Universal Spell Lores?

[Sadysaneto]

Already have: arcane bolt and mystic shield.

[Envyus]

On 3/9/2018 at 4:38 PM, Menkeroth said:

Actually, no, please. No old ways and certainly no old 300+ books, of which more than 100 were just rules.

On 3/9/2018 at 4:44 PM, chord said:

Agreed, let's not go backwards

This just shows how little you know. Lots of the best and more recent well received stuff was created by taking stuff form the Older games. I kind of hate how you two are so against any of the older stuff getting updates and tools.

 

On 3/9/2018 at 8:55 PM, Richelieu said:

Seraphon would need a massive rebalancing if they had a spell lore.  They have 5 unique wizards including a non-named wizard that can cast 3 spells per turn and add 1 to casting rolls for the whole army.  You're talking about the magical power of legions of Nagash and Tzeentch but with a way bigger toolkit.

I view this as a purely good thing. Slaan should be the best magic casters. They always were in the older editions, and the current lore still says they are nearly unrivaled at magic. So it would be nice for Age of Sigmar to put this in game. 

The Lizards were hurt by getting a battletome before Age of Sigmar got it's direction. And unlike the favored children Stormcast and Khorne did not get a redo. 

 

I am all for the universal lores. Lore of Death, Fire, Life, Beasts, Metal, Heavens, Light, Shadows. They should all be in the Generals Handbook listing which armies get access to which. When Armies get a battletome the Lores they get should be reprinted there alongside any unique ones they get. (Lore of Vampires, Death Mages and Lore of Tzeentch as examples of unique lores.)  

[Envyus]

On 3/10/2018 at 5:19 AM, BaldoBeardo said:

So it's not that there's a valid issue then, it's that née empire players miss having a tweakable toolbox wizard and/or have arcane FOMO?

Lots of factions not having options that other factions have is a valid issue.

On 3/9/2018 at 7:02 PM, Burf said:

Absolutely not. Universal spell lores are terrible for the same reason MP's universal strategems are terrible, dramatically different values for the same ability across different armies. 

Any spell you might cast will have wildly oscillating value army to army. Look at MP's -6" to shooting strategem for an example of this. Against Tzeentch, it's irrelevant whereas against stormcasts it's crippling for the majority of their shooting units. Then look at armies that benefit from it defensively, DoK and LoN go nuts whereas Free people don't gain much at all.

And this is bad why? It means you want to pick a different portent for that army if it's not useful. 

MP's addition to this game is one of the best they have had. And I hope stuff like that continues to come.

 

 

[zedatkinszed]

Does this already exist? There are rules in GHB17 for spells ANY wizard can use in certain realms. Adding a 3rd generic spell to their armory on top of any unique spells.

[chord]

7 hours ago, Envyus said:

I am all for the universal lores. Lore of Death, Fire, Life, Beasts, Metal, Heavens, Light, Shadows. They should all be in the Generals Handbook listing which armies get access to which. When Armies get a battletome the Lores they get should be reprinted there alongside any unique ones they get. (Lore of Vampires, Death Mages and Lore of Tzeentch as examples of unique lores.)  

This already exists.  I'm guessing you didn't happen to  look at any of the realm gate wars campaign books where the times of war for the various parts of the realms also included spells for those realms?   OR in the GHB 17 where the various times of war rules included spells for the realms.

 

[Richelieu]

7 hours ago, Envyus said:

I view this as a purely good thing. Slaan should be the best magic casters. They always were in the older editions, and the current lore still says they are nearly unrivaled at magic. So it would be nice for Age of Sigmar to put this in game. 

The Lizards were hurt by getting a battletome before Age of Sigmar got it's direction. And unlike the favored children Stormcast and Khorne did not get a redo.

I don't think it would be a bad thing either, just noting that they are already a top tier army and that the addition of far greater power would require adjustments elsewhere.  The allegiance abilities that Seraphon got in GHB2017 really bolstered them and further illustrates my point that even small additions can massively impact an army's competitiveness.   Global unbinds and 1-2 teleports per turn are nothing to scoff at.

[Envyus]

On 3/12/2018 at 6:27 AM, chord said:

This already exists.  I'm guessing you didn't happen to  look at any of the realm gate wars campaign books where the times of war for the various parts of the realms also included spells for those realms?   OR in the GHB 17 where the various times of war rules included spells for the realms.

 

I don't think they should be exclusive to be used into those realms. Also the way they presented it in realmgate wars and GHB 2017 I am not huge fans of. It depends on the battleplan and realm you are fighting in which spells you get. And both sides get access to them. 

I would prefer certain wizards and factions get access to certain lores spells. And the one in charge gets to pick them. Do it like in 40k were a Wizard gets acess to Arcane, Bolt Mystic Shield and one or two spells from lores they know how to accesses. 

Being limited unless you do battleplans or certain time of war rules stikes me as so much worse. 

 

Seriously you seem so against anything that changes the mechanics being introduced into the game. 

[Envyus]

On 3/12/2018 at 7:23 AM, Richelieu said:

I don't think it would be a bad thing either, just noting that they are already a top tier army and that the addition of far greater power would require adjustments elsewhere.  The allegiance abilities that Seraphon got in GHB2017 really bolstered them and further illustrates my point that even small additions can massively impact an army's competitiveness.   Global unbinds and 1-2 teleports per turn are nothing to scoff at.

Indeed they should get  even more like a unique spell lore.  And a new Saurus Kit. (Having to cut stuff off them seems annoying.)

The point values for the units should then be adjusted to compensate for their new power.  Other armies will also need to be adjusted for when they get similar things. 

As well even if it's placeholder they need to give basic allegiance powers and spells to all factions yet to be updated. 

[Jamopower]

Nothing stops you using those spells however you want in a one off game. It's a completely different thing to put stuff in matched, as the additional stuff tend to have an unbalancing effect to the game as whole. 

You can look at the allegiance abilities. They are good stuff all the way, but at the same time part of the armies that don't have them, or have less powerful abilities suffer in a competitive environment. It could very well be the same with the spell lores as they would buff up only part of the armies, which could include armies that don't need any additional benefits.

In a nutshell, I'm all for generic spell lores for narrative gaming, but very sceptic that they would make the matched play better, more the opposite.

[AthlorianStoners]

42 minutes ago, Envyus said:

Seriously you seem so against anything that changes the mechanics being introduced into the game. I feel it's because you are a Stormcast player who won't get access to most of these tools as you don't have Wizards. And are afraid of a change to status quo that gets rid of Stormcast dominance in game and in fluff. 

That seems needlessly personal and judgmental...

Regarding the topic st hand, I agree with other users that it would be cool for narrative but problematic for matched play. 

[Envyus]

6 minutes ago, AthlorianStoners said:

That seems needlessly personal and judgmental...

Regarding the topic st hand, I agree with other users that it would be cool for narrative but problematic for matched play. 

I removed a chunk of it. I felt it was a bit too judgmental too. But he still has been heavily against mechanics changes in any form.

And I feel as long as the lores are restricted to certain factions it won't be very problematic for matched play.  

[Jamopower]

There is just the problem, what woukd be the "certain factions". Stuff like seraphon  or the order mages would be natural choices but given that both Seraphon and mixed order with magically attuned phoenixes are already some of the stronger options, I have a feeling that it would have effects on matched play.

[AthlorianStoners]

1 hour ago, Envyus said:

I removed a chunk of it. I felt it was a bit too judgmental too. But he still has been heavily against mechanics changes in any form.

And I feel as long as the lores are restricted to certain factions it won't be very problematic for matched play.  

Oh that was cool of you, nice to see  

oh yeah I see what you’re saying, fair enough I can see the potential.  

[Twitch of Izalith]

The thing I want them to bring back from the Warhammer Fantasy magic system is some spell cards! Its not hard to remember what your spells do admittedly but if you are playing multiple casters with multiple spells, cards are a useful management tool. - particularly in a competitive game where you have limited time.

I also think they would be neat game pieces too - if done with some cool artwork etc - they would give the spells a physical presence in the game beyond counters.

I've seen a few cool homemade sets but I don't know how to make them myself.

More on topic I think generic spell lores are a bad idea for matched play for the same reasons as everyone else with that opinion - they are just going to introduce balance complications for competitive games.

But for narrative and friendly matched play games with your mates you can do whatever you want anyway. 

I don't mind them bringing back elements of the warhammer fantasy world - which they are likely to continue to do because its been popular and successful for them lately but I'm not so keen to see elements of the warhammer fantasy game brought into AoS. Mostlty because I still like to play it and want want the 2 experiences to be different - so entirely selfish there 

[chord]

6 hours ago, Envyus said:

Seriously you seem so against anything that changes the mechanics being introduced into the game. 

No, I'm just against making it needlessly complex for matched play games.   What we don't need is more and more layering of rules onto it.  Then we end back up in WHFB.  The spells for the various realms seems like it works, not complicated and is fair since both sides have the same access to it.

For narrative casual games, it wouldn't be hard to take the existing realm based spells and add them into it.  

[Aranthir]

Horrbile idea and would make some armies broken like Seraphon. Also too many useless rules in core rules or in rules considering matched play isn't a good thing - keep that stuff in Battletomes.  

[BURF1]

10 hours ago, Envyus said:

I removed a chunk of it. I felt it was a bit too judgmental too. But he still has been heavily against mechanics changes in any form.

And I feel as long as the lores are restricted to certain factions it won't be very problematic for matched play.  

I'm not against mechanics changes, I'm against slap-dash mechanics changes. Universal spell lores is one of those changes. Malign Portents is one of those changes. Universal spell lores are a lazy get out of jail free for giving every faction that has their own casters their OWN spell lores, which is what they should be doing(even within a single grand alliance is too broad). Giving everyone access to the same spell lores just means either you end up with very boring, generic spells, or spells that have to be fixed/updated every FAQ cycle.  

Malign Portents I don't like because it's 100% a 'rich get richer' supplement. Strategems, I imagine, were intended to sort of bridge the gap between older and newer armies by giving older armies new tools to use, but what it ACTUALLY does is give a massive benefit to armies that are already very strong (changehost benefits more from MP than any other army in the game by a fairly ridiculous margin) and a much more marginal benefit to armies that were struggling. It widens a gap that was already plenty big to begin with, which is fine for Open and Narrative play, you can adjust on the fly to compensate, but in matched play it just leads to an even further consolidation of power.

Changes to game mechanics are fine but you, along with at least some people in the GW rules  studio, seem to be more interested in making changes for the sake of changes than thinking about what the consequences of those changes would be, which is exactly how we got 7th ed 40k.

I don't know how many people on this board experienced competitive 7th ed 40k towards the end of the edition but it was so aggressively terrible that I have gamer PTSD about it. It's the only time in my life I've seen a game become ACTUALLY brokenly unplayable. By the end of the edition a unit of blue horrors(50 pts) would take roughly 1500pts of shooting and close combat to shift with standard chaos psychic buffs (which were basically impossible to counter due to how 40k's warp charge system worked.) And the edition got to that point by slowly adding things over time. The phrase 'Wouldn't it be cool?' is the single most dangerous thing in 'matched-play' style  wargaming. 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you got benefits for taking specific groups of units? Wouldn't it be cool if their was like a big super group they could all go into that would give more benefits? Wouldn't it be cool if everyone got those? Wouldn't it be cool for Marines and Chaos to get their own psychic power tables with their own thematic abilties? Wouldn't Magnus be cool? Wouldn't it be cool if their were weapons that could just remove a 1000pt model from the board with no defense allowed at a 72" range? Wouldn't it be cool if pink horrors split into blue horrors split into brimstone horrors? Wouldn't it be cool if Ynnari?'

I'm reticent to make sweeping changes to large sections of the game because I've SEEN what happens when big changes get made with too little thought, and it's never good.

[TheOtherJosh]

5 hours ago, chord said:

...”The spells for the various realms seems like it works, not complicated and is fair since both sides have the same access to it.“

Umm ... those already exist in some of the narrative supplements.

Did you miss pages 44-46 of the GHB 2017? Page 48, Malign Portents? 

There is at least one additional spell for each of the realms... if you’re using the rules for that realm ... (and Shyish in Malign Portents ...)

(My issue is that how many games have you seen that don’t even want to use the Arcane Terrain .. and that’s in the Core “4 pages” of rules .... adding additional spells won’t fix people not wanting to play outside of their comfort zone.)

[chord]

 

2 minutes ago, TheOtherJosh said:

Umm ... those already exist in some of the narrative supplements.

Did you miss pages 44-46 of the GHB 2017? Page 48, Malign Portents? 

There is at least one additional spell for each of the realms... if you’re using the rules for that realm ... (and Shyish in Malign Portents ...)

On ‎3‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 8:27 AM, chord said:

This already exists.  I'm guessing you didn't happen to  look at any of the realm gate wars campaign books where the times of war for the various parts of the realms also included spells for those realms?   OR in the GHB 17 where the various times of war rules included spells for the realms.

 

Actually I do know that (see I already mentioned it in the thread). 

[TheOtherJosh]

16 minutes ago, chord said:

Actually I do know that (see I already mentioned it in the thread). 

And that .. is why you’re awesome! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

 (And I need another cup of coffee ...)