Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. We all know magic resistance is currently gash, not in what it does necessarily but in terms of the very few spells you actually get the save against.

So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas of other ways of applying magic resistance. To start the ball rolling i suggest that if a spell is going to affect a unit with magic resistance you could increase the casting value required by 2 for each point of magic resistance. So if you want to target a unit with magic res (1) the casting roll required would be two higher (or conversely take the magic res modifier away from a wizard's casting roll). At low magic res i realize it has little effect but at least it is applicable to all spells, and magic resistance (3), where this would really hurt the enmy, is pretty rare.

7th ed magic resistance rules would be a bit much for the current power dice pool rules, but goddam it my dwarf army book is full of 10 point magic reistance items and I want to use them! (and yes I know dwarf anti magic can be OP atm, but if you can have a house rule about magic resistance you can have a house rule about that too! (I only ever take one RS with MRo Balance under 3000 points anyway)).

Well thanks for reading and let's hear your suggestions!

Magic resistance is balanced for what magic resistance costs.

Magic doesn't balance with magic resistance. It balances with dispel scrolls, winds of magic, miscasts, and the cost of wizard levels and the suckiness of wizards compared to what you could get with the same points in a combat hero.

Like magic weapons by themselves, with no modifiers, are junk. They only counter ethereal. That's all they do. But that's all they are supposed to do because ethereal has its own cost premiums.

Everyone has access to MR. And a lot of it. Magic is a direct counter to a number of things in the game like mega blocks and elite units. MR is not a direct counter to magic. I wouldn't even call it a partial counter it's so slight.

My point is, if you want to make MR more effective, every MR item would have to be repriced, all wizard levels would need to be repriced, there would need to be new counters for the things magic currently counters--or at least take up the slack now that magic becomes less powerful. All this stuff is interrelated. And while it certainly isn't balanced perfectly, the attempt is there.

I like your suggestion! Increasing the casting value of a spell is slight, but constant. I would offer that this increase applies to any spell that would directly affect the unit in any way (such as causing casualties, altering stats, forcing stat checks to be made, granting or removing special rules or abilities, etc). That way, beneficial spells and spells that don't have targets are still affected by units with MR.

Granted, I would also say that this idea replaces the current rules, rather than adding to them.

@Duke: would you say that, for 15/30/45pts, a +1/2/3 to the casting value of spells is fair? Maybe not, but maybe so.
I've seen you discuss game design and the layers upon layers of cause/effect that goes into attempting to balance a game, but sometimes it seems like you stand against any and all changes, because they might have ramifications, and to foresee them would just be too hard. I doubt the guys at GW let that sort of thing stop them.

I say try it out, and let us know how it goes. I just want a unit that is Resistant to Magic to actually, you know, Resist it. It's not called Direct Damage spell resistance, after all. It's called Magic Resistance.

Yeah, I do resist a lot of suggestions, I'm never saying anyone shouldn't try. I just don't think it would honestly be balanced. If it went to a tournament setting, everyone would have MR on their big units, basically MR caddies on their cheapest hero, and ____star units would have one less direct counter.

The very best buff in the game for casters is +3 to cast on top of wizard level. A quick browse is 75pts for DoC to get +2, 40pts for HE to get +1, 50pts for WoC to get +1 (in a radius). That's an awful lot of points.

Most effects take place individually and after a successful cast. If you're placing a template that hits multiple units, how does it work? Some spells would successfully cast, potentially miscast, and as you're rolling for placement it hits someone with MR...

As for the name magic resistance, that's irrelevant. It could be called potato salad. It's just a game mechanic and it's a lot easier to make it one/two words instead of a paragraph. Killing Blow has all kinds of limitations on it despite its very explicit name.

Personally, change all of the "no saves of any kind" spells to "no armor saves" and MR becomes worth it, not to mention balancing #6 spells.

No save is for use against monsters too. Most mega spells don't have Str values to test against, you just die. If you made them high enough Str to still be scary to monsters it would be a de facto insta-death to normal troops anyway (1 in 6 chance of living).

And armor save is just one flavor of defense. Some armies are high wounds (ogre), high T (some O&G, WoC), Regen (trolls), ward (some HE/DoC). If ward saves still worked, it would give DoC a huge advantage, for instance.

Those big deathstars need to die to magic. They don't need their ward saves to be even better.

To play devil's advocate, it seems like one of the most common gripes I read about regarding Fantasy is that magic is too good. I've been on the receiving end of that Shadow spell that uses the small round template that kills models on a failed initiative test (I think). No saves of any kind... not fun.

@Rustfield: I never suggested this rule was balanced, of course it would require re-pricing of lots of stuff, and as for tournaments if the core rules were perfectly balanced there would be no tournament restrictions! Also does a character's magic res carry over onto units they join? I think I saw that somewhere and that would be something that would need to change to balance. Also a few armies have 100+pt magic banners that give magic res to all units in an area, I would consider this rule to balance these items.

In regards to death star units though firstly if they want to spend their magic banner allowance on maigc reistance instead of a combat buff that is fine with me (ditto for BSBs, everyone would probably still rather have a ward save/magic armour for them) and secondly when you throw your #6 spell at the enemy death star you are going for irresistible force! Here's another thought though, if magic res was made appealing and people made regular use of it should it affect your own wizards trying to augment your magic resistance toting unit? If so I would imagine this would lead to "null" units, safer from enemy magic but also beyond the help of your own!

I imagine this rule would affect any spell where the unit with magic res is in its AOE, and if it is going to be the first unit hit by vortexes and penumbral pendulums and the like, maye also if they are within half the spell's maximum range (most of them are random ranges right?) if they are the second or third unit in its path (to stop people clipping another unit first to avoid the magic res).

@Dagg:I also like the idea of 'no saves of any kind' still allowing magic res, that would be a much simpler fix, and also avoid complicated clarifications ala my previous paragraph!

@Tangent: I play dwarfs, I feel your pain!

@Duke: is the name Magic Resistance irrelevant? Really? I understand that it's a game mechanic, and that its function need not be implied wholly by its title, but I will say this:

The designers did not say "hey, let's have an ability that improves a model's Ward save against magic-related casualties. What shall we call it? Perhaps 'Magic Resistance' would work." I'd bet money that it went something more like, "hey, some units should be resistant to magic. How would we represent that?"
The mechanic is meant to simulate an idea. And it's not doing a very good job right now.

The biggest problem would be what Duke mentioned with templates that scatter after the spell's been cast. I guess you could say something like "if a spell's effect could potentially affect a unit with MR...", but that would mean that the penalty is applied even when you're aiming at somebody who happens to be near some MR, which would actually make those non-targeting spells go from better than their brethren to worse.

As for bonuses to cast versus bonuses to dispell/penalties to cast, I'll say a few things:
- who takes those items that grant +1 to cast? Sure, they're pricey. But that might be an error, more than an indicator.
- a +1 to cast all your spells is better than a unit with -1 to cast at it, since the bonus applies to all of that guy's spells, and the penalty does not.

Finally, I'd mention how rare it is we see a fighty-Lord versus a lvl4 wizard, and all that stuff. If magic took a big ol' hit, I'd be okay with that.
Deathstars would become better, but that's a problem all its own.

Hmm, hadn't thought about scatters. I guess the modifier would only apply if you place the template touching the unit (or within 1" perhaps?), I'm sure most people would rather place a template on another unit than NEXT to a magic res unit and hope for a favourable scatter, even if you got lucky and scatter onto the magic res unit you'd end up getting less hits overall so i guess it would have done its job.

So what armies do people play and if you played this rule what magic res items do you have available and would you take them over other options? With my dwarves and their 'build-your-own' magic banners i know I would take one magic res rune (I can't remember off hand if they're 10 or 15 points) on my special units, they currently normally get either a rune of battle (+1CR) or determination (One use only, break test on 1d6) so they would have 15 points left over. My knowledge of other armies' magic items is limited though so I'd like to hear people's thoughts.

The + bonuses to cast are amazing items! It helps sidestep 3 of the primary counters to magic: not reaching casting value ending your magic phase, miscasts (cuz you need less dice), and low winds of magic.

If you had to choose between Slann Focused Rumination, +1 PD per cast, or flat +3 per cast, I'd always take the +3. You still have not enough power concerns throwing 1 die, but that's better than always having to roll 2+ dice and having a chance for miscast.

The name means nothing. It was just the name from previous versions. It's just a rule name, not a literal. The BRB could be 5 pages if they were all literals. Cover would mean you could not shoot at someone, ever. And poison would actually poison people. And killing blow would kill stuff per blow. And there would be no such things as failed charges because a charge means you go until you're there.

Stepping back, I always ask: what problem are you trying to solve? If the problem is that MR doesn't have much of a use, then the "problem" with that problem is you have to make up something for it to solve which creates more problems. There's a bunch of items that no one ever uses. Like, ever. If you think there is already a problem with magic, then you need to attack that head-on (and maybe MR is one method) but I think there are a lot of easier ways to do it. Such as if all spells had their casting values increased +1 (or 2 or 3 or ....) you would instantly solve the magic is too powerful problem without changing other game mechanics which might have a ripple effect. Or take out lvl 6 spells.

And yeah, any unit with MR gets it. Skulltaker in a unit of Bloodletters would have a 3+ ward to all magic. Even native Bloodletters all by themselves are 4+ ward.

The problem with boosting MR is it doesn't solve a magic is too good problem, it just shifts it.

If you add in a rule to make Magic Resistance better against anything that targets your units, all you will really see happen is a shift more towards lores that buff units (like light/life), and less direct damage, and hex (shadow).

For Magic Resistance to be better, all you really need is more of the spells in the lores to do damage instead of hexing/buffing.

-Matt

The problem with magic resistance is that it only resists the limited damage spells that people barely bother to cast, because if they want to do damage with their spells, they're almost always better off casting the number 6 spells.

Let magic resistance and ward saves resist the test or die spells. It'd make magic resistance useful, and it'd make the number 6 spells a lot less potent.

There are other, better ways to stop deathstar units.

@Sebster: I think you're right that just allowing magic res and ward saves against #6 spells would instantly make magic res both relevant and appealing! (although create issues if they stack). Also as you say the spells magic res is actually useful against just aren't popular, and thats not necessarily the fault of the games designers! It shows why problems like this arise, when you push any game/ruleset to its competitive limit you end up making half of the items/effects/spells or whatever obsolete. As HawaiiMatt just said, shift the goal posts by making magic res better and people would stop using damage or hex spells and just stick to life and light!

In regards to my original suggestion though it wasn't really intended to protect death stars from super spells, as raising the casting requirements wouldn't affect irrisistable force. I thought of it more that when you have a few points of a character's magic allowance left you might actually choose one of those little magic resisting trinkets you have probably forgotten are in your army book atm.

And Rustfield you are right, I am somewhat creating a problem to solve. But then, isn't that what the internet is for?

Magic resistance isn't worthless, it just needs to be properly planned for.

I've run the broken-arrow lizardmen a few times.
(2 units temple guard with MR3 slaan) and a scar-vet with MR3.

Temple guard are stubbon and the scar-vet led saurus are steadfast (unit of 50).

I run into the enemy, grab up units, and start bringing down comets. If I roll too high and clip my own unit(s) with the comets, the MR3 gives me a 4+ ward vs the fist fulls of hits.

It's 5 for 5 so far, with it yesterday taking out a bretonnian army.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Magic resistance isn't worthless, it just needs to be properly planned for.

I've run the broken-arrow lizardmen a few times.
(2 units temple guard with MR3 slaan) and a scar-vet with MR3.

Temple guard are stubbon and the scar-vet led saurus are steadfast (unit of 50).

I run into the enemy, grab up units, and start bringing down comets. If I roll too high and clip my own unit(s) with the comets, the MR3 gives me a 4+ ward vs the fist fulls of hits.

It's 5 for 5 so far, with it yesterday taking out a bretonnian army.

-Matt

That isn't proof that magic resistance is useful, that's just evidence it can be a useful part of a twinky novelty list that derives most of it's realy strength from the two big units of temple guard.

MR will be good when it's regularly taken in all around lists, which it would be if it were useful against the 6 spells.

 sebster wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Magic resistance isn't worthless, it just needs to be properly planned for.

I've run the broken-arrow lizardmen a few times.
(2 units temple guard with MR3 slaan) and a scar-vet with MR3.

Temple guard are stubbon and the scar-vet led saurus are steadfast (unit of 50).

I run into the enemy, grab up units, and start bringing down comets. If I roll too high and clip my own unit(s) with the comets, the MR3 gives me a 4+ ward vs the fist fulls of hits.

It's 5 for 5 so far, with it yesterday taking out a bretonnian army.

-Matt

That isn't proof that magic resistance is useful, that's just evidence it can be a useful part of a twinky novelty list that derives most of it's realy strength from the two big units of temple guard.

MR will be good when it's regularly taken in all around lists, which it would be if it were useful against the 6 spells.

Having MR work against the dwellers/pit/final transformation would make death stars close to unstoppable.

The strength of the lizardmen army isn't the temple guard, it's the comets. Those comets have repeatedly killed a lot more per round than the guard do. The guard are good for ~4 kills a turn, the comets were dropping 4-6, usually against more than 1 unit.

-Matt

So, this might be too off-topic, but what's the "problem" with WHFB? I mean, I read a lot of threads about how people quit fantasy when 8th came out, etc... but it seems like circular logic for a lot of this stuff. Deathstars are good, so magic is necessary to counter them. But then the 6 spells are so good that they're considered overpowered or game-breaking because they don't HAVE to be used against only deathstars... and then I read a lot about how people consider 8th to be infantry-hammer, but this goes against the other gripes that magic and deathstars are so good that they need immediate counters (like making magic resistance better). What's the real deal?

Haha, good question! I think really its a sign of how much people love the game and thats a good thing. People probably wouldn't gripe so much over rules if they didn't get invested in their games!

I've heard people gripe that its a game of hordes, others that 8th ed is all about big monsters, others that magic is overpowered. But warhammer (Fantasy at least!) is a tactically diverse game, and a well written set of rules is one that allows people to go off and do whatever they want with it. Its only when a ruleset is given over to a bunch of competitive people with devious minds that stuff becomes over powered or exploited.

Basically that majority of rule changes people are going to suggest is in RESPONSE to how players use units and rules, not really the core rules as such. So I don't think there's a problem with WHFB, only a problem with cheesy armies!

To get back onto magic res though, HawaiiMatt's comet example just shows how you can exploit even an under used rule, to protect your troops from YOUR OWN magic!. Those examples aren't really helpful to get a more generally useful rule,

I would like to see magic res effect casting because A) it would cover hexes, I don't see how magic resistance cannot stop someone sucking your vitality (ie your stats) out of you but can stop you from being crushed by a comet or hit in the face by a fireball, B) (to refer to my last point) not because a ward save against fireballs and comets isn't useful and worth the points but because people don't use them very often, and C) because it still wouldn't be a dispell scroll or a big ward save, it would just mean the opponent would have to throw an extra dice at the spell, it would actually become LESS useful against certain spells and so not be OPd in general imo

Uzi Toting Monkeys wrote:
But warhammer (Fantasy at least!) is a tactically diverse game, and a well written set of rules is one that allows people to go off and do whatever they want with it.

But I don't think that Rock-Paper-Scissors could be considered "tactically diverse." It's just random. If I play Deathstars, I'll beat infantry blocks but lose to magic. If I play infantry blocks, I'll beat magic but lose to Deathstars. If I play magic, I'll beat Deathstars but lose to Infantry blocks. I can really only pick one, and I can't control what my opponent will pick.

Now, I'm not saying that it's true that this is what the game boils down to... but if it IS true, then I don't think the answer is to play Rock-Paper-Scissors-MagicResistance. To keep adding powerful elements to counter one (and only one) other playstyle is to make the game MORE random and LESS strategic, and strategic is what we're going for here since we're essentially talking about "balancing" magic resistance against magic.

And I think that's what the suggested Magic Resistance mechanic would do. -1 to -3 on casting isn't a hugely powerful mechanic. Maybe it's too good, or unbalanced, or what have you, but it's a nice step towards that balance.

Here is a interesting idea that will flamed alive =]

Units can have an MR of 1 MAX. All wargear etc and abilities that grant higher MR are nerfed down to a 1.

Any unit with a MR of 1 that has any spell cast against it will add 1 to EACH dice rolled against it. A 4 becomes a 5 and a 5 becomes a 6 etc....

The actual dice rolled is what is used to determine casting level, however the MR additions are used to get to the magical 2 6's needed to force a IF test.

The spell IS NOT cast with IF however the Wizard does TEST against it.

Makes casting against a unit with MR riskier as you might implode your wizard without casting at IF level.

Subtle yet thought provoking ?

@Milisim, let me see if i understand, basically if you cast a spell against a unit with MR you have to roll on the miscast table on 5/5 and 5/6 as well as double 6? (there is no test to suffer/resist a miscast). I admire your enthusiasm for exploding wizards! but i think miscasting is already enough of a risk as it is.

Got me thinking though, feedback from magic resistance could be fun. If you irresistible a spell against a MR unit your opponent is allowed to try to irresistible dispel, if they succeed in getting double 6 for their dispel then the spell is dispelled but the unit's magic res is destroyed, then both the wizard AND whoever was providing the MR to the unit (eg banner, character) must both roll on the miscast table, any non-applicable results cause a whole bunch of magic str 4 hits to the unit or something.

In fact, forget magic resistance, I just want that to be a rule on its own! Irresistible force vs Irresistible dispel...everybody loses!

@Tangent: Please invent rock-paper-scissors-magic resistance, that sounds like a fun game

Yes.

I like Wizards to explode. =]

Of course make Mr either pricey or rare... not simply something every gimp unit in the game can have.

if your gonna blow up a wizard it has to be worth the effort =]

I think the idea is cool, but not in line with what Magic Resistance currently does or what is has done in past editions.
Magic Resistance has, as its name suggests, made it harder to cast spells on units with it (because they are resistant to magic, we presume).
This mechanic makes targeting such units more dangerous, not more difficult.
That, and you're changing a lot about how Magic Resistance works by saying that it costs more, is less common, and maxes out at 1.

Really, this feels like the beginnings of an item (like the Ring of Hotek), or a special rule to some crazy new unit (maybe some Black Coach-ish thing, that makes nearby casters more powerful, though it also has a tendency to force-feed them so much magical energy they pop).

Agreed.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
Having MR work against the dwellers/pit/final transformation would make death stars close to unstoppable.

Which is why you don't play pretend games of thinking that rules reform is only allowed one rule change.

As I said above, there are other, better ways of limiting deathstars than the 6 spells.

The strength of the lizardmen army isn't the temple guard, it's the comets. Those comets have repeatedly killed a lot more per round than the guard do. The guard are good for ~4 kills a turn, the comets were dropping 4-6, usually against more than 1 unit.

It's the combination of a spell that is normally limited by the risk of friendly fire, with a list built to negate that risk through MR, combined with quality melee troops.

Point is, saying "MR is good because there's an extreme list that combines a particular spell with MR" is not an argument for the overall quality of MR.

The actual usefulness of MR can be summed up very quickly - it is quite cheap, but hardly anyone ever takes it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tangent wrote:
But I don't think that Rock-Paper-Scissors could be considered "tactically diverse." It's just random. If I play Deathstars, I'll beat infantry blocks but lose to magic. If I play infantry blocks, I'll beat magic but lose to Deathstars. If I play magic, I'll beat Deathstars but lose to Infantry blocks. I can really only pick one, and I can't control what my opponent will pick.

Now, I'm not saying that it's true that this is what the game boils down to... but if it IS true, then I don't think the answer is to play Rock-Paper-Scissors-MagicResistance. To keep adding powerful elements to counter one (and only one) other playstyle is to make the game MORE random and LESS strategic, and strategic is what we're going for here since we're essentially talking about "balancing" magic resistance against magic.

Tactical depth comes when each element is needed, and no element can win a game by itself. So a player might get a lot of value out of powerful magic or deathstars, but these options by themselves won't be enough to win a game.

It's why the game got a lot more interesting in 8th ed, because with steadfast we suddenly had units with a unique tactical role other than killing the enemy in front of them - delay a more expensive unit while your more powerful units defeat the rest of the enemy's force.


All that leads to a conclusione that the best way to deal with deathstars isn't to have some kind of special attack that kills deathstars. That kind of set up just leads to rock/paper/scissors like you suggested. The best way to deal with deathstars is to build a tactical environment where a deathstar by itself might be a tactical asset, but not enough to win a game alone.

We're actually pretty close to that set up right now, as players can delay, avoid or flee from deathstars while targeting the rest of the enemy force. It's just that given the rest of the rules there is a general trend towards having just a couple of big blocks of infantry, and that leaves players with few options to delay or divert deathstars currently. Probably the best solution would be slight changes to the rules to encourage the return of smaller flanking units into the game.

Magic does a really good job vs. deathstars. Its is the direct counter. So do a lot of war machines, whose randomness in direction doesn't matter when you have such a big target you literally can't miss. And magic isn't just KILL THEM ALL. A unit is a unit. Hexes that affect an entire unit can really cripple a deathstar as it's the most efficient possible use of a spell. I just opened my BRB to the first lore I found and it was Shadow and I saw Enfeebling Foe, reduce str of every model in a unit by D3. You just made them a LOLstar.

Anyway, I think deathstars need more counters than magic does--because yah you can redirect them and avoid them, but you still need to kill them for points. Magic inherently is risky. So are deathstars for that matter. That's what 8th did really well. If you go all out cheese, it's not an all-comers list and you might turn a corner and someone simply tables you with zero effort.

I agree with everything, but what's the answer for magic resistance? Is it that these other rules changes bringing things back in line with deathstars will "fix" magic resistance anyway?