I don't want to feel like I'm preaching or spamming, because I already did a big post about solo Gamebooks here, but... well... you do have 2 well-known Gamebooks where you can actually play as a Wizard.
A classic one is the Fighting Fantasy Sorcery series (4 books), if you choose to play as a Wizard (it's basically the main point of the game), it's very hardcore, because you need to study a spellbook (if you don't want to cheat), and try to not only remember the spells and what they do, but also, know when the time is right to use them (and remember if the spell requires a specific item or not to be used). Very thematic, very difficult, great adventure.
For something more relaxed, and more like a Warcraft/Diablo videogame experience, DestinyQuest lets' you choose between Warrior, Rogue or Mage, and then choose a subclass related to your main class (like... Mage Acolyte to play as a healer for example, or Mage Runecaster to play as a damage dealer, but depends on the book, usually has 2 to 3 subclasses).
I can tell you more about this if you want, but these are books, you'll just need a pair of dice, some paper, and a pencil. They do have a narrative/story.
When you accumulate some more experience, take a look at *Ashes Reborn*. It's a PvP game with a PvE mode added in the *Red Rains* expansion. You control one (and only one) Phoenixborn, a being with innate magical power. It's a deck-construction game in which you choose a Phoenixborn and assemble 30 cards to fight an enemy called a Chimera.
There are many spell books, and fantastical monsters, and destructive magics in the game, and it is relatively easy to set up and play.
I'm very new as my other comment said, but from what I can tell there's quite a bit of replayability. The 1 expansion has 2 decks to fight and 3 or 4 difficulty levels. I bought mine 2nd hand but don't believe it came with any extra decks besides what core and viros offered and that gives me 7 or 8 decks to play around with. I've played with 3 so far and they've been quite different style. Some are more spell based, some ally or conjurations, good mixes and some more of a counter/weaken enemy.
I don't have much experience in deck builders but this one I seem to be able to mess around and have fun with. It's, imo, not bad priced to get all needed to start, especially if buying 2nd hand (got core+solo xpac1 for 70$ Cdn, ~50 usd i think). If interested I know there's a solo variant for a fair bit less with 1 deck to start vs enemy. I can't speak to that one if it's good or not or any different even, but if you're pretty sure you'll dive deeper in before getting, it's sort of wasting money from what I've heard as it doesn't have the dice and other decks and such from core+expansion
I was about to suggest this as well. I'm very new to it and only have the corpse of viros for solo play, but so far, it's been great, and I fully expect I'll be investing in more decks/expansions. I appreciate that it's still new enough and not spitting out new stuff so fast that it's quite affordable to collect it all.
**Mage Knight.** It is consistently one of the highest rated solo board games. HOWEVER, it has a lot of rule overhead and takes a while to learn, so if Under Falling Skies is kicking your butt then this game may not be for you until you get more familiar with board games.
**Aeon's End** is another good solo game you can play as a spell caster. It's much simpler to learn than Mage Knight so it might be something you can look into.
Aeon's end is currently my favorite solo game. Managing two characters feels far more manageable and enjoyable than most games with a two handed option.
I’ve heard of mage knight but unfortunately it’s a game to be had down the road. I know if I get it, I’ll be turned off from the steep learning curve. Will definitely look at aeons end though on bgg
Yeah, skip Mage Knight for now, but do keep it in mind. It does magic right. Every turn there is mana of different colors in the source that you can use, that can augment any of your abilities of matching color (you can even charge your movement abilities with mana), but you can only use one mana from the source every turn, making each decision meaningful. Plus there are ways to get mana crystals you can carry around with you and use later when the time is right, plus there are abilities and situations that will give you temporary mana tokens for one turn. Managing all that is very fun, it truly feels like you actually have to work to be a good wizard. Great system.
Also there’s a mystic character class in Arkham Horror LCG that, depending on your build, can see into the future, manipulate the forthcoming events, freeze enemies in place, etc. Or maybe you can have a very powerful attack spell, but it has very limited uses and a chance of a setback on top of that. I finished the Dunwich campaign true solo with a mystic and it was crazy fun, and definitely challenging.
I was looking into lotr lcg as well as marvel but am a bit confused as to the money sink. Like couldn’t be perfectly happy with the base/core of a lcg and have some fun with it or is it to the point where you’re constantly needing to buy expansions? The lotr lcg seems right up my alley but to be frank, I just have no experience with the lcg type game
Well, it depends on how you look at it. I can only speak of Arkham. People say that the core box is just a tutorial and while I agree, I still spent about 10 hours with it and I might go back at some point too. I then got Dunwich expansion + Dunwich investigators and played it twice before I got my next campaign. Two runs through Dunwich took me about 25 hours of gameplay. I mean, that a lot more than most people spend on games usually. I know a lot of people buy board games and play them 2-3 times, and they collect dust on the shelf for a year after that. And I will play Dunwich again, 100%.
I like Arkham, so for me it's worth it. Playtime for other board games is almost laughable compared to AH. I'ts a game I know I might break out in 10 years and play a character and a build I haven't played, and experience a campaign in a totally different way.
In my opinion, the learning curve mostly comes from the ridiculously bad rulebooks. It's not that it has any mistakes(I could think of), but it is very unorganized. I learned it by myself and I would rank it worse than Robinson's Crusoe's rulebook. Once you learn the rules though, it is actually very intuitive and smooth.
Darkest Night: second edition.
You pick four characters from a selection of 29 (I think). Plenty of variety, they all play in their own way, and a lot of them have some form of magical background.
I love the theme, too. You are fighting against a necromancer (ai controlled), but the necromancer has already won the war and taken over most of the land. He's crazy powerful and is hunting you down. The game is about secretly moving around the board to find artefacts that will help kill him, all the while managing the minions, traps, and corruption the necromancer causes. The game is built for 4 characters to be played, but unlike other solo games I've played, handling 4 never seemed too complicated.
It was the second "big" game I bought after mage knight and was quickly one of my favourites. I never see it het mentioned anywhere though, which is sad.
Have you tried looking into One Deck Dungeon? That one doesn’t fit your theme but it is at least easy to learn, but it is a challenging game. You have to get some lucky rolls to really succeed and build up your character as you progress through the dungeon. It’s not a “dungeon crawler” game, it has that vibe in my opinion but it’s more like dice chucking.
I was going to suggest Mage Knight too since it fits that theme but it is a lot to take in, I’m struggling still learning how to play it properly lol.
Mercurial really makes me feel like I’m ’casting spells’ due to the dice roll/manipulation aspect. The cards being tarot size helps too! Not the best rule book, but some YouTube play throughs helped
Presuming shipping ever finishes and you can find a copy, Sorcerer: End bringer has a co-op solo mode. It's a deck combination game of dueling evil spellcasters.
for an incredible experience playing as a spellcaster, i can't recommend **Frostgrave** enough. it's not a board game, but rather a miniatures skirmish game. the "game" is simply a pdf/book and you'll need to source all of the required components yourself, but that's half the fun because you can cater the experience to your budget and aesthetic. it features an accompanying miniatures line (priced very well) but if assembly and painting isn't your thing, you can use dnd minis, prepainted minis, cardboard/plastic standees, chits, or even board game pawn. for the play area, you can model your own terrain, buy prepainted, use jenga blocks, dnd battle maps, or even just a table and books. i use minis and terrain now but played with pathfinder standees and battle map books for years
I don't want to feel like I'm preaching or spamming, because I already did a big post about solo Gamebooks here, but... well... you do have 2 well-known Gamebooks where you can actually play as a Wizard. A classic one is the Fighting Fantasy Sorcery series (4 books), if you choose to play as a Wizard (it's basically the main point of the game), it's very hardcore, because you need to study a spellbook (if you don't want to cheat), and try to not only remember the spells and what they do, but also, know when the time is right to use them (and remember if the spell requires a specific item or not to be used). Very thematic, very difficult, great adventure. For something more relaxed, and more like a Warcraft/Diablo videogame experience, DestinyQuest lets' you choose between Warrior, Rogue or Mage, and then choose a subclass related to your main class (like... Mage Acolyte to play as a healer for example, or Mage Runecaster to play as a damage dealer, but depends on the book, usually has 2 to 3 subclasses). I can tell you more about this if you want, but these are books, you'll just need a pair of dice, some paper, and a pencil. They do have a narrative/story.
When you accumulate some more experience, take a look at *Ashes Reborn*. It's a PvP game with a PvE mode added in the *Red Rains* expansion. You control one (and only one) Phoenixborn, a being with innate magical power. It's a deck-construction game in which you choose a Phoenixborn and assemble 30 cards to fight an enemy called a Chimera. There are many spell books, and fantastical monsters, and destructive magics in the game, and it is relatively easy to set up and play.
I love solo deck construction like all the LCGs. How much variety and replayability is there in Ashes solo (with expansion)?
I'm very new as my other comment said, but from what I can tell there's quite a bit of replayability. The 1 expansion has 2 decks to fight and 3 or 4 difficulty levels. I bought mine 2nd hand but don't believe it came with any extra decks besides what core and viros offered and that gives me 7 or 8 decks to play around with. I've played with 3 so far and they've been quite different style. Some are more spell based, some ally or conjurations, good mixes and some more of a counter/weaken enemy. I don't have much experience in deck builders but this one I seem to be able to mess around and have fun with. It's, imo, not bad priced to get all needed to start, especially if buying 2nd hand (got core+solo xpac1 for 70$ Cdn, ~50 usd i think). If interested I know there's a solo variant for a fair bit less with 1 deck to start vs enemy. I can't speak to that one if it's good or not or any different even, but if you're pretty sure you'll dive deeper in before getting, it's sort of wasting money from what I've heard as it doesn't have the dice and other decks and such from core+expansion
ty for taking the time to explain it. i'll put it on my wishlist and wait for a sale!
I was about to suggest this as well. I'm very new to it and only have the corpse of viros for solo play, but so far, it's been great, and I fully expect I'll be investing in more decks/expansions. I appreciate that it's still new enough and not spitting out new stuff so fast that it's quite affordable to collect it all.
**Mage Knight.** It is consistently one of the highest rated solo board games. HOWEVER, it has a lot of rule overhead and takes a while to learn, so if Under Falling Skies is kicking your butt then this game may not be for you until you get more familiar with board games. **Aeon's End** is another good solo game you can play as a spell caster. It's much simpler to learn than Mage Knight so it might be something you can look into.
Aeon's end is currently my favorite solo game. Managing two characters feels far more manageable and enjoyable than most games with a two handed option.
I’ve heard of mage knight but unfortunately it’s a game to be had down the road. I know if I get it, I’ll be turned off from the steep learning curve. Will definitely look at aeons end though on bgg
I’ll second Aeon’s End. It’s great, and there’s a lot of it (if you feel like going a little crazy)
Yeah, skip Mage Knight for now, but do keep it in mind. It does magic right. Every turn there is mana of different colors in the source that you can use, that can augment any of your abilities of matching color (you can even charge your movement abilities with mana), but you can only use one mana from the source every turn, making each decision meaningful. Plus there are ways to get mana crystals you can carry around with you and use later when the time is right, plus there are abilities and situations that will give you temporary mana tokens for one turn. Managing all that is very fun, it truly feels like you actually have to work to be a good wizard. Great system. Also there’s a mystic character class in Arkham Horror LCG that, depending on your build, can see into the future, manipulate the forthcoming events, freeze enemies in place, etc. Or maybe you can have a very powerful attack spell, but it has very limited uses and a chance of a setback on top of that. I finished the Dunwich campaign true solo with a mystic and it was crazy fun, and definitely challenging.
I was looking into lotr lcg as well as marvel but am a bit confused as to the money sink. Like couldn’t be perfectly happy with the base/core of a lcg and have some fun with it or is it to the point where you’re constantly needing to buy expansions? The lotr lcg seems right up my alley but to be frank, I just have no experience with the lcg type game
Well, it depends on how you look at it. I can only speak of Arkham. People say that the core box is just a tutorial and while I agree, I still spent about 10 hours with it and I might go back at some point too. I then got Dunwich expansion + Dunwich investigators and played it twice before I got my next campaign. Two runs through Dunwich took me about 25 hours of gameplay. I mean, that a lot more than most people spend on games usually. I know a lot of people buy board games and play them 2-3 times, and they collect dust on the shelf for a year after that. And I will play Dunwich again, 100%. I like Arkham, so for me it's worth it. Playtime for other board games is almost laughable compared to AH. I'ts a game I know I might break out in 10 years and play a character and a build I haven't played, and experience a campaign in a totally different way.
In my opinion, the learning curve mostly comes from the ridiculously bad rulebooks. It's not that it has any mistakes(I could think of), but it is very unorganized. I learned it by myself and I would rank it worse than Robinson's Crusoe's rulebook. Once you learn the rules though, it is actually very intuitive and smooth.
Unreliable Wizard
Darkest Night: second edition. You pick four characters from a selection of 29 (I think). Plenty of variety, they all play in their own way, and a lot of them have some form of magical background. I love the theme, too. You are fighting against a necromancer (ai controlled), but the necromancer has already won the war and taken over most of the land. He's crazy powerful and is hunting you down. The game is about secretly moving around the board to find artefacts that will help kill him, all the while managing the minions, traps, and corruption the necromancer causes. The game is built for 4 characters to be played, but unlike other solo games I've played, handling 4 never seemed too complicated. It was the second "big" game I bought after mage knight and was quickly one of my favourites. I never see it het mentioned anywhere though, which is sad.
Check out Unreliable Wizard. Great play to start your solo journey with :)
Beat me to it!
Have you tried looking into One Deck Dungeon? That one doesn’t fit your theme but it is at least easy to learn, but it is a challenging game. You have to get some lucky rolls to really succeed and build up your character as you progress through the dungeon. It’s not a “dungeon crawler” game, it has that vibe in my opinion but it’s more like dice chucking. I was going to suggest Mage Knight too since it fits that theme but it is a lot to take in, I’m struggling still learning how to play it properly lol.
Mercurial really makes me feel like I’m ’casting spells’ due to the dice roll/manipulation aspect. The cards being tarot size helps too! Not the best rule book, but some YouTube play throughs helped
Presuming shipping ever finishes and you can find a copy, Sorcerer: End bringer has a co-op solo mode. It's a deck combination game of dueling evil spellcasters.
Unreliable Wizard. Altough I feel that base game is little bit too easy once you crack it, while the expansion Spirit Tower is way too difficult.
for an incredible experience playing as a spellcaster, i can't recommend **Frostgrave** enough. it's not a board game, but rather a miniatures skirmish game. the "game" is simply a pdf/book and you'll need to source all of the required components yourself, but that's half the fun because you can cater the experience to your budget and aesthetic. it features an accompanying miniatures line (priced very well) but if assembly and painting isn't your thing, you can use dnd minis, prepainted minis, cardboard/plastic standees, chits, or even board game pawn. for the play area, you can model your own terrain, buy prepainted, use jenga blocks, dnd battle maps, or even just a table and books. i use minis and terrain now but played with pathfinder standees and battle map books for years