[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.

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.

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.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

In a DF setting I like Destroy Air, else I like the Darkvision / Darkness combo...

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

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.

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.

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.

Nymdok

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.

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.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I have a character that started out as a mage assassin, and one of the most useful features is certainly Improved Magic Resistance. There's nothing quite like shaking a finger at wizards that try to nerf him with a spell, only to find out it *just doesn't work.* Hard to Kill will also prove to be a nice insurance policy on your mage. ;)

As for useful spells? Blink, deflect missile and return missile, armor is essential. For just a few points, you're protected everywhere like a suit of full armor! Strike Blind and Strike Dumb are both highly useful for making enemy wizards mostly useless (especially Strike Dumb if you notice they have to speak for all their spells.)

I know a certain other character that tends to use Levitation to lift up her enemies and then invert them. Handy against mundanes.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

The possibilities are too many, it depend of the mage focus.

However, all my mage tend to have those utilities spells, if available.

-Flight (or a variation).
Always usefull.
(personnaly, i tend to buy it as a power (magical, and familar or gadget based), as it is the spell you want to have always on.)

-Ignite fire
The swiss knive of magic.

-Invisibility

If your battlemage is part of an army (or a small group of fighters),
don't forget the food college.
Also, If your gm allow it, Move terrain is awesome for any battlemage.

celjabba

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I will raise one complain, Missile spells and Melee spells are bad choice. Mage is better of with mundane choices. (Brawling, Sword, Bow or Crossbow, Throwing skills)

Also it is also hard to find efective anti-magic spells. Spell shield is one passive defence, but definetly not Wards. (Enemy can use any spell from book you can defend only to few.)

Always good choice are spells that change conditions of battlefield. Levitation, Fly, Missile Shield, Armour, Invisibility. Night Vision, Dark Vision (for dungeon delvers). And maybe some summons (Creation and Illusion)

Lately I was toying with Innate Attack as part of "mage's" minimum, especialy homming with extra accuracy seems nice long range as in some fiction, and games, and surely anime.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

First I take Link so a spell can be set to go off rather quickly, then:

Shapeshift (Kodiak Bear)
Stench
Mass Daze
Create Fire
Stone Missile or Lightning or Ice Sphere
Blur
Shield (maybe)
Shocking Touch (can be combined with an attack with a staff with the Staff spell cast on it!)
Electric missiles (to support a party)
Mystic Mist

I don't bother with armor, choosing to wear my own instead.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Shape Earth. Cast with an intended duration of 1 turn to avoid spell on penalties. Move one cubic hex of Earth out of the way and put it in front of where you dug it out. Spell ends. You have a 3 foot deep hole and 3 foot tall front wall. With one step, you are in a fox hole. And 36 inches of earth can eat damage.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

If your GM allows Imbuements:

You need a missile spell. You take the Imbument skills Shatter Strike, Arching Shot and the combo skill Arching Shaterstrike all set for your missile spell.

You now are a mortar. You spend fatigue for the missile spell 3d recommended. Arching shot lets you bend the path of the missile spell So you can go around corners and over walls.

Get the Imbuement skills up to a level where you can take a -4 skill penalty without problems.

Shatter stike adds frag damage (burn or cutting whichever is more suitable to the attack type) up to the damage of the attack. [1d] 5 yd range no penalty. [2d] 10 yd range -2 penalty. [3d] 15 yd range -4 penalty base skill of 15- for the shrapnel minus range penalties. 1 fatigue for Shatterstrike two fatigue for Arching Shatter Strike.

And with good hit rolls you do multiple frag attacks to your target.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Very true. But that is why I asked the question. For example, if some of you have interesting comments on the way that some spells from different colleges combine, that is the sort of information I am very interested in.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

and the next spearman will spear you to death.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

OH! So you want combos! Why dintcha say so!

These should be accessible for Magery 2 and have a pretty low pre-req count.
Offensive Combos for The Pure Magic Batle Mage:

Glue/Create Fire/Shape fire
Grease/Windstorm
Pain or Stun/Flame Jet or Lightning Whip
HawkVision/Lightning


Is that what you meant?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Create Animal (Swarm of Wasps) was probably the most effective use of a spell in combat that I've ever seen. There are direct countermeasures, but if you're not expecting it and aren't wearing environmental armor, it's probably lights out.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

See the thread Created Animals, and their Training for some thoughts directly relevant to this.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

God help the other side if you have a few decent mages and they don't.

A previous GURPS campaign we had to deal with an invading army. A really, really big army. They had some magic items with specific spells in them, but no true caster types with spell lists.

We had six journeyman mages.

Invisibility, Strength, Haste and/ or Great Haste, Armor, Flight or Hawkflight. The whole stack of buff spells went on the party member with Absolute Timing and about half a round later he would be in the middle of their camp doing All Out Attacks until 3-5 rounds before the Invis dropped. When his Absolute Timing started giving him warnings he just flew back into the trees and was gone.

The Flight/ Hawkflight was kind of a necessity because he was also wearing heavy armor and would have been at least Medium encumbrance without it.

We never quite managed to stop the army, but they had the most nervous troops that world had seen.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Nonsense. Your Flame Jet will cut him down where he stands.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

As others have mentioned, a lot depends on the circumstances in which the battle mage finds himself in. It also depends on what his role in the battle shall be, as well as what the goals of the combat might be.

One spell that can change the face of mass combat battles involving cavalry is that of the spell SUMMON ANIMALS. For 3 fatigue and 2 to maintain, one can summon a single horse. But for 6 fatigue and 4 to maintain, one can summon ALL horses within a 10 mile radius. Three mages working together to cast this spell in a ceremonial casting, can make it so that the opposing army's horses will be summoned to head towards where the mages are located. What makes this spell of particular interest is the fact that there are no saving rolls involved on the part of the horses. If the spell works, they come. Short of keeping your horses in a no mana region, or other similar counter-measures, there isn't a whole heck of a lot that a cavalryman can do.

I don't know what else was discussed in the created animal thread mentioned earlier in the posts, but one particularly nasty application of the spell is to summon carnivorous bats and sending them after mounted knights horses. Usually, those bats will inflict on the order of 1d6 cutting damage unless the horses are wearing barding. Cloth barding only stops 1 point of damage IF the entire horse is covered by it. As an added bonus, knights or cavalrymen who are riding the horses being attacked, will need to make horse control rolls at a penalty equal to the wounds taken (up to a max of 4).

1 on 1d6 will do only 1 point of damage after the cutting bonus is added.
2 on 1d6 will do 3 points of damage after the cutting bonus is added.
3 on 1d6 will do 4 points of damage after the cutting bonus is added.
4 on 1d6 will do 6 points of damage after the cutting bonus is added.
5 will do 7 points, and 6 will do 9 points after cutting bonus is added. Those bats can do some really NASTY damage.

Knights whose horses are being attacked will need to either ignore the bats and pray they can get the mages who unleased the bats on them, or they need to ignore the mages and concentrate on killing the bat swarm. Even if they do that, they will usually inflict only 2 points of damage against the bat swarm, possibly 4 in a single turn. It takes 8 points to disperse a bat swarm.

What would probably help the original poster is if people here were to submit mages built upon 100 or 150 points, and create the spell lists for the submitted characters. This way, the original poster can use the examples generated for this thread - and have mock arcane battles. He can then try the spells against other mages, and against other fighters, and finally other mages AND fighter groups.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Thanks for the suggestion Hal, but that is not neccessary. I forwarded the link to the rest of my gaming group, and a couple of them have been following this thread.

The suggestions that you have all given, as well as comments regarding "one size does not fit all", have been excellent. Ta muchly.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Aw shucks, and here I was gearing up to try and create a FUN warrior/mage for use with the Elves versus Banestorm orcs scenario...

Nine 75 point orcs plus one Orc leader at 112 points (ie 50% and 75% cost of mage) versus 1 Elven Mage of 150 points. Objective of the Orcs is to penetrate 50 miles into the woods. Objective of the Elf sentry/warrior is to deny the Orcs their victory conditions.

The test is to see how well such a mage MIGHT fare (or not) against such foes. ;)

Ah well, I'll behave.

:)

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Of course, some of the *rest* of us might be interested in the outcome of your Elf vs. Orcs skirmish.

So I say: "Go ahead, Hal!"

(or maybe, "No, don't behave! Please?")

- Genin

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Ways to hose melee types:

Return Missile.

It generally isn't necessary to resort to Reverse Missiles or Missile Shield, once someone with a missile weapon gets a missile thrown back at them, the mage is added to the list of "things the melee types get to deal with". For some reason, very few archers/crossbowmen are willing to find out just how many times a mage can do that particular trick.

Hawk Vision + pretty much any missile spell.

Hawk Vision gives you a bonus that offsets range penalties. It allows a mage with Innate Attack (missile)-12 to be effective with a turn or two of aiming. 'nuff said.

Create Animal.

This is a great spell. Create a wolf, sic 'im on someone. Then create another one. Then another. Then another. Have them all-out attack the victim's unarmored bits. They won't do much damage, especially if the victim is wearing armor, but they will give the victim something to do other than swinging at you.

Rooted Feet or Glue

Another great spell, especially for mages who carry a staff. Root that pesky sword-swinger in place, step out of his reach, and teach him why he shoulda brought a reach 2 weapon by whacking him over the head repeatedly.

Fumble

Pure awesomeness. It's a blocking spell. You can cast it in addition to whatever other (one-second-casting-time) spell you cast that round. The only downside is that the fatigue cost is significant. Stand behind the meat-shields and use it to hose the enemy's defense rolls, the meat-shields will *love* you for it.

Ways to hose other mages:

Magic Resistance.

Cast it on one of your meat-shields and tell him to beat up the mage. The mage will be casting spells on the meat-shield at -10 or so. *fizzle*

Enlarge.

Potent, long-lasting, and massively increases the fatigue cost to cast regular spells on the target.

Hush or Strike Dumb.

Completely hoses mages who have spell skill of less than 15.

Strike Blind

There's a -5 penalty to cast regular spells on targets you can't touch or see.

The ultimate nasty combination for people with lots and lots of Energy Reserve is probably Walk Through Earth, Earth Vision, and Flesh to Stone. Dive into the ground, cast Earth Vision so you can see your victim (-1 for having a spell active is better than -5 for not being able to touch or see the target), and cast Flesh to Stone from a yard underground. The only real counter is to cast Earth Vision and start trying to hit the underground mage with Regular spells. If your mage doesn't know Earth Vision, your best bet is to run.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Enlarge combos well with Body of Wind, if you have the FP/skill to handle the cost of course. Use Enlarge first, since BoW doesn't increase in cost with the targets size. ST 40+ and IT:Diffuse strikes hard and isn't put down easily (+2 SM Enlarge if the recipient has ST 9+, +1 SM for ST 14+). Skill 20 for both spells is highly recommended, even though it may be a massive investment of points.

Purely as a defense against melee/archers Body of Air works well, and you don't need more than 15 skill to make it free to maintain.

Sensitize followed by Agonize will incapacitate anyone failing the resistance rolls (HT based, so a decent choice against mages). Start with Frailty if want to be sure it works (and you have the FP/ER to spend).

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I wouldn't dare to say they are the "top ten", but I can list a few spells that are comparatively better than similar spells in their category:

- Melee spells: generally speaking, they suck! If you want to fight, why not create a warrior? He'll do similar or more damage, more accurately, each round, without fatigue cost... Flame Jet is FAR better than any Melee spell. Melee spells are useful only for high-DX, low-ST warrior mages.

- Missile spells: never take Fireball. Lighting is far better; reduced damage but improved Acc and 1/2, metal RD counts as 1 and, more importantly, the target must roll vs. HT - 1 for each 2 points of damage, or be Stunned. Concussion might be better yet, due to its "mass stunning" side effect.

-Other uber-effective spells are: Flash and Smoke.
Reverse missile is king vs. archers.
Armor is somewhat costly for what it does, Shield and Blur are better.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

In a fantasy campaign with high points I used a mage with Create Animal + Enlarge, plus some other magic to boost de defense a giant wolf or lion can be very intimidating…

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Lightning certainly has its pluses (it also does Surge damage to electronics), but... It's harder to learn than Fireball, it does about 28% less damage per point of energy, and it behaves unpredictably around conductors. Fire spells are also usually more reliable in actually starting fires.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Answering this question really depends on what role the mage plays in battle. Is he there to duel other mages? Is he a magically-trained infantryman? Or is he some kind of specialist - say, one to a unit, or a member of the special forces?

A duellist will want spells that can disrupt another mage - Body Control comes to mind - or that defend against whatever spells he might use. Information-gathering spells would be useful before the duel, to discover what spells the opponent might use.

(As an aside: I don't feel like Magic handles "mage duel" scenarios very well. As far as I can tell, the way these duels usually work is that each duellist has some way to counter every attack that the other might use. For instance, if A casts a flame jet, B might counter with a second flame jet to "beat it back", or a frost jet to cancel it out, or a forcefield or fire immunity to deflect or ignore the fire, or he might cast something on the opposing jet itself to turn it into a harmless spray of flowers. Winning such a duel depends on beating down the opponent with raw power, possibly fueled by desperation as one is on the brink of defeat, or wearing him down through superior skill, or striving in vain until someone gets lucky - also likely to award higher skill - or discovering a weakness in the opponent's offense or defense and exploiting it.

In GURPS, there are a limited number of blocking spells that would be useful in a mage duel.. and, with the exception of those spells, and sometimes a Dodge, each duellist must suffer the effects of the opposing attack in turn before they are able to counterattack. Spells that resist certain effects, such as fire or lightning, take long enough to cast that they're potentially useless unless you can start the duel with them already on.

...But I digress.)

Where were we? Oh right. Mages as common infantry realistically wouldn't exist, since you'd have to train a bunch of green recruits to use magic fairly quickly, in addition to all the other skills that new soldiers need to learn. It takes enough time to whip a bunch of irregular slobs into fighting shape, teach them the rudiments of discipline and organization, and give them the ability to kill the enemy with a spear or gun and the will to do so, without also taking several years to train them in the arcane arts.

If you want exceptions to this, then you either need to assume that magic is much easier to learn - perhaps eliminating prereq chains, and allowing faster learning in an intensive "magic boot camp" environment - or you need to assume that your soldiers are extremely long-lived, even ageless, and can therefore spend a few dozen or hundred years between wars learning new spells and keeping in practice. Such highly competent soldiers would likely act as specialists or special forces, though. Magic boot camps usually crank out Johnny One-Spells that only do one thing sorta-well and are really only good for lending your world a cheap veneer of fantasy color: instead of archers or riflemen, you have fireballers who do the exact same thing. Or instead of hoplites, you have flying hoplites. Oooooooo.

Specialists fill specific roles in a combat unit other than direct combat with the enemy. For instance, in a unit of swordsmen or spearmen, the mage might have missile spells, allowing him to act as a defensive sniper (he'll probably want to stay near his unit, and missile spells tend to be pretty flashy, so other sniping roles seem less likely.. although Stone Missile would be pretty hard to see in the dark.) Or, if he has Explosive Fireball, he can be the unit's artilleryman. Non-combat spells might be even more useful, though. Healing and curing spells would reduce casualties substantially as well as raising unit morale. Scouting or information gathering spells would be of limited use to a unit - might help you spot an ambush, maybe - but combined with communication spells to relay the information back to a commander this would turn any unit into a useful scouting unit, and allow a historically-unprecedented level of intelligence gathering and command-and-control. The ability to create or purify food and water would grant an enormous logistical advantage; an army that can create its own supplies at need can go anywhere, at any time, for as long as necessary, and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Entire wars could be won just by attacking enemy supply trains and waiting for them to starve to death (or desertion).

Special forces are badasses of the "Dungeon Fantasy PC" sort, and nearly anything and everything qualifies here. Buffing spells turn them into supersoldier killing machines who can mow down the enemy. Disguise, shapechanging, and stealth will allow them to slip through enemy lines and into sensitive areas. Assassination is obvious, but why not steal maps, communications, and other intelligence? How about plundering the enemy's cash reserves, spreading negative propaganda, or making symbolic attacks (such as sneaking into the enemy throne room and destroying the portraits of the king's ancestors, or blowing up the statue in the town square) to sap morale? Alternately, they could be used to clear strategic "hard" targets such as enemy walls and forts, so that regular troops can walk in and take possession. In this case, they'll want Destroy Air or poison gas-type spells, Mass Sleep, lots and lots of Create Fire, or anything else that can knock out a whole room in one shot, and a Wizard Eye or something similar to see which rooms need blasting. They should also have decent-to-excellent combat abilities (either magical or mundane), and if someone can create walls or forcefields (to seal off certain areas from attack or divide the enemy) and make holes in existing walls, so much the better. Special forces should have healing and food/water magic in any case, and if they have some communication and movement spells, all the better.

No matter what role your "battlemages" play, you should avoid taking spells that duplicate what ordinary people can do by hand. Give them spells that will grant important advantages that will be used a lot and can't be gotten any other way.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

In continuing with Xplo's theme...

One of the fun things that can be done is to look at the actual training period of the mage to see what is happening and when. For the fun of it? I'm going to start up a new thread on BATTLEMAGIC Academy and see how such an organization might go about training battle mages :)

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Given a sufficient energy source Create Animal serves for every D&D summoning spell except those dealing with demons/solars/elementals.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Ignore EVERYTHING I said :P

What spells would you give the leafmuncher? Are you going to do a run through? If so, I would love to hear how it goes.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Of particular note and not previously mentioned...

If you are going to be facing mages (as an adventurer not so much on the battlefield) and they may/will be recurring enemies...

Seek and Tracer to allow you to locate and track them ambush is a wonderful thing if you are on the right side of it.

Scryguard and Conceal Magic I am running a mage atm and have mages as Enemy Disadvantage and these two spells can be kept running 24/7 and make you a black hole for magical info purposes (it comes to you but you dont emit any)...particullary devistating if both are on at once.

Magic Resistance the spell fairly proof against all but direct damage spells...

a few pennies for you....

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Ta muchly. Good points there. (Not to say the rest are not worthy, but this looks at magery at a operational level, rather than the purely tactical level we have discussed so far).

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

A couple of thoughts:

-Atmosphere Dome is a great way to end a seige.
-Materializing an elephant should be a nasty surprise to charging cavalry.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I've found a combination of...

Create Fire
Shape Fire
Fast Fire

to be quite useful. It can be created close by, under enemies for immediate effect. Shaping it grants it 5 hex/sec mobility. It bypasses most of DR (although non enhanced damage is low), can be used close, far, defensively or tactically (to block way to allies or self, to block exits, etc). It also serves to do away with those pesky darkness penalties, or to eat away at obstacles while you fight in a more mundane fashion. Several mythic/fantasy creatures are vulnerable to it. It's also useful on a larger scale on the battlefield, where rolling pillars of flame can wreck havoc on enemy troops. Resist Fire is a good complement, as it allows the mage to use the above without worrying too much about his own safety. Biggest problems are enemies resistant to fire, or that can fly (if the battlefield allows this). Terrain and weather is not much of an issue, as magical fire needs no fuel.

Effects that stun, induce fright-checks, give penalties to attributes, blind, etc... are of great use.
Effects that hide, give penalties to hit, increase resistance or provide a quick heal can be of great defensive value as well.

Some form of counter-magic is a must. There's no point in taking spells such as deflect missiles, for instance... when a dodge accomplishes this. Instead use your points on counterspells and wards. School Familiarity perks can be very useful here.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Uhhh with most mage stats your dodge is going to be about an 8. Thats a 60 ish percent change of eating that crossbow bolt for big damage and probably having your spell disrupted. I wiould rather spend the 1 cp and than the 1 fp to get my 98+ pct chance (skill 16 for ave spell very likely) to aviod all that thank you...

YMMV of course but I find the math very compelling...

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Yes that's true, it has more prerequisites. Those prerequisites can be quite useful, though.

Yes, if damage was the same NO wizard would EVER learn Fireball :)

"Can start fires" will often be a worse nuisance than "can't be thrown through a metal grid".

All considered, I deem Lightning to be superior to Fireball. The automatic HT roll (at a penalty!) is very often a fight stopper.

Counter-magic is *terribly* uneffective in GURPS. To be of any use at all, you need either to be an archmage (knowing hundreds of spell), or to use the School Familiarity perks (which aren't in GURPS Magic, and to me look like a late correction, added when they realized that Counterspell and Ward were *never used* in actual play).

Deflect Missiles costs fatigue but it's almost always better than a Dodge, even if you use Feverish Defense. Often mages lack heavy armour / lots of HP so they really don't want to be hit by crossbows' darts to the vitals.
Moreover, such spells as Reverse Missile (both in the Regular and Blocking versions) are *far better* than dodges because they actually allow you to injure the enemy archer.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

We just started a campaign in a world with partially limited magic. To put it short: no missile spells or teleport/dimensional spells. Also, the most powerful 10 % of spells regardless of type are banned. I know banning missile spells sounds weird, but it makes sense in the world and history of the campaign, and is something different at least.

Nevertheless i wanted to create a battle-mage (225 cps), or more of a warrior-mage really. I ended up with these core spells:

- For instant defense: Deflect Missile, Iron Arm
- For prepared defense: Shield, Armor, (Missile Shield,) Reverse Missiles
- For extra damage: Electric Weapon, Electric Missiles (+2 dmg)
- Panic!: Shocking Touch
- For both offense and defense: Windstorm, Spark Storm, Air Vision. In certain situations, these spell are very useful. They not only act as efficient missile shields: in a situation where your foes can't retreat, or in mass combat, they become deadly. Moving around inside the Storm and letting it knock your foes down while you keep hitting them with your Electrified Broadsword is nice, safe and violent
- ...plus the obvious Movement and Healing spells

Some Advantages typical for a warrior, plus M3.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

How about a little thread...

...NECROMANCY!!!

Muwha ha ha! Bwa ha ha!! Ha ha ha ha!!! I kill myself!!!

"Necromancy!" Get it?

See, the thread is old and it's about spells...


Annnyways. There are a few really good posts in here. Any more good battle mage builds now that we've had three more years?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I haven't reread this whole thread yet so it may have already come up, but I've recently become smitten with the Movement College. It possesses classics like Deflect Missile (Missile Shield and Reverse Missiles aren't Movement spells, though they have Apportation as prereqs), Distant Blow (which may be able to strike through the above shields), Great Haste (extra actions are always awesome, as is alliteration). Glue and Grease can nicely destroy an enemy's Dodge defense, while Poltergeist and Winged Knife provide modest (but cheap) ranged firepower. The combination of Levitate/Flight and Locksmith will play havoc on dungeon barriers, while Light Tread can avoid many traps and foil pursuit. Upper tier spells like Flying Carpet and Teleport provide incredible mobility, and Ethereal Body is a great Get Out of Jail Free card.

For a mage duel, the most useful spells will likely be Deflect Missile (or its kin) and the various mobility / speed spells. You'll likely want to supplement with other colleges for defense against enemy spells, and more potent offensive powers.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Rooted Feet or Glue. Roundabout. Nice kneecaps you had there, eh? (if not resisted, I treat it as a successful Wrench Limb with ST = Roundabout skill level. If it matters - if it's a mook, there's a sickening crunch and he stops fighting.)

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Start a new thread, and title it "We're Looking for a few good Mages"
Put something in it like "The Few, the Proud, the Mages. We're looking for a few good Mages. If you have what it takes, maybe you too can join the elite college staff dedicated towards training the next generation of Battle mages."

Then elsewhere, put in some stipulations such as point build, and anything else that makes this an interesting exercise. People are required to post their builds on the thread, and later on, if anyone wants to run such a project, do a play by post or what have you, where the various battle mages square off against each other.

Just a thought.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

^I hear you, Hal. These threads just don't do well. I'm considering starting a Dungeon Fantasy 1-2 and Magic-only Wizard build thread with a maximum of 30 points total, but, these threads often tank and there's already some great info here.

This was the best thread I found on the subject, and I remembered it when it was alive, before I resurrected it.


On topic, I'm surprised Panic doesn't get nearly as much love as Stench. Stench does negligible damage in most combat encounters; it's all about clearing the room. Granted, indoors, it's a solution that will last longer than the average battle. Panic is great at doing the same thing and is resisted by Will.

I nearly total-party killed with a single Panic spell. All four PC's, including a cleric/wizard-type, failed their roll and fled.

Stench is great for a number of reasons including its irresistible effects and only one prerequisite, don't get me wrong. It is better than Panic. It's just that Panic is resisted by Will, which is often lower than HT for melee characters. Of course, Stench's true effects are irresistible for any normal, breathing character.

Just saying. Panic is nice, in my opinion.

The stunning effects of Death Vision are resisted by IQ, making it a highly-lethal weapon against individual melee characters. It has no prerequisites and only costs 1 FP at skill 15. Unfortunately, it takes three seconds to cast unless taken at level 20. However, being stunned until an IQ roll is made is a great way to take out a single character, in my opinion.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Fear + Frightening side effects perk
Its a great fight ender assuming you have some skill in intimidation, but being based on will what wizards tend to have :) and a +3 from fear. That shouldn't be your biggest problem.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Missile spells shouldn't be your go-to spells in combat, but they definitely have their uses. For that, I've noticed no one has mentioned Stone Missile except in passing. It's got better range, Acc, and damage than Fireball despite having a prereq count that's only barely higher (and those are spells you'll use anyway).

It also does crushing damage. In an Infinite Worlds setting, where you get those kevlar/nanoweave type armors, having the ability to do lots of blunt trauma can come in very handy.

Let me add that the Mind Control spells, used creatively, can be devastating. Especially if you're the aggressor and have the drop on your enemies. Illusion shell can be useful, too. Cast it around a foe to make him look like the dangerous and vulnerable PC spellcaster. Of course, he doesn't have Missile Shield, does he?

Proper form for that last spell is to give the victim a goatee.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Mostly because Stone Missile is an Earth Mage build and they tend to be more Strategic when it comes to Battlemages than Tactical. Using their spells to the battlefield more favorable to their side.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Stone Missile is a good choice if you were going to limit yourself to one missile spell. The prereq difference is minimal (note that the prereqs for Fireball also have general utility), but still something to consider. If ease of learning is not an issue, Sunbolt is a possible alternate, with even better range, and imp damage to help offset the -2/die reduction (compared to Stone Missile).

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

What I especially like about Stone Missile is that everyone expects you to know some variant of Fireball and over-invest in defenses against it.

Sunbolt is also a good choice. Ideal for sniping, and if I recall off-hand, you get the utility effects of having a pseudo-fire spell handy. My one beef with impaling damage is that while it's great, crushing damage is better against all kinds of Injury Tolerance (Annoying) beasties.

Of course, I can't emphasize enough that missile spells aren't your best options in most combat situations. To me, they're useful specialist weapons for ranged combat.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Some missile spells do carry useful secondary effects. A Fireball has a good chance of igniting some or all of a target's clothing, Lightning bypasses metal armor and can Stun, Sunbolt can blind and is unaffected by Missile Shield, etc. They're still not great choices for combat (especially compared to Heroic Archers) but they have their niches. The mistake some players make is trying to stretch these spells into the "blaster" role of D&D wizards.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Sunbolt was erratad to be tight-beam burning, wasn't it? I'm almost certain that's official errata... it could be a house-rule I've heavily internalized though. This removes the shinyness of Impaling, but adds back general utility against IT (Annoying) :D

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Nope. It's actually way confused now. In the text it says "burns like laser light and does burning damage" but the Cost still says "The bolt does 1d-1 impaling damage per energy point".

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

from the Errata page:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magic Erratta P. 114. Under Sunbolt, change "and does impaling damage" to "and does burning damage".

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Yes, it does say "and does burning damage." I quoted that part. Note that it doesn't say "tight-beam burning damage", either.

The "impaling damage" under "Cost" for the spell has not been errated. So now the spell says one thing in the description and another thing under "Cost"

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

While I agree about the tight-beam part how ever the cost part is being overly pedantic reading. It clear that the intend is Both instances of swaping impaling for burning

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I'm literarly reporting what's in the current version of GURPS Magic, you might think that expecting the text to match is pedantic, but I call it errata. If it's so clear why wasn't it done when the pdf was updated?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

because some grabbed the errata and probable use a exactly such a pedantic search and replace, as computers are exactly the pedantic

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Having come to this thread in its present after-Easter phase, and having read the thread I wish to add two cents worth. Having thought about battle mages I do not like making the mage exclusively offensive or even mostly offensive. If that offends someone, tough. (Yes, that is my attempt at a joke.)
A battle mage can do more good for the home team by not casting an offensive spell but instead casting protection spells and healing spells. This is even more so with larger battles. In a small battle / skirmish the mage may have to cast damaging spells simply because enemy soldiers can get to him and cut him up badly. In a larger battle there are all these soldier types who can deal more damge over a longer term than the mage can. So the mage protects them from missiles and heals their wounds and prevent area of effect spells from wiping out large numbers of the good guys.
Depending upon the build and equipment a soldier will not run out of fatigue as fast as a mage will. Even allowing for mana storage mana points / fatigue run out too quickly for a mage to concern himself with attacks. Instead prevent or heal damage. You also won't be so much of a target yourself.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

And were just supposed to just shrug and accept it? Why bother with errata at all then?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

I expect they will fix it with the next printing as their normal policy.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Not if it's not on the errata page, it's not.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

when was the page last updated? Was it submitted?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Is there an errata coordinator to submit it to?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

My two cents on Sunbolt; it should be treated as a tight-beam burning attack with an armor divisor of 2. This makes it the same value CP wise as an impaling attack, thus giving it comparable value vs. other missile spells.

EDIT
And the change makes it more laser like! I feel it should really use the Innate Attack (Beam) skill. If sunbeam and sunray didn't already have harmless connotations, I suspect they would be names more in spirit of the spell than "bolt".

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Does a mage with Enlarge speel on needs to multiply spell cost for using regular spells on himself (for instance Great Haste)?

In case its positive, would this cost increase apply to teleport (which is not an regular spell)

Annother thing: is it possible to rest while you have active spells on? For instance, I cast enlarge with skill 15 for SM+1 (1 FP), than rest to regain the FP while keeping the spell on.

PS:A general comment I should make is that Enlarge is very cheap for its power... For 2 FP you multiply your ST and HP by 1.5 and any enemy mage targeting you needs to spend twice the FP for regular spells. And it lasts for one hour! If the above combo is correct, every mage should just keep "aways on" Enlarge. Just pay the maintenance cost and rest 5 min per hour (assuming recovery 15).

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

DF tweaks a few spells and this is one of them, because yes it's very cheap for combat purposes.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Besides my previous questions, I have two new ones:

1) Does "spells-on" affect casting cost?
That is, does a mage with 1 spell on still have a 1 FP cost reduction for casting a spell with skill 15 (despite rolling for 14)?

2) Does fast-fire spell moves with the chosen fire source? Could a mage use create fire + fast fire+ control fire to have a move-5, 2d damage per turn dealing column of flames? Would that also work with a flame jet (to be able to walk around with a 6d flame jet)?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

No, see Energy Cost in either
Basic or Magic:
Hmm, I donot see any reason why it would not work, aside from taking an extra turn and more energy, butif you had both Flame jet ant fast fire at 25 or higher, I do not see why you could not walk around with a 3 hex long 9d flame thrower constantly on(unless you wanted to be sneaky or something)

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Do you guys know how to get more FP? I'm playing as a pure Mage and after using a simple Shape Earth or casting 2 Lighting my FP ends.

I have a Powerstone with 13 uses, Magery 3 and my IQ is 11.


Is there a skill or something similar to help me?

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

You can buy FP at 3 pts apiece. You can also, if they're commercially available, just buy more Powerstones. While you need to keep them over 6' apart to recharge, that's something mages have been solving for nearly forty years now. I've had a lot of mages over the course of my campaign keep (say) small stones on a pack animal, for non-emergency fire-and-forget situations.

Re: [Magic] Battlemages and their favourite spells
 

Other, non-mage, PCs were encouraged to buy powerstones and keep them on their person.
Want a combat buff? or a healing spell? happy to help, let me tap your powestone.