How has Ceremonial Magic not destroyed your game world?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Snaps

So it sounds like most people just sweep ceremonial magic under the rug.

Pretty much. Along with things like earth to stone and shape stone wrecking havoc on construction, siegecraft, and the like, even without ceremonial magic.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Snaps

So it sounds like most people just sweep ceremonial magic under the rug.

I mean, it doesnt take much to use it. A single mage with 2 or 3 points in spells and some supporters can wreck havoc with create fire.

So if it works in your game then logically some of these problems should come up sometimes.

Hell, with Delay the mages don't even need to be anywhere near the battlefield.
A mage could create a monster elmental arrow/bomb/crystal then another mage teleports it to the battlefield, etc.

Again, it takes a certain number of mages to get this to work and/or be practical. It depends on the culture of the world. Just because something is possible doesn't mean it will happen. The ramifications are best left to the world builder (i.e., the GM). Various consequences (such as this) can be a lot of fun to work out. But if the there are various magical styles/arts/traditions, it may well be the case that the thrust of these don't lend themselves to abuses of ritual magic.

I have hedge wizards and clerics using agricultural magic to bless crops, for instance. They use ceremonial castings which greatly increase the food supply. Voila -- more specialization and generally better standard of living. But also more struggles over scarce resources and more development of land leading to expansion. (In my game world, they are coming out of a 1000 year long dark age. This means that there can easily be "unexpected" effects from magic cropping up.)

On a smaller scale, an example of looking at an important effect of alchemical longevity potions. In my world they're cheap, requiring common ingredients and taking only 1 week to produce, but are specific to the end user. They reduce the months aged per year by 1d. Each additional dose (up to 3) subtracts 1 from this roll. So 4 doses in a year age the user 1d-3 months (minimum of 0), meaning that the average aging is 0.5 months/year.

Anyone other than the intended user takes 1d-3 toxic damage (+1 per dose up to a maximum of 4 doses before the toxin is simply "passed" in one 24 hour period, the onset is 6 hours and causes cramps and nausea). The only drawback is reduced fertility: you're only as fertile as the number of months you lived, so someone who ages 0 months is infertile, someone who ages 6 months is half as fertile, etc.

These were introduced some 50 years ago and are just beginning to create real problems in terms of dynastic succession as the knowledge and usage of them spreads. Who knows how this will play out over time. No matter what, I'm sure it will be interesting...

Originally Posted by Anthony

Pretty much. Along with things like earth to stone and shape stone wrecking havoc on construction, siegecraft, and the like, even without ceremonial magic.

I use the DF version of earth to stone, etc. -- permanent changes require enchantment. Shape earth/stone has more interesting effects, but has been co-opted by a stonemason's guild. Earth and air elementals are often bound to fortifications to prevent common magics from penetrating walls. Nothing is less fun than encountering an earth elemental in HIS walls, and air elementals often see invisible fliers, turning them super-crispy. Not all fortresses are designed this way, however! Many are more "primitive" -- more like walls used as force multipliers, more forts than permanent fortifications. Magic is important to defense of castles, etc., as much as it is to siegecraft. But in the 1000 years since the fall of a great empire, tactical manuals have been all but forgotten and many "standard" magical tactics and strategies have become novel once more.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Snaps

I mean, it doesnt take much to use it. A single mage with 2 or 3 points in spells and some supporters can wreck havoc with create fire.

Well, no. He can't. The range is too limited.

[Faolyn]

Originally Posted by Snaps

So I was reading Ceremonial Magic again today and a few things clicked together. With those rules alone any game allowing magic should quickly develop some pretty crazy stuff that would put D&D games to shame.

How have you guys dealt with this? Has it come up much in your games? Why hasn't it come up more?

Originally Posted by Snaps

So I was reading Ceremonial Magic again today and a few things clicked together. With those rules alone any game allowing magic should quickly develop some pretty crazy stuff that would put D&D games to shame.

[...]

How have you guys dealt with this? Has it come up much in your games? Why hasn't it come up more?

It probably doesn't come up much because it does need to involve so many people, and the average adventuring party isn't going to be able to get that many to help out. And it's probably not too difficult to disrupt the casting--the rules themselves only talk about what happens when you distract the caster, but I'd say that if you killed some of the participants--such as you might do if you see a hundred or so folk casting a spell during a war--that it might very well ruin the spell.

That being said, it actually happened in a DF game I was in just a couple of weeks ago--the very first time anyone in any GURPS game I've been in has ever used ceremonial magic, in fact. There was some giant zombie Gestalt golem about to attack the town, and we needed to do a massive Dispel Magic (I believe that was the spell) to destroy it. Of course, dispelling the magic only caused it to break apart into individual zombies, but those were easily killed and the whole thing was totally awesome.

If you're actually worried about it disrupting the game, you could require a bunch of prepwork on the part of the players. Our PCs knew that the zombie golem was coming and we had a day to prepare: my bard and the party's cleric had to teach everyone the correct chants and how to do them in unison; the more combat-ready types had to get everything set up so that the townsfolk were in a safe positions and the town's fighter-types were in good combat positions, etc. It took quite a bit of actual role-playing, which made the high power of the spell well-deserve.

[Snaps]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Well, no. He can't. The range is too limited.

Actually, it's not. If a mage has 100 energy and casts Create Fire with an are of 50, that's a circle of fire 100 yards across.

The mage only has to touch an edge to not get a penalty and:

You may choose to affect only a part of
the area, instead of the whole circle, but
the cost is still the same – i.e., you may
create an area of effect with “holes” in
it, but must still spend energy as if you
had filled the entire radius of the spell.

So if you are 20 yards from the enemy lines in a tent, you can cast the spell, but have it not effect the 20 yards between you and the enemy. The enemy army on the other side of your men would then go up in flames, up to 80 yards behind your army.

Again, this is a mage that really only needs Magery 0 and 2 points in spells. (Maybe a little more than that just to get his skill up to 15) and _10_ seconds.

I think some people are thinking that Ceremonial Magic takes an hour. It doesn't. It's only x10 the casting time of the spell.

[Snaps]

As for books, settings, etc. that has dealt with this sort of thing the best I've read are the Vlad Taltos books.

Vlad has been involve in battles between armies in that very high magic world a few times and they've talked a little about how magic affects the battlefield.

Ceremonial Magic is used to protect armies from other casters, gather information and stop teleports, etc. I've always liked how the author actually addresses the effects of having such powerful magic in his world. They are always trying to get around teleport blocks, scryguards, etc.

Hmm, maybe I'll just start another thread to discuss the tactics involved in people who'd like to allow it in their games.

[Kromm]

I'm not saying it's a solution, but do note that in battle, "20 yards from the line" is silly talk. In a typical low-tech battle, your own line might be 100-200 yards deep (sometimes more), and combat might be joined by troops charging hundreds of yards to meet the other guys. Wizards who've pitched a tent behind their line could easily be 1/4 to 1/2 a mile from the nearest enemy even at low TLs; wizards who charge with the masses won't be doing ceremonial magic.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Snaps

So if you are 20 yards from the enemy lines in a tent,

Ha! I laugh at your mage pitching a tent large enpough for him and 100 spectators 20 yards from the enemy. That's one of the most improbable things I've ever heard.

1/2D for a minimal Longbowman is 165 yards and max is 220. If that company of longbowmen was shooting flaming arrows at your rather large tent they wouldn't need to do a large amount of direct damage.

You want a couple of hundred yards at a minimum to handle missile weapons and/or cavalry weapons and to allow for the normal depth of a formation of guarding infantry. If you're facing horse archers you want more than that to allow for infantry and your own archers.

So hundreds to a thousand yards and probably some sort of cheapish visual screening magic rather than a tent before you even start to account for battlefield use of Ceremonial Magic.

Magic will probably be stronger before or after the battle than during anyway. Say you're facing those horse archers. You pick your spot and use
Rain the night before the battle. You've got a thousand yards of mud in front of your battle lines and your troops didn't have to march through a yard of it.

So no Ceremonial Magic doesn't wreck my worlds. If some mage discovered a truly obnoxious use for it the Gods would only send an ostrich who shot lasers out of his eyes to kill him anyway.

Mostly Ceremonial Magic makes my world work the way I want it to. If the normla "rurual" village is a Druid and 100 adults who are 6 times as productive as usual that's great. Fewer people neeeded to make the food means ahistoriclally large cities _and_ more wilderness. That's doubly good for adventures.

CM and Shape Stone also means lots of ahistorically large castles. Also great. The list goes on like this. Historical accuracy and fantasy adventuring do not go together naturally. So if something destroys historical accuracy it's only pushing that out of your way.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I'm not saying it's a solution, but do note that in battle, "20 yards from the line" is silly talk.

Yeah, in general low tech battle magics seem to require either delayed magical traps or spells that allow very large areas (Wind is a good choice; you can go from dead calm to force 5 hurricane in a 300 yard radius for 102 energy. It can also be cast on an object which you then move through the enemy army).

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by Snaps

So let's say you have an army about to fight a battle. That army has ONE, decently skilled mage. If the army assigns him 100 assistants, he is now an engine of destruction.

1 mage + 100 supporters = 100 energy for casting the spell.

Except that on the battlefield, 100 enemy opposing spectators are easy to find. Minus 100 energy. Your hypothetical mage can't be on the battlefield itself.

Originally Posted by Snaps

So a single mage in the army can Create a 500 point Earth Elemental, every hour and a half or so (83.3 minutes).

You're right. The casting takes over an hour, and he only gets free control of the created elemental for the first hour after it's done. Before Elemental #2 pops out, Elemental #1 has gone rogue.

(Why do I think the elemental will rebel? That's the way to bet. Remember, you can add or subtract from stats with the bonus points. You can't add or subtract advantages or disadvantages with Create() Elemental. Since after 1 hr, the elemental contests the mage who summoned it with IQ and ST, and many of your points have almost certainly gone into ST, it's likely to break free... with almost half an hour to go before the second elemental pops up.)

Originally Posted by Snaps

Create Fire can be used to set whole armies ablaze too. One mage with 100 supporters can cast a 50 area create fire spell every 10 seconds, for no energy cost! (Especially deadly if the mage has telecast or even throw spell.)

Range on throw spell = 80 yards. Telecast is what you're talking about. And that requires a mage who's put serious effort into gathering all the required pre-req's, plus the martial spells you want. Including Magery 3, which is extremely rare in most settings.

So for most of your examples, the mages have to be right up at the front, and yet not opposed by spectators (such as members of the opposing army). The dangerous combo comes from having a rare, one-guy-per-country talent for magic and training focused entirely on helping the local military leaders kick butt.

And you have to factor in the countermeasures. Banish can be cast on summoned creatures (depending on your world-view, created elementals as well), with excess energy to pump into skill bonuses. Dispel Magic, Counterspell, and other countermeasures are useful as well. Though unless you have Telecast, you're going to have the same problems casting them from the front.

What I think is dangerous here aren't the cool exploits that come from Ceremonial Magic in combat. I'm actually surprised that they don't unbalance things more. It's the power of one particular spell: Telecast. One mage with this spell bought up high enough, fortified in a castle and surrounded by defenders and a chorus of supporters, can lay waste to an enemy army if they can't find and destroy the Wizard Eye in time.

If Magery 3 is rare in your setting, this might have big implications. If it's common, then we get the arms race that Bruno described. It might change the nature of war, but it won't destroy the world anymore than artillery or bombs. As it gets more rare, then you get situations where there's a race to eliminate your rivals' archmages (and archmages-in-training), while training, protecting and getting under your thumb some archmages of your own. A king whose telecast capabilities are eliminated gets conquered. If it's rare enough, the wizard himself might become a once-in-a-generation emperor, ruling an empire that only lasts as long as he does. In such a case, a wizard's guild might simply declare its power and let the kings pay obeisance. After all, someone has to reign.

Enough Magery 3, and the world has nation-states built around a mage infrastructure. Make it rare enough, and mage guilds become like ancient religious leaders: occasionally in a position of rulership, but always with a privileged position in society.

Even then, ceremonial casting is hardly game-breaking.

(UPDATE: Kromm and Brackin seem to have made these points while I was typing. ;) I think in general, "the world will end if someone invents..." arguments don't hold up... As in economics, military strategy is always heading uphill against imitation by competitors. There are few things more imitable than exploitation of RPG mechanics.)