Home › Discussions › General Discussion › magic and warfare - General Discussion Discussions on Obsidian Portal Community Forums
magic and warfare
I am starting a war time campaign using the Pathfinder system (very similar to AD&D 3.5) and I want to truly integrate magic into warfare, not just a mage becomes a weapons platform (which i will still use) but shift warfare to seem like it is being done by a society that has evolved while being steeped in magic. These are what I have thought of so far, but I would love others ideas as well:
Animated soldiers: (clay warriors) Everyone has seen the terracotta soldiers from Asia, with magic they are real soldiers in my game, not the entire army, but a solid chunk of soulless, fearless shock troops. They come in 2 sizes, medium and large, but in general act like lesser golems.
Magic ammunition for siege weapons: Now this is a 2 part, one being exploding with magic energy normal ammunition, the other is a way to break a siege, fire ammunition over the wall that casts a modified summons spell, making elemental, or anything else show up right around the ammunition. This can place troops inside a besieged castle or town without having to scale the walls or crash the gate first.
Undead soldiers: the army that keeps on growing
Unit level buff spells: Mass enlarge, Mass magic weapon
Terrain altering spells, Fog bank, wall of stone, move earth, wind walls
Any other ideas anyone has on the true integration of magic into warfare I would love to hear.
Mike
Animated soldiers: (clay warriors) Everyone has seen the terracotta soldiers from Asia, with magic they are real soldiers in my game, not the entire army, but a solid chunk of soulless, fearless shock troops. They come in 2 sizes, medium and large, but in general act like lesser golems.
Magic ammunition for siege weapons: Now this is a 2 part, one being exploding with magic energy normal ammunition, the other is a way to break a siege, fire ammunition over the wall that casts a modified summons spell, making elemental, or anything else show up right around the ammunition. This can place troops inside a besieged castle or town without having to scale the walls or crash the gate first.
Undead soldiers: the army that keeps on growing
Unit level buff spells: Mass enlarge, Mass magic weapon
Terrain altering spells, Fog bank, wall of stone, move earth, wind walls
Any other ideas anyone has on the true integration of magic into warfare I would love to hear.
Mike
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Comments
Obviously, every unit would have a bard.
What if one faction trains whole units in Use Magic Device? Suddenly ranged support is using Acid Arrow and Magic Missile en masse, like an Arcane Rifle Unit.
Libris Mortis (i think) mentioned the idea of using Ballista Bolts enchanted with Negative Energy AoE's -Fire them into close combat between undead and living troops and you heal your own guys while damaging the enemy.
Kenurion's suggestion for illusory combatants is a great one, and I think terrain altering spells are a must as well -Walls, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud, Entangle, Hallucinatory Terrain. Your summoning arrows idea is excellent -I've used something similar, and it can make for tense moments of combat (and pretty cool loot if there are any summoning arrows left over).
I'd suggest looking at Miniature Wargames for inspiration -Warmachine has some cool stuff, and you could figure out how to translate it into Pathfinder terms.
medics using tenser's floating disc to float the wounded away from the front.
medics using sanctuary to protect themselves while healing the wounded during combat
using haste spells just before closing with the enemy
using stone to mud or similar spells to bring down castle walls
Units launching ambushes from pocket dimensions
using summoned creatures to take the first wave of a charge
hold spells to breakup a charging foe
entangling spells to slow enemy advances in order to let archers pick them off
Cloud spells used like WWI style gas attacks to flush enemies from fortified positions, or to obscure troop movements
If magic is REALLY pervasive in your world, you might consider that cities and the like might be transitioning away from things like city walls due to their ineffectiveness against magic attack, just as real world cities began to do away with walls as artillery became powerful enough to knock them out quickly.
I think in general, pick a couple tactics that strike you as interesting to add a flavor of magic without making the management its effects too burdensome on yourself. A few distinct tactics is better than a big magical mess.
The 3.5 book, Heroes of Battle has some great suggestions for incorporating magic into battlefield encounters.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
I think there were a couple feats somewhere in some random sourcebook (3.5e has way too many books for me to keep track of..) that allowed for, essentially, changed flavor text. Wanted a dark mage? Fine. His fireballs now are swirling vortexes of negative energy. Lightning bolts not doing it for you? How about necrotic spears? (Granted, there is a Bone Spear spell somewhere, but...) For the characters involved, things seem much scarier when even spells that do the same damage have a different descriptor - because it's unknown.
A bit from campaigns past: I've seen were-troops be very effectively utilized as shock troops. Werewolves that can change at will? The charging army seems a heck of a lot more imposing when their front line suddenly transforms, mid run, into a snarling wolf creature. (Taking the summoning idea to a bit of ridiculous level - a single archer that has a quiver of summoning arrows: that is, arrows that summon other arrows mid-flight. Suddenly, the small archery group seems a whole lot bigger/more dangerous...)
Also, I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet, but Mass Invisibility for Ambushes? Additionally, how about Mass Suggestion to turn the tide of battle? (Not sure if the rules allow it or not...)