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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Ragnar said:
I was thinking on the eventual Orb of Sorcery option (how many college favour are we from being able to buy the rest, by the way?) and how magic works.

Dwarf Runes presumably draw magic from somewhere to power themselves, so does this mean they can draw power from normal Power Stones? Like is there a way for Dwarves to haness power stones to recharge their important runes faster?

Because it seems like providing the Dwarves with a reusable resource (Orbs of Sorcery) is massively more useful that just giving them limited supplies of snake juice.

(Speaking of snake juice, is our original method of entrapment replicable now we are developing control magics for apparitions?)
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It's worth noting that Power Stones and Orbs of Sorcery make magic work better by warping the nature of reality to be more conductive to it but they don't actually generate it. Given that runes reinforce normal reality, it's quite possible Power Stones would either just muck with Runecraft in a bad way, or make no difference whatsoever.

As, to the Aetheric Vitae, it isn't reasonably replicable via the original method. There's on and off speculation about how we might devise new and more repeatable methods.

Parabola said:
I would view it as a tradeoff. The Charge and Duel options let the Rider focus on one thing while we can do another, but the Bodyguard lets us pre-cast it before a fight that we know is going to happen, and lasts longer.

Both would be extremely useful, which is why people are talking of later binding another Rider and training it differently.
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Personally, I'm starting to Contextualize Duel and Charge as basically artillery pieces: Big* destructive spells that target either one specific guy or a group.

*Your bigness may vary. Consult results of the Number vote for more information.
 
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The Phoenixian said:
Personally, I'm starting to Contextualize Duel and Charge as basically artillery pieces: Big* destructive spells that target either one specific guy or a group.
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Grey Wizards have better big destructive spells, this summons a tarpit/gank knight or squad, and the main advantage given so far was only that you don't want to drop Pit of Shades where your own guys are charging towards already, when no you wanna use Penumbral Pendulum there.
 
LawsOfRobotics said:
I took another look at the other Apparitions we can bind and how they would fit in to the behaviors that have been listed for the Rider.

I think I would rather have Handmaidens for Duel or Ambush because they can only be seen with Magesight and ambushing is already kind of their thing.

For Bodyguard, I see the appeal of a big tanky Rider backup or three, but I am interested in the possibility of using the Black Essence for the role. It likes to get in face holes, which if we covered it in Ulgu, seems like it could be useful in blinding and suffocating anyone that attacks us, and then we can just hit the attackers with a sword ourselves. We might also be able to use it's ability to sense Dark Magic and Necromancy as a sort of bloodhound. It seems like the kind of Apparition where there is much less advantage to having more than one.
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The thing about ambush Handmaidens is that they can only scratch with iron-hard nails which, in Warhammer, is woefully inadequate for taking down anything of import on a battlefield. Pretty nice off the battlefield at assassinating softer targets for anyone who can't teleport-murder though.

The Black Essence is uniquely odd though, in that it never actually touches the target it's stalking; it instead appears in the orifices of everyone around them. This means that to serve as a bodyguard, Mathilde would need to make herself the stalked individual. Which is odd.
It does mean it would be excellent for killing retinues though; imagine everywhere a commander looks his bodyguards suffocate. They'd either die horribly or stop guarding the commander. Then you walk up ominously to his unguarded self while your ambush apparition of choice lines up the steel chair behind him.
 
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Shard said:
Honestly I would much rather push the boundaries of magic elsewhere, like Windherding. The prospects of discovery there is so much more interesting and comparatively less dangerous.

Also, AP Hell.
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You say this like Windherding isn't trailblazing an entirely unexplored and dangerous endeavor that's constantly risking Dhar backlash
At least with Battlemagic there's an established population of casters that have experience doing it "safely"
Windherding has a single proof of concept under it's belt, and that very nearly went horribly wrong before Mathilde grounded the Miscast

I like Windherding for the record, but at some point it's started to really bother me that Battlemagic in particular gets treated as the unacceptable risk, when Mathilde does all sorts of risky stuff on the regular, that could just as easily have gotten herself killed
She could have been killed with no chance of a save diving down into a boat not all that long ago, had a single roll gone differently
 
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One

Broadest potential usefulness for the Order, decent mileage for Mathilde.

We can (and should) explore an offensive variant with greater numbers at a later date, preferably involving the Big Cat Knight shape (Cat Attack Troops if we must make the name a pun).
 
CrimsonOddball said:
You say this like Windherding isn't trailblazing an entirely unexplored and dangerous endeavor that's constantly risking Dhar backlash
At least with Battlemagic there's an established population of casters that have experience doing it "safely"
Windherding has a single proof of concept under it's belt, and that very nearly went horribly wrong before Mathilde grounded the Miscast

I like Windherding for the record, but at some point it's started to really bother me that Battlemagic in particular gets treated as the unacceptable risk, when Mathilde does all sorts of risky stuff on the regular, that could just as easily have gotten herself killed
She could have been killed with no chance of a save diving down into a boat not all that long ago, had a single roll gone differently
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It's more that Battlemagic has a known endpoint and risks, so learning new Battlemagic doesn't carry the same 'thrill of discovery' as Windherding, or Waystones. Those feel like we're doing something new (or at least, unknown to us), so the risks feel acceptable. Whereas Battlemagic is more.. known? There's risks, but there's no thrill of discovery to accompany it. Unless we're researching new Battle Magic like Rite of Way, of course.
 
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The Phoenixian said:
It's worth noting that Power Stones and Orbs of Sorcery make magic work better by warping the nature of reality to be more conductive to it but they don't actually generate it. Given that runes reinforce normal reality, it's quite possible Power Stones would either just muck with Runecraft in a bad way, or make no difference whatsoever.
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See here:

Boney said:
No. Orbs don't create Winds (except when expended), they make it so you can get more magical effect out of the same amount of Winds. But Runes aren't doing magic with the Winds they capture, they're directly converting it into something else, so would either be unaffected or hindered by the presence of Orbs.

To use a car analogy, an Orb of Sorcery makes your magical gasoline burn hotter and longer. This is really useful if you plan on using your gasoline to fuel your car (as Wizards do), but is somewhere between useless and really bad if you're trying to do petrochemistry with it (as Runesmiths do).
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The Phoenixian said:
Personally, I'm starting to Contextualize Duel and Charge as basically artillery pieces: Big* destructive spells that target either one specific guy or a group.
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cheesyme said:
Grey Wizards have better big destructive spells, this summons a tarpit/gank knight or squad, and the main advantage given so far was only that you don't want to drop Pit of Shades where your own guys are charging towards already, when no you wanna use Penumbral Pendulum there.
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Unlike artillery, Duel or Charge do have the benefit that the Rider persists after you cast it, so if it's to a large infantry group, the Rider(s) might present more of a danger than the Pendulum.

I'm still voting for Bodyguard, to be clear, but I feel like I could throw an approval vote to Charge if it came down to it. Duel isn't getting much momentum.
 
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Parabola said:
Unlike artillery, Duel or Charge do have the benefit that the Rider persists after you cast it, so if it's to a large infantry group, the Rider might present more of a danger than the Pendulum.

I'm still voting for Bodyguard, to be clear, but I feel like I could throw an approval vote to Charge if it came down to it. Duel isn't getting much momentum.
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That is fair, but I'm not sure if its killiness is enough to have as large an impact if that makes sense. IT could work, but that's the tarpit aspect that I mentioned earlier more than big destruction like I was replying to.

Now, don't get me wrong, sending a tarpit off to keep some elites busy has its own value, and its not like the apparition won't be killy, that just doesn't seem as useful to me as Bodyguard does, due to Bodyguard's sheer duration, ability to cast ahead of time, and ability to absolutely save Mathilde's ass. We've had multiple near death situations that we could have cast this spell ahead of time for if we'd had it, and which would have been so much safer if we'd had. Cause yeah, Prospalz ain't wrong here.
Prospalz said:
IDK, "decent" seems like a pretty weak word for a spell that probably would've trivialized most of the actually spicy combat encounters we had so far.
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Shard said:
It's more that Battlemagic has a known endpoint and risks, so learning new Battlemagic doesn't carry the same 'thrill of discovery' as Windherding, or Waystones. Those feel like we're doing something new (or at least, unknown to us), so the risks feel acceptable. Whereas Battlemagic is more.. known? There's risks, but there's no thrill of discovery to accompany it. Unless we're researching new Battle Magic like Rite of Way, of course.
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to further this


the risk is, from the flawed reckoning of most peoples minds, the same. decent chance of miscast.

the rewards, are not.

now, i don't mean mechanically, that doesn't actually matter for this specific foible. I mean how rewarding it feels to do it, how much of an achievement it is.

doing something that is fairly well understood is not an achievement to those who don't have to put in the effort to actually do it. which is what we are. while doing something that hasn't been done before and 'blazing a new trail', is.

and so, despite the risks being effectively the same, one is appealing enough that the risks have been out weighed.

and the other, is numbers go up*.


*not actually, but what something actually is doesn't matter when discussing the myriad foibles of flawed minds. only what it is percieved to be.
 
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On the subject of binding more than one rider, I do want to point out that if we fail when casting the Rider spell, that doesn't necessarily mean that all the riders bound to the spell rebel. It is likely that how many rebel and what they decide to do (either attack us, or someone else, or run away) will depend on or the degree of failure, context, and follow up rolls.

I suspect that Boney hasn't worked out the details for how to handle an Apparition miscast and will only do so if and when it happens.
 
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One
I want this spell to work well, and this option seems most likely to result in something well behaved. It will also always be useful.

Once this version is figured out, it'll be easier to make the riskier lance/charge version, which is more powerful but more situational.
 
Thinking back through some of our fights and seeing what each option would have best helped solve:

Instinctive:
- Enemy spellcasters in Sylvania.
- Orc Shamans at the citadel fight.
- Athel Loren spellcasters at Kislev. (This is a significant one, since we had to rely on cavalry getting there in time).

Ganking an enemy magic user from across a battlefield is something that I feel we're quite lacking in, considering it comes up surprisingly often. The only time we've been able to do it proactively is using dwarven artillery to snipe that vampire in Sylvania.

Charge:
- Any of the multiple battles we've been in would have also benefited from a charge, to a minor extent.
- Stabilising the line at Karag Vlag after the enemy slayers got through our slayers.
- Undead ambushes in Stirland

Charge is notable as a viable option for preventing a rout from afar, which we can't get from anything else.

Duel:
- Chasing down Alberich in Talebheim
- Theoretically, engaging a rider's mount while we fight the rider.

Duel seems best used in a chase, or when we really need to engage exactly two people at once.

Ambush
- Orc warboss hunting at K8P
- Assassinating the skaven sorceror and herald at K8P
- Enemy spellcasters in Sylvania

This is a good alternative for Instinctive, since it works against non-casters too. However, it is much less efficient when facing multiple enemy spellcasters.

Bodyguard:
- Any of our bad escapes at K8P, where we got cornered or hurt after an assassination.
- One on one against the Khornate or the demons during the Karag Dum expedition.
- Any other battle where we were engaged in fighting.

As multiple people have pointed out, we could always use more protection in these melee fights we keep getting into.

Directed:
- Can't think of a good one. Maybe if we hadn't been in the thick of it with Abelhelm when he went down, we could have rescued him from afar with Directed.
 
Boney if the final spell design heavily incorporates either fog or mist (Maybe they appear from fog or mist, or are limited to manifesting inside of the fog or mist that Mathilde summons) will Mathilde's staff of mistery have a impact on the difficulty of the spell?
 
Curtains said:
Bodyguard:
- Any of our bad escapes at K8P, where we got cornered or hurt after an assassination.
- One on one against the Khornate or the demons during the Karag Dum expedition.
- Any other battle where we were engaged in fighting.
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Don't forget the Black College in SylvaniaEastern Stirland, having one of these on hand against the vampire would have been glorious, as he'd had Mathilde dead to rights via speed in melee before he decided to cast a spell.
 
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