One thing I like a lot about the Warhammer world is that magic has always been rather dark and deadly in that universe. I'm feeling a bit better about 3e over the past few days, but the issue of magic still concerns me. I'm worried that in order to try to open the game up to a more standard fantasy RPG crowd, you're going to be looking at something closer to a D&D-style magic system than what has come before. The image of the bright wizard on one of the core books seems to reinforce this.

Any idea about whether magic will retain its dark and deadly character? Or will be be looking at a world where many more D&D-style wizards and sorcerors are walking around slinging spells?

Steerpike said:

They have dice with a bad results with them and a deck of miscast cards. I can confidently say they intend to make magic perilous. They aren't idiots. As to how well the game mechanics will work, I don't know.

The Magic system of 2nd edition is my favourite for a fantasy RPG. I love that you can always cast a spell, but always at a risk, so deciding when to cast a spell is not a gamey mechanic event, but a careful "in-character" decision that adds to the grim and dark of WH adventures.

Adding dice pools should allow them to improve this system even more, because now it should be even easier to add all sorts of variables, nasty or otherwise, to the casting roll. I hope FFG takes advantage of this and builds upon the Magic mechanics of 2nd edition.

If not, it will be easy to add house rules to make sure my campaign magic works as I like it. Incidentally, I created house rules for my D&D campaign so that magic would be more similar to magic in WH 2nd edtion... trying to raise dead characters in D&D was very very dangerous in my campaign... in my WH campaigns it was impossible, of course.

Playing a WFRP 2ed mage is the best **** mage out there. Once you reach the higher ranks, your chance of falling to the Winds of Chaos. It is almost a push your luck kind of thing. I really want this spell to go off so I'll roll all my dice, much higher chance of rolling a double, triple or even a quad (done this once - my mage was possessed and promptly cut in half - laughs all round, luckily fate stepped in and simply forced the demon from me). I don't how the new system is going to work, but it seems more fantasy and trying to be dark an dangerous. Warhammer was all about the number of Chaos. Certain number were favoured by the worshippers of chaos and 2ed played that up with the dice you rolled. Symbols are moving away from that rich source and theme of the original.

Casamyr said:

It looks like the new system will be similar - you can be tempted by power, the more dice you roll the more likely you are to get a miscast and something unpleasant will happen.

I guess my big concern is if you roll other dice in there. Do you roll green or red depending upon your stance, fortune or bane dice, etc. In 2ed it was always a fear that magic would go horribly wrong no matter how good you are. The winds of chaos are fickle after all. I could be utterly wrong with the new system and that magic is just as cool. I just worry that it'll come down to matching symbols on a card to determine the effect, rather than the spell goes off, the winds of magic aren't with you, or you've just caused your entire party's food and water to go off leaving you in a whole world of trouble when you are underground and don't know how to get out (we died being ambushed by skaven while fishing for food).

Casamyr said:

I'm guessing 'stance' will factor here, though I'm not sure if it will be conservative-reckless, or if there will be a different magic-stance (High-Dark, maybe?). You can be careful and have no chance of a miscast, but the spell won't be that impressive and may take a few rounds to cast - or you can call upon the power of Dhar and blast your foes - and grow a new nose on the palm of your hand.

Just a guess though.

I'd say the conservative/recless stance will suit certain types of mages better, like bright/amber wizards getting more out of their magic while recless (as oposed to cautious) while shadow/gold will likely get more out of their magic while being conservative (as opposed to recless).

This is of course simply a guess.