HOUSE RULES - Magic

[Laerethian]

Hi 

I'd like to share with you guys my personal take on magic for AoS. They are house rules I made in order to make the magic a little bit more challenging and fun. I personally find it flat and think it should be one of the first thing GW should fix in the next releases of the game. But until that happens, I hope you will find my house rules fun and as balanced as possible.

Keep in mind that this IS a critic at the current rules, but that I'm in no way a hater and that I play Age of Sigmar without any problem with its standard rules, so please no hate, I'd love to hear rational and well thought impressions. 

Bye bye and have a good read,

Laerethian

EDIT

New version with some corrections and changes available, just follow this link to the file page:

http://www.tga.community/files/file/25-winds-of-magic-for-age-of-sigmar/

[chord]

We've always played it that you don't need Line of Sight to dispel

[Laerethian]

Nice to hear that, let me know if you find the other changes fine too

[mmimzie]

There are two things i love about AOS that these kind of disregard.

I like the simplicity of AoS rules and the strategy that results in the simplicity.

40k and 7  & 8th edition WHFB have always felt sort of like invoking paragraphs at each other and rolling dice. AoS has longs of things where you do stuff and because of simple rules it can have dramatic effects. Such a piling in strategically can stop enemy attacks 5.

So these houses rule to me kind of add 2 pages (minus all the explanation paragraphs) of rules to a 4 page game, which is alot to me.

Also the limited range and line of sight requirement (which almost doesn't exist as it can be quite tough to completely hide a model.) give you this choice: Do i step up my spell caster so next turn maybe i could unbind a spell, and do some offensive mage?? Or do i stay back and cast my buffing spells unbothered. From a lore stand point though the wind of magic are unseen (by some) the best way to know it's innovation is to see some one trying to manipulate it. 

So for your house rules i distill them abit?? The spell in sigmar are abit weak and even with the bigger spell the random power and overwhelming power becomes a bit of a nerf. I think if you wanted to keep these systems you'd have to add more spells that make this system abit more worth using so you have something powerful leashed by this system. 

[KHHaunts]

So essentially its a mix of the current rules with the WHFB magic rules?

If seen a couple of good house rules the incorporate elements such as miscasts and other things like that without actually replacing the existing rules.

Instead they offer a bonus to casting spells (increased range and success odds) however with increased risk. These things can be chosen (either use the standard way or take a gamble) so they can be incorporated into game the game.

[Laerethian]

30 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

I like the simplicity of AoS rules and the strategy that results in the simplicity.

So these houses rule to me kind of add 2 pages (minus all the explanation paragraphs) of rules to a 4 page game, which is alot to me.

Also the limited range and line of sight requirement (which almost doesn't exist as it can be quite tough to completely hide a model.) give you this choice: Do i step up my spell caster so next turn maybe i could unbind a spell, and do some offensive mage?? Or do i stay back and cast my buffing spells unbothered. From a lore stand point though the wind of magic are unseen (by some) the best way to know it's innovation is to see some one trying to manipulate it. 

So for your house rules i distill them abit?? The spell in sigmar are abit weak and even with the bigger spell the random power and overwhelming power becomes a bit of a nerf. I think if you wanted to keep these systems you'd have to add more spells that make this system abit more worth using so you have something powerful leashed by this system. 

Nice to hear some comments  if possible I'd like to answer. 

I agree simplicity is AoS's strongest feature, and that's why i tried to stay as close as possible to the core set. My rules are simple if you think about it. It's obvious that I had to add some stuff, but the addition is minimal, if you take only the rules, with the new spells, it's less than a page long. 

I don't know how much scenery you play with, but I very rarely see any dispel attempt during a game, it's way too convenient to just stay back and hide and let the opponent do the same. Some armies that don't have magic (e. g. dwarfs) are very impotent about it. In my personal opinion this is a negative aspect. 

I agree that there should be more spells, but in order to fit as closely as possible with the core rules I preferred to add as few things as possible (again to keep the game simple).

This said, I hope you can try maybe some games with the system and feedback to me, maybe you could find them better as playing than just by reading them  

[Laerethian]

38 minutes ago, KHHaunts said:

So essentially its a mix of the current rules with the WHFB magic rules?

If seen a couple of good house rules the incorporate elements such as miscasts and other things like that without actually replacing the existing rules.

Instead they offer a bonus to casting spells (increased range and success odds) however with increased risk. These things can be chosen (either use the standard way or take a gamble) so they can be incorporated into game the game.

Yes, I enjoyed the Power Dice minigame in 8th ed, so I tried to fit it to the new rules!

Can you please link me these house rules you talk about, I would be very interested in trying them.

That's a nice idea, but very intrusive towards the core rules if I understood it correctly. Each spell would need an explanation on what to increase in their specific effect, unless that counts only for range, casting value, etc.

[PJetski]

I really like the current magic system in AOS, it is a breath of fresh air after 8th ed WHFB and the psychic phase in 40k.

While I don't particularly like your house rules because it makes a great system unnecessarily more complicated, it is cool to see people doing more homebrew stuff for this game!

[RuneBrush]

Quite like where you're going with this but, think it could be tweaked without adding extra tables and charts or extra phases.  Simplest one would be to remove the line of sight requirement and change the wording so an enemy wizard can be within 18" of the caster or 18" of the target of a spell.  You could add in the option for a wizard to roll an extra D6 to cast or unbind, but any roll of a double also causes a mortal wound (which I think is a 5/12 chance).  This alone would make the magic component a bit more challenging.  One extra dice also doesn't unbalance summoning (which often has a chance of bringing on a higher number of models on a high score).

I would also say that adding in a magic phase would dramatically change how the game currently plays.  I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but by having it anywhen during the Hero phase allows synergy between some abilities and spells.

[KHHaunts]

16 hours ago, Laerethian said:

Yes, I enjoyed the Power Dice minigame in 8th ed, so I tried to fit it to the new rules!

Can you please link me these house rules you talk about, I would be very interested in trying them.

That's a nice idea, but very intrusive towards the core rules if I understood it correctly. Each spell would need an explanation on what to increase in their specific effect, unless that counts only for range, casting value, etc.

Sorry i wasent clear enough. It isent spell specific it just grants a set bonus.

So essentially:

Would you like to cast your spell with unstoppable force?

No? continue on as normal

Yes? spell or automatically cast and impossible to unbind (Or just an increase to the casting roll if thats to OP, you could also increase the range as part of this) However as a result of using untoppable force you must roll on the miscast table before the spell is cast and see what happens.

 

Here is something ive been working on that includes those rules (among other old world style rules)

It was a development of someone elses idea as seen in the description.

Its a supplement designed to introduce some of the elements of WHFB as optional rules that can be played alongside the AOS rules (You could use nearly all of these rules & your opponent could stick to the original and it should still be fair (Thats the plan anyway . . .))

 

[Laerethian]

14 hours ago, KHHaunts said:

Sorry i wasent clear enough. It isent spell specific it just grants a set bonus.

So essentially:

Would you like to cast your spell with unstoppable force?

No? continue on as normal

Yes? spell or automatically cast and impossible to unbind (Or just an increase to the casting roll if thats to OP, you could also increase the range as part of this) However as a result of using untoppable force you must roll on the miscast table before the spell is cast and see what happens.

 

Here is something ive been working on that includes those rules (among other old world style rules)

It was a development of someone elses idea as seen in the description.

Its a supplement designed to introduce some of the elements of WHFB as optional rules that can be played alongside the AOS rules (You could use nearly all of these rules & your opponent could stick to the original and it should still be fair (Thats the plan anyway . . .))

 

Interesting, I will surely give it a try. It still misses what I enjoyed about the old magic phase though, which is the minigame of dice managing and bluffing with your opponent.

[Laerethian]

14 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I would also say that adding in a magic phase would dramatically change how the game currently plays.  I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but by having it anywhen during the Hero phase allows synergy between some abilities and spells.

I don't get it, in the core rules you already cast spells during the Hero Phase. I just specified a different sub-phase in order to get more clarity. At the moment you already can combine spells and abilities as you want.

[RuneBrush]

On 06/01/2017 at 11:52 PM, Laerethian said:

I don't get it, in the core rules you already cast spells during the Hero Phase. I just specified a different sub-phase in order to get more clarity.

There may be occasions where you wish to cast a spell, use another ability and then cast another spell.  Having all the casting in one sub-phase would prevent this happening.

As a (very hypothetical) example , I want my Necromancer to cast Vanhel's Danse Macabre on a unit of skeletons 17" away, I then want to move that unit 4" as part of their Legion of Death Battalion ability to bring them within 15" of my Vampire Lord who will then cast Blood Feast to grant them an extra attack.  The Skeleton unit would be out of range of of those spells without being able to activate that Battalion ability between casts.

On 06/01/2017 at 11:52 PM, Laerethian said:

At the moment you already can combine spells and abilities as you want.

Why would you not want to?

[Laerethian]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

There may be occasions where you wish to cast a spell, use another ability and then cast another spell.  Having all the casting in one sub-phase would prevent this happening.

 

OK now I get it. And I agree with you, I should probably clarify in the document that what you say is actually what can be done. I introduced the 'magic phase' for clarity with the power dice rolling, but now that I see it with another perspective, I notice that I could have done it better. I'll modify the file asap, thanks!

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Laerethian said:

OK now I get it. And I agree with you, I should probably clarify in the document that what you say is actually what can be done. I introduced the 'magic phase' for clarity with the power dice rolling, but now that I see it with another perspective, I notice that I could have done it better. I'll modify the file asap, thanks!

No worries   It's one of those things that doesn't occur often but at times can really allow you to surprise an opponent with some clever stacking of spells/abilities.  Power dice could simply be "at the start of the Hero Phase, before anything else".