I agree, this one's a bit tricky. The best solution I have come up with is that every player generates their own PD and DD as normal. An army may only use their own PD in their magic phase. However, DD are transferable between defending players. This seems to avoid the problem where two armies can spam magic onto a single target to overwhelm their DD.

 

I would go with Othiem's suggestion I think, it isn't really hard and fast though. Feel free to use whatever set-up you have decided in advance with your group of players. A group pool of DD does make life a lot easier though, since there are less "who is going to take this one then?" discussions.

 

Cool, thanks guys. But what if there are more than two teams? A four player free for all for example?

 

Well... these are the situations where you work out things like this in advance or off the cuff, I think it is very difficult to say exactly how magic dice should work in a 4 way free for all. I would suggest that you have team pooled DDs, and whoever cops it, dispels it. If I was on team A and Team B were getting shot up by Team C, I wouldn't be wasting my DD. :grin:

 

The way we play multiplayer games is whoevers turn it is including partners get to cast as per normal the defenders get to dispel. Each player gets to generate their own dispel dice and can either save them to protect themselves or help their allies as they see fit.
I think this better shows the way different way allies would interact as its never as simple as allies all working together in perfect harmony (I've worked with different armies and its normally more like directed chaos than perfect battle plans)

 

When we play a group game you can only use your own PD and DD but we have a couple magic heavy players and a few +1 to dispell items.

 

So you mean four people, each on a seperate team, all against each other yes?

 

Reaper, yes exactly.

Darktheos, while this seems like a simpler solution, we'll probably end up going for a 'Pool' concept in our Team Games.

For our Free-for-alls. We're probably going to go for; The player with a spellcaster or unit closest to the Spellcaster who is casting the spell. or the effect (not decided yet) is the one who gets to dispel (This is only for non target spells, like Heal and Raise dead etc)

This prevents all 3 of the other player combining DD to overwhelm any spell attempt. This also stops just nominating one player to dispel, becasue it would always be the player with the most DD.

Either that or we'll just roll to determine who dispels?

Any way, we've settled with each player can only use their DD once per GAME turn. So if Player A goes first and magically attacks Player B, if Player B uses all dice to dispel the attck of Player A he is then vulnreble to Players C and D.

 

I found this when I have 3 ways. What we do is players have dispell dice for a rotation of the 3 turns and that only one player at a time can atemped to dispell other wise VC players will have an unfair time.

 

working on an extension to that suggestion, but in cases where there are 4+ players in a free for all, perhaps randomly determining your 'opposite number' before the game, and that player is the only one that can dispel you and vice versa.

 

This is only a theory, and one that just came to mind, so I doubt it is of any practicality, but it I would be content in my own little world to just throw it out:

If we're talking a Free For All game type, why not have "Magic Rounds?" That is, the casting player, Player A, takes his magic phase against Player B. Player A casts spells with their PD against Player B, while Player B dispells using their own DD. Once all is said and done between Player A and Player B, Player A will move on to Player C. Player C will dispell Player A's spells. Then on to Player D versus Player A.

From there, I couldn't say what to do, since buffing magic will become overpowered (giving Shield of Saphery to your whole army in one turn? Joy!), but I think the concept is sound enough, being that it limits the magic phase to, at worst, a series of 1v1 turns.


Otherwise, for team games, I prefer the common pool technique presented in the Legendary Battles flier.

 

For a 2v2 game, it's far simpler.

You total up the Base Dice Generated for each army, add your allies together, then Divide by two.

However, a for a 1v1v1v1, then it becomes a bit more difficult.

I'll give some examples where special rules will come into effect later.

The easiest way is to dispel only using your dice to affect each other. During the World War, Switzerland didn't shoot down any VBombs going to Britain, but neither did they shoot down the Lancaster Bombers going to Germany.

Take the same role here.

Magic Missiles, and similar spells targetting your own troops, or AoE spells (such as Plague Squall) which target your units can only be dispelled by your own Dispel Dice.

If it's an AoE spell which includes multiple units from different armies, then I say use your own dice to dispel. However, don't add them all up - it's a Wizard that's drawing on the available dice for his army to block the spell - it's a directed counter spell, or a shield for your troops, rather than a collective amount. However, it's all rolled at the same time. For example - I cast a spell on an 10. First player has 3 DD, second has 2 DD, and the third has 4 DD. The First player puts down 3 Dice, the Second Puts down 2, and third puts down 2. The First player rolls a 9, the second rolls a 12, but because he's already declared the dispel, the third player must still attempt to 'dispel' the already dispelled spell. Although he rolls a 7, the spell is still dispelled.

However, some armies have special rules - such as Vilitch, and the Diadem of Power, and similar effects for others, which draw dispel/power dice from opponents pools.

It's down to common sense here (which all 4 way FFA are, as it's not covered), if you come across something new, but here are some examples.

Vilitch - he may only remove Dispel Dice from the opponent's pool from which he casts the spell against. He may only remove power dice from the opponent who cast a spell against Vilitch's army.

If you have any more, I'd be happy to attempt to clarify for you