How would MAGIC be used in large scale WARFARE?

[@polishFantasyEN]

I really like how Peter V. Brett remembered to apply the magic not only on the battlefield, but also in logistics and transport. This side is severely missing in some other fantasy series: firebolt and lightning are cool, but can you use the same fire energy to make swampy terrain dry to make your army wagons able to cross it? Can you preserve food better using magic?

[@aysseralwan]

Ice mage 1: dang it I'm on food preservation duty again? Ice mage 2: shut up. Blasting enemies with ice spikes is cool and all but it won't help if all of us starve so get your job done. I already had to do it 3 times in the last week

[@D1str1ct]

Have you read Tales of Malazan book of the fallen series by Steve Erikson?

[@mariustan9275]

@@aysseralwan Ice mage 3: At least you guys don't have to make an ice road across this swamp! Have you tried to freeze a swamp's worth of city sewage? Earth mage: Have you tried digging under a city? Lots of the time the tunnels could collapse at any moment and I have to hold itup while the peasants place dynamite! Water mage: I've got to summon a sea's worth of water for all these thirsty dogs! Psychic: I have to teleprt cow after cow for the food!

[@icantafford]

I ran a D&D game where magic became an integral part of the logistics chain for an army's force projection. The party used magic to bring fresh food from much further away that would normally be feasible and kept a large army fed in an entirely inhospitable land.

[@Maximara]

This is why I like the GURPS base magic system. The damage dealing spells aren't really that powerful (under most conditions) which forces you to think outside the box. Create Food and Create Water are insanely useful to an army. Enough mages and you don't need supply lines for those things nor have to forage for food.

[@sirreginaldfishingtonxvii6149]

"All warfare is based on deception" was already a good quote, but in a world with illusion magic? At that point warfare can be nothing _but_ deception.

[@andreasbuehler1821]

Jonathan Strange blocked several of Napoleons ports for weeks with illusionary ships.

[@myself2noone]

Except counters to that deception.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@myself2noone But what if there's counters in place to those counters?

[@benjamintherogue2421]

"I don't even know if we won the war or lost. I don't even know if there WAS a war anymore!"

[@ElfMaidWithInternet]

But the greatest deception of all, is that there was a war that occurred in the first place.

[@indy_com]

Large scale warfare in D&D seems to suggest that Magic would be used on the frontlines, but the near universal squishiness of arcane casters means they'd work better towards the back of any engagement. Basically, they're the Artillery.

[@frocat5163]

Yeah, the only front-line casters you'd use would be casters who can also wear armor and wield a weapon, effectively combining martial and magical prowess. Alternatively, you could create specialized squads that have a moderately powerful caster protected by meat-shields, skill-monkeys and cure-sticks to perform special missions...kind of like an adventuring party.

[@DarkWardancer]

@@frocat5163 So, paladins and the occasional utility caster? ;)

[@shun2240]

@@frocat5163 eldritch knights and maguses, and those two are terrifying in battle, one on one they will destroy fighters

[@frocat5163]

@@shun2240 Oh, so exactly the kind of casters I called out in my comment? Thanks for setting me straight by repeating exactly what I'd already posted.

[@Lamaart_]

Don't forget the magic initiate feat. Every 4th level fighter, which I would say a well trained soldier would be gets a feat. Granted, there are also other great feats for a 4th level fighter. But if arcane education is comparable in commonality as engineering many soldiers would take this feat to resemble this education without having to specialising in eldritch. knight. This could also extend in to other types of magic like divine. See Warhammer 4k.

[@brooksf-l7619]

One of the vastly underappreciated types of magic in fantasy is communications. Magic that allows for long-distance communications, even if relatively rare in-setting, can be civilization-changing. Allowing governments and commanders to talk to each other without waiting for a courier dramatically accelerates the timetable of events, allowing them to act upon knowledge they could not otherwise possibly have known in time.

[@POTUSJimmyCarter]

In my personal D&D setting the emperor of the most powerful nation had a very special helmet/crown, on top of a lot of other things (like immunity to mind affecting magic for OBVIOUS REASONS) there was a mail aventail on it with every single ring of that mail being enchanted to match an identical ring that was then handed out to the five hundred or so most important people in the Empire. So long as you had one of these rings on your person, and as long as the Emperor was wearing his very special hat, the two of you could instantly communicate back and forth. Suffice to say possession of one of these rings was a sign that you were somebody the Emperor himself wanted on speed-dial, and since there was a limited number of them that could be handed out people absolutely went all-out trying to earn the right to have one.

[@dancinswords]

My first thought in applying magic to warfare in a fantasy setting was that Divination would be by far the most popular school of magic. It keeps the training-intensive magic casters out of harms way, using their magic for the benefit of more expendable soldiers. Instead of putting them on the battlefield throwing a couple fireballs, they can completely change the nature of the battle from the safety of an encampment, or even from home

[@adamkotter6174]

My brother created a D&D setting where Sending Stones were used to create Fantasy PayPal. You just ring up your bank from wherever you are in the world, provide a password, and ask them to transfer 100 gold coins to the bank of the blacksmith who just gave you a new sword. Suddenly you don't need to carry any money on your person, so you're lighter and highwaymen can't actually rob you.

[@ltchugacast131]

I believe things like the Palantiris network in LoTR is a good example of this. It makes sense that the hobbits have things like pocket watches in the same world as kings in castles because at one point there was an instantaneous link between far reaching spaces that would drive the need for good timekeeping and create the demand for the technology to keep up.

[@Vyrlokar]

The humble freeze spell is one of those spells that do not see enough love. Even if we disregard all uses related to keeping food refrigerated, it has loads of uses in battlefield engineering: - Give it to your sappers, then have then soak the walls during the night and flash freeze them. Water expands and that will eventually cause enough structural damage to the wall to make it collapse - Use it to convert just some straw and mud into something that is rock hard, making temporary fortifications or barricades - Use it to allow crossing bodies of water

[@NoneYobiz.]

Freeze the enemies army solid then pack up and go home.

[@Marinealver]

Devotio, Roman's greatest spell in battle. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fYmxp42hpNSdh5o

[@TheBrokensaintvxvx]

Freeze spells as a whole are terrifying. You could go up stream from a castle or town you wish to siege, and just, freeze the water source 2-3 weeks before hand and by the time you get there. By the time you arrive, they'll either be dead from a peasant revolt, or so dehydrated that they can't fight back.

[@SlyCooperJr]

Dark Messiah lets you use Ice Spells on the ground and enemies could slip and go flying because of it, lol.

[@atk9989]

@@SlyCooperJr mix that with large scale water blast magic or even making it rain in a set area and then you freeze it for a massive advantage. Footing is extremely important in combat and if they can't walk without falling then they are vulnerable to arrows or other magic attacks.

[@KevinM491]

I really like Steven Brusts take on this. Basically offensive and defensive war magic will be in a constant arms race against each other to the point where it won’t affect the average foot solider all that much, until said foots can make it to the enemies caster and eliminate them giving their own caster free reign.

[@pyeitme508]

Screw Magic✨🪄, Science 🔭🧪 rules! 😂🤣-> kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIXJh4yhg7SXpKs Or maybe use both 😂.-> kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZW4i4Crbd5oeJo

[@aegisprotection4969]

Chuckle. Aka I don't want magic to mess up the battle and story method. Which is fine. But essentially what it boils down to.

[@Stefan-xt5sk]

That's similar to Christopher Paolini's "Eragon" as well. There, mages protect their soldiers and hide among them, while searching for hostile mages with their minds. If they find one, they call their allied mages to engage in a coordinated mental battle to subdue the enemy before killing them. Only then can they use their magic to wipe out entire armies. This is because a dying mage can retaliate one final time and cause extreme destruction if you haven't taken full control of them.

[@MrLolguy93]

so, just like in our world with weapons and armor

[@williammeek4078]

@@pyeitme508 but i Magic has defined rules, what is the difference between magic and science?

[@mateuszcegowski499]

The Saga of Tanya the Evil - Magic is considered a field of science, mages are those with aptitude and treated like a units of flying tanks with their protecting shells, fly spell, homing or explosion spells imbued into ammunition while guns are used as wands. They even have computation orbs that helps them to cast their spells and manage mana. They even can create oxygen out of mana and the more mana they have and can use at once with advanced orbs allows them to even warp space.

[@kira-dk2mx]

This was the first thing that came to mind when seeing this video.

[@Bzr-Jr]

Yeah, that and the imperial guard psychers were the first thing that crossed my mind, on the Ig they’re basically an additional type of firepower, but with a significant advantage, and a significant drawback, the advantage, if he’s good, he would have a power equivalent of a nuclear device with practically no damage to infrastructure, the drawback, if he’s not really fucking good he’s basically just a walking time bomb, which can have some serious consequences when the times runs out, like the appearance of a demon, the possession of said psycger, or the better one, he just explodes

[@qwertynoobbob]

I like to think about Overlord as well when it comes to using spells and magic in warfare, although it's more high fantasy magic than science fiction magic, but still.

[@---zh8qn]

The light novel dives even deper than the tv series, cause it explains for examples the advantages of the elenium 97 computation orb more visual. Its just great in details :D

[@kira-dk2mx]

@@---zh8qn I just started reading the LN and it's great. So glad that Tanya's getting a second season too. It's about damn time!

[@TheSmegmagician]

I had a nautical themed dnd campaign with some navy buddys, which the DM thought was great until he realized all of us are weapons/tactics jobs/positions. so we had balista bolts enchanted with high levels of destroy water which when shoot under the hull of an enemy ship would create a vacuum and all the ships weight be at the for and aft most points of the ship and crack the ship into two pieces, our druid was a packmaster of bilgerats who would strap explosives onto the rats and he would tell the rat to make its way to their armory, yeet the bombrat onto the enemy deck where then 3 rounds of combat later, their ship would explode. did we metagame, yeah. did we drive our dm to the brink of insanity by shotgunning all his encounters within 5 rounds of play, yeah. but it was some of the most fun the table ever had.

[@slevinchannel7589]

Amazon will Ruin both Lord of the Rings and Stargate.

[@xursed7990]

My party I was dm for figured out you can get eldritch blast shooting 600 feet. Being a cantrip that's a projectile every 6 seconds with unlimited ammo. :L

[@connorshaw-case6030]

@@xursed7990 it will only cost you your everlasting soul... gimme the pew pew

[@loturzelrestaurant]

Amazon will surely Ruin Lord of the Rings, all the Signs point towards that. And guess what's even funnier: They also just bought Stargate. So much Money can be made or wasted.

[@gromaxe]

Remember, enemies also can do that

[@caledvwych1366]

One of my favorite uses of illusion (kind of) magic in warfare is from the inheritance cycle. Basically they made the illusion of air shimmering, like if someone were badly concealing a number of troops.. So the enemy mage expended all of his energy trying to pierce a barrier that wasn't there and it freaked the enemies out.

[@pedroluiz8750]

Shallan in oathbringer final battle

[@caledvwych1366]

Haven't read the last book yet, but definitely sounds like something she would do.

[@Charrdful]

Another good use of illusion magic is to cause a haze over your opponent and alter their perception to view each other as an enemy. Then watch as the Chaos unfold

[@roywempor8395]

Imagine if sun zu had magic, forget China, he would have conquered the world

[@dungeoncat5238]

Cool Vid on how illusions can be used in fantasy settings kzbin.info/www/bejne/naPHXn5paNmCia8

[@TeutonicKnight92]

The “create food and water” or even “good berry” spells would have massive implications on warfare in general. Divination magic would also be game changing not just for planning and recon but for the ability to send messages

[@connorgrynol9021]

Honestly, in warfare, I would never put mages on the front lines. Teleporting supplies, communication, healing, defending; these are things that would put their skills to much better use. I would, maybe, use offensive magic to cover my armies retreat and breaking the enemy lines, but that’s it.

[@notyou2353]

@@connorgrynol9021 Yeah. Battlemages would be the least valuable of mages in my opinion, and their use would signify either a very dire situation or a "blitzkreig" type attack that would be heavily supported by non-combat mages that teleported supplies and troops behind enemy lines. In fact, I once played a Pathfinder (basically D&D 3.5e) character that was pretty useless in a fight but had a vast logistical, espionage, and "rapid response force" type of network. He'd spend his time pouring over new information, deciding where best to transport the right type and amount of supplies or men, what the most important missions were, and crafting powerful armaments for use on the frontline. He was no battlemage, to be sure, though occasionally he'd lead from the front (mostly for morale purposes, like a king leading a charge or being present on the battlefield). That was the most rewarding full-spellcaster I ever played thus far and it really felt like it was how full-spellcasters would be used.

[@j.s.t.6515]

And why the fuck would be war in a world where vital resources are created of nothing at will? That's why Magic is so boring as a narrative tool when used poorly.

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@j.s.t.6515 Holy wars are a thing. Do you know about the Protestant Revolution? Or the Spanish Inquisition? WWI started because of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which lead to the occupation of the German army in Austria. WWII started because Hitler riled up the Germans and used their bitter defeat in WWI as a catalyst. Not saying that the idea of creating matter isn't worldbreaking in stories; but anything, when used poorly, is a boring narrative tool.

[@TeutonicKnight92]

@@j.s.t.6515 there is also wars for dominance and the right to rule, the pride and vanity of kings and and rulers, wars over ideology. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon didn’t fight wars for resources.

[@colebailey2578]

11:12 My favorite use of necromancy in any fantasy setting was in the Dresden files book series by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden lives in Chicago, and his home is getting attacked by evil necromancers. Dresden uses necromancy in the final battle because of some kind of magic rule that in order to get close the that books maguffin, he needed necromatic energy specifically. It goes against his wizarding laws to summon humans, so what does he do? He uses the skeleton of Sue, the largest T-rex skeleton ever found, and summons her only to ride her into battle. Bad guys did NOT see that coming.

[@righteousferret5416]

Oh God that was such a good scene such a good series

[@triangulum8869]

That sounds awesome

[@Tzeentchs_CPA]

That’s awesome. I saw sue in Chicago, and she would be absolutely terrifying

[@RaptorJesus]

I love how the Dresden tabletop RPG describes Sue's stats. No numbers, just "You lose."

[@dannodillon1222]

You forgot to mention Molly’s veils and illustrations

[@trigomathmancer9217]

You could use portals to straight up ignore mountains and difficult terrain while transporting resources, I think that would allow for extremely optimal and outlandish routes for supplies.

[@theoneandonly3435]

just stay at home and use the portal to move your army one example is the anime overlord. 3rd season a general asks him wether the main character Ainz (an op isekaied death magic user) wants to join their ranks and he replied he will bring his own troops and will join their army but not their ranks. the general sais that they already attack in the morning and it would be too late. Ainz just called one of his subordinates via a spell and told them to open a gate at his position. and through that gate he deployed his troops. the spell works by opening a portal at your own location and you can fix the endpoint to a place youve been to in a certain radius or a point in sight or a point in the radius of an ally if the ally combines the skill. you could send scout troops anywhere and then reinforce them with hundreds of men. although opening a big portal is difficult to conceal without further magic use

[@TJTrickster]

Teleport the supplies

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

I always hate how in a fantasy medium,magic is just "kill people but in a weird way".Like in Final Fantasy the only usages of magic seem to be HEAL & FIREBALL. What about in D&D which has Decanters of Endless Water?With enough time or decanters,you could turn a desert into a swamp by just saying "geyser" over & over. What about in Chryssalis(RinoZ) where with core shaping,you could manipulate the properties of monsters by reassigning stats in their cores? What about in Harry Potter?Instead of casting fireball,just disarm the wizards of their wands.No wands means no evada cedavra. What about Avernum?Magic & technology can't coexist too closely.You could give wizards a fatal migraine by just giving them an iphone or camera. What about Unsounded?Pymary works by taking aspects of nature (solidity,movement,density) & putting them somewhere else.You could pass through a wall by taking away the solidity of rock. What about Pokemon?Why bother battling each other's monsters if you can use your Lapras to create tsunamis & wash away Team Rocket from the beggining? AND SO MANY MORE OUTSIDE-THE-BOX USES OF MAGIC! You kow how people complain that Green Lantern rings work on imagination,& the uses are always boring?Same applies to many magic systems.

[@erickpoorbaugh6728]

@@BrunoMaricFromZagreb Even things like fireballs could be used more creatively. How many machines run on explosions? Think of the economic value of things like coal and gas. Fire has always had way more uses than just burning your enemies.

[@sephypantsu]

Now you are thinking with portals :)

[@LeonardoTheMage]

"A Practical Guide to Evil" handles the use of magic in the context of a large scale battle extremely well. Priests and mages can heal, cast minor offensive effects, and create shields, but the individual effectiveness is dependent on the caster's piety or skill. Really powerful casters that can learn to make new spells or prayers on the fly instead of using stock ones they've been taught by wrote are rare but unbelievably useful. The clever use of weak mages as artillery just behind the frontline gives a couple of the factions a huge advantage. Other factions that have access to larger numbers of priests willing to aid in combat also learn to leverage that. A rare couple of powerful casters learning to open portals over enemy armies and drop huge quantities of water on them is a revolutionary change in warfare. The author touches on a bunch of things that Shad discussed in this video, and does a really good job of being fair and realistic within the bounds of how their setting works.

[@commonman4413]

Or a powerful caster provides a bunch of low level casters with wands with spells the would not ordinarily be able to cast. Ex. In D&D, give a wand of fireballs to a dozen lol 1 mages. Sure the high level guy can make a super damaging fireball, but that would be overkill against low level warriors. Whereas each fireball wand across a dozen mages would cover 12 x the area.

[@ancelbotha1552]

Ah, Lakeomancy - most glorious of magical disciplines 👌

[@LeonardoTheMage]

@@ancelbotha1552 Under traditional magical terminology, it should properly be referred to as Lacusomancy... 😂

[@Morhgoz]

@@ancelbotha1552 Lesser Footrest Tribe aproves this!

[@AngelusAnsell]

The Inheritance book series employs magic on both a large and small scale, both in war and peacetime, with both heroic epic casters and otherwise ordinary casters. Since magic in that setting is ludicrously versatile but the learning curve is ludicrously steep, being able to do more with less becomes a highly valued skill, among other things. They even demonstrate how one might go about recognizing and then countering enemy mages.

[@Great_Olaf5]

Giving this a like, the Inheritance Cycle doesn't get enough love.

[@tomsimpkins1211]

I remember when Nuada used casters to speed up making trade goods, that was genius. Low energy cost, menial, time consuming labour, done in seconds with casters. Makes me think she may start a small-scale industrial revolution in the future.

[@Hornat355]

One of the scarier uses of magic. The main hero was taught how to kill a person and spend less "energy" than moving their little finger. And all bigger warfare boiled down to casters fighting casters in mental battle. The winner then could use any magic upon the soldiers the caster protected, which in case of the main protag meant that whole squads just immediately dropped dead.

[@Great_Olaf5]

@@Hornat355 I know, right? And people say these books are ripping off LotR and Star Wars? Only if you're looking at the first few chapters and a broad summary. Dragonriders of Pern... Can't say, never read the series, but from what I recall, he did give her credit for inspiring the Riders, and she gave her approval for the books somewhere.

[@Hornat355]

@@Great_Olaf5 Don't forget about the "Fearles" (?) don't remember the right name, which were soldiers who's feeling of pain was either stripped or disabled or some such, and thus they did not care about wounds and kept going until either their brain was smushed to bits, lost conciousness due to the blood/air not getting to the brain or bled out entirely.

[@Avarn388]

The thumbnail for this video is fantastic. Gandalf in a military hat was something I never expected but now I want. Also, I look forward to watching this. Keep up the good work, Shad.

[@toddkes5890]

There's another picture out there of Gandalf edited to be holding an AK-47

[@kalebb1226]

Behold the flame of Arnor! (Whips out grenade launcher)

[@lordofthepizzapie9319]

@@kalebb1226 *unloads on the Balrog* "Enjoy the fire works!"

[@nottherealpaulsmith]

"summon water" inside someone's lungs, throat, etc and "heat metal" on plate armor are possibly two of my favorite uses of magic in warfare, although i think both of those would qualify as fantasy war crimes

[@ihcterra4625]

It would probably take less power to just oxidize the metal. Rusting is just metal burning very slowly. Accelerate the rusting process so every piece of metal in the enemy camp is just a pile of rust by morning.

[@Zymemaru]

In a fantasy story I wrote, magic was so widespreed in war, over time the demand of anti-magic techniques became so prevalent magic became almost useless since it can be shut down by pretty much every army

[@101Mant]

Even if its not useful on the battlefield it could be incredibly powerful in a support role. Imagine something as simple as a spell that purified water, preserved food or helped transport goods. Given medieval armies lost more to diseases that battlefield casuties and the importance logistics magic could win you the war even if you can't cast a spell in battle. You could also have some cool stories where depending on how the anti-magic works one side could try to sabotage the other, imagine sneaking behind enemy lines to disrupt the magic preserving their supplies. You could also get a cool arms race, anti magic might not be an absolute thing but a matter of degree like weapons vs armour, someone finds a way to bypass or overwhelm it and gets a huge advantage then the other side adapt.

[@indrickboreale7381]

In my own fantasy story fire mages usually don't live long because most of the time they are living siege cannons

[@TruhartJenkins]

"Okay everyone, cast counterspell."

[@scottmantooth8785]

*spell nullification incantations or amulets...the possibilities are very interesting*

[@scottmantooth8785]

@@indrickboreale7381 *so...stylish asbestos robes are not available in the sizes or weave patters that most flame mages prefer?*

[@jacobs483]

Eragon actually does a cool job with this, for all the book’s flaws and meanderings. Spellcasters main job was to ward a group of soldiers then try to (magically) seek out and find the enemies spellcasters and kill them so that they could kill the now vulnerable soldiers more easily.

[@nroke1684]

The Inheritance cycle has great magical combat, the mental fencing is super fun to read. Paolini has grown so much as an author and I hope he eventually returns to Alagäesia with his current skill.

[@nolanhartwick7184]

honestly, if you ignore all the super-magic things (dragons, elves, shades, etc) completely breaking the magic system and being allowed to do basically anything, the magic system of inheritance always seemed really good.

[@yourguard4]

when I remember it correctly, the magic in Eragon is also more or less within the law of conservation of energy (power is strict limited). Thats why his main spell just bursts an atery in the brain of the enemys (killing with the least amount of energy).

[@JMObyx]

@@nroke1684 What has he been writing since The Inheritance Cycle? Last I heard his experience with his handlers in the writing business was so bad that he gave up the craft! Then again I did hear this around 6 years ago, so...

[@nroke1684]

@@JMObyx he wrote “to sleep in a sea of stars.”

[@dragonsoflostcause7778]

Don't forget about Divination style magic. Knowing the immediate future, being able to read the plans of your opponent, or using a message style spell to instantly call reserves without the enemy being aware is amazing. Enchanted Items created by apprentices would also be a dramatic change. Consider a quiver that can hold 50 lbs. worth of arrows, or a stone that provides warmth but not smoke for cooking. Portals would be great as you said. I believe that most magic would be used to counter other casters than as a direct damaging effect. Stopping an Invisible assassin that is targeting your leaders is much better than detonating a handful of conscripts being forced to soak up the first few volleys of spells and arrows. More general aura spells would be used and learned by the rank and file (everyone nearby hits harder) rather than learning spells that only deal as much damage as a sword. Of course this assumes that magic has a general cost (mana, prep time, limited use) similar to the muscle strain that a warrior would suffer after long engagements. Great topic for a very long discussion. And the Wheel of Time series is great, everyone should read or listen to it at least once.

[@pRahvi0]

Using the radio communication in the early stages of WW2 as an example, magic messages could totally make a difference. And considering all the mistakes and operations failed due to bad intelligence, any kind of extra knowledge of the true situation would likely be more than welcome in any campaign. Also, basically any spell that can reach another person and is used creatively enough can eliminate them (if not more), or at least significantly lower their effectiveness on the battle field. Thus, I very much agree that the defensive magic would be _at the very least_ equal to offensive in importance. Unless, of course, the defense is handled by other means such as some anti-magic equipment (although it could be argued to fall under the umbrella of defensive magic too, I guess).

[@keith6706]

With Divination you immediately run into the problem...what if the other side has it too? Being able to predict the future, if the future can be changed (which would be the whole point of using it to begin with) means that it's useless if someone else has the same skill. The vision of the future would be a constantly scrambled mess. Seer A: "I see the enemy will be waiting in ambush at the bridge, therefore we should cross at this ford." Seer B: "I see the enemy moving to the ford, so we should move the troops there." Seer A: "Wait! There will be troops there! We should use the bridge after all." Seer B: "Wait! They're going to move to the Bridge! We need to defend it!" Seer A: "The future has changed! They're defending the bridge!" Seer B: "They're not going for the bridge!" Generals A and B: "Someone get this useless prat out of my command tent."

[@davidtee5367]

I imagine that divination could lead to some weird feedback loops. ie, you divine that the enemy has invisible reserves in a strategic location to cover their front, but is waiting to see what you do before _they_ cast divination and see what you're up to. So you immediately cast invisibility on your reserves and move them to a strategic location to cover your front and wait for them to commit... at which point the enemy casts divination to see what your plan is.

[@essexclass8168]

*I Cast CEEETHREE* Divination and Claivoyance magic could prolly also be complimented by body enchancement and medical magic for computation.

[@efxnews4776]

Why not a quiver that can teleport back the arrows? Even better... A bow that doesn't need arrows?

[@varasatoshi3961]

Time to mention Treantmonk’s god wizard. The D&D wizard that has zero damaging spells, and only defensive and control spells. Absolutely insane.

[@xradar8349]

Could you find a link to it for me?

[@BrunoMaricFromZagreb]

Source,please?

[@gromaxe]

Just google treatmonk wizard guide

[@davidillarretasolans6970]

I think the Eberron Campaign Setting for D&D portrays an interesting take on how magic would be developed forr a conflict akin to WW1, with nations constantly increasing their resources, developing newer and deadlier methods to defeat others, and large scale companies gaining a lot of benefits from it. For those who don't know, in Eberron exist 12 houses that basically have specific powers related to their marks (Dragonmarks), which are correlated with diferent things, and while their powers are inheretbly constructive, they found workarounds to cause destructive powers. For exemple, the house of healing produced biological warfare, and weaponized illneses, the house of security basically became a mercenary enterprise and the house of making (basically creating stuff) invented literal robots made for war, slowly developing them bigger and bigger, until they basically wiped entire batallions. And one of the nations, they integrated a religion that normalised necromancy, and proceeded to pump out armies of trained, restless undead soldiers.

[@whollibaugh]

Im just glad he pulled out a 3.5 book. Lol

[@PhoenixT70]

The House of Making are basically just Techpriests, aren't they.

[@cp1cupcake]

@@whollibaugh They made a 5e version which had all that in it.

[@pinionatedminion38]

Divination is probably the most important magic, as older cultures actually did consult oracles and the like before going to war. The one that gets me excited is weather control. One decent wizard on a coastline could be devastating to invading fleets and being able to summon a well-localized fog could make for a devastating ambush. On that's before some mage from the mid-west figures out how to create a controllable tornado.

[@godsamongmen8003]

I actually got to use magic in a siege on a city in D&D just recently. The party was in the city, and I used the sending spell to order the attack and also to send information on the defenses. There was powerful magic on both sides, but my treachery went a long way to winning the battle. Imagine a medieval army with instant communication compared to one without.

[@krankarvolund7771]

What if divination actually worked? And whith what precision? Like if a king wanted to conquer another country and the oracle could actually tell "Yeah, it's a good idea do it" or "Nope, you'll be dead"? Maybe they could even do battle of divination, like the armies assemble, the oracles predict the future, and they say "Okay, we clearly see that this side is winning", and everyone just stops fighting and make peace as if they've won the battle XD

[@Sorain1]

@@krankarvolund7771 I can imagine a sort of 'formalized civil war' culture ensuing due to that. Both sides line up their retainers, divination to see who would win, and the looser accepts it because doing otherwise would have your vassals turn on you. (Also Honor is likely to be a factor.) It'd work great! Right up until you get results too close to call anyway...

[@krankarvolund7771]

@@Sorain1 Yeah, and of course in a novel, you'll search the drama, what if someone bribe the augures, or if one attack y treachery before the divination, etc... ^^

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@Sorain1 Another possibility would be one I've used, which is that two mages/tacticians meet, with a small, representative sample of their lord's armies, and essentially play out a conceptual battle as though it were chess ("The second division mage corps ambushes your forces from the right flank". "The wallcasters in our forces buckle, however our reserve troops counterattack"), with an order dedicated to truth and honor acting as a mind-reader to ensure both sides play fair. The outcomes of said battles are treated as binding, with sides ceding territory or claiming it by predefined wager.

[@TheBloodswordsman]

Avatar the Last Airbender is a great example of how (classical) elemental magic can be used on a battlefield. The different sets of bending changes the entire way the technology, armies and tactics are utilised. Armies also combine benders and non-benders within combat - which is feasible simply because of the way the magic is used; via martial arts. Also, not just a spell, but rather a magical item that has absurd usage in warfare: the bag of holding. You can use the damn thing for everything from supply lines to neutralising opposing combatants if you can get them inside.

[@vex3488]

In a world where every soldier could learn magic, if there’s a great variety in magic, you could basically just have your army made of massive amounts of spec-ops groups with specialized magic techniques.

[@sidecharacter7165]

You would have less need of armies as much as city guards to control your populace, spec ops for war, and an inquisition to control info on Magic.

[@RequiemPoete]

And this ignores arming non-wizards with magically powered weapons. In one of my stories I have something called "The Gun Wand" it's essentially rifle shaped but is designed to force mana through a ward in the front to create a spell effect. So it uses mana potions as ammo and you could put nearly any kind of spell ward in it as needed. It's weaknesses are stronger spells use more mana and the soldier has to carry mana potions just like real soldiers carry ammo.

[@milkman2266]

This is what Naruto should have been imo. These are specialized ninjas with uniquely deadly abilities. Small squads carrying out assassinations and espionage should have *stayed* the primary method of conducting war between nations. But instead they reduced it to armies of fodder throwing Kunai at each other. Totally defeating the purpose of their “magic” in their world.

[@rugerandres7407]

That almost removes the need for armies in general and brings it back to the typical party of adventurers lol.

[@epicwoad8999]

The cradle series is like that

[@tbehls1183]

The Eberron setting really touches on this in dnd. Magical airships and teleportation for transport. Magical lights in cities, Magical elevators, etc. It really showed that pervasive magic means it is all aspects of life.

[@Gale_Wisenwood]

Thats the reason why its my favorite setting, pretty much anything 3rd lvl or lower is fairly common place, with some higher level stuff being rare or experimental, like the teleportation network, yeah its there it exists, but its limited in where it can go and you need to go through an organization like NASA to use it, either convincing them or footing the bill yourself, which I remember seeing a table saying it was something like 10,000+gp for a one way trip.

[@abcdef27669]

"Magic on large scale warfare". Now I'm imagining Dwarves getting out of foxholes in a jungle scenario, ambushing Elves, and Halflings trying to escape a weird prison, after a dark lord with funny moustache ordered his "Death Eaters" to arrest all of them.

[@iBloodxHunter]

Absolutely, magic would make 1066 look like 1915.

[@KitKatHexe]

10:05 one of my favorite fantasy creatures is called the deathless. It's from the eberron campaign setting for d&d, and it's basically an undead animated through the use of positive energy instead of negative energy. They count as living for determining the effects of positive or negative energy, aren't forced to be evil and are instead forced to be good, and are in all other regards considered to simply be undead. Just like undead, they use Charisma instead of Constitution, and they have some pretty strong immunities. An army fighting the "evil army of the dark lord" or whatever would almost certainly want to make use of deathless.

[@AwesomePyro]

Honestly, Undead in Eberron are fucking cool. You've got the two extremes - Undying Soldier and Karrnathi Undead. One's a champion of ages, a victory to become so knowledgeable such to be granted undeath. The other? The corpse of a soldier who's own knowledge has been overridden by the knowledge of the dead, singing a terrifying hymn from the darkness that consumes all. Irian vs. Mabar, Light vs. Dark, Identity vs. None.

[@Veckoza]

Sounds like someone who worked on the Eberron campaign was a big Aragorn fan! xD

[@khaccanhle1930]

Hopefully Gandalf would be promoted to more than just an infantry Captain. He deserves at least a Full Bird Colonel.

[@kieranmoynihan1161]

The Inheritance Cycle (Eragon series) had a magical system for combat that I liked. It very much-so followed the “soft” magic model, and in such a model the limit on the magician’s capabilities was their own strength. Essentially, whenever a magician cast a spell, a portal would open (not an actual portal, this is a metaphor) through which their energy would start to pour, enabling the magical action. Once the action was completed, the door would close; however, if they had committed to performing an action that would take more energy than they could provide, it would kill them. What this meant is that if they could come up with the most efficient way to perform an action, they could do it to the largest scale. For example, how do we kill a large army? Break open a fissure in the ground and drop them in? Summon lightning and zap them all? Those both sound very exhausting… what’s something easy that takes very little effort to do? How about we snip a major artery in their neck, killing them of blood loss to the brain? It’s extremely cheap, even when performed on many, many enemies. There’s loads of other minutia like ways to store energy, take energy from the surroundings, put caps on spells to not accidentally kill yourself, etc. Essentially this means a magician without a counterpart on the other side to block their actions could kill an army of normal soldiers easily, so you get both defensive and offensive magic, used on the large tactical scale, as well as the idea of a wizard’s duel, between individual magicians, but that’s not as relevant to the larger battle (until someone wins the duel).

[@fenrirlives2226]

I also love how that system gave a Mage's choice to cast self fatal magic a ton of weight. Like, I can't remember the specific context, but I recall a dying mage using all his power to dehydrate a guy and the pov character just going "holy crap, that is some spite!"

[@someone-pz4dg]

Bro the inheritance series was bad ass

[@KermRiv]

One of my favorite uses was in the hall of the dragon riders, guy breaks apart his molecules and essentially creates a nuke.

[@seancreamer5791]

One of my favorite things happens rather late in the series, but they get funding by sewing. It takes little energy but a lot of time. The perfect job for that magic system. It’s a clever use of the magic system in a non-combat scenario.

[@hayleybartek8643]

Paolini did a brilliant job with the magic system. Power is knowledge.

[@ErrorhIL]

I remember in Goblin Slayer, they used barrier spells to squish the enemy between 2 barriers, casting a semi-spherical barrier on large scale and reducing the radius can be pretty effective in my opinion

[@VacomaTeParjila]

I kind of like how the inheritance cycle (Eragon) handles them. Basically magic isn't common and most aren't special or overly powerful. So the more low key magic users will typically be paired up on a squad level then the stronger ones work progressively higher up to the point where you have magic users shielding sections or even the whole army from the enemies magic.

[@Ekdrink]

Unless you’re an elf then you’re the most op thing ever

[@Someone-lg6di]

Defiance of the fall

[@arandombard1197]

Eragon is rubbish. It just made the Elves OP Mary Sues that it made no sense why the Elves hadn't already conquered the whole land on their own. It also reduced magic to just mind battles and instant kills.

[@Jagonath]

"The mirror of her dreams" by Stephen Donaldson has a great sequence where they use mirrors (portals) as supply chain mechanisms. Basically the army can move while the people back in the cities just throw boxes of supplies through the mirrors (some at the city, some with the army) whenever the army needs them. Edit: it also cleverly limits the power of these "portals" because people who travel through them go insane, so you can't just portal the whole army.

[@Djorgal]

It does drastically increase the speed at which the army can move. Supply chain really slows an army down, without having to worry about it, they can just march without much worry nor carrying much. Send a lot of manpower too, have several warehouses full of stones and other building resources. Then you can build incredibly sturdy fortifications pretty much overnight.

[@fannarh]

@@Djorgal imagine the Romans with that power fighting the German's. Traveling back from Teutoburg Forest with the army compact. Or even better. Have winter fortifications build over the sumer at the german location so you don't need to move the army back over the winter. To siege a city you would have to burn down every farm and cut off all means of food production.

[@Sorain1]

@@fannarh Or infiltrate and destroy their mirrors. (Wide area sonic attack to shatter them remotely as opening gambit to force surrender? Consider consequences of live fire tests.)

[@jessetheunending9357]

One of my players had a eidolon (a summoned creature) with wings and flight capabilities. One time he had his creature pick up an enemy, fly off the edge of a cliff, and then dismissed the creature causing the enemy to fall a great height. Then he re-summoned the creature to his side. It was brilliant! I've never been so proud of one of my players.

[@Sorain1]

Had a player do this on me when I DM'd a game for 4e D&D. "Wait, the giant bat is over the street right?" "Level with the roof your fighting on, yes." "According to the description, Moon Curse forces the target into a hover five feet above the ground. Since I'm going to cast that on the bat anyway and the spell has to resolve this round..." I started laughing, and looked up the fall damage rules. I do love it when players make creative use of tools.

[@Surkk2960]

To be honest, an army having a magic using engineer who knows how to construct golems would change war tactics greatly. Also, a telekinesis user whose main weapon is a bundle of war darts could be fun.

[@knightjack]

Thats my favorite use of that ability. Just a wall of blades flying, or strategic strikes......

[@TheBrokensaintvxvx]

Have an magical engineer create a trebuchet that once released, the arm continues to spin. The entire mechanism is enhanced via spells and enchantment, so it won't tear itself apart. Have another mechanism at the bottom of the arch of the trebuchet that utilizes a huckster pocket (or a bag of holding that releases portions of content on a word), that releases a massive rock back onto the arm. Build the entire mechanism onto a gimbal, so you can turn it. By doing this, you've effectively created a machinegun trebuchet.

[@Valiguss]

In a dnd campaign I basically assembled a huge army to take down the main villain and we get to his city and on the heights overlooking the city I set up trench’s and pillboxes all along the ridge, the enemy counter attacked with a huge amount of goblins and so between all the forward pillboxes we had mages cast wall of blades who essentially they had to advance up through heavy musket fire and then hit a literal meat grinder it was a massacre

[@Chr-vk6gy]

We have war darts here on earth, though they are called lawn darts

[@leonardopimienta9997]

@@Chr-vk6gy A man of culture!

[@ViridianVictoria]

The part about summoning food made me get super excited actually, one of the reasons Napoleon was able to move around so fast was because he didn't use a supply chain most of the time, he just foraged off the land, now imagine not needing to do either, your army would be able to move about so fast!

[@NecronNate]

My favorite way magic was added into large scale combat, was how Christopher Paolini approached it in his world of Alagaesia(The Inheritance Cycle, AKA Eragon) , where mages had blocks of troops under their protection, where they shielded them from enemy mages. So you would have your own mages protecting your troops while also seeking out enemy mages and dueling them to the death. Once a mage was killed, a friendly mage could wipe out the entire enemy battalion with a sweep of the hand.

[@samuelberry4186]

I think that is how many large scale battles with magis would happen, the only problem with Christopher Paolini's warfare is that comparitivly the gunts are almost useless, so the style of engagement would change. It would probably be more of a squad of guards for each mage (however many they can cover and still fight efectivly with) and anyone not activly protected would be trying to sneek around take out mages or capture points of intrest without being caught by an enemy mage. Remember how it cost more to affect things at a distance, so a bunched up battalion would be a vunrability not an asset, even with a mage protecting them.

[@puskajussi37]

Another point in the series I like is how in one point (minor spoilers I suppose) a faction starts raising war funds by turning magic into an engine of mass production of some civilian goods. Granted, you'd think this would be the sort of stuff other people would've figured out much sooner, but hey.

[@dcvape1891]

One of my absolute most memorable uses of magic also comes from Christopher Paolini, when in Brisingr the mages of the empire start taking away their soldiers ability to feel pain. That was CRAZY. I also just love Christopher's magic system in general compared to most others.

[@NecronNate]

@@dcvape1891 Oh yeah, the "Laughing Dead" , were pretty eerie when they were first introduced

[@grantpflum6844]

@@samuelberry4186 The grunts weren't useless. They decided most of the battles. The mages were so busy defending against one another that it usually come down to sword and board so to speak. Regular fighters also mattered because magic was a limited commodity. Mages only had so much energy to go around and when a group a soldiers got close enough they were able to cut MOST mages to pieces through sheer attrition.

[@izaakaz6863]

Have you heard of Youjo Senki: Saga of Tanya the Evil? Because its basically WW1 with mages. Mages serve as artillery spotters and close-air support in an era before helicopters were invented. Mages use a rudimentary calculator called a computational jewel that crunches the calculations that allows them to fly and use magic. The main character is the only one who can use magical artillery that, while still potent, will never replace physical artillery and at best is only useful against other enemy mages.

[@xoranlp8218]

That series is exactly what I was thinking about when reading the title.

[@TheCsel]

I thought of this too. The magic is strong, but still limited and low in quantity. And it takes place in an alternate history europe in an age where everyone is trying to figure out how to fight in a new modern war. So they only think about using mages as artillery support and scouting. But the main character implements them as commando units instead. The show's magic is more about implementation strategically.

[@Drawoon]

Thaumaturgy alone could have a big impact on intimidation. "Your voice booms up to 3 times as loud" "You create an instantaneous sound from a point within 30 feet, such as a rumble of thunder, the cry of a raven, or ominous whispers" "You cause harmless tremors in the ground" imagine the army coming at you is yelling way louder than they should be, and then you hear a wave of thunder in front of them coming toward you, and then the ground starts shaking.

[@QazwerDave]

The portal thing is unbelievably strong and severely underrated Open one above the enemy and in the ocean, and empty the occean on the enemy. Place a portal somewhere, and that place is not effectively blocked. Open one next to your archers and above the enemy and rain arrows on the enemy.

[@KuDastardly]

Actually you can come close to ending a war before it begins by killing of the leader of your enemies. Be it the capital, a king, or some other head of states... etc. In the Art of War, it is said that: _"To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."_

[@limiv5272]

why empty the ocean onto the enemy when you can teleport the enemy into the bottom of the ocean?

[@elvacoburg1279]

It all comes down to: 1) how prevalent magic is in a setting - can everyone learn magic or just a select few, 2) how fast mages level - a unit of high level mages will be more effective than a unit of low level. In a lot of setting those powerful mages a few and far between and normally old men and women. 3) how many spells a mage can cast before having to rest - using Shad's example of D&D 3.5, your average (say 5th to 6th level) mage could use up all of his spells for the day within a couple of minutes, so useful for shock value but not for long engagements. The other thing to consider is if magic is legal in the setting, or are there witch hunters / the inquisition hunting mages down. This could mean that there are very few mages in that kingdom, and what few there are will operate in secret. Meanwhile, a neighbouring kingdom is taking in refugee mages fleeing persecution, and therefore has a lot of mages to call upon

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Me: "Observing all of mankind on Earth's Moon... Well... I was a human but during the awakening of the Zeroth Generation for Magic Users. My very soul had affinities to only three magic types... Void, Soul, and Techno... I cannot access the other magic types, just as the original Kings can only use a few magic types but to extreme degrees... Eon, the Beholder of Time. The Colorless King, Copycat of Magic. The Emperor of Souls, Champion of the Undead. And finally, the elusive White Monarch and its immortal reincarnations... As for me? I am the Void One, Creator and Destroyer of Existence. My Void Legion Armadas are my "Will" and what "I" am." Space Man: "You're lucky... We didn't get any magic because we're stuck in space."

[@quinncampbell9255]

Very well written.

[@KairuHakubi]

exactly. You know, thinking about full-on full-scale magic warfare? You start to understand why so many JRPGs have 'magical warfare has depleted the world's mana supply to dangerous levels' backstories.

[@henrypaleveda7760]

I have a few balancing features to magic in my world First: the most potent/common source of magic was locked away, so most mages couldn't use their craft anymore. This made it vary uncommon even though most anyone could learn it Second: there are many sources to draw from, but much like how appliances can only handle so much electricity in them, or outlets can only put out so much at once, it is possible to overdraw a source and deplete it outright or to use too much and fry. You can draw from trees or even the sun, but at your own risk. Third: although magic can be drawn from many sources, most of the world didn't figure this out, and those few who did are rediscovering how to use it. Fourth: The source that was locked away, was the life force of the user, and this is why so many mages would be old; they had used years of their lives up as the fuel for their magic, aging them prematurely; this cost also made casting larger spells or spells of longer range much riskier. The "bad guy's" goal is to unlock "the source" so that magic can be used on a large scale again because he sees it as an invaluable tool.

[@kassiog.6595]

About the portal, In Goblin slayer one is used to conect to the bottom of the ocean, the sheer pressure of the water is used to cut a giant enemy in half, and other time to flood a cave full of goblins

[@nownowdontbehasty]

Geomancy, the ability to control the Earth beneath your feet. You could make tunnels to attack from any angle, cover, build fortifications overnight, remove the ground beneath their feet, and even throw boulders without catapults. You could even open a ravine to cut off armies from getting somewhere. Of course, magic this powerful would have to have some strict limits to maintain any sort of stakes. You'd probably at least have to have a range limit so getting the magic user close enough to inflict damage would be tricky. You could also make it time consuming, something that cannot be done instantly, so you can prepare the battlefield how you'd like it, but couldn't necessarily use it during the battle. I'd also like to mention a book series that incorporates magic into large scale battles quite effectively, and that's the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. You have a combination of a couple of magic systems, Essence, Kan, and Vessels, as well as anti magic tools called traps. How each is used in large scale battles is handled quite effectively in my opinion.

[@davidecolucci6260]

You could also raise sand or dust and concentrate it enough to suffocate armies, it is part of the earth. It also depend on how specific you can be, you could unearth toxic or even radioactive materials.

[@sevenproxies4255]

@Tim C. I'm not so certain tele-fragging wouldn't also kill the mage trying to do it? 🤔 I mean if the laws of physics remain the same, then it might result in both the mage and the person he's trying to telefrag end up getting vaporized together in a small nuclear explosion (I say nuclear because I'd imagine some atoms getting split by the event)

[@olorinmagus4479]

@@sevenproxies4255 you’re assuming it’s the mage using themselves to do this. All you would really need is a rock

[@davidecolucci6260]

@Tim C. That would depend on the mechanic and limitations of the teleportation, because if "Tele-Fraging" would work with a rock it should by logic happen any time a teleportation is made because the space you would teleport into would already be occupied by air (unless you teleport into space). So if the teleportation is a simple transferring of your(or the target anyway) physical body to another space, the same spell would have to vacate the area you are teleporting into by either pushing outward of the target area causing both an explosive like effect in the arrival place and a vacuum effect in the departure space, or outright exchange the position of yourself with that of the matter you are teleporting into. Also would the property of the material occupying the arrival spot have any effect on the possibility or even just the difficulty of the spell? Other solution would be the manipulation of the spatial existence of the targets(the teleported object and the teleported to area), by removing the space you previously occupied and the adding of such additional space to the arrival space which would cause a bloating of whatever material was there to accommodate the transfer. That would create in itself a myriad of other problems especially if such magic is widespread enough . On another note could you not just teleport a solid object inside the head of a target to kill it instantly? Or teleport one of it's vital organs out of the body?

[@PhilBagels]

I'm thinking of various matter-alteration spells, like D&D's Stone Shape and Passwall. The mightiest castle is rendered useless if your army can just march through the walls. If you can Transmute Rock to Mud, the castle becomes more of a danger for its inhabitants. Or how about some kind of desolidification spell - you become like a ghost, insubstantial and you can walk through walls, like Vision, and not only that, but the enemy's physical weapons - swords and arrows, etc. - pass through your body harmlessly.

[@FOertel]

Eragon had quite a unique System if I remember it right, there the mages of opposing armies were more of a strategic weapon in that they protected their own Soldiers from enemy mages, while trying to break the protection of those Mages over the enemy soldiers. It wasn't actually about big fireballs and anti magic shiels, but that magic could directly interact with a body, so when a mage lost focus, the soldiers he protected could just fall dead to the floor, because the enemy mages would do something simple like stopping the flow of blood in their bodies.

[@cioplasmmajic8327]

When talking about portals, I had a very war crime idea: combine the uses. Drop the front line into a portal that shoots them out a thousand feet in the air above the main force. You basically turned soldiers unwillingly into artillery against their allies.

[@AmanKumarPadhy]

Take my like and never mention this again

[@Bigmandembigenbydem]

"It's raining men. Hallelujah, it's raining men."

[@akumabito2008]

Cavalry charges would be.... interesting. Orbital equine bombardment.

[@sebastianb.3978]

Youncouodmcommit alo kinds of war crimey stuff with portals, depending 8n the range and scale.

[@zacharyhawley1693]

In all honesty. Mages would be a combination of Artillery, Logistics and Support All rolled into one. The side with the most prep time and most magic users will absolutely win. Engineers + Mages = Victory and or terrifying creations. In IRL the military and or private contractors is where the magic would be. Archmages and High Priests are obviously the highest valued target capable of wrecking your army and or reality in a cornacopia of ways. Meaning higher tier mages have top priority. Kill them first at all costs before you even think of engaging. Because, Mages at this level can take on even the world's superpowers and have a decidedly high chance to win. After Archmages would be the Abjurers/ Wardens. The ability to remove/ prevent crowd control effects and protect your troops and stuff is stupidly valuable. At the highest levels preventing magical effects for a limited time is the make or break of any battle. Divination mages are next since they can predict or keep an eye on your movements no matter what you do. Where Arcane fails. Divine magic does better when you can just ask a god whats going to happen an plan accordingly. Also makes logistics a breeze. After those two would be the summoners/ binders. The ability to call assassins, healers and tanks and creatures to fit any conceivable situation through a magic circle. Even if you don't summon demons, devils and the like. The ability to teleport even a platoon behind enemy lines is game changing.

[@Jadguy24]

See Saga of Tanya the evil kzbin.info/www/bejne/nWLLeodtZqqfq5o

[@chaotixthefox]

Conjurer paratroopers, summon armored division behind enemy lines.

[@Djorgal]

A necromancer can raise an army of the undead, use them to man factories and overwhelm any enemy power with industrial capability. Mages are incredible in warfare, but the best way to use them is often not on the battlefield. A fire mage can weld and smelt. There are ways to convert many kinds of magic into electricity and then you're gold. Your earth mages should be making roads for your army or building fortifications. As you said, mages would be priority targets for the enemy, why would you expose them by bringing them to the battlefield? Sure, divination can be used as scouts. But they can also be used to help design prototypes of new weapons. See what went wrong in the previous test to help improve on it or even foresee the result of a destructive test that you then doesn't need to do.

[@chaotixthefox]

@@Djorgal You're telling me a country exists that if it had access to masses of undead troops and would not use them to preserve their living population by replacing the soldiery with them? My man the people would have your head for sending them to die when you have the undead safe behind your lines.

[@Lufaine01]

Reminds me a lot of the world from Fullmetal Alchemist, where the "magic" users are strictly regulated by the military and once in, are often regarded as high ranking military officials as well as essentially weapons of mass destruction. Even in an era where firearms and armored vehicles are prevalent, the battle is ridiculously lopsided as soon as one of these State Alchemists shows up.

[@evilwelshman]

Call me wasteful of the potential but for some reason, when Shad mentioned how the magical portals could be used to make the cleanest cuts ever, the first thing that came to my mind was: *"Aha! We can use these portals to give us uniformly sliced, ultra thin salami!"* 😂😂

[@frantisekvrana3902]

Or tomatoes.

[@vepristhorn8278]

@@frantisekvrana3902 mmmm Elven salami

[@gokbay3057]

In Wheel of Time a character uses the gates for leatherworking.

[@pathfindersavant3988]

Mmmm, fantasy capacolle and prosciutto. Just imagine a wizards doing this magic while holding his pinched fingers up going "Gabagool!" as the incantation.

[@digzgwentplayer4159]

Potato chips!

[@MrMikellsof88]

Regarding balancing offensive and defensive spellcasting between opposing sides, the best example I read of this was in Terry Goodkind's 'Sword of Truth' series. One of the characters actually explains it for the reader when asked why they can't juse use magic to wipe out encroaching enemy soldiers. Essentially because the gifted on both sides were of roughly equal skill, all offensive spells from both sides were being countered as quick as they were being cast. I believe the character said something along the lines of "you know magic is being used properly when you don't see magic being used." which seems apt since if one side slipped up in their efforts, the other side would get a good hit in. There was precedent in the series as well for mixing magical and non magical components to launch effective strikes against the enemy. The "good guys" deal a massive blow against the enemy by crushing glass into dust and using a basic gust enchantment to blow clouds of it into the enemy's ranks which fucked up scores of soldiers and sorceresses/wizards because the shields they erected blocked the gust enchant (which they believed to be the attack), by which time natural breezes had taken over and the glass began to shred people. Regarding a thought I had ... inspired by one of the pictures you had up during your talk of fireballs. One caster creates a portal with one point near a bank of friendly casters and the other high above the centre of the enemy formation. Friendly casters lob fireballs into the portal and then sit around and drink cocoa as they listen to their enemies scream about the righteous judgement they've just been dealt.

[@touchpoint7848]

A great example of illusion magic is in the Dresden Files where a powerful magician confuses a much greater sized forces so that they can't figure out where the real opposing force is. This changed a battle field into a bridge action/choke point fight.

[@ethankendall9499]

I'm glad you mentioned spells that manipulate people's mental or emotional states. I'm actually writing a story that the magic is mostly powered by the channeler's emotions, but when they "channel" an emotion, it gets broadcasted to everyone around them and unless people have an insanely strong willpower, their own emotions begin to follow the channelers.

[@captainahab5522]

Broadcasting depressed hopelessness could cripple an army before an attack That reminds me of the point of view gun from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy movie

[@whollibaugh]

sounds interesting

[@lunaticbz3594]

@@captainahab5522 As someone who often channels depressed hopelessness. Affecting your enemies with that would only be useful in any way if your not affecting yourself/allies with the same emotion.

[@lunaticbz3594]

Assuming there is no blocking the ability, fear could be very useful if your side is trained and disciplined to handle it but your opponents are not. If you provoke a flight or fight response but all your guys go into fight mode, while the enemies are 50/50 on fight or flight then a lot of them are just going to run away.

[@ethankendall9499]

@@captainahab5522 One of the limitations is that it only affects a rather small area. About 50ft radius around the channeler.

[@mikkohernborg5291]

Once, in a DnD game, my Cleric used ‘Darkness' (which can be cast on objects, and is restrained if placed in a container) to create a whole heap of enchanted stones, to be dropped from above onto enemy positions by a group of fairies that the GM had inflicted upon me (fairies, right - so small as to be useless in combat, thought the GM). Specifically, the enemies' ballista positions, so that they couldn’t aim or operate the equipment. Using magic effectively on a battlefield can be enhanced to catastrophic levels if only the person doing it makes an effort to think outside the box. That’s why I say you should never underestimate the effectiveness of 'utility' spells, that are normally not considered offensive or defensive or healing magic. The 'Isekai' genre (where the main character is either reborn or transported to a fantasy world with their memories intact, often by dying) is popular in japanese manga, anime and light novels. Sometimes the protagonist knows and uses the magic system of the world somewhat, but it’s not often that someone who is a real mechanics-exploiter is put in this position, and often the writer seems to forget about the fact a bit into the story even if they are.

[@dragonfell5078]

I love that DnD story, that Cleric is so big brained Utility spells are underrated in general. The combat applications may not be immediately obvious, but can be incredibly practical.

[@dragonfell5078]

And I agree about the Isekai thing, I kinda wanna see the characters using magic in unique ways

[@laurelkeeper]

I recommend you take a look at 'Worth the Candle' by Alexander Wales, a well-written isekai story (prose, not any form of comic art) and is quite literally 'breaking game mechanics: the story'. I quite like it. Plus, it's free.

[@AzraelThanatos]

For D&D stuff, there's a whole big chunk of the 3.5 Complete Warrior that covers military campaigns in a D&D world...the concept seems that most of them would end up being surprisingly like modern warfare with the implications. Large formations are AoE bait, individual forces are susceptible to being overwhelmed there...then you have the monsters, communications, and other nastiness. Ebberon even has the Mournlands which are basically the end result of such a mess.

[@BobMcBobJr]

There's a spell that makes the victim make a melee attack on the caster. I used this to make people jump off cliffs, walls, and towers.

[@dterror6070]

Re. D&D magic in warfare, the big problem would be how close the caster has to be in order to use the 'chemical warfare' or other combat spells. Cloudkill (the poison cloud) requires the caster to be within 200-300 feet of where they're dropping the cloud. Archers have a much longer reach. Large scale battles would see magic be mostly irrelevant (at least in D&D) as it is more of a surgical tool.

[@gavinriley5232]

Logistics, surveillance, and transportation are where DND magic would Excell. You'd never see a DND wizard on the front lines, they'd die from an enemy sneezing in their general direction.

[@nanorider426]

Study AD&D Birthright. Cloudkill were a battle-spell.

[@marley7868]

hey the enemy is storming into the breach/chokepoint hey wizard cast the death cloud I'd argue they'd be more like a scalpel problem boom handled small single issue pain

[@TheCsel]

The Saga of Tanya is also an amazing alternate history / fantasy that involves large scale magic use in a war setting. It takes place in an alternate Europe where WW1 took place in the 1930s instead of the 1910s, and magic exists. There are very few magic users though, they can amplify their weapons, use shields and use artillery spells, and most importantly they can fly. This takes place as the first modern war when everyone is adjusting to things like planes, machine guns, and mass artillery barrages like in WW1, but also adjusting to Mages. So in the beginning Mages fly around and are really only used as scouts and spotting for conventional artillery strikes. However, the main character, from our world, instead implements using Mages as an elite commando squad: doing rapid strikes countering enemy manuevers, and striking behind enemy lines. The magic is strong in individual cases, but very limited in quantity of users, and mages magical stamina is low. So it is more about how you use your magic in a warfare strategic sense.

[@Ace_combatent]

Btw there is going to be a new season next year,and I am so hyped...

[@jonson856]

@@Ace_combatent hell yeaaaaahhhhhh 2022 babyyyyy!

[@tohpingtiang4878]

Well my reply was deleted cause I posted a video of tanya and he didn't like it.

[@Asphyx12]

@@tohpingtiang4878 what? Really?

[@tohpingtiang4878]

@@Asphyx12 yes, Maybe he just want to avoid the anime people who may come baring torches and pitchforks.

[@pepperoni4307]

"illusion magic can be unbelievable" Well... What's the point in it then!

[@huntclanhunt9697]

There's still formations in modern war. Even among infantry. Usually formations are on a squad or platoon level, and very loosely spaced, but they're there. The main goal is maximizing firepower and maneuverability, and making it so the squad leader will know where each of his men is at all times. When fighting in buildings and urban environment, formations are KEY for effectively clearing rooms, halls, and streets.

[@Pile_of_carbon]

There's an old rpg called Eon where there is a spell that causes a person to instantly get a massive stiffy for about as long as the caster wished. And no, it wasn't one of _those_ rpg: s. The rest if the magic was the normal variety. My friends and I had a blast with theorizing how it could be used in combat.

[@xursed7990]

Use it every time the enemy needs to pee and they will die of bladder infections.

[@UGNAvalon]

Spellbook: “Warning: Do not use spell for more than 4 hours.” Interrogator: “I’m going to need about 6 hours with this prisoner. 8 if they’re difficult.”

[@reptiliannoizezz.413]

DEATH BONER

[@maxthexpfarmer3957]

Gangrene

[@RandyKalff]

Limits blood circulation to the brain, makes for an easy target to make them bleed out, can be a distraction as well, the possibilities are endless. You could also really mess with them before combat by sneaking around their camp.

[@SkyReaperOne]

Magic would be AMAZING at helping supply lines. Even subtle things like "making things lighter" would be game changing. Sure, mages with high offensive capabilities would hold some value, but even those with the highest destructive potential would not be as valuable as those that would handle logistics. We're talking food supply, transportation, setting up camps and outposts... Heck, the most broken ones would be those with the abilities to straight up teleport things, even in limited quantities. there would also be those that would be valuable in covert operations and of course those that would help in the medical side. It doesn't matter what level of magic you are talking about, I believe all these domains would benefit greatly from such abilities. Even if they are only minor. So to reiterate, I think the order of usefulness for magic would be: Logistics Covert Ops. Offensive support Medical support.

[@Big_Red1]

D&D 5e has the 3rd level spell Create Food and Water: "You create 45 pounds of food and 30 gallons of water on the ground or in containers within range..." Sounds pretty useful for an army. Or the Mending cantrip which lets you repair things, or the Prestidigitation cantrip which lets you clean things or even give things flavor (could make incredibly bland food taste amazing for boosting morale). 3rd level Plant Growth: "...If you cast this spell over 8 hours, you enrich the land. All plants in a half-mile radius centered on a point within range become enriched for 1 year. The plants yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested." And this is just the low level shit. A higher level Wizard could, with the right feats, buff hundreds of soldiers with Mage Armor essentially removing the need for armor on those soldiers. Motherfucking CONTROL WEATHER. 8th level spell Mighty Fortress, takes a minute to cast and allows you to magically erect a small castle wherever you want for 7 days. And on, and on, and on. There are so many utility spells. A single high level caster could fuck an entire army up so hard (or buff the shit out of them) in 5th edition.

[@bartofii]

can't forget extradimensional space manipulation. containers of holding... personal extradimensional spaces. Something that Wheel of Time has was called "The Ways", a crafted access to an other worldly pathway between "Way Gates" Believed to be safer than normal routes or at the very least ignored the altered world post breaking.

[@paultiki9968]

Exactly. Any army marches on it's stomach. And no army moves effectively faster than the baggage train. Also, imagine being able to send extra arrows to archers, rocks for the trebuchets and so on from the store s a long way away

[@majora320]

I could also see utility and offensive magic being combined. Like when shad mentioned them using portals to see the enemy positions. That would also be the perfect opportunity to bombard them with explosive spells like fireball to thin their numbers and cause confusion.

[@timebomb418]

I think two spells that would have a huge impact: Goodberry (enchant a berry to provide equivalent of a day's worth of food, as well as heal minor wounds. A single casting creates 10. Anything that shortens supply lines is huge, enabling more Hannibal situations) and Cure Disease (Imagine your army never getting sick). Other side of the coin is sneaking into enemy camp and creating a magical plague/contagion, seems like the thing that would be against magical rules of warfare pretty quickly but guerrilla/resistance fighters would employ to great effect.

[@berrymand71]

Those are some of my least favorite spells in D&D. I have banned these and several others like create food and water in my games.

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@berrymand71 I treat goodberry like how The Wheel of Time treats a certain trick that can let people ignore their exhaustion. They aren’t actually feeding themselves, just making their bodies think they’re full. If used too often or too carelessly, players start to suffer debuffs. As for create food and water, I like to think that bland food eventually gets sickening over a while. Depending on each player’s constitution or background, the blandness gets so unbearable that players start suffering exhaustion. They also can’t just eat one good meal and then repeat the cycle either. If I was stuck eating disgusting meals over and over then got a taste of something good, then went back to the disgusting meals I’d probably vomit. They would need to wait at least a month before trying that again and it would only get worse for their mental health.

[@Sorain1]

I had a ton of fun back in 3.5 D&D with these indirect magical warfare things. What changed the course of a war? A wizard developed a wand that could be used by anyone, another figured out how to make one that can only cast 3 times... _a day_ . These would be used by the PC's to punch stupidly above their weight class as merc support to a resistance movement. Post campagin, when their government proceeded to smash the two together and equip their armies with 'cleric in a stick' they proceeded to keep up an operational tempo that should have been impossible. Casualty estimates against them were utterly wrong because of how many lives the 3 a day cure wounds wands saved, not to mention how much speeding recovery of the injured busted strategic thinking wide open. I had written a pair of follow ups to that campaign idea. By the time of the first, elven Ranger drop troops using feather fall and magically lightened plate armor to strike from the skies as air mobile infantry (Flying ships) were the new gold standard of warfare. The big developments in that era were the 'channel wand' (a way to pile up magical energy from lower level spells to have the device fire off a higher level one) and going into Dreadnought type ship design for the flying ships, along with defacto radio networks via reusable Message wands being the standard unit/garrison level communications system. The campaign pitch would be the PC's being the merc support to an experimental weapon unit and thus figuring out that while a magical mini-mecha (think WW1 tanks in terms of performance and issues) was nice, it would need infantry support to matter. The later follow up was basically 'all this taken too far', Channel wands that can level cities and take entire collages of mages (or spell like ability slave labor) to charge up, scrying and teleportation being useless beyond a few hundred feet because of the sheer amount of counter enchantments around, (leading to what were basically spy satellites being a thing) all personal armor replaced with vastly heavier full body containment 'magically mobile armor' (this would be cosmetic for balance reasons), ranged weapons being by default spell style Guns. The big campaign pitch being a (behind the scenes desperate) government making a Yamato-esk super flying ship with it's own magical intelligence, WMD level channel wand systems and an experimental travel system based on Dimension Door. (It's Space Fold style FTL basically.) PC's would wind up with the ship loyal to them specifically and every government in the world wanting to take it. I figured that from there the players would make decisions and I'd have the interest's react to it. That last follow up was the only one with a real 'big bad' classical fantasy plot going on, since it would ground the heavily science fantasy setting state back to where it started. (Big fancy reveals include ancient civilization with roughly this tech level of magi-tech, the big bad has a massive base on the moon, and _Atropus, the World Born Dead_ being soon to arrive in orbit of the planet, the knowledge of it and prep to fight it being the motivation behind a lot of antagonistic figures. (This was also why the ancients were pumping out super weapons like it was Strangereal or something, they saw it coming and went 'better prepare to fight that Elder Evil!')

[@abelknecht4943]

clan pestilens and nurgle from warhammer would like to talk to you (both very heavy disease based tactics)

[@ArantyrDarkhand]

@@connorgrynol9021 Lol tell that to a guy that almost 1 year eating the same thing only changing the quantity. Bodybuilding.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

I wanna point out the usability of portal magic as a replacement for siege engines. You don't need mangonels anymore, just lay a bunch of rocks on the floor and portal them onto an enemy position. No point in making siege towers if you can just set a portal and walk onto the enemy walls. In fact this raises the question of wether castle walls would be a liability in a world with even small scale portal magic. Also, anti-magic doesn't mean magic is completely ineffective, you just have to be more creative. Fireball resistant armor isn't gonna help much when you're standing on wooden bridges, you may be immune to portal magic, but you're not immune to rocks falling on your head. Breathing bubbles filter out magical gas? Send in soldiers without breathing bubbles and magic up airborne stimulants instead. I also like how Warmachine handles battlefield magic. There's usually one or two units per faction that can cast minor magic, but largely speaking magic was used by the commanders of an army. It could be devastatingly effective, and it was rare enough that if you demonstrated magical aptitude you were almost instantly (after training, obviously) given an army to lead. One thing is for certain. Stealth. All of this magic would DRASTICALLY improve the need for stealth. Camouflage patterns would be standard issue, even if you had to meld them onto metal armor. Assassins and rangers would replace squires and knights out of necesity. You can't be bombarded if you're not seen. You can't be deathfogged if you're not seen. A final thought: we're talking about applications IN war, but what about the aftereffects? All the earthquaking would loosen the soil, fireballs would torch the land. Battlefields would become wastelands by the end. I don't think the populace would be happy with the resulting landslides. So how would all this affect popular support? Would wars even be feasible, hell would they be necesary? There's four main reasons to go into war: Expansionism, Resource acquisition, Moral Conflict(mostly Religion, but also the Good vs Evil stuff), and Diplomatic obligation. The first one's bound by popular support, the second might be unnecesary (no need to conquer an iron mine if you can just conjure up tools whenever). The third one could happen, and the fourth one is a result of the other three by someone else.

[@agrippa2012]

Magic replacing siege engines is only possible if magic is unlimited. If magic is mentally-physically taxing to the caster or if its like in DnD in which a mage can only cast a few fireballs in a day than, no, siege engines would still have a place, because those can shoot stones all day long.

[@dojelnotmyrealname4018]

@@agrippa2012 Siege engines aren't the easiest to operate either. Sure, you can replace the siege crew, but the same argument goes for the mages. There's a reason the counterweight trebuchet is powered by a literal treadmill, it requires a LOT of stored up energy, which must be manually applied beforehand.

[@agrippa2012]

@@dojelnotmyrealname4018 it would require a lot of mages to keep replacing them all day long, in some settings magic users are pretty rare. Siege engines can be operated by anyone. Quantity is a quality all in its own, as they say :P

[@albertonunez2045]

@@agrippa2012 i like the throwing rocks through portals idea, but I always figured they would do it in the ocean and flood out a city if they were going that route. If you have an ocean of course, maybe its too far.

[@Cha-Khia]

@@agrippa2012 So I'm working on running a WW1 D&D 5e game (it's D&D with ww1 era tech and culture, we'll be playing come late Jan. early Feb.) and I've had to consider how abundant magic should be, are there a lot of magic users? Are any of them actually powerful or are they just a gaggle of low levels mages and powerful mages are rare? What creatures that used to be scary before will no longer be of much threat due to firearms being the main weapons of war? Even an Ancient Dragon would succumb in short order to a company of riflemen (40~ dudes with guns), do I need to buff certain creatures to make up for this, or do I make the main threat other guys with guns? These types of questions are running through my head daily, not that I mind, it's been fun to think about. To get to your point, magic may not outright replace non-magic equipment, but would absolutely supplement it.

[@sleepymetalhead7536]

I always liked how the inheritance series (eragon) handled magic in warfare both balancing and showing how useful mages are in warfare with the more powerful ones being downright scary

[@jaysnow701]

It was well done, i do wonder what books he stole it from.

[@tempname3308]

When I was designing a magic-heavy world setting, this type of reasoning was key. It’s important to not just look at the immediate results from magic, but also the secondary effects, HOW the results are being created. As just a single example, I looked into how chlorine gas can be made (the assumption was that one side had much more potent offensive and defensive magic than the other, so advantages were necessary). One of the simple ways to produce chlorine is running intense electrical current through brine (very salty water)... In a DnD style setting, all you need in order to replicate that is access to ocean water and something like a lightning-breath dragon. An almost infinite supply of a non-magical chemical weapon, that cannot be easily dispelled by counter-magic. That’s just one example, and I intentionally tried to look every aspect of the world setting that way; not just the immediate power of magic, but how it could be applied across thousands of uses.

[@tempname3308]

@neoXprepper I feel that pain deep in my soul, my friend...

[@InceyWincey]

“Cannot easily be dispelled by counter magic.” Yeah but if the wind blows the wrong way you’ll kill all your own troops…

[@TheErilaz]

Bah.. "control wind"...

[@tempname3308]

@@InceyWincey This also is valid. It’s a risk, especially on open battlefields. Which is why, in the world setting, it was typically intended for clearing out fortifications. Walls, tunnels, defensive barriers, all serve to channel the heavier-than-air gas into places that are (at least) somewhat awkward to easily address. Also, part of the use was that there’s often the possibility of magic resistance, weapon resistance, poison and fire resistance... most mageocracy types had no reason to imagine “natural gas acid cloud” as a potential threat.. because at the time, it wasn’t. Context is always important, this is true.

[@notyou2353]

An electrical current applied to slightly salty water, or electrolysis, will create Oxygen and Hydrogen. Pure Oxygen is a very powerful medical as well as metalworking tool. Hydrogen is a very powerful energy storage tool and can be used as a fuel source. If a dragon that spits lightning only requires food to supply that lightning, then there's a very good chance that lightning spitting dragons will be used as a major manufacturer of some very important base industrial and medical ingredients. I mean, storage of Hydrogen allows storing that dragon's electrical beam as future potential energy, while storage of Oxygen can be used to accelerate the healing of broken bones or greatly improve metalworking and welding. Dang... now that I think about it, I see less and less reason for a high fantasy magic setting to *not* have some pretty modern technological innovations, too... I mean, unless someone does the whole Harry Potter (or Arcanum) "Magic and technology don't play well together" thing. :-p

[@WandererRTF]

The problems of setting the rules in magic can be really tricky. One of my favorites was in the old RuneQuest system the spell which allowed you to temporarily transform inanimate objects (of chosen material). Then one of the players chose to (ab)use it... The ability to turn say a wooden door or a chest temporarily into matchsticks was a 'bit overpowered'.

[@Barwasser]

I love these kinds of discussions. I spend way too much time thinking about these things and it is great to see, that there are others like me :D One of my favourite spells would be to reduce the percentage of oxygen in the air over a large area. You could basically wipe out an entire army without them being all the wiser. People would just suddenly start losing consciousness and suffocate shortly after.

[@chris_stinson]

that's a good one, but would require an understanding of the chemical composition of the air before it'd be feasible in the setting unless you mean removing all air from an area which would be a bit more noticeable, but still very effective

[@Barwasser]

@@chris_stinson that's why I think it's cool - if someone came to realize that air isn't just one thing, but a mix of several gasses, that little bit of extra knowledge would give them an extra edge over less educated people. Thus natural science would be a key component of magical research. In regards to your solution, I would imagine that creating a vacuum would require much more magical energy as you have to fight against the pressure difference of the entire atmosphere. In my example you would only have to seperate two components (O2 and N) from each other while keeping the pressure constant, which might be easier depending of the magical rules involved.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Me: "I can only use three Magic Types because every other magic type has no reaction or interaction from me... (1) Primordial Void: The duality of Existence and Nothingness. Unfortunately, this power only affects myself, so I cannot directly lend supportive aid to others... (2) Techno-mancy: It is of a personal reach distance for Matter and Energy Manipulation at best. And, the ability to use technology without the limitations that mankind faces, at worst. However, energy cannot be created, only transformed... (3) Soul Trigger Heart: Similarly to the Demon Trigger Heart for Devils who can achieve their King status. It is the power of my own soul without the limitations as seen with the Soul Arts from the early days of mankind against the Old Ones... ... ... Sometimes magic is chosen at random or influenced by other means. But ever rarely, will the very Soul of one choose its magics." Mage Soldier: "Interesting... But I'll take the portal instead." Also me: "I'm not payed enough to watch over the general's military units."

[@werewolf4358]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 wut?

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@werewolf4358 If magic existed in the modern era, then I would leave Earth as soon as possible. lol

[@Nlinzer]

A huge thing in DnD that most people forget is that create food spell is a first level cleric spell. Now clerics are very rare in Greyhawk 3.5 and almost always low level, but even so a magic item that makes food for a person for life is very little money. Imagine if a kingdom spent a large amount of money buying a lot of magic items so that no one would have to grow food. The magic items would last forever and now you don't have to have farmers, you can have them be craftspeople, soldiers, even scholars 100% of the time.

[@ScottiHubba]

One I've seen which I like is in Goblin Slayer priestess learns Purify or something like that. Goblin attacks her she has no spells apart from that. Casts it on his blood... Which then turns to pure water and obviously kills him. She even got a visit from her goddess and was told that if used it this way again she would have her magic striped. Thought it was very creative and funny how had to be banned straight away.

[@Spiceodog]

Most dnd thing ever, the dm says “ I’ll allow it just this once”

[@Sorain1]

@@Spiceodog Absolutely.

[@michaelramon2411]

I had a modern-day-with-magic setting where most mages use conventional firearms, because it is easier and quicker to fire a gun than to cast offensive spells, and bullets travel faster. However, there is a very basic spell that protects one person from most standard projectiles (blocks bullets, not artillery shells), which negated this technique - UNTIL someone realized you could enchant bullets before combat to allow them to penetrate the shield spell. These shieldbreaker rounds are a bit expensive and can be blocked by even more powerful shield spells (which take up more magical energy), which in turn can be countered by even more expensive shieldbreaker rounds. (The mage can't enchant shieldbreakers themselves - it has to be done when the round is manufactured, so preparation is key.) The government has a special sniper rifle ("the Borer") that can penetrate any known shield spell, but every shot costs literally thousands of dollars (to say nothing of the rifle itself). When the arms race is all said and done, most elite combat mages can survive gunfire, but they devote a lot of their spells to movement, evasion or getting the drop on the enemy so they can't properly protect themselves, because a direct brawl is so resource-intensive. Firing bullets at a shielded foe is still somewhat worth it, because a mage has a limited amount of magic endurance, and their shield spells drain that while your magic bullets take none of your own magic, so it can help you outlast them. There are also shield spells that protect against most magic attacks, but they are a separate class of spells from the anti-projectile ones - while someone can have both up at once, it is VERY draining to do so. As a result, most battle mages switch between magical and projectile shielding and firearms and magical attacks depending on what the opponent is doing. After all, you only have a finite number of shieldbreaker rounds of various strengths, and if you waste them all on weak opponents, you might be out of luck later. A common approach is to load a magazine with two or three nonmagical bullets and then a shieldbreaker - you can fire those first bullets, instantly see if they have done the job, and if not keep firing to switch to the shieldbreaker. (I should note this tactics were designed for small-scale, close-quarters combat, and not necessarily open field battle by armies, which effectively doesn't happen in the setting due to magical society's small size, decentralized organization and desire for secrecy.)

[@alexanderthelegend]

Bullet mages lmao

[@MashMaloCircus]

Sounds like saga of Tanya the evil which is basically mage fighting in ww1 Europe

[@Sorain1]

That sounds like it would lead to an Anti-Tank weapons situation, where squads would be issued a few AM (Anti-Mage) weapons/tools and if you don't have them, fighting a mage is slightly less insane than fighting a tank without AT weapons.

[@Levidieter_]

A spell that would, in my opinion, drastically change warfare is mind-reading. It's so overlooked, but could you imagine if even just one person had that ability, they could know just how the enemy would be fighting and be able to combat it perfectly, especially if they also employ the fireball, and other spells, they would know how to counter and effectively defeat the enemy.

[@skyereave9454]

Or instant communication. How many battles would have completely different outcomes with a spell to instantly relay commands and receive feedback. Or perhaps spells that light up the night for battles that drag on

[@jeffhoward162]

Create food and drink. Instant logistics, almost eliminating the need for supply lines.

[@kellynolen498]

@@jeffhoward162 yeah magic is over powered if they don't give proper trade offs the most reasonable is the magic is expensive takes life long study for any success and since any discoveries are the product of life long research there secretive magic books are only heavily coded notes and national treasures and since these magic men are rich hobbyists and old scholar there don't appear in battle only ever hundred years to cure the king/prince/princess/queen with magic to get a literal kings ransom of a reward to fuel there research of course public opinion is terrible because all they do is hold up in there castles and mutilate test subjects with magic animals sometimes humans sometimes poor humans willingly sometimes not

[@ericmurotake5180]

But, on the other hand, you'd also have to assume the enemy faction has that same capability, and have countermeasures (say, multiple different tactical plans, each in the mind of different people, and quickly reacting to the enemy's counter plan with another strategem (Say the enemy got the plans for a blitzkrieg rush attack and has massed their forces to repel that, so you quickly switch tactics to a ranged assault to take advantage of them grouping up)

[@kronos1794]

Only if one side had it. It's like Star Wars, each Jedi can kinda see the future when fighting but when they fight another force user the power is somewhat nullified. Against normies it would be busted, but if the other side has magic they likely have everything you have and maybe more.

[@SecularMentat]

I've found that many of the 'low level spells' in D&D have always been powerful. Especially so in large scale combat. I think the intention was to effectively make it tall magic not wide magic (though in Eberron it was wide) so that fewer folks had magic. You might have a squad of spell casters in the military, but they were treated like special archery, or artillery at best. Low level magics, like you're talking about are extremely effective, even if they only work 50% of the time, they're devastating at scale.

[@SecularMentat]

Also I really really love this topic. Magic is so versitile especially in role playing games, even with 'hard rules' the DM makes the rules. So they can change the rules to magic to fit the setting. But I think you've made the perfect point about it. How does it affect the larger world? I think Elven High Magic in older (2, 3, 3.5) of D&D would be devastating in warfare. If you could carry around a miniature Mythallar that changes the very nature of magic. You'd essentially be fighting a one sided magical war.

[@perote3]

There is a japanese light novel that I was instanly reminded of because it's called "The Wrong way of using healing magic", where the main character is recruited by an woman that forces him to constantly train his body while casting healing magic on himself, allowing him to train his body a lot more than a normal person would be capable of doing before exhaustion. And during war they would run around luggin 2-3 people at a time back to a safespot where they could be nursed back or healing with magic those on more imediate danger

[@marvalice3455]

Magic is most useful for logistics. A bag of holding would revolutionize campaigns

[@toddkes5890]

Permanent magic items would be the key. Instead of risking a wizard on the front lines, various magic items would be made by the wizards and shipped to the front lines

[@marvalice3455]

@@toddkes5890 in the story im writing right now, the magic system is almost all about items. There is a little wizardry, having a few dozen magic spears is generally better than one battle mage

[@mq5731]

How about teleporting an army into an enemies flank? Teleportation gates change Warfare by shortening supply lines and making armies deployable from any city which has one.

[@marvalice3455]

@@mq5731 think of the implications of that. suddenly the army wants to be as close to a city as possible so it can be moved if necesary. what does this mean for remote places?

[@Lynemn]

A bag of holding also costs more than an entire army, when you look at their GP value. Definitely not worth the cost. There are more efficient logistics magics.

[@NDNDNDNDNDNDNDNDNDNDND]

It's not medieval, but The Saga of Tanya the Evil are a series of light novels that delve into this subject around WW1/WW2 alternate history in which magic is militarized and used by all sides. Mages serve as recon, artillery, elite commandos, etc. It's a very interesting set of ideas and I like how the author incorporates real events and how things would've changed with the presence of magic.

[@simeondeboer8625]

Gosh Shad... If you don't quit making episodes like this, I might actually start writing my own book. You're giving me all sorts of rediculously awesome Ideas. I really love these rantings of yours.

[@hindigente]

Illusion spells are really powerful. On top of aforementioned examples, they can be used to hide armies, make soldiers from your side appear to be from the opposing side and vice-versa, etc. Even very small illusions can be effective, like creating the illusion of coins or any other small object over someone's eyes, effectively blinding them.

[@adamlatosinski5475]

Several other ideas: Communication. Being able to send orders to your troops instantly in the battle allows the fighting force to immediately react to the changing situation. Weather control: creating mist or mud on the battlefield may significantly impair enemy troops. Good weather helps moving troops from place to place (if portals are not available). Summoning: some creatures from other planes have unique abilities and may serve as special purpose troops. Golems and other magical constructs.

[@agustinvenegas5238]

I'm also thinking of divination magic, like it would be very freaking useful if you could just know where the enemy army is and what's it's plan without having any spies on the field

[@sevenproxies4255]

Yeah, just basic telepathy would be insanely important to any army capable of using it. The strategic command would always have a perfect overview of what their field commanders can see, and they can issue orders directly to their field commanders on the fly. It would basically turn a fantasy medieval army into a modern world army using radio communications, only better because even radio communication has limitations like range problems, interference and miscommunication. If we assume the telepathy has infinite range it would be way superior to any modern forms of wireless communication. It would also permit the army to operate with different troop formations. Lot's of skirmisher units in loose formations operating with a tactical advantage to a more traditional medieval army that has to use close ranks and be within line of sight with eachother to coordinate.

[@ostrowulf]

When he talked about the portal above watching, all I thought about was drone warfare. Not only observing, but you could also drop stuff from above, creating drone strikes.

[@sevenproxies4255]

@@ostrowulf Yes. Basically, since we already use drones for warfare because of the utility in it, it makes sense that magic users in a fantasy setting would do the same.

[@CPD0123a]

@@sevenproxies4255 there's a fantastic series called The Saga of Tanya The Evil that's entirely based on the premise of an alternate world war with magic mixed in. Definitely worth reading. In that series, something that is brought up is that while yes you could have magical telecommunications, you can also have magical jamming. You could develop methods, both scientific and magical, that could block magical communication, even block sounds and talking. If anything, you would have WORSE communication than without magic.

[@twoarc7293]

I like the idea of standard issue magic, think military issued spell books, which are unit specific, so say an engineer unit would have more earthmoving spells for their wizards where a reconnaissance unit would have more spells that increase sight ability and movement speed or concealibility, this could be cool because the military would likely want to regulate the use of spells and limiting military wizards to a certain specific group of spells (similarly how most modern armies use standard issue rifles or carbines to simplify logistics)

[@thompsonel-melloi9270]

Boot camp for a wizard is read the spell book while doing pushups

[@j_etherdrake_t8250]

Imaging being able to mind-control animals at a large scale, this would be absolutely crazy in a setting with mega-fauna ( perhaps animals inspired by african species such as zebras, antelopes and wildebeests). Maybe you could control a whole migratory herd (something like the great migration of East Africa) of millions of animals and make them stampede all over an army. Obviously it all depends on the limitations of the setting but it sure sounds really cool

[@zahylon5993]

No need for megafauna, the Humble Locust will do the trick, send the buggers to the enemy country farmlands and have them eat all their food, a starved country can't fight. Also, Mosquitoes, Wasps, Roaches...any sort of pest that can make night a hell for the enemy camp will absolutely be abused in warfare.

[@rrenkrieg7988]

i mean magical animal handling would be amazing with logistics too, imagine moving large herds of cattle and donkeys without having to actually "herd" them around, they just go where they are needed no fuss no muss

[@j_etherdrake_t8250]

@@zahylon5993 Yeah insects and even rodents would be amazing (terrifying really) in a setting of magical animal handling

[@kotarouinugami1745]

How about malaria-carrying mosquitoes? They have to be deployed in advance, of course.

[@NevisYsbryd]

@@zahylon5993 Mosquitos already kill more humans than humans do (if restricted to deliberate deaths, such as homicide). Yeesh.

[@renewasgehtsiedasan2211]

I found the use of magic in Eragon as a child very interesting. like killing a giant amount of people with the strengh needed to lift a finger, due to making arteries in their brain burst.

[@niknar266]

I'm glad someone is talking about how useful teleports/portals are in combat. Goblin Slayer has another pretty cool combat use of portal spells. Goblin Slayer links a portal scroll to the bottom of ocean and activates it to kill a Ogre with high regenerative skills. High pressure water rushes out of the portal like a blade and vaporises most of the Ogre allowing it to be stabbed in the head to finish it.

[@kingnhonj954]

Teleportation and portals have always seemed ridiculous without a ton of limitations on them. Basically every mage that can use a portal become an equivalent threat as the amount of troops that can move through their portal.

[@dionjaywoollaston1349]

there's also his use of his companions miracles

[@leviosdraekion6993]

I was thinking about exactly that moment when he started talking about portals. Definitely one of my favorite scenes from that anime.

[@Reaper0123]

Was thinking the same thing. Also was reminded of Darkseid teleporting some magma with them boomtubes at enemy location.

[@TomFranklinX]

In Wheel of Time, one of the magic users opens a portal to the center of an active volcano.

[@helldrake77777]

Building up on your statement that the "door" spell can be used to give a top-down view of the enemy, and then someone else can cast through that door, I imagine that this will build into the new command centers for battle. Where each side has one or more camps of magicians doing combined arms: One guy opens the door spell over an army or other place, another one casts big spells on the enemy through it, a third guy does spellcraft to protect allies, fourth uses counter magic to prevent the enemy magicians from successfully casting their spells, and another focuses on having their command center be hidden or made undetectable by enemy wizardry. And both sides have these, trying to one up each other. This also gives meaning to armies hiring rogues, rangers or training up their own covert ops, so that these sneaky people get behind the enemy line and try to sniff out/identify these mage command centers and either take them out, or signal to a different force to come take it out instead. Even if only one of those mages is disposed of, that gives the other side a massive advantage. Say one side no longer has a counter mage, yeah you can still cast your spells, but the enemy might counter them while dishing out his own, or the door mage gets shafted, well that basically leaves your army defenseless, since you have no way of directly intervening. And these command centers can also be made mobile, to increase their chance of staying hidden. Just the level of tactics and the like is exiliarating with just these small thoughts. XD

[@thefabulouskitten7204]

That is exactly what ends up happening in Wheel of Time.

[@donaldhobson8873]

Like you need another mage to cast a destructive spell. Just open the door between where you want to target and, ocean depths, earths mantle, suns core. (Depending how much damage you want to do. Do you really want dinosaur killer level energies? 10m by 10m portal for 1 to 60 seconds. (Wikipedia has quite a lot of uncertainty on how big it was.))

[@corymoon2439]

So for dnd 5e, I can see plenty of spells being incredibly useful. Offensive magic is generally more powerful than defensive, but I'm thinking of the "utility" spells. For example, move earth. You can move a 5 foot cube of earth or compact it. This is a canttip (0 level, cast it a thousand times a day) so in 6 seconds you can make a foxhole. In a few hours you can make an earthen fort. Given a few days or weeks you could change the terrain of an area. Are you living in an open plain but want a hillfort? To easy. Your entire city can be built atop a hill even though your region is flatter than a pancake.

[@EgoEroTergum]

I had a warlock once, that ended up being left in town by the party during an adventure. She went to work in the mines, for about 12 hours with move earth. The DM calculated the haul using the labor tabes and the volume of earth moved, and my char spent the rest of the campaign elevating their family from poverty to nobility as a landlord and real estate tycoon.

[@Infernitar]

We had a druid that tried something like this to restrain someone by burying them. The DM ruled that it wouldn't work because the moved earth would be loose, not compacted. It also has to be from unoccupied space, so you can't move the earth under, say, a building. It's mostly to keep the balance of it being a cantrips, because otherwise you'd never use the more costly versions.

[@sidecharacter7165]

Needs to be loose earth so have your legionaries use picks to break it down and then move it to build earthen dams and deep earthen moats. Use it and Druidcraft to build perfect pitraps.

[@arcxjo]

I notice true strike is conspicuously absent from YOUR list ...

[@corymoon2439]

@@arcxjo I gave just one utility spells use in war. The whole list of spells presents so many opportunities for warfare and daily life.

[@98loud]

I like the idea of dedicated roles to prevent stuff like portals opening around you. Like, a regiment could function somewhat like a vehicle. You have shielders around the outside, offensive casters inside, within that you have the specialists who's sole job it is to counter anything the shield wouldn't catch, like IED scanners. Another cool idea is that the reason magic users don't just rip apart armies is because there are master casters on each side constantly casting and countering each other. So you have these giant spells threatening to open over a battlefield constantly but that never fully get going.

[@admiralcasperr]

Mass Effect dealt with its space magic nicely. Biotic artillery units, barrier support, special forces, all lovely.

[@80krauser]

Didn’t go far enough in my opinion. Pound for pound asari were REALLY undervalued I’m all the talk of 3. Sure they might might have the sheer endurance of krogan but every trooper being at least moderately capable in biotics is absolutely insane. Especially in freedom of movement with biotic dashes, charges and the dimple fact of lightening their mass to cross otherwise inaccessible crossings. Edit Admittedly it would be nigh impossible to actually show this in a standard Mass Effect game. Now a Reaper War styled Assassins Creed kinda game fighting ground control reaper forces would be pretty awesome

[@The-Black-Death]

I actually have something like this incorporated within a story set in my own medieval fantasy setting, basically it takes place during an important battle as one of the last major conflicts to end the 2nd World War and basically what happened is that one of the main Kingdoms uses most of it's mages to fight off against an undead horde twice the size of their army which resulted in major casualties that only fed the enemies' forces, so then the mages were forced to basically use their arcane arts to completely blast away the enemy forces in addition to resorting to "scorched earth" tactics to halt the enemy's advance. However because most forms of magic casting in my setting(with some exceptions) consist of using eldritch or corrupting energy almost similar to radiation that they call upon from an Astral Realm or Dimension, they ended up casting too many dangerous spells in one area that they inadvertently created dimensional rifts between the Physical Realm and the Astral Realm, which leaked out more and more corruptive energy that resulted in a massive portal storm that raged across the battlefield and the surrounding areas, permanently scaring and cursing the land with astral anomalies and mutated creatures as the tears in reality weren't able to be properly closed, even after the war had long since ended. For this specific event and region in particular, I was heavily inspired by the Stalker games along with Half Life and The Witcher since I've always enjoyed the idea of harmful eldritch or astral dimensions and beings bleeding into places they aren't supposed to belong in naturally, I actually would say I was also heavily inspired Lovecraft's "Color Of Out Space" for some of the concepts of this astral or arcane Dimension.

[@agrippa2012]

Warhammer is right up your alley if that's the stuff you like

[@TruhartJenkins]

And if that location was in a strategic position, the scarred nature of the land could turn it into the Kessel Run from Star Wars where you could save a lot of time by going through the area, but it is so much more dangerous than going around so the route is really only used by smugglers and whatnot.

[@The-Black-Death]

@@agrippa2012 Oh I know some of Warhammer actually, though my only real exposure to that series is the Total War games, never truly considered myself a fan of the series but I do really love the Lizardmen and the Beastmen. XD

[@The-Black-Death]

@@TruhartJenkins Well basically what happened with the region is that it became somewhat of a haven for bandit activity hiding from the reach of the human kingdoms, as well as treasure hunters and explorers despite it's infamy. But given how hazardous and volatile the place has become, it inadvertently became a barrier against most foreign threats to the human realms beyond this region, which has also resulted in the previous trade routes through this area becoming abandoned or forgotten after the war, making travel past this region only viable through the distant land to the south, far from the corruption of the zone.

[@TruhartJenkins]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Great job.

[@Blade6394]

I believe Dragon Age does a good job with the magic in their world, only a small amount of people can be born with it and they are known to be really dangerous if left unchecked since they have a high risk of getting possessed by demons, so while mages are really useful for the armies in the world most don't want to risk the odds of the mage getting possessed and killing their own soldiers. Most of the countries have special soldiers that are meant to supress, or failing that kill, any mage that goes of the rail either by own volition or possessed.

[@thinnedpaints6503]

It's much like 40K, where magic is treated as a bad thing, generally, as it's far too powerful for most to understand, letalone control. If used properly however, it's the most powerful weapon in the galaxy.

[@TheArklyte]

Dragon Age setting ie Thedas is also very good at lying to player. Mages are collected into the Circle not because of the danger of being possessed, but to shield cities from possession. Spirits of Fade can posses non mages, animals and even objects. There are possessed trees and rocks among enemies. Instead they collect mages, teach them and surround them with templars. Mages are used as a bait since their souls shine so bright in Fade that everyone around them basically can hide in the shadow. And in exchange mages are teached how to use their abilities and protect themselves. That's why in the wilderness you can see a possessed object or animal, but in cities only circle mages are at risk. And templars, who guard them. But that arrangement is so old, nobody even remembers why it started. It was only hinted upon in Origins and 2, but in Inquisition when Fade anchors get destroyed, it's basically confirmed that it's a way to shield populace from demonic invasions at expense of mages.

[@adamjenkins7653]

In addition these mages will willingly allow possession during blights, Dragon Age: Last Flight covers the 4th blight, I would recommend.

[@Wolfers-iu9jh]

35:00 well, for healing, you could possibly heal things in a way that it will incopasitate an individual or implant a bomb into a captured troop before sending them back to the enemy and blowing it up when you know some time has passed. You could also use it as a means of torture if you need information about the enemy plans and if you can capture someone with a high enough rank. True there are not ways to directly harm someone using healing, unless you can change someones body structure, but there are other ways to use it in war

[@cameraman8901]

Or if healing includes mending you could just fuse the bone and nerves in someones body

[@Kebab136]

I guess they would have a Geneva convention of some sort to ban that xD

[@mousermind]

*incapacitate If you don't know how to spell a word, and are too lazy to Google it, just use a simpler word...

[@kevincrady2831]

*Portal spells:* Depending on range limits to the "other end" of the portal, you could open a portal into the middle of an enemy army, whose "other end" is in the heart of a volcano, the vacuum of space, in the middle of a large body of water or any other place (such as another Plane or the like) that would be highly inconvenient for the enemy to have pouring out into the middle of their force. *Enchanted items:* Potentially limitless applications. *Cantrips:* Even wimpy little cantrips (as in D&D) like Dancing Lights or Firebolt can be devastating if you've got a thousand people casting them at the same time. And as a bonus, they can be cast an unlimited number of times (or in a non-D&D setting, would require little power from the casters). *Conjuration:* In a naval battle, conjure bits of sodium to drop into the water around an enemy fleet.

[@ltsecondincomand]

A devastating maneuver I've always thought about is to get a large number of earth magic users to lift large chunks of rock into orbit and keep them there and when they're within range of the target pull them down, this could be equivalent to nuclear strike and would be logical way of casting a meteor spell.

[@emartinez2046]

Kinetic bombardment ftw

[@descent1234567890]

the rock would need to be VERY big for it not to burn up on re-entering the atmosphere and VERY high up to stay in orbit. would require VERY potent magic.

[@Coffin17I]

Why waste all the energy lifting and holding rocks in orbit, just lift the enemies brains out of their heads?

[@singularleaf3895]

@@Coffin17I because they could be capable of countering that magic but a giant rock....

[@TheShadowSentinel]

there's no need for it to be lifted into orbit - a few hundred meters would suffice.

[@soren3569]

For an author, beyond working out cool uses of magic, this process is also vital for not creating plot holes and fridge logic instances (like the MCU "just portal off Thanos' arm" example Shad mentions). It's usually trivially easy to include rules in magic systems that limit how certain types of spells work--if you lay down those ground rules first. Want to allow large-scale military movements and have a far-flung empire, but don't want to have close-quarters military magic? Require expensive metal inlays to 'anchor' both ends of a portal. Capitol has a 'hub'' of circles, each corresponding to a distant city, meaning they can garrison almost their entire army at the central city, and can project defensive force rapidly--but utterly impractical for battlefield applications (though a wagon with an inlay might be useful for flanking maneuvers, but would also be very high-priority targets for the enemy). Want to allow battlefield magic, but not some of the more extreme examples? Have portals covered by a 'membrane', requiring will to pass through, and have the portal be one-side-or-the-other. So you can maneuver around the battlefield effectively, but can't force someone else through (unless they are unconscious, perhaps, and even then you have to carry them through?), and no slicing off arms or raining a hail of arrows down from above. If the membrane is opaque, then overwatch is removed as a possibility. Of course, if you WANT these effects, that's fine--but more limited magic can make the potential for nitpicking a little less severe. Maybe the portal can allow unwilling passage, but it can't be closed on someone (at least, not in a way that cuts off arms--perhaps it can be used as a snare, though, if you catch arms or legs in such a way that they can't wriggle out easily).

[@ckl9390]

On the fixed location portal limitation idea, it could be a plot point that another faction manages to find a forgotten or lost portal access node. If the ruling party doesn't keep track of the nodes on the portal network then it could open up an uncontrolled point of ingress to the centre of important cities or forts. Or if the portal nodes are coded to each other in pairs, it may be a closely guarded secret what the individual rune combinations, or whatever the coding method is, so someone else doesn't make a bootleg portal to hack their way in. Perhaps they are "made" in pairs, say the material is harmonised and split, so you can't code an impostor. If the portals are the "constant open" kind, what about stealing a portal node from a provincial capitol, likely through great effort, so as to drop it in the depths of the ocean. The pressure from the bottom of the sea courses through and floods the imperial capitol unless they are able to close or destroy the portal. A spoke of the transportation network it used to sabotage the hub.

[@protoclone138]

I always liked the game mechanics Dragonlance had in 3rd D&D. Casting spells is taxing to the body of the magic user. The longer you cast spells the more you risk exhausting yourself and being left vulnerable. So I imagine you then would want more than one magic user working to off set the stress on other magic users. You would also have to play it smart and economical to your source.

[@jackr2287]

Magic utilization in war heavily depends on the context. In logistics, there are massive benefits, in support roles, many more. In mass combat... that's where things get tricky. In Wheel of Time were magic is easier to learn, and far more destructive, they make sense. In D&D not so much. D&D wizards are not fit for mass combat. Sure, you'll have a few wizards with fireballs and other saturation spells, but they don't have a lot of them, and that's important. And given the amount of skill, knowledge, and gold it takes, you have the combined problem of losing mages very, very easily if they come under fire from a dedicated magekiller range units, and not having an easy way to replace an invaluable resource. And depending on the edition, there is no guarantee they will know the magic you wish them to know. Instead, I've heard them better described as leader yeeters. You place them on the field, and wait for the enemy to place a valuable target, typically the commanding officer, in a bad spot, and incapacitate him. There are two essays that are a ying/yang on this topic by Rick Stump in the AD&D context. Very enlightening in the considerations one wishes to make, especially for the fellow gamers lurking around. Why Wizards Suck on the Battlefield harbingergames.blogspot.com/2015/05/why-wizards-suck-on-battlefield.html Why Wizards Don't Suck on the Battlefield harbingergames.blogspot.com/2015/06/why-wizards-dont-suck-on-battlefield.html

[@mikewhitaker2880]

the big issue there is going to be what spells DO they know... there are plenty of spells that get overlooked because they don't fry the bad guys on first hit...

[@lostincyberspaceIII]

@@mikewhitaker2880 Truth! Every advantage in battle helps, even a couple % in your favor goes a long way to help the battle. Even cantrip spells can be used to great effect, mage hand on the tip of an arrow can push it out of the way easily.

[@jaskopen5707]

In d&d wizards are expensieve and cost much time to train. But clerics or warlocks are easy to become. So they could form large armies

[@runawaygemm5397]

Mass buff and healing spells would be insane though

[@Shadeius]

@@mikewhitaker2880 And then the enemy has dedicated counterspeller. Like say 5e Sorc with Distant Spell Metamagic so they can just Counterspell anything at 120 ft range and Dispel Magic at 240 ft range.

[@thundercrash4775]

Another interesting thing to think about is: how does magic interact with non-magic strategies? Example: in the Sword of Truth series, there's a point where one army, under the cover of a magic barrage, releases clouds of what is essentially ground glass into the air, to be carried on the wind into the opposing army. The opposing army's mages are unable to defend against it, because they are unaware that it is a non-magical attack.

[@jago668]

Albino mosquitos

[@ericmurotake5180]

Or, in the other direction, mages would have to be aware of things like catapult/trebuchet/ballista fire, which, depending on the setting, might be hard due to magic requiring intense focus to cast (so an army could scuttle mages by constantly bombarding them with attacks to keep them from having time to cast a spell, which in turn necessitates more mages or defenses, which in turn makes them more obvious, etc

[@SoI_Badguy]

This is probably my favorite element of modern fantasy. Just how the magic can be used to change how people live their lives, the same as electricity did for our world.

[@Ares9804]

I love how "A Practical Guide to Evil", a webseries, handles it: The Legions of Terror, armies of an evil polity with a "massive" pool of at least middling casters, has mages folded into it. Those casters build cadres in the army and are taught several basic spells like fireballs, basic healing etc. Which allows them to be a) taught easily and b) put out consistent barrages over the course of the battle. The cadres work from close to the frontline, like a "normal" ranged contingent would, and are equipped with armor, only slightly lighter than the usual legionaries gear. Also, the cadres can be pulled from the front and put under a way more talented and taught caster to power and sustain more complicated rituals. To your point about portals: Portals are a great way to provide logistics to your army, get your army across long distances rather quickly. BUT: A portal can only fit so many people at a time. While it can bring your army to the site of a battle quickly or provide a means of escape from defeat, your army will be vulnerable while crossing into the portal. You need a line of soldiers that guard the retreat into the portal, which will in the end probably be mowed down when they are the last ones to get to the portal. When exiting the portal, you are at risk of getting attacked at the exit point, with only limited numbers of soldiers being able to leave the portal at any given time. So the first to cross into enemy territory and establishing a foothold are at a huge risk, and if your attempt to secure a foothold fails, you are stuck either trying to force it and risk higher casualties or you have to concede defeat and give up your attempt at crossing.

[@dafoex]

RE: Portals, it may depend how your ranks are structured. If a squadron is only small, say around ten people, with one magic user, then it would be fairly simple to just open a portal per squad, which would negate the fact a portal can only fit so many.

[@mayuri4184]

I'd imagine fire mages would replace a majority of, if not all artillery, and clerics would be field medics.

[@NarutoMagicCyclops]

frankly imagine a fire mage with gravity and earth magic, a super artillery shell in a sense.

[@wolfiewoo3371]

Depends on the range of the fireballs, I don't know if a mage can hit something accurately at 300km. We're not even talking about armor piercing or proximity fuse.

[@mariustan9275]

@@wolfiewoo3371 That is true

[@NarutoMagicCyclops]

@@wolfiewoo3371 I think it just depends on the rules being applied. Frankly artillery isn't accurate to the millimeter and is typically used to kill soft targets. A guided MLRS systems can be accurate but sacrifices volume of fire. Just imagine a superheated shell compressed by high gravity. Once either the mage releases the ball or loses control it simply explodes being more powerful than a typical 155 artillery piece.

[@gentleshark972]

It depends heavily on the system. If we are looking at D&D (mages are limited to a specific ampunt of spells per day and are in most worlds rare) there the casters would likely form a shock force. Capable of conducting an incredible artillery blitz. However unlike normal artillery they cant maintain this for long times. In avatar earthbenders would form incredible artillery, and are capable of almost constant bombardement. However there still remains the limit. Artillery can be used by everyone wheras casters are very limited and hard to replace. As a result magic would likely form elite and mobile artillery brigades, used for breakthroughs.

[@Posts_Comments]

One that's been forgotten. Transmutation: You could Transmute the grass on the battlefield into oil and shoot a single fire arrow into it burning an entire army. Transmute a nearby mountain into water and flood the enemy, transmute away enemy armour/clothing into acid, transmute incoming arrows into air making them harmless, your army could even fire light wooden arrows and then have wizards transmute them into a far higher density material mid-air keeping their momentum, making them extremely dangerous and very cheap. Edit: You could essentially make everything out of wood, from armour, to weapons, to fortifications and have Transmutation wizards transmute the material into any metal you'd like once they reach the battlefield, giving your army much better range due to the lighter material and It'd be vastly cheaper to produce.

[@TheRedAzuki]

If you got ranged transmutation as you suggest. One not just turn the target's brain into butter. Insta-kill. Why go the like insanely evil route and turning their clothes into acid... That's just unnecessary cruel

[@anthonylamonica8301]

What are the limits of this Transmutation Magic? Depending on how precise you can be with it, you can do some _ludicrous_ things with it! In fact, I'd argue that Transmutation would be one of the most _broken_ fields of magic a person could ever study! Are you limited to rearranging electron bonds? Can you strip off the electrons entirely? Can you split apart or smash together atomic nuclei? Can you split subatomic particles into their composite quarks, leptons, or what have you? Can you reduce _those_ into pure energy? Is there a reason you couldn't just target the opposing soldiers or something they happen to be equipped with? You obviously have to break apart a substance at _some_ level in order to reconstruct it into something else; what if you "forget" to reconstruct a material after breaking the initial substance apart? Depending on the answers to these questions, Transmutation Magic can lead directly to Disintegration, Fission, Fusion, or potentially even Annihilation. This is before we get into the mundane applications for recombining common substances into _horrific_ poisons! That air in your lungs, composed primarily of molecular Oxygen and Nitrogen? Yeah, it's all Nitric Oxide and Ozone now; you've got about thirty seconds before you fall over and die. The salt that medieval armies would carry around to preserve their foodstuffs? I just broke it apart into finely powdered metallic Sodium and gaseous Chlorine; open the barrel and take a _big_ whiff! Flasks of fresh drinking water? That's boring, so let's turn it into Peroxide instead! Hey, the noble leading your army is allowed to drink ethanol-based booze while on campaign! I though that was unfair to you poor saps drinking the Peroxide, so I squished in an extra Carbon atom per molecule to make it all into Methanol instead. Party on, my lord!

[@TheBrokensaintvxvx]

The danger of transmuting a mountain into water isn't just against your enemies troops, but also the civilians of the land you aim to conquer, your own troops, and even the people in lands that could be allies. Transmuting something like an arrow in flight would require pin point focus and it sounds like lot of effort to do something really... really energy intensive. A spell that just discourages arrows by attracting metallic arrows to strike at or near a certain point through simple magnetism would be much more effective.

[@Posts_Comments]

@@TheBrokensaintvxvx The mountain is obviously a very situational thing, you don't have to make a water mountain on every battlefield and obviously you'd take your own troops positions into account. I don't know how magic works, you don't know how magic works, no one knows how magic works (despite claims). Maybe precision is something that requires intense concentration, maybe not, maybe AOE spells take more concentration, no one knows. For a magnetic field strong enough to effect speeding arrows in flight.. It'd have to be insanely powerful and definitely not "simple"... Or It could be simple lol, Idk how magic works haha.

[@Posts_Comments]

@@TheRedAzuki Shad suggested chemical warfare, it's fair game.. I want my people soup :3

[@WalrusWinking]

I love the idea of magic imbued armor and weaponry just imagine the possibilities of a pretty much unbreakable sword much like in Shadow of the Conqueror. But also things like Logistics is interesting what if you could just conjure fire when camping as an army. That means you negate the need for a whole wagon train behind you filled with firewood making the armies able to move faster.

[@SonsOfLorgar]

Firewood was not transported in the logistics train, it was gathered on site, by camp followers or seized from the local populace by "foraging" patrols.

[@dire_prism]

If you could make an unbreakable sword you might also be able to make very thin armor piercing spear tips...

[@Yellow.1844]

the vibration would destroy u

[@BouncingTribbles]

Why would you have wagons when you can have casters creating food and water?

[@the11382]

Unbreakable sword? How about breakable guns and artillery? A lot of weapons can’t do more because the barrel would melt.

[@stevenpaige2005]

I remember being DM and brought the party through a wartime and the magic user at the time was using portals to get groups of friendlies to the back and sides of the opposing army surrounding them. I thought at the time that was a great use for it, especially considering he had to memorize those spells the night before...... wow i realy miss D&D. And yes 3.5 was... nay... IS the best

[@militarykid9183]

I think that shad needs to read the Saga of Tanya the Evil. That series handles mage combat in a really interesting way where the mages basically become close air support and commando troops (ie paratroopers or rangers) combined.

[@militarykid9183]

@@LuanLe-fy1qx agreed, but it still dives into how the mages change the dynamics of combat. Still worth a read considering how much is covered on tatics and strategy.

[@Blade12113]

Hey Shad loving the video I just had a video idea I would love for you to cover that is related to this similar topic if you haven't already. And that would be how Magic affects the progression and speed of technological development and how it would slow/speed up technology.

[@skyereave9454]

Bump this up

[@IN-tm8mw]

Me and my friends love to talk about this topic. my mindset is similar to the Star Ocean series. where magic and technology eventually mix. I love how the series uses Symbology in their statrek inspired starships.

[@Sebshep]

Saw this on a discussion on how to integrate firearms into a dnd setting. Like, would gunpowder even get invented if a wand of magic missle or wand of fireball can be produced in bulk. Those don't even need ammunition.

[@Sorain1]

@@Sebshep It depends on the specifics. If your nation lacks spell assets but has a lot of saltpeter around, gunpowder weapons might come about out off necessity. Gunpowder itself would be around just because of it's utility and history shows that you can have gunpowder around for a remarkably long time without guns/cannons becoming dominant in warfare.

[@ericmurotake5180]

@@Sebshep One thought would be that gunpowder in it's traditional form may not exist, but something that replicates it could (say, a world with magic instead figures out a way to "hold" spells in a stable medium (say, crystals or certain materials), and creates weapons based on those (say, using a force spell to accelerate a crystal containing a spell at an opponent, which shatters on impact and releases the contained spell).

[@ollietree323]

34:52 Imagine if the healing was regenerative, the body slowly growing back, right? But what if the healer never stopped healing someone? What if, for example, they focus on the bones of an enemy, their skull, or just the teeth? Make those grow to such length that they stab into the head and throat. Make the skull grow in ways where you can't breath anymore. Or the bones in your arms? Make those lengthen till they break the skin, leaving a useless arm or two. Or the silly options, like making the eyebrows grow till the enemy can't see, or their hair grows so much that it physically weighs them down. Then there is the ultimate elephant in the room for healers: Cancer. Where does a healer draw the line between what is "Healing" and what is "Hurting"?

[@psychloptic9024]

“I cast Massive Brain Hemorrhage!”

[@marcobering3945]

The first thought is that healing magic simply tries to return a body to its pristine state. Overhealing or causing injurious growth isn't really possible with that type of healing.

[@ollietree323]

​@@marcobering3945 Yes, but that is one way to Heal, one type. I was using the example of another type of healing, and then further how one would use that type of healing offensively. This is all obviously dependent on what the magic system in question allows, if it has more hard limits of when the "Healing" stops or if it is more free-form.

[@ollietree323]

@@psychloptic9024 Exactly!

[@xidarian]

That really depends on what healing does in the setting. Usually the options are restoring the body to a pristine state or manipulating the human body. You could have life mages who specialize in the darker uses of there craft and are excellent torturers because they can inflict incredible pain without the risk of killing the subject accidentally.

[@LogeySmalls]

One thing you didn’t mention is time related magic. You could slow down time around your enemies and/or speed up time around yourself to out-maneuver the enemy, move away from incoming projectiles, etc. You could also do Dr Strange’s famous “Dormamu, I’ve come to bargain” strategy where you just set a time loop for the enemy that only you can break and make the enemy choose between being trapped in the time loop and surrendering.