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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Chlof said:
Well, what caught my attention in this update was the difference between an 'embodied' soul and a disembodied one which seemed interesting but my main curiosity is what apparitions actually are, how they exist and what their relation to other aethyric denizens is. Though now that I spell it out we'd likely have to observe them at the moment of manifestation to actually get any answers, so it's a bit of a redundant question.
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This would tie into the general theory of how and why the Warp gives rise to various forms of life. It's generally understood that the emotions of living beings, who have a biological and a spiritual component, gives rise to life forms in the Aethyr, and those are solely spiritual. This spirit-only nature gives them all kinds of strange and often terrifying abilities and means they lack many of the weaknesses of flesh and blood, but the cost of that is that they are foreign to reality and cannot exist in it without an expenditure of magical energy.

For Apparitions specifically, the general theory is that the fears of magic-wielders have more metaphysical oomph than of 'normal' people, and enough of them have had enough of the same fears that it created an untapped niche of spiritual energy. And either something filled that niche and became Apparitions, or something took advantage of the niche and created Apparitions, or that niche somehow spontaneously manifested Apparitions.

The exact lines between studying this and studying Daemonology are extremely hazy and possibly don't exist at all, which is part of why the Golds were so cagey about it all.

Captainwolf said:
With Instinctive, does that mean that if we summoned it before a battle, and a friendly wizard casts a destructive spell, the Rider will go after the friendly wizard (unless Matilde yanked it back)?
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Yes. Presumably you'd get in the habit of warning any friendly Wizards you're about to share a battlefield with to not be the first one to throw a destructive spell.

Talon TigerDino said:
A question for @Boney : Would a Cat-form Ambush still comprise of a single stab and fade, or would it be a full-on pounce and maul before fading?
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I don't know what options I would have given if a different option had won previously.
 
IronFist said:
You're conveniently ignoring the indiscriminate destruction aspect of grey battle magics.

You wouldn't use pit of shades while you have an incoming friendly charge. But you could use multiple riders to disrupt the formation before the cavalry charge hits.

Likewise, with 3 and duel is a low battle magic, which has no competition in that tier.

1 and duel, if it's fiendishly complex, competes against shadow knives... Which has been rather underwhelming against tougher targets.

The rider is am offensive apparition, using it defensively seems like discarding it's primary strength: which is charging.

An Apparition more suited to defence is the Black essence. It just hangs around and gets in people's face.
Bonus: multiple targets.

[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Duel
[X] [NUMBER] One
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I mean, absolutely nothing prevents a Bodyguard from charging nearby threats, and given we're playing as Mathilde, we can and do occasionally charge the enemy ourselves.

Meanwhile, Bodyguard also lets us cast the spell before the fight starts rather than in the middle of it, and Grey Wizards don't have an instant Summon Beatstick spell in their array either, and given most Grey Wizards are squishy that's rather useful to have too.

Furthermore, when Mathilde's wanting to do damage in combat she doesn't try casting battlemagic, she gets into melee and tries to hit them with her Fuck Off and Die Greatsword, which would trigger Bodyguard, could very much still get a charge, and thus work very very nicely for killing things.
 
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I would urge people against going for Lance numbers.
  • In the event of a miscast with a Lance-based spell, Mathilde is dealing with up to 6 Riders who are either gunning for her, or start wreaking havoc in the battlefield. Also, if we lose them we need to go find that number of Riders again for the spell, which might be quite the action sink.
  • It is not staff-applicable and thus Lance would be mid-to-high level BM. Riskier than casting Rite of Way without the Staff.
  • It's really overkill.
  • It'd cost two additional actions when we already had a hard time fitting this initial action in with a WEB-MAT action.
One honestly feels ideal - this could legit be a powerful Fiendishly Complex spell. Trio is my personal limit because there'll come a time that we'll probably want to cast Penumbral Pendulum or something and we gotta start somewhere.
 
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[X] [NUMBER] One
I don't feel very strongly one way or another about the possible applications of our pocket knight, but I do feel strongly about our precious AP.

The cost of binding multiple Riders isn't just more AP now, it could be more AP later when we inevitably miscast and have to rebind them.
 
chocolote12 said:
I think what I'm saying is that, in a battle, there is no such thing as a 'fire and forget'. Every roll matters, and every failure risks our death. In those circumstances, casting the Rider would always be smart if it would be useful, because the Battle Magic risk never actually outweighs the risk of failing on any of the other rolls we could be making.

All it being Battle Magic means is that we have to treat it with respect outside of dangerous situations, which... honestly, all magic should feel like that.
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We've failed many rolls in combat, those rolls didn't kill us, they made our situation worse but recoverable. Failing a magic roll, especially a Battle Magic roll, puts us in Instant Danger Zone all by itself. Maybe we'll nail the recovery and zip the magic somewhere else, maybe we'll injure ourself to some unknown degree of fatality, or we roll on the Mark of Ulgu table. And we are hella running out of the good marks. Having a FC spell means we have another tool in our Standard Operating Procedure because it is safe and consistent, it's just really useful to throw a minion at someone, and we can do that consistently to decrease the pressure put on us before we are pushed into the corner. If it's Battle Magic, it instantly becomes the riskiest tool in our arsenal, and I'd question the necessity of taking that risk compared to our other options. I just generally strongly approve of Mathilde being minimal about the Battle Magic she learns, she only learns the ones she can cast safely after she gets it down. Again, only reason we learned Melkoth's was because our staff made it safe.

It does kill me to only have 1, but it's still a good tool to put in the hands of both Mathilde and the other Magic 7's that may learn it in the future. If the situation is bad enough for Battle Magics then there are much more useful ones.
 
Boney said:
Yes. Presumably you'd get in the habit of warning any friendly Wizards you're about to share a battlefield with to not be the first one to throw a destructive spell.
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Dawi: that sure sounds like it isn't going t be a problem for us- we don't have any.

Now that I think about it; it makes me wonder how well the option would go with a Dawi army vs Greenskins. Could the Riders get to said spellcasters most of the time?

Boney said:
The exact lines between studying this and studying Daemonology are extremely hazy and possibly don't exist at all, which is part of why the Golds were so cagey about it all.
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Wizard: Define "Demon"...
 
cheesyme said:
I mean, absolutely nothing prevents a Bodyguard from charging nearby threats, and given we're playing as Mathilde, we can and do occasionally charge the enemy ourselves.
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I would not word it like that. A rider that we use for bodyguard will not charge anything, it will only attack what either attacks us or what we attack, which makes it much more limited then the charge option which we can send off on its own.
 
cheesyme said:
I mean, absolutely nothing prevents a Bodyguard from charging nearby threats, and given we're playing as Mathilde, we can and do occasionally charge the enemy ourselves.

Meanwhile, Bodyguard also lets us cast the spell before the fight starts rather than in the middle of it, and Grey Wizards don't have an instant Summon Beatstick spell in their array either, and given most Grey Wizards are squishy that's rather useful to have too.

Furthermore, when Mathilde's wanting to do damage in combat she doesn't try casting battlemagic, she gets into melee and tries to hit them with her Fuck Off and Die Greatsword, which would trigger Bodyguard, could very much still get a charge, and thus work very very nicely for killing things.
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One thing that struck me with the duration of Bodyguard is that "Tens of Minutes" to isn't much in the grand scheme of things, but in an active and ongoing fight it's a long, long time. More pointedly though, I can't help but notice it's about the time each turn took back during the final, chaotic battle of Karak Eight Peaks.

In other words, after accounting for fuzziness, the spell duration is almost exactly the length of the shortest turn length we're ever likely to experience in quest.
 
Tobtorp said:
I would not word it like that. A rider that we use for bodyguard will not charge anything, it will only attack what either attacks us or what we attack, which makes it much more limited then the charge option which we can send off on its own.
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Its more limited, but its also going to stick around and always be useful for any enemy that either is about to engage Mathilde or that Mathilde is about to engage, which means its still going to be useful for charging shit. It won't target That Fucker Over There per say, but that doesn't mean it won't charge This Fucker Coming In or That Poor Bastard Mathilde is going after.

Hell, we've explicitly had Mathilde sitting on a Shadow Steed charging targets in the middle of a fight to hit with her Greatsword and Strangling Shadow before, as well as fights where in Mathilde is desperately wanting backup and not able to cast.

First battle of Karak Eight Peaks and one of the infiltrations against the Orks where in she got caught, as well as the fight with the vampire for the latter. In the former Bodyguard is just as good if slightly different in purpose than Charge, in the later its objectively superior by virtue of being cast ahead of time and popping out when needed rather than needing Mathilde to cast full on Battle Magic while someone is trying to stab her.

So yeah, excuse you but I'm gonna call the Bodyguard massively more useful than the charge, especially since its safer to cast One Bodyguard repeatedly ahead of time than it is to cast a Lance Charge in combat.
 
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[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One

I like the idea of having a spell that has a lower requirement so it's more accessible and saves a lot more young Grey Wizards' lives throughout multiple battles. The Charge trio sounds unique and fun though so I wouldn't be mad at that. Band would also be fun but I'm not sure how often we could cast it.

By the way, why is Lance the word for 6?
 
ChronOblivion said:
We've failed many rolls in combat, those rolls didn't kill us, they made our situation worse but recoverable. Failing a magic roll, especially a Battle Magic roll, puts us in Instant Danger Zone all by itself. Maybe we'll nail the recovery and zip the magic somewhere else, maybe we'll injure ourself to some unknown degree of fatality, or we roll on the Mark of Ulgu table. And we are hella running out of the good marks. Having a FC spell means we have another tool in our Standard Operating Procedure because it is safe and consistent, it's just really useful to throw a minion at someone, and we can do that consistently to decrease the pressure put on us before we are pushed into the corner. If it's Battle Magic, it instantly becomes the riskiest tool in our arsenal, and I'd question the necessity of taking that risk compared to our other options. I just generally strongly approve of Mathilde being minimal about the Battle Magic she learns, she only learns the ones she can cast safely after she gets it down. Again, only reason we learned Melkoth's was because our staff made it safe.

It does kill me to only have 1, but it's still a good tool to put in the hands of both Mathilde and the other Magic 7's that may learn it in the future. If the situation is bad enough for Battle Magics then there are much more useful ones.
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There's no reason to take it as a given binding one will result in a FC spell. The actual tradeoff is finished now and unknown chance of FC vs. literally triple or sextuple the throw weight.

More generally I disagree about this philosophy that having access to Battle Magic that isn't perfectly safe isn't worth it. It's never particularly been convincing to me and some of the most recent battles we've been in (like the Kul camp or Dyrcha) really don't seem to me evidence that avoiding having a big stick with a potential drawback is on balance putting us in less danger.
 
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cheesyme said:
Its more limited, but its also going to stick around and always be useful for any enemy that either is about to engage Mathilde or that Mathilde is about to engage, which means its still going to be useful for charging shit. It won't target That Fucker Over There per say, but that doesn't mean it won't charge This Fucker Coming In or That Poor Bastard Mathilde is going after.

Hell, we've explicitly had Mathilde sitting on a Shadow Steed charging targets in the middle of a fight to hit with her Greatsword and Strangling Shadow before, as well as fights where in Mathilde is desperately wanting backup and not able to cast.

First battle of Karak Eight Peaks and one of the infiltrations against the Orks where in she got caught. In the former Bodyguard is just as good if slightly different in purpose than Charge, in the later its objectively superior by virtue of being cast ahead of time and popping out when needed rather than needing Mathilde to cast full on Battle Magic while someone is trying to stab her.
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The downside is that it only attack things that a) we already decided to kill or b) things we suddenly decided to kill while coming at us.

It's good for b because it means backup but for a it's not really a great help... Because we are probably individually more killy then it.
 
I'd usually argue for at least Trio, but I believe we have Gambler assigned to this? And since we've kicked so much ass at the other rolls that it wasn't needed, and I suspect that One being sub-battle magic or not will be up to a roll, I think it might actually be good to shoot for the moon and go with One.
 
cheesyme said:
I mean, absolutely nothing prevents a Bodyguard from charging nearby threats, and given we're playing as Mathilde, we can and do occasionally charge the enemy ourselves.
...
Furthermore, when Mathilde's wanting to do damage in combat she doesn't try casting battlemagic, she gets into melee and tries to hit them with her Fuck Off and Die Greatsword, which would trigger Bodyguard, could very much still get a charge, and thus work very very nicely for killing things.
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Mathilde doesn't really simply charge stuff, though. She is much more of a *teleports behind you*-gal.

[x] [BEHAVIOUR] Duel
[x] [NUMBER] One
[x] [NUMBER] Trio
 
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
Seems to be the biggest thing missing from a Grey Wizard's arsenal.

[X] [NUMBER] One
No more AP needed to be used to create the spell. Let's it be used by more Wizards which will save a lot of lives and fill in a niche that's missing.
 
Tobtorp said:
The downside is that it only attack things that a) we already decided to kill or b) things we suddenly decided to kill while coming at us.

It's good for b because it means backup but for a it's not really a great help... Because we are probably individually more killy then it.
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I mean sure we're individually more killy than the apparation, but that doesn't mean that adding the apparations killiness to Mathilde's won't either let her kill, or even survive things she otherwise wouldn't, nor does it mean that she won't kill her targets faster for anything more than chaff she can steamroll.

As such I'm still gonna call Bodyguard damn useful in any fight that actually, you know, matters.
 
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