Battle and Realm Magic

[doom]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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/ind...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]

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.