Battle magic

[mg26]

no prob,

battle magic are unique of Cerilia , they can only be cast
when 200 mens or things are fighting (basicly a battle) and
you can have like a Rain of magic missile , creating 200
magic missile striking the foes, or maybe the version of
creeping Doom on the battle field , but they shouldn't be
used too much , they will remove the feeling that armored
knights give.....

So remember to do them choose a spell and multiply its
effect by 200 that is what it is......

ciao

Giovanni Garzelli

[John]

> last question I ordered the book WAR by Simon Hawk (hope is
> spelled liked that) and my supplier (waterstones-UK) told
> me that it hasnt been printed yet!!!!!

It's spelt 'Hawke'. Waterstones should be able to get hold of it,
assuming it's still being printed, as I got mine from there about a
year and a half ago. It's been out ages, but I dunno if the novels
are still in print after this whole takeover thing. Cracking good
book, by the way. Hopefully 'Siege' will still be printed by TSR/WotC
as it'd be a shame to let the story go.

John.

"Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then
the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a
different universe."
"And now you kill the lambs," whispered Dardalion.
"No, priest. No one pays for lambs."
- David Gemmel, Waylander

[carla@maxisp.com.a]

Sorry for sounding REALLY dumb but since I have come into all this just
recently
what the hell is battle magic? I assume they are special spells, where are
they?
Are the in the base rule books for Brithright?

[veryfastperson@juno.com]

>On Tue, 5 May 1998, mg26 wrote:
>
>> I wonder does anyone knows if you need to be blooded to
>> cast battle magic.....
>>
>> just wondering , I am pondering the touught of having 1
>> unit of elven spellcaster all casting rain of magic missile
>> , and the tought that springs to mind is NO!!!
>
well, i was looking up in the Book of Magecraft, the section under Battle
Magic. The little blurp they have at the begining tells the story of a
lowly court NONBLOODED MAGICIAN who came up with the spell Rain of Magic
Missles. So my thoughts would go along with this thinking. Anyone who can
cast spells (blooded or not) can cast battle magic. yet it still limited
for Magicians - who cannot cast above 2nd level battle magic outside of
Illumination or Divination. And regarding elves, i say they don't have to
be blooded to cast realm spells (sorry, i know this has been a dead topic
for a while, but looking in the BoM, on page 26, under Ancient Ley Lines,
it says: A very small number of ley lines USED by the elves in the
CENTURIES BEFORE the DEISMAAR CATACLYSM remain. i think it says pretty
clearly that they elves cast realm magic before deismaar. how? we don't
know, it's probably something similar to Bloodsivler (i can't spell
Tighmraeveal :-) - they elves used to know how do do it, yet that art
died long ago.

just my 2 GB's
Erik

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[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Tue, 5 May 1998, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:

> Indeed! That is the reason for my house rule: I cannot explain
> Cerilian history to date if anyone who can use magic can throw battle
> spells. Another way to do it is declare in your campaign that battle
> magic has only just been invented, and require all of it to be
> researched from scratch. It is hard to do even without battle spells, if
> you look at what the Monstrous Compendium has to say about the number of
> spell casters that can be found in a group of 200 of a given species:
> every elven army unit then has an eighth-level wizard and a dozen or more
> lower-level ones, so they can effectively fight and often win when
> outnumbered even five-to-one or more.

First of all, the MC lists spell casters in regards to fairly high-powered
worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk; I would NOT apply those
suggestions to Birthright. Secondly, Battle Magic is a pecularly human
type of magic, at least in my perspective. Only humans could have invented
it, because only humans 1.) are facile enough with magic, and 2.) think in
terms of organizing large numbers of individuals into effective groups.
Every indication I can find in the BR literature indicates that Carilian
elves have a highly individualistic society and culture. They do not
easily organize themselves into group outside the family or clan level of
organization. Their best warriors tend to be rangers and loners, and while
they can be amazingly good, it is difficult for them to organize into
effective large-scale units (however, they are masters of the ambush and
the hit-and-run, guerilla-style, warfare). However, any tactician can tell
you that this is no way to win a war: at best you can make it too
expensive for your enemy to remain, but it is nearly impossible to hold
territory in this way. Even their most effective military unit, the
ghaelie sidhe (sp?), is essentially just a hunting party lead by an
especially charismatic and effective leader. As such, only humans could
have ever even come up with the idea of battle magic--elves simply do not
think in that way (although they can learn them readily enough when shown
how).

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Wed, 6 May 1998 carla@maxisp.com.au wrote:

> Sorry for sounding REALLY dumb but since I have come into all this just
> recently
> what the hell is battle magic? I assume they are special spells, where are
> they?
> Are the in the base rule books for Brithright?

No, they are first detailing in the increasingly-scarce "Book of
Magecraft." They are basically much-amplified versions of regular spells
intended to be cast on the battlefield. They require a head magician, and
a number of assistants, because they cheifly amplify their power by
increasing about a hundred-fold the number and expense of their
components. (Thus it requires wagons to haul all the components to the
battlefield--thus, and army's supply train consists not only of foodstuffs
and extra arms and armor, but also of wagonloads of components.) The best
way to rid your enemy of its spellcasting ability is to capture his supply
train: no components, no battle magic.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Ed Stark]

At 09:56 PM 5/5/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 5 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:
>
>> At 11:16 PM 5/5/98 +0100, Giovanni Garzelli wrote:
>> >I wonder does anyone knows if you need to be blooded to
>> >cast battle magic.....
>> >
>> >just wondering , I am pondering the touught of having 1
>> >unit of elven spellcaster all casting rain of magic missile
>> >, and the tought that springs to mind is NO!!!
>> The actual answer is no you do not need to be blooded as
>> magicians can cast battle magic. And people wonder why I
>> figure it took direct divine intervention for the humans
>> to win the original war against the elves.
>
> Indeed! That is the reason for my house rule: I cannot explain
>Cerilian history to date if anyone who can use magic can throw battle
>spells. Another way to do it is declare in your campaign that battle
>magic has only just been invented, and require all of it to be
>researched from scratch. It is hard to do even without battle spells, if
>you look at what the Monstrous Compendium has to say about the number of
>spell casters that can be found in a group of 200 of a given species:
>every elven army unit then has an eighth-level wizard and a dozen or more
>lower-level ones, so they can effectively fight and often win when
>outnumbered even five-to-one or more.
>

The easiest explanation I can come up with I put in the BOOK OF
MAGECRAFT--battle magic is EXPENSIVE. The material components alone for
many spells cost more than the cost for the training and maintenance of
troops--and if your wizard "unit" gets picked off or targeted before or
during a battle, you're out a lot more than just a standard unit.

We played around with a couple of battles using battle magic a while ago
(back when we were working on BoM), and we found that the first guy to pull
out all the stops and launch offensive magic onto the battlefield either
won the battle fairly quickly or lost decisively--because his opponent
jumped all over the wizard "unit" in immediate response. Of course, we were
trying to play with fairly balanced units and wizards of roughly equal
levels and resources ... but whenever you play a battle that doesn't have
both sides at relatively equal strength, you should expect a slaughter.



Ed Stark
Game Designer, Wizards of the Coast/TSR Division
Asst. Brand Manager
TSR Website: http://www.tsrinc.com
also: http://www.tsr.com

[Pieter A de Jong]

At 10:50 PM 5/5/98 -0500, memmoch wrote:
>

>>
>While this is true, you forget one thing: The humans have Battle Priests :)
>
>When it comes down to it, the humans won just out of sheer numbers.
>
>Memnoch

True, humans have priests and their associated battle magic. However,
1) There should be a much higher percentage of spell casters in the elven
population. Why? Elves are immortal. Sooner or later anybody with the
attribute requirements to be a mage is going to at least experiment a
little. The racial minimum for elves in intelligence is 8, and the
attribute requirement
to be a mage is a minimum of 9 intelligence. Whereas humans have minimum
wisdom/intelligence of 3 and the minimum attribute to be a spellcaster is a
9. Also, not all humans who qualify will even live long enough to try magic
(priestly or wizardry). Perhaps as few as 1% of humans whose attributes
qualify will ever try magic.
2) The elven wizards are going to be much more experienced than the humans.
Why? Again, immortality. We are looking at the time period before Deismaar
when the elves had not been decimated. Therefore, there are going to be
many older elven wiards around who will in turn be much more experienced and
capable than human priest who are all going to die after their first 100 years.

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[Pieter A de Jong]

At 09:54 AM 5/6/98 -0400, Mark Vandermeulen wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 5 May 1998, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:
>
>> Indeed! That is the reason for my house rule: I cannot explain
>> Cerilian history to date if anyone who can use magic can throw battle
>> spells. Another way to do it is declare in your campaign that battle
>> magic has only just been invented, and require all of it to be
>> researched from scratch. It is hard to do even without battle spells, if
>> you look at what the Monstrous Compendium has to say about the number of
>> spell casters that can be found in a group of 200 of a given species:
>> every elven army unit then has an eighth-level wizard and a dozen or more
>> lower-level ones, so they can effectively fight and often win when
>> outnumbered even five-to-one or more.
>
>First of all, the MC lists spell casters in regards to fairly high-powered
>worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk; I would NOT apply those
>suggestions to Birthright.
I agree with you, otherwize the elves take over the world in larger scale.
At those levels of available mages, tuarhievel's capital (pop. 16000, IIRC)
can field 80 8th level mages and associated lower level apprentices, and
higher level masters.

>Secondly, Battle Magic is a pecularly human
>type of magic, at least in my perspective. Only humans could have invented
>it, because only humans 1.) are facile enough with magic,

Are you even trying to suggest that humans are better mages than elves?
1) Unlike other worlds, no incredibly stupid level limits on elven mages
2) Higher average intelligence than humans
3) Inherent magical ability (able to cast true magic)

> and 2.) think in
>terms of organizing large numbers of individuals into effective groups.
>Every indication I can find in the BR literature indicates that Carilian
>elves have a highly individualistic society and culture. They do not
>easily organize themselves into group outside the family or clan level of
>organization. Their best warriors tend to be rangers and loners, and while
>they can be amazingly good, it is difficult for them to organize into
>effective large-scale units (however, they are masters of the ambush and
>the hit-and-run, guerilla-style, warfare). However, any tactician can tell
>you that this is no way to win a war: at best you can make it too
>expensive for your enemy to remain, but it is nearly impossible to hold
>territory in this way. Even their most effective military unit, the
>ghaelie sidhe (sp?), is essentially just a hunting party lead by an
>especially charismatic and effective leader. As such, only humans could
>have ever even come up with the idea of battle magic--elves simply do not
>think in that way (although they can learn them readily enough when shown
>how).

I can't see the elves having been stupid enough not to develop large scale
magics after spending several thousand years warring with the goblins (who
do come in large numbers/units).
Also, even if humans did develop/demonstrate the idea with battle
priests/magicians, I cannot see the elves not taking the idea for their own
after a demonstration or two.



Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[Pieter A de Jong]

At 08:45 AM 5/6/98 -0700, Ed Stark wrote:
>At 09:56 PM 5/5/98 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 5 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:
>>

>
>The easiest explanation I can come up with I put in the BOOK OF
>MAGECRAFT--battle magic is EXPENSIVE. The material components alone for
>many spells cost more than the cost for the training and maintenance of
>troops--and if your wizard "unit" gets picked off or targeted before or
>during a battle, you're out a lot more than just a standard unit.
>
>We played around with a couple of battles using battle magic a while ago
>(back when we were working on BoM), and we found that the first guy to pull
>out all the stops and launch offensive magic onto the battlefield either
>won the battle fairly quickly or lost decisively--because his opponent
>jumped all over the wizard "unit" in immediate response. Of course, we were
>trying to play with fairly balanced units and wizards of roughly equal
>levels and resources ... but whenever you play a battle that doesn't have
>both sides at relatively equal strength, you should expect a slaughter.
>
>
Yes, I can see this happening. The real question that is actually being
argued is whether or not the elves can field magically superior forces, and
if so by what margin? I personally feel that the elves are indeed magically
superior, by virtue of their spellcasters a) being true wizards and b) being
immortal (much more practice time). I also feel that the elves will field
as many spellcasters as the humans can as a lot more of their population has
the attributes to wield magic and recieves the neccesary levels of initial
education (eg. literacy, etc.)

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

[Gary V. Foss]

Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:

> if
> > you look at what the Monstrous Compendium has to say about the number of
> > spell casters that can be found in a group of 200 of a given species:
> > every elven army unit then has an eighth-level wizard and a dozen or more
> > lower-level ones, so they can effectively fight and often win when
> > outnumbered even five-to-one or more.
>
> First of all, the MC lists spell casters in regards to fairly high-powered
> worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk; I would NOT apply those
> suggestions to Birthright.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on what the actual
level distribution would be in a military unit? The majority of soldiers are
0-level fighters, of course, but what about the rest of the crowd?

- -Gary

[Daniel McSorley]

From: Gary V. Foss
>Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on what the actual
>level distribution would be in a military unit? The majority of soldiers
are
>0-level fighters, of course, but what about the rest of the crowd?
>
I would go beyound that and say almost all were 0 level. Perhaps the
leader of an entire unit of 200 soldiers might be 1st level, the rest would
be unleveled. That is, in general. You can always have the "toughest man
in the army" or something, be a leveled character, ex-adventurer type, no
more than second level, this guy would be almost legendary to his comrades,
and a thief or ranger in the scouts wouldn't be too out of place.
Daniel McSorley
mcsorley.1@osu.edu
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~mcsorley/
ICQ:5299865
AIM:DanMcS

[mg26]

I myself think of 200 units more on the roman Scale of
centurions , decurions ect ect therefore our house rule is:

For every 10 men there is a 1st level fighter , for every
hundred 1 2nd level fighter , for every 5 units a lvl 3
fighter and so on , it grows 10 by 10 , untill the head is
the regent.

Personally I find the hole point of magic a bit sad , I
accept fully Realm spells , but battle magic is just
pointless , it defeats the point of large scale armies
marching down , and as for elves I think that they are too
caotic to pursue any type of serious training , and then
their Philosophy is why bother.... they live forever , I
admit that there are strong individuals , who care about
elven valours and those are the strong hand of the elves ,
but proven again and again , When you know you will die
anyway , why not die for you God & country?
That is the strength of the humans , and the weakness of
the elves , the elven civilisation is stagnant , therefore
they become chaotic to escape their frames of mind , the
humans build for their childrens , and I'ld put a limit on
how many troops one can maintain:

for elves half the province level ,
for humans the province level
for gobos the province level + 1/2 the temple level
(Karkathok the big boss otherwise gets angry)
and last but not least
the Dwarves twice their province level

This is due to the personal traits of people in the
province they live , some people have to remember that
maintain army : spending 30 GB and 30 RP does not allow
them to have 90 units.... (believe me the tought crossed my
mind.....)


Ciao

Giovanni Garzelli

[mg26]

I guess you cant spell neither illusions.......


just being prankish

Ciao

Giovanni Garzelli

[Shade]

>Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on what the actual
>level distribution would be in a military unit? The majority of soldiers are
>0-level fighters, of course, but what about the rest of the crowd?
>
>-Gary

I'd say that the 90% rule would probably work here. Given a unit of 200
soldiers,
180 would be 0 level, 18 would be 1st level, and 2 would be 2nd level.
These two would be the commanders of the unit, whereas the rest would be
common soldiers (the 1st level fighters would be the exceptional soldiers.)

[Gary V. Foss]

Shade wrote:

> >Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any information on what the actual
> >level distribution would be in a military unit? The majority of soldiers are
> >0-level fighters, of course, but what about the rest of the crowd?
> >
> >-Gary
>
> I'd say that the 90% rule would probably work here. Given a unit of 200
> soldiers,
> 180 would be 0 level, 18 would be 1st level, and 2 would be 2nd level.
> These two would be the commanders of the unit, whereas the rest would be
> common soldiers (the 1st level fighters would be the exceptional soldiers.)

That seems to make the most sense to me. 180 0-level soldiers, 18 1st level
sergeants, 2 2nd level lieutenants. Personally, I'm inclined to throwing in a
single 3rd level character as a captain, but all in all it works for me.

- -Gary

[Ryan B. Caveney]

On Wed, 6 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:

> At 09:54 AM 5/6/98 -0400, Mark Vandermeulen wrote:
> >
> >On Tue, 5 May 1998, Ryan B. Caveney wrote:
> >
> >> Indeed! That is the reason for my house rule: I cannot explain
> >> Cerilian history to date if anyone who can use magic can throw battle
> >> spells. Another way to do it is declare in your campaign that battle
> >> magic has only just been invented, and require all of it to be
> >> researched from scratch. It is hard to do even without battle spells, if
> >> you look at what the Monstrous Compendium has to say about the number of
> >> spell casters that can be found in a group of 200 of a given species:
> >> every elven army unit then has an eighth-level wizard and a dozen or more
> >> lower-level ones, so they can effectively fight and often win when
> >> outnumbered even five-to-one or more.
> >
> >First of all, the MC lists spell casters in regards to fairly high-powered
> >worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk; I would NOT apply those
> >suggestions to Birthright.
>
> I agree with you, otherwize the elves take over the world in larger scale.
> At those levels of available mages, tuarhievel's capital (pop. 16000, IIRC)
> can field 80 8th level mages and associated lower level apprentices, and
> higher level masters.

I used the MC as a guide for an armed war party, not the society
at large -- after all, elves do not normally walk around their cities with
"50% sword and shield" or suchlike. Indeed, the level distribution is
rather wrong for that. On the other hand, while the *humans* of Cerilia
are rather low-magic, I don't really think it follows (indeed, see the
province (6) in woods discussion on this list, and the comments on
Sidhelien magic use in Simon Hawke's excellent "Iron Throne" novel)
As to the taking over the world issue, as I see it, the only
reason the elves have not done it is that they cannot be bothered to.
Woe betide the humans when another Sidhe Brealachiem comes along and
unites them again....

> Are you even trying to suggest that humans are better mages than elves?
> 1) Unlike other worlds, no incredibly stupid level limits on elven mages
> 2) Higher average intelligence than humans
> 3) Inherent magical ability (able to cast true magic)

Especially given this. Consider immortality in particular. Say
you're a wizard. Say you get only 1 XP per day because, as an elf, you
are easily distracted. But by the time you're 5,000 years old...

> I can't see the elves having been stupid enough not to develop large scale
> magics after spending several thousand years warring with the goblins (who
> do come in large numbers/units).
>
> Also, even if humans did develop/demonstrate the idea with battle
> priests/magicians, I cannot see the elves not taking the idea for their own
> after a demonstration or two.

Particularly as, as I mentioned above, it gives one powerful elf
the ability to take on a whole human/goblin/orog army. Which is exactly
the way they prefer to fight, it seems.

- --Ryan

[Richard the Mighty]

>> Also, even if humans did develop/demonstrate the idea with battle
>> priests/magicians, I cannot see the elves not taking the idea for
their own
>> after a demonstration or two.
>
> Particularly as, as I mentioned above, it gives one powerful elf
>the ability to take on a whole human/goblin/orog army. Which is
exactly
>the way they prefer to fight, it seems.


In the Destiny of Regents, Anuire pbem, I got screwed by elven mages. I
was attacking Rhounhe (don't make fun of me) and Darren had the
opposition consist of four elves. Emerald King of the Sielwode, Prince
of Tuarheivel, Rhoubhe and the Mistress of the Hunt. And it sucked, to
be honest! Spells got tossed, and the only thing that saved me was an
influx of 37 irregulars from Boeruine (Have I thanked Boeruine enough?
If not THANK YOU!!).

Because of this, I can see the viewpoint of just a few elves working as
mages and kicking some general butt. Especially as there seem to be low
levels of elven units who can do it all through a lot of movement and
missile weapons.

My opinion is that elves would have more magic and a lot of battle
magic, and they use that rather than waste the "wonders" that are elven
lives. Why die when you can cast spells that kill everything?

Just MHO.

Alenecht
aka Daeric Khorien of Taeghas.... eternally in debt to his
Arch-Dukieness.

"I don't want the world, I just want your half..." -- TMBG


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Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Wed, 6 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:

> >Secondly, Battle Magic is a pecularly human
> >type of magic, at least in my perspective. Only humans could have invented
> >it, because only humans 1.) are facile enough with magic,
>
> Are you even trying to suggest that humans are better mages than elves?
> 1) Unlike other worlds, no incredibly stupid level limits on elven mages
> 2) Higher average intelligence than humans
> 3) Inherent magical ability (able to cast true magic)

No, I'm saying that humans are better than all the other races _except_
elves. Battle magic wouldn't have been developed by dwarves, goblins or
orogs because they aren't handy enough with magic.

> > and 2.) think in
> >terms of organizing large numbers of individuals into effective groups.
> >Every indication I can find in the BR literature indicates that Carilian
> >elves have a highly individualistic society and culture. They do not
> >easily organize themselves into group outside the family or clan level of
> >organization. Their best warriors tend to be rangers and loners, and while
> >they can be amazingly good, it is difficult for them to organize into
> >effective large-scale units (however, they are masters of the ambush and
> >the hit-and-run, guerilla-style, warfare). However, any tactician can tell
> >you that this is no way to win a war: at best you can make it too
> >expensive for your enemy to remain, but it is nearly impossible to hold
> >territory in this way. Even their most effective military unit, the
> >ghaelie sidhe (sp?), is essentially just a hunting party lead by an
> >especially charismatic and effective leader. As such, only humans could
> >have ever even come up with the idea of battle magic--elves simply do not
> >think in that way (although they can learn them readily enough when shown
> >how).
>
> I can't see the elves having been stupid enough not to develop large scale
> magics after spending several thousand years warring with the goblins (who
> do come in large numbers/units).

Except I don't think that goblins were ever organized enough to attack in
coordinated units like the humans did. They have have learned that trick
now, from having to deal with the humans, but I suspect that the
pre-Flight from Shadow goblins attacked more like a barbarian horde than
like a greek phalanx or a roman legion. And elven tactics and magic were
perfectly suited for such attacks. They are not as well suited, however,
for human-style organized attacks.

> Also, even if humans did develop/demonstrate the idea with battle
> priests/magicians, I cannot see the elves not taking the idea for their own
> after a demonstration or two.

Well I suspect that they did, eventually. But the very fact that the elves
are immortal is not only going to give them time to dabble in magick, as
you say, but will also make any traditions that develop VERY difficult to
change (after all, these tactics have worked for centuries, why should we
change?). A brief glance at the Tuarhievel PS book will show you how
steeped elven culture is in tradition. I think the main reason that the
elves essentially lost the battle with the humans is that their
time-honored tactics didn't work against the humans and it took the elves
too long to learn new ones, and by that time it was almost too late. They
had to learn to think in a new way, and that can't be easy for someone who
has thought in the same way for centuries or millenia.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Wed, 6 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:

> Yes, I can see this happening. The real question that is actually being
> argued is whether or not the elves can field magically superior forces, and
> if so by what margin? I personally feel that the elves are indeed magically
> superior, by virtue of their spellcasters a) being true wizards and b) being
> immortal (much more practice time). I also feel that the elves will field
> as many spellcasters as the humans can as a lot more of their population has
> the attributes to wield magic and recieves the neccesary levels of initial
> education (eg. literacy, etc.)

I agree. I think that elves will almost always have the magical edge on
their opponents. Their main drawback is that their regular units are very
espensive, and therefore somewhat rare, and can therefore be easily mobbed
by lesser troops on a battlefield.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[Gary V. Foss]

Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:

> On Wed, 6 May 1998, Pieter A de Jong wrote:
>
> > Yes, I can see this happening. The real question that is actually being
> > argued is whether or not the elves can field magically superior forces, and
> > if so by what margin? I personally feel that the elves are indeed magically
> > superior, by virtue of their spellcasters a) being true wizards and b) being
> > immortal (much more practice time). I also feel that the elves will field
> > as many spellcasters as the humans can as a lot more of their population has
> > the attributes to wield magic and recieves the neccesary levels of initial
> > education (eg. literacy, etc.)
>
> I agree. I think that elves will almost always have the magical edge on
> their opponents. Their main drawback is that their regular units are very
> espensive, and therefore somewhat rare, and can therefore be easily mobbed
> by lesser troops on a battlefield.

To me the human victories over the elves comes down to a simple matter of
population pressures. As in "You disapprove? Well, too bad. We're in this for
the species, boys and girls. It's simple numbers. They have more. And every day I
have to make decisions that may send hundreds of people like you to their
graves." OK, fairly non-sequiter quote, but I couldn't resist....

Even if the elves have better battle magic, the humans have the numbers to spread
the front lines out over a broad area that the elves wouldn't be able to cover.
Even magical elves can't be everywhere at once, especially if they have to lug a
cart load of spell components along with them. Spreading out the front lines
(which is really what a colonization process is all about) would neutralize the
occasional elven wizard. That's why elves exist in fairly small kingdoms.
They've had to concentrate in order to defend themselves.

- -Gary