Standard/battle/realm magic how to distiguish them

[A_dark]

I posted earlier that a friend DM uses an actual unit (which he calls a spell-unit) dedicated to the mage's (or priest's) service.... a small retinue of magicians/acolytes etc, a cook, some bodyguards, some helppers, some brewers etc etc etc... i had posted a bit more about it in this thread or the other thread regarding this topic...

If the unit is lost, the mage cannot cast any more spells... Plus, if his unit is killed, he might be killed as well! It would make mages less willing to participate in a battle.

And in reply to irdeggman, i think, no, it is not like having a feat. The mage could be casting standard spells, battle spells, spells with a feat or whatever. The idea does not get involved with the way that the magic is cast. 2nd ed book explictly ssaid that a battle spell needs help to be cast and the "spell-unit" is the help.

[irdeggman]

[quote]In the original battlespell system there was basically a powered up version
of many standard magical spells. The idea being that instead of a "a pinch"
of material components and a single combat round the spellcaster could bring
a wagon full (I have trouble picturing that much bat guano--but what the
heck...) and performs an extended ritualized version of the spell possibly
with some assistants over the course of the longer, warcard combat round to
create effects that are extend into the large scale combat level of the
(pthoo&#33 warcards. The original rules, however, never really address the
effects of magic items at the warcard level, and never adequately IMO
explained or justified the powering up of magic into the battlespell format.
Why was a 1st level wizard suddenly able to transform his/er 1st level Magic
Missile spell that created a single missile into a spell that created 200
missiles each hitting a single target in a company of soldiers?[quote]

I absolutely agree that the logic of the 2bd ed BR system for battlemagic was non-existent. And the one I had the most problem understanding was of course the rain of magic missiles spell for pretty much the reasoning you give. But the issue of battle magic is so much broader – to focus on only one aspect of the 2nd ed system is over simplifying things. 2nd ed had 3 distinct methods that were all intertwined to address the effects of magic on the battlefield.

1 – realm magic. There were several realm spells that were specifically designed to address the battlefield. For example ; (from BoM) 1st level - Subversion (other than the domain level stuff had an effect designed for a unit), Battle Fury, inflame; 3rd level – transport (while this could be seen to be a true realm spell affecting troop movement outside of the battlefield, it was designed for troop level effect), 7th level – legion of the dead (again this is, IMO, more a true realm spell since it has a long effect compared to battle rounds), raze;

(from BoP) 1st level – bless army, 2nd level – maintain armies (again a more true realm spell since it isn’t an effect on the battlefield per se but maintenance costs); 5th level – legion of the dead (same as the BoM spell); 6th level – erik’s mighty forests (again similar to the legion of undead spell in that it has a longer effect than a battle)

2 – battle spells. These are the “special” spells created for battlefield effect. For example: (From BoM) 1st level – charm unit, rain of magic missiles; 2nd level rolling fire; 3rd level – flying troops, monster unit summoning I, slow unit; 4th level aura of invulnerability, enchanted weapon, stoneskinned army; 5th level – animate army, shadow world troops, wolf in the fold

(from BoP) 1st – erik’s entanglement, avani’s asylum, oaken strike, turn undead unit; 2nd level – barkskinned unit, charm unit, hammer storm; 3rd level – animate army, dispel battle magic, haelyn’s holy warding; 4th level – cure unit, rournil’s silver robes

3 – standard spells that had an effect on the battlefield.

Text from the BoM (pg970 “Several spells already known to players do allow spellcasters to affect the outcome of a battle between two armies. But most conventional spells have areas of effect too small to be of much use in a full-scale war, and the month required to cast realm magic renders realm spells impractical for defensive purposes.”

The list of “pre-approved” standard spells was as follows;
(from BoM); wall of fog, fog cloud, pyrotechnics, solid fog, hallucinatory terrain, massmorph, hallucinatory forest, mass invisibility, transmute roc to mud, transmute water to dust, dig, move earth, wall of ice, wall of fire, wall of stone, wall of force, wall of iron, wall of thorns, cloudkill, deathfog, prismatic spray, incendiary cloud, meteor swarm, prismatic wall, prismatic sphere, fireball, lightning bolt, ice storm, death spell, delayed blast fireball, symbol, power word stun, power word kill, phantasmal force, spectral force, fear, advanced illusion, chaos, permanent illusion, programmed illusion, chain lightning, confusion, control weather, disintegrate, flame arrow, gust of wind, hypnotic pattern, lower water, mass charm, melf’s minute meteors, otiluke’s freezing sphere, rainbow pattern, web.

(From BoP) – bless, chant, prayer, pyrotechnics, obscurement, control weather, hallucinatory forest, transmute rock to mud, transmute water to dust, wall of fire, wall of thorns, fire storm, call lightning, flame strike, blade barrier, fire seeds, creeping doom, symbol, earthquake, holy word, insect plague, sunray, illusory artillery, spike growth, spike stones, lower water, turn wood.

There was also a note in both the BoM and BoP “This list offers (insert spellcaster type here) several options for spellcasting. However, a creative player and an innovative DM can expand this list, making (insert spellcaster type here) even more effective on the battlefield.’

The 2nd ed BR battle magic system was so diffused and intertwined that it led to chaos and at least from my personal experience, many disagreements between players and DMs over what battle magic could and could not do. Also over which standard spells could work on the battlefield and how they worked. IMO going down this path is a totally futile effort. It will only lead to adding more confusion to a system we are making every attempt to simplify and not make more complicated. What this leads to is including a description of every single spell in the PHB and what/if any effect it has on the battle. This then opens the door for every spell introduced by WotC in any product since they are all considered "official” spells, not to mention 3rd party spells. The work will never be done . Pretty much coming up with some simple guidelines would be great, but I just don’t see how that can happen. For example what area of effect is the minimum to account for an effect on the battle? How about duration? How long must the spell last to have an affect (in the case of blesses and defensive spells). How many spells can a caster cast during a battleround?

Adding a simple description (if that exists) of every PHB spell’s effects on the battlefield would by a rough estimate take at least 15-20 pages of double columned text.

[irdeggman]

So far in all of the discussions on this subject, I have heard only 1 opinion (your own) stating the importance of this strict delineation of magics. Yet this poll assumes that, without an outcry to re-word the poll, this delineation is what everyone agrees upon.

So do you really believe that every person who voted for option 1 is sanctioning a strict delinieation of effects with no overlap? I certainly don't think so, and I've heard a number of voices expressing that all 3 types of spells could (and should) be capable of affecting the battlefield.

-Osprey

That is exactly what I am trying to avoid. Basically going back to the 2nd ed system. Since you admitted to not owning the BoM and BoP until fairly recently you didn’t experience the problems the combined all three into the mish-mosh that 2nd ed had really causes.

To be specific and brief it is a totally non-elegant system that doesn’t fit into any of the 3.5 mechanics available.

What I`m suggesting is that we should combine these things in a 3e conversion of the setting. The 2e system of battlemagic is not a powering up of standard magic spells per se, but rather the effects of that 3e magic item creation at the warcard level. Where the original battlespell system turned Magic Missile into the Rain of Magic Missiles battlespell we could instead redefine the effects of Rain of Magic Missiles as what happens when a spellcaster creates a Wand of Magic Missiles and expends all of its charges on a unit of soldiers over the course of a battleround at the warcard level.

-Geeman

We certainly do have simple method in 3.5 for powering up spells, they are called metamagic feats. That is exactly what they (the metamagic feats) are designed to accomplish. No need to get overly complicated with that tie them into magic item creation cost issue you seem to like to keep bringing up.

[irdeggman]

I'm closing this poll and starting a new one. Based on comments that the previous choices were not specific enough.