Sigilist design help.

[Wildcard]

Greetings all,

I am really enjoying Frostgrave and am having a blast with my Necromancer and crew. Now with some games under my belt I'm turning my attention towards my next campaign and my next wizard. I had a rather wacky idea the other day and honestly would like to bounce it off of more experienced players to see if it might fly.

My idea is to create a Sigilist with the following spells, Absorb knowledge, Create grimoire, and Write scroll. Not sure what the other spells would be but that's not really the point. The idea here is that with these three out of game spells, my wizard could not only gain experience more quickly, but also generate a ton of coin by creating the grimoires and scrolls and selling them. I'm not particularly worried that these are all out of game, because honestly, it seems one never really uses a bunch of different spells in a game, and I'll have the five other spells to fall back on.

My concern is that all those other spells are out of class, thus harder to cast. Am I neutering my wizard for a quick cash grab? If it works out by the third game or so I should be set, I just worry I might get housed in the early games.

What say you all? Is this genius or madness? (or perhaps somewhere in between)

[Philhelm]

I think that it's viable.  You'll start off at a slight disadvantage as far as in-game utility and offense.  However, keep in mind that each game might last about six turns.  Since you may only cast one spell per turn, your Wizard and Apprentice won't be able to cast that many spells to begin with.  Therefore, it's probably more efficient to have a small core of bread and butter spells of which you can improve the casting value when you gain a level.  After a few games, you should be able to cast a few non-school spells with fair probability.

[Coenus Scaldingus]

I assume that very much is the design for those spells - the pacifist Sigilist are at some disadvantage during the game, but a succesful casting of those three spells gives them the experience and money to compensate for a lower chance of getting treasure. The right 5 spells may prove to be sufficient during a game anyway - I tend to usually select one or two spells that have occasional use, but may see no casting attempt for several subsequent games. Being at a higher difficulty to cast, it would be (even) more important than usual to select easy alligned and neutral spells, to ensure you can get some spells off during a game too - Heal (always good) may help making necessary empowering possible.

[Awesome Adam]

Get Leap as your 4th Spell, cast it every in game turn to move your models about. First to get closer to the treasures, and then to leap them out of harms way. This way you'll still be a productive spellcaster in gam and earn XP for doing it.

[dwbullock]

I have that exact sigilist makeup.  He does well, but is in no way combat ready.  I have gotten him to level ...10, maybe 11?  However, I rely on my soldiers rather than my wizard to kill things.  I have an inn, kennel, and scriptorium, so I am able to put 12 models on the table.  Wizard, apprentice, slightly killy captain, 3 treasure hunters, 2 bears, 2 infantrymen (swap these out a bit now and then), crossbowman, and dog.  My wizard is armed with handweapon +2 fight and a dagger, and with bumps,  his fight skill is a decent 7 or 8.  However, he has no offensive spells (unless you count push )

This warband is excellent at grabbing treasure, but less at the killing, with little buffing available from the wizard.  You will have the coin to stock up on potions, though (I sell the grimoires he creates, but almost always keep the scrolls because, you know ... scrolls are good to avoid the failed spell rolls).  It will take some getting used to, but the band becomes pretty tough after a few games.  Your friends can get pretty annoyed with you pretty quickly though -- I routinely make more money on the out of game spells than they do snagging treasure.

I like raise zombie, grab treasure, push the zombie.  Push can be better than leap and I'm now casting it at around 6.  My hardest opponents are the ones who have high powered combat wizards.  In those circumstances, hide and run.  And even with kill-centric wizards, 3 treasure hunters can hurt.

[Wildcard]

I have that exact sigilist makeup.  He does well, but is in no way combat ready.  I have gotten him to level ...10, maybe 11?  However, I rely on my soldiers rather than my wizard to kill things.  I have an inn, kennel, and scriptorium, so I am able to put 12 models on the table.  Wizard, apprentice, slightly killy captain, 3 treasure hunters, 2 bears, 2 infantrymen (swap these out a bit now and then), crossbowman, and dog.  My wizard is armed with handweapon +2 fight and a dagger, and with bumps,  his fight skill is a decent 7 or 8.  However, he has no offensive spells (unless you count push )

This warband is excellent at grabbing treasure, but less at the killing, with little buffing available from the wizard.  You will have the coin to stock up on potions, though (I sell the grimoires he creates, but almost always keep the scrolls because, you know ... scrolls are good to avoid the failed spell rolls).  It will take some getting used to, but the band becomes pretty tough after a few games.  Your friends can get pretty annoyed with you pretty quickly though -- I routinely make more money on the out of game spells than they do snagging treasure.

I like raise zombie, grab treasure, push the zombie.  Push can be better than leap and I'm now casting it at around 6.  My hardest opponents are the ones who have high powered combat wizards.  In those circumstances, hide and run.  And even with kill-centric wizards, 3 treasure hunters can hurt.

This is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. Not that the other ideas weren't helpful. Thank you all. I'm not worried about being offensive with the wizard. My current Necromancer doesn't have too many offensive spells at his disposal. Except the bone dart and reveal death. All in all, the more I consider the Sigilist, the more inclined I am to make him!