Magic on the TL 3 battlefield

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I looked at the nuts and bolts of battlefield magical communication and they are not that friendly.

I agree that communication doesn't work great on the battlefield, but its really nice on the campaign level, where it might be worth it to check in a few times a day in real-time.

Originally Posted by Anders

Anything that would make logistics easier would have a huge impact

For instance, being able to control the weather would be major. And undead armies can march where live armies can not.

I'm not sure how practical massive undead armies or an "umbrella" over an army would be at those different levels.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would note that battle prep could be a big deal. Magic has tools that make fortifications easier to overcome, but it also has tools that make fortifications, particularly field grade fortifications, much easier to create.

Yeah, with most settings built with Standard Magic, Castles with bronze walls are pretty darn cheap. And if you've got a row of men four deep and 25 abreast with a mage, they can throw up a two yard high wall in front of them in about 12 seconds for 1 FP.

I don't see either Communication & Empathy or Sound Spells really enabling the "War is like Chess!" cult but if you have 50 mages for your 50,000 troops and they're all Healers you might save hundreds of your casualties and your Mages don't have to come onto the battlefield until the fighting is over.

A lot of ancient attrition was disease, not war, and the healing mages are useful out of combat, so its a good investment either way. I'm not sure that faction with the healing mage is going to win out against the guys fighting the battle from dozens of impromptu fortifications though.