8th Ed. loremaster for everyone: yay or nay?

[NexS1]

Yeah, i'm on board the "Don't change the prices, but give us some love" ship

 

[borkbork]

Please just give me 5 of those zillion reasons.

OK.

Overhead costs are set at where they are now based on current profits (and thus price points). Shifting the margins per item would not properly match overhead costs.

Shareholders want margin, not unit sales. Selling more items at lower margin reduces shareholder value.

Suddenly dropping prices on existing stock devalues retailer inventories, causing the to sell at a loss or risk alienating customers.

Suddenly dropping prices carries the risk of being perceived as an overreaction to market forces, making it appear that enough complaining can control policy, which is never should.

Suddenly dropping prices has the possible effect of curtailing future sales as customers will think they can just wait long enough and get the items cheaper later.


That's five. In less than 90 seconds of typing. It really is a bad idea to drop prices this way.

Dude!!! lowering prices is exactly what GW should do!!! Although indeed not too suddenly or dramatic. The reasons you mention above are really with stockholders in mind and these now a days care mostly about short term profits. However warhammer is a game where you need opponents and preferably quite a few different ones, if you player base becomes too small (and the current pricing is really stopping people from starting or updating their armies) you will see a dramatic collapse of sales. I really do not think their current pricing can be sustained for very long. To me it starts to feel like they are sucking the last coins out of a dead horse.

 

[forlustria]

Please just give me 5 of those zillion reasons.

OK.

Overhead costs are set at where they are now based on current profits (and thus price points). Shifting the margins per item would not properly match overhead costs.

Shareholders want margin, not unit sales. Selling more items at lower margin reduces shareholder value.

Suddenly dropping prices on existing stock devalues retailer inventories, causing the to sell at a loss or risk alienating customers.

Suddenly dropping prices carries the risk of being perceived as an overreaction to market forces, making it appear that enough complaining can control policy, which is never should.

Suddenly dropping prices has the possible effect of curtailing future sales as customers will think they can just wait long enough and get the items cheaper later.


That's five. In less than 90 seconds of typing. It really is a bad idea to drop prices this way.

Fair enough. How about a price freeze. One thing I never will understand is how they can put the prices up on old kits. Take temple guard when I started playing they were like £20. Now they are £25.50 , if I go out and buy a video game from 4 years ago I don't expect to pay more for it . Im not saying older models should go down in price but atleast stay the same price as when they were made

 

[hdctambien]

Please just give me 5 of those zillion reasons.

Back on topic. No one answered my question about if a slan swaps out a high magic spell will he end up knowing the whole lore of what he chooses.

From the leaks I'm seeing now (http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=892400#p892400) it looks like there is no Loremaster for everyone. Just Level 3/4 Wizards gain access to End Times spells for their lore of choice (in addition to the normal amount of spells they previously generated).

 

[Ixt]

Well, that's good news I guess. Still 4d6 dice though? :/

 

[hdctambien]

Ididnt see anything in the leaked pages about 4d6... But there could still be other pages with rules on them.

 

[forlustria]

Did you see the part where lore master now is that you can Errol failed casting attempts .

Also in magic phase you say what you want to cast then roll a d6 to see how many dice you can throw at it. Opponent does the sane to see how many he can dispell with

 

[Ixt]

Woah.

Woah.

WOAH!

WOAH!!!



Keep us posted

 

[SilverFaith]

Also in magic phase you say what you want to cast then roll a d6 to see how many dice you can throw at it. Opponent does the sane to see how many he can dispell with

Well, that would make magic 10 times as unreliable, as higher ccostings spells both have a fair chance of never being possible to use (good luck casting anything 2+), while dispelling becomes a question of "do I even want to bother using 2 dice against his 5? or "good luck casting with your 2 dice, I have 5."

I guess it makes sense with the non-dispellable spells that are rumoured, since even at 15+, you need some luck even getting the required dice to pull it off - Even a Slann at level 4 would struggle with 3 or less dice, which you have a 50% chance of happening. Rerolls help, but not for our Slanns, since it seems only the BRB lores gets these spells.

Well, that put a stop to my hopes. I sincerely hope it''s not as bad as it sounds, othewise I realy hope it only aplies to End Times, and not all games.

 

[Ixt]

Going off what I'd read on Ulthuan, it sounds like...

1) There's still a pool.
2) When deciding which spell to cast/how many power dice you may use, you simultaneously determine the number of dispel dice for your opponent.

You want to cast Iceshard Blizzard and roll a 2 for you, and a 6 for your opponent. Ouch. Your pool has 9 dice in it. How do you remedy this?

Broken Concentration is no longer a thing, and all spells under the value of 15+ can be cast multiple times.

Throw one dice at it. Cut your losses and fail on purpose to better your odds for next time.

That said, I imagine they're gonna mitigate this somehow (if the rumor's even right).

I dunno. I'm open to new stuff. I'd like to give this new system a try.

 

[hdctambien]

Did you see the part where lore master now is that you can Errol failed casting attempts .

Also in magic phase you say what you want to cast then roll a d6 to see how many dice you can throw at it. Opponent does the sane to see how many he can dispell with

I think the d6 in in addition to the normal 2d6 (4d6?) windos of magic pool. Ie, you roll 2d6 for the Winds, then each time you want to cast a spell you roll 1d6 to see how many dice form that pool you can use to cast the spell. So you can't cast spells forever, and you can't just choose to 6-dice the killer spells.

I've only seen a transcription of the rule, though. Not a screen shot of the page.

 

[hdctambien]

Did you see the part where lore master now is that you can Errol failed casting attempts .

I wonder how this rule will interact with Tetto'ekkos reroll rule and the "can't reroll a reroll" rule.

Do you have to choose between rerolling all the dice or only rerolling 1's/6's?

 

[forlustria]

not sure got the info from a thread on the highelves forum. Have yet to see a page yet so could be bogus

 

[Slanputin]

I like the idea of being able to pick any spell I want, but the chance involved in getting those *few* spell you really wanted seemed an integral part of the game: forcing you to adapt, to be pragmatic on the battlefield. Having access to all spells in a lore could make you think more tactically about which one should be used at a particular time, however I can see people just whipping out all the big spells they can every turn.

Why spend points on a dual slann, when your cheap skink priest now has loremaster, additional 'end times' spells, and 4d6 magic dice, for a mere 65 points

You can only use 'End Times' spells if you're a Level 3+ mage. This is where I really wish I could field a wizard as a Lord-choice without spending so many points on froggy. I'll never forgive GW for the 'Skink High Priest' image in WD...

Anyway, I've been trudging through the Ulthuan forums:

Loremaster : A wizard with the loremaster special rule can re-roll all of the dice used to attempt to cast a spell from his chosen lore, including rolls that result in the spell being miscast and/or cast with irresistible force. The lore in question is normally given in brackets as part of the Loremaster special rule. For example, a model with the Loremaster (fire) special rule could re-roll attempts to cast spells from the Lore of Fire.

I guess this is to replace the current Loremaster rules, considering they've now gone mainstream.

General magic: Spells can be used any number of times in each Magic phase, as long as all previous attempts to cast the spell have been successful. The only exception to this are End Times spells, and any other spell with a casting value of 15+ or more, which can only be selected once each Magic Phase, wither the previous attempt to cast them was successful or not.

Withards never break concentration, and can keep on casting spells as long as dice are left in the power pool. However, a spell still fails if the total of the dice scores is less than 3.

After picking a wizard and declaring which spell you want them to cast, you must roll a D6. THe result of the roll is the maximum number of dice you can use to cast that spell (the minimum number of dice you must use is always one). You must also roll a D6 to see how many dice a Wizard can use to dispel a spell.

I found the 'breaking concentration' rule a horrendous caveat for something based purely on luck. I'm glad that's gone at least. Not sure I like the 'roll a D6' to see how many dice can be used for casting/dispel per spell!

Link for 'End Times' spell rules (via Ulthuan): http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=67120&start=870

 

[SilverFaith]

So Kroak lost the unique thing he had going for him as well? Great, now we have two overpriced characters that lost some of their main benefits.

And Dwarves seems to be getting a new buff here. Being able to remove spells is likely the best defense in a game where you can spam-cast the same spells over and over again.

Oh god, imagine this with Nagash... Suddenly, 5x50 zombies out of nowhere.

 

[hdctambien]

And Dwarves seems to be getting a new buff here. Being able to remove spells is likely the best defense in a game where you can spam-cast the same spells over and over again.

I think the magic phase is actually being weakened rather than strengthened.

You can only spam-cast spells until you fail to cast a spell. Being dispelled counts as failing. So you can only keep casting the same spell until it is dispelled successfully.

On top of that, you don't get to choose exactly how many dice to throw at a spell. So if you need 3 dice to cast a spell reliably, you have a 1/3 chance of not having enough dice to cast the spell.

So, theoretically, you can cast the same spell many times. But more likely you won't be casting it more than twice, if even that.

 

[Rettile]

if you have to select the spell you wanna cast and then roll a D6 to see how many dices you can use, well, i think that's terrible (unless loremasters can reroll this dice too). If you can select the spell after you rolled that D6 that's better, but i still don't like it and i think it will slow the game down. Moreover, i'm not sure regarding the new loremaster rule: rerolls are sweet, but knowing lots of spells is very good. I bet a slann with loremaster high will not have rerolls on the spells swapped with brb lores

 

[hdctambien]

I bet a slann with loremaster high will not have rerolls on the spells swapped with brb lores

I think the utlity of Focus of Mystery will be reduced with these new magic rules. However, I think the Wandering Deliberations + Book of Ashur combo is even more powerful now! All but 2 spells can be 1 diced more often than not, and if you fail to cast you can just start 1 diceing a different spell!

I wonder if you have to choose whether to boost a spell before or after rolling the "how many dice can I use" d6...

 

[Kinks]

I think it very much depends on how it actually works out.

If they remove the current version of Loremaster; simply awarding all spells of a Lore to a Wizard and redesign Loremaster to allow re-rolls of either casts or dice rolls for PD/DD. The points for either would really be worth it. Either way, you get the option.

 

[Tecuani]

Since these rules seem to give a wandering deliberations slann knowledge of all eight end-times spells from the rulebook lores, feels like they gain a big advantage over focus of mystery slanns and their mere one end-times spell. That's basically an entire undispellable magic phase.