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.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Fair point. I was literally thinking as I typed there. That said, fantasy battlefields having larger-than-life entities as a common part is entirely thematically appropriate.

Yeah, that's the big question. What else besides wizards are running around? Trolls? Griffins? Dragons? Heroes built on 400 points?


Part of me wants to just try a few sample combats based on something silly like 500 62-point DF henchmen, 50 125-point DF henchment, and 5 Full 250-point combatants.

[Anthony]

Many years ago I was involved in a PBeM focused on battle magics. It wound up dominated by earth magics (fortifications are good), information spells (wizard eye is a big force multiplier), and buff stacking to create superhero units (send out an invisible flying guy mighty guy with a halberd. Or summon a super powerful elemental and stack buffs on that).

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

If a Ceremonial group is necessary for battle (it occurs to me that nobody has mentioned the possibility of Energy Reserves in discussing larger castings. If mages can have ERs Ceremonial casting is probably mostly a pre-battle thing, for prepping fortifications, summoning things if thats your bag, to let the mages reserve their personal energy for when the steel clashes), than any halfway competent commander will keep a detachment ready for that, especially if war seems imminent (usually invasions don't happen out of the blue, there's a period of diplomatic sabre-rattling beforehand). And that also gets into the whole matter of magical intelligence gathering. Even in IRL TL3, getting caught with your pants down so completely that the enemy is in combat range before you have 100 troops ready os a sign that someone has massively erred. If militaries routinely contain people who can read true omens of the future in the dance of flames or the fall of sparrows (Divination spells), take the minds or shapes of eagles and soar above the land with eyes that can see to the furthest horizon (Beast Possession, Shapeshifting. Actual scrying at a long distance is hard in RAW Magic, and as a bonus the literal eyes of a literal eagle aren't subject to Scryguard) or similar, getting an army close enough to fight you without you knowing about it gets pretty hard.

It also becomes a tactical decision - those who have played King of Dragon Pass will know what I mean - as to whether you spend time "making medicine" or just go straight at them and chance arriving before they are 1) buffed and 2) formed up.

Actually, I can see that being a Shaka style legend - the king who dared to dispense with pre-battle rituals in favour of a savage, dawn attack on the enemy (compare actual Shaka dispensing with the preceding tradition of a phase of skirmishing and monomachia in favour of an all out iklawa charge).

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

No, not Mages. This is only spectators of which you may have 100. Not a freely applicable pool of 1000 pts either. Just 100 people who can contribute 1 pt 10 times.

Uh, what? Magic p. 12 "Each unskilled spectator who supports the casting (by chanting, holding candles, etc.): 1 point, to a maximum of 100 points from all spectators". There's nothing there that says that those spectators can contribute their 1FP multiple times.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Uh, what? Magic p. 12 "Each unskilled spectator who supports the casting (by chanting, holding candles, etc.): 1 point, to a maximum of 100 points from all spectators". There's nothing there that says that those spectators can contribute their 1FP multiple times.

Presumably once that spell is finished they can contribute again to a new spell, bit I'm not sure reading that if they can contribute again to maintain a spell or if it's a pool of 100 total energy that be used for casting and maintenance but when it's gone it's gone, or if it all has to be used for the casting and maintenance is on the mage. In that last case, elementals start to look really attractive since they don't need maintenance.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Uh, what? Magic p. 12 "Each unskilled spectator who supports the casting (by chanting, holding candles, etc.): 1 point, to a maximum of 100 points from all spectators". There's nothing there that says that those spectators can contribute their 1FP multiple times.

Yeah there is. Bullet point 5 says

"Once the spell is cast, the participants can continue to provide energy to maintain the spell. The composition of the group may change, as long as the ritual continues uninterrupted. Thus, ceremonial magic lets you maintain a spell indefinitely."

Spectators are participants. This rule doesn't say how much energy they can contribute, but given the granularity of GURPS Magic that value must be at least 1.

[Verjigorm]

How are we resolving the negative spectators and observers? How are we keeping the ceremony from being interrupted by hostiles?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

How are we resolving the negative spectators and observers? How are we keeping the ceremony from being interrupted by hostiles?

<shrug>We're probably assuming that the -14 to vision and Hearing at 600 yards makes it too far for proper "spectating". I wouldn't want seats in a football stadium that were 600 yards from the field. :)

As for interruptions, there is this army on your side. We've already established that 600 yards is beyond arrow range.

Also, even as Ceremonies the two spells only take 10 seconds each to cast. The fire will be Created and block line of sight from across the battlefield after the first 10.

One of the reasons I've gone on about it at this length is that it's a surprisingly easy thing to set up and do.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

<shrug>We're probably assuming that the -14 to vision and Hearing at 600 yards makes it too far for proper "spectating".

Can probably also block line of sight. However, this does create a significant incentive to work out a method of adding hostile spectators (does the wizard eye using hawk vision count?)