I have played HeroQuest for ages and I loved the four sets of magic spells included in the basic HeroQuest game.

There were four sets of spells (the elements) each featuring three spells.

Any idea how to incorporate those spells into HeruQoest's grandson "Descent"?

Turning them into feat cards (as in the ToI expansion) or selling them at the shop as single-use items might work. You could even make them cost a half-action to use (maybe create a new order for using them) and use that to justify making them fairly powerful.

Giving one hero spells instead of decent normal attacks or defenses is probably unworkable without huge changes to the game, though. You could have a hero that starts with some spell cards as a hero ability, though (Arvel Worldwalker already does something similar if we're following the analogy to feat cards).

Yes, the beauty of the HQ spells were that you had to think twice before using them, as they were one-shot items. You're right, that they'd work best as a Wizardry feat card. Haven't thought about that myself. Thanks!

Edit: Are there any decent Descent (hehe) card editors out there?

Well, the most similar to HQ would be:

Spells can be purchased (but are not feats) and each can only be used 1x per quest. This is the most similar to HQ. The attack spells would be too weak for Descent (IMO) since the games can take much longer. The spells like courage which last until the hero can no longer see a monster would probably be fine though, since the monsters can be nearly endless in a Descent quest! =P

If you have Tomb of Ice, then you'll find the Feat cards are actually quite similar to this - they are one shot bonuses. The HQ spells could easily be converted into Feat cards. The main difference is that you gain Feat cards at random when you find treasure in Descent, while you restock your spell cards at the start of any quest in HQ.

For a system that lets players use a spell multiple times, one might have a picture like this:

-Spells are skills and require a half-action plus Fatigue to use. The dmg dealt can be scaled with the campaign lvl in RTL. Alternately, the spells may not be skills but subskills which can only be learned once you have trained in the appropriate pact skill. So, for instance, once you have learned Fire Pact, you could then purchase Fire spells. This way, the spells can be cheaper than if they were skills without being too easy to obtain. Plus its kind of cool, thematically!

Nice ideas.

I shall play a bit more ToI and then try some HeroQuest Spells build into the game as feat cards...

I suggest making casting spells take prolonged actions. Give them a use in RtL.

The Warp created a system (posted on BGG) where spells are the equivalent of attack half-actions. I also like the idea of having spell casting being a skill card, which comes with x number of spells built in, and you could select a start-up subset from among a pool of available spells. Rather than make them one-shot, I kind of like the idea of spending a prolonged magic action to prepare a spell for use again after it has been utilized, and allow the Concentrate half-action to be added on as well, such that a mage could spend his entire turn re-constituting a "spent" spell, if he so desired.

I've been working on such a system, and again wish to give credit to Jack (The Warp) for creating the foundation. I haven't tested it at all, so other suggestions are welcomed.

I was thinking that the initial pool could be considered Level One spells, and that a few stronger spells could be trained at The University or something for XP and gold, and could be Level Two, but would be strictly limited so that they didn't become an overpowering effect on the game.

you mean something like "Magic scrolls" which should be used for everybody (read, give). With appropriate skill level Forex should use player with min. 2 die in his Magic trait. Highest level of scrolls can read only players which have ( 5 threat die - on gold level ) .... so it should be easy integrated in RtL too.

I assume that this must be a sarcastic reference to the fact that this sounds similar to another game you have played. Since I haven't ever played that game, I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds cute....for whatever that's worth. Thanks so much for the positive comment!

you could make the spell casting a new order token.

That would fold it right into the rest of the game without requiring the creation of new actions.

The two possible problems with that would be Silhouette and Leadership, but if you are careful with the Spell/Scroll token's rules, these should be negligible. The trick is all in when you use the token and when you lose it.