How has Ceremonial Magic not destroyed your game world?

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

104 energy gives you 13 cubic yards of Essential Earth.

I thought it was just a regular spell that turned the target into essential earth. So 104 energy gives SM 12...

People who can't afford the services of a master magician.

How much do wizards make in your setting anyway? The standard assumption of an enchanter making 33$ a day. Note the requirements are equal to bless. If a peasant spends a few years saving, maybe living at a bit lower of a status he should be able to save up at least a few hundred $. A wizard could manage 5 castings* an hour if he tried, 25 days a month and even a price of 100$ puts him with a monthly income of 100K I believe.

*He would need to ceremonially cast lend energy on himself, and cast bless normally.

I rewrote the Youth spell to give a one hour casting time. Not that it really mattered since I classed Youth as a secret spell. Any wizard who knew it kept that knowledge from everyone except members of his household because the consequences of others knowing that you had the power to give them eternal youth were so dire. Armies would march over it.

The increased casting time definitely helps.

Well yeah. So? That's a seven prerequisite spell. Unless people with spell casting powers are common it's not going to make a big difference. (Although it is my explanation for how elves go "tra-la-la" all day through the forests, never farming and still remain well fed even in relatively large numbers.)

If you have "village wizards" you can essentially eliminate the need for farming at all. One guy can easily feed a whole town.

[Snaps]

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. 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.

Good point. (I don't know crap about how actual Medieval Battles went down).

But this would only stop the 2 point Create Fire Mage. Mages with Throw Spell can get around this pretty easily, and with Delay, the Mage doesn't even have to be near the Battlefield.

[Apache]

Two words.

Critical.

Failure.

Thank you, and good night.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Lamech

I thought it was just a regular spell that turned the target into essential earth.

In 3e it was 8 energy per hex. In 4e, the spell doesn't say, but create earth is per hex and essential earth is an improved version of create earth.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

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.

These are the way it works in my worlds. Magic only "wrecks the world" if your not accounting for it when you build it.
Otherwise its just like SciFi. certain spells may affect adventuring plots but you account for that when you build your adventures.
Other spells may let society do things they couldn't with a non magical TL society. But overall those mostly just add more flavor and options for adventuring. The above are some good examples, Thuamatology Urban Magic is another good source for some as well as the Fantasy book.
I would much rather play (or run) in The Vlad Taltos world then a historical medieval society.

[Lamech]

Originally Posted by Apache

Two words.

Critical.

Failure.

Thank you, and good night.

This is a good point. Although I would argue for job like things critical failures shouldn't be exploding in your face. Perversely, though this means in a low mana area magic can distort the world a hell of a lot more, since critical failures are much less painful there. Then a mage with one mastered spell can spam it at will. Also note Low mana areas can be created with careful application of drain mana and restore mana if no natural ones exist (or the wizard can just go ethereal). Also note that none of the failures are particularly devastating except for the demon summoning one. And even that can be pretty well negated by a pentagram spam; demon is summoned in the wizards spot, and the wizard steps out.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Snaps

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:

Well, he could do that, if he can avoid the "unfriendly spectators" problem, and has a friendly phalanx which will stand and fight without moving back and forwards more than ten yards or so and protect him, and if he can keep himself and his equipment and all the participants safe from arrows and slingstones and thrown weapons for the whole casting time. If the enemy is that close, they will charge any unprotected groups of people chanting and holding candles.

There are a lot of low-tech weapons which will go right through a tent, and you can't move a tent big enough for 100 people quickly anyways. Throw spell will barely outrange realistic javelins on level ground.

[Lord Carnifex]

In short, sure. I don't see too much here that is particularly groundbreaking.

A ceremonial casting of Create Fire can wreak havoc. But so can the same hundred guys, a hundred torches, a flammable grassland, and a bonfire.

I can see the elementals being used in sieges. In a high fantasy game, the use of elementals and other creatures could easily replace the miners, sappers, siege engines, and cannons of Medieval and Renaissance sieges. Complete with desperate sorties to disrupt the enemies ceremonies, depleting energy supplies on both sides, and so on.

History records that the Mongols lined up prisoners of Chinese cities and used them as cannon fodder against the next target. A necromancer and his fanatical death cult don't even need live prisoners for that, just reasonably intact bodies.

Meanwhile, the last stand of the Seven Adventurers: seven men an women fight a desperate delaying action while the useless villagers they're defending gather around their village shaman to work a desperate magical defense.

The Spartan mystics that accompanied the warriors to Thermopylae may very well seed the ground with Delayed spells. But Xerxes has plenty of fireball fodder, and magi* of his own.

I don't see too much of this ruining the narrative, the wonder, or the drama of a good game in a high fantasy setting.

* Dual meaning very much intended

[D10]

What realy should cause trouble is when circles of mages use it to summon demons!

Or at least thats how i see them "destroying" the game world

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by D10

What realy should cause trouble is when circles of mages use it to summon demons!

Or at least thats how i see them "destroying" the game world

Let's see, increasing energy for casting increases general power of being summoned without increasing ability to control it. Yeah, that could be bad but it's more like stupidity "destroying" the world.

Even with the full 100 energy from spectators factored in that "only" adds 1000 pts of abilities. This is potent but not world-threatening without certain munchkinned Powers builds.