Weather control in war

[Storyteller01]

With comic books, it boils down to "with great power comes great respionsibility. You don't use superheroes in war for about the same reason you don't use nuclear weapons. You save the really devastating effects for the cases where you know darned tootin' that there si a clear and present danger. Doubly so because the heroes are not devices - they are generally beings of high morals and leanings toward serving the public. No such hero would lend his aid to a cause of questionable morality if he could help it, lest he choose incorrectly.

And let's not forget what happened to the Authority!


To answer the Superman question: there were complaints made when DC tried to have Supes participate in the war. He was an alien, not a 'true' american. They wrote it off as Supes 'accidentally' having his X-ray vision on when taking the eye exam. Since what he told the doc he saw wasn't on the chart, he was legally blind (4F).

Heard the story from a historian. Would love some feedback on this...


There's also the 'Arms race' mentality. 'If you release your wizards, I'll unleash mine...'

 

[Tonguez]

IMC tsunami, and mega storms occur on occasion (and hurricaines are annual natural events) wiping out whole islands (as they do naturally)

What keeps spellthrowers from indescriminate use of same is the gods - they tend to not like upstart mortals trampling on the natural order' and will take action (and since the level of the major dieties is something in the oprder of 200+ no mortal (and few immotals) can stand up against them

 

[WayneLigon]

Or how do nations in typical D&D settings survive such an onslaught of magic?

Now that there are high level people who can cast such powerful spells running around, why aren't they tapped to obliterate cities and farmlands of opposing nations? Even if they are forced into a fight by a similar group, the impact of such a battle is going to be horrendous and possibly lethal for lots of low level bystanders. What happens to a nation when their commoner peoples are killed en masse? At what power level does MAD come into effect?

1. You rarely want to obliterate cities and you never want to obliterate the farmland unless you're crazy or things have gone from 'war' to 'genocide'. You never want to kill the cities or croplands because you're going to want them for yourself.

2. Many wizards that get to those levels don't have much to do with normal people like kings and such. They could care less about wars and who happens to be baron today: they're trying to unlock the secrets of the universe.

3. They have to know those spells. All wizards don't have access to all the spells. That further cuts down on the available war wizard pool.

4. MAD virtually never comes into effect: wizards generally tend to cancel each other out. You cast Control Weather. The other side Controls it back to the way it was. No matter what spell they're using, the other side can always Counterspell it or Dispell it or use some antimagic device or spell to block/destroy the spell effect.

5. Assassins. There hasn't been a wizard made yet that can work a spell with a dagger between his ribs.

6. There are not a lot of mass destruction spells that cover a large area. In fact, I can't think of a single one that would be useful on a city-sized target. Nothing covers the area or range needed to use spells in that manner save for Control Weather and that by itself does no damage at all to things in it's area of effect unless you get really lucky and get a tornado. I think Control Weather is one of those 'last sentence' spells; it says 'possible' weather rather than 'you can summon tornadoes at will'. It's also easily dealt with if the other side has Control Weather as well. At best it would make things bad for the other wise, but those things will be equally as bad for your side as well. A tremendous thunderstorm would probably keep the opposing side from sallying forth, but that's about it.

7. Even a 20th level Wizard only has a few of those prepared at any one time (we're going on the assumption here that not every - nor even most - Wizard has a 26 Int by the time they're 20th level - PC's are the ones that tend to put everything they have into one stat - so they're going to have, like, 6 spells of any level available to them) . A 20th level sorcerer has more but it's unlikely they'll go for the really huge effect spells. They maybe can blow down a wall or a gate but that's about as much as they're going to get. Plus they have to be in range to do that, and it's very likely that some kid on the wall with Far Shot and a Comp Long Bow is going to put a war arrow in Mr. Mage's forehead before he gets off more than a couple spells of that maginitude. It's likely that he'll lose spells to blown Concentration checks. People are going to respond like PC's in one respect: if they see someone casting, they're going to instantly do their best to peg him.

 

[VirgilCaine]

(FYI there is a mass raise dead spell from Bloodstone)

Gods forbid!

Anyway, I "fixed" battlefield combat ( a lot of other problems with spellcasters) IMC by ruling that wizards police non-divine magic--bards, sorcerors, adepts, AND wizards. Police meaning they deal without with no argument from kings. Also, sorcerors are intimidated from fighting in political wars and wizards are (magically) barred from doing so, so the most that can commonly be done to conscripts is to be sleeped or sound bursted or hypnotic patterned or something, not fireballed or cloudkilled.

Plus they have to be in range to do that, and it's very likely that some kid on the wall with Far Shot and a Comp Long Bow is going to put a war arrow in Mr. Mage's forehead before he gets off more than a couple spells of that maginitude. It's likely that he'll lose spells to blown Concentration checks.

Uh? Try looking at a ring of blinking sometime. Plus potions of blur, invisbility, fly, cloak of displacement. All kinds of ways to make it very hard to hit a magic user.

 

[painandgreed]

Or how do nations in typical D&D settings survive such an onslaught of magic?

Now that there are high level people who can cast such powerful spells running around, why aren't they tapped to obliterate cities and farmlands of opposing nations? Even if they are forced into a fight by a similar group, the impact of such a battle is going to be horrendous and possibly lethal for lots of low level bystanders. What happens to a nation when their commoner peoples are killed en masse? At what power level does MAD come into effect?

My $.02

A) Weather control never seemed that powerful to me. I read it in 3.5 and it seemed iffy as to what you could even do such as call up enough rain to slow down let alone stop an army. other spells also seem rather small area of effect with reguards to large areas of land (except the reverse of plant growth)

B) No profit in killing commoners unless they're in an army coming to get you or you're tryign to make room for your own commoners. Even orcs rarely kill the commoners. They'll rape and pillage but don't usually resort to murder (unless hungry) because if they killed everybody, there'd be nothing to rape and pillage next year. Commoners learn that if they just sit there and take it they'll be back to farming the next day and if they fight, they'll end up dead.

C) When magic users go into combat, they typically end up pitted against the other sides magic users. In effect, the adventuring parties of the opposing armies end up fighting eachother. If one side comes out victorious and still capable of a good fight, it will then turn on the rest of the army but by that time the morale of the army that lost their high level guys is probalby dropping rapidly and the battle is pretty much over anyway.

D) Battling high level wizards rarely cause that much damage. they may trash the area of a football field or so but coolateral damage rarely goes beyond that. After all, they can fight in a dungeon room and never affect anything in the other dungeon rooms. there is no MAD because there really aren't any spells that I can think of that could be considered WMDs. There's cloudkill and a few others but they still have a pretty finite area of effect.

 

[Ace]

Massive magical destruction is the D&D equivalent of a nuclear weapon. You may have either in your arsenal just in case, but you don't want to use them unless it's absolutely necessary.

Thats how it works IMC.

Just before my current campaign began there was a major event involving a "colorless rain of fire" ala Greyhawk

It destroyed 10% of an Empires army and 5 cities-- This was a major an event as you could imagine with catastrophic results that are shaping the game world

Epic level magic is extremly powerfull

Normal spells OTOH are less so.

As for some of the posters who "nerf" the social consequences of magic to retain a medieval feel, well I can understand the urge butit does seem like a cop-out to me.YMMV

 

[DragonLancer]

Uh... Mayhaps I'm the exception to your rule, but levelled cities... heck levelled mountain ranges, happen with uncomfortable frequency in my current game. (To be fair, the dwarves dropped their mountain range to seal something in, but the effects were felt far and wide).

Oh yes, thats why I said it can happen. Every campaign and DM out there is different.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

As for some of the posters who "nerf" the social consequences of magic to retain a medieval feel, well I can understand the urge butit does seem like a cop-out to me.YMMV

Not sure if this is aimed at me, but I have leveled cities before or caused massive magical plagues. I love it. Its fun and good for plot purposes, plus it keeps that magical feel in the world.

Nonetheless, I do somewhat "nerf" it because I do like the idea of mages, once they get to a certain level, being beyond the Prime. They can bend reality to their very Will and see beyond a fairly small plane of mortals. I think the flavor fits for wizards. As a consequence, it does simplify that question of "Why does that level 19 wizard just take over X via some spells from behind the scenes."

 

[DMH]

If I can pose a question to you, why the questions on the topic? I'm just asking because, if we know where you're coming from with this, then we might be better able to answer them.

I am just starting to read Collapse by Jared Diamond. The only spell that can cause environmental damage at a major scale that I have read is weather control. And then there are the tangent of magic as a weapon of mass destruction.

they may trash the area of a football field or so but coolateral damage rarely goes beyond that.

What if that is in a city? Even if it is just the slums, it is going to have a major impact on the city as a whole.

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

I am just starting to read Collapse by Jared Diamond. The only spell that can cause environmental damage at a major scale that I have read is weather control. And then there are the tangent of magic as a weapon of mass destruction.



What if that is in a city? Even if it is just the slums, it is going to have a major impact on the city as a whole.

I doubt destroying a city block would really do much to slow a city down. Some taverns and places might get ruined, but it would hardly stop it. Even if the castle or center of government were destroyed, it would create an inconvenience, but little more. If rulers are killed, there would probably be problems and might throw the city into chaos for a short while, but would hardly destroy it. In truth, a large city would more easily recover then if a town or smaller had such happen to it. The city has more business and such of what were destroyed that the impact wouldn't be as bad.

And I think the biggest city-destroying spell in the Core Rules is going to be Earthquake. Look at earthquakes that happen in some of the lesser developed countries and the death tolls from there. Similarly sized earthquakes are hardly a problem in California, but cause massive damage in places such as Turkey.