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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 74411" data-attributes="member: 3146">Greetings Shark. I just decided to reregister because my old account (Basilisk) got screwed up in the transition to these boards. This is a very interesting thread.A few comments: In any campaign, the specialties of wizards will play a large part in the effect of magic on a campaign. If most wizards are Enchanters with Evocation as their opposed school, things will look very different than if they're Evokers with Alteration or Conjuration as their opposed school. The Royal Wizard's academy that Shark proposed would be quite likely to turn out large numbers of wizards with the same specialties and opposed schools so that would exaggerate this effect.Now a lot of people have made comments about the design of fortifications in a fantasy world and the usefulness of long term emplacements like castles. However, people seem to have neglected some other militarily significant uses of magic. At mid levels, Wall of Stone (instantaneous so dispel magic won't hurt it) would allow instant field fortifications of a kind and quality unknown even today. Want a wall with machiolations and arrow slits all the way across the mountain pass? Only have five minutes before the Persian army arrives? No problem. If you have slightly more time, Move Earth can be used to create massive series of ditches and ramparts. Using these spells, an army could potentially throw up fortresses at a moment's notice. Consequently, while magic may make it too much expense and effort to build a castle the 14th century way, it would create its own kinds of castles and buildings.At the moment D&D has Hallow (affix a dispel magic or dimensional anchor or if you're really nasty just affix an inflict serious wounds keyed to the enemy's most common alignment) and Forbiddance which provide permanent (or at least long-term) defenses against many kinds of magic. I would expect cheaper versions of these spells to be developed to make fortifications teleport proof and to deal with invisible opponents.Offensively, I would expect spells to be used more subtly to enable a professional army of low to midlevel (2nd to 4th level) fighters (and warriors) to take on the kinds of things an enemy could throw at them. Even if a legion of 1600 men had only one 9th level wizard, a few days of crafting wands could put wands of greater magic weapon into the quartermaster's chest. When the divinations indicated that battle was about to ensue, archers could be issued temporarily enhanced +2 arrows (maybe only four or five each) to deal with unnatural creatures or wizards (the enhancement would bypass most protection from arrows spells. Fabricate would allow a wizard to build siege engines for a large army in a very short time. It's certainly possible that a few low level wizards with wands of fireball or high level wizards with the fireball spell could wreak havoc on formations, but that wizard probably wouldn't last very long if he's up against an army of archers with a little magical support. Use of the various ____ image spells to create illusionary terrain features, illusionary units (hopefully to absorb some of those fireballs) would also be an expected feature. Since the flying, improved invisible wizard tossing around fireballs would probably be the biggest low-mid level magical threat, a few elite (level 6+) archers might be attached to each legion and issued magic devices that enabled them to see invisible creatures and magic arrows. A few of these scattered around the battlefield would make it very risky for wizards (with their low hit points) to show their faces so openly on the battlefield. (That would work even better if one or two of them had a level of sorceror or two and a wand of dispel magic).</blockquote>

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