Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Other things we can do to stretch Mathilde's magical abilities:

[ ] EGRIMM: Attempt a Windherder enchantment with Egrimm (specify what)
- 1 AP each enchantment, could lead to bigger Windherder enchantments with more wizards.
[ ] Attempt to gain control of one of your Arcane Marks (specify which)
- 4 Marks, though control over Flicker is a low priority.
[ ] Try to see through Pall of Darkness with your improved magical senses.
- Likely 1 AP, helps with combat and intrigue.
[ ] Practice shooting while invisible. (applies to Substance of Shadow and Invisibility)
- Likely 1 AP, helps with combat.
[ ] Attempt to finish off the Grey College spellbook by learning Shadow of Death, Cloak Activity, and the MAPP.
- 1 AP, chance of gaining spell masteries. (A spell mastery on MAPP would be silly.)
[ ] The Second Secret of Dhar teaches how to collapse it upon itself. Practice upon local Dhar taint, and very cautiously see if this works with Warpstone.
- 1 AP. Not a good idea for Mathilde's self-integrity except in circumstances of the most dire need, though technically practicing this once should be safe.
[ ] Attempt to create a spell (see Approved Spells threadmark)
- 1+ AP. Something simple like trying to codify our Shadow Dagger masters would likely be only 1 AP, while a new Battle Magic spell would certainly be multiple AP.
[X] Attempt to codify Rite of Way so that others can learn it.
- We're doing this.
[ ] Attempt to capture an Apparition (optional: specify which)
- 2+ AP. 1 AP to capture, one or more additional AP to make the spell for controlling and summoning the Apparition. There are multiple types of Apparitions we can capture.
[ ] Get Lucky.
- Crits, nat 100s, lucky opportunities and going on a big adventure are all ways Mathilde can get new traits that might improve her magical ability.
 
We already know maybe the best battle magic for army on army combat Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma. Other battle magic is only better if we assume that we have limited support.
 
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The 58% figure was the chance of a major miscast.
And it was also us doing something stupidly dangerous in poor conditions.
We decided to take a huge risk, as is often our job.
Would you rather we had not known the spell we used so we could just go "nope, nothing we can do, sucks to be them"?

That is what Battle Magic is about.
Having a tool that is effective, but dangerous, which will make us have to choose between using it or not, but not having that tool means we will have always be choosing no, instead of being able to say yes.
 
A miscast isn't automatically disastrous though.

Minor miscasts are things Mathilde can sleep over; slightly more serious miscasts can result in a new arcane mark and only the most severe are suddenly daemons.

Mathilde nearly died twice in a single turn by duelling Alkharad (or whatever the necromancy college headmaster's name was) and a bunch of orcs. She took a number of risks but we rolled well in the K8P battle and had a hard time during the Vlag expedition first with the big Slaaneshi daemon and then with the Chaos worshipper encampment.

We're taking risks all the time. Battle Magic is a calculated risk and the Colleges have done the math already.
Technically, Mathilde's pupils turning red during the Skull River Ambush is a major miscast, in the sense that it's one of the nicer results of the Major Miscasts table from the RPG. But compared to some of the others in that very list, which can include getting a brief glimpse of the Realm of Chaos or getting possessed by a Daemon for a minute, it is basically minor.

This is my mistake, it should be the Milky Eyes miscast, which is minor.
 
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And it was also us doing something stupidly dangerous in poor conditions.
We decided to take a huge risk, as is often our job.
Would you rather we had not known the spell we used so we could just go "nope, nothing we can do, sucks to be them"?
A poster quoted this figure saying that not all miscasts were bad, I clarified that this miscast in particular could in fact have been bad. At no point did I say that I believe we shouldn't have done that.
 
I have said this before, i will probably say it again.
I find the idea that "we have plenty of tools, no point getting more" weird.
Yes, BM is dangerous, i still would rather have it than not, because uness we re invent the wheel for basicly every BM spell we could learn, having them still provides further options.

Considering how we did a trip to chaos wastes, and were way closer to staying there than i was comfortable with, i feel that people are trying to play it safe in areas where we could afford to take risks, while taking risks we can't walk away from anywhere as easily.
We still have many other areas for self improvement besides battle magic and considering that we can only cast one spell at a time I consider learning more battle magic spells of marginal benefit compared to mastering our arcane marks.

I would say that even if battle magic was risk free.
 
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Light Magister Jovi Sunscryer fumbles something and explodes an entire district into burning light.
As a reminder, this part of Drakenhof sometimes just randomly catches fire again.

I think the 1,500 year old Runelord, who's been keeping an eye on Mathilde ever since she commissioned her belt, might know a thing or two about magic.
That doesn't mean he knows a damn thing about how the Colleges use magic. Like, he's philosophically opposed to it. His opinion on magic is, AFAICT, "it's unreliable, don't trust it and avoid it". So no, I don't think his opinion means much for this.

We already know maybe the best battle magic for army on army combat Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma. Other battle magic is only better if we assume that we have limited support.
Melkoth's is a good spell, but you do realise that it turns maybe one combat right? Melkoth's at best draws with every other Shadow Battle Magic aside from Steed of Shadows.

Honestly for the people who don't want to learn BM I am not even sure it's about the risk considering we have +74 on learning BM.
Mathilde broke 110 for her learning Smoke and Mirrors (the easiest BM) roll and still only partially learned it, then miscast immediately. Learning BM is never going to be safe. One can still want to learn it of course, but saying that high bonuses make it safe is flat out false.
 
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If we're not alone, there is no reason Mathilde has to personally be any more capable of killing large amounts of enemies than she already is by being an excellent swordsman with a death shadow.

This is just wrong isn't the right word but callous? apathetic to our allies? apart from the fact you're basically saying that other people should die or do the dangerous battle magic so we don't have to the truth is that there's like 80 people tops in the entire empire that can do battle magic at the scale and magic level Mathilde has across every single order of magic, A single Pit of shades alone would contribute more than Mathilde killing stuff with a sword.

There's also the fact that realistically if Magister lord Mathile isn't going to pull down the Ulgu battle magic who really would?


Beyond the fact that we have Battle magic spells we can develop which thanks to our crit staff are actually safe to use, basically there's no good reason to not develop this outside of action efficiency concerns, having battle magic is always going to be better than the inverse, better to have a tool and end up not needing it than to need it and not.
 
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Technically, Mathilde's pupils turning red during the Skull River Ambush is a major miscast, in the sense that it's one of the nicer results of the Major Miscasts table from the RPG. But compared to some of the others in that very list, which can include getting a brief glimpse of the Realm of Chaos or getting possessed by a Daemon for a minute, it is basically minor.
Her eyes didn't turn red though?
and your ears are plugged with wax, a milky film is covering your vision, and your muscles ache in a way they shouldn't. But these are the most minor and temporary of manifestations of magic run amok
 
Melkoth's is a good spell, but you do realise that it turns maybe one combat right? Melkoth's at best draws with every other Shadow Battle Magic aside from Steed of Shadows.
Doesn't matter when we can only cast one spell at a time. I would rather master one spell of battle magic then learn a dozen.

Of course we can't actually train masteries. So it will happen when it happens if it ever does.
 
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Doesn't matter when we can only cast one spell at a time. I would rather master one spell of battle magic then learn a dozen.
I mean, sure? But Melkoth's isn't always going to be the best option to solve a problem. If the problem is, for example, enemy ranged troops, Melkoth's is useless. Or if the problem is something like enemy knights in among the artillery.
 
We still have many other areas for self improvement besides battle magic and considering that we can only cast one spell at a time I consider learning more battle magic spells of marginal benefit compared to mastering our arcane marks.

I would say that even if battle magic was risk free.
I'm not sure what benefit you expect mastering arcane marks to bring for it to be more effective than learning some of the most powerful spells available to our wind.
 
Mostly because Mathilde has a bad habit of having allies much of the time. When she goes on solo missions she is very willing to run doesn't even need a vote.

Although considering just how close things were at the chaos camp it might actually have been smarter for us to run. Although if we had more knowledge we would have brought more or less people.

If we knew that ice witch was going to force a fight we either would have left her behind or brought more backup. Honestly still fairly upset with her about that.

Unless Mathilde fully embraces the Liber Mortis or becomes Teclis tier good at slinging BM spells she will need other people. Running isn't without costs.

Leaving the Ice Witch could have earned us the Widow's ire and resulted in Mathilde flat out not being able to do business with Kislev and maybe even increased tensions between Kislev and the Karaz Ankor and the Empire.

We already know maybe the best battle magic for army on army combat Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma. Other battle magic is only better if we assume that we have limited support.

MMM is a very good spell but it is best only for Mathilde since she can cast it risk free. The Pendulum and Pit are direct damage dealers so more useful in situations where you want some stuff gone whilst Okkam's Mindrazor is immensely potent with the right army.

We still have many other areas for self improvement besides battle magic and considering that we can only cast one spell at a time I consider learning more battle magic spells of marginal benefit compared to mastering our arcane marks.

I would say that even if battle magic was risk free.

We never had any problems with the arcane marks. Mastering them is only really valuable for the ??? potential - which may be significant but is unknown.

On the flip side we did have problems in combat - indeed we have been one bad roll from quest end multiple times.
 
A reminder: Other people exist and can do stuff. Mathilde has done pretty well by having other people around throw the big hurty magic, be that Kragg, Ergrimm, Lilica, or someone from the colleges.

Broadening her spell set is not a bad idea, but it's not a high priority, and if you want a big hurty spell, it really ought to be a mist spell because she'll cast that a lot better.
 
We never had any problems with the arcane marks. Mastering them is only really valuable for the ??? potential - which may be significant but is unknown.
In general I would consider just about any passive benefits we get from mastering our arane marks to be more useful then taking risks to learn battle magic we are likely to use less then once a year.
 
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In general I would consider just about any passive benefits we get from mastering our arane marks to be more useful then taking risks to learn battle magic we are likely to use less then one a year.

We don't know anything about what the passive benefits might be. The only likely benefits is not attracting poisonous mists - which has happened never and enhancing Mathilde's already very potent infiltration skills.
 
We don't know anything about what the passive benefits might be. The only likely benefits is not attracting poisonous mists - which has happened never and enhancing Mathilde's already very potent infiltration skills.
Also being able to spook noblesand/or merchants coming to meet us, which while a pretty dope benefit as far as i am concenred, doesn ot help much with combat.
 
In general I would consider just about any passive benefits we get from mastering our arane marks to be more useful then taking risks to learn battle magic we are likely to use less then once a year.

I like the idea of mastering our marks but I think the improvements we would get will be very minor. Like for the fog Arcane Mark, unless we roll extremely well, I think it will be the ability to turn it off and not be vulnerable to gas based attacks, something which I don't think has been a problem for us in years.

Same for the rest of Marks except for the Shadow one, but even that one most likely will just be that we can have it not move around when we don't want to (which doesn't even take a -1 from diplomacy iirc)
 
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