>Wasn't one of the benifits you mention of new the system the
>fact that you could balance it out a bit to avoid mages
>getting location which were exceedingly more difficult for
>them in comparison to getting other locations?

Yes, but in general we did that by removing locations that are really easy for a character (for barrier especially) rather than remove locations that are really hard for a character.

Although there's also one or two of those that I think are a bit over the top and you might not see on a new character.