There has been a lot of talk lately about magic on Aebrynis. The concept of the true wizard, a blooded power house that can do unreal things is pretty awesome. However, our little magician class can also be really awesome as well.

I am playing a magician with an int of 18, so she can cast cantrips at will. Last night, with a couple of cantrips, ventriloquism, a knock, and a spectral force, she effectively eliminated an entire unit of soldiers!

It was a dark and damp night in the beginning of winter in Rovinidensk in Vosgaard. Her party was assaulting Danika Vorak's camp with the mission of returning her head to a local true wizard. Any rate, a major part of the plan was to cause such a ruckus in the camp that the party's escape would go unnoticed. The magician used a cantrip to make some glowing lights in the field around the south wall of the Vorak's fortication. The she used Ventriloquism to announce that she was the Necromancer and had come for the souls of the men. The two guards at the gate failed their morale check and started trying to get into the gates. She helped them along with a knock spell which blew the gate and the soldiers off their feet. Then she stepped out into the clearing and used a cantrip to partially illuminate herself. She was painted up with black and white makeup. She had blood smeared on her face and a pair of old antler horns tide to her head. She started pitching bones and flinging blood all over the place and chanting loudly. Then she cast a spectral force of a bunch of skeletons, ghouls, ghasts, and a couple of giant skeletons (all of which she had seen in great quantities before). The DM is rough on illusions. He makes me roll an attack roll of some kind, and the higher the roll, the more believable the illusion. I rolled well. He must have rolled 50 d20 for saving through versus spell, and almost every one of the 1st and 2nd level troops failed their throw and fled out of the camp! Then she had one of the giant skeletons cast a fireball at a small group who had screwed up their courage to try to fight, and killed three of them outright - heart attacks. Two of the remaining folks decided they had pressing business elsewhere. Only one grizzled old veteran saw through the spells and started after her. She backed out the ruined gate, and with a well timed web from an elven ally, escaped with her friend.

A well planned illusion, a little dramatics, a little luck, and low level fighters! What a combo!

The reason I write all of this is because I once felt like magicians were a fairly weak class! Boy was I ever wrong!

JSP