Levels of Magic in Cerilia

[geeman]

Soviet wrote:

> why not make all battle spells into Realm spell, assigning a source cost equal to
> their level.....

That works pretty well for several of them, though I think you really have to just get
rid of a few. Rain of Magic Missiles, for instance, really is too powerful for a first
level character who doesn't at least have sources available to him.

Gary
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[Soviet]

why not make all battle spells into Realm spell, assigning a source cost equal to
their level.....

GeeMan wrote:

> Alaric wrote:
>
> > OK, this requires me to mention something that came up in my campaign.
> > What prevents a powerful mage (say 9th-12th level min) from either
> > creating a battle spell 'Conjure Elementals' or just summoning up a
> > couple pre a battle (or priests for that matter could do it
> > too)...what's going to stop a creature that can't be harmed by weapons
> > less than +2? One elemental could take out an entire unit, even using
> > the rules that the other units are going to be some miles away. I'm
> > interested in feedback.
>
> I have kind of a different take on this from what I've read of the other replies
> to this message.
>
> First of all, I think you are pointing out one of the basic flaws of the BR
> published materials: battlespells. I don't use battlespells IMC, and I think they
> are a really bad idea. I just can't see the justification for allowing a mage to
> come up with a souped up version of an already existing spell that can effect 200+
> individuals. It's totally outside the standard character class description in the
> core rules, and makes even a first level magician a force to be reckoned with on
> the battlefield, which seems to contradict the "low magic" theme of the setting.
>
> (I know I've argued that BR really isn't a low magic setting, but battlespells
> ain't what I had in mind when juicing up the magic of the campaign....)
>
> If one can summon a single elemental using the standard Conjure Elemental spell
> why not summon a unit of them using a battlespell equivalent? There are, of
> course, rationalizations that a DM might use to prevent a PC from doing this, but
> you really have to do some intrusive refereeing in order to keep a PC from doing
> this. Personally, I'd rather not bother with it, so I just ruled "no
> battlespells" in my campaign. I was a player in a campaign that (briefly) allowed
> battlespells and all hell broke loose very quickly, so the DM of that one had to
> put a stop to it pretty quickly.
>
> The other problem I have with battlespells is that they reduce the significance of
> realm spells. If you can summon creatures using a battlespell why go to the
> trouble of summoning them with a realm spell?
>
> Anyway, my first reaction to your question about the resistence of the creatures
> summoned by the battlespell equivalent of Conjure Elemental to normal weapons
> is... it doesn't matter. From what I can tell, a BR unit is comprised of roughtly
> 200-800 HD of creatures, which means if your battlespell summons a single unit of
> elementals it should be comprised of between 25 and 100 8HD elementals. Even if
> it were possible to hit them with nonmagical wepaons, that many monsters of that
> much strength ought to be able to go through a unit of standard humans like a hot
> knife through butter. Assuming that your mage summons earth elementals (which
> seem like the most likely) they would do individually an average of 18hp/hit in a
> regular, melee based battle, and that's enough to smoosh a heavy warhorse. If you
> were going to make up a unit summoned by this spell they would have to be much
> more powerful than the most powerful warcard in the published materials. I'd
> guess (without doing any comparisons to existing warcards) that it'd probably look
> like this:
>
> Move: 2
> Defense: 4 (equal to knights) *
> Morale: 3 **
> Melee: 9
> Hits: 5
>
> * Earth elementals are AC2 like an armored knight, so I used that defense value.
>
> ** Morale is most effected for these guys by the concentration of the mage
> controlling them, per the spell description.
>
> Note that the above defense number is based upon the possibility of the elementals
> being hit at all, which I'm afraid I must disagree with my fellow list members who
> have suggested that they could be. If you are going to allow battlespells based
> on regular spells I think you really have to keep as much as possible from the
> original spell, and to me that means keeping the magical weapon required to hit
> the creatures summoned If you change this requirement for the battlespell I
> think that means you really should change it for individual elementals summoned by
> the standard spell. I'd rather not open a campaign up to so many contradictions,
> so I just don't use battlespells.
>
> Lastly, I really think the standard spells available to a wizard that have an
> effect on units are sufficient to make them a feared and fearsome presence on the
> battlefield. Fireballs can route units. That's just a 3rd level spell, which
> means a 5th level mage can use it. That's plenty powerful enough for me. I don't
> think we need to give them battlespells so a 1st level mage can have a similar
> effect.
>
> Gary
>
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[Kenneth Gauck]

- -----Original Message-----
From: Craig Dalrymple
Date: Friday, June 11, 1999 6:08 PM

>Something you might try is creating one vulnerability for the creature.
>Perhaps a specific type of material really screws the creature up. Cold
>forged iron weapons, or something like that. Make sure that the material is
>common enough to be found and used out of desperation; but not so common
>that it can be mass produced. This is a great way to get hero's to go after
>a big bad guy: give them the only weapons (magical or otherwise) that can
>actualy do the creature harm.
>

The specific substance can be as common as garlic, or a wooden stake, but
don't let characters keep a veritable closet of special weapons on them at
all times. I tell my players I won't force them to face a creature the
cannot defeat, but if a player seems determined to carry every possible
special item he might possibly every use, then employ the special process
instead of the special substance. Perhaps a fire elemental can be hit by a
sword that was laid in a running brook for 24 strait hours.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@earthlink.net


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[Pieter Sleijpen]

Alaric wrote:

> Well there are precedents for allowing summoning spells, such as Monster
> Unit Summoning I, which is the same level and essentially the same
> result as Monster Summoning I. Enchanted Weapons is a good spell, but
> hardly the same as wiping out a unit before. That concentration thing
> had slipped by however, so I think I've got a pretty good handle on it
> now, with the exception of items that aid in the summoning and control
> of elementals. What, then, of the Gorgon on the battlefield? He's far
> worse than any elemental. or any awnshegh resistant to normal weapons
> and to most magic?

Individual monsters of the nature of the Gorgon or Rhuobhe are not that
much of a problem. Sure, they can defeat complete armies in principle,
but they can be overbeared by opponents. If somebody is facing 200
opponents, it would not be difficult to immagine that the Gorgon choses
for fleeing instead of capture. Unless you like the idea of the Gorgon
being captured, corrupting the Chaimberlain and then becomming the new
emporer (something as Sauron did with Numenor in Middle Earth). You also
could concider using the rules that is given by the Dragon for the
dragon Lifesbane. In which the need for magical items are not nessecary
to chase him as a unit from the battlefield. Of coarse, normal weapons
will not kill him.

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[geeman]

Pieter Sleijpen wrote:

> Individual monsters of the nature of the Gorgon or Rhuobhe are not that
> much of a problem. Sure, they can defeat complete armies in principle,
> but they can be overbeared by opponents. If somebody is facing 200
> opponents, it would not be difficult to immagine that the Gorgon choses
> for fleeing instead of capture.

I don't think a unit of ordinary humans could overbear the Gorgon. Aside from
there being no rules for that kind of thing in the warcard system, I think it'd
be like infantry swarming a tank. Sure, they can get in its way and slow it
down, but pretty quickly they'd get ground into hamburger. The only reason
modern tanks are stoppable by infantry is because they have weapons that are
powerful enough to deal with them. But make those tanks magically invulnerable
to those weapons (not to mention their mundane ones) and they'd roll right on
through infanty units. I think that's what fighting the Gorgon would be like.

Gary
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[Alaric]

GeeMan wrote:
>
> Pieter Sleijpen wrote:
>
> > Individual monsters of the nature of the Gorgon or Rhuobhe are not that
> > much of a problem. Sure, they can defeat complete armies in principle,
> > but they can be overbeared by opponents. If somebody is facing 200
> > opponents, it would not be difficult to immagine that the Gorgon choses
> > for fleeing instead of capture.
>
> I don't think a unit of ordinary humans could overbear the Gorgon. Aside from
> there being no rules for that kind of thing in the warcard system, I think it'd
> be like infantry swarming a tank. Sure, they can get in its way and slow it
> down, but pretty quickly they'd get ground into hamburger. The only reason
> modern tanks are stoppable by infantry is because they have weapons that are
> powerful enough to deal with them. But make those tanks magically invulnerable
> to those weapons (not to mention their mundane ones) and they'd roll right on
> through infanty units. I think that's what fighting the Gorgon would be like.
>
> Gary
>
That was sort of the opinion I had. If, say, Rhoubhe wandered onto the
battlefield, I think he could be brought down by the weight of troops.
Rasene, in my opinion, is a different matter. He's just TOO big, TOO
strong, and TOO hard to hit...not to mention too magically and too
physically skilled. Think of the front line trooper when he's given his
orders..: "You want me to do WHAT?! To WHO?!"
Thx,
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[geeman]

Alaric wrote:

> Think of the front line trooper when he's given his
> orders..: "You want me to do WHAT?! To WHO?!"
> Thx,

Yeah, wouldn't just the presence of the Gorgon on the battlefield be enough to at
least cause a morale check? He's just THAT scary. He's got THAC0 of -12 modified
for strength and specialization, for cryin' out loud, a -10 AC, 170hp.... Compare
that to your average knight (who is often described as the medieval equivalent of a
tank) who may have an AC of 2-0, 7-10hp and a THAC0 of 20. Put a hundred knights up
against the Gorgon and they lose even without his invulnerability to weapons.

> OK, here's why I actually brought up this question (or added on to an
> existing question, I'm not sure anymore. In my campaign, when the gorgon
> finally did decide to get off his stony butt and go on a rampage (now
> remember, when the campaign is intended to start, he's a little overdue
> to attack, when he attacked imc, it was about 40 years later than that),
> he depopulated pretty much the entire Gorgon's Crown. I figured he of
> all people could do that, especially given 20 or 30 years devoted only
> to that. Now when he left with this massive army, I had him leave a
> couple units behind, first, guarding his castle, was a unit or two of
> special troops more or less comparable to the special units of other big
> organizations (Anuire, Cuireacen, Haelyn, Ghoere, Mhoried). Also, I
> decided that he had managed to muster an entire unit of Ice Giants and
> convince them to housesit for him while he was gone (yeah, it would have
> been nice if they'd've gone along and destroyed, but it was a little
> warm yet and also for the reasons below).
> I'd better make my distinction of unit here. I don't like the idea of
> each unit being roughly equivalent to every other unit, with only the
> size differing (that is 200 hill giants, instead of being *far* nastier,
> is just split up into 20 units). The system I use, based on the skirmish
> rules, figures the definition of a unit on a sliding scale, with the
> smallest concentration of troops being the definition of a 'unit' (i.e.
> if there are only 50 of x on the battlefield, then all 200 troop units
> are split in 4). So I'm talking 200 ice giants here (yes it was noted
> that there just might not be that many in those mountains).
> Now here's where the difficulty comes in to play. The party never
> managed to trounce the Gorgon enough to make a counterattack, and they
> weren't exactly ingenious enough to sneak around the back and cut him
> off by taking over his homeland, so it never came into play but!... Ice
> giants can summon Water Elementals. I use the Priest rules and rolls
> when they summon 'em, so a unit of one is more or less equal to a unit
> of the other. Now there's a Unit of Water Elementals, raring to go, and
> not worrying about concentration or control and in this situation
> certainly not morale! Aside from the fact that the thought of 200 of
> these guys is sort of scary, what if they're immune? And when they can
> be resummoned daily, a good leader (and I've never accused Ice Giants of
> not having tactical skills) only need worry about the non-renewable
> resource, the giants themselves.

I've been fiddling around with converting standard AD&D stats into their warcard
equivalents. From what I can tell the Gorgon as a warcard by himself would look like
this:

Move: 1 (he is very slow, his biggest weakness)
Defence: 10 (assuming he could be hit at all due to his resistence)
Melee: 4
Missile: 2 (gaze attack)
Morale: Unstoppable
Hits: 3

He might only have 2 hits if you compare his hit points to the average amount in a
warcard unit. I gave him three to make him more eqivalent to a unit of Elite
Infantry and because he regenerates. I'm also assuming that he would have had A) the
intelligence to bring healing magics with him, B) the time over the past 1,500 years
to come up with a few such magics, and C) he's the only person in the "unit" that has
to be healed, so healing him is different from having to heal a whole unit which
typically requires battlespells. I'm also assuming that his AC does not influence
his hits, only his Defense adjustement, so depending on how you look at this, he
might have more hits....

That's an impressive warcard, but the point is that almost no one on the battlefield
could hit him AT ALL, so the only stat that matters is his melee. Here's what I've
been assuming for warcards:

Movement: AD&D movement rates have the following warcard equivalents:
6 = 1
9 = 2
15 = 3
24 = 4

Defence: Goes up 1 for every 2.5 levels of AC. That is:
AC 10-8 = 1
AC 7-6 = 2
AC 5-3 = 3
AC 2-1 = 4
AC 0 = 5
Negative AC continues on down the chart (which is why Gorgy gets a 10)

Melee: This one is a bit tough. I think you have to figure out how much "average"
damage the unit would do, which means you have to come up with a way of averaging
their THAC0 with the damage that they do by weapon type. THAC0 expressed as a
percentage * average damage divided by 50.

The Gorgon, for instance, is going to hit 95% of the time (a 1 is always a miss) and
do an average of 5.5+8+2=16 (rounded up damage) per hit. He generally gets 5/2
attack, so in a battle round (five normal melee rounds) he will hit almost 12 times
for around 192 hp of damage.

A unit of knights, by way of comparison has 100 members wielding longswords. Their
THAC0 is 20, but are on horseback, so normally get +1 to hit, so I give them 10%
hits. 10 hits per melee round equals 50 hits in a battle round. A longsword does an
average of 4.5 hp damage, or 225hp. The warcard for knights gives them a melee:4,
but I round this up to 5.

You can figure out the values for missile and charge attacks in the same way.

Morale: Pretty much a judgement call on the DMs part.

Hits: I assume that a unit is comprised of between 200 and 800 hit dice of
creatures, with the average being around 400HD. A unit of intantry is 200
individuals with (almost) 1HD each. A unit of cavalry is 100 horses (2HD) and 100
riders (1HD) for 300HD of creatures. A unit of Knights is 100 riders (1HD) on 100
heavy horse (3+3HD) for 800 HD total. Stonecrown Ogres (4+1HD, 17hp average) comes
out to be about 100 individuals with a total of 1,900 hp.

I think you should divide total hp by 500 to get # of hits. This leaves us a bit
stuck when it comes to making up a warcard for the Gorgon, as he has 170 hp, but like
I noted above I think there are justifications for giving him additional hits.

Anyway, I hope you guys will keep in mind that I'm mostly just spitballing this
stuff. I haven't really had the time to crunch some decent numbers and come up with
a good system for converting warcards to AD&D and vice versa, so I'd be happy to hear
get some input.

Gary
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[the Falcon]

> That was sort of the opinion I had. If, say, Rhoubhe wandered onto the
> battlefield, I think he could be brought down by the weight of troops.
> Rasene, in my opinion, is a different matter. He's just TOO big, TOO
> strong, and TOO hard to hit...not to mention too magically and too
> physically skilled. Think of the front line trooper when he's given his
> orders..: "You want me to do WHAT?! To WHO?!"

And don't forget his magic gaze: turns anyone into stone or just kills em
outright. Tough...
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[geeman]

Complete Systems wrote:

> >I don't think a unit of ordinary humans could overbear the Gorgon. Aside from
> >there being no rules for that kind of thing in the warcard system, I
> >think it'd
> >be like infantry swarming a tank. Sure, they can get in its way and slow it
> >down, but pretty quickly they'd get ground into hamburger. The only reason
> >modern tanks are stoppable by infantry is because they have weapons that are
> >powerful enough to deal with them. But make those tanks magically
> >invulnerable
> >to those weapons (not to mention their mundane ones) and they'd roll right on
> >through infanty units. I think that's what fighting the Gorgon would be like.
>
> In the same way that an infantry unit faced with a tank without the
> appropriate weapons and no other option would 'find a way' (lead it into marshy
> / swampy ground to immobilise it then smoke / starve the occupants out), a BR
> unit may find a way of defeating (but not killing). Stony-butt may be more
> battlewise than all the generals of Cerelia, but everyone has their bad day.
> Given the choice of battleground and a unit of Dwarves, for example, several
> pit-traps could be set up - really deep pits. The Gorgon could then be
> challenged by a sacrificial (blooded) hero who is standing over the pit on a
> fairly solid cover (Stony has a fair bit of weight, the cover could be graded
> accordingly). The Gorgon falls, hero steps back (if he is lucky), debris are
> dropped in after to hinder the Gorgon's climb back out, flares or similar could
> be set off by the collapsing of the trap shielding the exact events from the
> opposing armies. Imagine the effect on morale when the dust settles and the
> hero still stands (or another in similar garb - it's hard to tell details over
> a battlefield), and the Gorgon seems to have disappeared, apparently destroyed
> by magic). It may take only a day for Stony to climb back out, but that's a
> day that the battle has gone on without him.
> As a GM I'd give this about a 5% chance of working, 10% if a PC had to come
> up with the idea during that session under pressure and maybe 15% if that PC
> volunteered to be the sacrificial lamb rather than using someone else. But
> even at worst, even a small chance beats no chance. Some of the major
> Awnshiegh should be almost as hard to kill as a god, but thwarting them should
> always be possible.

Technically, this is true. The Gorgon has his weaknesses. From what I can tell,
for instance, he is absolutely vulnerable to drowning because A) he needs to breath
and B) he's so heavy he can't swim/float The traps you describe above could,
therefore, be made quite deadly if they were filled with water. A minor magical
version of that same concept could be used with the Rock to Mud spell, which can
wallow and suffocate those who fall into its area of effect. The Wall of Iron
spell has an "instant kill" aspect if it falls on someone too, and when one casts

The thing is... well, this is the Gorgon we're talking about. Even if I didn't
think that over the past 1,500 years he had dealt with most of these kinds of
things and would have ways of dealing with them, as a DM I'd still do everything I
could to keep him from being defeated by such an attack. The Gorgon is THE nemisis
of the setting. Sure, there are plenty of monsters running around, but none of
them compare thematically speaking to the Big G. If players are going up against
him it should be the most harrowing event in their lives and they should count
themselves lucky to survive, let alone defeat him. At least, that's my take on it.

Gary
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[Pieter Sleijpen]

Hi,

I have been thinking for some time about this discussion, especially the
need for magical weapons to hit certain awnsheighlien. I was wondering
if these creatures, and more importantly ersheighlien, count as magical
weapons as per the HD rule in the DMG? If that is the case, then the
Gorgon might leave Brecht personally alone because of the fear for the
Fae and Hap Prechlen (if I remember correctly). Both are very powerful
sorceresses and one is also a very powerful priest.

As an other note, it actually might be those weaknesses, like drowning
that keeps the Gorgon within his domain. The moment you attack an
opponent he will be fighting on his home turf and he could try
everything to gain the upperhand. A think that is aactually missing from
the battlesystem. It is even officially suggested in the Stjordvik PS,
were the roads are protected by traps to slow armies down. Rhuobe's
mountain pass should be littered with traps. Has anybody gave a thought
about that and made some concrete rules on it?

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