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8th Ed. Drain Magic versus High Elves.

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Lord Kroxti

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So my friend and I came across an interesting discussion in regards to a game we were playing. He had the White lion bunker of you cant kill me, and for fun, the mage he had in it had given them Hand of Glory, to go along with their 4+ ward save by that point. In my turn I drained magic the unit, and we came to have a discussion on what exactly had gotten dispelled. The wording of the high elf lore attribute is "Each time a spell from this lore is successfully cast, caster and unit gain +1 to their ward save (max 3+) until beginning of caster's next Magic phase. Gain 6+ ward save if they have none." and drain magic is "Augment./Hex.
7+ Cast. Range 18". If target is friendly, it is an Augment, if target is enemy, it is a hex. All Remains in Play spells affecting target are dispelled, and effects of all other spells come to an end.
14+ Cast. Targets all units (friend or foe) within 18"."

I argued that since the lore attribute requires a spell to be successfully cast, the ward save is an effect of that spell, an indirect effect, but an effect none the less. My opponent argued but eventually gave in owing to the OP nature of the lore attribute and that he was about to win anyway, but im curious what your opinions on this are. He did point out that while he understood my logic, under the same logic wounds restored or models raised could also be argued as an effect of the spell. So I want to see what the rest of you think.
 
Killing people with fireballs is an effect of Fireball. They don't come back via drain magic. They aren't lasting effects, they change the game state. A +D3 to a stat is an ongoing effect of a spell.

Unfortunately, I don't think an attribute counts as a spell effect. I don't think the ward saves, like the power dice from death, are spell effects, unless it was FAQ'd somewhere and I missed it.
 
I agree with your friend. A lore attribute is not a spell and therefor is not a spell effect. Drain magic does not work against it.
 
I think this one definitely warrants an FAQ response.

At first read, I concurred with the previous respondents that the lore attribute is not a spell, therefore Drain Magic would not affect it.

Upon my second read, the rule states that "All Remains in Play spells affecting target are dispelled, and effects of all other spells come to an end." The lore attribute is not the spell itself, but is an ongoing effect of a spell on the target unit (obviously not all attributes work this way, but this one does). It's definitely a grey area, but I'd agree with how you played it. As a bonus, I think that ruling is also in the spirit of how Drain Magic is supposed to work, negating magical effects on units that occurred due to a spell being cast.
 
yeah that was the point I was making. Damage done by a fireball is not an ongoing affect, a wound restored is not an ongoing effect, an increase to a ward save is an ongoing effect as it mentions to the point the ward save buff will end. I consider the buff similar to a augment spell, as those aren't remains in play, but their effects last until stated otherwise. Just think it is an interesting rules question that questions how far we go in the reading of the word "effect" and believe it deserves an FAQ one way or another.
 
It's just that the attribute does it; the spell has it nowhere in its text. So whether a spell effect is also an attribute effect is the crux of the argument.
 
Would you take Magic Resistance against the hits caused by the attribute in Lore of Heavens (d6 vs flyers)? I would, and I think that means that drain magic must work against the HEHM attribute, as it is a spell effect.
 
dokushin said:
Would you take Magic Resistance against the hits caused by the attribute in Lore of Heavens (d6 vs flyers)? I would, and I think that means that drain magic must work against the HEHM attribute, as it is a spell effect.
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You do get MR against the heavens attribute, so I think the elf high magic ward goes away with drain magic.

-Matt
 
I think you played it right. The Ward is an effect of a spell--but for the casting of a spell, the ward (or improvex ward) would not be there.
 
Certainly FAQ worthy, but I would lean towards it removing the spell attribute ability as well. It is a magical effect on the unit caused by a spell going off.
 
And now I am officially taking Elf Magic every time I face them. I cannot tell you how much I hate that Shield of Saphery lore attribute; probably as much as High Elves hated Focused Rumination in our old book.
 
Careful what you wish for though ....


Your LM Lore Attribute for High Magic would fall in to the same category, and thus if you rule that the Ward Save increase is an effect that can be removed via Drain Magic, so must you also rule that your ability to forget a spell and generate a new one is an effect from a spell.


So, if I target your unit of TG w/ Slann with Drain Magic and successfully cast it after the Slann has used the Lore Attribute of High Magic to forget a spell and learn a new one, what happens?
 
Worloch said:
Careful what you wish for though ....


Your LM Lore Attribute for High Magic would fall in to the same category, and thus if you rule that the Ward Save increase is an effect that can be removed via Drain Magic, so must you also rule that your ability to forget a spell and generate a new one is an effect from a spell.


So, if I target your unit of TG w/ Slann with Drain Magic and successfully cast it after the Slann has used the Lore Attribute of High Magic to forget a spell and learn a new one, what happens?
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I think the question is whether the High Elf attribute is an ongoing spell effect or not. Once the Slann swaps a spell, there is no ongoing spell effect. The LM attribute is an event that is permanently resolved after it happens, like damage from a spell, movement granted by a spell, or wounds healed by a spell.

Since the ward save boost is an ongoing effect that isn't permanent, it might be a spell effect, though who even knows.
 
I disagree, Worloch. The immediate switching out a spell for another is not an ongoing effect, it already has 'come to an end' after being initiated/completed. Same would go with some other attributes: Lore of Fire, Lore of Beasts, Lore of Heavens, Lore of Life, etc. etc. None of these are ongoing effects of any spells.

I believe the Drain Magic spell is one of the trickier things implemented into the game. It clearly doesn't limit its effects to Remain in Play spells and Augmentations and Hexes (if it did it would say that), that would be simple. The spell extends its effects beyond just these 3 categories in its text, and in doing so causes a lot of questions. Does a Fireball cast upon a unit with Drain Magic currently in effect cause its hits or does its 'effects come to an end' without applying any hits? I would say it does cause damage because it is not dispelled (it is not a RiP spell) nor do its effects need to come to an end (the effects occur and end automatically already). Am I right? I don't know, but that's how I'd rule it.

The way I understand the wording, the Drain Magic spell is supposed to end any ongoing effect from any spell on a target unit (for Drain Magic's duration). These always include effects that are either Remains in Play OR have a defined duration.
 
Caneghem said:
I think the question is whether the High Elf attribute is an ongoing spell effect or not. Once the Slann swaps a spell, there is no ongoing spell effect. The LM attribute is an event that is permanently resolved after it happens, like damage from a spell, movement granted by a spell, or wounds healed by a spell.

Since the ward save boost is an ongoing effect that isn't permanent, it might be a spell effect, though who even knows.
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Indeed, but the Drain Magic spell makes no distinction between an effect that is permanent versus an effect that is not. It simply says that spells effects immediately come to an end.



However, my point is really not limited to just the LM High Magic Lore Attribute, that is just the example I used as this is the LM forums.

Let us pick on the Lore of Nurgle Lore Attribute - If you hit a Chaos Daemon Prince who has been using the Lore of Nurgle, and has subsequently permanently boosted their St and To, with Drain Magic, what happens?

How about the Lore of Slaneesh Lore Attribute, which also boosts stats, but isn't permanent. What happens there?


I personally believe that Lore Attributes are not spell effects in a direct sense, and that the game plays better if you leave them out of the scope of Drain Magic.
 
hardyworld said:
I disagree, Worloch. The immediate switching out a spell for another is not an ongoing effect, it already has 'come to an end' after being initiated/completed. Same would go with some other attributes: Lore of Fire, Lore of Beasts, Lore of Heavens, Lore of Life, etc. etc. None of these are ongoing effects of any spells.

I believe the Drain Magic spell is one of the trickier things implemented into the game. It clearly doesn't limit its effects to Remain in Play spells and Augmentations and Hexes (if it did it would say that), that would be simple. The spell extends its effects beyond just these 3 categories in its text, and in doing so causes a lot of questions. Does a Fireball cast upon a unit with Drain Magic currently in effect cause its hits or does its 'effects come to an end' without applying any hits? I would say it does cause damage because it is not dispelled (it is not a RiP spell) nor do its effects need to come to an end (the effects occur and end automatically already). Am I right? I don't know, but that's how I'd rule it.

The way I understand the wording, the Drain Magic spell is supposed to end any ongoing effect from any spell on a target unit (for Drain Magic's duration). These always include effects that are either Remains in Play OR have a defined duration.
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Disagree if you wish, but I never said it was an ongoing effect - I implied that if you rule the HE High Magic Lore Attribute is a spell effect, you must consider all Lore Attributes to be Spell Effects. You really can't argue that some Lore Attributes are spell effects and fall under the purview of Drain Magic, but others aren't.

However, we are in complete agreement with your second paragraph - the spell is tricky indeed and the wording is imprecise and I do agree with your analysis of the spell and final conclusion.

However, while Remains in Play and Spell Effects that have defined durations are always included for the purposes of Drain Magic, I disagree that they are the only category of effects that are in scope.


As I pointed out previously, Drain Magic itself makes no mention of 'ongoing' or 'permanent' - it simply states that effects immediately come to an end. Much of this issue is due to the fact that WHFB has no definitions with regard to spell effects. We don't have the common definitions, such as an 'instant' effect, like Fireball versus an 'ongoing' effect like Miasma. The only thing we have is Remains in Play versus not Remains in Play, and Drain Magic is explicit in that its scope supersedes just that definition.

Let me add in another wrinkle to illustrate my point -

Plague of Rust from the Lore of Metal - A successful cast of this spell reduces the AS of the targeted unit by 1 for the rest of the game. Clearly this is a Spell Effect. Also, it clearly has a defined duration (the rest of the game) but as far as we are concerned, it might as well as say permanently, because nobody is assuming that spell effects last after the game ends. What happens when Drain Magic is cast on a unit that has had this spell successfully cast on it?


Let us go further down the rabbit hole with a different spell -

The Dreaded Thirteenth Spell - It clearly states that the models in the targeted unit are transformed in to Clan Rats. If the number of models affected is equal to or larger than the number of models in the unit, you replace the models with clan rats models and (the spell is explicit here) the casting player takes control of the targeted unit. This is also clearly a spell effect. It has no defined duration, but we can infer 'for the rest of the game'. What happens when Drain Magic is cast on this unit?


Yes, we can definitely agree that Drain Magic is a very tricky implementation, and I believe many questions will remain even after a FAQ comes, even if the FAQ addresses the questions at all.


So, again, I personally believe that the game plays better when we don't group Lore Attributes in with Spell Effects for the purposes of Drain Magic. However, my main point is really that if you do want to group Lore Attributes in with Spell Effects for the purposes of Drain Magic, you have to apply that philosophy to all Lore Attributes equally, not just some of them
 
You have a lot of good points, Worloch, all of which are valid. It's a poorly defined spell. I agree that if you consider one lore attribute as spell effect then all lore attributes should be considered spell effects (that makes the most sense to me). I realize that the spell does not say 'ongoing effects of all other spells come to an end', but that's how I'd rule it.

Ongoing spell effects such as HE High Magic lore attribute, WoC Lore of Nurgle lore attribute, WoC Lore of Slaanesh lore attribute, Plague of Rust, Augmentations, Hexes, Remains in Play spells, etc. would end as a result of Drain Magic because they have ongoing effects from magic spells.

Instant spell effects such as LM High Magic lore attribute, Dreaded 13th Spell turning models into rats, WoC rolls on the EotG chart as a result of a spell (because the roll on the table was the immediate effect of the spell, the effect of the chart is indirect), Magic Missiles, Direct Damage Spells, Magical Vortex, Comet of Casandora, etc. either do not have an ongoing effects (they all have an instant effect with ongoing results) or do not meet the Drain Magic targeting rules are not affected by Drain Magic.

At least that is how I'd rule it works in a tournament (until further notice). Is my ruling better than yours? No. It's just my opinion that the 'ongoing' insertion into the rule (in an effort to clarify) is already inherent.

It's very unclear how it works in many cases and you'd think a spell that has been around so long would have an FAQ by now (HE book has one other noticeable issue that needs to be Errata'd...I'm looking at you Banner of the World Dragon). I hope it gets cleared up soon however it works. Even limiting it to RiP, Hex, and Augments would be OK, at least then it is clear (mini-nerf is not a big deal).
 
Yes, I can accept your interpretation as solid and well thought out. It might not be how I would necessarily handle it, but it works. Your mini-nerf idea for Drain Magic may just be the simplest and most elegant way of creating a framework to handle Drain Magic's idiosyncrasies.


I believe they have held back on the HE FAQ due to the shared lore between HE and LM. That way, they could actually ensure that the High Magic FAQ portions aligned didn't offer conflicting answers. Just a theory though.


I think that High Magic suits LM more than HE actually, so I expect to see more questions along these lines arising, even though High Magic has been out for awhile. As LM players take Loremaster of High Magic, and thus have all the High Magic spells available all the time, we'll see an increase the corner-cases presented by these spells. A FAQ is going to be desperately needed, fairly shortly, I think.
 
based on the FAQ about lore attributes and MR, I feel like GW intended the Lore attributes to be considered as part of the spell itself. But instead of repeating the same 3 lines of text at the end of each spell, they instead made it the lore attribute. Drain Magic is a very poorly worded rule, but if they listed every situation that it was applicable in, the rule would have taken up its own page. Even if you said it only applied to Remains in play, Hexes, and Augment spells, there have been situation brought up in this discussion about whether or not it would apply to those spells when it mentions permament.
I raised this question intending to start the debate about what is defined as an effect of a spell. It certainly did that, but it also raised the point about GW not playtesting these rules. The people who did playtest the rules understand the intention behind the rules, but not the actual written ruling. What I believe should be done is that the ETC players be drafted by GW to playtest the new army books. While that would never happen, it would certainly get some of the best players to run across these situations and actually get clarifications before the book is released.
 
Lord Kroxti said:
What I believe should be done is that the ETC players be drafted by GW to playtest the new army books.
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Yes! This!
 
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