8th Ed. Slann and Focus of Mastery

Just read an interesting post on Ulthuan.net.

http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50268

Big question. What happens when a Slann chooses say life and Focus of Mastery..?
Does he get his 4 Life spells and Loremaster High magic?
As he has Loremster, he doesnt 'generate' the High magic spells..?

If yes this could be fun

 

I saw this topic, and the answer is no. Models with Loremaster (x) do not generate spells as normal.

The only exception is a peice of terrain, which is clearly stated as an exception.

 

I hate to say it, but when i read my rulebooks today I had the same question, and the sphinx is immediately what I thought of. Gaining loremaster (death) does not remove your current lore.

I have to disagree GCPD for the same reason the people at Ulthuan disagree. Gaining the special rule Loremaster (high magic) means he ...

It says nothing about removing his current lore, or preventing him from rolling the spells from his current lore. I think this is may be an oversight, but being read as written and not read as intended it allows a slann a lore + loremaster high.

 

There is nothing about generating spells in the BRB...

With Focus of Mastery your not choosing high magic..
Your slann gets loremaster high magic..

I would say you can pick life and focus to get high magic loremaster too..

 

In fact, if you read Wandering Deliberations, it explicitly states that one does not generate spells normally. No such precaution taken with Focus of Mystery.

The way it goes is that one would normally generate spells by rolling dice and what not. However, Focus of Mystery grants the Slann Loremaster, no where does this replace the normal generation of spells and no where does the Loremaster ability replaces the normal generation of spells.

Personally, I find this grossly overpowered and broken, but RAW makes this possibility a reality. One I hope they FAQ out of existence.

 

The Slaan was never meant to have Loremaster High + generate other spells.

It's also been mentioned that since "loremaster" is an ability at the start of each turn you get all the High Magic spells regardless of using the high magic lore attribute to gain another spell from another lore... since you're still Loremaster High each turn. I don't agree with this, but I've read it mentioned a few times already.

 

Ya know, theres a good chance you are right and this will be clarified in a faq. We certainly are getting ridiculous bang for our buck otherwise, and the slann is known for being ridiculous.

I dont know the authors intention, but I havent seen any rule to change how i read this.

The wording of the high magic attribute goes against this i think. The last line talks about regaining spells forgotten in previous turns.

 

well, i hope we can have an High Magic loremaster slann + 4 spells from a different lore and i think i'm going to play this way until the FAQ

edit: i just checked on the old armybook + the FAQ and it says (trying to translate from italian): "CHOOSE a single lore. The slann gains the Loremaster rule in that lore". So we had to CHOOSE the lore in wich we had loremaster, but it seems to be that it isn't going to be this way in the new army book, so we could CHOOSE a lore AND take Loremaster in High Magic

 

The problem here is where Loremaster states "The Slann knows all spells from his CHOSEN lore...". If you take Focus of Mastery the rule forces you to have 'chosen' High Magic. Therefore you cannot choose another lore and take Focus of Mastery.

 

Keep reading .

It is very explicit about what it means by "chosen" lore. It is very clear it is not referring the lore you chose when selecting your caster, it is referring the the lore specified in brackets and chosen in this case by the discipline.

When you receive the blessing of the sphinx you do not lose all your current spells, you simply gain all death spells.

 

I'm pretty sure this will be faqed to make this argument moot.

 

They have to FAQ this, the wording is so open, there will be alot of for and against...

But a Slann's background would indicate he is spawned with the knowledge of high magic and is intelligent enough to learn more lores.

 

Clearly "HIS chosen lore" is referring to the lore the slann picked, since rules do not masculinely possess anything.
Furthermore, in loremaster it states "he does not have to roll them randomly"... further indicating that this is an action taken with the lore you picked at army creation, and not some nebulous other bonus lore granted by the ability.
The sphinx precedent may be a stronger argument, but I'm not familiar with it.

 

The sphinx we have been referring to is the sphinx special terrain, I dont have a rulebook in front of me to give you the exact wording, however you roll a dice and it either curses you or blesses you. The best blessing is that your wizard immediately gains Loremaster[death] and goes on to explain what that means to your wizard.

It is one of the random terrain rolls

This conflicts with the following:

 

Exact wording of the Loreamaster special rule in the BRB:
"A Wizard with the Loremaster special rule knows all the spells from his chosen lore - he does not need to roll randomly. The lore in question is normally given in brackets as part of the loremaster special rule."

In otherwords, having Loremaster [High Magic] (AKA. Focus of Mystery), requires you to choose lore of high magic, and therefore disallows you from rolling for spells normally in addition to it.

The BRB FAQ says otherwise

"Q:If a model with the Loremaster special rule suffers a Power
Drain result from the Miscast table, do they lose spells as normal?
(p72)
A: Yes."

I would assume this applies to the lore attribute as well.

 

Another way to think of this is that having Loremaster (High Magic) only applies if you CHOOSE High Magic.

If you choose another Lore, you will have to roll randomly as normal.

Since you have to choose your Lore in you army list, why would you have paid the points for FoM?

This is assuming, of course, that FoM allows you to even roll for a different Lore.

 

I agree with you on this.

Yup, this is exactly my point. They need to have the rule that you must choose high magic. The missing sentence in this discipline is that "you must take Lore of high magic to take this discipline" or "you do not generate spells as usual".

There is no rule that forces us to select the the lore of high magic while taking this discipline. This discipline merely grants the loremaster (high magic) special ability just like the sphinx grants us the loremaster (death) special ability. We already know because of the sphinx that a wizard can have a lore and be a loremaster of a completely seperate lore.

 

"A Wizard with the Loremaster special rule knows all the spells from his chosen lore - he does not need to roll randomly. The lore in question is normally given in brackets as part of the Loremaster special rule. For example, a model with Loremaster (Fire) would know all the spells from the Lore of Fire."

To me, that's pretty clear that you aren't rolling other spells.

However, if this turns out to be true, I'm rolling Death/High Magic Loremaster.

 

" The Slann-Mage Priest has the Loremaster (Lore of High Magic) special rule. This discipline cannot be combined with the Wandering Deliberations discipline."

Doesn't say anywhere he has to pick High Magic, he has Loremaster High Magic special rule....

The Slann isnt choosing High Magic, the discipline gives him Loremaster High Magic..