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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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DragonParadox said:
Battle mages do indeed exist and from the perspective of the Empire make sense, from the perspective of the battlemage they have a limited lifespan until the casting of battle magic spells gets to them. Mathilde is not even a Battle mage, she does not have whatever miscast mitigating traits those poor bastards use to eke out a bit more lifespan. If one still comes out battle magic with codify it and get a bit of CF from the people who are minded to roll the dice for 'your soul is now a plaything of demons' just to get up to that next tier of magic.

[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One
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Aside from outright stating that if this comes out Battlemagic that you'll just push for it to be a CF generator and nothing else doing surprisingly nothing to assuage my misgivings about the possibility that the thread will be so paralyzed by fear of Battlemagic that they'll refuse to use the damn spell

The notion that people who use Battlemagic are just living on borrowed time whose traits that make them better at casting battlemagic do nothing but "eke out a bit more lifespan" does not track

Every 8 years a bunch of Wizard Lords show up to duel each other for the right to wear the biggest and shiniest hat amongst them
They not only regularly throw Battle magic around, they do it with the general intent to be nonlethal about it

Dragomas's signature spell is a form of Transformation of Kadon that's even more powerful than the usual one, and he's still going strong after 27 years in office

These guys helped lead the charge against the Skaven, and they did not act like they were strapping bombs to themselves and expecting to leave all the Colleges leaderless when they did that

Melkoth casts his signature Battlemagic so casually he does it as a literal prank, and he's not been given a stern talking to about how he's constantly risking summoning Daemons into the College


Frankly we don't even properly know what the risks of Battlemagic actually look like, because people won't touch it
There's just this assertion that it's suicide to possess
Which I find myself more and more dubious of
 
LadySerpentine said:
Has Boney confirmed anywhere that every bound apparition we're trying to summon is released on a miscast? My understanding is that it can miscast normally (but is less likely to) and then there's a risk of it going off the leash. But if the risk is that at least one goes off the leash (which becomes more likely as we add more chances) that's a very different proposition to every Rider going off the leash at the same time on the basis of one roll.
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I'm actually not sure. The update explicitly says that the results of a miscast get worse the more Riders there are:
Boney said:
The difficulty of the completed spell will be greater the more Riders are involved, as will the consequences of the spell going awry
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but that doesn't mean they will all definitely be released at once. I suppose that's actually something we should know, since Gehenna's Golden Hounds uses two apparitions, so if it sometimes/always releases just one/both Hounds that's something Mathilde will know about.
I feel like there's probably already a WoG on this but I don't have time to search for one right now.
Valmond said:
I feel that the attempt to reduce difficulty and AP spent is just reducing the effectiveness of the spell for not sufficient gains in savings.
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Difficulity and effectiveness are not independent variables. A spell that's likely to blow up in your face is a less effective spell.
 
IronFist said:
Any other grey wizard capable of this spell has multiple other options to gtfo, and that would be a superior option in almost all cases. Mathilde has Branalhune which distorts the calculus.
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Eh, they usually don't, I'd say. Mathilde nearly got caught in melee as a Magister during the Karagrim stuff. The key thing about grey wizards is that if you Faff About enough as one, you eventually Find Out what it's like to be in Melee, and that can be a sad short story unless you are well prepared for it, and quite simply, the grey wizard spells aren't great at it. That Grey wizards using swords isn't unusual says a lot about Ulgu's ability in close combat (everyone has to compensate somehow).

naths said:
'We dont use battlemagic. We dont want battlemagic' pairs really badly with 'there is already this battlemagic spell that does the same'.

btw. unrelated to the above quote: 'we want a spell that any grey magister can use' and 'bodyguard does the same as charge, because we just knight charge together with the apparition' are similarly contradictory arguments.

There are enough good arguments for those options without needing to resort to those logical contradictions, imo
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Most of those wanting charging want multiple Riders, from what I can tell. It's mostly aimed at them: Basically, if we must go battlemagic, definitely don't go for a charge. Also, I had edited my post to point out this just covers a gap in Grey Wizard Battlemagic.
 
[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
[X] [NUMBER] One

I was originally not very excited about the whole Rider thing, but if we can get it down to fiendishly complex I will eat my words.
It becoming a part of our regular combat suite rather then just a risky tool for specific situations would be a significant increase to our general combat ability. Considering that we managed this all for 1 AP due to really good rolls, I would even say that it may have been a better return on our AP then our sword style.

It also covers one of the notable weaknesses of our regeneration. It's a lot harder to keep stabbing us while we are down if always have a bodyguard.
 
CrimsonOddball said:
Aside from outright stating that if this comes out Battlemagic that you'll just push for it to be a CF generator and nothing else doing surprisingly nothing to assuage my misgivings about the possibility that the thread will be so paralyzed by fear of Battlemagic that they'll refuse to use the damn spell

The notion that people who use Battlemagic are just living on borrowed time whose traits that make them better at casting battlemagic do nothing but "eke out a bit more lifespan" does not track

Every 8 years a bunch of Wizard Lords show up to duel each other for the right to wear the biggest and shiniest hat amongst them
They not only regularly throw Battle magic around, they do it with the general intent to be nonlethal about it

Dragomas's signature spell is a form of Transformation of Kadon that's even more powerful than the usual one, and he's still going strong after 27 years in office

These guys helped lead the charge against the Skaven, and they did not act like they were strapping bombs to themselves and expecting to leave all the Colleges leaderless when they did that

Melkoth casts his signature Battlemagic so casually he does it as a literal prank, and he's not been given a stern talking to about how he's constantly risking summoning Daemons into the College


Frankly we don't even properly know what the risks of Battlemagic actually look like, because people won't touch it
There's just this assertion that it's suicide to possess
Which I find myself more and more dubious of
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Statistically all the battle mages are living on borrowed time, this is not in doubt it is canon. Lord Magisters who are specialized in battle magic are a special case, but we are not that. We are specifically not that because we have not taken the risks they did. For every Dragonas there are many, many more Jori Sunscryers who never even made it to LM and a lot of dead or worse LMs besides.
 
With regards to a 'messing up that guy over there' as apparition use case:

Could we re-skin a Handmaiden into a big cat? Nails turned to claws? Cats are ambush predators, so the theme might fit

And id love to have an ambush cat apparition spell
 
rocketroland999 said:
I feel like the best option is a one bodyguard to hopefully not be battle magic for the college, and a three duel for our personal use
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Eh, I think a Bodyguard is probably better for our personal use than a Duel (I see duel as arguably better than bodyguard for the college actually, as they have few damage dealing spells). Obviously, it's better defensively. But also, being able to cast ahead of time, and having an extra attacker on offense seems like a huge benefit. Already, no one wants to fight us vs Branarhune as they get no martial buff on defense. Now they get no martial buff AND have to deal with an angry Rider trying to kill them at the same time.
 
Tobtorp said:
And still BM spells are seen as the most effective spells in general for what they do. No one will argue pit of shades of pendulum are "ineffective" because they are risky.
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If you want to be a mobile artillery piece then sure, Pit of Shades and The Penumbral Pendulum are effective, as long as you accept that you will sometimes explode (not unlike a normal artillery piece). But of course the danger of casting Pit of Shades makes it less effective. A hypothetical downgraded Pit of Shades that is less powerful but completely safe to cast is in some ways - in many ways, I would say - a better spell. Regarding the actual issue at hand, a spell that Mathilde can cast literally anytime she goes into battle along with her Aethyric Armor is in some ways more effective than a spell she only casts in the most dire of circumstances, because it has a 30% chance of attempting to kill her.
Valmond said:
As stated above you, the likelyhood of Battle Magic blowing up in your/our face feels very exaggerated.
Is it safe? No.
Neither is picking a sword and trying to stab lot of big burly dudes.
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There is a 0% chance of our sword coming alive and stabbing us. If we roll a natural 1 on swinging Branulhune we miss very badly, if we roll low* on summoning a Battle Magic apparition we now have a wild apparition on our hands. We will not just fail to make our situation better, we will make it actively worse. The more Riders we bind the more likely our spell is to fail.

Let me give you an example with made up numbers - I'm not at all saying that this is how the spells will actually work, I'm trying to illustrate what I mean when I say effectiveness depends on miscast chance. Say we can choose between two spells: a spell that summons 10 Riders and has a 75% chance of failure, and a spell that summons 3 Riders and has a 5% chance of failure. 10 Riders definitely pack more pucnh than 3, but you would say that a spell that has a 3 in 4 chance of straight up hurting Mathilde is more effective?

*Again, for Melkoth's - which is low-grade battle magic - low means below 20. A 1 in 5 chance.
 
naths said:
With regards to a 'messing up that guy over there' as apparition use case:

Could we re-skin a Handmaiden into a big cat? Nails turned to claws? Cats are ambush predators, so the theme might fit

And id love to have an ambush cat apparition spell
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I'm unsure why people like handmaiden (honest question, not an attack). What specific benefits does it have?

I get why people would prefer whispering darkness or black essence: both attack dark magic and necromancy, with Whispering Darkness also being fog (hitting staff of Mistery Buff likely) and hits Chaos, hedge, and psychology spells.

The Rider was because we wanted a Melee protection spell.


I'm not seeing a similar bonus for the Handmaiden, so if someone could tell me why, that'd be appreciated.
 
Boney said:
Interwoven with this is not just means to communicate and exert your will upon it, but also to impose sensations of reward and punishment upon what passes for its mind, so that not only will it be made to obey, but that obedience will wear grooves in its being until it becomes its new nature.
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It strikes me that if we ever decide to go full Beautiful and Terrible as the Dawn, this would make a terrifying foundation to ensure the loyalty of our subjects.
 
DragonParadox said:
Statistically all the battle mages are living on borrowed time, this is not in doubt it is canon. Lord Magisters who are specialized in battle magic are a special case, but we are not that. We are specifically not that because we have not taken the risks they did. For every Dragonas there are many, many more Jori Sunscryers who never even made it to LM and a lot of dead or worse LMs besides.
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Everyone is living on borrowed time.
And we are not just a Battle Mage, we are a Lady Magister, a potential contender for Magister Mattriarch or even Supreme Mattriarch titles.
If we did not want to take risks, we should not have voted to go to Chaos Wastes, we definitely should not have had any debate about staying, and we absolutely should not be planning on new ways to engage in melee.
But we did, we had, and we are.
Learning new Battle Magic, or casting themwhen appropriate, is not some death sentence.
 
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