Right, since Angelic Magic comes from the Holy Power generated by all Angels and not the Winds of Chaos, it puts them in the same position as Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Goblins, and Tomb Kings. Which means: new casting system! I was discussing this with GS, and he asked me to post it here, so here goes...

Holy Power

Holy Power Dice
Holy Power is generated by all Angels, and is harnessed by the Thrones and Virtues into powerful blasts of energy or protective enchantments. Each Angelic character, and each unit of Unit Strength 10 or greater, on the table generates one Holy Power dice in the Angelic magic phase.

Casting Spells
Virtues and Thrones may automatically cast any spell from the Lore of the Ancients at a Power level determined by the combined result of the Holy Power dice they roll for that spell attempt. Some spells will also impose a modifier on the Power level of the spell, but this can never reduce the Power level to less than 1. A list of the spells and the penalties they impose on the Power Level of all attempts to cast them can be found below.
Note that Angelic casters never suffer Miscasts or cast with Irresistable Force.

Virtues may not roll more than two Holy Power dice for generating the Power level of each spell.
Thrones may not roll more than three Holy Power dice for generating the Power level of each spell.

Virtues may cast only one spell a turn.
Thrones may not cast more than two spells a turn.

The Magic phase will end when all Holy Power dice are exhausted, or there are no more casters able to cast spells. Bound Spells are exceptions, and the Magic phase may continue to allow the player to use any Bound Spells he wishes to.

Dispel Dice
Thrones generate 2 Dispel Dice.
Virtues generate 1 Dispel Dice.

Lore of the Ancients
I'm having some difficulty getting these penalties right, some may be too high, others not high enough. Opinions are not so much valued, as begged for :P. Seraphaal's Gaze has a -2 penalty because it is a damaging spell, the kind most commonly abused, as 5th Ed Undead players will tell you.
The Enemy is Weak: No penalty.
Seraphaal's Gaze: -2
Wings of Light: -1
Azrael's Protection: -2
Seraphaal's Last Wish: -4
Shining Light of the Old Ones: -6

Arcane Blessings
Spell Weaver: 65 points. The Angel ignores all Power Level penalties when attempting to cast spells.
Master of Magic: 25 points. The Angel may re-roll the dice when determining the Power Level of his spells. Either all the dice must be re-rolled or none.
Knowledge of Raziel: 40 points. The Angel may cast one additional spell each turn, subject to normal rules.
Void Siphon: One Use Only. 25 points. Once per game, at the start of your own magic phase, you may elect to use this Blessing. All Angelic units characters within 6" of the Angel generate double the normal number of Holy Power dice for that Magic phase.
Magical Vortex, Circlet of Banishment and Blessing of Cassiel stay as they are. Raphael's Observance gets chucked.

AoAlgebra :lol:

looks good to me
I will comment some more once I have had some sleep
hence it makes everything more sensible

I've actually had some time to think over this, and have worked out why the system is underpowered at lower levels, and will become overpowered at higher levels. I'll edit in some changes to it that should make it more or less perfectly balanced.

AoAlgebra :lol:

Its looking good, i think that Virtues + Thrones should have a power base (1 for virtues, 2 for thrones) that only they can use. It reminds me more of the 6th edition casting system, since it has a large casting pool once again.

GS

Each wizard is limited severely in Power Dice by the limit on spells (and the max two dice per spell).

Knowledge of Raziel simulates the two base Power Dice, and thus should be either dirt cheap (around 10 pts) or free.

AoAlgebra :lol:

Why not just give them one extra spell basic and add their cost? I mean, if you expect most people to take it, whats the point in having it is an add on (that also comes out of their blessing cost)

GS

Because:
a. It's a Blessing, thus one per army.
b. I edited the original post since posting that :P

AoAlgebra :lol:

I've just got one (or maybe more, depending how I feel) question.
Why do we need this? How does it help the army? Why are we adding something you just admitted is useless at lower levels, and superpowerful at higher point totals?

Can you also explain how this works? Are the dice used more than once? If I generate 5 dice, do I roll them all at once, and do all the spells work at the same power level? Do all the mages get to choose any spell from the lore?
--Baran

Precedents call for it. Every army that does not use the Winds of Chaos for magic have some sort of variation in their casting system.

Depends entirely upon your point of view ;)

Because I edited it after saying that...

Of course not.

This is in the rules. When a Virtue tries to cast a spell (which she may only do once a turn), she takes one or two dice from the Holy Power dice pool and rolls them. The combined result is the Power level at which the spell is cast, plus/minus any modifiers from the spell, Blessings, etc. Thrones do the same, but may cast twice a turn, and can roll one, two or three dice for each attempt. Obviously when you run out of dice for that turn, you can't keep casting, and your wizards don't have to cast.
It's sort of like a slightly weaker version of Tomb Kings magic, that relies on the Angels themselves for the power.

Yes, but modifiers will be put in place for each spell, so the more powerful ones inflict a larger reduction on the Power level, discouraging players from just casting the most powerful spells over and over, as they will get off at lower Power levels, and be easier to dispel.

I'm looking at how all the Blessings can be changed to fit with this right now. If you have any more questions on how the system works, don't hesitate to ask.

AoAlgebra :lol:

i dont feel like saying anything rightaway simply because from the start it seemse likea bad idea and we could use a normal casting system (angelic magic comes from the void), also basicly 2 out of the 3 armies you named get cast magic as normal their only exception is a diffrent misscast chart (and we have one of those some where in the site)

though the concept is creative and unique, i still say for normal casting system like OK and, O&G

Miscast table

Stupid IE, deleting my reply...

No it doesn't, it's generated by the collective consciousness of the Angelic race.

No they don't. Orcs have a system where units in combat generate extra Power Dice, and fleeing units inflict extra miscasts. (Under 6th at least, not seen the 7th book)
Ogre Butchers know all the spells from their lore, and cast them on a 3+ first time, 6+ second, 9+ third, etc. Their lore is also weird and inflicts damage on the Butchers before they've even miscast.

AoAlgebra :lol:

That miscast table has an angel taking an instability test in it and refers to the Star Tower (is that still in the fluff)? Unless we are going to have Instability again that should be changed as it would be kind of wierd that only one thing on the field can be Instable.

it was an old one from long ago then the idea was dropped because we decided to use the same miscast table as in the rule book

are we still to use Levels?

and its gunna be odd to have our spells go down in power level

That Miscast table disappeard a looonnnggg time ago Clav.

I think we cant hang onto the old system anymore, it just dosent fit with our fluff, at least do we agree with that?

GS

@DA: No, there will be no Magic levels for Virtues and Thrones anymore.

@GS: Agreed over here :)

AoAlgebra :lol:

ok then that menas i need to do some work on Canti: Lord of the black flame (which ironicly means is an anti-tezznich fire)

sorry about the DP but for casting is it ones spell a turn or one sucessful spell a turn?

I assumed he meant one spell a turn?

GS

Yes, one spell a turn (two for Thrones), which will always be successful, but if it is dispelled, you're not casting again ;)

AoAlgebra :lol:

I like this idea. How bad does it get at lower levels and how good at higher ones? When you think about it, that does fit the fluff ... but perhaps it's not such a good idea.

Obviously, the power at higher/lower levels depends entirely on the amount of Virtues and Thrones you take. What's quite curious about this system is that by taking more spellcasters (expensive characters) you're limiting the number of units you can take which, as with any list, reduces your combat potency, but also your magical potency. While a Vengeance horde with a max-magic character set-up might prove powerful, such a list is akin to a Dryad horde, but weaker, and we all know Dryad hordes don't work... No matter how hard I try :P

AoAlgebra :lol:

I've revised the Holy Power ever-so-slightly, with changes in green. :)

AoAlgebra :lol:

Harumph - I was in the middle of coming up with a list of penalties myself. My calculations are based on the chances that the spells get through without being dispelled, based on the kind of magic levels I usually see in my games. I'll post my penalties later.

EDIT: Here are the penalties I came up with:

The Enemy is Weak: No penalty.
Seraphaal's Gaze: -1
Wings of Light: -1
Azrael's Protection: -2
Seraphaal's Last Wish: -3
Shining Light of the Old Ones: -5

They're not overly dissimilar to AoA's, as is obvious, and I think I agree with making Seraphall's gaze -1 because of what AoA said. In case anyone's interested, they're based on the chances that the spell would be cast succesfully in the current Lore, factoring in enemies' chances to dispel, and taking a virtue to be roughly equivalent to a Lvl 1 wizard. However, because of a monumental cock-up I made early on in working this out (which eventually turned out to be beneficial), I also have a list of what penalties should apply if each Virtue were about as powerful as a Lvl 2 wizard, which are these:

The Enemy is Weak: +3
Seraphaal's Gaze: +3
Wings of Light: +3
Azrael's Protection: +2
Seraphaal's Last Wish: +1
Shining Light of the Old Ones: -1

Note that in most cases these are actually bonuses not penalties. Note also they are roughly equal to the previous penalties plus four.

The way I see it, this makes Spell Weaver way too expensive for what it does. The "normal" cost for upgrading a wizard by one level is 35pts. By my calculations (which may of course be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they're right), 35pts could get you an increase of 4 to your casting roll. This may sound like a lot, but if the Virtue in question will only be casting one spell a turn on two dice maximum, and especially if the upgrade is a blessing, meaning that only one model in the army can take it, it's not going to affect the whole system. Spell Weaver, therefore, could do with a bit of niggling - dropping it to about 50pts for the same effect seems about right to me. That way you'd discourage Virtues from taking it.

Just my hour-and-a-half of work :)

You're right with the Spell Weaver thing, it's a bit of a nuisance to re-work these Blessings. Any comments on my pricing, or my rules-changes are welcomed :)

AoAlgebra :lol:

AOA can you do some fluffing to the background of our magic system, why do we use that system?

Look for the red.

And yet another case of 6-month threadomancy by DA

Minimum what? Number of dice? Casting value? In both cases it's one.

I don't really see much point. Everyone will take the level upgrade on Virtues, but nobody will take it on Thrones, simply because it's not really worth upgrading from 3 dice to 4.

It's not really, it's just housekeeping and removing any possible questions on the matter. Plus filler. Everyone loves filler. ;)

AoAlgebra :lol:

I have to raise the point that i am slightly worried about the minimum 1 to cast. This can result in Ogre style block casting (casting over and over), Ogres however at least have a minimum cast of 3+, limiting this ability a great deal.

Would anyone ever cast shining light? Its -6, i think most people would see that and simply ignore it.

GS

PS: I like Threadomancy Shooty!

But with the limit on spells, and the high price of casters, you need to spend a hell of a lot of points to make block casting effective, at which point you're just wasting points. Especially since you need those US10 units to get your Holy Power dice, and you actually need an army.

Shining Light has been reduced to -5. Plus, it's one kickass spell. Anyone who ignores it because of the modifier is just putting themselves at a disadvantage.

AoAlgebra :lol:

is holy magic Divine or Arcane? if arcane do you want to make it like the Qhaysh? though if our race has witchsight then divine magic wouls be a bit odd for us to have.

What? In english please DA. I assume you mean "Is Angel magic based off of the winds of magic, or generated via collective angelic power".

If this indeed is the question, then the answer is the latter.

GS

Here we go

Red is a combination of my responses and translations.

i have been thinking maybe we can make angelic magic a special style of casting that requires a lot of focus and rituals. because of it's method of casting by skilled casters who have been born with the knowledge of how to do it, also they have had a long time to perfect it even further.

An interesting fluff concept, we have basically our own unique casting system anyway, i dont see how we can refine that any further to be honest DA without going well beyond the norm.

GS