When do you roll for spells?

The reason for my question is, that if you roll for spells before hiring a spellcaster, you could argue, that you may turn that spellcaster down in favor of another one with a better spell avaliable. Same goes for hired swords. Meaning, you could look for a Warlock with all Heroes and choose the one with the best spell, or you could wait until after next game to find a 'better one'.

In my logic I don't see why you should hire anyone without 'testing their abilities' first - spellcaster or not:

"Excuse me sir, they tell me you're a Warlock. I'm looking to hire a Warlock, could you demonstrate your abilities for me?"
*Warlock conjures arrows out of thin air*
"Great, we could use one like you!"

I know a lot plays with 'pick first spell', but we don't in our group. It would just seem more realistic to me, if you could look for a hired sword and turn him down if he doesn't fit your setup. Having to pay for a Warlock I have absolutely no idea what could help me with, seems a bit odd. The exception might be the 'Returning a Favor' exploration roll.

I see what you mean; I've always hired first and rolled for spells afterwards, but have then been left with the unsavoury taste of rolling things like the Spell of Awakening as my first spell... or Shield of Faith when no one in the campaign has a magic user -_-

I think it would certainly help to smooth over discrepancies in future to say that when you hire someone you should be able to choose your first spell, or at least randomise between a set of desirable ones (getting to ignore up to two spells which you feel are sub-par, like Shield of Faith in my example), but having to take random spells from upgrades - representing new powers developing - and whenever you are given a spell-caster or spell from a random occurrence, such as a Tome of Magic (you don't know which spell will be in the book) or 'Returning a Favour'.

I was always in favour of increasing a magic user's point costs by 10% and letting him choose the first spell. There are some spells that would be first choice by many and maybe this would tip the balance in favour of magic users a little bit. But the other way around I've just witnessed too many totally frustrating situations (both myself and colleagues) for a game ment to be fun and a hobby.

I've experienced campaigns both ways and I'll always take the mild frustration of a 'bad' spell rather than the 'chose your spell' method. Chose your spell meant you had to take a spell caster of some type and it was better to take a warband with a good spell list AND a hired warlock.  

I didn't enjoy it.  I realize that I am a bit odd however, so knock yourself out if you must.

Oh, and I'm always tickled by the differences in perception among players from different groups. Spell of Awakening as a bad first spell! Ha! It would be a first choice in our group.

We roll after we hire otherwise you may as well just choose the first spell. As a compromise we have a house rule that the spell caster rolls one extra spell and the player gets to choose which of the rolled spells is the starting spell.

RationalLemming wrote:

We roll after we hire otherwise you may as well just choose the first spell.

That's the thing. My way of seeing it, is this:

You may start without your Wizard-type, if that Wizard has a 'bad' spell.

You may attempt to find a new one after your first game, and roll a new spell. But there are no more Wizards than this one guy eager to join you. So if you don't like it, you may wait until next game.
And if the randomness of the dice is against you, you've played 10 games without a Wizard, just trying to get that one spell.

I'm not saying it's a good plan to try so, though you might get lucky, but at least it provides a bit more of a choice. However, it's with a risk.

RationalLemming wrote:

As a compromise we have a house rule that the spell caster rolls one extra spell and the player gets to choose which of the rolled spells is the starting spell.

This sounds fair. Alternatively you could allow choosing spells but make some exceptions.
I'd never choose my warbands according to their spell list, never hunted for a specific spell and never had more than one magic user in my warband. But I played many warbands where you had to take a magic user if you wanted to take the maximum amount of heroes (which we know is less powergaming than necessity). And there ARE spells that are more or less useless in most situations, so you often have an expensive hero with practically no impact on the game.