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Old 01-30-2009, 03:20 PM   #1
Luke Bunyip
 
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Default [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

It occurred to me recently that none of the GURPS magic use in my RPG group had consisted of mage vs mage combat, and we have only had one combat which involved a mage. Even that was flawed (owing to our misreading of the rules). This to me seems to be a shocking state of affairs, and given my understanding of the trusty GURPS magic system, it should be easy to address.

But I want a short cut. When we first got GURPS, we did test combat after test combat. We could do this, but I suspect that, given the list of spells, we could do this for a while before we find spell applications and spell combinations which work well in combat.

So, my questions are thus:

What would you put down as your top ten spells for a battle mage, and why?

What are good spell combinations, that is which spells work well together? And I am interested in both offensive and defensive spell combo's here.
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:24 PM   #2
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

My first spells would be Armor and Shield, as well as Reflect Missiles; defenses that you can throw up at any time are always useful. Counterspell is also useful in this respect. After that, I'd try and get a combination of offensive spells usable on a single opponent (Concussion, Fireball, Stone Missile, Lightning, Acid Ball, etc), and then an area effect offensive spell (Rain of Nuts is fun, if limited to forest use). If your GM allows it, I'd also take Flame Jet for those man-to-man flame-sword mage fights.

For utilitarian use as a battle mage, I'd take Invisibility, Paralysis, and perhaps Create Mount.

My choices reflect the idea that a mage specializing in this kind of behavior is permitted to ignore prerequisite chains, accepting that he will not be able to cast the more utilitarian prerequisite spells to the more damaging high-prereq spells.
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:25 PM   #3
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

I have fairly limited experience with magic battles myself, but there are a few obvious choices at least. I don't know if that's what you meant, but here goes anyway.

Offensive:
1. Missile Spell(s) of choice. Fireball is the archetypical choice, but others are just as good or better for certain situations. Lightning stare for instance counts metal armor as DR 1. Having one solid choice here is a must.

2. Secondary damage dealers. For those special circumstances when you still need to dish out damage but don't want to use a missile spell. Flame breath, burning touch, burning death, death touch, etc. are all good choices for sneakier damage.

3. Crippling spells. These are things like flash of light (is that what it's called?) which causes DX penalties to all who see it, clumsiness, glue, and other sneaky spells. I recall a few that do things like slow the target, increase encumbrance, and possibly some mind control spells or something I don't know the names of.

Defensive:
1. Armor and shielding. It seems obvious, but it's even better when you realize that these are passive once cast and defend against all damage you take from external sources. Armor reduces damage from swords and fireballs, and shielding gives a bonus to all active defenses if memory serves, including against missile spells.

2. Things like magic resistance could help defend against crippling spells from enemy wizards, if you're apt to come up against them.

3. Illusions that distract enemies or hide your presence could help. Again, I'm unfortunately not terribly familiar with these spells.


There are some spells that are good for both purposes. Haste and / or greate haste give good offensive and defensive advantages. Flight helps a lot here too. It also helps to have magical minions of some sort or another to help. Skeletons or zombies, a golem perhaps, or such can distract enemies as well as deal damage.

There's just so much magic can do it's hard to summarize the possibilities in a single post. I'm sure others will have much better input.
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:30 PM   #4
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

In a DF setting I like Destroy Air, else I like the Darkvision / Darkness combo...
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:40 PM   #5
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

My top ten, in no particular order:

Grease
Glue
Stench
Rain of Ice Daggers
Flame Jet
Shape Air
Concussion
Body of Wind
Fumble
Deflect Missile
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Old 01-30-2009, 04:43 PM   #6
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

It all depends on the kind of combat- mage to mage, mage to swordsman, or in a more general battle.
When I think battlemage, I think soldier in an army, fighting in large battles.
GURPS mages on reasonable point budgets tend to be limited on their direct damage potential. The FT costs just go up too fast. Offensively, your best bet is area denial and force multipliers like concussion, glue and flash. Darkness is also handy.

Defensively, Missile Deflection/Reflection, Invisibility, Blur, Haste and Armor are all good, but only if you can maintain them for free. One a battlefield, you can't just plan to last one minute, you need to plan for hours.

Man to man, when the combats last less than a minute, things are much more open. Against a single target, the missle spells are possibly useful. I like Dehydrate-20 for small unit combats, although that has the standard spell range issues.
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Old 01-30-2009, 06:49 PM   #7
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

For an alternate mode of combat, Shapeshifting (Tiger, Bear, Wolf, etc) is fun. Or if you'd rather not get your hands (paws) dirty, there's always Create Animal/Warrior

I had an idea for an ambush which would combine Protect Animal and Create Animal to create a small army of DR 5 DB+3 unstoppable Bears/Tigers

I think where mages really come into their own is when they know a battle is coming and can prepare. When taken by surprise they aren't nearly as strong, IMHO, unless they are crafty enough to have a Delay'd or Hung Spell ready to go.
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Old 01-30-2009, 07:05 PM   #8
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

Generally Speaking a battle mage should have:

(Burning, Shocking, Death) Touch - for REALLY close attacks or staff use.
(Light, Air, Flame, Water, Sand)Jet - Close attacks
(Ice, Fire, Stone)Missle/Ball - Ranged attacks
(Deflect Missle,Turn Blade,Blur, Darkness) - Defenses
(Grease, Glue, Create/Control, Flash, Spasm) General Environment Shaping and/Or Trick spells.

To be honest, it really does depend on what kind of mage your making. The Great Mage Richardus Simmonus with his Full controll of the Body Control College is going to fight VERY differently than Fridgidi the Ice Mage with acess to the Water College.

Decide on who they are and how they fight first. Decide how much Magic is a part of that combat, then pick spells from there.

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Old 01-30-2009, 07:12 PM   #9
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

Flash, Ball Lightning, Flame Jet, Blackout, Create Fire(combined with Shape Fire), and Sunbolt have all seen heavy use in the game I'm in now. All top notch spells for making a mess of your foes.
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Old 01-30-2009, 11:38 PM   #10
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Default Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells

A military mage would have area-effect spells and defenses (Rain of Fire and Utter Dome would be a good two-fer).

A martial-artist mage would have personal spells (Iron Arm, Deathtouch, and Lightning as a good martial-arts mix).

A support mage would have spells to assist his comrades (Teleport Other, Might, and Vigor are good support spells).

How is your battle-mage trained? What is his role? A multipurpose mage would have more spells, but probably wouldn't be as good with them (spreading the CP around does that). The sensible and realistic approach is to figure out what he was trained for and work from there. So he only has a handful of spells? Big deal, he'll be skilled with them!

And remember those "mundane" skills, too! Military mages would have Soldier and Tactics, a martial-artist mage would have Karate or weapons skills, and a support mage would have medical and possibly armorer skills.
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