies) are rewarded equally.

Cheers

[gorillacrab]

Perhaps this is a bit simplistic, but could a "fix" for the campaign issue simply be to make upgrading more expensive as the level of your spellcasters increases - as in D&D levels?

Looking at the leveling section of the rules on pg 56, it simply says that you get to improve one stat/spell for every 100 experience points. With some playtesting and adjusting, it would be reasonable to increase the required exp points to 200, 300 etc as you go up.

This would make it easier for lower casters to begin catching up.

All the same, many gamers can't play very often, and with fewer games having the opportunity to buff your wizard and apprentice fairly easily in the early going is a bonus. So creating a Leveling Table could be a solution but would require some testing to find the sweet spot.

(also like the idea of limiting game length - but that must also consider table size)

[Calmdown]

Perhaps this is a bit simplistic, but could a "fix" for the campaign issue simply be to make upgrading more expensive as the level of your spellcasters increases - as in D&D levels?

Looking at the leveling section of the rules on pg 56, it simply says that you get to improve one stat/spell for every 100 experience points. With some playtesting and adjusting, it would be reasonable to increase the required exp points to 200, 300 etc as you go up.

This would make it easier for lower casters to begin catching up.

All the same, many gamers can't play very often, and with fewer games having the opportunity to buff your wizard and apprentice fairly easily in the early going is a bonus. So creating a Leveling Table could be a solution but would require some testing to find the sweet spot.

(also like the idea of limiting game length - but that must also consider table size)

That would certainly help, but is only part of the problem - treasure is a big issue too. Having a warband full of magic items, a wizard with empowerment assists and extra defence and auto casts from scrolls, vs a vanilla warband - even with a wizard of the same level - is a big disparity.

Actually, I expect Wizard levels womt be an issue once you hit about level 30 and every one has a spell or two fully upgraded. Then two Wizards, even with a level disparity, would be kn an even footing casting their "best spell" and all that the hier level wizard would have is more options rather than necessarily better ones. Treasure will still be the deciding factor.

That said, we also did feel like treasure was too easy to acquire. My wizard and apprentice were almost fully upgraded afer 3 games; after another 3, my warband and base probably would have been too.

Slowing down everything is definitely something worth looking into, but again, time limited scenarios do all of this as a byproduct so thats definitely the best starting point imho.

[Lotan]

3) I think your wizards are supposed to be squishy and powerful, very happy to hear they can die easily if exposed.  That's a plus for me! (not a question, sorry!)

4) Any Sigilists?  I thought the "extra money and XP while useless in battle" was an interesting route.  Had considered one with a speedy band as flat out treasure hunters.

3) Yeah they are squishy and powerful, but they are the only real character in your game, almost a representation of yourself in game. It's like playing a D&D campaign and having your guy die every 2 seconds, you soon get out leveled and out geared, and it gets boring. In a game like necromunda where ALL of your guys gain xp and stat increases etc, then a leader dying is not fun, but not the end of the world. In a game where the whole focus is the wizard and everyone else is the supporting cast, you don't want to see him dying permanently, you want him to do a Gandalf.

4) The idea behind that is great, more out of game buffs in exchange for less in game spells. The problem is that you only need one decent in game dmg spell. Two if you want an AoE, but apart from that, in game in 3 games I think I cast 3 spells, leap, elemental bolt, and elemental ball.

The game is possibly not very suited as stands for a strict 'everyone plays everyone in order' type of campaign.  But that's okay if that isn't what it is trying to be.

The very existence of the Absorb Knowledge spell shows that wizard level mismatches are an expected feature of the game as the spell serves no purpose other than to give you a level boost over your opponent at the cost of less spell options in game.

If there's a very large power mismatch between the bands of two players I think you need to accept that they probably shouldn't be playing a straight game if you want a balanced match.  They either need to find their own narrative to mess with the setup and give the underdog an advantage, or one or both need to start new secondary bands.

I agree, I think it suits narrative GM'd campaigns more than leagues.

Absorb knowledge, the same as my response to Macavityandmycroft. If you got a boost to levels at the cost of spells then that would be fine, but you actually need very few ingame spells to play well. If the schools and numbers of spells was more limited early game then I could see why this works.

Mmmmm ....

Don't disagree with you on any given point .... other than I don't really have a problem with houseruling it.

The time thing is an issue it is possible  once you have the advantage in the game to forget the treasure your side of the board and take out the other guys leaving you to clean up ... BUT he is not going down without a fight and you can end up taking significant danage to your guys ... which is going to cost some of your hard earned wedge to replace. You could get off the table with 5 chests and still not get enough gold to replace one specialist lost in the game. (obviosuly that was some very unlucky rolls on the treasure table.   Actually it feels like the more you get ahead it seems that you become exponentially more dangerous to your opponents, if you think of it in terms of ingame currency, so actions, someone reduced to 5 guys suddenly has half the attacks to hit back, then they lose a few more, they get even lower a ratio. The worst ones we found was as soon as a wizard died the surviving side pretty much had free reign.
But if the average gold is 50gc in a chest (and it is somehwere there) you have a 50/50 chnace of redeeming the cost of one lost specialist by going after two chests on the other side of the table.It's only a 1 in 5 chance of that specialist dying. Something worth going for. in order to get more treasure and xp.
...and you could easily loose more trying to take out an entire warband. My experience is that this is a game of smasha nd grab ... take what you can, and stay alive. Risking all for even one extra chest whic might have  nothing in it (Fools gold) or even without that spell you have something like a 40% chance of it containing less than 50gc ... Life in Frostgrave is cheap .... but it aint that cheap! Fools gold doesn't really count as it is revealed to be fake when it is made contact with, you don't even need to pick it up, it would be better if you discovered if it was real or not after the game ends. The part about 40% chance of containing less than 50gc, if you look at the results that give that you receive a potential 500g in items, scrolls, potions, etc. We found from items found you maybe keep half, the rest can be sold on instantly, which is my reason for the Frostgrave Tesco Extra comment. You can sell and buy whatever you need, and that is something that doesn't feel fluffly when you are exploring a ruined ancient city, and is something I am looking at addressing in my extended campaign stuff for our group.

The house rule I was looking at was rather than a set number of moves for a game my idea is to have a weather table so that you randomly roll for the weather each turn .... eventually you will randomly roll for a snow storm and that ends the game because you can not see, move or fight worth a damn in the white out. I love this idea! I have considered playing with events like this in my campaign stuff. This means that no one knows if they have just a couple fo turns to grab some treasure and get off the board or if they have longer to go after the treasures on the other side of the board. It also means that the  wizard who is behind can get lucky and escape with a couple fo treasures ahead of a higher level opponent. What it defo mens is that you can not sit around and try destroying the opposing warbamd down to the last man as you will end up leaving with no treasure either when you are beaten by the weather.
Weather can also effect the elentalists super killy spells and just take thee edge off them being able to cast them every turn.
But this was more for additional random fun than a fix ... I just like weather tables.

Some wizards are more killy than others BUT most schools are aligned to another school with a killy spell even if they do not have one themselves ... so they can (and should) take one right from the start. Chronomancer/emchanter and Summoner all have access to the Elemtalists spells True, but they are aligned spells, good luck getting those spells cast on a 14+/16+! That is the casting requirement of the cheapest elemental direct dmg spell. 12+. As an elementalist I think I cast bolt once in my first game due to it's high number..The chronomancer, summoner and witch have access to the Necronacers spells and and the elementalist, sigilist and witch all have access to the enchanters spells... that only leaves the poor old illusionist, soothsayer and Thaumaturge and even these guys can take two killy spells with their last two spell slots from any neutral school.Again, the chances of casting these early on are slim extremely slim. Given they can only cast one spell a turn ... just how many killy spells does a guy need. OK so they have an advantage if they are from their primary school but with the randomness of a D20 is a 70% chance of another wizard casting Elemental Bolt really that much worse than the Elementalists 60% chance?That 10% is huge. It is also the difference of whether you suffer dmg from failing. I mean he has to be stood in the open in line of site to cast it.Really, how so? You can be in cover to cast! He better be sure he kills him or the same spell is coming straight back at him. with only a 10% worse chance of killing him .... you got to ask yourself one question punk. Do you feel lucky?

It really isn't all about Killing. Cast 5 spells and get of the table with your three chests and you get 200 Experience you have to kill 10 thievs and thugs ... more than an entire warband to match that. Or four infantrymen / archers / crossbow men. Or two and a specialist ..... or two speciaalists .... none of those are easy. (unless you are playing an idiot walking around in the open? But even then you are risking your guys to go on this killing spree. .... and you get back into the risk v's cost analysis I mentioned  at the start. Remember your wizard is risking death or serious injury to take out anyone personnaly .... given the D20 sytem it is almost as easy for a grunt to kill a wziard with a lucky roll in a fight or with a missile it is a foolish wizard who risks getting into a fight or shot by a soldier for a poxy 40 experience points.

There is only one fix you need to consider with a campaign .... give all the soldiers and wizards a 50% chance of DEATH! (instead of the 10-20% in the game) if they get killed by being stupid. That will make folks think twice.
That's not really a fix, that's having a broken bike, so instead of fixing it you break everyone elses so they're in the same boat as you!

The balance between warbands thing .... The game is should be somewhere near balanced at the start .... I also like a campaign to be a slow burner. (I used to love D&D at low leves ...levels 1-3 was best ...when everyone had to be scared of dying) so I would be looking to reduce all the treasure for any campaign I played regardless of balance ... to stetch it out to more games. I will be writing traesure tables with small stashes ... and with common equipmet to upgrade a soldier a bit ... stuff like that. Whilst this will not chnage anything in the long run .... guys can still get ahead by luck or skill .... it will slow things down a bit because someone will not be able to get so far ahead after only on game....making it easier for the other guy to come back by luck or skill the second game .... too big a haul for kicking the other guys arse is always going to be a problem so minimising that .... through weather and treasure tables would be my suggestion. You just argued that there is barely enough treasure 40% of the time to replace a lost specialist, then that there should be a 50% chance fo death for everyone, now you should only get tiny amounts of treasure. How would loses be replaced, or upgrades bought? That wouldn't stop them going ahead, it would cripple everyone. It may work if you removed the chance of death, but increasing it whilst decreasing treasure is potentially gamebreaking

You can't do much about the situation of one guy getting ahead ... this has been the problem with every gang based game I have ever played Legends of the Old West, High seas, Mordheim, Munda .... all the same ... all fair at the start but once one guy gets ahead or one guy falls behind it is very difficult to  catch up. But with more than two players you should be all set as there is alot in it for the other two players to gang up on the guy who is ahead to stop him running away with it ... just like in Risk. ... and some of that 'out of game' deals, backstabbing and alliances is some of the fun to had with a gang based game. This one looks on the face of it no better, no worse than any other. In fact the randomness of the treasure tables as they stand can mean a guy who is behind can catch up big time with some lucky treasure rolls on the one or two chests he got. In one game we played I killed the other wizard and kicked his arse but he still ended up ahead with a full recovery for all his guys and 300 more Gold than me and I lost men. GIT! That sort of thing is fine, but it needs to be governed by some sort of rules set, otherwise it could get out of hand
But what a tale to tell .... he risked all and ventured into Frostgrave ... he survived a bolt of lightening that would have killed a lesser man. He lost half of his retainers but still when he returned to his base and opened the chests he discovered items of such wonder that he forgot for a moment the inherent inbalance in any gaang based campaign.

The apprentice can only take over if your wizard was level 10 or more, because the apprentice starts 10 levels below where your wizard was.  Again showing that big wizard level mismatches are intended feature of the rules for better or worse.

It's ok if you are all level 50 and a guy drops to 40, but when its low level the difference is huge. One problem we also found is as soon as someone can afford elixir of life it gives even more of an advantage. Myself and Ian (Calmdown) both got so far ahead that we could drop 500g on a potion, which made us even more survivable and less likely to die, while the people who had lost wizards and were low level were both now terrible AND couldn't afford an Elixir of Life.

Just going to throw in my two pennies here... I haven't played FG yet, but as four members of our local club have just received their copies, it looks like it will be on the radar here for a while to come.

A turn limit for scenarios is an excellent idea as it puts the focus of play squarely on the objectives. No harm also having a straight-up fight scenario in the mix as well, if folks want one.

I'm surprised a game about wizards & spell-casting doesn't reward the use of magic more evenly. Would a simple XP gain per spell successfully cast work?

There is a reward, but it's 10 xp. So killing a guy with a spell is 50xp, 40 for the kill, 10 for the spell. We are looking at removing kill xp and increasing cast xp. Maybe 20 or 25xp per spell cast.

If dead killy elemental bolt wizards are a big part of the issue, were you perhaps playing on terrain that was too open?

And no accusations, just brainstorming here, you were rolling to shoot after rolling to cast the spell right?  I've not played with a shooty wizard, but with a casting roll, followed by a shooting roll, and then with your opponents combat roll and armour to beat, I thought shooty spells would get plenty of extra chances to fail.

Looking at the XP table I can see how 40XP per soldier kill could quickly add up if you are managing to rack up the kills with an offensive wizard.

Nope, we had tonnes of terrain, infact, I think if we had made it any more cdense we may as well have been playing on a dungeon tile set! As for the shooting after the cast, elemental bolt is a +8 shoot. That pretty much rinses most people, and even on a roll of a 10 if you hit an average goon you are doing 6-8 points of dmg.


None of this is a condemnation of the game however, it is, in itself, extremely fun to play, it's just to make it last without people getting frustrated and put off, it may need some tweaking!

[fastolfrus]

If you're going for a time limit, perhaps the "Peter Pig countdown" would work - at the end of each turn roll a dice (PP use a D6) and when the total hits XX (PP is usually a count of 21) it's game over.
If you want to justify it as a gap in the weather and on a count of XX the blizzard hits, or similar narrative, fair enough.

If you want to slow the increase in levels, just divide XP earned by current level, so level 1s earn full XP, but level 10s will only pick up 10%. That could slow down the snowball effect.

If you have a party with lots of expensive gear it seems likely that they will attract attention - any wandering monsters naturally attracted to shiny trinkets (giants, trolls, demons) should target the rich guys first - maybe they should be controlled by the weaker player?

[JamWarrior]

I'm thinking some kind of underdog post game loot bonus would be nice.  Not attempting to balance the game in question, but to offer some incentive to taking on the longer shot and some consolation for your loss if you don't beat the odds.

The complication comes in measuring relative strengths however when cash and XP are two independent components of a band's fighting strength.

[fastolfrus]

And just a minor tweak, but as a suggestion, any wizard with a base needs to leave it guarded by a healthy soldier, preferably Man at Arms or better, otherwise he may come home to find it empty (or occupied by another band of explorers).

If you want to leave it to chance, then if you leave your base unguarded, roll more than your wizard level on a D20 to come home and find it intact.
Deduct one from your roll for each treasure item left in the vault.
If you fail the roll, lose any treasure items on a 50/50 roll (roll for each one), and roll a D10 to see what percentage of your cash went (multiply the D10 roll by 10 to give a result from 10% to 100%).
If it was guarded by injured soldiers and you fail the roll, then it was an "inside job" and they've stolen your loot to retire home (so you've also lost the soldiers).

The sensible rich wizard will of course hire a Man at arms for base security, but that takes out one of his soldier options. Not much of a hindrance, but it may help the weaker player a bit.

[Smith]

And just a minor tweak, but as a suggestion, any wizard with a base needs to leave it guarded by a healthy soldier, preferably Man at Arms or better, otherwise he may come home to find it empty (or occupied by another band of explorers).

If you want to leave it to chance, then if you leave your base unguarded, roll more than your wizard level on a D20 to come home and find it intact.
Deduct one from your roll for each treasure item left in the vault.
If you fail the roll, lose any treasure items on a 50/50 roll (roll for each one), and roll a D10 to see what percentage of your cash went (multiply the D10 roll by 10 to give a result from 10% to 100%).
If it was guarded by injured soldiers and you fail the roll, then it was an "inside job" and they've stolen your loot to retire home (so you've also lost the soldiers).

The sensible rich wizard will of course hire a Man at arms for base security, but that takes out one of his soldier options. Not much of a hindrance, but it may help the weaker player a bit.

Oh, that's mean. I love it. Especially the bit where your injured soldiers just decide to rob you and go home!