So, I've got two friends who played a game with the new rules yesterday. One of them loved the rules and the other hated them. I've haven't had a chance to talk to the friend who hated them as he's beeen at work all day, but the other friend has been sharing his insights. This is a summary of what he likes:
1) Small spells are easy to cast and you can prepare for and dispel them easily.
2) Big nuke spells are unreliable now as you can't rely on rolling enough dice to use them. This includes end time spells. This makes you use them less.
3) Dice pools were roughly 10-12 dice for caster and 8 dice or so for dispeller. So it wasn't to crazy.
4) Spell choices were a bit crazy, but not so bad as you tend to only focus on the lower casting spells that you can get off with 2-3 dice.
5) Dispel scroll was way less auto-include. The other arcane items way more useful. Powerscroll for example is huge.
6) Defenses against magic is more useful, things like magic resistance or items that boost your bonuses to dispelling.
The friend who liked it seemed to focus on the small spells and stopping his opponent's small castings. The friend who didn't was never able to get spells off because he was trying to do bigger spells and failing or would do little spells and they get stopped. He literally was never able to cast a spell the whole game.
So, it is interesting that end times magic has had this effect. Its shook up nuke spells, arcane items and how you plan your tactics around magic, all with a single D6.
My impression is GW knows what they've unleashed on us. Right now a lot of the outrage is coming from players who haven't used or adapt to the rules. It means they know exactly where the problems are in the system and with one rule were able to take the current system and shift its priorities and balance so dramatically. If we get something in 9th that has the same priorities (more variety in arcane items, less nuke spells and more utility spells, six-dicing toned down) but less cumbersome elements (i.e. all the spells know and tons of dice rolling), then I think they will get 9th's magic system right. I really doubt the system is going to be 8th with special rules tacked on.
I'll post again when I hear from the other friend.
1) Small spells are easy to cast and you can prepare for and dispel them easily.
2) Big nuke spells are unreliable now as you can't rely on rolling enough dice to use them. This includes end time spells. This makes you use them less.
3) Dice pools were roughly 10-12 dice for caster and 8 dice or so for dispeller. So it wasn't to crazy.
4) Spell choices were a bit crazy, but not so bad as you tend to only focus on the lower casting spells that you can get off with 2-3 dice.
5) Dispel scroll was way less auto-include. The other arcane items way more useful. Powerscroll for example is huge.
6) Defenses against magic is more useful, things like magic resistance or items that boost your bonuses to dispelling.
The friend who liked it seemed to focus on the small spells and stopping his opponent's small castings. The friend who didn't was never able to get spells off because he was trying to do bigger spells and failing or would do little spells and they get stopped. He literally was never able to cast a spell the whole game.
So, it is interesting that end times magic has had this effect. Its shook up nuke spells, arcane items and how you plan your tactics around magic, all with a single D6.
My impression is GW knows what they've unleashed on us. Right now a lot of the outrage is coming from players who haven't used or adapt to the rules. It means they know exactly where the problems are in the system and with one rule were able to take the current system and shift its priorities and balance so dramatically. If we get something in 9th that has the same priorities (more variety in arcane items, less nuke spells and more utility spells, six-dicing toned down) but less cumbersome elements (i.e. all the spells know and tons of dice rolling), then I think they will get 9th's magic system right. I really doubt the system is going to be 8th with special rules tacked on.
I'll post again when I hear from the other friend.
