Thoughts on four player convention offering?

[DaveW]

I have just read the multiplayer rules and am considering whether to offer a four-player free-for-all using apprentice spellbooks at Whosyercon in April. One of us has the yellow and green action markers, and we have plenty of boards to use. Has anyone done this at a Con (or in general, I guess)? Were there any difficulties encountered?

I am thinking about having the players roll for choice of books / Mages. Highest roll gets first pick of books, then players choose in counterclockwise order. Initiative starts with the player who got last choice of book (no option to have another player start) and proceeds clockwise (such that the player who picked their spellbook first goes last).

Any thoughts on problems that I might encounter, or on this method?

Do you believe that the four Box set Mages' apprentice books are relatively balanced?

This is planned as a fun event that would be something a little different for most players, so I'm not overly concerned... and since apprentice books are prepared in advance, we could even have walk-in substitutions.

Any other thoughts would be wonderful... thanks in advance for giving this a little attention.

[Zuberi]

The apprentice books are not entirely balanced imo. The Warlock is the best of the bunch, and the wizard is the hardest. I have never tried a multi player apprentice game before though, so that may change things. Plus it sounds like a pretty casual event, so the minor power difference shouldn't be a big deal.

 How big of a board do you plan on using? I might suggest 4x4. I would also suggest giving each player the task of killing the mage on their left rather than last man standing. That way you don't have people trying to sit out while the others beat up on each other or have people ganging up on some poor sap. You also don't have to worry about people getting eliminated and being bored while the rest of them finish.

[Knabbmaster]

So what if I'm the wizard person too my left is priestess in front of me a warlock and too my right a bestmaster. The warlock would win every single time!

But if it is last man standing no one will attack and wizard would dominate because of his mana advantage.

That's why I think 4 player needs too be in teams.

[Sailor Vulcan]

What about the OCTGN apprentice mode spellbooks? Would those be more balanced?

[DaveW]

What about the OCTGN apprentice mode spellbooks? Would those be more balanced?

I didn't know that there were any such things. I haven't been there.

[Zuberi]

OCTGN uses an Apprentice Variant where, if I understand it correctly, you use the full mage stats (full health, channeling, and special abilities) and build them a 60 point spellbook with a maximum of 2 copies of any particular spell. Then you play on a 3x3 arena. This gives you enough room to utilize conjurations yet still keep the game pretty brutally in each other's face.

If you wanted to go this route, you could build your own books or I could post the OCTGN prebuilt ones for you here. They have one for every mage up to and including the Forged in Fire mages, so just tell me which ones you're interested in. I can't comment on how balanced they are since I haven't actually used them. I would still increase the arena to 4x4 though methinks.

So what if I'm the wizard person too my left is priestess in front of me a warlock and too my right a bestmaster. The warlock would win every single time!

I didn't say you couldn't attack people other than the person on your left. That's just who has to die for you to win. If someone sees a mage other than their target getting the snot beat out of them, they should step in to try to keep them alive longer than their target. For instance, the Priestess might start using creatures to guard the Beastmaster or throw a heal his way, while the Wizard may Dispel an evil curse off of him. This format can actually be extremely dynamic since you don't really want to help each other out, but you need them to stay alive until you can kill your main adversary.

[wtcannonjr]

I think the new domination mode would fit a 4 - player format much better and could lead to more table time of Mage Wars in groups. A tournament format would work nicely. For example, domination points for control of the power stones could be totaled across multiple rounds to rank player performance.