Maybe get together with a runesmith and make a battle cart of magic roadlaying running off a powerstone.
Last edited:
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Our fixation with safety isn't shared by the Colleges or even by Mathilde herself - who did get into one diceroll/unlucky event from death on several occasions.
Battle Wizards are going to be reducing risks but at the end of the day the spell is going to be used in warfare; it doesn't need to be perfectly safe it just needs to be considerably safer than the alternatives.
- Location
- Earth
There's no well-known or standard way because Collegiate spellcasting is deeply personalized. Mathilde relies on a staff, others might have masteries, or traits, or other methods for particular classes of spells.
The advantage is our staff, that's it. And we were told by boney that staffs are not able to be mass-produced .
I would not call that empire magic. But i will give you that a battle Altar would probably work, it's just that they have their own problems of being a big target, cumbersome and are powered by a (now reproducible) rare power source.
And again i quote the same passage i did a page ago.
Sinsystems
Patron Librarian
I think the big thing for Rite of Way is that we shouldn't get too bogged down in the large scale usage and also consider the small scale usage. Like for example let us look at a famous IRL historical battle, namely the battle of Agincourt.
In this battle the English were able to win primarily due to how the land they forced the enemy army to rush through was poor for the favored cavalry tactics, being freshly tilled and muddy soil. As a result the cavalry charge slowed down enough that the archers were able to reap a bloody toll on the enemy lines.
Now imagine a similar scenario but with access to a wizard with Rite of Way, by using that spell the wizard just effectively countered the entire advantage of the terrain and thus turning a mire that would have bogged down a charge into solid ground that allows the cavalry force to rush across at full speed.
This is just a single example of a usage of the spell, one that only needs to last for a short time, that could turn the tide of battle in the extreme.
In this battle the English were able to win primarily due to how the land they forced the enemy army to rush through was poor for the favored cavalry tactics, being freshly tilled and muddy soil. As a result the cavalry charge slowed down enough that the archers were able to reap a bloody toll on the enemy lines.
Now imagine a similar scenario but with access to a wizard with Rite of Way, by using that spell the wizard just effectively countered the entire advantage of the terrain and thus turning a mire that would have bogged down a charge into solid ground that allows the cavalry force to rush across at full speed.
This is just a single example of a usage of the spell, one that only needs to last for a short time, that could turn the tide of battle in the extreme.
I see it's the weekly "does RoW sucks" debate. Look, putting aside all the well reasoned arguments about the importance of terrain, there's a battlemagic spell that was even mentioned a page ago that makes one unit very fast:
Now unless someone is going to argue that no Grey battlemage ever learns one of the offical spells in the spellbook, it seems that it is at least sometimes considered a spell worth casting, even with all the risks battlemagic poses - whether that is because Wizards have way to cast it safely or not is irrelevant to the fact that Battle Wizards see fit to learn it. Comparing it to Rite of Way, the canon spell makes one person very fast and Rite of Way makes large units (500 cavlary or 2500 infantry) somewhat faster, depending on the terrain. RoW seems to me like a spell that in some circumstances could be more useful than Steed of Shadows, or at the very least it doesn't seem obviously much worse than Steed of Shadows, which is really all that needs to be said to establish that it will be a worthy addition to the Grey College spellbook.
Mathilde can cast MMM at the drop of a hat. It's a miasma, which means that thanks to the staff we can cast it reliably. That's why we learned it.
xamaplak
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE @SOUP?
- Location
- the Soup Store
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You're right, we can't mass produce the staff. Dwarves can't mass produce axes. They can't mass produce runed weapons. There isn't a factory churning out gyrocopters. There are still a lot of all of the above. We likely can't replicate Mathilde's stát -- and we don't have to. It's been pointed out a lot that Battle Wizards will likely have their own accoutrements. Some of them could be applicable to RoW, some of them not.
It's true, Battle Magic will never be reliable. It's not a science, it's literally enough magic to cause a Major Oopsie. It's still a game changer. Dwarves consider Imperial cannons and guns to be dangerous -- they're still game changing for the Empire. Hell, I hate to bring up skaven, because they don't exist, but they have incredibly unreliable stuff, it's arguably less reliable than RoW in the hands of a seasoned and practiced Oopsie Wizard, and it still pays dividends for them.
It's not going to work 100% of the time. There will be oopsies. It's the nature of magic. I trust that Battle Mages have practice, training, and items that will help negate the negative effects of the oopsies. It's still a game changer.
But the initial discussion was about signature spells. And like, RoW is a great signature spell -- but honestly if you think like, we should make Mathilde's Woeful Misty Dragon, or Mathilde's WMD for short, or something similar? I'm right behind you. That'd be incredibly cool.
Edit: and as a BM Spell, unreliable by nature
Last edited:
Again, i didn't say it's useless, it will have it's place on the battlefield and will do good work there.
But the idea that you can use it to move armies for several hundred miles fast is just not feasible. (Excepting battle altars, but their weird) long range use is (imo) non-viable.
But the idea that you can use it to move armies for several hundred miles fast is just not feasible. (Excepting battle altars, but their weird) long range use is (imo) non-viable.
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So what you're saying is that without her staff Mathilde couldn't use Rite of Way effectively? Really? Mathilde Weber?? Not to mention the battle wizards who are absolutely better at casting battle magic than her?
Yes, without our staff we would not be able to cast it without the risk or a major miscast. We might risk it for a one off but using it like we did in the expedition would be non viable. There is a reason we worked hard to shoehorn mist into rite of way.
Edit: read the post above yours to see my thoughts on rite of way spelled out.
Last edited:
Mathilde's staff is unique. The boon it grants her probably isn't, and it's not unreasonable to expect actual Battle Wizards to have a trait or ability that provides a similar benefit.
Nothing wrong with battle altars for long trips. They're basically the locomotive for a train.
If they're enormously expensive well that's just the price one has to pay for rapidly transporting thousands of troops per altar. Nuln will like it for their steam tanks; any Elector Count that wants to traverse a marsh will like them and so on - the Grey College can keep a handful and essentially rent them out.
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Honestly I think the only way we're ever gonna agree on this is when it comes up in story or through WOG. Does anyone want to talk about literally anything else?
- Location
- Earth
Think about it this way. 'Battle Magic can never be cast reliably' and 'The Staff of Mistery lets us cast Fog-based BM as one tier lower' make it pretty clear that the Staff overrides the BM-qualities of RoW of never being reliable. So that's one exception to the 'never reliable' bit, right? Then, consider whether it's reasonable to say that in the history of the Colleges, there's never been a wizard who's accomplished something similar to the Staff. Mathilde's great, but is she that great?
What we're pointing out is that amongst other wizards, particularly the ones who've spent their entire lives training for it, there will be those who have their own staff-esque tricks in their own paradigms that lessen the personal risk.
The wording in question comes from the Spellbook Informational threadmark, and that describes a very standardized way of looking at magic. It's a generalized, reasonably accurate overview, but not a comprehensive account of everything.
The problem there is (i think, but don't quote me on that because we don't exactly know how boney handles battle altars) that the colleges rarely let them out.
Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
Step one: Make Ulgu Ranald.
Step two: Make Ranald Ulgu.
Step three: ????
Step four: Infinite pranking.
Boney said that there's no inherent traits or skills that will reduce a bm levels spell into a safe territory, he conspicuously left out items. But he also told us that reproducing specific staffs and their qualities is hard. So yes, there are ways to cast if reliably, if you luck out in the staff or item lottery. Good luck with that.
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Actually, and I just caught up to the story recently so forgive me if this has already been discussed, why haven't we tried to codify RoW yet? We've had it for years in story but I don't think I've ever even seen it as a vote option.
I'd like to rework Rite of Way into an apparition based spell, Wight of Way. Having an apparition do the terrain identification and Skywalk placement would probably make the spell easier and safer to maintain for a longer duration. In fact the caster would probably be able to cast other spells while maintaining Wight of Way and maybe the apparition could even attack enemies within its mists. The Handmaiden would be the apparition of choice since it seems to be able to recognize certain features already; doorways, windows, and other portals. All it would take is to train the Handmaiden to recognize rough terrain.
Iirc, it's a option if we requested it but we never did so boney took it out to declutter the vote options. Why we never did it is another matter, i think most just saw other options as more worthwhile.
Edit: got that wrong, see post under mine.
Last edited:
It's an option, I bolded for emphasis. Quotes from the most recent turn (39).
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
They'd obviously only be used on important campaigns and such.
Hmm... the problem is both in making the spell and also in not making a derivative spell. The Ambers really have the whole dragon thing on lock - particularly since it is Dragomas' signature move.
The Apparition binding would also be somewhat derivative but since we're using different Apparitions it could still work particularly if we don't restrict ourselves to one single type (for example if we make both Riders and Handmaidens).
Because Mathilde's backlog is the stuff of legends. We continuously added to it until right after the Dum expedition when we did have an option to take a sabbatical in order to trim down the backlog but chose to press onwards in order to take advantage of Mathilde's boosted reputation (and because we collectively liked a bit more structure).
- Location
- Earth
It exists in the regular turn options under Enchantment and Spell Creation:
As for why we haven't done it, AP hell. The Waystone Project took up room, and then there was that business with AV and Ranald's Daughters, and Branarhune.
It's definitely my next long term target after Branarhune, above apparitions, but we'll have to see how that plays out in the votes.
Edit: Eshin'd.