Ryze- the grave call

[Alabaster427]

I know that Nagash has to take this spell and the Nine Books of Nagash, says "...the first of which is always Ryze- The Grave Call..."

Does this mean that when you are rolling for spells that you only roll eight dice and automatically have Ryze? Or simply that you must take it and can drop whichever Undeath spell you don't like for it like a normal wizard would do?

 

[Banat]

Since the wording specifically says "the first of which" i would imagine you already have it and only role eight dice.

 

[bigbadbat]

You know Ryze and roll for you bother 8 spells.

 

[Mad 'At]

Does this mean that you can change one other spell from Lore of Undeath to take a second Ryze, or that Nagash can't do anything about the spells he rolls in Lore of Undeath and must be happy with whatever he gets?

 

[bigbadbat]

Since you can't know duplicates of the same spell on one wizard, you are stuck with what you roll.

 

[Banat]

I don't know if it's official rules but in my local store we play a rule where if you role a double (so the same spell pops up twice), you take one of them, then you get to choose any other spell from the Lore.

 

[Mad 'At]

Since you can't know duplicates of the same spell on one wizard, you are stuck with what you roll.

Only rules I can find on the matter say that you can't have several of the same spells in the army, and further that spells that you have no choice over and signature spells are an exception to this rule.

 

[Banat]

You can know multiple signature spells between wizards in the same army, but a Lvl2 Necro, for example, would not be able to take the same spell twice.

Because that's not really taking the same spell twice, it's the one spell, being cast twice, and you can't cast the same spell twice, even a signature.

You could however end up with a Wizard with two Vanhels, because he'd have the Vanhels spell, then give him the Book of Arkhan and he'd have the bound version of the spell as well, which would be different,

 

[najo]

Rules are on pg.162 and they are pretty clear.
1. Choose lores each wizards is using when building army
2. Generate spells by rolling openly before deploying, you choose the order of wizards if you have more than one.
3. If a spell is rolled twice (whether same or different wizard) you replace it with a spell of your choice from the same lore if able.
4. After choosing replacements for duplicate spells, you can substitute one of the spells rolled with the signature spell. Multiple wizards may know the signature spell.

Any spell known can be cast once. This means duplicate versions (such as signature spells or spells known from loremaster) could make it so two or more wizards know the same spells. These duplicate spells can all be cast.

As for Nagash and lore of undeath, he would choose how many spells from lore of undeath he knows at army creation. At the table he roll for those. Any duplicates rolled he'd be able to choose a spell from the lore. But he wouldn't be able to drop a spell for ryze as he already knows it. This means he gets stuck with what he rolls.

 

[Mad 'At]

That description make sense to me, but I see nothing in it that would stop Nagash from selecting another Ryza. He rolls spells from a lore like any other wizard and should thus be able to exchange one of the spells for the signature. The fact that he already has Ryza at his disposal is irrelevant because that is a spell he has no choice to know. I see no rule that forbids a wizard from knowing any spell twice, it's just that the spell selection rules are formed so that it won't happened... unless there is something there to mess with them i.e. Nagash.

 

[Banat]

It's the SAME spell though! It helps to think of it in fluff terms. Rolling for spell selection denotes the spells that the wizard goes into the battle knowing the incantation/rite for. You can't cast the same spell twice in the same magic phase, and you can't KNOW the same spell twice, because once you know it, you know it.

 

[Mad 'At]

And from a fluff perspective why wouldn't you be able to cast the same spell twice in a phase? What higher fluff law forbids you from casting a spell more often than once in an unspecified period of time? Maybe "knowing" a spell twice in fluff terms means the wizard has achieved some higher focus abilities so that he can cast the same spell more frequently.

 

[Lord_Mortis]

What higher fluff law forbids you from casting a spell more often than once in an unspecified period of time?

Might not be fluff but cooldown timers

 

[Rykashu]

You're really trying to grasp at straws here. Even if you manage to rules-lawyer into your opponent letting you waste a second of Nagash's spell slots on Ryze, BRB p31 states, "Each Wizard can only attempt to cast each spell once per turn." Then again on page 37 BRB states, "Remember, unless specified otherwise, each Wizard can cast each spell only once per turn." The only exception to this is in the FAQ allowing the wizard to make a normal cast attempt and use a bound version of the same spell.

These rules are put in place for the balance and conto over what players can each do in the course of the game. A view from fluff perspective is not the best way to approach this. From a fluff perspective there would be no turns at all, and actions only limited by the fluidity of time.

 

[Mad 'At]

I'm not arguing for my sake here, I will probably not use Nagash ever (partly since he is not even allowed at tournaments yet here in Sweden), I'm just interested in how the rules for here for the sake of rules. So far I've seen nothing that really tells us how this works, it's just yet another situation that GW didn't see coming and we have to rely on either RAW arguments or gut feelings to decide. To me it makes no matter how you all play it in the end, I'm just curious to see if it can be worked out RAW.

Those quotes make for a strong argument, but they can be read in two ways depending on how you define a spell. In the case where the wizard only knows each spell once it makes no matter, but if he knows a spell twice it does. You are suggesting that if Nagash were to cast one of his Ryzes the other would also be exhausted, because they are the same spell. However, it could also be viewed as two separate spells (they would obviously be separate if they were on two different wizards) and he could therefore cast each of them once. Nagash knows 9 spells and if we can agree on that there is nothing in spell generation that stops him from getting 2 Ryzes he would still know 9 spells, each of which can be cast once in a phase.

 

[Alabaster427]

So just for clarity, the argument here is that because Nagash automatically knows Ryze, as dictated by his staff, he could still swap out one of his rolled spells for the signature, making him know Ryze twice. There are two primary reasons that I do not see this as feasible, in addition to the great points as listed by @Rykashu.
1: "Nagash knows nine spells, the first of which, is always Ryze..." Nowhere in this rule does it indicate that the automatic Ryze is a bound spell.
2: In the same rule, it says that he knows nine spells, which obviously means nine DIFFERENT spells. I know some will argue that if you have two of the same thing, then it counts as two, but in this case, you are not taking two of the same thing, but one thing twice, which is wrong.

 

[Alastor]

I'm with Alabaster, seems odd to interpret it otherwise.

 

[Demian]

Also, I'd be even more thorough as to "how those spells behave" while in a situation where:

1. The Nine Books are destroyed by Vaul's Unmaking

2. Nagash looses wizard levels and must "forget" spells he knows.

I pondered about rolling for his 5 spells (Wizard level 5) to be his "known" spells separately from the other 4 spells he also must know because of his Books (one of those 4 being Ryze, as stated by his own magical item).

As with the former "Choosing your General" conflict we had a while ago, when we had to make our highest Ld Wizard the General of our army, and who also had to choose LoV as his lore, we can apply all rules at once, only ceasing where a general rule conflicts with a specific rule from the Nagash book. This being:


- Nagash is a Lvl 5 Wizard who knows spells from 5 lores.

- Nagash holds an arcane item that "forces" him to know 9 spells (the nine books of Nagash, by the way). There must be 9 always, and you can choose from in between the 5 lores he knows to generate them, providaed that the first spell he knows is always Ryze. Ryze, while being a signature spell, can only be taken once per Wizard, and so, the other 8 spells are generated as normal from his lore pool. This means, you roll 1 by 1 until Nagash has generated 9 total spells, but the first one must always be from the Lore of Undeath and must always be traded for the Signature spell, if I'm interpreting the rules correctly. ( funny, I always roll all dice at once, but here it implies we must do so in an order... is that the correct way to do it then? D: ).

- If Nagash "forgets" a spell via any effect (normally, a Miscast), then he must randomly select from between all his known spells (Ryze included). This can take him to be a Lvl 0 Wizard with ~4 spells he still may know.

- If Nagash's Books are destroyed, then (this is coming from my perspective alone) nothing would happen, since the item has already "used" it's power while generating the extra spells at the beginning of the game, and the text does not specify that "as long as Nagash carries this item, he has X spells..". Should this not be the case, then we would have to roll separately for the extra 4 spells and account them to be from the Books.

- Last, fluff-wise, a Wizard prepares the spells he will carry unto battle, even though he may know all of the spells in that lore, he can only actively prepare and use as many as his wizard level (this is in the BRB). The Nine Books of Nagash should represent the preparations that Nagash took beforehand to bring up to 9 spells into battle, as opposed to how other wizards do their jobs. This would mean that, if the Books are destroyed, then all his (prepared) spells would be lost... which sounds pretty stupid to me, but the fluff kind of supports it.

So, now I'm confused. How should we account Nagash's spells?

5 + (3 + Ryze) Books?
8 + Ryze all into one Arcane Item?

What do you think is more balanced, game-wise?

 

[Rykashu]

@Mad 'At I'm saying that Nagash should only know Ryze once in the first place. If a spell is known by more than one wizard, then it is still the same spell. The wording of, "Each Wizard can only attempt to cast each spell once per turn," is purposely to allow a wizard to cast a spell that was already cast by a DIFFERENT wizard. It is still the same spell in this situation, but the rules allow a DIFFERENT wizard to cast it.

@Demian I would see it that Nagash is still a level 5 wizard. If the 9 books are unmade he should still know 5 spells. I think what would make the most sense is to roll 4 spells at random to determine which are lost instead of determining which are known innately. If Nagash were to lose levels through something like a miscast roll of power drain, the first lost should be the one miscast, then others rolled randomly. If Nagash has his wizard level reduced to 0, it doesn't matter which spells he knows as he can't cast them anyway.

 

[Mad 'At]

@Rykashu Think I finally see you point. Nagash knows 9 spells. If he were to swap one of the spells he rolls in Lore of Undeath for Ryze (in my eyes giving him two copies of it) he would only know 8 DIFFERENT spells and thus no longer fulfill the criteria of having 9 spells (and again, if he casts Ryze both would be exhausted since they are the same spell). And so it all boils to to how you define a spell. Annoyingly I can't seam to even explain the two available definitions rulewise at all, and so the best way seams to be to do it fluffwise (regrettably). My view on it would be close to the wizard having scrolls to read from and the scrolls have to recharge after use, while you see it more as a ritual that the wizard have memorised. It really bugs me that I can't explain it better, but using this explanation I think I see what @Banat was getting at, I just didn't understand it then. I'll admit that my way of seeing it seams better suited for bound spell, and thus yours must be closer to normal spells. I'm just having a hard time accepting it since I can't explain it with anything but fluff.

 

[MorgretBonesmasher]

I don't know if it's official rules but in my local store we play a rule where if you role a double (so the same spell pops up twice), you take one of them, then you get to choose any other spell from the Lore.

Same we use in my gaming group. I love those double rolls.

 

[Veritas]

Well the good news is that it's official rules to play that way! It's under SPELL GENERATION just before the lores in the back of the book.

 

[John Rainbow]

Well the good news is that it's official rules to play that way! It's under SPELL GENERATION just before the lores in the back of the book.

Correct. See the BRB pp.162.

 

[The Sun King]

I don't think that he can have Ryze two time because this is presuming that you have Ryze BEFORE he rolls. As I read Nagash's rules you roll 9 dice and 1 of them has to end up being Ryze.