AoS Rule of 1 change?

[Canas]

@Canas I hear what you are saying but I still don't think it is "dumb", it just changes how you use your magic. Wizards are still some of the most powerful/versatile units in the game. You are right, this does gut wizard based armies but I think that may have been intentional. GW wants us to play big armies full of all sorts of different units not just handful of wizards. I think rule of 1 was about more than just mortal wound spam. Mystic Shield spam was just as bad. I think your #4 is one of the most strategic parts of the game. If I could put mystic shield and summon starlight on both my bastiladons it would make them pretty much invisible (especially inside the Thunderquake) which would be silly and not very fun to play against. I like the hard choice of trying to figure out where each spell would have the greatest effect. I am surprised that prayers aren't subject to the rule of 1, they are effectively just like spells. Command abilities by and large are subject to the rule of 1 because only the general can use them.

@pendrake that is a cool idea, I could get behind that.

It conflicts with the rule of cool, which is generally a "dumb" thing to do

As for it adding "strategy". With only 1 available cast there isn't much of a choice. You just dump your mystic shield on whatever is most valuable and most likely to be focussed. Which means that 9 out of 10 times you'l cast it at the exact same unit as he's the core of your army and your tactics revolve around him and thus buffing him will nearly Always be the right choice. You simply can't afford to lose the core your strategy is build around as that'l most likely cost you the game. It's only once you have multiple spell-casts a choice can really be made as that second and third spell-cast can go to one of the important synergy units, or be used to buff up a fodder unit to be a more effective tar-pit.

As for a bastilidon with mystic shield and summon starlight being silly to deal with in a thunderquake. If your opponent is stupid enough to focus the bastillidon instead of going for the supportive units or playing the objective he kind of deserves to lose...

Also, spamming defensive spells is generally significantly less oppressive than offensive ones simply cuz your opponent's stuff isn't dead now so he can actually react and cuz sniping the wizards has a greater effect on the capabilities of the army as a whole. Sniping an offensive wizard just means there's less incoming damage, sniping a defensive one means killing the next thing is easier.

And lastly, unless you're fielding Nagash or a coven of Slann you're unlikely to be casting more than 3-4 spells anyway, so it's not like it's viably possible to cover the entire army in mystic shields regardless. Which ultimatly makes defensive spamm far easier to deal with as there'l nearly Always be valuable targets left that aren't buffed.

Now that isn't to say that there shouldn't be some rule in place to curb the spam. It's just that this rule is terrible and we should have a different one. For example what's been mentioned before about the casting value of a spell going up as you cast it multiple times in a single turn. Similarly there's no need for every single spell to do D3 mortal wounds. Fiddling with those values could easily alleviate the power of spam.

As for prayers not being subject to it. That's what I meant with it being inconsistent.

I think the problem would be a bit less severe if they finally introduced a spell lore for everyone.
Armies with spell lore (I have the Sylvaneth and Nagash Battletomes, and I have read the Bonesplitterz one) are much more interesting, just because of that diversity.

It'd be less severe but it doesn't really "solve" anything. It'd just be a bandaid solution for the bandaid solution. It just leads to situations where you get 3 wizards that all cast a differently named spell that does more or less the same for pretty much the same casting value. E.g. with a tzeentch army take a tzaangor shaman a magister and a random wizard. Now cast arcane bolt, boon of mutation and bolt of change, which have similar casting values (5, 7 & 7) and all deal D3 damage. There's not much difference with simply casting arcane bolt three times unless you have some spare reinforcement points to trigger the bonus effects of the "difficult" spells...

Having said that, the spell lores are still worthwhile in their own right as they flesh out magic which is good. They just aren't a "real" solution for the rule of one nonsense.

 

[Robertxtrem]

I asked about kroak at warhammer world's heat one and it was ruled that I could only cast it once.

 

[Aginor]

I asked about kroak at warhammer world's heat one and it was ruled that I could only cast it once.

Yeah, sure. The rules are clear about that: in pitched battles RoO overwrite whatever is on the warscroll.

 

[Asamu]

Eh, I think, rather than making the casting cost of spells go up by 1, or in addition to it, they could make it so units can only be by a particular spell once each turn to prevent the spamming of arcane bolts or mystic shields onto the same target. Just upping the casting difficulty after every spell cast doesn't stop mystic shield or arcane bolt from being spammed onto one target until it has a 2+ save or is dead, which is the main issue with being able to cast the same spell multiple times in a turn.

Though there wouldn't really be a problem with the current rule if every faction had access to at least one spell lore like the newer battletomes have.

 

[Canas]

Eh, I think, rather than making the casting cost of spells go up by 1, or in addition to it, they could make it so units can only be by a particular spell once each turn to prevent the spamming of arcane bolts or mystic shields onto the same target. Just upping the casting difficulty after every spell cast doesn't stop mystic shield or arcane bolt from being spammed onto one target until it has a 2+ save or is dead, which is the main issue with being able to cast the same spell multiple times in a turn.

Though there wouldn't really be a problem with the current rule if every faction had access to at least one spell lore like the newer battletomes have.

There's no logical basis to say mystic shields (or any other effect for that matter) can be stacked, to be honest an explicit rule for that shouldn't be necesary, though if people start claiming they can (and get away with it somehow..) then yeah a rule pointing out that the same effect doesn't stack would be necesary...

As for spamming arcane bolt till the thing dies:

1. what's wrong with spamming an attack till your opponent is dead? That's kind of the point... Arcane bolt isn't different from just shooting the guy with arrows, praying him away or sending a giant demon with a big axe at it.
2. If the damage output of arcane bolt is too high; then change the values. It doesn't need to do D3 mortal wounds. It doesn't need a casting value of 5. Making the spell harder to cast, or changing the damage-values are far better solutions than the rule of 1.
3. You can spam D3 mortal wound spells anyway, rule of 1 or not; see my earlier example with a Tzaangor a Magister and a random third wizard...

So meh.. the spam is not an issue. It's the values. And the rule of 1 ultimatly doesn't even stop the spam so it's not like it solves anything anyway...

And again; spell lores don't fix the problems introduced by the rule of 1. They'l just mean that instead of casting arcane bolt thrice you cast arcane bolt arcane missile and arcane banana with the exact same result. Spell lores are still needed to flesh out magic as a whole though.

 

[Slanntastic]

It conflicts with the rule of cool, which is generally a "dumb" thing to do

@Canas It is true, the rule of cool is important and should be upheld at every possible opportunity haha

 

[Putzfrau]

There's no logical basis to say mystic shields (or any other effect for that matter) can be stacked, to be honest an explicit rule for that shouldn't be necesary, though if people start claiming they can (and get away with it somehow..) then yeah a rule pointing out that the same effect doesn't stack would be necesary...

As for spamming arcane bolt till the thing dies:

1. what's wrong with spamming an attack till your opponent is dead? That's kind of the point... Arcane bolt isn't different from just shooting the guy with arrows, praying him away or sending a giant demon with a big axe at it.
2. If the damage output of arcane bolt is too high; then change the values. It doesn't need to do D3 mortal wounds. It doesn't need a casting value of 5. Making the spell harder to cast, or changing the damage-values are far better solutions than the rule of 1.
3. You can spam D3 mortal wound spells anyway, rule of 1 or not; see my earlier example with a Tzaangor a Magister and a random third wizard...

So meh.. the spam is not an issue. It's the values. And the rule of 1 ultimatly doesn't even stop the spam so it's not like it solves anything anyway...

And again; spell lores don't fix the problems introduced by the rule of 1. They'l just mean that instead of casting arcane bolt thrice you cast arcane bolt arcane missile and arcane banana with the exact same result. Spell lores are still needed to flesh out magic as a whole though.

Have you played the current incarnation of 40k?

Smite (basically the 40k arcane bolt equivalent) spam was so oppressive it was swiftly nerfed.

Granted I'm not super experienced in AoS, but I've played a lot of 40k and played a lot of WHFB, and the rule of 1 is one of my favorite things about age of sigmar. I like the roll wizards are forced to play in this game.

 

[Canas]

Have you played the current incarnation of 40k?

Smite (basically the 40k arcane bolt equivalent) spam was so oppressive it was swiftly nerfed.

Granted I'm not super experienced in AoS, but I've played a lot of 40k and played a lot of WHFB, and the rule of 1 is one of my favorite things about age of sigmar. I like the roll wizards are forced to play in this game.

No I haven't.

And I'm not necesarly saying Arcane bolt spam didn't need a nerf (though given the myriad of ways mortal wounds can still be spammed I'd question if it really was the worst offender). I'm saying that the rule of one is a terrible rule and the nerf should have been done differently.

Also, judging by this post:

40k just did this with Smite. Smite is basically mystic bolt but you cant choose the target (its the closet model/unit) and its manifest score goes up by one each time, starting at its base 5 for the first cast 6 for the second and 7 for the third etc...

Smite now has one of the limitations I've proposed, as opposed to being subject to the rule of one nonsense. It's a way of nerfing that doesn't just break the mechanic originally put in place. Multiple wizards still serves an actual purpose now beyond simply having a backup should the first guy get killed.

Anyways; alternatives to rebalance and stop spam that don't break the basic mechanic like the the rule of one does, or at least replace it with a different mechanic, aren't too difficult to come up with:

1. Casting values increase with each attempt,
2. Spells do "magic" wounds as opposed to mortal wounds, everyone gets a "magic" save, use dedicated anti-magic units to hunt down the wizard while the wizard tries to blow up your heavily armored but vulnerable to magic stuff.
3. Spells just do "normal" wounds and not mortal wounds
4. Spells can only be cast once, but having multiple of wizards that know the same spell gives a bonus to that spell. Specific bonus to be determind on a spell by spell basis E.g. with 2 starpriests present each summon starlight gets two targets, with 3 starpriests it also Always deals damage even if it's not targetting a chaos daemon with 4+ starpriests it reduce the hit value by 2 in addition to the previous bonusses.
5. Unbinding can be done by any unit, but if attempted by "normal" units they suffer a penalty to the roll.
6. Increase the base casting values of all (oppresive) spells (seriously, arcane bolt has a casting value of 5, making its unmoddified succesrate 83%, if something is overpowered and has such a high succesrate why not just nerf it's freaking succesrate...)
7. In addition to a casting roll introduce a static "to hit" roll to see if the wizard actually aimed his spell right. E.g. it "hits" on a 3+, tada, spam reduced by 33% as 33% of all succesfull spells will now just miss...
8. All spells gain greater effects depending on the casting roll, being very minor for "low" succesfull casts, but powerfull for high ones. E.g. arcane bolt has a casting value of 5. With a roll of 5-8 it deals 1 damage, 9-11 D3, with 12 it does 3. Most succesfull casts will be the minor variant of the spell, thus reducing the power of spamming them significantly.
9. Pick some combination of the afforementioned options

it's not that difficult to find viable alteratives and especially the fact that 6) wasn't attempted before they went with such a bandaid as the rule of one is dishearthening... yeah, some of these would actually require effort on the part of GW as they have to rebalance stuff and rewrite spells. But that is kind of their job... and most aren't exactly difficult for the players to learn and readjust to. There's really not much reason to have gone for the rule of one over pretty much any other option...

 

[ILKAIN]

No I haven't.

And I'm not necesarly saying Arcane bolt spam didn't need a nerf (though given the myriad of ways mortal wounds can still be spammed I'd question if it really was the worst offender). I'm saying that the rule of one is a terrible rule and the nerf should have been done differently.

Also, judging by this post:

Smite now has one of the limitations I've proposed, as opposed to being subject to the rule of one nonsense. It's a way of nerfing that doesn't just break the mechanic originally put in place. Multiple wizards still serves an actual purpose now beyond simply having a backup should the first guy get killed.

Anyways; alternatives to rebalance and stop spam that don't break the basic mechanic like the the rule of one does, or at least replace it with a different mechanic, aren't too difficult to come up with:

1. Casting values increase with each attempt,
2. Spells do "magic" wounds as opposed to mortal wounds, everyone gets a "magic" save, use dedicated anti-magic units to hunt down the wizard while the wizard tries to blow up your heavily armored but vulnerable to magic stuff.
3. Spells just do "normal" wounds and not mortal wounds
4. Spells can only be cast once, but having multiple of wizards that know the same spell gives a bonus to that spell. Specific bonus to be determind on a spell by spell basis E.g. with 2 starpriests present each summon starlight gets two targets, with 3 starpriests it also Always deals damage even if it's not targetting a chaos daemon with 4+ starpriests it reduce the hit value by 2 in addition to the previous bonusses.
5. Unbinding can be done by any unit, but if attempted by "normal" units they suffer a penalty to the roll.
6. Increase the base casting values of all (oppresive) spells (seriously, arcane bolt has a casting value of 5, making its unmoddified succesrate 83%, if something is overpowered and has such a high succesrate why not just nerf it's freaking succesrate...)
7. In addition to a casting roll introduce a static "to hit" roll to see if the wizard actually aimed his spell right. E.g. it "hits" on a 3+, tada, spam reduced by 33% as 33% of all succesfull spells will now just miss...
8. All spells gain greater effects depending on the casting roll, being very minor for "low" succesfull casts, but powerfull for high ones. E.g. arcane bolt has a casting value of 5. With a roll of 5-8 it deals 1 damage, 9-11 D3, with 12 it does 3. Most succesfull casts will be the minor variant of the spell, thus reducing the power of spamming them significantly.
9. Pick some combination of the afforementioned options

it's not that difficult to find viable alteratives and especially the fact that 6) wasn't attempted before they went with such a bandaid as the rule of one is dishearthening... yeah, some of these would actually require effort on the part of GW as they have to rebalance stuff and rewrite spells. But that is kind of their job... and most aren't exactly difficult for the players to learn and readjust to. There's really not much reason to have gone for the rule of one over pretty much any other option...

I especially like your number four, I’m coming from the world of 40 K myself and they already have a function like this as well for some of the armies. Specifically I play Tyranids and the zooanthropes get an increased amount of damage depending on the size of the unit when it casts smite ( arcane bolt in AOS). They can field units of 3 to 6. At three or less they cast Smite as normal. At four or five in the unit smite is cast at 2D3 damage, and at six, maximum size, it is D3 +3.

It would take considerable amount of effort on the development team due to the sheer number of unique spells and by perhaps creating some wizards that don’t fulfil roles that are limited (i.e. heros) to be able to reasonably get to 4+ star priests for your example. But it would definitely be far more interesting and require far more strategy and tactics than simply the rule of one.

 

[Canas]

I especially like your number four, I’m coming from the world of 40 K myself and they already have a function like this as well for some of the armies. Specifically I play Tyranids and the zooanthropes get an increased amount of damage depending on the size of the unit when it casts smite ( arcane bolt in AOS). They can field units of 3 to 6. At three or less they cast Smite as normal. At four or five in the unit smite is cast at 2D3 damage, and at six, maximum size, it is D3 +3.

It would take considerable amount of effort on the development team due to the sheer number of unique spells and by perhaps creating some wizards that don’t fulfil roles that are limited (i.e. heros) to be able to reasonably get to 4+ star priests for your example. But it would definitely be far more interesting and require far more strategy and tactics than simply the rule of one.

yea, 4 is possibly one of the most interesting one but also will take the most time to actually develop. Though to be honest a lot of the unique spells can probably be removed, they tend to be increadibly similar anyways. What could also be interesting in this case would be to have "senior" wizards give additional bonusses to some such spells. E.g. the skaven warlocks nd archwarlocks have 2 very similar spells, the archwarlock basicly having an AoE version. You cold just combine this into 1 spell "warpstorm" that works the following:

Base spell: casting value of 7. D3 damage to the target.
If 2+ wizards know it, casting value of 6
If 3+ wizards know it hits 4 targets
If an archwarlock is present, hits 2 additional targets and deals D3+1 damage in addition to any other bonusses.

This could be very interesting. It'd also make units like pink horrors or those zooanthropes very interesting.

I'm curious what they've done with magic now that they've made the big announcement. They do seem to have fleshed it out significantly, but I do hope they've done something to also make it worthhile to bring more than 1 of the same wizard by doing that.

 

[Putzfrau]

I guess I just fundamentally don't have a problem with the rule of 1

I really enjoy the complimentary role wizards play, and I think that's in large part to the rule of 1. I've seen wizards (or psykers) dominate the various forms of 40k and fantasy for too long.

I believe they provide a very difficult balancing challenge, which is why "magic heavy" armies in either WHFB or 40k tended to be overpowered or awful. There wasn't a whole lot of middle ground.

I think the rule of 1 solves this in a very elegant manner. I see a lot of suggestions about going back to a "magic pool" similar to WHFB. I'm not sure i'd be using that game's magic phase as any kind of guiding light. 8th edition magic was horrendous.

I guess we will have to see what they have in store in the new edition!

 

[Canas]

O they don't need to be dominating, and we definitly don't need spell that blow up half an army in one go. But currently magic just feels very tacked on. Apart from a Nagash or kroak the most "powerfull" wizards tend to be stuff like vampires on undeath monstrosities because their specific spell just happens to synergize well with riding a giant monster that eats people. Powerfull fluff wizards like say starseers only really do 1 somewhat decent spellcast and then proceed to do nothing the rest of the turn. Which is kind of the other extreme of blowing up an entire army with a flick of the risk

But yeah, the new rules seem like they'd help.

 

[Putzfrau]

O they don't need to be dominating, and we definitly don't need spell that blow up half an army in one go. But currently magic just feels very tacked on. Apart from a Nagash or kroak the most "powerfull" wizards tend to be stuff like vampires on undeath monstrosities because their specific spell just happens to synergize well with riding a giant monster that eats people. Powerfull fluff wizards like say starseers only really do 1 somewhat decent spellcast and then proceed to do nothing the rest of the turn. Which is kind of the other extreme of blowing up an entire army with a flick of the risk

But yeah, the new rules seem like they'd help.

I can definitely see how it comes across a little tacked on! I'm excited for what the new addition might bring, just the idea of spells with some kind of physical piece on the board is very cool.

 

[Aginor]

I agree, it is something that excites me.

 

[Carnikang]

I don't think there will be a Rule of 1 Change. I think the spells themselves will be modified, especially with how they're coming out with a more 'cinematic' approach to magic via the models that will stay on the board.

Also, the RoO is a good rule. It doesn't need to change. It keeps spam to a minimum, much like the RoO in 40k has been adjusted to, while those armies that relied heavily on being able to cast Psychic powers were given tools that allow multiple casts/allowances with a cost. (Grey Knights and Thousands Sons being exempt from the -1 cast, at the expense of damage, doing only 1 MW instead of D3-D6).

 

[Canas]

I don't think there will be a Rule of 1 Change. I think the spells themselves will be modified, especially with how they're coming out with a more 'cinematic' approach to magic via the models that will stay on the board.

Also, the RoO is a good rule. It doesn't need to change. It keeps spam to a minimum, much like the RoO in 40k has been adjusted to, while those armies that relied heavily on being able to cast Psychic powers were given tools that allow multiple casts/allowances with a cost. (Grey Knights and Thousands Sons being exempt from the -1 cast, at the expense of damage, doing only 1 MW instead of D3-D6).

The rule of 1 doesn't stop the spam though. There's so many variants of spells with a casting value of 5-7 that do D3 damage with the occasional bonus effect, that it doesn't exactly achieve anything. The only thing the rule of one really achieves is that bringing say 2 starpriests is pointless. But if you were to bring say a tzaangor shaman alongside a magister you won't really notice the rule of 1 much if all you care about is the spamming damaging spells.

The only situations I can tell where the rule of 1 is actually achieving anything is if

1) you're trying to build an army around wizards buffing/debuffing as there's simply not enough spells for that within any given faction
2) You're trying to spam 1 specific spell cuz it's actually good and an interesting thing to build a tactic around, usually this'd again be buffs/debuffs; e.g. You want to throw summon starlight on loads of enemies as opposed to just the 1 unit cuz your opponent is bringing loads of units with "on a to hit of 6 do some nonsense"-rules
3) You're trying to field say Nagash who has 8 spellcasts but only knows 4 spells (the hell is the point of that?).

And apart from Nagash, none of these seem to be the situation that was the problem as far as I understood it (the spamming of mortal wounds with an easy Arcane bolt that for god knows what reason has a succesrate of 83% without modifiers.. seriously why wasn't the casting value just increased?)

As for the cinematic approach. It seems interesting; but it also seems like something liable to make wizards even more tacked on if it isn't executed near perfectly.

 

[Putzfrau]

The rule of 1 doesn't stop the spam though. There's so many variants of spells with a casting value of 5-7 that do D3 damage with the occasional bonus effect, that it doesn't exactly achieve anything. The only thing the rule of one really achieves is that bringing say 2 starpriests is pointless. But if you were to bring say a tzaangor shaman alongside a magister you won't really notice the rule of 1 much if all you care about is the spamming damaging spells.

The only situations I can tell where the rule of 1 is actually achieving anything is if

1) you're trying to build an army around wizards buffing/debuffing as there's simply not enough spells for that within any given faction
2) You're trying to spam 1 specific spell cuz it's actually good and an interesting thing to build a tactic around, usually this'd again be buffs/debuffs; e.g. You want to throw summon starlight on loads of enemies as opposed to just the 1 unit cuz your opponent is bringing loads of units with "on a to hit of 6 do some nonsense"-rules
3) You're trying to field say Nagash who has 8 spellcasts but only knows 4 spells (the hell is the point of that?).

And apart from Nagash, none of these seem to be the situation that was the problem as far as I understood it (the spamming of mortal wounds with an easy Arcane bolt that for god knows what reason has a succesrate of 83% without modifiers.. seriously why wasn't the casting value just increased?)

As for the cinematic approach. It seems interesting; but it also seems like something liable to make wizards even more tacked on if it isn't executed near perfectly.

Just out of curiosity, did you play WHFB or 40k? I was definitely a little burned out on magic after 7th ed 40k and 8th ed WHFB, which might why I disagree so strongly with your second point.

 

[Canas]

Just out of curiosity, did you play WHFB or 40k? I was definitely a little burned out on magic after 7th ed 40k and 8th ed WHFB, which might why I disagree so strongly with your second point.

Nope, I haven't. And given the horror stories I've heared I can imagine that might indeed be why.

 

[Putzfrau]

Nope, I haven't. And given the horror stories I've heared I can imagine that might indeed be why.

Haha, it wasn't all bad but there are certainly some horror stories

 

[Aginor]

Some older people (I assume WHFB players) in my local GW keep doing this:
Whenever somebody says "I cast..." someone shouts "PURPLE SUN!" and everybody laughs manically and/or rolls their eyes. So yeah it seems there are some stories.