Castles of Crystal, Wars of Genocide!
- Thread starter SHARK
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reapersaurus
Explorer
More than I can say, that's for sure.SHARK said:
I'll stick with this: a counter-question to you, SHARK.
How do you mitigate the profoundly overwhelming impact that the power of high level magic has on gameplay above levels 12'ish or even less?
I'd really be surprised if your "Nightmare" of a mage player is really that fiendish with his use of magic. If he was as good as I've seen mage players be with high level magic, than NONE of your epic battles could have occurred.
As others have said, magic devalues the common fighter. It doesn't increase the stature of the foot soldier, or level the playing field - it exponentially unlevels the playing field against anyone that doesn't have magic defense or SR or somesuch.
Secondly, I understand your desire to see the common "grunt" be better emulated by higher levels (for more feats, skills, etc), but don't you think that yor fondness for Military action and mano-e-mano heroism might possibly get in the way of the construction of a world that has high magic?
To wit: there's no way that mages are the Big Heroes of your world.
Not with that many ex-or-current-Marines playing.
As I remember, mages pretty willingly take a back seat, and a support role to the fighter-types.
Do you see any possible conflict of interest from you in realistically interpreting the effect that high-level magic brings to 3E?
SHARK
First Post
Greetings!
MMADSEN, of course, illustrates the problem with fine precision.
Good work my friend! Snoweel, I'm glad that we have persuaded you to the Dark Side!
Indeed, I believe that much of the emotional resistance comes from many people still either consciously or unconsciously holding on to the mind-set of 1st edition, where a 3rd level character was far more than a 1st level character, and as mmadsen pointed out, a 1st level fighter was quite superior to a "zero-level" npc.
However, with the 3rd edition set of rules, these assumtions need to obviously be reexamined, and thoroughly. In addition, and this is something that I and mmadsen have discussed at some length, and I might add the thought processes are greatly assisted by a bit of Bass Ale and a fine cigar! We discussed the dynamic that in 1st edition, for example, the skills of a seasoned legionnaire or a frontier-riding witch-hunter priest were largely undefined, and thus, the dm, and the player character, where appropriate, just assumed a vast array of important skills and sub abilities that the player or the dm could call upon to justify any number of bonuses to whatever rolls the dm felt appropriate, or if desired, they might be penciled in to the character sheet or the dm notebook to remind them that the character had spent ten years learning all about expert mountain warfare in Syria, or the witch-hunter priest was an excellent theologian, and a master stonemason and occult investigator.
The problem is that with 3rd edition, many of the skills and special abilities that we just assumed and wrote down as needed in 1st edition are now given a name and precisely and absolutely defined in the rules of 3rd edition. Thus, if your character doesn't have *such and such feats* and *x ranks in these six skills*, well, then that character can't really be all that, now can he? The character either has the feats and skill ranks, or they don't. Furthermore, if the character has only two ranks in such and such skills, well, then they can't really be said to be very knowledgeable about whatever subject, let alone an authority or an expert.
Thus, you get into the problem that I have discussed with mmadsen about a legionnaire having--and needing certain feats, and a range of skills--far more by the way than merely what are assigned as class skills for fighters--and not really having these things until they are 8th level. In 1st edition, you could assume certain things about 2nd or 3rd level fighters, and say they were the legionnaires of the great empire. However, as mmadsen illustrates vividly, 1st level fighters, and their slightly improved 3rd level brethren aren't really up to conquering much more than the local tavern full of drunken thugs--they certainly aren't equipped to be the glorious soldiers conquering a world for a mighty empire, struggling against mighty enemies.
Thus, the inexorable need to reevaluate the assumed levels of various characters that populate the game world.
Now, we have Reapersaurus. How are you? Well, to answer your question, I have no problem at all integrating magic into the world, and having it effect the battlefield in numerous ways. In my campaign, has it made armies obselete? Well, no, it hasn't. Has it made the infantry or knights useless and obselete? No, it hasn't. Mages operate to support and protect the military forces around them, as well as to serve as specialized mass-fire-power shock troops. However, as my friend Dragonblade has learned while playing in my campaign, there is a lot going on. With literally thousands and tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield, with numerous clerics and wizards integrated into both sides forces, all fighting simulataneously, it seems to equal things out, though it makes for a hotter, dramatic sort of fight, with numerous potential turningpoints. The troops still fight, and there are a core group of skills, knowledge, and tactics that remain effective and useful, providing different resources are present and accessible, and variables are accounted for by the high command and effectively, at least on a broad scale, sufficiently adressed. Wizards for example, can and are very effective, and if more than a few of them, or several very powerful wizards are allowed to run unchecked, then the battle can be turned quite swiftly, and dramatically. However, when the enemy forces always have teams of wizards working to subdue and blunt the effect of the other side's wizards, and also deploys special characters and teams designed to locate, identify, and defeat wizards, that tends to restrain some of the more awesome effects that a wizard, if left on his own, might effect. However, there are numerous things that wizards have to keep track of, all simulataneously, and the fantasy battlefield, at least against comparable forces, is not laying prostrate and helpless before the presence of one wizard or a thousand. In the flame and mass steel of battle, wizards, long after they have exhausted their spells, are eventually dragged down by armoured knights or warriors, often with war dogs or other savage beasts, and torn to pieces. Or, also fairly frequently, they are assaulted by teams of enemy wizards that hobble them or hammer them with a variety of spells that either kill them outright, or make it easier for other forces to reach them and kill them; or, oftentimes wizards are targetted with multiple spells of various kinds all simultaneously, along with several hundred arrows, as well as several dozen infantry, plus several other creatures or characters specially equipped to deal with fighting with mages.
In the end, in really large scale warfare between comparable forces, these things tend to blend together and restrain the more bizarre effects. This is true for example in many of the battles that the Vallorean Empire in my own campaign are currently involved in. The enemy forces have the resources, the ruthlessness, and the overall talent to at any given time, restrain much of the effect of battlefield wizardry, in a similar fashion and manner that the Valloreans have numerous wizard resources to both protect the bulk of their forces, and restrain the more severe effects of enemy wizards.
I suppose that would be my answer to your question Reapersaurus. I'm not sure why you allude to myself being "biased" towards one kind of response or another. It is merely a logical extension and application of the rules, with a few world assumptions, which are then allowed to run their course to the reasonable extent and broad effect.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
MMADSEN, of course, illustrates the problem with fine precision.
Good work my friend! Snoweel, I'm glad that we have persuaded you to the Dark Side!Indeed, I believe that much of the emotional resistance comes from many people still either consciously or unconsciously holding on to the mind-set of 1st edition, where a 3rd level character was far more than a 1st level character, and as mmadsen pointed out, a 1st level fighter was quite superior to a "zero-level" npc.
However, with the 3rd edition set of rules, these assumtions need to obviously be reexamined, and thoroughly. In addition, and this is something that I and mmadsen have discussed at some length, and I might add the thought processes are greatly assisted by a bit of Bass Ale and a fine cigar!
We discussed the dynamic that in 1st edition, for example, the skills of a seasoned legionnaire or a frontier-riding witch-hunter priest were largely undefined, and thus, the dm, and the player character, where appropriate, just assumed a vast array of important skills and sub abilities that the player or the dm could call upon to justify any number of bonuses to whatever rolls the dm felt appropriate, or if desired, they might be penciled in to the character sheet or the dm notebook to remind them that the character had spent ten years learning all about expert mountain warfare in Syria, or the witch-hunter priest was an excellent theologian, and a master stonemason and occult investigator.The problem is that with 3rd edition, many of the skills and special abilities that we just assumed and wrote down as needed in 1st edition are now given a name and precisely and absolutely defined in the rules of 3rd edition. Thus, if your character doesn't have *such and such feats* and *x ranks in these six skills*, well, then that character can't really be all that, now can he? The character either has the feats and skill ranks, or they don't. Furthermore, if the character has only two ranks in such and such skills, well, then they can't really be said to be very knowledgeable about whatever subject, let alone an authority or an expert.
Thus, you get into the problem that I have discussed with mmadsen about a legionnaire having--and needing certain feats, and a range of skills--far more by the way than merely what are assigned as class skills for fighters--and not really having these things until they are 8th level. In 1st edition, you could assume certain things about 2nd or 3rd level fighters, and say they were the legionnaires of the great empire. However, as mmadsen illustrates vividly, 1st level fighters, and their slightly improved 3rd level brethren aren't really up to conquering much more than the local tavern full of drunken thugs--they certainly aren't equipped to be the glorious soldiers conquering a world for a mighty empire, struggling against mighty enemies.
Thus, the inexorable need to reevaluate the assumed levels of various characters that populate the game world.
Now, we have Reapersaurus. How are you? Well, to answer your question, I have no problem at all integrating magic into the world, and having it effect the battlefield in numerous ways. In my campaign, has it made armies obselete? Well, no, it hasn't. Has it made the infantry or knights useless and obselete? No, it hasn't. Mages operate to support and protect the military forces around them, as well as to serve as specialized mass-fire-power shock troops. However, as my friend Dragonblade has learned while playing in my campaign, there is a lot going on. With literally thousands and tens of thousands of troops on the battlefield, with numerous clerics and wizards integrated into both sides forces, all fighting simulataneously, it seems to equal things out, though it makes for a hotter, dramatic sort of fight, with numerous potential turningpoints. The troops still fight, and there are a core group of skills, knowledge, and tactics that remain effective and useful, providing different resources are present and accessible, and variables are accounted for by the high command and effectively, at least on a broad scale, sufficiently adressed. Wizards for example, can and are very effective, and if more than a few of them, or several very powerful wizards are allowed to run unchecked, then the battle can be turned quite swiftly, and dramatically. However, when the enemy forces always have teams of wizards working to subdue and blunt the effect of the other side's wizards, and also deploys special characters and teams designed to locate, identify, and defeat wizards, that tends to restrain some of the more awesome effects that a wizard, if left on his own, might effect. However, there are numerous things that wizards have to keep track of, all simulataneously, and the fantasy battlefield, at least against comparable forces, is not laying prostrate and helpless before the presence of one wizard or a thousand. In the flame and mass steel of battle, wizards, long after they have exhausted their spells, are eventually dragged down by armoured knights or warriors, often with war dogs or other savage beasts, and torn to pieces. Or, also fairly frequently, they are assaulted by teams of enemy wizards that hobble them or hammer them with a variety of spells that either kill them outright, or make it easier for other forces to reach them and kill them; or, oftentimes wizards are targetted with multiple spells of various kinds all simultaneously, along with several hundred arrows, as well as several dozen infantry, plus several other creatures or characters specially equipped to deal with fighting with mages.
In the end, in really large scale warfare between comparable forces, these things tend to blend together and restrain the more bizarre effects. This is true for example in many of the battles that the Vallorean Empire in my own campaign are currently involved in. The enemy forces have the resources, the ruthlessness, and the overall talent to at any given time, restrain much of the effect of battlefield wizardry, in a similar fashion and manner that the Valloreans have numerous wizard resources to both protect the bulk of their forces, and restrain the more severe effects of enemy wizards.
I suppose that would be my answer to your question Reapersaurus. I'm not sure why you allude to myself being "biased" towards one kind of response or another. It is merely a logical extension and application of the rules, with a few world assumptions, which are then allowed to run their course to the reasonable extent and broad effect.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
jgbrowning
Hero
well
How do you deal with a troop of 10
Dust of Disappearance (this cannot be seen by see invisibility or purged by invisiblity purge, it takes a true seeing spell)/flying/blinking or dimension dooring or teleporting/ non-concentrated wizards (ie spread out) who are using wands of (silenced) fireball?
Thats roughly 12,000 sq feet of 7d6 fire immolation within one round. If you have soldiers in formation with one every 5 feet thats 2400 soldiers, so probably around 1500-2000 get hit given non-maximazation. With an army of 10,000 they'll all get hit within a single minute.
Given the best of circumstances, say your're able to nullify/kill/get rid of all 10 wizards, in 30 seconds. Thats still a hella amount of damage. However, IMHO, no army, person, creature or magic, can respond with difinitive/leathal force to a dispersed massively violent threat within a single minute.
I think i'm being very generous here with a 30 second nullification period. Missile weapons won't reach 400 ft in to the air (not that anyone could see the wizards), and most spells won't either. Also if you assume each wizard has put wax in their ears to ignore those verbal spells, and has pumped up on elemental resistant spells, I don't see how you can take them out in less time, if they stay dispersed.
Well to make a short post shorter.. IMHO armies that march, armies that in any form resemble historical armies just simply wont take the field in a world with DnD magic. Can you imagine trying to keep morale under such an attack? How would you maintain your logistic security?
Basically, magic in DnD is simply tremendously distructive and cannot be countered by other magic. (well at least in time for it to make a difference at least)
again, just my opinion.
I see "armies" being composed of small groups of adventurer types. I see kings continualy employing divination magic to attempt to prevent "sneak attacks." I see the threat of retaliation (ie you may get me but my family will get you) being probably the only real restraint on war.
joe b.
How do you deal with a troop of 10
Dust of Disappearance (this cannot be seen by see invisibility or purged by invisiblity purge, it takes a true seeing spell)/flying/blinking or dimension dooring or teleporting/ non-concentrated wizards (ie spread out) who are using wands of (silenced) fireball?
Thats roughly 12,000 sq feet of 7d6 fire immolation within one round. If you have soldiers in formation with one every 5 feet thats 2400 soldiers, so probably around 1500-2000 get hit given non-maximazation. With an army of 10,000 they'll all get hit within a single minute.
Given the best of circumstances, say your're able to nullify/kill/get rid of all 10 wizards, in 30 seconds. Thats still a hella amount of damage. However, IMHO, no army, person, creature or magic, can respond with difinitive/leathal force to a dispersed massively violent threat within a single minute.
I think i'm being very generous here with a 30 second nullification period. Missile weapons won't reach 400 ft in to the air (not that anyone could see the wizards), and most spells won't either. Also if you assume each wizard has put wax in their ears to ignore those verbal spells, and has pumped up on elemental resistant spells, I don't see how you can take them out in less time, if they stay dispersed.
Well to make a short post shorter..
IMHO armies that march, armies that in any form resemble historical armies just simply wont take the field in a world with DnD magic. Can you imagine trying to keep morale under such an attack? How would you maintain your logistic security?Basically, magic in DnD is simply tremendously distructive and cannot be countered by other magic. (well at least in time for it to make a difference at least
)again, just my opinion.
I see "armies" being composed of small groups of adventurer types. I see kings continualy employing divination magic to attempt to prevent "sneak attacks." I see the threat of retaliation (ie you may get me but my family will get you) being probably the only real restraint on war.
joe b.
The flip side of this though is that while 4th-level characters might have reasonable Feats, Skills, and BAB for competent adults, they also have four Hit Dice -- a bit much unless you want to change the combat system to deal out more damage (perhaps by increasing Crit Threat ranges). And 4th-level spellcasters aren't just "competent".
WizarDru
Adventurer
Re: well
All of whom can be painted with Glitterdust. Not that hard to find some low level rogues to use some wands for that purpose. We're also assuming a flat plain with perfect line of sight, are bunched close together, fail their Reflex saves and so forth. All of which is irrelevant, I'm guessing, because of what Shark stated straight out, and which writers like Glen Cook have illustrated: casters have a levelling effect. We could easily create examples and then counter-examples and still more counter-examples....but that's not really the point.
That is to say that both sides have casters, and both sides defend armies as much as attack them. With high-powered mages and clerics on both sides, you don't send all your high powered mages to the front-lines, unprotected. A 'magic-sapper' team could easily paint them, start shooting them with glitterdusts, dispels and so forth from wands, allowing the enemy's spellcasters to target THEM. Never mind things like meteor swarms, mazes, destruction, finger of death, and on and on and on. It's a risky business, and you don't put your rarest and most expensive weapons on the front line at risk, if you can help it, methinks.
Moreover, those 10 mages can't HOLD the land, and they have to sleep sometime. They can't maintain supply lines, and they can't be everywhere at once. They can do a lot, it's true, but there's more to a military operation than just pure killing power.
jgbrowning said:
All of whom can be painted with Glitterdust. Not that hard to find some low level rogues to use some wands for that purpose. We're also assuming a flat plain with perfect line of sight, are bunched close together, fail their Reflex saves and so forth. All of which is irrelevant, I'm guessing, because of what Shark stated straight out, and which writers like Glen Cook have illustrated: casters have a levelling effect. We could easily create examples and then counter-examples and still more counter-examples....but that's not really the point.
That is to say that both sides have casters, and both sides defend armies as much as attack them. With high-powered mages and clerics on both sides, you don't send all your high powered mages to the front-lines, unprotected. A 'magic-sapper' team could easily paint them, start shooting them with glitterdusts, dispels and so forth from wands, allowing the enemy's spellcasters to target THEM. Never mind things like meteor swarms, mazes, destruction, finger of death, and on and on and on. It's a risky business, and you don't put your rarest and most expensive weapons on the front line at risk, if you can help it, methinks.
Moreover, those 10 mages can't HOLD the land, and they have to sleep sometime. They can't maintain supply lines, and they can't be everywhere at once. They can do a lot, it's true, but there's more to a military operation than just pure killing power.
As reapersaurus points out though, that's probably because that's how you naturally imagine magic playing out on the battlefield. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have to acknowledge that a half-dozen hobbyists imagining all the consequences of magic can't possible come up with what would really happen in a fantasy world.
Imagine taking some of Napoleon's grognards aside and explaining a world with magical guns that could fire multiple rounds per second, artillery pieces that could shatter unseen fortresses, etc. Would they predict WWI? No, not likely. Real-world leaders routinely plan to fight the last war -- and the difference in technology between wars is nothing compared to the difference in "technology" between the real ancient/medieval world and a magical fantasy world.
And the more magical your world, the harder it is to see the consequences of all that magic.
jgbrowning
Hero
Re: Re: well
Glitterdust doesn't counter the wizards. Glitterdust is a medium range spell. Fireball is long (an extended fireball is truly scary). Glitterdust has a 10-ft spread. The wizards are 300+ feet up, invisible (and you'd have to have true sight on your Glitterdust casting wizard to begin with unless you're just going to randomly fire glitterdusts everywhere. good luck hitting the right place at the right time. Also please note that true seeing only goes 120ft, so really your pretty much outta luck). That's not a counter.
Im not assuming flat plain, perfect line of sight, or failed reflex saves (a succesful save would still be on average, 12hp of damage). I am assuming fairly bunched together, as armies on the march are usually such. Armies camped are also such. In fact armies under almost any situation are close together. Even were you to limit the number effected by each round of 10 fireballs to only 200, thats 2000 soldiers hit within a single minute. And were that not enough to kill the soldiers, well then you have a whole bunch of wounded soldiers.
Pound for pound, you'll spend less magic on the attack and more magic on the defense.
Glen Cook is not DnD. His series is, IMHO, very well written (one of my favs) but the basic assumption is a almost no-magic world. There are perhaps 30 big sorcerors and (at least mentioned in the book) only a handful of lesser wizards. Although for continuities sake there'd have to be more cause where else are the big ones coming from Everyone else has zero magic. In DnD (at least according to the DMG) around 1 in every 50 of your populace is some kind of spell caster. That may not be how it is in your campaign, but thats the way it is in the assumed average. Anyway, the Black Company isn't a good barometer of what a DnD war would be like.
As to a leveling effectof wizards on both sides? Well if you mean that both armies would have the same 10 wizards doing the same tactics, you're right. And both armies' common soldiers would probably be leveled (destroyed) as well. Magic is more effective on the attack than the defense. The conflagration that an honest ta god magical war would be is truly amazing.
This is why i don't think there would be massive armies of fairly low-level soldiery. (1-5th). They're not cost-effective, they're vulnerable and most importantly, they pin down your mages who could be used more effectively on the attack than the defense.
Spellcasters do personal or small-group defense very well. If a bad guy needs to get (possess) something (item, person, whatever) a group can defend against an attack. If the bad guy just needs to destroy something however, the party's going to be very hard pressed to prevent it.
Now if the bad guy just wants to destroy something that is very very big (like a group of 1st-5th level fighters ie. army), you simply cannot effectivly use magic to defend against magic. You have to preemptivly strike to try and prevent him from striking you.
Actually, you can't paint them. You also can't see them without true seeing (and even that is questionable, a tight reading of dust of disappearance would seem to indicate that no magical means can detect you. I allow true seeing to because i like true seeing). You can't dispell them. Dispel is again a medium range spell with a 30 ft burst. Good luck, getting lucky if your just aming at the sky.
If you can't see them, you can't target them. Also all of those spell, except meteor swarms are close range spells. You can only use long range spells in this scenerio. Even if you could see the wizards, you'll never be able to catch them. Especially were the wizards to polymorph into a dragon shape so they would have uber-fast flying. If an attacking wizard sees you coming at them, they simply retreat. Now you have 9 others to deal with. Course if you move on to the next one the 1st one comes back.
Here's another common scenerio: Your army of 10-20k is marching. If you're travelling like the romans did (who by far had the most organized non-technological mostly-infantry military), you're marching collumn is something like 10 miles long. How do you defend your collumn against something like i discribed? The wizards would rush in, hit for 30 seconds, rush out move up/down the collumn, rush in, hit for 30 seconds, and rinse and repeat.
Those 10 mages don't have to HOLD the land. They don't need to. They just have to destroy the enemy, destroy crop production, destroy infrastructure. They just have to chevauchee into enemy territory, rapidly destroy and leave. If they want the land for themselves, they'll eventually get it, because they are only part of a military force. Divination/enchantment spells practically make any form of "freedom fighters" worthless unless they can maintain their secretcy via magic. You can't have friendly villiages not tell the occupying force who and where the "freedom fighters" are given charm spells.
Honestly, i don't think most of what is traditionally part of a DnD war would even happen.
Magic is almost equal to or better than the war technology we have now, depending on what aspect you want to look at. Magic provides almost 100% accurate intelligence, which everyone knows is often the most important part of any conflict. Magic provides almost 100% stealth. etc.. etc..
Arguably they may have a mindset that precludes them from using their abilities in the most effective manner, but assuming magic has evolved the entire time with the culture, certain uses are not that unreasonable.
Well, im tired of typing. I think the only reason why people have combats in DnD that resemble historical combats is because thats what they want. It has a more traditional heroic feel and leads to a hell of a lot of fun. I just dont think thats the way it would be, though.
again, these are just my opinions.
joe b.
WizarDru said:
Glitterdust doesn't counter the wizards. Glitterdust is a medium range spell. Fireball is long (an extended fireball is truly scary). Glitterdust has a 10-ft spread. The wizards are 300+ feet up, invisible (and you'd have to have true sight on your Glitterdust casting wizard to begin with unless you're just going to randomly fire glitterdusts everywhere. good luck hitting the right place at the right time. Also please note that true seeing only goes 120ft, so really your pretty much outta luck). That's not a counter.
Im not assuming flat plain, perfect line of sight, or failed reflex saves (a succesful save would still be on average, 12hp of damage). I am assuming fairly bunched together, as armies on the march are usually such. Armies camped are also such. In fact armies under almost any situation are close together. Even were you to limit the number effected by each round of 10 fireballs to only 200, thats 2000 soldiers hit within a single minute. And were that not enough to kill the soldiers, well then you have a whole bunch of wounded soldiers.
Pound for pound, you'll spend less magic on the attack and more magic on the defense.
Glen Cook is not DnD. His series is, IMHO, very well written (one of my favs) but the basic assumption is a almost no-magic world. There are perhaps 30 big sorcerors and (at least mentioned in the book) only a handful of lesser wizards. Although for continuities sake there'd have to be more cause where else are the big ones coming from
Everyone else has zero magic. In DnD (at least according to the DMG) around 1 in every 50 of your populace is some kind of spell caster. That may not be how it is in your campaign, but thats the way it is in the assumed average. Anyway, the Black Company isn't a good barometer of what a DnD war would be like.As to a leveling effectof wizards on both sides? Well if you mean that both armies would have the same 10 wizards doing the same tactics, you're right. And both armies' common soldiers would probably be leveled (destroyed) as well. Magic is more effective on the attack than the defense. The conflagration that an honest ta god magical war would be is truly amazing.
This is why i don't think there would be massive armies of fairly low-level soldiery. (1-5th). They're not cost-effective, they're vulnerable and most importantly, they pin down your mages who could be used more effectively on the attack than the defense.
Spellcasters do personal or small-group defense very well. If a bad guy needs to get (possess) something (item, person, whatever) a group can defend against an attack. If the bad guy just needs to destroy something however, the party's going to be very hard pressed to prevent it.
Now if the bad guy just wants to destroy something that is very very big (like a group of 1st-5th level fighters ie. army), you simply cannot effectivly use magic to defend against magic. You have to preemptivly strike to try and prevent him from striking you.
Actually, you can't paint them. You also can't see them without true seeing (and even that is questionable, a tight reading of dust of disappearance would seem to indicate that no magical means can detect you. I allow true seeing to because i like true seeing
). You can't dispell them. Dispel is again a medium range spell with a 30 ft burst. Good luck, getting lucky if your just aming at the sky.If you can't see them, you can't target them. Also all of those spell, except meteor swarms are close range spells. You can only use long range spells in this scenerio. Even if you could see the wizards, you'll never be able to catch them. Especially were the wizards to polymorph into a dragon shape so they would have uber-fast flying. If an attacking wizard sees you coming at them, they simply retreat. Now you have 9 others to deal with. Course if you move on to the next one the 1st one comes back.
Here's another common scenerio: Your army of 10-20k is marching. If you're travelling like the romans did (who by far had the most organized non-technological mostly-infantry military), you're marching collumn is something like 10 miles long. How do you defend your collumn against something like i discribed? The wizards would rush in, hit for 30 seconds, rush out move up/down the collumn, rush in, hit for 30 seconds, and rinse and repeat.
Those 10 mages don't have to HOLD the land. They don't need to. They just have to destroy the enemy, destroy crop production, destroy infrastructure. They just have to chevauchee into enemy territory, rapidly destroy and leave. If they want the land for themselves, they'll eventually get it, because they are only part of a military force. Divination/enchantment spells practically make any form of "freedom fighters" worthless unless they can maintain their secretcy via magic. You can't have friendly villiages not tell the occupying force who and where the "freedom fighters" are given charm spells.
Honestly, i don't think most of what is traditionally part of a DnD war would even happen.
Magic is almost equal to or better than the war technology we have now, depending on what aspect you want to look at. Magic provides almost 100% accurate intelligence, which everyone knows is often the most important part of any conflict. Magic provides almost 100% stealth. etc.. etc..
Arguably they may have a mindset that precludes them from using their abilities in the most effective manner, but assuming magic has evolved the entire time with the culture, certain uses are not that unreasonable.
Well, im tired of typing
. I think the only reason why people have combats in DnD that resemble historical combats is because thats what they want. It has a more traditional heroic feel and leads to a hell of a lot of fun. I just dont think thats the way it would be, though.again, these are just my opinions.
joe b.
One thing the DMG doesn't touch on much is that a "proper" dungeon scenario should present a reason why just four guys are taking on the bad guy. Why hasn't the local Duke called his knights to arms? At epic levels, this is actually easier to explain; only our epic-level heroes have the magic to even get to the bad guy, or to divine where he'll appear next and teleport there, or to survive the hostile environment of his den within the volcano, and so on.For example, the premise in the game books is that a four-person party is assumed to do all of these great things. Hmmph!
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SHARK
First Post
Greetings!
Well, JBrowning and others are certainly entitled to their opinions--for myself, however, looking at every aspect of competitive human endeavor, especially warfare, there is almost always a dynamic of attack/defense, measure/countermeasure going on, rather successfully, throughout 6000 years of recorded human history. From that, in my opinion, it isn't unreasonable to assume that for whatever spell/magic item/tactical combination created, there is or soon will be, an effective countermeasure. In the meantime, armies still march. In my world, especially, where there are often armies of hundreds of thousands or millions of troops fighting on the battlefield, expending such efforts for effective countermeasures would seem to me quite natural, and even essential. Thus, wizards, spells, and magic items will tend to balance and cancel each other out to a rough degree.
For example, think about the scope for what epic level spells and magic items can do. Vast armies might concievably have protective clouds that hover over them, absorbing the majority of such energy attacks, and so on. There can be a vast array of defensive measures created, the scope is just as limitless as for attacking strategies. In addition, as my friend Wizarddru pointed out, countermeasures being what they are, wizards are not necessarily likely to be prone to expose themselves too often, or too long, especially high-level wizards. From a state point of view, very high level wizards become almost critical national resources, and exposing them to ruthless elimination could simply be out of the question, considering how long it takes to reach such powerful epic levels. From this point of view, I can see where high level wizards would be used for intelligence, defense, and support, and actually far lower level wizards would be sent into the front ranks for the direct offensive action and force multiplication. There are always more lower level wizards, but when the high level ones are ripped apart, that side has lost assets--whether it is one, ten, twenty, or fifty of them, that quite literally may take decades or more to replace.
Mmadsen! Indeed, as for the reason four characters would be dungeon-crawling, well, for lower level characters as well as high or epic level characters, that is why I think that the campaign environment needs to be fully and thoroughly detailed, so that such characters *know* exactly why they are going into the ancient ruins of Khar-Naggoth, or whatever. Not just, "Hey, there's monsters in here! Let's go get some treasure!" or whatever.
I think that Game Masters need to consider the personal motivations, the campaign environment, the npc's histories and personalities, and so on when designing adventures for epic level characters for example. There has to be good reasons why the characters are where they are, and why they are even involved to begin with. Epic level campaigns don't have to just come to a halt when the characters reach 20th or 25th or 30th level. The Game Master has to prepare ahead of time for when the party reaches such levels by involving the players in what is going on in the world around them. In many ways, the characters goals shift to become as much or more *personal* as opposed to some generic desire for "experience" or "treasure." By epic levels, characters should have enormous amounts of wealth and wealth-generation ability, such that money for any number of personal projects shouldn't really be in question. Thus, there needs to be deeper, more complex motivations.
As the Game Master considers arranging and integrating deeper, more complex motivations, whether it is a complex military objective, a delicate diplomatic matter, the need resolve conflicting goals with various family members or allies, and so on, these things can all be interwoven and integrated with various kinds of opposition, natural obstacles, political/religious/ideological obstacles, as well as traditional physical opponents. However, the physical opponents need to be ruthlessly built with care and ability--the same skills and power suites available to player characters, but also diversified, and deployed with different tactics, as well as using mass numbers and creating multiple threats, and unclear objectives as far as priority. These kinds of considerations, when blended and deployed aggressively by the Game Master can not only serve as a challenge on an ongoing basis to the player characters, but also allow for different scopes of objectives, and even create competing goals and objectives within the party of player characters. Tactically speaking, it is important to keep the pressure on the party, making the environment chaotic and urgent, denying them full intelligence, or the time to fully integrate such intelligence and make perfect decisions. This kind of multi-pronged pressure can make even the most powerful epic-level characters forget to use certain powers, over look things, or make hasty judgments that either fail, or only partially succeed. In my own group, despite having ferocious abilities, they don't always make the perfect decisions, or at the right time, and I don't think most people do. Certainly if the Game Master is throwing them into a really hot environment, the player characters are going to make mistakes. They always do. The enemy makes mistakes as well, spells aren't always cast where they need to be, forces and creatures react differently to different situations, and they don't always fall into neat little categories. In all of this chaos, as war usually sooner rather than later becomes, a very desperate and confusing environment. It is in such that a good Game Master can make challenging scenarios for the player characters, and epic level campaigning can be even more challenging and fun than campaigning at lower levels.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Well, JBrowning and others are certainly entitled to their opinions--for myself, however, looking at every aspect of competitive human endeavor, especially warfare, there is almost always a dynamic of attack/defense, measure/countermeasure going on, rather successfully, throughout 6000 years of recorded human history. From that, in my opinion, it isn't unreasonable to assume that for whatever spell/magic item/tactical combination created, there is or soon will be, an effective countermeasure. In the meantime, armies still march. In my world, especially, where there are often armies of hundreds of thousands or millions of troops fighting on the battlefield, expending such efforts for effective countermeasures would seem to me quite natural, and even essential. Thus, wizards, spells, and magic items will tend to balance and cancel each other out to a rough degree.
For example, think about the scope for what epic level spells and magic items can do. Vast armies might concievably have protective clouds that hover over them, absorbing the majority of such energy attacks, and so on. There can be a vast array of defensive measures created, the scope is just as limitless as for attacking strategies. In addition, as my friend Wizarddru pointed out, countermeasures being what they are, wizards are not necessarily likely to be prone to expose themselves too often, or too long, especially high-level wizards. From a state point of view, very high level wizards become almost critical national resources, and exposing them to ruthless elimination could simply be out of the question, considering how long it takes to reach such powerful epic levels. From this point of view, I can see where high level wizards would be used for intelligence, defense, and support, and actually far lower level wizards would be sent into the front ranks for the direct offensive action and force multiplication. There are always more lower level wizards, but when the high level ones are ripped apart, that side has lost assets--whether it is one, ten, twenty, or fifty of them, that quite literally may take decades or more to replace.
Mmadsen! Indeed, as for the reason four characters would be dungeon-crawling, well, for lower level characters as well as high or epic level characters, that is why I think that the campaign environment needs to be fully and thoroughly detailed, so that such characters *know* exactly why they are going into the ancient ruins of Khar-Naggoth, or whatever. Not just, "Hey, there's monsters in here! Let's go get some treasure!" or whatever.
I think that Game Masters need to consider the personal motivations, the campaign environment, the npc's histories and personalities, and so on when designing adventures for epic level characters for example. There has to be good reasons why the characters are where they are, and why they are even involved to begin with. Epic level campaigns don't have to just come to a halt when the characters reach 20th or 25th or 30th level. The Game Master has to prepare ahead of time for when the party reaches such levels by involving the players in what is going on in the world around them. In many ways, the characters goals shift to become as much or more *personal* as opposed to some generic desire for "experience" or "treasure." By epic levels, characters should have enormous amounts of wealth and wealth-generation ability, such that money for any number of personal projects shouldn't really be in question. Thus, there needs to be deeper, more complex motivations.
As the Game Master considers arranging and integrating deeper, more complex motivations, whether it is a complex military objective, a delicate diplomatic matter, the need resolve conflicting goals with various family members or allies, and so on, these things can all be interwoven and integrated with various kinds of opposition, natural obstacles, political/religious/ideological obstacles, as well as traditional physical opponents. However, the physical opponents need to be ruthlessly built with care and ability--the same skills and power suites available to player characters, but also diversified, and deployed with different tactics, as well as using mass numbers and creating multiple threats, and unclear objectives as far as priority. These kinds of considerations, when blended and deployed aggressively by the Game Master can not only serve as a challenge on an ongoing basis to the player characters, but also allow for different scopes of objectives, and even create competing goals and objectives within the party of player characters. Tactically speaking, it is important to keep the pressure on the party, making the environment chaotic and urgent, denying them full intelligence, or the time to fully integrate such intelligence and make perfect decisions. This kind of multi-pronged pressure can make even the most powerful epic-level characters forget to use certain powers, over look things, or make hasty judgments that either fail, or only partially succeed. In my own group, despite having ferocious abilities, they don't always make the perfect decisions, or at the right time, and I don't think most people do. Certainly if the Game Master is throwing them into a really hot environment, the player characters are going to make mistakes. They always do. The enemy makes mistakes as well, spells aren't always cast where they need to be, forces and creatures react differently to different situations, and they don't always fall into neat little categories. In all of this chaos, as war usually sooner rather than later becomes, a very desperate and confusing environment. It is in such that a good Game Master can make challenging scenarios for the player characters, and epic level campaigning can be even more challenging and fun than campaigning at lower levels.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
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