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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.
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Decent earthworks will also help with that Shape Fire problem. If it gets out of hand you end up with a kind of reverse trench warfare, impromptu walls rising up in labyrinthine profusion to funnel troops hither and yon. And then straight into the fire, so probably less than that.
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Originally Posted by Varyon
The aggressor has the benefit of choosing where and when to strike, so if they strike where you don't have a Ceremonial group set up and ready to go, you're out of luck. Of course, that in turn depends on what you need to set up a Ceremonial group.
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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.
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There's also the issue that you're basically looking at skill vs skill, and the aggressor is going to put their best Shape Fire mage on the job while you'll have to make due with whoever is closest (if you have multiple; if you don't, it's that much easier for OpFor to strike where you're weakest). So you're at best in 50/50 situation and may well be at a disadvantage. Better to use Rain, at least if you are able to get into position quickly enough to handle its full minute of casting time, as then it's not skill vs skill but rather a heavy rain (1 inch per hour is pretty heavy, enough to cause flash flooding) vs a fire, and a fire is unlikely to win that matchup.
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This is the kind of thing where the skill of the defending commander comes into play. The general's job is to know whether you've got a fire mage who's the best in the business or you're better off throwing rain as a counter, or maybe you've got an excellent combat engineer on your magical staff because you're out here to put in a new military road and the answer is to put a brand new stone wall between your force and the enemy fire.
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Originally Posted by hal
There is one caveat to your statement above:
BEAST SUMMONING (pg 30) Permits for double the cost - the ability to summon all of one specific beast - usually within 10 miles to the summoner. This spell is per minute, which is generally speaking, not sustainable for very long.
But if that Mage were my character, this is what I'd do if I were alone so to speak:
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If you were alone, you wouldn't be part of an army. This trick only works if your side doesn't have any cavalry of its own. If there's walls of fire sweeping the battlefield, horses already won't be happy campers, and if you're at the point where Artillery spells are being broken out, it's gonna be a full-time job for a Beast-mage or several to prevent stampedes. It may be that horses have little place on a magical battlefield.
ETA:
Speaking of Energy Reserves, even if magery levels are fixed, Energy Reserves might be one of the things that distinguishes a new battlemage straight out of training (whatever that means lically) from a grizzled veteran in the same specialty, and makes it very advantageous to have the second one if you possibly can, and be another major factor in choosing a mage for the job. If the enemy is advancing on your position behind a wall of fire, say you can choose between(with slightly anachronistic terminology), your weather mage is 2nd Lieutenant Newbie Green, who is on duty because Major Storm went to his grandma's funeral, a leave you wouldn't have approved if you'd known General McFoe had concealed his march somehow and was about to hit you. Lt. Green knows loads of Weather spells, but he has ST 11 and no ER, and can barely muster a stiff breeze without a full chanting chorus. Second Battlion's [top] mage is Captain Torch, who's been lighting and fighting fires in this man's army since the gods were babies and has a personal Energy reserve of 60 before he even starts on his Fatigue (and he's fitter than you'd think a man his age could be), it's a batllr.of shape fire while Lt. Green gets the chorus together and tries to put some lightning into their casting circle if gods be kind they haven't got it under a bunker and are watching by Wizard Eye. If, OTOH, Captain Torch was reassigned and Lt. Spark is trying to cover for him, while Major Storm hearda disturbing rumor at rhe funeral and raced back on the winds, it's time to bring the rain. Lt. Green might end up doing the same job either way, if Storm is too busy with the fires to launch offensive moves.
04-08-2024, 01:35 PM
Re: Magic on the TL 3 battlefield
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