Standard/battle/realm magic how to distiguish them

[void]

I voted one. I like the idea of battle magic. Though i think personal scale magic should work on the battlefield if you have a wand of fireballs or a similar area of effect spell. Or something like evard's black tenacles. I know there aren't any warlocks in birthright, but a high level one could cast a better version of black tenacles every round.
Just an aside is Dragon Magazine not open license, is that why you just dont use the rules from there?

[Mark_Aurel]

I voted for the third option, but what I would like to do/see is more akin to the following:

1. The battle magic system is tossed out. No battle magic, and no ifs, buts, or maybes about it. Just to summarize some of the things I find to be _wrong_ about this system:
- It's a very FRish idea; I can't repeat 'Rain of Magic Missiles' often enough.
- It's completely imbalanced; the difference between having and not having it is monumental.
- It's completely imbalanced; it tosses the entire level curve of D&D out the window, more or less.
- It reads like filler, tastes like filler, and quacks like filler.
- It wasn't consistent at all with how I felt magic was initially being portrayed in the Birthright boxed set.
- It took a modern, industrialized mindset, and applied it to magic; 'more components' = 'bigger spell' is a horrendously poor idea.

2. Appropriate personal spells can have a battlefield effect, as was outlined in the original box. That puts that kind of power primarily in the hands of _high-level_ casters, and they should be incredibly rare and expensive to hire. Another balance might be traditional animosities between mages -- the original box actually hinted at something like that in the included adventure; if one mage intervenes, another, who is in competition with him for sources or whatever, may intervene in favor of the other side. That's an RPish balancing factor, of course, and I'm generally dead against such, but I think it's obvious that's part of how the original material balanced this. I'd set a very high standard cost of renting a mage for a battle as well; 2-3 GB per level.

Another assumption I'd like to add here, is that high-level casters should probably only be used when facing similarly high-level opposition or when the battle is extremely large to begin with. By rights, in D&D, a 16th-level wizard will wipe 200 goblins off the face of the Earth in a matter of minutes. He might not do so well if there are 5000. I think that part of the issue at stake is that balancing high-level casters against small armies is a bit like trying to balance a high-level casters against weak monsters; it's not how the game generally scales.

3. Introduce a system of 'lesser realm magic' to sort of plug the gap and replace whatever void is left by removing battle spells. Nothing overpowering, and mostly extremely limited stuff. I'm thinking something along the following lines:
- One-week casting time per spell; with a domain action, you can cast four of them.
- Spellcasters can cast *one* of them in response to war moves, much like a realm can move its armies in response.
- Effects would be minor stuff like 1H to one unit (save negates), +1 speed for one mounted unit for three weeks, an archer unit can fire with a range of two squares once, a single unit has its speed reduced by 1 for two weeks, a single unit becomes unable to act for one round during a battle, or any number of other, fairly minor effects. Also, other effects could probably be devised for the domain level.
- Such spells would allow a low-level spellcaster to have some say on a battlefield, without dominating completely. Essentially, if they take a domain action, they can cast one of those spells per war move, or they can cast a single realm spell to accomplish something major. It'd still require holdings or ley lines to cast such spells, putting them out of the hands of any neophyte magician, and not making them something that could be cast anywhere. The effects would be enough to be noticeable, and maybe affect a minor battle, but major battles would still require major realm magic from higher-level casters.
- Such a system would also thematically match the introduction of cantrips/orisons in 3e spellcasting.

[diablo]

Originally posted by Raesene Andu@Feb 17 2005, 01:15 PM
I voted for option 1 (I like battle spells), however, standard spells need a write up on what battlefield effects they have as well (i.e. like option 3).

I agree with this post.

Birthright has (although low agic world) such a battle magic flare which was the reason that drew me in.

[Angelbialaska]

BR isn't a low magic world. It's more a restricted magic world, in that the magic is restricted to a rare few. I think it's a bit like there being a lot more chance to find a permanent magic item with a history than the FR-like generic longsword +1. You'll not find magic shops selling magical loot, but on the other hand, then those who have magic has a few items, which on the other hand are extremely powerful. A 4th level character with a holy avenger, a 3rd level character with a staff of power... People are less likely to have 1 item worth 100,000-200,000 than they are to have 10 items with a value of 1000-5000.

Anyway, now to the point: I think that personal spells should be used on the battlefield and that we would then just take out the whole Battle Magic concept, as those personal magics can do a lot of damage in themselves.

I did have PCs involved in a battle at one point, in a non-BRish way, as the PCs were personally involved. The PCs had a unit of paladins/knights on their side, while the enemies were in a fortified city and outnumbered the knights by a lot. Archers were ready to fire.

That never happened though. The wizard used invisibility, moved close to the wall and then cast wind wall, effectively killing all missile fire. Then the knights charged. A passwall removed the city wall, so that that was no problem either and a few fireballs destroyed the formations of the pikemen, who were the only real problem for the knights.

At this point the other PCs have arrived to the battle too. The Fighter jumps off his horse, because it's pathetic and a few arrows can kill it. Instead he fights on foot. His tactics involves charging enemies with his sword and with supreme cleave cut through maybe 15-20 of them before they have a chance to hurt him. Now there's 8 that can get near him. They can stab at him, but with the high AC 1 of 20 will hit. He may take a bit of damage, but nothing of importance. Next round it's Whirlwind time.

It didn't take many minutes for a few adventurers to defeat an army. They really had no need for the knights, other than perhaps as a distraction. And it proves that the personal magic is definitely able to make an impact on a battlefield.

[RaspK_FOG]

All in all, I feel that there should be no battle spell ever and that new standard spells are created that fill in this role; this can be achieved by making spells that are more effective on the battlefield while still usable on the adventuring level, like spells with long casting times and so on...

Realm spells, on the other hand, should NOT be used on the battle field at large; they might affect an army but not on the field...

[Raesene Andu]

Well it does look like a close vote indeed. 50% of voters want a return of battlemagic, and the other 50% are split between no battle magic at all and having standard spells make an effect.

It isn't hard to include a list of standard spells that have a battle effect, in fact, I've already posted my list on this in another thread. Their exact battle effects just need to be defined.

[Osprey]

I decided to vote for battle magic, mainly because I am more and more taken by the idea of groups of priests praying and chanting together to call down powerful divine magics. It's a good, flavorful element to add to a game.

I agree with Jan in that extra components alone is a poor metaphysical reason for creating greatly empowered battle spells.

However, I think long, intense rituals fueled by expensive components is a much better metaphysic.

Something like 1 GB per spell level seems like a reasonably expensive baseline cost for battle magic spells - it will make any battle caster choose carefully, and use their spells sparingly (especially high-level ones).

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by Raesene Andu@Feb 21 2005, 06:24 PM
Well it does look like a close vote indeed. 50% of voters want a return of battlemagic, and the other 50% are split between no battle magic at all and having standard spells make an effect.

It isn't hard to include a list of standard spells that have a battle effect, in fact, I've already posted my list on this in another thread. Their exact battle effects just need to be defined.

I read it not as close as you do. It is almost twice as many want a return of battle magic (as something different than standard or realm spells) as do either of the other options.

Note that the explanation given for choice one was pretty clear, IMO, that battle magic was to be something different than standard or realm magic.

The idea being that battle spells/magic is handled differently than standard or realm magic.

Standard – basically the core rules type of stuff, no effect on the battlefield or realm level of play.

There is still time for the poll results to change though. It is interesting to note that therre are no votes for "other" so far, usually we get several diverse "other" suggestions.

[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by Osprey@Feb 22 2005, 02:34 PM
Something like 1 GB per spell level seems like a reasonably expensive baseline cost for battle magic spells - it will make any battle caster choose carefully, and use their spells sparingly (especially high-level ones).

This was around the cost I was thinking of as well, and it would generally mean that most battle spells were based off low level spells, otherwise they just get way too expensive.

[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by irdeggman@Feb 22 2005, 08:53 PM
I read it not as close as you do. It is almost twice as many want a return of battle magic (as something different than standard or realm spells) as do either of the other options.

It is closer if you take option 1 to be a vote for battle magic and option 2 & 3 to be a vote against battle magic, in which case it is 50/50.