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irdeggman
02-15-2005, 04:51 PM
We need to have some real discussions on how realm and battle magic work and relate to each other. IMO we need to define some of these at least at the conceptual level since they affect both the war and domain chapters as well as the magic chapters.

This is my take (opinion) on these topics put out for discussion.


Battle magic:

Battle magic should be limited to spells that affect the battlefield or individual unit(s).

Duration should be in terms of battle rounds, singular or multiple.

Any spellcaster should be able to cast battle spells. They should not have to be blooded to do so.

Battle magic should be a variation of the standard magic system. That is battle spells should be an application of standard spells. We can create some new ones if necessary, but IMO we should make every attempt to keep to standard spells. If not then we need to include battle magic in the number of spells a spellcaster can know (e.g., sorcerers and bards) or learn automatically at each level and then deal with the number of spells he can cast in a day. Although I don’t think this latter one is that big a deal due to the time period, battles take place over days and weeks vice a normal combat round. This is something we have to work in the war section that will have an affect here.

The various mass spells in the PHB should be addressed as to how (and if) they have an effect on units. IMO most of them do or readily can.

IMO the application of the battle caster feat is as follows. A caster with this feat can target spells on a battlefield such that they gain the most effect from them. The caster has such control over his spells that he can distinguish between a friendly and opponent unit.

The various mass spells can work outside of the battle itself without application of the battle caster feat. For example cure moderate wounds, mass would enable a caster to heal the damage a unit took if cast outside of battle. To heal a friendly unit inside of battle requires use of the battle caster feat.

Realm magic:

Realm magic affects provinces and areas larger than a battlefield.

Realm magic may have durations longer than battle rounds, usually in terms of months or seasons.

Only blooded spellcasters can cast realm magic.

Realm spells are only researched not learned automatically with level or from spellbooks.

The maximum number of realm spells a character can know is limited by his ranks in spellcraft. (exact detail can be worked out).

Researching a realm spell takes domain actions (length of time depends on the ‘level’ of the spell).

A character makes a spellcraft check to see if his research is successful.

Casting a realm spells requires access to a source or temple holding and expenditure of RP and usually GB.

Casting time of a realm spell is a domain action.

Realm spells are not contained in spellbooks they are intimately known by the caster.

Realm spells are all unique and even if 2 casters know spells that have the same effects they are both unique spells.



Things that need to worked on:

What type of effect battle spells have. Should we continue down the path of the playtest and keep the results relatively simplified or list every spell and how it can have an effect on the battle? Or should we keep it simple (e.g., like the playtest) and only specifically address the effects of the mass spells?

How should we levelize realm spells? By caster level, by holding level, by a combination?

What type of saving throw system should we use for battle spells?

What type of saving throw system should we use for realm spells?

How many casters does it take to cast a battle spell?

How many does it take to cast a realm spell?

How many editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Raesene Andu
02-15-2005, 07:36 PM
Regarding most of the Mass type spells, most only effect 1 creature/level. Under the guidelines for using spells on the battlefield that were in the 2E rulebook they would need to affect more than 25 people to be an effective spell on the battlefield.

Cry Havok takes a look at most of the spells in the Player's Handbook and lists their battle effects. Their units are generally only around 10 creatures, but you could use that as a guide.

The easiest way to handle battle spells would be something similar, have a list of spells from the player's handbook with a standard effect + a battle magic effect.

For example, you could use something like this.

Fireball
Range: 2 battle squares
Duration: Instantaneous

Standard Effect: 1 hit of damage to unit. Unit may make a reflex save vs. the spells DC to reduce this to no damage. (If unit commander sees wizard he can order unit to spread out, hence no damage)

Battle Magic Effect: 2 hits of damage to unit. Unit may make a reflex save vs. the spell DC to reduce this to 1 hit.

How should we levelize realm spells? By caster level, by holding level, by a combination?

What do you mean by levelize? If you mean by making Alchemy a level 1 realm spell that already is linked to caster level. Otherwise I'd say both. There are some realm spells that wizard's just shouldn't get at low levels. The souce level is already a limiting factor as well.

What type of saving throw system should we use for battle spells?

If you are going to base normal spells as battle spells then I'd say simply give units saving throws.

What type of saving throw system should we use for realm spells?

None, you can't save against realm spells, and given the cost of the spells it is a good thing too.

How many casters does it take to cast a battle spell?

One, simply because there aren't that many wizards around. I'd say for battle spells though the caster would need a war wagon loaded up with all the components etc that are needed to cast a battlespell.

For priests casting battle spells, well then I'd say they need more than 1 though and instead of the war wagon they have a special unit of priests to cast battle spells.

How many does it take to cast a realm spell?

One caster!!

How many editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Um, lost me there.

Athos69
02-15-2005, 09:57 PM
Another way that it could be done is to create a new series of spells with the prefix of 'War'. These would be the battlefield versions of the spells, much as 'Mass' spells do for skirmish-level conflict. I would place them as being about 2 levels above the standard versions of the spells, much as the 'Mass' spells are on average one level above their regular counterparts.

Artemel
02-16-2005, 12:01 AM
What type of effect battle spells have. Should we continue down the path of the playtest and keep the results relatively simplified or list every spell and how it can have an effect on the battle? Or should we keep it simple (e.g., like the playtest) and only specifically address the effects of the mass spells?

Battle spells should simply be based on pre-existing personal spells for the most part. The only real differences between "normal" spells and battle spells area of effect, casting time, and components. A "battle" version should affect at least one unit or one space on the battlefield. It should take a full war turn to cast and require all the components of the base AND great quantities of Material supplies, even when the orignal does not. For instance, I'd say Battle Magic Missile would require say two hundred specially prepared arrows costing around one GB. (It's my personal opinion that no battle spell should cost less than 1 GB, as it is a good way to inhibit overuse of battle spells in the field.)

How should we levelize realm spells? By caster level, by holding level, by a combination?

Realm spells should be leveled by holding level only. Judge a spell based on what it can do to deteremine how much mystic (whether from a source or from faith) energy would be required to cast it. The efficiency of the spell would be based upon how string the caster is.

Example One: Alchemy would be a simple Realm Spell Level 1. (Unlike the orginal game designer, I find that just having 1 level of a source or temple should be sufficient for such a basic spell.) The level of the caster would determine how many GB's the caster could create. In this case, maybe 1GB plus 1GB per every 3 caster levels. So, essentially, until 3rd level alchemy is worthless, as it takes 1 GB to cast as well as taking RP. But at level 3 you could make 2 GB and have a net gain of 1 GB, level 6 is net gain 2 GB, level 9 is net gain 3 GB, etc.

Example TwoNow for a higher end example, Stronghold. It takes a level 7 hoding to create. The caster level would come in when considering duration and maximum effect. I would place a cap of 2 RP per caster level to be spent and a duration of 1 month per caster level. With these in place, it would require a caster of 4th level to make a Level 1 castle and it would last 4 months.

While this sort of fits a combination approach, the main reason I do not advocate requiring caster levels for realm spells is because I see no reason to deny a lower level caster to begin researching a potent spell before its casting would benefit him.

What type of saving throw system should we use for battle spells?

I would assign standard saves to each unit (FORT, REF, WILL) and would base the save type off of the base spell. Further, I would add a save to ALL battle spells, even if the original had no save. It's simply a matter that what is unavoidable for an individual is not necessarily so for a caster targeting hundreds and casting an unbelievably grueling battlefield spell.

What type of saving throw system should we use for realm spells?

... you know, I&#39;m not sure. <_<

How many casters does it take to cast a battle spell?

Arcane: One arcane caster with three assistants per battle spell level. The assistants can be commoners; they are only there to help manipulate the great quantities of material components.

Divine: One divine caster with two assistants per battle spell level. At least half the assistants should have ranks in Knowledge (Religion) as the spells are a form of ritual requiring proper procedures, based on religious tracts.

How many does it take to cast a realm spell?

Just the primary caster, although most will require at least one assistant just to keep the caster fed, as all of the caster&#39;s focus will be on the spell, both day and night. So, a wise caster has assistants to help, but they are not necessary from a purely rules point of view.

How many editors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Just one - he&#39;ll tell the intern to do it. :blink:

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 01:43 PM
Let&#39;s do a comparison of 2 spells that may have an effect on the battlefield.

Fireball
3rd level spell
Area of effect 20 ft radius
damage 1d6/level max of 10d6
Minimum caster 5th level

Cure light wounds, mass
5th level (cleric), 6th level (druid)
Area of effect 1 creature per level no 2 of which can be more than 30 ft apart.
Effect 1d8 +1 per level of caster (max +25)
Minimum caster level 9th.

How many creatures can fit into a 20 ft radius area – that is roughly 314 sq ft and 1 person fits into a 5 ft sq (25 sq ft) so that would be approximately 12.5 (say 13) man size creatures.

Assuming minimum level to cast a 5th level wizard casting a fireball can affect 13 people and do damage from 5 to 30 hit points to each. Rough total damage would be 65 to 390.

Compare this to the Cure light wounds, mass and the area being affected of the cure spell is a radius with a circumference of 270 ft (radius of 42 ft). 9 people at 30 ft apart. It can restore from 10 to 17 hit points each. Rough total healing would be 90 to 153.

One question is, are these spells comparable on the battlefield?

They seem to affect roughly the same number of people (13 for the fireball and 9 for the cure spell, the range of effects are different with the fireball having a wider variable but the cure spell on average doing more (could use a statistical analysis here – hint, hint). Looks like an average 5th level fireball does 3 per die times 5 equals 15 points multiplied by total number affected (13) equals 196 points. The cure spell does 4 (average of 1d8) plus 9 equals 13 times total number affected (9) equals 117. The fireball allows a save for half damage so the variation is even more and the cure spell is selective in that the caster can choose those to affect (i.e., the ones most hurt or valuable {leaders}).

Seems pretty even to me accounting for variations.

Another question is, are these areas of effect suitable to have an affect on a group of 200 individuals?

This one is really subjective. Since we have narrowed the number down to affecting between 9 and 13 individuals, that is a real small number.

The comparison comes down to effect. A fireball has a visual affect and can yield ancillary effects on those around (e.g., the sight and sound of an exploding fireball in the middle of a unit). While the cure spell can have a morale effect (those who could barely walk can now get up and continue to fight or more significant the leader can now stand back up and take charge).

Arguments could be made either way on this one since it is subjective.

Angelbialaska
02-16-2005, 02:26 PM
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O marks where the fireball hits, the X are those hit. We must assume that a unit is moving in formation, which means they are each occupying a 5 feet square. If my calculations are right, then 41 soldiers are hit by the fireball, which is more or less 1/4 of the unit. A wizard with level 6 spells can cast a Widened fireball, meaning that the blast radius is 40 feet. I don&#39;t even want to attempt to calculate those casualties, but it&#39;s a lot.

Artemel
02-16-2005, 03:26 PM
Given the flavor of the campaign and some common sense, then most of the armies would be marching in formation. However, fireballs won&#39;t be an army&#39;s first concern. Using some notes of the thread on Cerilian population, there are only 800-some true wizards, and even then, not all of those would be able to cast fireball. On the other hand, clerics are a lot more common in most BR campaigns. [Not in mine, but that&#39;s only because priest does not have to equal cleric. A priest in mine could be an Expert with appropriate skills. The gods do not dole out there divine blessings on every priest now. :D ]

So... I&#39;d have to say that irdeggman&#39;s point on Fireball v. Mass cure light wounds is valid, but in my campaign neither are a major influence. Non-spellcasting healers are a lot more common than a 9th level Cleric. And even that 9th level Cleric is more common than a 5th level Wizard.

So... Regents, be chary of your footmen, as they are the backbone of your army.

Or... something like that.

:unsure:

The Jew
02-16-2005, 05:49 PM
Originally posted by Artemel@Feb 16 2005, 11:26 AM
Given the flavor of the campaign and some common sense, then most of the armies would be marching in formation. However, fireballs won&#39;t be an army&#39;s first concern. Using some notes of the thread on Cerilian population, there are only 800-some true wizards, and even then, not all of those would be able to cast fireball. On the other hand, clerics are a lot more common in most BR campaigns. [Not in mine, but that&#39;s only because priest does not have to equal cleric. A priest in mine could be an Expert with appropriate skills. The gods do not dole out there divine blessings on every priest now. :D ]

So... I&#39;d have to say that irdeggman&#39;s point on Fireball v. Mass cure light wounds is valid, but in my campaign neither are a major influence. Non-spellcasting healers are a lot more common than a 9th level Cleric. And even that 9th level Cleric is more common than a 5th level Wizard.

So... Regents, be chary of your footmen, as they are the backbone of your army.

Or... something like that.

:unsure:
True, but Avanil, Boeruine, Ghoere, Mhoried, Talinie, Dhoesone, Ilien all elven realms and and a couple others all have pet mages. And one can&#39;t forget the Gorgon. So at least in Anuire the majority of wars will involve a realm with a pet mage. I beleive all of them can cast fireball.

Athos69
02-16-2005, 06:01 PM
Originally posted by irdeggman@Feb 16 2005, 06:43 AM
How many creatures can fit into a 20 ft radius area – that is roughly 314 sq ft and 1 person fits into a 5 ft sq (25 sq ft) so that would be approximately 12.5 (say 13) man size creatures.
Sorry to bring this up Duane, but there is an error in your math. The area of a 20&#39; radius circle is calculated by the formula [Pi](R^2). if R= 20&#39;, that means that the area is 3.14*400, or 1256 square feet.

Just counting squares from the 3.5 DMG template in the back, it covers 44 squares.

A widened Fireball (40&#39; radius) covers 152 squares.

The point is not lost, however, on the effects of fireballs on tightly packed formations.

One question I have is what if the unti was an irregular unit like Scouts? They don&#39;t fight is tightly packed and regimented lines, and in fact are deemed to be much more spread out. Should they get a reduction to the number of hits they take from Battle Magic?

I honestly think that Battlefield spells should be a seperate class of spells with the War descriptor attached to them. That way we can rite them up as if they were seperate spells, give them an effect based on likely projections of damage vs. formations and call this section done.

Osprey
02-16-2005, 06:26 PM
This is my take (opinion) on these topics put out for discussion.
Battle magic:
Battle magic should be limited to spells that affect the battlefield or individual
unit(s).
Duration should be in terms of battle rounds, singular or multiple.
Any spellcaster should be able to cast battle spells. They should not have to be blooded to do so.

Agreed.


Battle magic should be a variation of the standard magic system. That is battle spells should be an application of standard spells. We can create some new ones if necessary, but IMO we should make every attempt to keep to standard spells. If not then we need to include battle magic in the number of spells a spellcaster can know (e.g., sorcerers and bards) or learn automatically at each level and then deal with the number of spells he can cast in a day. Although I don’t think this latter one is that big a deal due to the time period, battles take place over days and weeks vice a normal combat round. This is something we have to work in the war section that will have an affect here.

Battles take place in battle turns - 15 minutes is probably an appropriate amount of time (4 turns per hour, about 32 battle turns for an 8-hour battle - the reasonable limit for a full day of battle). A battle that couldn&#39;t be resolved in this amount of time would be extremely rare.

I agree that battle spells should be direct conversions of personal spells. I think the Battle magic feat should represent a distinct sort of metamagic feat, one that uses ritual casting and large quantities of expensive components to multiply the area of effect, range, and duration of personal spells. I don&#39;t believe this should require a spell level adjustment, though every battle spell should require preparation, even for bards and sorcerers, using up a normal spell slot for the day. Preparation would also include having the proper material components on hand, thus any prepared battle spells require the purchase and transportation of components before the actual battle.


The various mass spells in the PHB should be addressed as to how (and if) they have an effect on units. IMO most of them do or readily can.

Any area spells need to be addressed this way - I proposed some standards for such effects in the Battle Magic area of effect thread.


IMO the application of the battle caster feat is as follows. A caster with this feat can target spells on a battlefield such that they gain the most effect from them. The caster has such control over his spells that he can distinguish between a friendly and opponent unit.

IMO this is where any mage should be able to apply the Warcraft skill, with or without the feat. A simple check (DC 10) might suffice for knowing where best to place a fireball against an unengaged unit, while this might go up to DC 20 to place one against an engaged unit without scorching your allies.

I don&#39;t know if this detail got included in Ch 1, but Warcraft should be a skill that may be used untrained. Good tactics and strategies can certainly be reasoned out with some basic application of knowledge and logic - at least to a limited extent. As with any skill, of course, there&#39;s no replacement for a sound education, training, and experience (i.e., skill ranks).

In combination with this, I think a very cool addition to the Battle Caster feat would be to grant the character Warcraft as a class skill. Rather than requiring ranks in Warcraft to gain the skill, let the feat represent the specialized training that a Battle Mage undergoes to gain insight into magical warfare.

One could instead require one or more metamagic feats as prerequisites: Widen Spell, Extend Spell, and Enlarge Spell being the 3 most applicable here. Perhaps any one of those 3 would be sufficient?


The various mass spells can work outside of the battle itself without application of the battle caster feat. For example cure moderate wounds, mass would enable a caster to heal the damage a unit took if cast outside of battle. To heal a friendly unit inside of battle requires use of the battle caster feat.

I disagree with this. A normal caster knows the exact effects of their spells - it doesn&#39;t take a genius to know how to optimize their effects, especially on an unengaged friendly unit. I don&#39;t think the feat would change this by itself.

However, almost any Mass spell is limited to 1 target per caster level. Casting this once on a unit is almost guaranteed to have a negligible effect - it simply cannot affect enough troops. Cure spells in particular would be very limited without some sort of enhancement.

Unlike with characters in the adventure scale of combat, damage to a unit represents casualties of all sorts: dead, wounded, and missing. A mass cure spell will only heal [caster level] number of wounded soldiers - it won&#39;t bring back the dead or missing.

An average regular unit has 2 hits and 200 soldiers. Thus, 1 hit on a unit should equal about 100 casualties, of which only a third or so would be wounded, the rest dead or missing. This isn&#39;t absolute, but a reasonable mean result for our purposes here.

Could any cure spell, even an enhanced Battle Magic mass cure, really restore even 1 hit to such a unit?

Veteran or tough units have 3 hits - with 200 men, this means that each veteran soldier has about 1.5 times as many HP as a regular soldier. If we also assume that veteran units are often smaller in number than a regular company (c. 150 men), we could raise this to about 2x avg. HP per soldier (average veteran soldiers would then be 2nd-3rd level warriors, rather than 1st as the default for regulars).

All that being said, if a veteran unit took 2 hits, it is reasonable to assume that enough healing magic spread out over the surviving company might be enough to restore 1 hit, representing all the wounded regaining full health. Such an effect would require healing app. 50 or more men - definitely outside the scope of a single mass cure spell regardless of caster level. However, I think this is an ideal application of a Battle Magic mass cure spell (Mass Cure Light Wounds from a 9th level caster would heal 1d8+9 hp per soldier, or 10-17 hp: easily enough to restore most wounded 2nd or 3rd level warriors to full health).

Outside of a battle, however, multiple castings of any cure spell would dramatically enhance the healing of a unit&#39;s injured soldiers. But the dead and missing will only be replaced by new recruits, something that is guaranteed to take more time, and recruiting facilities.

This ties into Ch. 6 (War), but I would like to propose a flat reality rule concerning the healing of units:

A unit can only heal 1/2 the number of hits taken in a battle (round down) due to magical or natural healing. The remaining damage represents permanent casualties that must be replaced through recruiting or combining existing units.

Recruiting: In order for a damaged unit to recruit and train new members to replace its losses, it must be garrisoned in a province where the regent has a holding of high enough level to muster an equivalent unit. Once garrisoned here (requires one month), the unit may regain 1 hit per month of recruitement, costing 1 GB per hit regained.

Combining damaged units: Damaged units of the same type (ex.: 2 medium infantry each with 1 hit remaining) can be combined to quickly replace casualties. This requires 1 GB in expenses and 1 week (war move) to complete. The recieving unit (the one being added to) may not move during this period.

Sorry for the battle rules diversion, it&#39;s something that I put out there for the sake of having a more holistic view of unit healing in general.

Athos69
02-16-2005, 07:28 PM
I see your points Osprey, but let&#39;s remember the &#39;KISS&#39; maxim.

If we have a cumbersome system where spells are open for interpretation, it will be so unwieldy and arcane (pun not intended) that few people will want to use it.

I&#39;m proposing a class of spells that will only be available to characters who have the Battle Caster feat.

Two examples are below.

Fireball, War
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 4
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 battle turn
Range: 2 Squares
Area: 1 Unit
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
Spell Resistance: Yes

As per the fireball spell, but it deals two hits to the target unit.
Material Component: 1/2 GB worth of guano and sulphur.

Cure Light Wounds, War
Conjuration (Healing)
Level: Clr 6, Drd 7
Components: V, S
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: One Square
Target: One Unit
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will half (harmless) or Will half; see text
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless) or Yes; see text

As per the Mass Cure Light Wounds spell, but it cures the target unit of one hit.
Like other cure spells, war cure light wounds may be used to deal damage to a targeted undead unit in its range. Each affected undead may attempt a Will save for half damage.

Now I have not converted the Saves information, because I seem to recall that there was a discussion on giving units all 3 saves, instead of one catch-all saving throw.

Osprey
02-16-2005, 07:47 PM
At the risk of being redundant, here are my responses and questions re. the Realm Magic guidelines suggested by Duane.


Realm magic affects provinces and areas larger than a battlefield.
So you believe all unit-affecting spells should be relegated to Battle Spells? That is what seems to be suggested here. This would also eliminate all personal spells as well.

While some of the unit-affecting spells in the BRCS were battle spells in 2e, a number of them are drawn from the original realm spells in the BR rulebook.

The following 2e realm spells would be eliminated if realm spells affected only areas larger than a battlefield:
Arcane: Legion of Dead, Mass Destruction, Raze (a castle is smaller than a battlefield), Stronghold, Subversion (with units as targets), Summoning, and Transport.
Divine: Bless Army.

Arcane (BoM): Battle Fury, Defection, Feign Destruction, Inflame, and Royal Facade.
Divine (BoP): Consecrate Relic and Excommunicate.

Mages would obviously lose a huge chunk of their classic repertoire, while clerics would be minimally affected (there are fewer divine realm spells in general, and almost all of them have province-scale effects).

I think personal and unit-affecting realm spells should remain part of the realm magic system. There are some very clear examples of unit-affecting realm spells doing things that battle magic simply cannot reproduce for very long or on as wide a scale.

Ex.: Mass Destruction should do 3 hits of damage per unit, 1 on a unit save - since it can target multiple units, this makes it a lot larger in scope than an equivalent battle spell. It also has severe limitations, mainly that it must be discharged in the province where it was cast within 4 weeks of the spell&#39;s completion. Harsh, but a good balancer to an otherwise devestating spell. The duration of this spell is thus instantaneous.

Any enhancement or protective spell could also be used to protect one or more units for an extended duration - i.e., throughout an entire campaign that lasts for weeks, rather than a single round or so in a battle. BIG difference in utility and effect compared to battle spells, and something that seems to me to be appropriate for the big RP/GB/time-consuming act of casting a realm spell. Bigger investment, bigger returns...


Realm magic may have durations longer than battle rounds, usually in terms of months or seasons.
See above. IMO, unit-affecting spells should have durations measured in weeks (war moves), while province-affecting spells should have durations measured in months (domain rounds).


Only blooded spellcasters can cast realm magic.
Realm spells are only researched not learned automatically with level or from spellbooks.
Agreed, though I think a +2 circumstance bonus to the Spellcraft check to learn the realm spell is applicable when using another caster&#39;s set of notes, or when recieving tutelage by one who knows the spell already. Realm spells may be somewhat unique, but it seems ludicrous to me that regents wouldn&#39;t pass down secrets, or at least a few insights and ideas about realm magic and spells, to their successors.


The maximum number of realm spells a character can know is limited by his ranks in spellcraft. (exact detail can be worked out).
A few things here:
1. 1 realm spell per rank is rather generous, allowing a fledgling 1st level caster to master 4 realm spells. Yikes.
I think 1 realm spell per 2 ranks is much more balanced and appropriate for the BR setting. It is good to force low-level regents to choose their relam spells carefully.

2. Is Spellcraft the appropriate skill for measuring realm spell knowledge limits, or is the appropriate Knowledge skill (Arcana/Religion/Nature for mages/clerics/druids resp.) a better measure (as per the epic spellcasting origin for this idea)? I personally would prefer it be the relevant knowledge skill, while requiring a successful Spellcraft check to master a realm spell. Any spellcasting regent should possess the relevant Knowledge skill anyways, so it encourages good realm casters to be good regents, too.


Researching a realm spell takes domain actions (length of time depends on the ‘level’ of the spell).
We had worked out before (in another thread) a rough system like this:
Cost: 1 RP + 1 GB per level of the realm spell being researched.
Requires the character have exclusive access to a source or temple holding of sufficient level to cast the spell being researched.
Time:
1 month for 1st-3rd level realm spells
2 months for 4th-6th level realm spells
3 months for 7th-9th level realm spells

These are pretty simple, sound guidelines IMO, and should be incorporated into Ch 7.

As to whether learning a realm spell requires a domain action or simply a character action, is highly debatable IMO. I feel it is sufficient that a person learning a realm spell use only a Character Action (1st choice), or at most a single Domain Action (the 1st month that research is begun - 2nd choice) so long as they meet the above requirements. Exclusive access to a source means that holding cannot be used for any other active function while the realm spell is being researched. This means the temple or source holding could not be used to initiate a domain action in that province (casting a realm spell, rule/contest holding, agitate, etc.), nor to support or oppose another regent&#39;s domain action in the province.

I think this "exclusive holding use" plus requiring character actions is sufficiently restrictive to be balanced - otherwise domains with regents or lts. learning realm spells will spend long periods in political inactivity - and that&#39;s neither fun for the players, nor very competitive at the domain level.


Only blooded spellcasters can cast realm magic.
Agreed, and note that this applies to elves and clerics, too. This makes it particularly valuable to have blooded spellcasters as lieutenants, as they have the potential ability to cast realm spells for their regent.


Casting a realm spells requires access to a source or temple holding and expenditure of RP and usually GB.
Yep - the devil&#39;s in the details, of course. Raesene and some of us had wrestled with a system for calculating RP and GB costs in another thread (it&#39;s a ways back in the BRCS forum, I&#39;m not sure where exactly) - I don&#39;t believe that system was ever fully ironed out or agreed upon by any majority, but it does contain a lot of interesting ideas and concepts regarding realm spell costs.

For instance, one of the core ideas was that realm spells were ideally suited for large-scale effects, thus raising the costs somewhat for unit-target spells, and even more for personal-target spells.

Similar idea for why duration would be scaled appropriately - province-affecting spells are the simplest realm spells to design, and thus have longer durations than unit or personal spells as a default.

I&#39;m still not certain if I agree with all of this reasoning, but it certainly makes a certain amount of sense, and does keep things roughly parallel with the 2e realm magic.


Casting time of a realm spell is a domain action.
Yep, though more technically: Casting time is 1 domain round (1 month), and casting a realm spell requires a full domain action (Character+Standard Action).


Realm spells are not contained in spellbooks they are intimately known by the caster.
Yes, though I imagine a creator can (and often would) write notes and aid another in crafting an equivalent spell (see above). A month&#39;s worth of ritual magic is exactly the sort of thing I&#39;d expect to be recorded in painstaking detail by the creator of the spell, ensuring that time and memory do not erase knowledge of the spell and how to perform the required rituals - same goes for the specific components necessary (while a player just chalks off some GB, the character would likely have much more exacting specifications for the propoer ritual materials needed over the course of the casting).


Realm spells are all unique and even if 2 casters know spells that have the same effects they are both unique spells.
Yes, but this doesn&#39;t mean there aren&#39;t many similarities possible - especially when comparing the spells of a master and apprentice, for example. Hence the possibility of aiding another caster&#39;s realm spell research.

Osprey

Osprey
02-16-2005, 08:09 PM
I see your points Osprey, but let&#39;s remember the &#39;KISS&#39; maxim.
If we have a cumbersome system where spells are open for interpretation, it will be so unwieldy and arcane (pun not intended) that few people will want to use it.


Simple is good, but it&#39;s important to balance simplicity with a system that is logical and consistent. My desire is to create such a system along with a list of the more commonly used Battle versions of existing spells, built using the same design system.

I have a desire to do the same with the Realm Magic system.

The desired result is to create 2 systems that allow DM&#39;s and enterprising players to design their own battle or realm spells if they aren&#39;t satisfied picking and choosing from the existing list. This is particularly relevant with realm spells, which are supposedly unique spells individually designed. However, since all realm spell casters will be familiar with their allowed/known personal spells, it makes logical sense that these would tend to be the basis for designing realm spells.

By spelling out the details of a magic conversion system, we are actually eliminating many of the open interpretations from DM&#39;s and players, and replacing them with some concrete guidelines and limitations that have a logical basis in the existing magic system.

As far as healing units is concerned, I feel pretty strongly that raising soldiers from the dead is quite a different sort of magic from healing wounded soldiers, and should be treated as such in the battle magic system. Otherwise it glosses over a very important aspect of the campaign setting: units are made of individual soldiers, they&#39;re not perfectly equivalent to one super-character with a huge number of hit points. The healing limit rule I proposed was the simplest way I could think of to represent this fact:

A unit can only heal 1/2 the number of hits taken in a battle (round down) due to magical or natural healing. The remaining damage represents permanent casualties that must be replaced through recruiting or combining existing units.

Still pretty streamlined IMO, while giving a nod toward reality.

And by the way, I drop earlier revisions re. Cure Unit as a realm spell - it is definitely more appropriate as a battle spell, or could be easily accomplished by one or more healers casting cure spells repeatedly over weeks of time. Most any unit supported by spellcasting healers should be able to heal any wounds taken within a few weeks&#39; time, at negligible expense.

Osprey
02-16-2005, 08:36 PM
Now to address part 3 of Duane&#39;s initial post:


What type of effect battle spells have. Should we continue down the path of the playtest and keep the results relatively simplified or list every spell and how it can have an effect on the battle? Or should we keep it simple (e.g., like the playtest) and only specifically address the effects of the mass spells?

See previous post, and Battle Spell area of effect thread. In general, I think we should assume larger areas of effect/# of targets, extended durations, and/or extended range for battle versions of normal spells.

There should also be a section listing the effects of personal spells on the battlefield, and how this interacts time-wise with battle turns.


How should we levelize realm spells? By caster level, by holding level, by a combination?

Both - if you can identify the "core" personal spell (seed) of a realm spell, this should determine the minimum spell level of the realm spell.
Likewise, I think it reasonable to assume that the default source or temple requirement is equal to the level of the realm spell. This factor could be variable in spell design, however, affecting the cost of the spell by lowering or raising the holding requirement.


What type of saving throw system should we use for battle spells?

What type of saving throw system should we use for realm spells?

The same as for personal spells regarding individual targets. That is, the base DC for an individual to save against a battle fireball should be equal to spell level + caster&#39;s ability modifier, and the spell would do the same damage as a normal fireball. Same goes for a person caught in a province-wide Death Plague (BRCS, 3rd level realm spell): Fort save, DC 13 + caster&#39;s ability mod, plus any relevant spell focus feats or other continuous modifiers to spell DC (Necromancy in this case).

[Note: Death Plague should be a 4th level mage spell, based on Contagion; by the same token, I can imagine an evil temple using a 3rd level divine version of this spell to punish the unfaithful).

Units should get a morale check as a generic save, this keeps things simple.

Provinces probably should not get saves against province-wide realm effects, though I can imagine high-source provinces being resistant to arcane realm magic, and high-level temples being resistant to divine realm magic. Not sure how this would fold into the existing system without saves, though.

The general concept I see is that battle and realm spells aren&#39;t more potent than personal spells, they simply affect things on a much larger scale.


How many casters does it take to cast a battle spell?
One, plus serious quantities of ritual components (hence the battle wagon, though a good bag of holding or two might be able to replace this in a more mobile unit). Assistants are good, though - it is reasonable to assume one assistant per 2 caster levels of the battle caster (1 per spell level for clerics and wizards). This is mostly a color issue, not something that needs to be addressed with mechanics. It might suffice to simply say "a battle caster typically has several assistants aiding him with the mundane aspects of battle magic."


How many does it take to cast a realm spell?
One blooded regent or Lt. caster.

Sources are the power of nature, so the caster is channeling mebhaighal to cast the spell. The source is unavailable for any other use in the month in which it is used to cast the realm spell.

Temples channel the power of faith - the temple holding used to cast a realm spell would similarly be unavailable for any domain-level use in the month where it&#39;s used to cast a realm spell. However, since temples are comprised of living people, it makes sense that the main focus of that province&#39;s temple holdings are being poured into ritual prayer and support of the casting regent. This strikes me as a useful piece of flavor text to add to a description of realm spells and their casting.

PS - Sorry to everyone to flood this thread with many replies - I wanted to give a comprehensive response to the 30-odd factors laid out by Irdeggman. And good job, Duane, on spelling all of that out, it&#39;s very useful for pinning down all the nitty-gritty details of battle and realm magic.

Osprey

doom
02-16-2005, 09:00 PM
On Tue, Feb 15, 2005 at 05:51:57PM +0100, irdeggman wrote:

> irdeggman wrote:

>

> We need to have some real discussions on how realm and battle magic

> work and relate to each other. IMO we need to define some of these at

> least at the conceptual level since they affect both the war and domain

> chapters as well as the magic chapters.



Hey all. I`ll chime in with a few comments.



Firstly, the battle spell/realm magic issue is a real bear, no doubt

about it. I probably don`t have the most popular view on the issue, but

I`ll voice it nevertheless.



<2e mode>



If I can grossly oversimplify, in the 2e system low-level clerics

completely dominated the battlefield (with cheap low/no RP/GB unit

smashing spells). High-level wizards with resources to burn were rare,

but when faced, were almost unbeatable without using magic yourself.

Adding a 10th level cleric or wizard to an army made an almost

insurmountable difference. One unit with a wizard stone-skin unit and

spells some destroy unit spells ("D" result) could basically destroy

units all day (without harm) until they ran out of spells. The only

real defense was to have a spell caster of your own... and level was

really not a factor. A spell caster with only one "D" spell could take

out a spell caster of much higher level (well, they`d take each other

out actually, but you see my point, level wasn`t terribly relevant).



On the other hand, adding a 10th level fighter to the army basically

made very little difference whatsoever. An adventurers card was an

adventures care regardless of composition (and some people might

claim that a high level caster was _also_ an adventures card).



IMHO The 2e battlespell system was grossly unbalanced and didn`t work well.





<3e playtest document mode>



Now... here is the big question. In 3e, should a 10th level wizard

(with mass spells, fireballs, etc) more or less effective on the

battlefield than a 10th level fighter? For the sake of argument, lets

assume that said fighter has whirlwind or great cleave, an AC that is

basically unhittable by a low-level warrior peons, and can reasonably

mow through peon-level soldiers by the dozens for hours. Which is more

effective in an overall day of warfare? What about a 10th level

fighter that specialized in single combat (a duelist)? More or less

effective? A 10th level diviner? Argh!



The only answer that made sense at the time was to abstract. Adding a

10th level character adds roughly the same about of "Encounter Level"

to an encounter. Why should a character`s contributions on the

battlefield be any less abstract? A 10th level character (of any class)

should be roughly equal to adding two 8th level characters (of any

class), etc. The mages are casting spells (infrequently, but

effectively), the clerics are bolstering the fighting men (buff spells,

heals, or just out there kick`n with the soldiers), the fighter types

are doing what they do best, etc. In my opinion, any attempt to _add_

power to spell casters by trying to encapsulate a tactical level effect

of a specific couple of mass spells is hokey. A mass fly spell might

turn the tide of battle just as effectively as a mass heal. Everyone

adds something, and that is what the Heros card effects attempt to

quantify (abstractly).



On the other hand, realm spells are a whole different animal.

Province/Law regents collect taxes to (among other things) build

armies. Temple/Source regents collect income to (among other things)

do cool things like buff armies. These spells, can raise units of

undead, heal badly damaged unit, bless a unit before it heads out to

war, or rain mass destruction upon one`s enemies from afar. These

spells are also (supposedly) balanced at the realm level with

realm-level costs. No harm, no foul, and lots of fun.



In short, there is no need for battle spells and I would argue that

adding them is inherently a "bad thing".



Of course, the BRCS _does_ still have battle magic. :) Via the battle

magic feat and special training for a unit, that unit can receive

bonuses above and beyond what one might expect for having a character

of that level traveling with. That character does not get to add to

the general HEROs card and their effects are abstracted to simple

bonuses to attack/defend. It works, but IMHO was a necessary

compromise rather than the "right decision". There are those who feel

that spell casters (via battle spells) should continue to have an

overwhelming effect on tactical level combat. I can`t support that

opinion.





<The future?>



In my opinion, the battle spell feat (and future discussion of battle

spells) should be dropped entirely. These spell effects should be

balanced by realm-level spell effects/costs. Spellcasters should add

power in proportion to their level in tactical combat; no more and no

less than a fighter (or any other class) of similar level. At the

realm level, however, spellcasters should remain a force to be feared.

By casting realm spells to buff/create/move army units BEFORE the

tactical combat begins, spellcasters remain a MAJOR strategic force.



Anyhow, thats my .0002 GB ;)



- Doom

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 10:25 PM
Originally posted by Athos69+Feb 16 2005, 01:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Athos69 @ Feb 16 2005, 01:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-irdeggman@Feb 16 2005, 06:43 AM
How many creatures can fit into a 20 ft radius area – that is roughly 314 sq ft and 1 person fits into a 5 ft sq (25 sq ft) so that would be approximately 12.5 (say 13) man size creatures.
Sorry to bring this up Duane, but there is an error in your math. The area of a 20&#39; radius circle is calculated by the formula [Pi](R^2). if R= 20&#39;, that means that the area is 3.14*400, or 1256 square feet. [/b][/quote]
Yup and if you mistakenly treat a 20 ft radius as a 20 ft diameter you make the mistake I made. Thanks.

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 10:33 PM
QUOTE
Battle magic should be a variation of the standard magic system. That is battle spells should be an application of standard spells. We can create some new ones if necessary, but IMO we should make every attempt to keep to standard spells. If not then we need to include battle magic in the number of spells a spellcaster can know (e.g., sorcerers and bards) or learn automatically at each level and then deal with the number of spells he can cast in a day. Although I don’t think this latter one is that big a deal due to the time period, battles take place over days and weeks vice a normal combat round. This is something we have to work in the war section that will have an affect here.


Battles take place in battle turns - 15 minutes is probably an appropriate amount of time (4 turns per hour, about 32 battle turns for an 8-hour battle - the reasonable limit for a full day of battle). A battle that couldn&#39;t be resolved in this amount of time would be extremely rare.

I agree that battle spells should be direct conversions of personal spells. I think the Battle magic feat should represent a distinct sort of metamagic feat, one that uses ritual casting and large quantities of expensive components to multiply the area of effect, range, and duration of personal spells. I don&#39;t believe this should require a spell level adjustment, though every battle spell should require preparation, even for bards and sorcerers, using up a normal spell slot for the day. Preparation would also include having the proper material components on hand, thus any prepared battle spells require the purchase and transportation of components before the actual battle.

I like the concept you have of battle round durations. Definitely deserves some discussion.





QUOTE
The various mass spells in the PHB should be addressed as to how (and if) they have an effect on units. IMO most of them do or readily can.


Any area spells need to be addressed this way - I proposed some standards for such effects in the Battle Magic area of effect thread.

I’m very hesitant take this approach as wide spread thing. There are several area of effect spells that really wouldn’t have an effect on the battle regardless of what was done to them. Invisibility Sphere for instance, it affects an area and as long as every one stays within that area they remain invisible. The odds of a unit staying in such tight formation with no one leaving the area is pretty much nil. I also am not inclined to start writing up descriptions of how every single area effect spell in the PHB would work on the battlefield. I much prefer the abstract system of the playtest document it keeps things simple and avoids all the arguing that players will end up with when they “insist” that the new spell they are using from a non-core WotC book (all are official) can be used in a certain way or when they try to likewise insist that Invisibility Sphere should indeed affect their units, etc. I only mentioned the mass spells because they are a recent addition to the rules and are more limited in number.



QUOTE
IMO the application of the battle caster feat is as follows. A caster with this feat can target spells on a battlefield such that they gain the most effect from them. The caster has such control over his spells that he can distinguish between a friendly and opponent unit.


IMO this is where any mage should be able to apply the Warcraft skill, with or without the feat. A simple check (DC 10) might suffice for knowing where best to place a fireball against an unengaged unit, while this might go up to DC 20 to place one against an engaged unit without scorching your allies.

I don&#39;t know if this detail got included in Ch 1, but Warcraft should be a skill that may be used untrained. Good tactics and strategies can certainly be reasoned out with some basic application of knowledge and logic - at least to a limited extent. As with any skill, of course, there&#39;s no replacement for a sound education, training, and experience (i.e., skill ranks).

In combination with this, I think a very cool addition to the Battle Caster feat would be to grant the character Warcraft as a class skill. Rather than requiring ranks in Warcraft to gain the skill, let the feat represent the specialized training that a Battle Mage undergoes to gain insight into magical warfare.

I sort of see the point of not requiring warcraft as a prerequisite but disagree with the concept of giving a spellcaster a bonus to determining how to best work the battlefield (not including magic) just by taking a spellcasting feat. I could see a bonus to warcraft checks involving the use of magic though. But I still lean towards having some basic concept of tactics (i.e., 1 rank in warcraft) in order to fully understand the power of battle magic.


One could instead require one or more metamagic feats as prerequisites: Widen Spell, Extend Spell, and Enlarge Spell being the 3 most applicable here. Perhaps any one of those 3 would be sufficient?

I see and generally like this concept. Now for an elven sorcerer it would require 1 metamagic feat and the battlecaster feat, minimum of 3rd level using all of his feat slots but would currently need to be 6th level to meet the 3rd level spell casting prereq. Wizards gain a benefit on this one, but since battle caster is not a metamagic feat (although it really is) it doesn’t get added to his list of bonus feats. Perhaps change the rereqs to 1 rank in warcraft and 1 of the metamagic feats listed, I don’t know I still like the concept of making the caster be capable of caster better than 1st level spells – reflects a better mastery of magic itself. Oh well this is something else to talk about in the war section.



QUOTE
The various mass spells can work outside of the battle itself without application of the battle caster feat. For example cure moderate wounds, mass would enable a caster to heal the damage a unit took if cast outside of battle. To heal a friendly unit inside of battle requires use of the battle caster feat.


I disagree with this. A normal caster knows the exact effects of their spells - it doesn&#39;t take a genius to know how to optimize their effects, especially on an unengaged friendly unit. I don&#39;t think the feat would change this by itself.

Only when the units are lined up nice and neatly. When they are intermingled like in a battle it becomes impossible – hence the battle caster feat so the spellcaster can take advantage of any momentary openings.


However, almost any Mass spell is limited to 1 target per caster level. Casting this once on a unit is almost guaranteed to have a negligible effect - it simply cannot affect enough troops. Cure spells in particular would be very limited without some sort of enhancement.

It all depends on the interpretation. Since the cure spells can target individuals the caster can pick and choose the ones that are the most hurt or who can have the most value to the unit and selectively heal them. It is a more morale based effect than pure damage. Heal the leader so he stands more upright and the troops will follow him.


Unlike with characters in the adventure scale of combat, damage to a unit represents casualties of all sorts: dead, wounded, and missing. A mass cure spell will only heal [caster level] number of wounded soldiers - it won&#39;t bring back the dead or missing.

An average regular unit has 2 hits and 200 soldiers. Thus, 1 hit on a unit should equal about 100 casualties, of which only a third or so would be wounded, the rest dead or missing. This isn&#39;t absolute, but a reasonable mean result for our purposes here.

Could any cure spell, even an enhanced Battle Magic mass cure, really restore even 1 hit to such a unit?

Veteran or tough units have 3 hits - with 200 men, this means that each veteran soldier has about 1.5 times as many HP as a regular soldier. If we also assume that veteran units are often smaller in number than a regular company (c. 150 men), we could raise this to about 2x avg. HP per soldier (average veteran soldiers would then be 2nd-3rd level warriors, rather than 1st as the default for regulars).

All that being said, if a veteran unit took 2 hits, it is reasonable to assume that enough healing magic spread out over the surviving company might be enough to restore 1 hit, representing all the wounded regaining full health. Such an effect would require healing app. 50 or more men - definitely outside the scope of a single mass cure spell regardless of caster level. However, I think this is an ideal application of a Battle Magic mass cure spell (Mass Cure Light Wounds from a 9th level caster would heal 1d8+9 hp per soldier, or 10-17 hp: easily enough to restore most wounded 2nd or 3rd level warriors to full health).

Outside of a battle, however, multiple castings of any cure spell would dramatically enhance the healing of a unit&#39;s injured soldiers. But the dead and missing will only be replaced by new recruits, something that is guaranteed to take more time, and recruiting facilities.

This ties into Ch. 6 (War), but I would like to propose a flat reality rule concerning the healing of units:

A unit can only heal 1/2 the number of hits taken in a battle (round down) due to magical or natural healing. The remaining damage represents permanent casualties that must be replaced through recruiting or combining existing units.

I disagree with this since I see the effect of taking hits more on the effectiveness of the unit fighting. It reflects the damage to equipment as well as those injured and of course some casualties. Having said that I understand and agree with your simplification since I can’t see any clearer way to handle it simply. There are other games that use a similar mechanic – Alternity had mortal/wounds/stuns for every 2 mortals a character took an additional point of wound and stun damage – secondary damage. So there is a similar type of concept her, IMO.


Recruiting: In order for a damaged unit to recruit and train new members to replace its losses, it must be garrisoned in a province where the regent has a holding of high enough level to muster an equivalent unit. Once garrisoned here (requires one month), the unit may regain 1 hit per month of recruitement, costing 1 GB per hit regained.

Combining damaged units: Damaged units of the same type (ex.: 2 medium infantry each with 1 hit remaining) can be combined to quickly replace casualties. This requires 1 GB in expenses and 1 week (war move) to complete. The recieving unit (the one being added to) may not move during this period.

Sorry for the battle rules diversion, it&#39;s something that I put out there for the sake of having a more holistic view of unit healing in general.

Interesting and promising. Definitely deserves some more discussion.


All in all I think we are thinking more similarly than differently.

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 10:42 PM
In my opinion, the battle spell feat (and future discussion of battle
spells) should be dropped entirely. These spell effects should be
balanced by realm-level spell effects/costs. Spellcasters should add
power in proportion to their level in tactical combat; no more and no
less than a fighter (or any other class) of similar level. At the
realm level, however, spellcasters should remain a force to be feared.
By casting realm spells to buff/create/move army units BEFORE the
tactical combat begins, spellcasters remain a MAJOR strategic force.

Anyhow, thats my .0002 GB ;)

- Doom

Travis I hope this means we&#39;ve gotten your interest level up again.

I have to disagree with this concept if only for the reason that it makes non-blooded, non-regent spellcasters pretty much useless on the battlefield. While I see your point on balancing the effect of a 10th level fighter and 10th level spellcaster a fighter can also take some of the new feats with his fighter bonus feats that grant bonuses to the battlefield so a straight up comparison of the classes is not quite accurate. Which is better a battle spell or a better warcraft check?

RaspK_FOG
02-16-2005, 11:00 PM
Originally posted by irdeggman+Feb 17 2005, 01:25 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (irdeggman @ Feb 17 2005, 01:25 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by Athos69@Feb 16 2005, 01:01 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-irdeggman@Feb 16 2005, 06:43 AM
How many creatures can fit into a 20 ft radius area – that is roughly 314 sq ft and 1 person fits into a 5 ft sq (25 sq ft) so that would be approximately 12.5 (say 13) man size creatures.
Sorry to bring this up Duane, but there is an error in your math. The area of a 20&#39; radius circle is calculated by the formula [Pi](R^2). if R= 20&#39;, that means that the area is 3.14*400, or 1256 square feet.
Yup and if you mistakenly treat a 20 ft radius as a 20 ft diameter you make the mistake I made. Thanks. [/b][/quote]
How so? the formula is better written (and more mathematically correct) as follows:
pi * R^2, where pi is half the number of radians (the length of the radius of the circle applied as a bow-length along the perimeter of said circle), and R is the length of said radius.

What I see is that the whole problem lies in how battlefield-applied spells should work; my opinion is that spells should be more tightly fit around the default spell system. An example would be allowing a wizard casting a battle spell to affect a unit instead of an area with an area spell, and so forth...

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 11:02 PM
So you believe all unit-affecting spells should be relegated to Battle Spells? That is what seems to be suggested here. This would also eliminate all personal spells as well.

While some of the unit-affecting spells in the BRCS were battle spells in 2e, a number of them are drawn from the original realm spells in the BR rulebook.

The following 2e realm spells would be eliminated if realm spells affected only areas larger than a battlefield:
Arcane: Legion of Dead, Mass Destruction, Raze (a castle is smaller than a battlefield), Stronghold, Subversion (with units as targets), Summoning, and Transport.
Divine: Bless Army.

Arcane (BoM): Battle Fury, Defection, Feign Destruction, Inflame, and Royal Facade.
Divine (BoP): Consecrate Relic and Excommunicate.

I didn&#39;t say that the 2nd ed system wasn&#39;t broken. I think most people believe that its battle spell system was probably the worst aspect of the BR magic system.

I was trying to establish power levels of spells, if this line isn&#39;t drawn then it is really a futile exercise to try and pin down battle magic itself.

IIRC I did mention the summon spells as being suitable as realm spells due to their duration.

Also the BRCS repertoire of realm spells was already determined to be missing quite a few from the 2nd ed books and this should help restore some of the power to the package.

IMO there are 3 levels of spells in BR;

Personal (from standard spell selection)

Battle spells (as I have clarified those spells that affect a unit(s) or the battlefield and have a more limited duration than do realm spells)

Realm spells - those that affect entire provinces or have durations in the domain round measurement (e.g., most of the playtest version summmon spells)

Let&#39;s see the 2nd ed spells Stronghold, Legion of the Dead, Battle Fury (which fits better as a battle spell and on par with the Bless Unit spell, IMO), Feign Destruction, Defection all have durations that fall into the ream spell level of power. Although I think that some of them fit better as battle spells though.

While the 2nd ed description of raze fits better with the description of a battle spell - the caster must have the target within sight and do all of the preparations on the site.

Now apply both criteria to whether or not a spell should be a realm or battle spell - area of effect and/or duration. I did say both and not just area of effect.

irdeggman
02-16-2005, 11:06 PM
Originally posted by Athos69@Feb 16 2005, 02:28 PM
I see your points Osprey, but let&#39;s remember the &#39;KISS&#39; maxim.

If we have a cumbersome system where spells are open for interpretation, it will be so unwieldy and arcane (pun not intended) that few people will want to use it.

I&#39;m proposing a class of spells that will only be available to characters who have the Battle Caster feat.
i have to agree with Osprey here, but maybe for different reasons. Adding another level of spells via description like your examples causes a lot more work and bookkeeping.

How are these spells learned?

How many does a spellcaster know?

Does he gain any automatically at each level?

How many can he cast a day?

And so on. . . .

Athos69
02-17-2005, 01:33 AM
The way that I had percieved it was that the &#39;War&#39; spells were treated just like regular spells, took up regular spell slots, can be selected as the caster&#39;s &#39;free&#39; spell on gaining a level, and were available for characters to research exactly as they do for the extant PHB spells. In essence, these were additional spells to include into Chapter 3, and they are custom tailored for the battle system already. Throw in some guidelines for DMs to convert other spells to the system, and we&#39;re done.

The only thing that differentiates these spells from the rest is that in order to have access to them, one needs the Battle Caster feat.

Osprey
02-17-2005, 04:56 AM
The way that I had percieved it was that the &#39;War&#39; spells were treated just like regular spells, took up regular spell slots, can be selected as the caster&#39;s &#39;free&#39; spell on gaining a level, and were available for characters to research exactly as they do for the extant PHB spells. In essence, these were additional spells to include into Chapter 3, and they are custom tailored for the battle system already. Throw in some guidelines for DMs to convert other spells to the system, and we&#39;re done.

The only thing that differentiates these spells from the rest is that in order to have access to them, one needs the Battle Caster feat.

An immediate problem I see here is that this sort of approach outright screws sorcerers and bards. If they have to choose between personal and battle spells for their few spells known, they become even more impotent in their lack of versatility and easily-predicted handful of tricks. Not too fun to play, nor terribly balanced IMO.

The BRCS realm spell system handles this by allowing sorcerers to know realm spells in addition to the normal number of personal spells known - which makes regent sorcerers quite a bit more impressive than their unsourced kin.

This is why I prefer that Battle Magic be treated as a metamagic feat - all battle spells then rely on modified versions of personal spells known and prepared. It retains the balance of the existing class system, allowing any caster with the feat to have about the same amount of power on the battlefield as they do on the adventure scale.

Mark_Aurel
02-17-2005, 06:28 AM
There are several different layers of balance to maintain here IMO. Some completely disjointed (so read the items below as if they were separate posts) thoughts follow.

The cost must be commensurate with the effect achieved. The most precious currency in Birthright isn&#39;t GB or RP, but actions. If realm spells can achieve this or that, and are considered reasonably balanced, then the cost in terms of GB/RP for battle spells should bridge the gap between requiring a domain action versus not requiring a domain action. Otherwise, they&#39;ll be broken. Thus, these spells need to be prohibitively expensive to cast if they are to have similar effects to what established realms spells have. Allowing characters to have a significant realm level effect without requiring a domain action is a really powerful benefit that needs to be very carefully balanced.

---

As for the issue Doom brings up -- the balance of spellcasters versus non-spellcasters, I think it&#39;s a very valid concern. The designer in me thinks it would be cooler to come up with some new, unique benefits for non-spellcasters as applied to a battlefield environment, though. Off the top of my head, I can&#39;t really think of anything that&#39;d really work well to accomplish that, though. I&#39;m sure it&#39;s not an entirely insurmountable obstacle to come up with some concepts, given time. On the other hand, doing so would probably add another level of unnecessary complexity to what&#39;s supposed to be a relatively simple battle system.

It&#39;s always been a D&D paradigm that spellcasters are better at cleaning up the mooks, which is what a battlefield primarily consists of -- in a single round, a high-level spellcaster can easily slay 40 or more normal men; a fighter of a similar level would be hard pressed to do even 10 in a single round. On the other hand, the fighter would tend to be able to take a lot more damage.

Given how the unit system is basically just a further abstraction of an already fairly abstract system of personal combat, I think the &#39;use as modifier to a unit&#39; system is adequate -- at least for low- to mid-level characters. For higher-level characters, awnsheghlien, dragons, and other high-powered creatures, I think something a bit more that that is required to really show how devastating they are on a battlefield, if left unopposed by other characters or creatures of a similar caliber.

---

One idea I remember toying with in regards to battle spells was treating them as a kind of cantrip or 0-level spell on the realm spell level. Something like this: A caster could cast a single such spell in response to an invasion or something, but would required to spend a full domain action to cast multiple such spells (say 4; each having a 1-week casting time). They should be reasonably potent, but not devastating.

Incidentally, this approach also has the benefit of being tied up with an integral part of Birthright -- the realm magic level. From a design POV, I don&#39;t really see a great need for a sort of &#39;middle tier&#39; of magic between ordinary magic and realm magic, when those can already cover that ground by virtue of their own power range anyway.

---

I think part of the very basic problem here is a leveling issue. The power of a spellcaster in the domain system scales much more with level than it does for non-spellcasters. That can mean one of two things: Either high-level spellcasters are unusually powerful and too good compared to other classes, while low-level spellcasters are balanced, or high-level spellcasters are balanced, and low-level spellcasters are weak. (Note that high/low level must taken in context of the setting.) It could also be a sort of middle ground (weak low, balanced middle, strong high), but I think the former two are what needs to be concentrated on in any analysis here.

The solution could be to allow other classes to scale similarly with level (which would be &#39;better D&D,&#39; but would also mean that PCs are likely to be trounced by higher-level NPC regents, then do the trouncing themselves later) or to tone down how much the power of a spellcaster scales with level to fit better with what the other classes get. In that light, if battle spells are really a necessity, I think they need to be tied more to the domain system in the manner outlined above -- as some kind of 0-level effect. It&#39;d fit the transition from 2e to 3e/3.5e on a conceptual level as well -- in 2e, wizards and other spellcasters got a single 1st-level spell per day. Now they get that, but they also get a few 0-level spells to round out their repertoire, giving them a much-needed low-level power boost. Their power curve is still too steep at higher levels, but c&#39;est la vie, I suppose.

It seems to me that battle magic may have been devised for a few different reasons. First, to serve as filler. That was the be-all and end-all of a lot of 2e products. To have some filler material, often something that would &#39;up&#39; an existing power curve. A secondary purpose may have been to give lower-level casters &#39;something to do&#39; other than scry on people and make gold. The battle magic system itself suffered from a large number of typical 2e deficiencies, however -- a lack of playtesting and mechanical balancing (i.e. stuff was all too often balanced with &#39;role-playing restrictions&#39; in mind, leaving it wide open to be power gamed with) -- and a lack of consistency with the already existing systems in Birthright. It never seemed to me to quite fit in with the nature of the setting. The type of magic that is in Birthright doesn&#39;t scream &#39;Rain of Magic Missiles&#39; to me. &#39;Rain of Magic Missiles&#39; sounds like something Elminster would cook up.

doom
02-17-2005, 06:40 AM
On Wed, Feb 16, 2005 at 11:42:04PM +0100, irdeggman wrote:

> Travis I hope this means we`ve gotten your interest level up again.



Yep.



> I have to disagree with this concept if only for the reason that it

> makes non-blooded, non-regent spellcasters pretty much useless on the

> battlefield.



I don`t buy it. A non-blooded, non-regent spellcaster is just as

useful on the battlefield as a rogue, barbarian, or any other character

of the class is on the battlefield. That is, they all contribute

equally (assuming equal character level) to one or more heroes cards.

Thats it. No more, no less (during the battle). A blooded regent

spell caster contributes just as much, but also has the option of

spending realm level resources prior to the big shindig.



> While I see your point on balancing the effect of a 10th

> level fighter and 10th level spellcaster a fighter can also take some

> of the new feats with his fighter bonus feats that grant bonuses to the

> battlefield so a straight up comparison of the classes is not quite

> accurate. Which is better a battle spell or a better warcraft check?



Again, I would respectfully disagree. Firstly, any character can take

the warcraft skill, but really only _one_ character`s warcraft skill is

important: the general/leader of the army. If there are three

characters with equally high warcraft skills these effects don`t stack

(as they would with battle spells).



Likewise, anyone can learn and use warcraft. Only certain classes can

use battle spells. For a fighter to excel in warcraft they would have

to sink a significant portion of their overall skill points into the

skill. Even a single classed (but high INT) wizard could get a very

similar warcraft skill check with less overall skill investment. With

a single multiclass level of fighter, a wizard could easily max out the

skill and match or exceed the warcraft skill of any other character of

the same level. The same does not appear true of fighters and battle

spells.



It would be very hard to convince me that giving spellcasters something

"extra" at the tactical level is balanced (particularly as rogues get

squat except for their contribution to the Heroes card). It isn`t

balanced and never was. That being said, unbalanced battle magic is

_definitely_ part of the BR tradition. One could easily argue that

battle magic isn`t _supposed_ to be balanced and that part of the BR

universe is that when wizards take to the field, look out!

Tradition/flavor is a fine argument if that is what you believe that

the author`s intended.



Personally, I don`t find that overpowering spellcasters in army battles

(which really should be where the fighter-type regents get to shine)

makes my game more enjoyable. But then again, I also thought that the

authors of the Book of Priest/Magecraft must have been smoking some

heavy hashish when I first read the battlespells rules in 2e... so I`m

very biased on this issue.



- Doom

irdeggman
02-17-2005, 11:33 AM
And the chief editor&#39;s real plot starts to gell by re-engaging Jan and Travis muha muha muah ;)


Athos69,

Osprey makes a good point (and pretty much the same lineof thinking Ihad) about not treating battle spells as separate and unique spells. It especailly impacts elven sorcers, whichis in general what people believe is the elven preferred class since they cannot increase the number of spells known by research.

I also think using battle caster feat a semi-metamagic feat is the simpliest method.

The issue becomes do we need to document how this affects every spell in the PHB? If so then what guidelines do we need to include for people to handle all of those other spells that have been added to the "Official" WotC spell lists?


And yes Travis I agree with your opinion of the 2nd ed authors&#39; use of mind-expanding pharmaceuticals when writing the battle magic rules. Have I mentioned lately that I went to school in Ann Arbor during the 70s and 80s? I swear I saw some people on the diag in April (Annual Hash Bash day) throwing dice and muttering to themselves or maybe that was just the trees talking to me :D The colors man look at the colors

And as both Travis and Jan have pointed out a wizard on the battlefield reducing vast numbers of minions (i.e., cannon fodder) with a single spell has always been
a core theme of D&D.

And I agree with Jan&#39;s take on the entire BR battle magic system being too influenced by FR. It seemed like this was where they put their FR castoffs (including some adventures - Sword of Roele anyone?)

Rain of Magic Missiles an the Flying Unit thing come to mind as spells that just don&#39;t fit the BR theme. Plus I always had trouble seeing how a limited use spell (on a mass scale) like magic missile could be "modified" to affect 200 individuals in any meaningful way. (I mean max of 5 missiles?)

I think we will need a poll real soon to find out if we should have the traditional BR 3-tiered system - personal, battle and realm magic or just go to a 2 tiered one with personal and realm magic alone. There seems to be sufficient opinons on possibly eliminating battle magic that it deserves a vote.

Danip
02-17-2005, 01:32 PM
I support doom&#39;s take on this situation.

Balance first. Flavor second. .....and a distant third is images of flying Elminsters with every WotC spell super-sized at their fingertips.

How many of us have played a dungeon crawl where the wizard ran out of spells, but the fighters and rogues were fine to keep going? Sure wizards like to think they are all that and the cat&#39;s meow, but they might not add more to a Heros card than anyone else.

I am not against some nice flavor for spellcasters. In this thread here (http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2792&st=20#) I mentioned a possible use for NPCs and PC spellcasters on the battle board. Basically for a week or month they join a unit. By giving up their character action, they get to give the unit some balanced bonus. +2 melee, faster heal in garrison, morale bonus, and such. These bonues could have flavorful names which relate to normal spells. Balance with an equivalent hero card would be possible. Exactly what bonus they could give would be dependent upon the spellcasters know spells or deity. Plenty of room to work flavor in.

Lee
02-17-2005, 02:40 PM
In a message dated 2/16/05 5:56:05 PM Eastern Standard Time,

brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:



<< ------------ QUOTE ----------

In my opinion, the battle spell feat (and future discussion of battle

spells) should be dropped entirely. These spell effects should be

balanced by realm-level spell effects/costs. Spellcasters should add

power in proportion to their level in tactical combat; no more and no

less than a fighter (or any other class) of similar level. At the

realm level, however, spellcasters should remain a force to be feared.

By casting realm spells to buff/create/move army units BEFORE the

tactical combat begins, spellcasters remain a MAJOR strategic force.



Anyhow, thats my .0002 GB ;)



- Doom >>



I think I like this intepretation myself. It simplifies things a bit.

Only two levels of magic seems easier to sell to my newbie players than three.



Lee.

Athos69
02-17-2005, 04:11 PM
Originally posted by Osprey@Feb 16 2005, 09:56 PM

The way that I had percieved it was that the &#39;War&#39; spells were treated just like regular spells, took up regular spell slots, can be selected as the caster&#39;s &#39;free&#39; spell on gaining a level, and were available for characters to research exactly as they do for the extant PHB spells. In essence, these were additional spells to include into Chapter 3, and they are custom tailored for the battle system already. Throw in some guidelines for DMs to convert other spells to the system, and we&#39;re done.

The only thing that differentiates these spells from the rest is that in order to have access to them, one needs the Battle Caster feat.

An immediate problem I see here is that this sort of approach outright screws sorcerers and bards. If they have to choose between personal and battle spells for their few spells known, they become even more impotent in their lack of versatility and easily-predicted handful of tricks. Not too fun to play, nor terribly balanced IMO.

The BRCS realm spell system handles this by allowing sorcerers to know realm spells in addition to the normal number of personal spells known - which makes regent sorcerers quite a bit more impressive than their unsourced kin.
Having precious spell slots taken up by &#39;War&#39; spells is a complete non-sequitur for Bards -- they don&#39;t currently have any spells that would be used in battle (the whole lesser magic thing), much as Magicians, and as for Sorcerors, it is a concious choice that they will have to make.

When the Humans came to Cerillia, they were able to beat back the Sidhe because of the use of Priestly magic. We have established that the Sidhe spellcasters were by and large Sorcerors because of their chaotic natures. It wasn&#39;t necessarily the use of the cure spells, although that helped, but it was the larger number of available casters who could assist on the battlefield when comapred to the Sidhe.

Just think -- if a Sorceror were to select &#39;War&#39; spells as part of their spell palette, they would have a large advantage in a war scenario by being able to cast whatever combination of spells they need, and usually more times than an equivalent wizard could.

I personally don&#39;t see such a great disadvantage to a sorceror by making battlefield-scale spells part of the regular palette.

Note that I am in no way suggesting that Realm spells become normal spells, just those that are used in war scenarios on the battlefield.

Athos69
02-17-2005, 07:26 PM
I know that I&#39;m probably pounding my head against the wall here, but making all spells that pertain to combat on the warcard scale their own, seperate standard spells that can only be &#39;unlocked&#39;, to use an old pinball term, if the user has the Battlecaster feat is the simplest and best way to go.

This has the following advantages: It clears any ambiguity over how much damage a spell does, or how much damage the spell cures.
There is no more debate over how large an area can be covered by a particular standard spell, be it range or shape.
It fits well in the existing system as a standard spell, albeit one with prerequisited to learn it, and is &#39;cleaner&#39;.
It forces a choice to be made -- personal-scale spells for defense during a possible retreat, or battlefield-scale spells for maximum combat effectiveness?

The final item above gives Sorcerors greater flexibility in that they do not need to chose on the day of battle what to memorize, but it does limit the number of personal-scale spells they can know. It is a tradeoff, but tradeoffs are part of the core philosophy of 3E. It also gives us one more justification for the defeat of the Sidhe when the humans came to Cerillia.

On a side note, I *am* willing to write up the most common spells used in combat -- we could state that these are the ones that Cerillian spellcasters have primarily used and concentrated on over the last 2-3000 years of warfare, and through trial and error, few, if any other spells of this scale have been researched.

A disclaimer in a sidebar of "These spells are by no means an exhaustive list, but they should give DMs a starting point to detemine the statistics of otherspells that their players may want to convert for battlefield use.", along with some rough guidelines for conversion of existing spells would take care of alot of the workload.

doom
02-17-2005, 09:10 PM
On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 08:26:34PM +0100, Athos69 wrote:

> Athos69 wrote:

> I know that I`m probably pounding my head against the wall here,

> but making all spells that pertain to combat on the warcard scale their

> own, seperate standard spells that can only be `unlocked`, to use an

> old pinball term, if the user has the Battlecaster feat is the simplest

> and best way to go.



I wouldn`t say that you are pounding your head against he wall,

exactly, but I think that you need to make your case very carefully if

you wanted to convince other (or me, at least) of your position.

Again, I feel that character level is the appropriate abstract measure

of power, not what spells a particular character knows, or which

particular magic items that they posses. A wizard with a wand of

fireballs is pretty deadly, but then again so is a rogue with a

ring of invisibility. "Sergant, send out a rider to tell the left

flank to advance? What do you mean the riders aren`t coming back?

Sergant? Sergant?!? Oh hell. <gurgle>".



Say you had a situation in which groups of a dozen 1st level warriors

came up against a lone character every minute or so. How long could a

10th level wizard hold about before retreating? How long could a 10th

level fighter hold out? I`d put even money (at least) on the fighter

outlasting the wizard. Why should the spellcaster get special

tactical/battlecard consideration for their ability to deal massive

damage when, over the long haul, the fighter may very well be at least

as able to damage the enemy?



A warcard round is not specifically defined, but lets assume that it is

on the order of 10mins in length. If you do a one-to-one conventional

spell translation can I have my wizard cast 60 spells in that period?

Only 1? Either way, its arbitrary. In my opinion, a wizard would

probably only have the opportunity to cast one or two "big" spells in

that period (perhaps as the battle was initially joined) and then

perhaps a few clean up spells to help in the big fracas that follows.

That would have an effect on the battle and they would be able to save

some mojo for the next engagement. Overall, a fighter of similar level

would probably kill just as many (or more) foes AND in tactically

important positions. A cleric might kill less, but would save lives

and heal up wounded soliders and heroes alike and thus improve combat

effectiveness to a roughly equivalent level.



In short, if you buy the DMG`s assertion that all characters of the same

level are the same EL (and thus represent roughly the same threat) then

it would be very difficult to support a position that one specific type

of character was "more threating" than another on the battlefield.



- Doom

Osprey
02-18-2005, 12:04 AM
In short, if you buy the DMG`s assertion that all characters of the same
level are the same EL (and thus represent roughly the same threat) then
it would be very difficult to support a position that one specific type
of character was "more threating" than another on the battlefield.

1. I wouldn&#39;t pay much at all for that DMG assertion: my D&D experience has shown that factors like good planning and preparation, a solid combo of feats, magic items, and spells, and other such choices of character development and treasure acquisition make for a HUGE variation of real power levels in different situations. While EL&#39;s and CR&#39;s are geared primarily toward combat effectiveness, PC character levels (which supposedly equal CR) are balanced on a more general field of measure. That balance is aimed at balance on the adventure level - power is measured not only in terms of combat ability (though this does seem to remain the most-heavily weighted factor), but also versatility, range and # of skills and skill ranks.

2. When talking about PC&#39;s and their effectiveness on the battlefield, the varied combat utility of different classes of the same level become more apparent. Battles are mainly fought by large numbers of low-level characters. Thus, the battlefield environment favors those characters who can affect (in some way) large numbers of people. I do like your example of the rogue taking out enemy messengers, but that&#39;s what I would consider an example of good roleplaying, which I as a DM would give some sort of ad hoc effect after having the character make a relevant check for general effectiveness in his attempt. Also, that rogue isn&#39;t really physically a part of any hero unit anymore, is he? So the Hero Unit concept breaks down there as a way to measure his effect on the field.

By giving mages and clerics some more realistic and specific effects of personal and battle spells, we acknowledge the fact (and I insist that, given the form of the D&D magic system, this is a fact) that spellcasters are particularly effective on the battlefield - in the campaign setting, this is balanced by their relative rarity and typically low level. Does this make high-level casters a terror on the battlefield? Yes, and rightfully so. I&#39;ve played in or run enough higher-level D&D games to realize how high-level magic is such a powerful factor even at the adventure scale. All the more so for those particular spells that excel at killing hordes of minions (cone of cold, fireball, circle of death, cloudkill, etc.). The main limiter is running out of good spells, which is of course what favors warrior-types on the battlefield: staying power. This sort of balance is more apparent after 20 or more rounds of combat, though (when the mage or cleric runs out of spells and the fighter keeps on hacking), not generally equal in effect from start to finish.

3. Fighters excel in a different way: these ARE the guys who act as champions leading units to greater glory, spearheading assaults, breaking enemy formations, etc. Most warrior-type (high BAB) characters fit perfectly with the Hero Unit rules - I daresay those rules were designed mainly to express the effect this sort of character would provide to a unit. Support-type characters (bards, clerics, magicians, nobles) also fit this scheme pretty well, as they directly enhance or heal a number of surrounding characters, including the other heroes. Rogues and multiclass characters often have a harder time justifying their effectiveness on the battlefield: unless you are really, REALLY amazingly stealthy, and able to remain so for long stretches (avoiding up to 200 spot checks as you try to sneak behind the enemy unit...), isolated stealth work on the field is fairly suicidal unless you&#39;ve got some sort of brilliant escape plan (like dimension door). In other words, rogues measuring up to a fighter or combat mage on the battlefield isn&#39;t too realistic. Skirmish level, inflitrating enemy camps and castles, scouting...these are more appropriate battlefield support and covert roles in which rogues excel.

4. Bottom line: I disagree wholeheatedly that the EL/CR system remains balanced on the battlefield. I also disagree that characters of a given level all have pretty much the same overall effectiveness in a mass battle. It just doesn&#39;t hold up to closer examination - despite how simple, easy, and thus appealing the theory sounds. It&#39;s hard enough to justify much balance on the adventure scale alone, to which the PHB classes are geared.

General Comment: One thing that really breaks the battlefield bank are 50-charge magic machine guns like a wand of fireballs or staff of frost. With such a long range and dramatic area effect, there&#39;s no good reason why a mage couldn&#39;t fire one or more fireballs a minute, even accounting for lots of jostling and positioning for a clear shot, taking cover from enemy fire, etc. I still have no good answer to this issue. That&#39;s 10 or more fireballs per combat round...no fighter on earth could kill so many so quickly. And that wizard could keep it up for 4 more rounds if he was willing to burn out his brand new wand (a stretch maybe, but desperate men do desperate things).

Athos69
02-18-2005, 03:02 AM
The reason I am continuning to try to bring this point home is that because the use of these spells is so unbalancing, by allowing only a specific category of spells onto the field in the first place, with a casting time of one battle round each, in addition to upping the levels by one, this makes magic a lesser force on the field, and minimizing the unbalancing effects it has.

RaspK_FOG
02-18-2005, 08:42 AM
Look, things are meant to be a little on the rough side for non-spellcasting army units on the battlefield, if you catch my drift.

An idea would be to increase the casting time of spells from rounds to combat rounds and that they deal a relative amount of damage according to their own capacity to do so (mostly a number of "hits" equal to a factor of the spell&#39;s level); the main problem is what we do with area&#33;

Most low-level spells in D&D can deal even potentially good damage but affect only few people (or deal minimal damage to more than most); Burning Hands is a good example of that mechanic. It seems that, should we base things on level only, we would fail...

An idea would be to estimate the power level of the spell (area covered from bird&#39;s eye view/number of targets × damage factor / ([9 - spell level] / 2) or something like that...

Raesene Andu
02-18-2005, 09:28 AM
Most standard spells are unusable in a war situation for various reason (too few people targets, too small and area, etc). I went through the list of spells in the Player&#39;s Handbook and these are the ones I think have a possible battle usage.

I cut out all spells that require the caster to be right next to a unit to cast (because no wizard is going to risk that sort of stupid act), as well as all spells that effected less than 20 units (1/level) as they don&#39;t effect enough men in a unit to be effective.

Most of these would effect only a single unit, as their area isn&#39;t large enough to target more than 1 unit.

LIST OF CURRENT WAR SPELLS
· Acid Fog
· Animate Plants
· Antipathy
· Bane
· Blade Barrier
· Bless
· Blasphemy
· Call Lightning Storm
· Chaos Hammer
· Circle of Death
· Cloudkill
· Confusion
· Consecrate
· Control Water
· Control Weather
· Control Winds
· Creeping Doom
· Darkness
· Daylight
· Deeper Darkness
· Delayed Blast Fireball
· Desecrate
· Dictum
· Dispel Magic
· Earthquake
· Elemental Swarm
· Entangle
· Enthral
· Evard’s Black Tentacles
· Fire Storm
· Fireball
· Fog Cloud
· Guards and Wards
· Hallucinatory Terrain
· Holy Smite
· Horrid Wilting
· Ice Storm
· Incendiary Cloud
· Invisibility, Mass
· Meteor Swarm
· Mind Fog
· Mirage Arcana
· Mordenkainen’s Disjunction
· Move Earth
· Obscuring Mist
· Order’s Wrath
· Passwall
· Permanent Image
· Persistent Image
· Plant Growth
· Prayer
· Programmed Image
· Pyrotechnics
· Quench
· Rary’s Telepathic Bond
· Repulsion
· Reverse Gravity
· Shambler
· Silence
· Silent Image
· Sleet Storm
· Soften Earth and Stone
· Solid Fog
· Song of Discord
· Spike Growth
· Spike Stones
· Stinking Cloud
· Stone Shape
· Storm of Vengeance
· Sunburst
· Transmute Rock to Mud
· Transmute Mud to Rock
· Undeath to Death
· Unhallow
· Unholy Blight
· Wall of Fire
· Wall of Ice
· Wall of Stone etc
· Web
· Whirlwind
· Wind Wall

Mark_Aurel
02-18-2005, 09:55 AM
In short, if you buy the DMG`s assertion that all characters of the same
level are the same EL (and thus represent roughly the same threat) then
it would be very difficult to support a position that one specific type
of character was "more threating" than another on the battlefield.

Part of that assumption is circumstantial. Characters of the same EL are assumed to represent roughly the same threat -- if they are encountered in the proper circumstances. In order to represent the same threat as a fighter, a rogue needs to be able to use his sneak attack. A high-level, buck naked monk is a greater threat than a high-level, buck-naked fighter. Undead represent a far lesser threat than their CR would indicate to a party that consists of only clerics and paladins.

Part of the EL balancing mechanic is supposed to be that each party member has a different role in the overall context of the party. The fighter-types, on average, should deal more damage to large individual monsters than the spellcasters should. The rogues can deal a lot of damage in the right situation; other than that, they&#39;re useful for their skills. Spellcasters can do almost anything, but one thing they do excel at over the other characters of a party is taking down many opponents quickly. From their first sleep spell, to their days of slinging meteor swarms or double widened fireballs about, spellcasters, and the arcane ones in particular, are remarkably apt at mass destruction.

I think the battle magic system amounted to just so much crap filler, but I also think that if you want to proceed logically about things, high-level spellcasters should wield a disproportionate amount of influence on the battlefield. A flying, invisible wizard with a wand of fireballs really is the fantasy equivalent of a stealth bomber. I don&#39;t think that kind of behavior should be encouraged, but with the rules as they stand, it&#39;s an entirely possible thing to do.

The balance Birthright offered against this kind of thing to begin with was the rarity of wizards; wizards are rare, and they&#39;re powerful. Regents will logically seek to acquire them, to use as tactical assets. I think that the balance should rather be based on the effort and expense required to field a powerful wizard, than trying to change the power they have -- they should be able to do roughly the same against two units of gnolls as they should against 400 gnolls.

Thus, I think the expense of fielding a high-level wizard should be such that it would be a serious consideration for any regent. The money could be spent to equip many additional units, the time spent negotiating could be spent to establish trade routes, ruling the levels of provinces, or establishing alliances with other domans. That would be balance in a good sense -- balance in the wider context of the rules and the setting. It&#39;d make fielding a wizard sort of a high risk/high reward gambit, rather than a sure thing.

Looking at a group of PCs jointly ruling a domain, the problem may be a different one entirely, though. One way to balance that in a Birthright campaign may be to simply increase the cost of material components for powerful, battlefield-affecting spells. That&#39;d have profound effects outside the battlefield as well, and not necessarily undesirable ones. If each fireball clocks in at 1000 gp, you wouldn&#39;t see a lot of flashy magic. Of course, balancewise, Evocation is already pretty screwed in 3.5e on the adventure level.

What I consider thoroughly broken is the battle magic rules as they appeared in BoM and BoP. The problem they created was that they suddenly put the firepower of a high-level caster in low-level hands. The concept and the style didn&#39;t match at all. I thought the effects in the original boxed set were okay -- they didn&#39;t go overboard, and they were primarily for casters of mid-level or higher.

Going back to the EL system again, if one army fields a 16th-level wizard, and no one in the other army is above 4th level, the 4th level guys are screwed. The 16th-level wizard probably won&#39;t even earn XP for killing them. A DM isn&#39;t required to balance those things, but I think that putting the PCs in an adverserial relationship with anyone or anything that&#39;s way above their heads is usually more than a bit unfair, unless they have some way out of it.

Not quite sure what a fair asking price for a wizard&#39;s services would be, but something along the lines of 2-3 GB per level, along with a fairly difficult Diplomacy action, as a starting point sounds like it could be reasonable. That&#39;d put the services of Aelies for a single war at 32-48 GB, or enough money to equip 8 new units of elite infantry or knights, or build a decently-sized castle. Naturally, that cost wouldn&#39;t include casting realm spells or the like, just ordnary battlefield spellcasting. A mid-level spellcaster with a few fireballs up his sleeve would clock in at less than half of that, but I&#39;d say that would be a very reasonable price for the occasional free &#39;H&#39; achieved.

As for balancing between the various classes, I think that rogues should be allowed and encouraged to do things like sabotage, espionage, and assassination as part of a campaign, while fighters should perhaps have a more significant impact on a Hero unit than other characters, or should be able to perform special maneuvers.

In an environment where magic exists, it would also make sense that tactics evolved accordingly; formations would be more spread out, or formed so as to be able to spread out more easily in response to the potential for incoming fireballs. That&#39;s actually not an entirely ahistorical development, either -- it&#39;s how the late Roman and early Byzantine footmen fought, and is a very similar tactical system to the one used by modern infantry, from about WW2 onwards. Of course, such a system would be _less_ effective against other types of fighting more prevalent in the middle ages. Scattered footmen would be easy fodder for knights, for instance.

Mark_Aurel
02-18-2005, 10:07 AM
unless you are really, REALLY amazingly stealthy, and able to remain so for long stretches (avoiding up to 200 spot checks as you try to sneak behind the enemy unit

One thing you may need to remember here is that skill checks don&#39;t automatically succeed on a 20. Most people tend to have low Spot modifiers; a 1st-level warrior will, at best, have a +11 modifier (assuming an 18 Wisdom, Alertness, Skill Focus (Spot), and 2 ranks). That&#39;s kind of an unusual scenario, though. Usually, the modifier will be +0, and very rarely more than +4. Thus, even a mid-level rogue can easily hide from hundreds of men, as long as he gets a decent mid-20s result to begin with. Even if someone with a +4 modifier rolls a 20, he won&#39;t spot a rogue with +10 to Hide that rolled a 15.

Now, sneaking around in a more active fashion, that&#39;s tough, but not undoable, either.

What rogues would do best, would probably be to assassinate leaders of enemy units, sabotage siege equipment, and stuff like that. It&#39;d have a clear battlefield value, but it&#39;d also be more of an adventure type action than something that is done as part of the battle rules. It might be neat to have some rules like that for quick resolution, particularly with NPC rogues, though.

irdeggman
02-18-2005, 12:04 PM
A couple of comments,

Ian based on your list there are no cure spells that can be used in battle. Bad game-balance IMO and a reason not to use that system. Any system usedshould have clerics, wizards and sorcerers all of roughly equal use on the battlefield, if only in different roles.


A problem with the war spells as different standard spells but only usable on the battlefield. It absolutely screws sorcerers. Since we, as a community, have espoused the feasability and commonality of elven sorcerers. This system basically makes elves terrible on the battlefield.

A 20th level sorcerer can know at most (based on PHB rules and feats) 5 - 1st level spells, 5 - 2nd level spells, 4- 3rd level spells and 4 - 4th level spells. A 6th level sorcerer can know at most 4- 1st, 2- 2nd and 1 3rd while a 10th level sorcerer can know 5-1st, 4-2nd, 3-3rd and 2-4th.

We know from the literature that elves did not lose because of their lack of prowness on the battlefield nor due to their lack of spellcasting ability. They lost because of their lack of divine spellcasting ability (i.e., clerical magic) and possibly sheer numbers.

ConjurerDragon
02-18-2005, 12:10 PM
Mark_Aurel schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=36&t=3000

>

> Mark_Aurel wrote:

>...

>In an environment where magic exists, it would also make sense that tactics evolved accordingly; formations would be more spread out, or formed so as to be able to spread out more easily in response to the potential for incoming fireballs. That`s actually not an entirely ahistorical development, either -- it`s how the late Roman and early Byzantine footmen fought, and is a very similar tactical system to the one used by modern infantry, from about WW2 onwards. Of course, such a system would be _less_ effective against other types of fighting more prevalent in the middle ages. Scattered footmen would be easy fodder for knights, for instance.

>

Which would create an effective battlefield use for illusionists or

magicians - the sight of a spellcaster casting a fireball could make a

unit of infantery spread out - right at the moment the cavalry charges ;-)

bye

Michael

Raesene Andu
02-18-2005, 12:53 PM
Ian based on your list there are no cure spells that can be used in battle. Bad game-balance IMO and a reason not to use that system. Any system usedshould have clerics, wizards and sorcerers all of roughly equal use on the battlefield, if only in different roles.

There are no cure spells that work well in a battlefield situation if you have just a single priest casting them. My list only looks at spells that can be cast by a single caster, and most cure spells are targeted on a single individual. The mass cures only affect 1 creature/level which isn&#39;t many considering the normal unit size and in addition their level makes it unlikely that they will be used in a battle situation because there just aren&#39;t that many priests of a high enough level to cast them.

If you are talking about more than one priests at a time casting cure spells then you are looking at a unit of priests/healers, and that is a very different situation to what I believe is being discussed here.

I do not think there is any particular need to make every class roughly equal on a battlefield, mainly because it isn&#39;t very realistic and also because I don&#39;t think it can be done. Each class would fill a different role, but they aren&#39;t going to be equal when it comes to the fighting. Besides if you think it is necessary to make clerics wizards and sorcerers all roughly equal, then following that argument then you also have to make all the other classes roughly equal in power on the battlefield as well and that just can&#39;t be done. How can you make a bard useful in the heat of battle without adding in new rules specifically for bards?


A problem with the war spells as different standard spells but only usable on the battlefield. It absolutely screws sorcerers. Since we, as a community, have espoused the feasability and commonality of elven sorcerers. This system basically makes elves terrible on the battlefield.

I don&#39;t want war spells as different standard spells, I&#39;d prefer an updated version of the old battle magic system. However, no matter what system you go with you are going to have to sit down and work out what spells from the Player&#39;s Handbook have a battlefield effect, even if it is only to prevent arguments. To say that they have no effect at all beggers belief.

On the issue of elven sorcerers, I have never agreed with that idea, simply because humans learned true magic from the elves and became wizards not sorcerers, while those who were taught true magic by Azrai (i.e. not by the elves) became sorcerers. Elven magic may not be exactly as regimented as human magic, but it still follows the same basic structure.

There is something else to consider, if elves were traditionally sorcerers, then why would there now be elven wizards at all. Wouldn&#39;t the elves, the xenophobic, haughty bastards that they are stick to their traditional magic and never go anywhere near human magic? Following this logic, then this should mean that there are no elven wizards at all, just as there are no elven priests.

The only thing to suggest that elves are mainly sorcerers is that a sorcerer is a more chaotic type of caster than a wizard which is a structured ordered class, and elves are chaotic creatures in nature. However, elven nature may be the reason why not every elf will become a wizard. Few elves like magical study because it takes away some of their freedom.


We know from the literature that elves did not lose because of their lack of prowness on the battlefield nor due to their lack of spellcasting ability. They lost because of their lack of divine spellcasting ability (i.e., clerical magic) and possibly sheer numbers.

This has been argued before, and the most likely explaination is that clerical magic can be used for healing. This doesn&#39;t necessarily mean healing on the battlefield, but it does mean that humans with their clerical magic could heal faster. There is also the issue that any human can become a priest, and while every elf could be a wizard very few tie themselves down to the study of magic.

And perhaps also the human gods helped out a little? Before Deismaar the gods were must more active on the mortal plane and probably wouldn&#39;t sit by and let their followers be slaughtere by the elves. A few divine miracles here and there and priestly magic starts to look pretty good when stacked up against those pesky elves.

irdeggman
02-18-2005, 01:16 PM
I have to disagre with many of your takes here Ian,

I didn&#39;t say to make all classes equal on the battlefield I specifically called out 3 and ony three. It is important game mechanically wise, BR history-wise and just commoon sensewise to have clerics be able to cure units in some manner or another on the battlefield. Jan did a good job of pointed out that equal doesn&#39;t mean the same only that each one can contribute in a different circumstances.

As far as sorcerers and the elven propensity towards that style of castin - I don&#39;t think it at all has to to do with the elven chaotic nature but more with the inherent magic ability that powers a sorcerer and that is more reflective of the elven natural ability to be able to cast true magic without a bloodline. The text in Blood Spawn also supports this type of elven spellcasting, going all the backthe split of the Sie.

In 2nd ed there was no sorcerer class, so it is hard to make a direct comparison. It is a new class that seems to fit the elvennature best, IMO. As far as elven wizards - there is no reason they can&#39;t multi-class sorcerer/wizard. The wizard levels give them the ability to craft the magic items and perform the research necessary. Also, IMO, there are few elven wizards as compared to sorcerers. My logic here is that wizards are the real arcane power, sorcerers have natural ability but are limited in how much they know. By having fewer elven wizards this puts them back closer to the limit of true wizards in BR. Wizards are the mains soruce of magic item creation, oh wait there is also supposd to be fewer magic items in BR than other campaigns, and the source of spell research. Both of which seem to fit in a BR/3.5 logical sense to me.

By the way I really like this discussion sense it is being done respectfully and openly. It is also necesary to fine tuning a concept for the BRCS that needs doing.

A_dark
02-18-2005, 02:06 PM
ok... the thread is huge and I refuse to spend my afternoon reading it :D

I just wanted to make a small comment. An interesting idea that i heard, was that all spells used in battle are augmented for battle purposes. Even the normal fireball, if cast in a battle, it needs some tweaking. This tweaking involves having some slaves/servants running around with buckets of sulfur, instead of using a single pinch. It also means that the mage on the battlefield is not just a mage, but it is a mage with 10-20 bodyguards, 5-10 helpers using the material components, a couple of students shouting the verbal components and dancing around trying to do the somatic ones. This "unit" can die. The mage takes a great risk to fight in the battle and his life is in danger. This means that we cannot have a "stealth bomber" mage causing havoc and imabalance.

One could also have material components cost a lot more than the normal spell&#39;s.

As for sorcerers and bards etc, I don&#39;t think it is a problem. If they do not want to choose battle spells as their spells, it is their problem. Their entire class is based with the assumption that they have a limited selection of spells and that when choosing they make sacrifices. Is there some reason why they shouldn&#39;t make sacrifices and choose a battle spell instead of a normal one?

irdeggman
02-18-2005, 03:40 PM
Originally posted by A_dark@Feb 18 2005, 09:06 AM

I just wanted to make a small comment. An interesting idea that i heard, was that all spells used in battle are augmented for battle purposes. Even the normal fireball, if cast in a battle, it needs some tweaking. This tweaking involves having some slaves/servants running around with buckets of sulfur, instead of using a single pinch. It also means that the mage on the battlefield is not just a mage, but it is a mage with 10-20 bodyguards, 5-10 helpers using the material components, a couple of students shouting the verbal components and dancing around trying to do the somatic ones. This "unit" can die. The mage takes a great risk to fight in the battle and his life is in danger. This means that we cannot have a "stealth bomber" mage causing havoc and imabalance.

One could also have material components cost a lot more than the normal spell&#39;s.

That sounds the description of the effects of a metamagic feat to me. ;)

Which makes them not different spells but rather metamagic spells which then allows spells learned to be cast for a different effect. This would not reduce the effectiveness of a sorcerer or bard but would require them to spend a feat on this (since it is a metamagic feat a wizard could choose it as a bonus feat, slight benefit). Choosing a single feat vice a group of individual spells is a whole lot more balanced and less penalizing of certain classes. It also shows a focus or dedication to battlefield style performance.

In essence a battle magicized spell would have a longer casting time, more expensive component, could require assistants (worth a good discussion but still fits the concept of metamagic feats) and yields a greater effect standard spell bu tno spell slot increase.

Osprey
02-18-2005, 06:37 PM
The reason I am continuning to try to bring this point home is that because the use of these spells is so unbalancing, by allowing only a specific category of spells onto the field in the first place, with a casting time of one battle round each, in addition to upping the levels by one, this makes magic a lesser force on the field, and minimizing the unbalancing effects it has.

The problem with this is it&#39;s completely artificial. Every spellcasting player with an ounce of brainpower is going to ask the DM, "Why?" Why can&#39;t my sorcerer throw fireballs, he knows the spell? Why can&#39;t I use my wand of ice storm on that enemy formation?
And the only answer the DM will be able to provide is: because the rules say so. It&#39;s a game. It&#39;s there for balance. Blah, blah, blah...these are the worst answers any DM can give to players asking why. It&#39;s the surest sign of poor game design, in which the story/depiction of events must be terribly fudged in order to make it "fair" and "equally fun for everyone."

If we try to achieve equal balance at all levels of play for every PC regardless of class and situation, we will fail. Miserably. This is simply not a realistic goal given what we have to work with (the 3.5 core rules). Rather, we must play off the existing system and recognize (as I tried and Jan explained very well) that certain character classes and concepts each have diverse strengths and weaknesses.

In leading the charge and driving troops on to victory, fighters, paladins, and nobles will excel. They are ideal for this sort of role. This also makes them great targets for enemy spellcasters, as they don&#39;t tend to dodge too many fireballs (their main weakness in D&D, plus lack of skills for fighters and paladins).

In killing off hordes of enemy troops, well - there really is nothing better (level for level) than a true mage of mid-to-high level.

In executing commando-style tactics, the rogue and ranger are ideal. These tactics are generally best-used outside of the battle (hitting supply lines, assassinating key officers and messengers, quietly eliminating enemy scouts, playing scout to provide vital info. to the allied commanders, etc.).
The ranger has the added advantage of also being a great battlefield asset, while the rogue tends to be quite vulnerable there - low HP, light armor (Dex-based AC isn&#39;t so useful against a rain of arrows coming at your unit), and the limited usefulness of sneak attacking hamstrings his main combat ability (flanking on an enemy unit means the rogue must usually tumble through their ranks and then be alone, surrounded by enemy troops...ouch).

Clerics are also all-around tough enough, and usually armored enough, to be staunch additions on the battlefield (justifying their EL bonuses to a unit as part of an attached hero group). As Duane pointed out (and I&#39;ve been mulling on this myself), clerics would suffer the most from a system without battle magic. Without a way to extend the effect of their Mass cure spells (like through a Battle Magic MM feat), they lack the power to dramatically heal entire units with a single spell.

In the end, I&#39;m willing to compromise a degree of generic lumping of characters into hero units (it&#39;s not a perfect system, but works OK as a summary of PC and NPC battlefield effect), but I think spellcasting does need seperate and more detailed treatment. And simply "disallowing" personal spells on the field seems ridiculous to me - there&#39;s simply no believable explanation for this other than "the rules say so," and that doesn&#39;t cut it for me.

Osprey

geeman
02-18-2005, 08:30 PM
Osprey writes:



> In executing commando-style tactics, the rogue and ranger are ideal.

> These tactics are generally best-used outside of the battle (hitting

> supply lines, assassinating key officers and messengers, quietly

> eliminating enemy scouts, playing scout to provide vital info. to

> the allied commanders, etc.).



Given the potential uses of several types of magic I think the

wizard/sorcerer still comes out on top when it comes to this kind of thing.

Imagine the havoc potential that could be caused by a wizard who used the

Magic Jar spell, for example. Such a character could not only assassinate

key figures, but could potentially replace them, making for the kind of

infiltration of command/control that even modern spymasters dream of. There

are lots of arcane spells that could be used to such an effect--illusions,

polymorphing, the occasional simulacrum....



When it comes to the effectiveness of intel in a system of BR domain rules

the information that could be learned through the use of (low magic)

divination spells is right up there if not superior to the spying aspect of

rogues.



> As Duane pointed out (and I`ve been mulling on this myself), clerics

> would suffer the most from a system without battle magic. Without a

> way to extend the effect of their Mass cure spells (like through a

> Battle Magic MM feat), they lack the power to dramatically heal

> entire units with a single spell.



One thing that might vitiate this issue a little bit is that unlike wizards

the number of clerics in the BR setting is not restricted. From what I can

tell it is a bit easier to justify the existence of wizards on a battlefield

or, at least, various "conventional" spell effects than most people seem to

assume--a wand of fire is really more useful on a battlefield than the

wizard who crafts it. The wizard who crafts such an item need not even

really be around to use it. His low level apprentice or anyone capable of

wielding that item can do so. Why risk the wizard himself in such a

situation?



In the case of clerics, however, there are more of them available, so it`s

not unreasonable to assume that there could be as many as five or ten in (or

accompanying) a unit of 200 soldiers. Their prepared spells and spontaneous

casting could be an influence on the unit regardless of whether their feat

selection.



Gary

Osprey
02-18-2005, 09:06 PM
When it comes to the effectiveness of intel in a system of BR domain rules
the information that could be learned through the use of (low magic)
divination spells is right up there if not superior to the spying aspect of
rogues.

Yep...Magicians, especially the Divination specialists, make truly exceptional spymasters. Bards and arcane tricksters (rogue/wizards) are also pretty ideal in these roles...sorcerers not especially, unless they have just the right repertoire of spells for the job. Wizards and magicians are ideal on the spell side because given the typical time for preparation in espionage and recon, the ability to prepare seplls from a wider variety of choices suits them perfectly.

Magicians and Bards have Gather Info as a class skill, which makes them ideal because they would know how best to combine their magic with espionage. It would be nice to see some sort of rules or guidelines as to how this might improve their skill (i.e., grant bonuses) with the Espionage domain action.

Raesene Andu
02-18-2005, 10:29 PM
I didn&#39;t say to make all classes equal on the battlefield I specifically called out 3 and ony three. It is important game mechanically wise, BR history-wise and just commoon sensewise to have clerics be able to cure units in some manner or another on the battlefield. Jan did a good job of pointed out that equal doesn&#39;t mean the same only that each one can contribute in a different circumstances.

I realise that, but my point (and it is a little obscure I must abmit) is that there is no reason to specifically balance out clerics, sorcerers, and wizards unless you also want to balance all classes. Why are those three special in that they need to be balanced while other classes do not? My point I guess is that you either balance all the classes on the battlefield, or you balance none of them.

Sorcerers, by their very nature, don&#39;t make good spellcasters on the battlefield, while wizards and to a lesser extent clerics do. This could be seen a self-balancing mechanisim for battle magic. There aren&#39;t a lot of wizards around and wizards generally get shafted by landed regents who rule up their provinces at the expense of a wizard&#39;s source holding. They don&#39;t have an income (unless you use the virtual guild variant, in which case see above point about ruling provinces). Adding battle magic to the mix suddenly makes a wizard an even more potent ally and puts them on a more even footing with the rulers of provinces.


In 2nd ed there was no sorcerer class, so it is hard to make a direct comparison. It is a new class that seems to fit the elvennature best, IMO. As far as elven wizards - there is no reason they can&#39;t multi-class sorcerer/wizard. The wizard levels give them the ability to craft the magic items and perform the research necessary. Also, IMO, there are few elven wizards as compared to sorcerers. My logic here is that wizards are the real arcane power, sorcerers have natural ability but are limited in how much they know. By having fewer elven wizards this puts them back closer to the limit of true wizards in BR. Wizards are the mains soruce of magic item creation, oh wait there is also supposd to be fewer magic items in BR than other campaigns, and the source of spell research. Both of which seem to fit in a BR/3.5 logical sense to me.

This is a logical argument, but I do not like the idea of elven sorcerers one bit, it just feels wrong to me. Elves do have an inherent magical ability but no more so than anyone with a bloodline. Blooded humans would be more likely to become sorcerers following that argument, although I guess humans could have started as sorcerers and then become wizards later on as their magic became more structured.

This would still mean that human magic was wizards magic and that if elves were sorcerers then they couldn&#39;t become wizards at all (because they don&#39;t want to use anything elven). Remember that most of the battles between humans and elves took place before Deismaar, so it would have been elven arcane magic vs. human priestly magic.

Actually, that raises an interesting argument. If the human-elf wars are pre-Deismaar and elves are generally sorcerers, and sorcerers are less effective on the battlefield whem compared to wizards and cleric, then that shows you how the humans won. With assistance from priests trained to fight on the battlefield vs. elven sorcerers then the human had the advantage.

Angelbialaska
02-19-2005, 11:53 AM
Since when has a sorcerer been less effective than a wizard? The way I see the sorcerer is as the unflexible battletank, who is an almost limitless supply of magical power, but lacking a versatility. Because the sorcerer has no need to sleep and rememorize, they just use their spell slots, and they have a lot of those.

I&#39;m more willing to believe that the reason that the elves suffered defeat was because of the humans breeding like rabbits compared to the elves and because the clerics had access to magic that wasn&#39;t flashy, but still could do a lot on the battlefield. Elves do not have access to any sort of healing magic, which is worse than not having access to the big and flashy arcane magic.

ConjurerDragon
02-19-2005, 04:20 PM
Gary Foss schrieb:



> ...

> One thing that might vitiate this issue a little bit is that unlike

> wizards

> the number of clerics in the BR setting is not restricted.



It is restricted now in the BRCS, no sidhelien will be a priest - the

number of priests in 2E Birthright was more restricted.

2E PHB did let anyone with a Wisdom of 9+ become a priest.

In 2E Birthright however no sidhelien would be a priest and every priest

had to be a specialty priest of a god with additional benefits, however

also additional requirements, e.g. Priests of Avani had to have the

standard Wisdom of 9+, but also an Intelligence of 12+. Priests of

Halaďa had to have Wisdom 9, Strenght 9, Charisma 12. That reduced the

number of potential priests among the population.



> From what I can

> tell it is a bit easier to justify the existence of wizards on a

> battlefield

> or, at least, various "conventional" spell effects than most people

> seem to

> assume--a wand of fire is really more useful on a battlefield than the

> wizard who crafts it. The wizard who crafts such an item need not even

> really be around to use it. His low level apprentice or anyone

> capable of

> wielding that item can do so. Why risk the wizard himself in such a

> situation?



1) Trust. Handing out a Wand of Fireballs in a world where true magic is

RARE would be like sending the apprentice of a bank with a bag

containing a million euro alone on a mission to deliver it and hoping

that the apprentice would not be tempted.



2) Expenses - the BRCS and many house rules use the assumption offered

for example in the Arms&Equipment guide for supply and demand in which

supply is scarce by raising market price. A 3.5 DMG Wand of Fireballs

(5th level caster, the cheapest) costs only 11250 gp and 450XP from the

Wizard who has the Craft Wand feat. Using the Variant in the BRCS

(mistakenly labeled "low" instead of "rare" magic campaign) the cost of

creation raises to 14625 gp and 585 XP, a significant investment and a

considerable amount of personal power sacrificed.



IMO the 30% variant of the BRCS is too soft - the "Arms&Equipment" Guide

for example suggests a cost adjustment of 30-40% where demand is popular

"The commodity is currently needed or very fashionable. Merchants with

large supplies of the commodity become very rich" and availabilty

"sometimes". With Wizards rare and those who spend one of their feats

for Craft Wand more so, the entry of demand "needed, The commodity is in

great demand, and even the rich might not have enough. ...Merchants

travel large distances to bring the commodity to the area" the suggested

cost adjustment +50% sounds more approbiate - and in some ares even the

"desperate demand" with +100% would not be unreasonable.

bye

Michael

irdeggman
02-19-2005, 05:30 PM
Originally posted by ConjurerDragon@Feb 19 2005, 11:20 AM
2) Expenses - the BRCS and many house rules use the assumption offered

for example in the Arms&Equipment guide for supply and demand in which

supply is scarce by raising market price. A 3.5 DMG Wand of Fireballs

(5th level caster, the cheapest) costs only 11250 gp and 450XP from the

Wizard who has the Craft Wand feat. Using the Variant in the BRCS

(mistakenly labeled "low" instead of "rare" magic campaign) the cost of

creation raises to 14625 gp and 585 XP, a significant investment and a

considerable amount of personal power sacrificed.



IMO the 30% variant of the BRCS is too soft - the "Arms&Equipment" Guide

for example suggests a cost adjustment of 30-40% where demand is popular

"The commodity is currently needed or very fashionable. Merchants with

large supplies of the commodity become very rich" and availabilty

"sometimes". With Wizards rare and those who spend one of their feats

for Craft Wand more so, the entry of demand "needed, The commodity is in

great demand, and even the rich might not have enough. ...Merchants

travel large distances to bring the commodity to the area" the suggested

cost adjustment +50% sounds more approbiate - and in some ares even the

"desperate demand" with +100% would not be unreasonable.

bye

Michael


And the Complete Warrior suggests raising the price by 100% to 200% (i.e., 2 x or 3x). I personally lean towards this suggestion (i.e. up the market prices to +100%, except for maybe disposable items like scrolls and potions).

irdeggman
02-19-2005, 05:38 PM
This is a logical argument, but I do not like the idea of elven sorcerers one bit, it just feels wrong to me. Elves do have an inherent magical ability but no more so than anyone with a bloodline. Blooded humans would be more likely to become sorcerers following that argument, although I guess humans could have started as sorcerers and then become wizards later on as their magic became more structured.


Actually the logic of elven sorcerers extends beyond their blood and to the description of elves in the 2nd ed material. In many places the elves are described in what more suitalble fits a 3.5 sorcerer than any one else. Again I go back to the elves split from the Sie as just one source.



This would still mean that human magic was wizards magic and that if elves were sorcerers then they couldn&#39;t become wizards at all (because they don&#39;t want to use anything elven). Remember that most of the battles between humans and elves took place before Deismaar, so it would have been elven arcane magic vs. human priestly magic.

Why would it mean that elves couldn&#39;t become wizards? I don&#39;t see any connection. A wizard is a reflection of time and study vice natural ability. Elves, IMO, have a prpensity for natural ability hence a tendancy towards sorcerers but that doesn&#39;t limit them from pursuing the academic study neccessay to becaome a wizard. I can very much see how humans trying to emulate the elven mastery of the arcane had to resort to study - hence wizards vice sorcerers.


Actually, that raises an interesting argument. If the human-elf wars are pre-Deismaar and elves are generally sorcerers, and sorcerers are less effective on the battlefield whem compared to wizards and cleric, then that shows you how the humans won. With assistance from priests trained to fight on the battlefield vs. elven sorcerers then the human had the advantage.

But you have already in great depth pointed out that clerics are pretty much useless on the battlefield while wizards rule. So essentially clerics would have been a non-factor on the battlefield during the human-elven wars.

Thomas_Percy
02-19-2005, 08:46 PM
Originally posted by Raesene Andu@Feb 18 2005, 10:28 AM
LIST OF CURRENT WAR SPELLS
· Acid Fog
· (...)Wind Wall
Thanks for a good & hard work, Raesene&#33;

How do You think, this is a good grid for a typical company of Brt men-at-arms?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/Anuire/Maps/Company.jpg

Raesene Andu
02-20-2005, 10:46 PM
Originally posted by irdeggman@Feb 20 2005, 03:08 AM




Actually the logic of elven sorcerers extends beyond their blood and to the description of elves in the 2nd ed material. In many places the elves are described in what more suitalble fits a 3.5 sorcerer than any one else. Again I go back to the elves split from the Sie as just one source.

The way I see it.
Sorcerer = no training, learn spells themselves.
Wizard = training, learn spells from college, master.

Elves have a long and proud history and an advanced culture and civilisation, which has become a little xenophobic in recent years. They would have developed theories for magic, the various schools of magic, etc. Their theories might be very different from humans. I&#39;m sure a young elf wizard doesn&#39;t go and look up spells in musty old tomes, but he may study at the feat of a master wizard and learn his spells that way.

Remember, the elves did teach humans true magic, and if humans are wizards rather than sorcerers then that would suggest elves are wizards as well. The human who were taught by Azrai were sorcerers, and I&#39;m sure there are Vos and Rjurik sorcerers as well, and goblins and orogs, but I like the idea of elven wizards.

Most of my ideas of Cerilian magic come from The Shadow Stone novel by the way, that deals with the issue quite extensively. That novel has a lot of good ideas that can be used.


Why would it mean that elves couldn&#39;t become wizards? I don&#39;t see any connection. A wizard is a reflection of time and study vice natural ability. Elves, IMO, have a prpensity for natural ability hence a tendancy towards sorcerers but that doesn&#39;t limit them from pursuing the academic study neccessay to becaome a wizard. I can very much see how humans trying to emulate the elven mastery of the arcane had to resort to study - hence wizards vice sorcerers.

Because if humans had developed wizard magic, then elves are going to avoid it like the plague out of simple spite. Any elf who became a wizard would be ridiculed because he had chosen "human" magic over traditional elven methods of spellcasting. If humans had developed wizard magic then elves could not be wizards.

And if elves have always had wizards, then that negates the argument for vast hordes of elven sorcerers. If, as I have suggested, elves developed wizard magic, then most elves would be wizards because that is the traditional elven form of magic and they were the ones who taught it to humans. This would not prevent them from becoming sorcerers.

Also, if elves are wizards, then this would explain why not every elf becomes a spellcaster. It is a most regimented occupation that say a bard or ranger, so not many elves would be interested.


But you have already in great depth pointed out that clerics are pretty much useless on the battlefield while wizards rule. So essentially clerics would have been a non-factor on the battlefield during the human-elven wars.

Did I? I don&#39;t recall doing that, because I certainly don&#39;t believe that. Priests are not useless on the battlefield. The only thing I said was that standard cure spells cannot be used to affect an entire unit, unless you have a group of priests, and it would need to be a fairly large group. This doesn&#39;t mean that you can&#39;t have clerical battle magic, and in that case it would be as effective as wizard&#39;s magic, although priests would mainly have battle spells that boost a units effectivness, heal the unit, or protect the unit, rather that destruction spells like the wizard.

Raesene Andu
02-20-2005, 10:49 PM
Originally posted by Thomas_Percy@Feb 20 2005, 06:16 AM
Thanks for a good & hard work, Raesene&#33;

How do You think, this is a good grid for a typical company of Brt men-at-arms?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/Anuire/Maps/Company.jpg
That would seem fairly accurate.

Interesting to note that the fireball cannot hit much more than about 1/5 of the soldiers in the unit, and if the unit scatters, spreads out to avoid spells, then it would do even less damage.

Athos69
02-20-2005, 11:25 PM
I&#39;ve always pictured the Elves as having both Sorcerors and Wizards, most likely in a 70/30 split. This would reflect all those who felt the calling of the arcane path, and the aversion to structured study and learning. It still leaves room open for all sides of the debate...

RaspK_FOG
02-20-2005, 11:46 PM
Originally posted by Raesene Andu
Because if humans had developed wizard magic, then elves are going to avoid it like the plague out of simple spite. Any elf who became a wizard would be ridiculed because he had chosen "human" magic over traditional elven methods of spellcasting. If humans had developed wizard magic then elves could not be wizards.

And if elves have always had wizards, then that negates the argument for vast hordes of elven sorcerers. If, as I have suggested, elves developed wizard magic, then most elves would be wizards because that is the traditional elven form of magic and they were the ones who taught it to humans. This would not prevent them from becoming sorcerers.

Also, if elves are wizards, then this would explain why not every elf becomes a spellcaster. It is a most regimented occupation that say a bard or ranger, so not many elves would be interested.
Let me tell you were your logic fails:

It seems as if you cannot even begin to imagine the elves having both wizards and sorcerers from a MECHANICAL standpoint; in other words, while many elves would be having the capacity to produce any sort of mage, the most ingenious probably are wizards, while the ones with tremendous force of personality became sorcerers. While the wizard is by default a student of the eldritch arts, I have a tendency to consider every possible pathway; in this case, those who would study with an elder mage strike me more as the person who tries to tap his inner reserves and thus resembles more of a sorcerer than a wizard; in other words, I don&#39;t feel there is no study us a sorcerer, it just happens to be less formal than most teachings&#33;

As for your argument, well, while I generally agree that most elven mages would probably be sorcerers, I feel the sharing would be 40/60; what I feel I should intone is that the arcane spellcasters might probably be more like 35/50/15 wiz/sor/brd... In any case, I believe that wizards originated from elves (unlike sorcerers who originated from dragons) but still were much prefered from humans because there was no racial superiority in being a sorcerer as a human.

Osprey
02-21-2005, 05:56 AM
In Cerilia, where all non-elven true mages are blooded scions, there is a tendency for the blooded to be born of the ruling classes, be they land, law, temple, guild, or source regents and their retinues.

In the political arena, especially a more sophisticated one like Anuire, Khinasi, or Brechtur, the choice between wizard or sorcerer becomes heavily weighted in favor of the wizard. The reason&#39;s simple: wizards are far more versatile in their arcane powers, and since neither wizards nor sorcerers have much mundane power (weak skill sets, weak combatants), their magical utility becomes their main political value.

The competitive nature of the political world demands a degree of versatility that few sorcerers can provide. Thus I believe the wizard would be far more common among "civilized" humans than sorcerers.

Elves, well...I really like wizards a lot more than sorcerers as a PC class, so I&#39;m biased. Neither class has a very interesting array of skills, though at least wizards have the range of craft, knowledge, and profession skills, and INT as a favored attribute (so more skills). Sorcerers would be so much cooler if they had some CHA-based social skills - which at least makes Anuirean and Khinasi sorcerers more interesting since they have some useful racial skills (Diplomacy, Knowledge, Sense Motive). I&#39;ve also tried out a few of the new magicians, and found them to be far more interesting PC&#39;s to play...their blend of versatile skills, decent combat ability, and helpful magics make them both rivals with and powerful complements to bards and clerics (the other &#39;support&#39; classes). With such balance achieved, I am quite interested in the idea of elven magicians...for those Sidhelien who prefer a more versatile, and thus less restrictive class, it&#39;s a great class, as is the bard.

Anyways, among elves I can see validity in both sides of the ongoing discussion. The spontaneous, intuitive nature of sorcery really favors a chaotic race more than a structured, scholarly sort of magic. I just wish elven sorcerers weren&#39;t so...boring. In truth I prefer bards over sorcerers for the really chaotic, passionate sorts of elves - while elven wizards might be hyper-focused and absent minded, or those history buffs who are all about the past, traditions, rituals...I still reckon elven wizards would lean away from chaos more than most elves.

Like other societies, I consider "arcane casters" the favored class for PC/NPC elven characters of exception. Most elves are probably experts of some sort, which trims down the number of potential mages quite a lot.

I&#39;d place bards and magicians as the most common arcane casters, then sorcerers and wizards - c. 35/25/20/20% respectively. This assumes most sorcerers would likely be multiclass characters, and many wizards as well - it&#39;s hard to imagine anyone, especially a Sidhelien, being content with only the study of arcane magic and lore for century after century.

Osprey
02-21-2005, 06:56 AM
Originally posted by Raesene Andu+Feb 20 2005, 06:49 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Raesene Andu @ Feb 20 2005, 06:49 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Thomas_Percy@Feb 20 2005, 06:16 AM
Thanks for a good & hard work, Raesene&#33;

How do You think, this is a good grid for a typical company of Brt men-at-arms?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/Anuire/Maps/Company.jpg
That would seem fairly accurate.

Interesting to note that the fireball cannot hit much more than about 1/5 of the soldiers in the unit, and if the unit scatters, spreads out to avoid spells, then it would do even less damage. [/b][/quote]
I thought the diagram was good work, too.

I&#39;ve been thinking about real space (as opposed to abstract D&D terms) used by a unit.

One 5&#39; square per man seems like a slightly loose formation...pikemen, halbadiers, spearmen, and shield-wall infantry might pack in at 3&#39; per man.

Axemen and swordsmen would use 5&#39; apiece in an offensive formation, so the diagram works pretty well for them.
5&#39; apiece is decent for a line of archers, too.

10&#39; apiece is about right for a cavalry formation, though I&#39;ve always assumed a cavalry company is far fewer than an infantry company - as few as 40 horsemen, no more than a hundred per company. Horses do add to the EL of a unit - but I also assume that many regular or veteran cavalrymen are better than 1st level warriors. In fact, I prefer that any professional soldier (like a knight or mercenary, for example) be a fighter by default, not a warrior. These guys fight for a living, some are born and bred for it - with PC levels they have a higher CR, so there are less of them needed to make an effective unit. Veteran companies are probably comprised of a number of fighters of 1st and higher levels.

In medieval battles, a line of battle formation often spread the units out pretty thin - so a 10-squad wide line of battle might be fairly common too (wish I knew how to do a nifty diagram on here).

Actual loose formation would probably be a 5&#39; space added between each soldier. The company spreads out to minimize missile and artillery/magic damage (a unit morale save vs. an incoming spell might represent the unit spreading to loose formation in time).

In 5&#39; "normal" [diagram] formation (5x2), the fireball could hit no more than 36 men at once, less than a fifth of the men. And after the first hit, the company&#39;s not likey to stand around for target practice to continue.

The dimensions of a loose formation unit would be twice the diagram&#39;s. Which means a single fireball would catch only a handful of soldiers, perhaps most of one squad...1/10 of a company, barely a scratch. If your average company has 2 hits and 200 troops, then it would take at least 10 fireballs (assuming they all stand around and take it without moving) to destroy the company. Not exactly economical, even with a wand of fireballs.

On the other hand, 2 widened fireballs (40&#39; radius spread) would obliterate the basic formation in quick succession. But Widen Spell, at +3 spell level (a widened fireball takes a 6th level spell slot), will keep this a rare sight on the battlefield.

Battle Magic could expand the effect of spells in two ways: by widening the area from a single point (like widen spell), or by multiplying a basic effect many times over (a favorite of the 2e system, but obviously disliked by many). Multi-spells make a degree of sense: if the spells are designed for the battlefield, volleys would work best against entire companies for overall effect. A volley of several (3+) normal fireballs would get better overall coverage than one widened fireball.

Also, there&#39;s a good logic to multi-spells and widened spells if battle magic is primarily ritual magic (with a 5-10 minute casting time). Ritual is all about repetition - chanting, gesturing, repeat...building up power, shaping, growing, repeating in cycles...Each cycle could produce another copy of the spell, or feed one powerful central &#39;form&#39; of the spell.

Chanting invocations and wards like bless, shield of faith, prayer, etc. work really well as a continuous-effect sort of spell: the initial casting time is probably short (a minute or two perhaps), but the spell must be maintained by the clerics continuing to chant and pray.


Some conceptual stuff to float into the mix.
Osprey

Thomas_Percy
02-21-2005, 09:52 AM
There is a diagram for a Knight Company, but there are only 100 warriors there:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/Anuire/Maps/KCopmany.jpg

My knights are:

KNIGHT: Human Ftr2/Ari2; Medium Humanoid; CR 3;
HD 2d8+2d10+4; hp 15;
Init +0; Spd 20 ft/x3;
AC 20[28 cover] (+8 full plate, +2 shield), touch 10, flat-footed 20;
Base Atk/Grapple +3/+5;
Full Atk +5 (1d8+2[2d8+4 with Spirited Charge]; 19-20/x2, Longsword),
+5 (1d8+4[3d8+12 with Spirited Charge]; 20/x3, Lance),
+3 Two-handed (1d8; 19-20/x2, Light Crossbow);
SV Fort +4, Ref +0[+4+Improved Evasion, cover], Will +4;
Str 14(+2), Dex 10(+0), Con 12(+1), Int 12(+1), Wis 12(+1), Cha 14(+2);
Skills: Craft (siegecraft) +2, Diplomacy +12, Intimidate +3, Knowledge (nobilty) +3, Knowledge (religion) +2, Knowledge (stewardship) +8, Listen +2, Perform (dancing) +3, Ride +7, Sense Motive +9, Spellcraft +2, Spot +2, Survival +2.
Feats: Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Trample, Spirited Charge, Mount Strength (mount’s Str bonus instead of raider’s Str bonus durning charge).
Possessions: Potions & oils: Protection from evil, oil of Magic weapon, Heavy Warhorse

HEAVY WARHORSE, Large Animal, CR 2
HD 4d8+12, hp 30,
Init +1, Spd 35 ft (50 ft without barding).
AC 20 (–1 size, +1 Dex, +6 banded barding, +4 natural), touch 10, flat-footed 19
Atk +6 melee (1d6+4, 2 hooves) and +1 melee (1d4+2, bite)
SQ: Low-light vision, scent
Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +2
Str 18, Dex 13, Con 17, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 6
Skills & Feats: Listen +5, Spot +4
Endurance, Run

ConjurerDragon
02-21-2005, 10:10 AM
Osprey schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=36&t=3000

>

> Osprey wrote:

> QUOTE (Raesene Andu @ Feb 20 2005, 06:49 PM) QUOTE (Thomas_Percy @ Feb 20 2005, 06:16 AM) Thanks for a good & hard work, Raesene!

>

>How do You think, this is a good grid for a typical company of Brt men-at-arms?

>

>(IMAGE: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/Anuire/Maps/Company.jpg)

>-----------------------------

>

>

>That would seem fairly accurate.

>

>Interesting to note that the fireball cannot hit much more than about 1/5 of the soldiers in the unit, and if the unit scatters, spreads out to avoid spells, then it would do even less damage.

>-----------------------------

>

>

> I thought the diagram was good work, too.

>

>I`ve been thinking about real space (as opposed to abstract D&D terms) used by a unit.

>

>One 5` square per man seems like a slightly loose formation...pikemen, halbadiers, spearmen, and shield-wall infantry might pack in at 3` per man.

>

>Axemen and swordsmen would use 5` apiece in an offensive formation, so the diagram works pretty well for them.

>5` apiece is decent for a line of archers, too.

>

>10` apiece is about right for a cavalry formation, though I`ve always assumed a cavalry company is far fewer than an infantry company - as few as 40 horsemen, no more than a hundred per company. Horses do add to the EL of a unit - but I also assume that many regular or veteran cavalrymen are better than 1st level warriors. In fact, I prefer that any professional soldier (like a knight or mercenary, for example) be a fighter by default, not a warrior. These guys fight for a living, some are born and bred for it - with PC levels they have a higher CR, so there are less of them needed to make an effective unit. Veteran companies are probably comprised of a number of fighters of 1st and higher levels.

>

>In medieval battles, a line of battle formation often spread the units out pretty thin - so a 10-squad wide line of battle might be fairly common too (wish I knew how to do a nifty diagram on here).

>

>Actual loose formation would probably be a 5` space added between each soldier. The company spreads out to minimize missile and artillery/magic damage (a unit morale save vs. an incoming spell might represent the unit spreading to loose formation in time).

>

>In 5` "normal" [diagram] formation (5x2), the fireball could hit no more than 36 men at once, less than a fifth of the men. And after the first hit, the company`s not likey to stand around for target practice to continue.

>

>The dimensions of a loose formation unit would be twice the diagram`s. Which means a single fireball would catch only a handful of soldiers, perhaps most of one squad...1/10 of a company, barely a scratch. If your average company has 2 hits and 200 troops, then it would take at least 10 fireballs (assuming they all stand around and take it without moving) to destroy the company. Not exactly economical, even with a wand of fireballs.

>

>On the other hand, 2 widened fireballs (40` radius spread) would obliterate the basic formation in quick succession. But Widen Spell, at +3 spell level (a widened fireball takes a 6th level spell slot), will keep this a rare sight on the battlefield.

>

>Battle Magic could expand the effect of spells in two ways: by widening the area from a single point (like widen spell), or by multiplying a basic effect many times over (a favorite of the 2e system, but obviously disliked by many). Multi-spells make a degree of sense: if the spells are designed for the battlefield, volleys would work best against entire companies for overall effect. A volley of several (3+) normal fireballs would get better overall coverage than one widened fireball.

>

>Also, there`s a good logic to multi-spells and widened spells if battle magic is primarily ritual magic (with a 5-10 minute casting time). Ritual is all about repetition - chanting, gesturing, repeat...building up power, shaping, growing, repeating in cycles...Each cycle could produce another copy of the spell, or feed one powerful central `form` of the spell.

>

>Chanting invocations and wards like bless, shield of faith, prayer, etc. work really well as a continuous-effect sort of spell: the initial casting time is probably short (a minute or two perhaps), but the spell must be maintained by the clerics continuing to chant and pray.

>Some conceptual stuff to float into the mix.

>Osprey

>

The view you both present is a purely gamemechanical view. How much men

are killed by the fireball in which formation and that then the army

unit will quickly change formation to render more fireballs less

effective - as if a fireball would be just some minor nuisance that the

other soldiers ignore and if a fireball would be a common sight on the

battlefield that is more threatening than a mounted charge.



Neither of you take into account that Knights or any other sort of

cavalry will be a far more common sight on the battlefield than a True

Wizard. An infantery unit in loose formation begs for a cavalry charge

that would quickly rout them.



That after the first fireball hits, "...the company`s not likey to

stand around for target practice to continue..." would mean that they

immediately scatter into a loose formation, as every infantery soldier

in Birthright is used to the sight of fireballs and knows their range of

effect? No, I would think that after the first fireball hits an army

unit that the original 2E "Rout" result is the most likely to represent

the effects of a fireball. True Magic is rare, powerful and to the eye

of the uninitiated (=every NPC soldier) horrific to behold. Unless you

assume that not only the army units that accompany a wizard are trained

in supporting his magic, but all others are trained in knowlegde about

the arcane arts as well and could calmly stand the sight of their

comrades incinerated next to them (regardless if a 3rd or a 5th of the

unit turns to ashes - the result should be that everyone in that unit

who is not a PC routs and the PC suffers the effects of a fireball spell).

bye

Michael

Mark_Aurel
02-21-2005, 03:57 PM
To be realistic, a fireball would have tremendous impact on a unit, even if it only killed a fraction of the men. It would outright kill just about anyone that is hit by it, which is unusual in and of itself -- most of the time, most people will get off a battlefield alive, even if many are injured. A fireball would have a tremendous impact on morale, and to me, a &#39;hit&#39; has always been a bit about lowering morale a bit, causing many to scatter and hesitate, breaking up the unit, as much as just killing or incapacitating a third of the men in the unit.

Thomas_Percy
02-21-2005, 04:34 PM
ConjurerDragon & Mark Aurel.

Modern soldiers stand up and fight in a fire of terrible bombs coming from nowhere.
Napoleon&#39;s cavalry stood in the fire of cannons all the battle.
If we call the magic an artillery of D&D battlefield, there is nothing ususual in the courage of men-at-arms fighting the Fireballs.

Yours opinion is true, only if we are treating the magic as mystery, thing unknown to commoners, but it is impossible if we are using unmodified D&D system.

Osprey
02-21-2005, 04:38 PM
The view you both present is a purely gamemechanical view. How much men
are killed by the fireball in which formation and that then the army
unit will quickly change formation to render more fireballs less
effective - as if a fireball would be just some minor nuisance that the
other soldiers ignore and if a fireball would be a common sight on the
battlefield that is more threatening than a mounted charge.

Neither of you take into account that Knights or any other sort of
cavalry will be a far more common sight on the battlefield than a True
Wizard. An infantery unit in loose formation begs for a cavalry charge
that would quickly rout them.

Well, that is the main disadvantage of loose formation - it is quite vulnerable to any melee charge/attack, especially a thundering cavalry charge. However, I also couch my vision of the battlefield in a bigger arena than the tiny 3x5 warcard battle map. As such, fireballs (as long range spells) might be hitting units well before the cavalry could, potentially giving a unit time to spread out then reform before the melee begins.


That after the first fireball hits, "...the company`s not likey to
stand around for target practice to continue..." would mean that they
immediately scatter into a loose formation, as every infantery soldier
in Birthright is used to the sight of fireballs and knows their range of
effect?
No, every soldier need not know what to do...just the company commander. In a well-disciplined unit, the sergeants repeat the commander&#39;s orders, and the squads do what their sergeants tell them to. That&#39;s the ideal, at least. While most commanders probably aren&#39;t familiar with arcane magic on the field, they should know what do when under fire from arrows or artillery - and fireballs are fairly similar to flaming pitch or scattershot from catapults. While the first fireball might hit them by surprise, it&#39;s unlikely that a decent commander would allow it to happen again - unless he&#39;s under strict orders to hold, in which case he&#39;s in deep trouble.

Now, what I DO think is that most any unit should be forced to make a Morale check to avoid routing whenever they get hit by an obvious spell effect (I was thinking that a Morale check vs. the spell DC seemed reasonable). I don&#39;t think the unit should route automatically, though, this doesn&#39;t account for the effects of strong leaders or elite discipline in the face of the unknown.


No, I would think that after the first fireball hits an army
unit that the original 2E "Rout" result is the most likely to represent
the effects of a fireball. True Magic is rare, powerful and to the eye
of the uninitiated (=every NPC soldier) horrific to behold. Unless you
assume that not only the army units that accompany a wizard are trained
in supporting his magic, but all others are trained in knowlegde about
the arcane arts as well and could calmly stand the sight of their
comrades incinerated next to them (regardless if a 3rd or a 5th of the
unit turns to ashes - the result should be that everyone in that unit
who is not a PC routs and the PC suffers the effects of a fireball spell).
bye
Michael

While true arcane magic might be rare, magic in general isn&#39;t quite so rare; clerics can do some pretty impressive things, too, and while the common soldier may not witness such miracles too often, it is common enough that the miraculous or terrifying aspects of magic would be less of a shock than say in medieval Europe.

No one&#39;s saying the soldiers would remain calm while their comrades were incinerated, but neither do I assume that seeing such a sight would automatically send the entire company fleeing from the field in terror. It&#39;s quite possible, hence my idea for a difficult morale check (usually DC 16 or higher for a fireball, plus any penalties for damage already taken). A typical uninjured unit of regular infantry, pikes, or archers, at +4 morale, would succeed on a 12+ against DC 16, which means they would route 55% of the time (more often than not). A damaged unit (at -2 morale) would route 65% of the time (needing a 14+ to hold).

This is also one area where a wizard&#39;s Warcraft skill might play a role: by strategically targeting commanders or key squads, perhaps the morale DC of his spell could be raised higher - hit &#39;em where it hurts, right?

Osprey
02-21-2005, 04:59 PM
Modern soldiers stand up and fight in a fire of terrible bombs coming from nowhere.
Napoleon&#39;s cavalry stood in the fire of cannons all the battle.
If we call the magic an artillery of D&D battlefield, there is nothing ususual in the courage of men-at-arms fighting the Fireballs.

Yours opinion is true, only if we are treating the magic as mystery, thing unknown to commoners, but it is impossible if we are using unmodified D&D system.

True, but keep in mind that Napolean&#39;s army was exceptional in its discipline and organization, the first full-sale army built on what became the foundations of modern military science. It&#39;s one of the reasons they were so successful. It&#39;s also the reason all of Europe and beyond copied and improved upon Napolean&#39;s armies for the next century or so.

Also, by Napolean&#39;s time cannon artillery and muskets were commonplace, regular features of the battlefield, and those cavalry you mention were likely veterans of such battles, and trained in preparation to face those conditions.

I don&#39;t think true magic is unheard of, but I&#39;d never assert that it&#39;s standard on the BR battlefield - most smaller battles probably wouldn&#39;t have wizards in them, and almost never more than one per side. We&#39;re not using the unmodified D&D system, we&#39;re using one where true magic is rare and exceptional, and most commoners will never witness a single true magic spell in their lifetime.

However, veterans of many battles will almost certainly have witnessed true magic on the field - it&#39;s so incredibly useful that I expect many regents would go out of their way to have a mage on their side. Mages may be rare, but the majority of them are connected to the nobility, and many source regents have standing agreements or at least friendly relations with one or more landed regents.

It&#39;s hard for me to imagine that if Gavin Tael were waging a major battle against a neighboring realm, he wouldn&#39;t call on or hire the Sword Mage to aid his forces. Same goes for Avanil and Harold Khorien, Boeruine and Torele Anviras, and possibly Endier/Caine, Aerenwe/Aelies, Osoerde/Swamp Mage, Medoere/Hermedhie, and anywhere else a court wizard is maintained or a true mage is an ally (and I expect a decent number of blooded families might have a true mage as kin). Those are just the source regents, which only account for a fraction of the true mages out there.

Rare as true magic might be, it ends up looking like a surprisingly common occurence on major battlefields of Cerilia, and a guarantee in any conflict with the elves. This doesn&#39;t mean most soldiers will have been in a unit hit by true magic, but it does suggest that veterans will have witnessed it, and possibly even know what to do in the face of it (like duck and cover). Which all feeds into the morale score of the unit...

The Jew
02-21-2005, 05:44 PM
Originally posted by "Osprey"
Well, that is the main disadvantage of loose formation - it is quite vulnerable to any melee charge/attack, especially a thundering cavalry charge. However, I also couch my vision of the battlefield in a bigger arena than the tiny 3x5 warcard battle map. As such, fireballs (as long range spells) might be hitting units well before the cavalry could, potentially giving a unit time to spread out then reform before the melee begins.

but any decent general will make sure that the fireballs starft when the cavalry is charging or about to charge. With fireballs accuracy, the barrage could be kept up to the very instant before the calvary hits.

A tactic on the battlefield during the early 1800&#39;s (maybe before and after, but i don&#39;t know) was to keep a unit of cavalry on the wings when group of musketeers A attacked group of musketeers B. To effectively fight the musketeers group B needed to be in a line. To not be slaughtered by the cavalry group B needs to be in a square. Therefore group B could would be forced into a square and then destroyed with relatively few losses by musketeers A.

irdeggman
02-21-2005, 09:41 PM
The way I see it.
Sorcerer = no training, learn spells themselves.
Wizard = training, learn spells from college, master.

Close but where did the first wizard come from? It also doesn&#39;t help to explain the 3.5 rule for automatically adding spells to a wizard&#39;s spellbook when leveling up. Pushing themselves to learn and study makes much more headway in incorporating itself into the game rule mechanics wise.


Elves have a long and proud history and an advanced culture and civilisation, which has become a little xenophobic in recent years. They would have developed theories for magic, the various schools of magic, etc. Their theories might be very different from humans. I&#39;m sure a young elf wizard doesn&#39;t go and look up spells in musty old tomes, but he may study at the feat of a master wizard and learn his spells that way.

Again, this isn&#39;t mutally exclusive. You seem to think that just because the race has a natural tendency towards the arcane they can&#39;t choose on the individual level to study (hence become wizards) vice rely on their natural ability (i.e., sorcerers). And why wouldn&#39;t the elves have great libraries of stored knowledge? In fact the PS of Tuarhievel states there are still Universities, magecraft schools and bardic colleges in existence there today.


Remember, the elves did teach humans true magic, and if humans are wizards rather than sorcerers then that would suggest elves are wizards as well. The human who were taught by Azrai were sorcerers, and I&#39;m sure there are Vos and Rjurik sorcerers as well, and goblins and orogs, but I like the idea of elven wizards.

This might be the crux of the matter. I haven&#39;t found in any of the BR material where it states that elves taught humans true magic. It does say that all bardic lore cames from the elves (BR RB pg 13-14). In the BoM (pg 8) that "Some of the human races - especially the Basarji and Masetians - were familiar with magic long before arriving in Cerillia. . .Over centuries they learned to channel Cerilia&#39;s mebhail to work more elaborate enchantments than they wer previously able to cast."

And then

"Other human races were first exposed to magic when they encoutnered teh Sidhelien. Some humans who carried the potential to wield magic felt a spark ignite within them upon observing Sidhelien wizards; they watched and imitated the elves until they taught themselves rudimentary spellcasting. A few rare, extraordinarily handsome individuals found acceptance among the elves and studied under Sidhelien sorcerers before increasing human encroachment in elven forests irreparably sundered relationships between the races."

This doesn&#39;t state that the elves taught humans true magic only that some humans might have had some Sidhelien tutors


Most of my ideas of Cerilian magic come from The Shadow Stone novel by the way, that deals with the issue quite extensively. That novel has a lot of good ideas that can be used.

There can be danger is using a novel to try to capture a game mechanic. Novels and game mechanics are written with different things in mind. A novel will nclude a description of a great battle (or something like it) that can&#39;t be done using game-mechanics but is colorful and reads well.



QUOTE
Why would it mean that elves couldn&#39;t become wizards? I don&#39;t see any connection. A wizard is a reflection of time and study vice natural ability. Elves, IMO, have a prpensity for natural ability hence a tendancy towards sorcerers but that doesn&#39;t limit them from pursuing the academic study neccessay to becaome a wizard. I can very much see how humans trying to emulate the elven mastery of the arcane had to resort to study - hence wizards vice sorcerers.



Because if humans had developed wizard magic, then elves are going to avoid it like the plague out of simple spite. Any elf who became a wizard would be ridiculed because he had chosen "human" magic over traditional elven methods of spellcasting. If humans had developed wizard magic then elves could not be wizards.

Again I didn&#39;t say that humans developed wizardly magic. I said that it was the only way they could emulate the elven natural mastery over the arcane. And gosh the BoM backs this one up.


And if elves have always had wizards, then that negates the argument for vast hordes of elven sorcerers. If, as I have suggested, elves developed wizard magic, then most elves would be wizards because that is the traditional elven form of magic and they were the ones who taught it to humans. This would not prevent them from becoming sorcerers.

Also, if elves are wizards, then this would explain why not every elf becomes a spellcaster. It is a most regimented occupation that say a bard or ranger, so not many elves would be interested.

I still don&#39;t see the necessity of this arguement. I also see based on the 2nd ed materila the fact that humans and elves both developed separate means of capturing true magic. Same results but arrived at from different means. Again where does it state that elves taught humans true magic? Even the BoM text I quoted would have been that elves taught some humans magic, but they would only be able to learn lesser magic since they didn&#39;t have elven blood and Desmaar hadn&#39;t occured yet.



QUOTE
But you have already in great depth pointed out that clerics are pretty much useless on the battlefield while wizards rule. So essentially clerics would have been a non-factor on the battlefield during the human-elven wars.



Did I? I don&#39;t recall doing that, because I certainly don&#39;t believe that. Priests are not useless on the battlefield. The only thing I said was that standard cure spells cannot be used to affect an entire unit, unless you have a group of priests, and it would need to be a fairly large group. This doesn&#39;t mean that you can&#39;t have clerical battle magic, and in that case it would be as effective as wizard&#39;s magic, although priests would mainly have battle spells that boost a units effectivness, heal the unit, or protect the unit, rather that destruction spells like the wizard.

That was the result of the listing of standard spells that work on the battlefield. Next to none are clerical and non of the healing ones made that list.

Thomas_Percy
02-21-2005, 09:44 PM
My opinion about elven Wiz/Sor.
Let the players decide. Let them play what they want.

irdeggman
02-21-2005, 09:52 PM
Originally posted by Thomas_Percy@Feb 21 2005, 04:44 PM
My opinion about elven Wiz/Sor.
Let the players decide. Let them play what they want.
And that is why the sanctioned Chap 1 has for elves.

•Favored Class: Any one arcane spell casting class.

To reflect their natural propensity towards any arcane class (bard, magician, sorcerer or wizard)

geeman
02-21-2005, 10:30 PM
At 05:35 PM 2/21/2005 +0100, Thomas_Percy wrote:



>Modern soldiers stand up and fight in a fire of terrible bombs coming from

>nowhere.

>Napoleon`s cavalry stood in the fire of cannons all the battle.

>If we call the magic an artillery of D&D battlefield, there is nothing

>ususual in the courage of men-at-arms fighting the Fireballs.

>

>Yours opinion is true, only if we are treating the magic as mystery, thing

>unknown to commoners, but it is impossible if we are using unmodified D&D

>system.



Three points:



First, I think we should be careful of over-stating the capacity of modern

soldiers to stand up to explosions and bombs. Such things do have effects

upon the morale, fighting cohesion and overall effectiveness of modern

units despite the fact that they are familiar with the concepts behind how

they work and they are, essentially, not mystical or magical to them. Such

effects are beyond the physical injuries that might be caused by these

kinds of attacks. When it comes to the numbers that are represented by a

large scale unit a "hit" isn`t any more or less abstract than a hp, and one

should take into consideration things like the overall unit`s combat

effectiveness when portraying the effects of magic on a battlefield. I`ve

read more than a few interviews with modern soldiers reveal that they were

very much effected by bombing and artillery even when not actually

physically damaged by it.



Second, even if magic is a foreseeable thing on the battlefield, the

majority of troops are still going to be more affected by them in a BR

campaign than would be the norm in another campaign setting because the

relative scarcity of that magic makes it much less likely that they would

be trained to deal with it. Modern troops go through an extensive training

process that is mostly absent among the types of units portrayed in the BR

system. Even those troops that have extensive training--heavy cavalry or

elite infantry--are pretty unlikely to have trained for wizards throwing

magic at them. Such magic and its casters are rare enough and valuable

enough that it is probably not going to be employed in training exercises

for companies of soldiers. It certainly could be--and a few rules to

adjudicate such training would be nice--but we should assume that it isn`t.



Lastly, the individual soldiers that make up the units are very likely

commoners for whom arcane magic is rare and mysterious. It would be much

more effective psychologically for that reason and, therefore, more of an

effect on the battlefield than might be typical of a setting where

Fireballs and Meteor Storms were more prevalent. Even in such settings,

I`d argue, the effect would probably be more rare than it is amongst the

typical adventuring party, but in BR the power of a wizard would be very

unusual to the common NPC soldier.



Gary

Thomas_Percy
02-21-2005, 11:12 PM
Originally posted by geeman@Feb 21 2005, 11:30 PM
Second, even if magic is a foreseeable thing on the battlefield, the

majority of troops are still going to be more affected by them in a BR

campaign than would be the norm in another campaign setting because the

relative scarcity of that magic makes it much less likely that they would

be trained to deal with it.
Maybe this is a good conclusion.
I know I&#39;m at Brt community, but I&#39;m writing about classical D&D, and my opinions are from outside.
A magic can be handled different in Brt, different in FR, Greyhawk or Eberron.


I`ve read more than a few interviews with modern soldiers reveal that they were very much effected by bombing and artillery even when not actually physically damaged by it.
My father is a soldier, he ran against Germans&#39; and Ukrainians&#39; machine guns durning WWII, and as I understand that was not a question of courage only, but of special military mentality, some kind of gregarious (sociable) instinct (no offense intended). And high-level Russian blackguards behind :).

Mark_Aurel
02-22-2005, 11:39 AM
Originally posted by Thomas_Percy@Feb 21 2005, 05:34 PM
ConjurerDragon & Mark Aurel.

Modern soldiers stand up and fight in a fire of terrible bombs coming from nowhere.
Napoleon&#39;s cavalry stood in the fire of cannons all the battle.
If we call the magic an artillery of D&D battlefield, there is nothing ususual in the courage of men-at-arms fighting the Fireballs.

Yours opinion is true, only if we are treating the magic as mystery, thing unknown to commoners, but it is impossible if we are using unmodified D&D system.
No, you&#39;re quite mistaken. Modern soldiers *don&#39;t* stand up and fight in those conditions. They move in small groups, get as much cover as possible, and won&#39;t take unnecessary risks. They don&#39;t assemble in neat groups on a battlefield anymore. That approach became outdated circa World War 1.

Prior to that, you had a system where soldiers would line up and shoot at each other. That required very strict discipline, however, and was made possible by the extreme disciplinary measures that were still available at the time.

As for magic as a mystery, it isn&#39;t entirely unknown in Cerilia, no. But people wouldn&#39;t voluntarily walk into fireballs anyway, and they&#39;d most likely disperse if subjected to one. Also, the number of spellcasters in Cerilia is supposed to be extremely limited, particularly among humans. Most wars really should be fought without seeing as much as the shadow of a fireball.

You see, the type of battles that were waged around the time Birthright was set in did require a certain type of formation, unlike what modern wars require. If that formation were broken up for one side but not the other, the battle was basically over.

Your view really seems to require adopting an ahistorical viewpoint of warfare, combined with an anachronistic and industrial view of magic, both of which are very, very wrong.

Thomas_Percy
02-22-2005, 02:12 PM
Originally posted by Mark_Aurel@Feb 22 2005, 12:39 PM
No, you&#39;re quite mistaken. Modern soldiers *don&#39;t* stand up and fight in those conditions. They move in small groups, get as much cover as possible, and won&#39;t take unnecessary risks. They don&#39;t assemble in neat groups on a battlefield anymore. That approach became outdated circa World War 1.
You&#39;re right. But even today at war there are moments of necessary risk, when soldiers are risking their health and lives. Consider TV scenes from attacks of SPECNAZ (Russian elite soldiers) at Dubrovka theatre or Bieslan school. The enemy is shooting, a soldier is running against bullets.
Because this is a soldiers&#39; job. The courage and risk are elements of it.

I agree, that companies shoud have special deliberately A-historical loose, cover-related formations to fight against magic.


Your view really seems to require adopting an ahistorical viewpoint of warfare, combined with an anachronistic and industrial view of magic, both of which are very, very wrong.
No, Mark Aurel. My point of view is not "wrong". My point of view is different then most of Brt messageboard members.
And again, the point of view of most of the members of Brt community is a minority point of view when compared to the milions of typical PHB, DMG players.
We like different styles of play, but we can inspire each other.

irdeggman
02-22-2005, 04:52 PM
I tend to agree with Jan on his assessment of the "formations" used during the time period simulated by the BR setting and their importance.

Most of the "loose" formations came about becasue of the guerrilla style fighting - made popular circa the American revolutionary war. This involved the advant of firearms. Since BR specifically doesn&#39;t have firearms (at least not as a norm anyway) it fits better the typical formations of historical fighting - at least for an overall description of how things, like magic, would have an effect.

Archers typically were located a distance from the ground troops in rather tight groupings (English longbowmen). Knights and cavalrys were by necessity forced into tighter formations in order to keep from getting into each others&#39; way. Pikemen formed "walls" to work against the mounted troops, etc.

Breaking down this tight structure caused a weakening of the lines and allowed the infantry (or mounted forces) to press through. A unit that didn&#39;t maintain it&#39;s cohesiveness lost much of its fighting prowess. Another peculiarity was the capturing of the flag. When the banner fell many troops lost hope (and morale) and ended up fleeing and breaking ranks. It had an awful lot to do with the units not being training to function independently by rather in support and commanded by a strong leader/general.

And I have to disagree that this isn&#39;t the overwhelming opinion of those RPGers across the world. If it wasn&#39;t, then games with mass combat systems (e.g., Cry Havoc and Fields of Blood) wouldn&#39;t be portraying things in this manner - which they do. Almost all mass combat systems for midevael stype play involve this type of set up. When war games start coming into play they change things drastically, specifically those that start to involve mechanization and rapid fire firearms.

I know this from a factual standpoint and personal experience. I am very good friends with employees (and the owners of) Avalanche Press - one of the better manufacturers of war games presently. They tend to follow strict historical patterns when making up games and that includes troop formations and replacement availability. So while players tend to think out of the box becasue they have more history to draw from then the real life counterparts the players are simulating the game-mechanics force them to maintain a closer semblence to the reality of the time period.

ConjurerDragon
02-22-2005, 06:00 PM
Thomas_Percy schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=36&t=3000

>

> Thomas_Percy wrote:

> QUOTE (Mark_Aurel @ Feb 22 2005, 12:39 PM) No, you`re quite mistaken. Modern soldiers *don`t* stand up and fight in those conditions. They move in small groups, get as much cover as possible, and won`t take unnecessary risks. They don`t assemble in neat groups on a battlefield anymore. That approach became outdated circa World War 1.

>-----------------------------

>

>

> You`re right. But even today at war there are moments of necessary risk, when soldiers are risking their health and lives. Consider TV scenes from attacks of SPECNAZ (Russian elite soldiers) at Dubrovka theatre or Bieslan school. The enemy is shooting, a soldier is running against bullets.

>Because this is a soldiers` job. The courage and risk are elements of their job.

>

They are, I agree with you on that.

However the russian soldiers storming the theatre for example certainly

used some sort of bulletproof vest and had extensive training with all

sorts of guns and how to best take out terrorists if they are in a

specialist unit.



Even some soldier of the Napoleonic era could see and even touch the

cannons of his army on a march and become familiar with their presence

on the enemys side. Most would understand how gunpowder blows a

cannonball across the battlefield - just like a very big musket which

they themselves used skillfully.



Neither of these soldiers faces something that he does not understand

and never will understand. True Magic is nothing any common NPC soldier

would have knowledge of or understand how it works and ever would be

able to work himself.

It would be like Hiroshimas atom bomb when all you are used to are

normal bombs, like a tribe of stoneage neandertalers faced with someone

with a submachinegun or a handgrenade... No common soldier in BR, due to

the rarity of magic, will have ANY protection against magic - a ring of

protection +1 is rare even among nobles.

bye

Michael

doom
02-23-2005, 09:10 PM
On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 01:04:16AM +0100, Osprey wrote:



> 1. I wouldn`t pay much at all for that DMG assertion: my D&D

> experience has shown that factors like good planning and preparation, a

> solid combo of feats, magic items, and spells, and other such choices

> of character development and treasure acquisition make for a HUGE

> variation of real power levels in different situations.



While certainly true, I would argue that unless you want to make a detailed

analysis of every character (on both sides) and their effectiveness on the

battlefield that it should be assumed that feats, magic items, preparedness

and treasure (appropriate for level) are abstractly equal.





> 2. When talking about PC`s and their effectiveness on the

> battlefield, the varied combat utility of different classes of the same

> level become more apparent. Battles are mainly fought by large numbers

> of low-level characters. Thus, the battlefield environment favors those

> characters who can affect (in some way) large numbers of people.



Again, I agree with the premise. My concern is with the predisposition

to believe that a high-level spellcaster inherently is better at

whipping up low-level peons than any other class. Certainly in

round-based combat spells pack a might punch against low-level folk.



Over the course of 15 mins that a spell caster could certain empty

their personal spell arsenal and do some serious damage. Say perhaps

20 spells, each taking out 10 people (on the average) for about 200

deaths and they are done for the day.



Then let us consider a standard mid-level PC (of almost any clasS) who

can take out one soldier per round for the same 15min (15 min * 10

rns/min = 150) and _not_ be out of spells.



A mid-level fighter with cleave (or, Haeyln forbid, great clave or

whirlwind attack) capable of taking an average of two soldiers per

round (so about 300 soldiers in 10mins) would be able to do more

damage and STILL be able to do more.



> By giving mages and clerics some more realistic and specific effects

> of personal and battle spells, we acknowledge the fact (and I insist

> that, given the form of the D&D magic system, this is a fact) that

> spellcasters are particularly effective on the battlefield - in the

> campaign setting, this is balanced by their relative rarity and

> typically low level. Does this make high-level casters a terror on the

> battlefield? Yes, and rightfully so.



I would not agree that it is "a fact" that spellcasters are

"particularly effective on the battlefield". This may be the main

point of different underlying our opinions. There have been some statements

made that, for instance, fireballs (like conventional explosives) are

"Mysterious", cause fear, and have incredible ability to turn aside a

charge or cause an immediate route. I would argue that an equally

leveled warrior type character capable of standing in the face of a

charge of heavy calvary, blocking the charge, and then killing both the

knight AND his horse in a single cleave, would have similar effects. I

would even argue that magic, although mysterious, would have a much

lesser effect than the sight of a warrior who can _clearly_ kill any

soldier he faces parading around the field in one`s general direction.

Although not necessarily as immediate as magic, non spell-casting characters

are equally versatile, have more staying power, and can have at least as

much of a long term effect.



Now one could argue that the hero`s card bonuses don`t really

accurately represent the sort of advantages that having a 10th level

character (warrior or spellcaster) on one`s side should have... but

that is an entirely different issue.



Again, my point isn`t that magic isn`t a factor on the battlefield...

clearly it is. But, over the course of a long battle, things tend to

"average out". Every character is going to have an opportunity to do

what it is that they do best. Thus, on the average, each character

will contribute to the battle equally. It is my opinion that the

HEROES card is the appropriate way to represent this tactically and

that strategic/domain-level magic (via realm spells) is the analog of

strategic/domain-level training/army purchasing, etc.





> 4. Bottom line: I disagree wholeheatedly that the EL/CR system

> remains balanced on the battlefield. I also disagree that characters of

> a given level all have pretty much the same overall effectiveness in a

> mass battle. It just doesn`t hold up to closer examination - despite

> how simple, easy, and thus appealing the theory sounds. It`s hard

> enough to justify much balance on the adventure scale alone, to which

> the PB classes are geared.



And I must just as wholeheartedly disagree with your conclusion. I agree

that some characters (wizards/sorcerers in particular) can dish out more

damage to a larger number of targets in a fewer number of rounds for

a _brief_ period, but I disagree that their overall effectiveness is any

less than many other equally leveled characters over the long term

event that is a war battle.



> General Comment: One thing that really breaks the battlefield bank

> are 50-charge magic machine guns like a wand of fireballs or staff of

> frost. With such a long range and dramatic area effect, there`s no good

> reason why a mage couldn`t fire one or more fireballs a minute, even

> accounting for lots of jostling and positioning for a clear shot,

> taking cover from enemy fire, etc. I still have no good answer to this

> issue.



I agree with you on this issue. Magic items are tricky. Much like a

realm spell, they allow a caster to "prepare" magic for the battle. I

suppose that a fair way to represent such power would be to have the

magic item be _like_ a realm spell effect. You make the item as a

domain character action and if you want to spend it it provides X bonus

to your hero card during the battle. (That is just off the top of my

head). Certainly that is what I would do if a fighter wanted to spend

an equivalent value in gold (or if a wizard wanted to hire some mercs

by offering them the wand in trade). Overall the abstract system works

unless one buys the "fact" (mistaken, in my opinion) that wizards

dominated in longterm minion slaying.



- Doom

Osprey
02-24-2005, 05:48 AM
Doom,
I understand your reasoning on long-term averaging of PC power. The thing is, I don&#39;t agree that averaging things out this way is a very good way to represent the diverse capabilities of different classes. It erases their individual strengths and weaknesses and lumps them all together, which I think is just...boring. What this sort of system seems to express is: "Battles are just something to be resolved as quickly as possible, as simply as possible. Let&#39;s get them over with and get on to the good stuff."

Now, don&#39;t get me wrong: for those who aren&#39;t all that interested in more detailed resolutions/simulations of battles, then it&#39;s fine to have a low-detail, highly abstract system. But for those who want a dramatic, detailed system that highlights the roles of heroes (and PC&#39;s) in battle, I think something more dramatic is needed to express that. Something that showcases the particular strengths of different sorts of heroes.

For instance, you acknowledged that mages are particularly adept at mass destruction in a short time. Others have emphasized the devestating impact on morale caused by such power. IMO, such power could quite effectively decide many a battle long before it gets into the long-term scale where the fighter&#39;s staying power would average out with the mage&#39;s rapid desruction abilities.

Likewise, clerics (or groups of clerics) with battle magic would be particularly effective at bolstering and restoring friendly units - a nice equalizer against the shock effect of enemy arcane magic, and the sort of power that could allow for units to last - letting the warriors have a chance to keep kicking butt hour after hour of grinding melee.

Rogues and rangers have been discussed a fair bit, too, so I won&#39;t repeat all of the possibilities for them, but there are certainly interesting options for them to perform unique and critical roles that affect the course of entire battles.

The overall point here is that if you detail the different abilities of different characters, then you emphasize the special role that each hero plays in a battle - and in the end, you get a better heroic story and happier players (who get to feel special for the role their characters played).

Osprey

Mark_Aurel
02-24-2005, 10:47 AM
I understand your reasoning on long-term averaging of PC power. The thing is, I don&#39;t agree that averaging things out this way is a very good way to represent the diverse capabilities of different classes. It erases their individual strengths and weaknesses and lumps them all together, which I think is just...boring. What this sort of system seems to express is: "Battles are just something to be resolved as quickly as possible, as simply as possible. Let&#39;s get them over with and get on to the good stuff."

Now, don&#39;t get me wrong: for those who aren&#39;t all that interested in more detailed resolutions/simulations of battles, then it&#39;s fine to have a low-detail, highly abstract system. But for those who want a dramatic, detailed system that highlights the roles of heroes (and PC&#39;s) in battle, I think something more dramatic is needed to express that. Something that showcases the particular strengths of different sorts of heroes.


... the Birthright battle resolution system was designed to be very quick and abstract. Not fully so, but enough that it&#39;d all be over quickly. As opposed to more detailed systems for battle resolution. I think the relative speediness of resolution is a factor that should be preserved, not diminished. If people want a more detailed battle resolution system, there&#39;s a large number of systems out there to facilitate that.

That said, the original rules did include the effects of common high-level spells on the battlefield. That is a worthy aspect to preserve, as opposed to the rather crappy battle magic filler section from BoM.


The overall point here is that if you detail the different abilities of different characters, then you emphasize the special role that each hero plays in a battle - and in the end, you get a better heroic story and happier players (who get to feel special for the role their characters played).

No disagreement from me on this. It may be that the Birthright battle resolution system isn&#39;t necessarily the place for it, though. I&#39;d prefer to act out some elements as more adventurish, and then deciding the effect of those actions through DM fiat, rather than abstracting the PC capabilities and interference too much. NPCs may be a different matter, but that also sounds like an invocation of a bookkeeping nightmare.

doom
02-24-2005, 11:20 PM
On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 06:49:02AM +0100, Osprey wrote:

> The overall point here is that if you detail the different abilities

> of different characters, then you emphasize the special role that each

> hero plays in a battle - and in the end, you get a better heroic story

> and happier players (who get to feel special for the role their

> characters played).



I agree wholeheartedly with your overall point here. As Mark points

out, this is commonly done with "sub-combat" or character type actions

that take place during the battle itself. The Hero card abstact

captures the other extreme. I think that it would be to have something

elegant in between these two extremes.



HOWEVER, I feel that such a system would have to have a way to

represent ALL character classes and not just a focus on battlespells

(which, I fear, is the direction that talk to date has been headed).

As part of a comprehensive proposal that includes battlefield effects

of not spellcaster on a like (balanced) scale, I could be convinced

that battlespells might be a "good thing". At this time, however, I

see the Hero card abstract (or other bonuses granted as the result of

role-playing portions of the combat/special missions/etc) is the only

"balanced" proposal.



- Doom

The Jew
02-24-2005, 11:40 PM
Another thing to consider, which may be increasing the importance of adding standard or battle magic on the combat field, is how weak of the current bonus is for hero&#39;s fighting embedded within a unit. I don&#39;t have the rules in front of me, but a 10th level character should be able to demolish a normal unit, if their back is protected by their own men, yet their effect upon their unit is only a couple points bonus to attack, morale and defence. If these rules were strengthened then more people might be willing to let their mage just sit with the unit, rather than act on its own.

I am not arguing against including rules for single character action within the battlefield, just that the hero card bonus needs to be strengthened.

ConjurerDragon
02-25-2005, 04:00 PM
The Jew schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?act=ST&f=36&t=3000

>

> The Jew wrote:

> Another thing to consider, which may be increasing the importance of adding standard or battle magic on the combat field, is how weak of the current bonus is for hero`s fighting embedded within a unit. I don`t have the rules in front of me, but a 10th level character should be able to demolish a normal unit, if their back is protected by their own men, yet their effect upon their unit is only a couple points bonus to attack, morale and defence. If these rules were strengthened then more people might be willing to let their mage just sit with the unit, rather than act on its own.

>

>I am not arguing against including rules for single character action within the battlefield, just that the hero card bonus needs to be strengthened.

>

I would guess that the 2E warcard for adventurers that added to a

military unit was not intended to simulate the effect of high-level

characters. Characters of level 10+ were in 2E Birthright extremely rare

and even many regents were below that level (e.g. Aglondier Wizard 3;

Kalien Thief 3; Roesone Fighter 5; Enlien Priest 4) so the 10+ level of

power was likely not integrated in the bonus of the adventurers warcard

as a party of 10+ characters on one battlefield was highly unlikely.



And spellcasters would use their power through the use of war magic to a

much larger benefit and not be part of a group of adventureres fighting

with a military unit.

bye

Michael

The Jew
02-26-2005, 12:20 AM
Let me rephrase my comment, the rules given in the BRCS for adding a high level character to a party.