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kex
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 18:44 PM 

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So ive been rping bralor my evoker cleric for quite sometime, hes got the reputation of only using wide area spells that are destructive. Earthquake firestorm ect ect. So it got me to thinking a war priest of Tempus would probably develop or find magic ment for large scale wars. This is my first caster ive ever truly played as anything other then a joke, so my understanding of magic mechanics are limits. If i were to develop said types of spell casting, acquire it, how would i do such?

And by siege magic im referring to spells ment to target buildings large ships entire formations of troops nothing thats really doable on a small target or scale.


 
      
Bini
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 18:46 PM 

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I would suggest looking at the 3.5 sourcebook Heroes of Battle for ideas and a starting point if you can find it.

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Sunkin Sheep
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 18:52 PM 

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To play devil's advocate: It would most certainly be in the realm of evocation. Though siege magic may not specifically be identified as a school of magic by the arcane community, and even discouraged for its only function is to be used as war material and devastation, Tempus and The Red Knight perhaps might recognize this off-shoot of study a specialized art form, even if the wizardy scoffs at this practice as more of a pseudo-science of magic than anything of lasting contribution. Bralor himself might wish to employ teaching in this field! But what reputation would it be granted? Are the effects of this magic volatile, negative > positive? Would it be on the same sliding scale as practitioners of necromancy? What are the spill-over effects from high evocation? Are practitioners of this art hard to obtain, used as an example of warfare superiority? Perhaps such magic should come with policy.

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GreatPigeon
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 18:58 PM 

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There is a few spells that animate siege weapons...

I would think that Tempus/Red Knight etc shy away from major huge spells and would do more tactic assisting spells or buffing their troops. By tactic assisting I would mean something that transforms the terrain, blows wind in the direction of the enemy so their arrows cannot reach as far, and that sort of thing...

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 18:59 PM 

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A transmutation battlefield tactician kind of terrifies me.


 
      
kex
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:00 PM 

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Such magic would have applications in warfare surely! As a cleric of tempus hunting those who commit warcrimes is a task Bralor is often sent to do anyway. In reality using anti material weapons on people is considered a warcrime, i would of course think that such destructive magic on people alone would be just as illegal and just as hunted by tempurians as genocide or burning villages.

As for the uses that would very. Think of it as enchanting artillery or perhaps having spells to replace it! The uses of this could also be disabling large fortresses to prevent long battles of attrition, or to help a smaller force escape from a larger one. The uses are many and varied but as a cleric of combat yes Bralor would find such magic high art.


 
      
GreatPigeon
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:02 PM 

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That's the point.

Tactician to me does not remotely say evoker. Evocation is instant one boom things. Tempurans and all that is full scale war not a back-alley I kill you scuffle. So you want something that effects the region for a long time and as many people as possible!

As for disabling fotressess there is spells that turn stone to other things. Or you can cause earthquakes, flood the fortress itself, etc.

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PaladinOfSune
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:04 PM 

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Evocation is far more than simply fireballs and explosions.

You just gave one of them in your examples, even... Earthquake is an evocation spell, which has plenty of tactical value.

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Mr. Hackums
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:06 PM 

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I've always thought of the large, catapult-like fireballs crushing into a fortress to be an Evocation thing.


 
      
kex
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:09 PM 

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The idea of siege magic is not purely evokation, my cleric however is a evokation specialist! thats where this focus came from. But good discussion is good none the less any school of magic is open as far as im concerned!


 
      
Nivo
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:10 PM 

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It's an evocation thing primarily. But conjuration and transmutation may also hold suitable basis for spells. This would really fall in the realm of a custom spell request, which would require all the sufficient RP. But be aware that a spell which had the express purpose of destroying buildings would probably be highly scrutinized, due to the effect it could have on the module and designer/dev workload.

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Sunkin Sheep
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:11 PM 

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But this is in theory, Siege Magic, we're talking about. Spells designed simply to siege. So it is a higher level of magnitude than traditionalist study of evocation. If I am understanding it right, this is ye olde nuclear program/mortar fire.

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Nivo
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:13 PM 

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It's an artificial difference, at best, that you're describing. It's would not be a 'new' form of magic necessarily.

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kex
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:15 PM 

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Not new at all im sure throughout the ages of forgotten realms more then a few places have tried it. Im merely speaking to rping it developing it requesting it if need be. As im new to spell casting i have little background on the subject.


 
      
DustSpray101
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:16 PM 

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Bini wrote:
I would suggest looking at the 3.5 sourcebook Heroes of Battle for ideas and a starting point if you can find it.

QFE

That book will offer you a lot of inspiration.

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Sunkin Sheep
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:17 PM 

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Nivo wrote:
It's an evocation thing primarily. But conjuration and transmutation may also hold suitable basis for spells. This would really fall in the realm of a custom spell request, which would require all the sufficient RP. But be aware that a spell which had the express purpose of destroying buildings would probably be highly scrutinized, due to the effect it could have on the module and designer/dev workload.


Yes.
I'm just brain storming the thought. I think it's creative.

At any rate this is an interesting angle. It seems like every school of magic has its 'extremist' fields. Oneiromancy for the enchanter, Chronomancy for the diviner, Blood Magic for whatever the hell that's about, Siege Magic could in theory be evocation's no-no zone.

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Nivo
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:19 PM 

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Best recommendation I have is to get in game with those who have developed spells before. Speak with fellow clerics. Let the request and the research come from these things. There are also custom spell requests in the request forum you can look at for formatting and other things that may be helpful.

Also, many custom spells are the results of months and months of development RP. So be aware it is an investment in time IC and OOC. 8)

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kex
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:32 PM 

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Oh months of rp is perfectly fine and gives me much to do ontop of my tasks with the wks anyway, more rp is always better. This is more about brainstorming the possibilities and giving me a ooc knowledge base so i know what to do icly. Becuase to be honest i know very little about any magic at all.


 
      
Yossarin
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:44 PM 



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Two words: ritual magic.

It's how you make entire structures just vanish.


 
      
GreatPigeon
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:47 PM 

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Ancient Real World Ritual Magic!

The biblical account describes the Israelites being led by Joshua and crossing the Jordan into Canaan where they laid siege to the city of Jericho. There, God spoke to Joshua telling him to march around the city once every day for six days with the seven priests carrying ram's horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day they were to march around the city seven times and the priests were to blow their ram's horns. And Joshua ordered the people to shout. The walls of the city collapsed, and the Israelites were able to charge straight into the city. The city was completely destroyed, and every man, woman, child and animal in it was killed by Joshua's army as an offering to God. Only Rahab and her family were spared, because she had hidden the two spies sent by Joshua. After this, Joshua burned the remains of the city and cursed any man who would rebuild the city of Jericho would do so at the cost of his firstborn son. It is generally accepted that the biblical date for the fall of the walls is the 28th of Nisan, according to the Hebrew calendar.[2]

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Sunkin Sheep
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 19:50 PM 

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Way cool Pigeon. High magic is historically scary!

Shall we say, mono-casting is just too lithe?

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Magiros
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 20:35 PM 

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Conjuration is the school used for battle field control. Having a lot of spells for that, creating walls, making clouds of different things. And I remember reading a spell that creates a cannon ball shooting at the enemy, might remember wrong.

Conjuration allows longer lasting results in the field, walls and clouds lasting a longer period of time than just one evocation spell such as fireball. However, evocation spell usually have instant effects. Conjuration however, might stop the enemy moving all together in a certain way, example by creating a wall in front of them, it at least slows for some time and perhaps long enough for the others to do the decisive movements.

Also there are War Wizards Prestige class who specialized in using magic for war. I wouldn't say it is so much shunned as might have understood from some posts. And therefore I do not see why term "Siege Magic" wouldn't already exist in the realm, not neccesary official sub-school of magic but a term used by War Wizards for example.

I would imagine your character, who specializes in warfare and magic, choosing spells that are actually usable in the field than just sticking to one school. After all the utility of your spells, if you can respond to various threaths the enemy might offer, is far more important.

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IronAngel
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 20:46 PM 

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Conjuration allows for battlefield control. That's what my PC is about. Not so much for siege warfare.

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Magiros
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 21:41 PM 

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Ah, yes. Seems I lost my track during writing. Evocation for Siege Magic, but there are others as well. I think Transmutation has spells where you can transmute one material to other, lets say stone to mud.. Illusion could be useful in attempt to fool the enemy.

However, I still consider conjuration valid in this case as well. Brining creatures to the field, perhaps something strong enough to help taking down the gates without risking own men. Also conjuring clouds to hide the men, obscuring mist.. As well as other clouds that caster can send at the walls and what else.

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Dark Immolation
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 21:53 PM 

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I wrote a response, but it was too damn long because I always get giddy when wartime magic gets brought up. Evocation is the obvious go to, but don't forget that you can conjure a siege ball or transmute stone walls to mud, too. Like it has been said, Conjuration lets you actually pin down those things you want to zap with your Flame Strikes.

I also don't think you(OP) shouldn't limit yourself to directly offensive tropes. While the goal of a siege is indeed to take control of a point or structure, there can be dozens of steps between the breaching a wall and victory. Maybe a Mass Entropic Shield is needed to cover your troops as they try to take the gates. Maybe some funky sort of terrain shifting that constantly gives your men the high ground, in what would otherwise be a kill box. A nuke'em evoker finds his place easily enough in a siege, but truly mastering the art of siege warfare involves more than just one guy shouting divine obscenities at a wall.

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Silent2001
 
PostPosted: Fri, Mar 22 2013, 23:01 PM 

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Yossarin wrote:
Two words: ritual magic.

It's how you make entire structures just vanish.


S'what those dastardly orc shamen did to the dwarves.

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PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 2:42 AM 

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kex
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 4:11 AM 

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The main focus of this is to end combat as quickly as possible and make the prolonged battle impossible. This being a tempurian cleric his focus would be upon ending the battle as decisively and as quickly as possible, his personality and training is that in offensive bombardment, however the other ideas of a mass entropic sheild perhaps against Batista rounds or perhaps even a kind of sapper spell that allows one to crumble a way in a specific manner would be very useful. The main focus of this will be in breaching and clearing, covering an advance and prolonging a battle would be secondary.


 
      
corypx
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 5:22 AM 

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Any effects that deal with taking down walls and such(or anything brute force) just end up ruining it and I belive make it much harder for the DMs because then it opens up the flood gates of how strong is a substance if a DM says 1 fireball would damage a stonewall of city A, next time you could hand out wands of fireball to your army and more or less nuke the place in under the turn because if 1 fireball does some damage, the 100 or so NPCs you handed out wands of fireball to would turn the place to ash.

I like the idea of a mass entropic sheild or other effects that deal with aiding your troops or giving a disadvanage to your foes (kind of like Knight commander) because it avoids any of that brute force stuff that degrades into "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.... it's the only way to be sure"

You could have spells dealing with diffrent aspects of combat, mass entropic sheild would counter ranged, you could slow down troops trying to push forward if you could turn the ground into a quagmire giving your ranged more time to pick them off. That is one of the big perks with spells you can use your imagination to spice it up, just think of what you would like done to them and then stuff falls into place.

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TormakSaber
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 7:42 AM 

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Tempus never figured wars would be foguht by dozens of level 30's vs dozens of level 30's, really.

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Gravemaskin
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 11:35 AM 

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Evil genius way of removing unwanted people from a city or large area:

level 30 wizard with a +19 int modifier and improved spell capacity:
Widen Widen Widen Widen Reverse Gravity

Or if you're feeling standard:
Widen Intensify Meteor Swarm


Or if you're a cleric, just use animate object on various pointy and sharp objects?

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Galenson
 
PostPosted: Sat, Mar 23 2013, 12:52 PM 

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Epic spell: Summon Leona Galenson.

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Trigonometry
 
PostPosted: Mon, Mar 25 2013, 0:41 AM 

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Evil characters with Corrupt Spellcasting and the ability to actually prepare spells get the best siege spell available.

First of all, if you cast Violet Rain all divine spellcasting and divine artifacts cease to function in the area. Then, if you prepare Apocalypse for the sky over the course of seven days before you cast it the area you choose of a 10 miles radius (I think that was it) will effectively become a crater. Why bring down a wall when you can annihilate the entire town?

Book of Vile Darkness for the win.

As it was stated before. Ritual Magic. Though in this case, it's not an entire structure. It's an entire town.

Though, obviously, no DM in the world would ever allow this :P

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kex
 
PostPosted: Mon, Mar 25 2013, 0:56 AM 

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I think were taking the concept of seige magic from breaching and destroying key targets or buildings to nukes. I dont want a nuke i want a smart bomb something that lets me end the fight fast and without massive unnecessary causlties.


 
      
Trigonometry
 
PostPosted: Mon, Mar 25 2013, 1:21 AM 

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Welp getting into the topic of the actual thread, I don't really know any spells that would be that effective in a siege. Both sides would usually have mages and I'd think there'd be defenses in place for most spells. Not to mention Fireball and the like can't really do much against walls made of stone but leave some scorchmarks to be honest.

You'd be better off attempting to scry the stronghold you want to infiltrate, gather a small team of experienced fighters or a team of rogues and use Greater Teleport to get past their defenses and open the gate for your army under the guise of night.

But I'm not really that creative and I don't know all spells by heart, I'd need to go look at the spell list for DnD and come up with something. Though in the past when I've seen magic being used in sieges from the books I've read set in FR, Crystal Fragment by Salvatore for instance, usually magic ends up effectively nuking the place to a crisp.

Also you can effectively still use Corrupt Casting. With Violet Rain in place the enemy clerics can't perform any divine spells so they can't cast healing magic, they'd be restricted to mundane supplies and you'd see more people dying from the actual battle. Also, seeing clerics not being able to contact their gods during the heat of battle would certainly lower morale which in sieges is the most important thing.

Edit: Added some stuff

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Theander
 
PostPosted: Mon, Mar 25 2013, 11:48 AM 



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Transmutation.

See Stone walls of Wiltun.
Cast an epic stone to flesh
Even if we ignore the fact that the flesh wall wouldn't have structural integrity and would collapse, and can now be attacked to death just like any other fleshy thing (with no hardness now), but think of what would happen to the defenders on the wall? The psychological effect? Even funnier, what happens when you kill it they forget to consecrate it and you animate it?

All sorts of fun things there.

I like the idea of siege magic though, that kind of makes me want to make a warmage to join you.

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Elorathall
 
PostPosted: Wed, Apr 09 2014, 20:32 PM 

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Personally, I think Tempus would find the idea of using magic to obliterate entire armies or cities before the individual soldiers have a chance to prove their valor extremely dishonorable.

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Dark Immolation
 
PostPosted: Wed, Apr 09 2014, 20:39 PM 

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Huh. Coulda sworn this thread was about siege magic, but here we see an act of necromancy.

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Aiseth
 
PostPosted: Wed, Apr 09 2014, 22:57 PM 

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I still approve of the concept of Siege Magic, and have been referencing it as a 'ethically debated magic' in game.

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