A few times during our games we have had the situation come up where the Wizard starts the game off with or during the game draws spells he can't cast.

Spells like Counterspell or Nulify. If other people are playing characters that don't have access to spells or can only get them randomly through the game, this can be quite frustrating and it really limits the Wizard.

My question is: Are there rules somewhere or do you have any house rules saying that you can discard a spell you can't cast to get another?

Phyros said:

That's par for Talisman. Sometimes you get stuff you can't really use. In a recent game, the Sage spell-cycled a lot (sometimes casting his spells at non-optimal times) and managed to gain an advantage, but at Crown of Command his cycling finally brought him Teleport, which then remained useless in his hand. He still won the game. I'm against all sort of discarding spells house rules, if you got bad spells, tough luck. It's still better overall than endless spell-cycling by discard-draw-discard-draw infinity-loop (or cast for no effect-draw-cast for no effect-draw loop).

I agree. Spell cycling can be a huge advantage, and would be even more so if it wasn't limited by the chance of someone getting stuck with a spell.

There's rules governing how many spells can be cast - see 9.8 in the rule book. Spell cycling shouldn't really be a problem if all aspects of this rule are observed. And indeed, considering how easy it is for anyone to use Spells, getting stuck with the wrong one is sort of the only balancing counterpoint.

JCHendee said:

There are still a lot of spells you can use against other players. Wizard and Prophetess can easily fling 3 Spells per "round" in a 3-player game. Sometimes you get stuck with a spell, but if you don't mind spending Spells at less than optimal times (Mesmerism against a mediocre Follower, Gust of Wind just for kicks when target has 1 Object, Hex/Displacement just 'cos you can, etc.) you can still cycle a lot.

We keep the rules.

otherwise the wizard would cast to many spells.

You must try to find a way to get rid of the spell.