Mercenary Mage Quest: Asur Dogs of War in Warhammer Fantasy

[SurpriseMe]

Getting CGAE will allow us to take bigger contracts, because it gives us access to BM. The Prophet was alone with 2 ogres and was on the same level as mercenary companies hundred of men strong. We are already a major threat on the battlefield, casing BM will make us try relevant on that scale.

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That is admittedly a pretty good point I hadn't considered, but it mostly makes me want to disregard smaller spells in favor of going all in on learning battle magic instead more.

"Mage stuff" meaning getting the ability to instantly create field fortifications, getting a supernatural aura of intimidation, obtaining an elite magical scout, being able to protect allied gunpowder weapons from the weather etc,etc

"Mage stuff" is a pretty broad category of things.

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It is a broad variety of things, but almost all of the things are drawing upon the same resource--Fanriel's ability to keep casting. As we saw in the Norscan raid mission, that isn't an unlimited resource, and the more we use it for one thing the less we will be able to use it for others. The more spells we know, the more Fanriel's overall utility increases, but the utility of all the other spells we know also decreases slightly because we'll have opportunities to cast them less often.

Depends. Expansion is one way to get higher pay, but so is just doing a good enough job in the previous job that people will get the impression we're worth it even if we demand more. If we go recruiting this round then the most we'll be able to get is something like twenty unbloodied, and even that is because while their upkeep fee is two thirds that of veterans their recruitment fee is only a quarter. That would be beneficial, but not so drastic a difference in the Lightfangs abilities that I couldn't bear to wait for the next downtime where we'll also have more savings with which to get better/more recruits.

And the "mage stuff" isn't going to be costing us that much money in this context. AFAIK being the guy's chemistry teacher isn't going to cost us any cash.

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The idea that things can be beneficial but not a drastic difference is why I don't think these spells will noticeably help our reputation as a spellcaster--Fanriel already has a broader spellbook than the vast majority of people in the Old World. Our employers very well might not put too much stock in her having a slightly broader spellbook of the same tier, as opposed to breaking into a new tier. You are also assuming that unbloodied would be the choice of recruit. We might possibly roll well on human recruits, or decide on a smaller number of more elite elves.

The money I'm referring to is how people will be (for good reason) wanting to spend lots of money on things like paper or coffee when learning all the new spells we buy. If we get four new spells here, I am extremely confident that in our next downtime there's going to be the coffee/paper tax for them.

 

[RwconHD]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Earthwall (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue

 

[Imperious]

It is a broad variety of things, but almost all of the things are drawing upon the same resource--Fanriel's ability to keep casting. As we saw in the Norscan raid mission, that isn't an unlimited resource, and the more we use it for one thing the less we will be able to use it for others. The more spells we know, the more Fanriel's overall utility increases, but the utility of all the other spells we know also decreases slightly because we'll have opportunities to cast them less often.

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This is true to a limited extent. This is why I resisted the idea to get Earth Blast or Fire Breath for example, because ultimately we already have magic missiles we can cast and just getting another one won't do us any good, since its not like we can cast all of them at the same time.

The thing is, spells with different purposes may sometimes be cast in different periods of time due to their different abilities, and so avoid infringing on each other's casting time. An easy example is Calm Sky. Calm Sky is generally going to be a spell we cast before a battle even begins. Having it hardly infringes on the same casting times as something like a magic missile, because unlike a second magic missile like Earth Blast those aren't supposed to be casted in the same time to begin with.

You are also assuming that unbloodied would be the choice of recruit. We might possibly roll well on human recruits, or decide on a smaller number of more elite elves.

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With what money? Militia veterans have four times the recruitment fee and Kossar rejects have the same recruitment fee as unbloodied despite having less then half their prowess rating. I made the assumption because we don't have the budget for a smaller number of more elite elves and that humans we can get for the same price are drastically less effective.

 

[pirofant]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Earthwall (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue

 

[noliar]

That is admittedly a pretty good point I hadn't considered, but it mostly makes me want to disregard smaller spells in favor of going all in on learning battle magic instead more.

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Whereas I'm not interested in full on battlemagic because I want a quest about Fanriel the captain of the Lightfangs with some enabling magic rather Fanriel the battlemage hero unit with some bodyguards.

 

[Imperious]

The money I'm referring to is how people will be (for good reason) wanting to spend lots of money on things like paper or coffee when learning all the new spells we buy. If we get four new spells here, I am extremely confident that in our next downtime there's going to be the coffee/paper tax for them.

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The whole point of having someone teach us spells is that so we won't have the make the AP and money investments we'd need to make in order to learn these spells ourselves.

 

[reignonyrparade]

The whole point of having someone teach us spells is that so we won't have the make the AP and money investments we'd need to make in order to learn these spells ourselves.

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We do still need to learn the spells even though we're working from a written copy, so it's not like the AP is going to be ZERO, and even money investments might still make sense when we see what the DC actually is.

 

[DragonParadox]

The whole point of having someone teach us spells is that so we won't have the make the AP and money investments we'd need to make in order to learn these spells ourselves.

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That has been my impression as well. I mean what on earth would we even do with paper learning spells from a a scroll?

 

[Imperious]

We do still need to learn the spells even though we're working from a written copy, so it's not like the AP is going to be ZERO, and even money investments might still make sense when we see what the DC actually is.

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We didn't need any AP to learn spells from the Prophet. What's the point of getting the instructions for one of the spells in advance if we aren't able to use it until the contract is over and we can invest an AP on it during downtime anyway?

 

[Imperious]

Actually this is important enough that I think some clarification may be necessary. @Blackout do we still need to spend AP on learning spells we get from the Middenheimers? If so, what difference does the instruction from them make compared to learning the spells by ourself and what's the point of getting one spell in advance if we still won't be able to use it until after the campaign is over and we can spend an AP on it.

 

[Blackout]

Does Clear Sky allow us to dispel dark clouds, smoke or fog? If so, it's the anti-Mordor spell^^

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Yes.

This pain. This terrible, terrible pain. I sympathize so very much.

Sometimes I wish I could just directly transmit my thoughts onto documents way faster than I could ever possibly type whenever I wanted.

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My life in a nutshell. I have millions of words worth of epic story lines and grand character arcs all planned out in my head, but then it takes me weeks to churn out 5k words.

With what money? Militia veterans have four times the recruitment fee and Kossar rejects have the same recruitment fee as unbloodied despite having less then half their prowess rating. I made the assumption because we don't have the budget for a smaller number of more elite elves and that humans we can get for the same price are drastically less effective.

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You assume that recruitment fees are static, rather than dependent on rolls, location and events in the world around you.

You rolled well for recruiting elves and badly for recruiting humans, so elves were willing to negotiate because they wanted to join your company specifically, whereas the market for humans was more competitive.

Actually this is important enough that I think some clarification may be necessary. @Blackout do we still need to spend AP on learning spells we get from the Middenheimers? If so, what difference does the instruction from them make compared to learning the spells by ourself and what's the point of getting one spell in advance if we still won't be able to use it until after the campaign is over and we can spend an AP on it.

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As I said in the update, it depends on how well you roll.

If you roll really well, you might get the spell immediately. If you roll decently, you might need to practice it in your own time without requiring an action (like what happened with Disrupt Magic when you bought it from the Prophet). If you roll poorly you might get it in an incomplete fashion. And if you roll really poorly then yeah, you might need an action to finish studying it, though still less than what you would need to make it from scratch.

 

[Talon TigerDino]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Cowering Beasts (Advance)
-[X] Stoke the Flames
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Cowering Beasts (Advance)
-[X] Clear Sky
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall

@Imperious , here is thy vote.

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Cowering Beasts (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall

Also for those that don't want four spells, I shall remind you that there is a three spell option.

(Also clearing the sky is silly, embrace enhanced arson instead)

 

[Imperious]

Yes.


My life in a nutshell. I have millions of words worth of epic story lines and grand character arcs all planned out in my head, but then it takes me weeks to churn out 5k words.


You assume that recruitment fees are static, rather than dependent on rolls, location and events in the world around you.

You rolled well for recruiting elves and badly for recruiting humans, so elves were willing to negotiate because they wanted to join your company specifically, whereas the market for humans was more competitive.

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We actually rolled slightly below average, 49, for the elves. It's just that we rolled crap, 25 for the humans.

As I said in the update, it depends on how well you roll.

If you roll really well, you might get the spell immediately. If you roll decently, you might need to practice it in your own time without requiring an action (like what happened with Disrupt Magic when you bought it from the Prophet). If you roll poorly you might get it in an incomplete fashion. And if you roll really poorly then yeah, you might need an action to finish studying it, though still less than what you would need to make it from scratch.

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I feel that this needs to be emphasized. As we can see from our attempt to learn the t2 Inspiration by ourself, learning even a t2 spell with no teacher means investing at least three actions and over a hundred GC into finishing the spell. In contrast even the worst case scenario for learning a spell from the Middenheimers means needing to spend only two free actions on it, but more likely then not we'll only need to spend one. Learning a spell from the Middenheimrs is massively more efficient in AP and money then learning it by ourself, and as Valahuir showed, mages willing to teach us aren't going to be all that easy ro come by. So if there's a spell we want that the Middenheimrs can teach there's a strong imperative to learning it from them now rather then trying to learn it by ourself later.

 

[Blackout]

We actually rolled slightly below average, 49, for the elves. It's just that we rolled crap, 25 for the humans.

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Yes, but you had more bonuses for the elves.

 

[DeadmanwalkingXI]

Fair enough. That's a bit better action economy than I was imagining:

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Cowering Beasts (Advance)
-[X] Earthwall
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Clear Sky

 

[Imperious]

Yes, but you had more bonuses for the elves.

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Not by that much. We had a net bonus of 30 to the elves roll compared to a net bonus of 20 to the humans roll, the difference of which can be attributed to the Commander of the Ind Campaigns bonus, which is still going to be there later.

If we can at some point get Power of Truth we can get an additional bonus to elf recruitment which wouldn't apply to human recruitment.

Original point being that our roll for elf recruitment was actually pretty average. It was just the human roll being pretty bad.

 

[Ando Owen]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Earthwall (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue

 

[Boodlesnoop]

Not by that much. We had a net bonus of 30 to the elves roll compared to a net bonus of 20 to the humans roll, the difference of which can be attributed to the Commander of the Ind Campaigns bonus, which is still going to be there later.

If we can at some point get Power of Truth we can get an additional bonus to elf recruitment which wouldn't apply to human recruitment.

Original point being that our roll for elf recruitment was actually pretty average. It was just the human roll being pretty bad.

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Do you WANT the boss to be less generous with recruitment options?

 

[Seventeen]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] The Ox Stands (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall

If we get the role as mercenary commander, preventing them from running from battle is probably the best improvement we'll get from these spells in terms of the current contract.

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] Earthwall (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue

But I mostly just want Earthwall.

 

[Dust&Ash]

That's super handy for tossing them at any magical hires we get later.

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@Blackout, how would you handle Fanriel attempting to teach subordinate mages spells?
How much of a difference would the mage trainee being a human or an elf make?
How much of a difference would having a written spell formulae make for a human vs. an elf trainee?
If Fanriel took an action to codify a spell in a grimoire, would that help more or less (on an average roll) than using one of these Middenheimer grimoires?

 

[soranoyume]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] The Ox Stands (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall

 

[K von Carstein]

Whereas I'm not interested in full on battlemagic because I want a quest about Fanriel the captain of the Lightfangs with some enabling magic rather Fanriel the battlemage hero unit with some bodyguards.

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Learning BM won't lock Fanriel into the role of a static mage on the battlefield, it's just one more weapon in our arsenal. Given how good we are at stabbing people and comparatively how bad we are at blowing them up, it would actually decrease our effectiveness if we focus only on casting spells.

 

[Mystic Pentagram]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] The Ox Stands (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall
-[X] Stoke the Flames
-[X] Mountainwind Curse

I really want Mountainwind Curse.

As its been said a couple of pages back, combining it with Armour of Lead would be great for dueling enemy champions.

 

[Blackout]

@Blackout, how would you handle Fanriel attempting to teach subordinate mages spells?

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You take an action to find a suitable candidate, and then actions to teach them.

How much of a difference would the mage trainee being a human or an elf make?

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All else being equal, Fanriel would find it significantly easier to train an elf.

How much of a difference would having a written spell formulae make for a human vs. an elf trainee?

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Depends on who wrote it and who's reading it.

If Fanriel took an action to codify a spell in a grimoire, would that help more or less (on an average roll) than using one of these Middenheimer grimoires?

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Depends on who's reading it and what you want to accomplish.

 

[Imperious]

[X] Yes, you wish to buy spells from the Middenheimers.
-[X] The Ox Stands (Advance)
-[X] Beast Tongue
-[X] Earthwall
-[X] Stoke the Flames
-[X] Mountainwind Curse

I really want Mountainwind Curse.

As its been said a couple of pages back, combining it with Armour of Lead would be great for dueling enemy champions.

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The way I see it is that in a one on one duel we already have essentially five, non damage different spells we could cast that could be of some use: Armour of Lead, Rigidity of Body and Mind, Azure Blades, The Cerulean Shield and the Boar's Hide. At this point I feel that we have so many duel purposed spells that we probably won't manage to cast them all, and so if we want to improve our spell repertoire for duels our focus should be on getting higher tier spells we can cast in the stead of ones we already know.

I do think it'll be rather a shame if we fail to get Cowering Beasts here though. In battle I figure that hurting the enemy's morale is at least as effective as bolstering that of our own troops, given that our troops' own morale is so high that it seems more likely that a morale debuff to our enemies could make the difference between a unit breaking or holding then a morale buff to our own troops would, but the fear effect would also be extra effective in our case given the synergies we have for it as well as have a lot of uses outside of combat given all the many times we find ourself having to roll for intimidation outside of combat.