Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Voting is open
Reader mode
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.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You want to talk statistics? Fine

Sylvania has been, for the last 10 in universe years, an open battleground in which Battle Wizards have open season to chuck around as much magic as they want
Which they have been doing on the regular

In that time, with every single Battle Wizard in the College's collectively taking turns nuking Vampires and Ghouls all over the entire province the absolute worst miscast we heard of was magnetizing a hill in a way that'll screw with compasses near it for a few centuries

Interacting with these Battlewizards, these supposed walking time bombs, not only didn't cause Roswita to grow a third arm, but actively helped her get over her magic phobia

Statistically there has not been more Jori Sunscryer's
Statistically there has been precisely one Jori Sunscryer
Trust me, it has not been hard for me to count


We as a thread are willing to experiment with deliberately punching holes in reality with the only safety precaution being an empty space and good running shoes
But for some reason Battlemagic is the bogeyman
 
Last edited:
mathymancer said:
if we roll low* on summoning a Battle Magic apparition we now have a wild apparition on our hands.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

mathymancer said:
Again, for Melkoth's - which is low-grade battle magic - low means below 20. A 1 in 5 chance.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This presupposes that every miscast ends up in the worst possible way. That is factually not the case,see for example 0 miscast related fatalities during Battle wizards' rampage through Sylvania or indeed a few time Mathilde herself has miscasted.
 
So I haven't caught up on 20 pages of discussion so these are just my instinctive reactions.

Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Directed
You will be able to give the Rider moment-to-moment instructions to do just about anything, but you will need to focus most of your attention on it while it is summoned.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Less good for Mathilde in particular, but honestly 'manifest remote controlled cavarly unit' could be very powerful for the Grey order. A single rider sub-battle magic level would allow for great improvements in scouting. Not as discreet as say an Amber's use of birds, but the ability to park yourself in an inn while you send a remote controlled knight to scout out a potential ritual site or beast herd camp is very, very good.

For squishier grey mages, even the "have to give it most of your attention" wouldn't be a bad trade off for the ability to sudddenly have a bunch of heavy cavalry to direct if a threat appeared.


Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Instinctive
The Rider will lay dormant until someone or something within several kilometers uses destructive magic, at which point it will manifest and hone in on that being and attempt to destroy them.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is actually pretty amazing, and while it isn't what Mathilde wanted the spell for would absolutely be worth developing with a single rider.

This is "detect a spell being cast within X kilometers and track the caster" spell. That is incredible. Mathilde, with some of the best windsight among modern mages almost certainly couldn't do that unless it was a very big spell and the entire thing was on open plains.

Given the description in the update about how Mathilde wrapped the rider up in hatred of Orc Shamans, Skaven Sorcerers and necromancers, it even seems plausible that it can avoid proccing on friendly casting types.* This would make it an amazing spell for tracking down Orc or Beastman warbands, or tracking Necromancers hiding among the population.

*The obvious downside being if you're looking for say, a rogue College magister who wasn't using Dhar, it would no longer help.

Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Duel
The Rider will appear at your location and move towards a chosen individual, and will engage them until it or the Rider is slain.
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Charge
The Rider will appear at your location and charge towards a specific group of people, and will engage them until it is slain or the group is destroyed or shattered.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Single or Multi target. Personally leaning towards 'Duel' and learning Penumbral Pendulum or Pit of Shades as they're existing and good for the big multi-target needs.

Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Bodyguard
The Rider will lay dormant until you attack or are attacked by someone, at which point it will manifest and fight alongside you until combat is over or it is slain.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

A great answer to "get the mage first" or other sudden ambushes. Probably not what we want right now though.

Boney said:
[ ] [BEHAVIOUR] Ambush
The Rider will appear near the chosen target and strike them once before disappearing. Further strikes will require the spell to be cast again.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Teleporting assassin. Fun for the image of Mathilde combining with Smoke and Mirrors to become Mathilde and her Amazing teleporting Cavalry unit. The teleporting effect is cool for battlefield use, but with them fading away right afterward it seems like it ends up just being similar to existing spells. What is the advantage over say, manifesting a penumbral pendulum on top of them?

Not for me I think.

Boney said:
[ ] [NUMBER] One
1 Knights, 0 additional actions, possibly sub-Battle Magic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Good for direct and instinctive. Maybe for Ambush and hope it came out as sub-Battle magic. Bodyguard is the only other one I'd consider here, as thee are a number of places where manifesting one knight on a horse might be ok but manifesting several would just result in being crushed by your own magically appearing bodyguards. Even then, you'd have to think about ever going into a tunnel again. Otherwise I'd say no.

Boney said:
[ ] [NUMBER] Trio
3 Knights, 1 additional action, low- to mid-level Battle Magic.
[ ] [NUMBER] Lance
6 Knights, 2 additional actions, mid- to high-level Battle Magic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'd say either of these for Duel or Charge. Probably 6 knights. I definitely don't want to commit to three extra actions but six knights is a pretty good and balanced number.

Boney said:
[ ] [NUMBER] Band
10 Knights, 3 additional actions, high-level Battle to Cataclysm Magic.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Pick this if you're one of the hardcore "I never want Mathilde to use the coin and learn Penumbral Pendulum or Pit of Shades, no matter what" brigade I guess.
 
Valmond said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think you have that backwards, we are not even a battle mage, we do not have their specialized training in handling miscasts. We would have to pass though the valley of death that is 'specialize in battle magic' and the fact that we got the rank of LM doing something entirely different will be of limited use there.
 
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
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean, a lot of these contradictory arguments just aren't actually being made by the same people. Like, I argued for bodyguard being the same as a charge if you had multiple knights to do it with...no mention of it being for everyone (though honestly, most Battle Mages can probably handle a cavalry charge).
 
Valmond said:
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.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
But neither is it a good idea to take risks just because they are there. We've carefully selected measured risks, and consistently avoided battlemagic. And for good reason: it's high risk, some reward on a personal level. For the Empire as a whole, its middle risk, high reward, because to the Empire as a whole, the risk of losing a battle wizard isn't huge. To us? The risk of losing our life is huge. That's why a battle wizard is so respected.

It's not just an acknowledgement of borrowed time: battle wizards are knowingly burning their fuse from both ends to create explosions.

A rare few avoid dying, and end up as Lord Magisters for being a battle wizard that lived a long time. That's how we should treat battle magic.
 
Last edited:
mathymancer said:
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?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Looking at how Abelheim rolled 2 "1s" in a row and got himself killed. I don't see how that is different for Mathilde rolling 2 "1s" in a row when casting Battle Magic.

In fact I'd argue it's in favor of BM cause we would have to fail the casting roll, then we would also have to miss the grounding miscast roll and then we would also have to roll very badly on the miscast results.

I mean if a risk like that is unacceptable we should also never engage in combat, because you know we may roll 3 nat1 in a row and end dying and there's nothing we can do about it.

Imagine if Mathilde had roll 3nat1s in a row against the Khorne champion. Or 3nat5s


mathymancer said:
because it has a 30% chance of attempting to kill her.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

From where are you getting that casting BM would have a 30% to kill Mathilde?
 
CrimsonOddball said:
You want to talk statistics? Fine

Sylvania has been, for the last 10 in universe years, an open battleground in which Battle Wizards have open season to chuck around as much magic as they want
Which they have been doing on the regular

In that time, with every single Battle Wizard in the College's collectively taking turns nuking Vampires and Ghouls all over the entire province the absolute worst miscast we heard of was magnetizing a hill in a way that'll screw with compasses near it for a few centuries

Interacting with these Battlewizards, these supposed walking time bombs, not only didn't cause Roswita to grow a third arm, but actively helped her get over her magic phobia

Statistically there has not been more Jori Sunscryer's
Statistically there has been precisely one Jori Sunscryer
Trust me, it has not been hard for me to count
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

That seems like a remarkably non-scientific way to measure how many Battle Mages died in that 10 year span. Roswita did not sit next to each and every one of them including all the ones that undoubtedly blew up or worse, because that is how battle magic works. 20% could have died and been replaced in that time and as long as that is not an unusual replacement rating Mathilde would not have remarked on it for the same reason she does not constantly remark that the sky is blue.
 
I don't know if it's because I've been playing too much Total War: Three Kingdoms over the last few days, but I'd like to point out that even a lone dude on a horse is a pretty potent weapon against infantry.

There have been several battles I should have lost, but didn't because I sent a hero unit out by themselves to rout my opponents backline.

Now admittedly, Three Kingdoms is running on Xianxia rules, but, well, guestures vaguely at Warhammer bullshit, I suspect the Rider in Red will also be running more or less on Xianxia rules.

Or at least, the western fantasy equivalent.

Sending a rider off to break shieldwalls, disrupt archers, disable artillery etc is not only a powerful tactic, but it's also one most Grey Wizards would be able to position themselves to take advantage of.

Imagine a baby pendulum effect at sub battlemagic levels, except instead of a two dimensional shadow scything through your ranks, its a fearless magical knight immune to mundane weapons punching trough your unit's flanks.

[X] [BEHAVIOUR] Charge
[X] [NUMBER] One
 
Abhorsen said:
But neither is it a good idea to take risks just because they are there. We've carefully selected measured risks, and consistently avoided battlemagic. And for good reason: it's high risk, some reward on a personal level. For the Empire as a whole, its middle risk, high reward, because to the Empire as a whole, the risk of losing a battle wizard isn't huge. To us? The risk of losing our life is huge. That's why a battle wizard is so respected.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
HAH.
Yes, we have consistently avoided battle magic, but we sure as hell have not measured our risks, carefully or otherwise.
Because the risks of learning (not even using consistently, just learning), is treated as worse than going to the chaos wastes, attacking a greater demon in melee, or trying to solo a chaos warrior.
 
Valmond said:
HAH.
Yes, we have consistently avoided battle magic, but we sure as hell have not measured our risks, carefully or otherwise.
Because the risks of learning (not even using consistently, just learning), is treated as worse than going to the chaos wastes, attacking a greater demon in melee, or trying to solo a chaos warrior.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I would argue against that. We measure our risks very carefully. For instance we took on those Chaos Warriors it was so as to save the Ice Witch who could actually handle the Goblet safely. Without her we would have had to hold on to it and it could do worse than kill us.
 
Valmond said:
HAH.
Yes, we have consistently avoided battle magic, but we sure as hell have not measured our risks, carefully or otherwise.
Because the risks of learning (not even using consistently, just learning), is treated as worse than going to the chaos wastes, attacking a greater demon in melee, or trying to solo a chaos warrior.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The risk of learning BM is intrinsically tied to the fact that we keep on rolling if we keep on using it—a long term increase in risk that we can't mitigate. If it was only the upfront cost, nobody would care.
 
Valmond said:
HAH.
Yes, we have consistently avoided battle magic, but we sure as hell have not measured our risks, carefully or otherwise.
Because the risks of learning (not even using consistently, just learning), is treated as worse than going to the chaos wastes, attacking a greater demon in melee, or trying to solo a chaos warrior.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes, we have carefully measured our risks vs reward. The one major time we "screwed up" from a strictly logical POV (chaos warrior) we did out of compassion for Lilijana.

Altom said:
On what evidence are you making the estimation of personal risk of Battle Magic?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That they live secluded lives in self study the whole time? The way they've been treated as respected people who are sacrificing a lot for the Empire? The entire way everyone treats battle magic? That when it's cast, we have to make a roll above a threshold or miscast?

There's a lot of evidence for this throughout both the quest and the lore.
 
DragonParadox said:
That seems like a remarkably non-scientific way to measure how many Battle Mages died in that 10 year span. Roswita did not sit next to each and every one of them including all the ones that undoubtedly blew up or worse, because that is how battle magic works. 20% could have died and been replaced in that time and as long as that is not an unusual replacement rating Mathilde would not have remarked on it for the same reason she does not constantly remark that the sky is blue.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
And where exactly did you get the 20% mortality rate from? Roswita got her numbers from Feldman but also presumably from reports of her field officers, who would have mentioned wizard related explosions if there were any, even if Feldman chose to hide them.
Furthermore, we know the number of Battle wizards in the Colleges. It's fairly small and so is rate at which new battlle wizards are trained. There is no way 20% casualty rate is sustainable for an organisation as small as the Colleges.
 
Abhorsen said:
That they live secluded lives in self study the whole time? The way they've been treated as respected people who are sacrificing a lot for the Empire? The entire way everyone treats battle magic? That when it's cast, we have to make a roll above a threshold or miscast?

There's a lot of evidence for this throughout both the quest and the lore.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
These are also people who, instead of doing a long years long trip to become magisters, and possibly, maybe, eventually, learning a single Battle Magic spell, yeet themselves straight into the deep end.
Trying to measure BM risks from Battle Wizards when we are already one of the most powerful wizards in the empire, is not really that useful.
 
ReImagined said:
The risk of learning BM is intrinsically tied to the fact that we keep on rolling if we keep on using it—a long term increase in risk that we can't mitigate. If it was only the upfront cost, nobody would care.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You seem to forget Mathilde would be the one who would decide if to use Battle Magic in a fight weighting the risks of risking a BM miscast vs all the other available options she has. Or maybe you aren't and you just don't trust that if Mathilde decided to use BM in a fight it'd be for a frivolous reason and so she shouldn't be trusted with it.
 
ReImagined said:
The risk of learning BM is intrinsically tied to the fact that we keep on rolling if we keep on using it—a long term increase in risk that we can't mitigate. If it was only the upfront cost, nobody would care.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Wich is very weird, people are weighting the potential gains of all the times we could get devastating victories with battle magic against the fact in a timeline streching into infinity at some point we are going to blow up while casting, as if just dying in battle would'nt be less likely instead of more if we had more options.
 
Rafin said:
And how does the first one react to situations with multiple destructive casters, some of whom might not be preferred targets to the controller?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

First to cast gets targeted. If you didn't want that specific person targeted, you should have warned them in advance to not be the first to cast.

Rafin said:
Also, do I assume correctly that there is no option for targeted summoning? No summoning a Lance somewhere other than oneself so as to make them charge the enemy at a flank? Although I guess that this is not really an issue, given that pretty much all Wizards using this spell have access to Smoke and Mirrors.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No.

Rafin said:
What makes it unsunmon so quickly with Ambush anyway? Why is an Ambush version that strikes more than once not a castable spell?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Because.

Rafin said:
Finally, what effective range do the various versions of the spell have? Full line of sight plus wherever the chase takes the Rider after that if self-directed for all of them?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The ones that start at Mathilde have a range of zero plus however long the Rider chases. The ones at range have a range of long but not crazy long.

Sinsystems said:
So question @Boney if the Rider is dismissed via damage how long would it likely take to be able to resummon it? Like would it be a day or simply require recasting the spell?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Simply recast, unless it was an exotic form of damage that directly harmed the Rider itself. Any follow-ups asking what happens if it is directly harmed go right to 'it depends' and 'try it and find out'.

Rafin said:
I guess? But there seems to be no problem maintaining the Rider far away, as long as it isn't summoned there. I get that ultimately it comes down to balance and providing multiple valid choices, but I was kind of curious about the Watsonian rationale.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Asking for an IC justification when the OOC reason is plainly obvious like this damages suspension of disbelief, because everyone knows what the actual reason is and that means that whatever IC reason I come up with will ring hollow, even if the metaphysics of it are solid. I could write something along the lines of extra energy required to manifest a long distance away from the originating soul it is residing within limits the amount of time it can manifest, but look, you've already picked a hole in manifestation time limitations. I could expend even more mental energy on coming up with a metaphysical framework that covers that as well, or you can decide that being 'kind of curious' isn't a good reason to open this can of worms in the first place. Then I could use that energy on things like writing how the negotiations with Kislev are going, which has been languishing in another tab as I tried to figure out how to handle this whole thing.

naths said:
Could we re-skin a Handmaiden into a big cat? Nails turned to claws? Cats are ambush predators, so the theme might fit
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No, it's a bipedal humanoid. At most you could manage a catgirl, though that might be a dubious decision for a few different reasons.

Zaratustra said:
@Boney was wondering, can we get this specialized training battle mages get with favor, or we have we just outgrow anything the colleges could teach about it ?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

No. The training isn't something you can pick up in a classroom, it's more being moulded from a young age into a being whose entire purpose is to cast this very specific set of spells.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top