We all know how guns shaped the battlefield, but how does magic shape it in a fantasy setting?
Is magic common enough in your setting/game to be widely included in warfare?
Is there or could there be some kind of magical arms race?
What uses could magic have? Artillery, transport, healing, etc. in a battle?
Especially curious if anyone has actually game mastered or played through a fantasy war.
The first thing we can learn about Magic as Weapons, can, in fact, be learned from MTG: The definition of a broken mechanic is one where the only available counter-attack is to respond in kind.
For instance, take Plate Armor. For centuries we had to develop numerous ways of taking down a well-plated enemy by exploiting it's various weaknesses, using everything from spears to maces to mg personal favorite, the Godendag. Guns did away with all that an the only real response was to be the one to fire your gun first, so the game changed and became who could shoot their gun first and more accurately, then eventually who can eliminate the most of the opposition first with the widest spread, using explosives or rapid-fire.
Magic likely follows the same principles, where the game isn't about Counterspell and Counter-Counterspell, but who can fire the biggest Boom first.
Fantasy war? High level demon summonings leading to MAD make sure that's never a thing.
>Is there or could there be some kind of magical arms race?
>What is MTG backstory.
>What is D&D Backstory (Greyhawk, Eberron, Points of Light, Everyweek in FR)
>What uses could magic have? Artillery, transport, healing, etc. in a battle?
all of those and more at the home front if magics common.
If you've got deities with magical power backing you up wars are likely to get bigger and more intense.
If we were so inclined, I would absolutely suggest we create a pantheon of deities just so we could create a massive, magic-fueled Trojan War, except instead we make it the Napoleonic Wars.
Also, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is a great piece of historical autism that's worth looking into.
>If we were so inclined, I would absolutely suggest we create a pantheon of deities just so we could create a massive, magic-fueled Trojan War, except instead we make it the Napoleonic Wars.
Ive seen this happen but it was the middle ages.
There is also the question of who can do magic : guns became widespread because everybody was able to hold one and fire. If shooting a rifle was something really complicated, it would have been used only in specific "elite" squads, while most of the armies would still fight with armor and sword. So if anybody can do magic, it truly beacme the same thing as gun, but if it's strongly limited to a small number of people, and that they are not able to deal easily with 5000 typical footmen, then it's more the "elite squad" type (a bit like the cavalry for example)
It really depends on the limits of magic and its implementation in the context of the setting.
Take for example Artesia. Magic is ubiquitous with armor and weapons being enchanted, and priests and priestesses invoking gods for battle, but there is no evocative artillery magic, no fireballs or missiles. It's all rather subtle.
Don't forget dark sun where magic wars literally made it Post Apoc: Fantasy edition
Why autism? I find it just to be a pretty decent urban fantasy mixed with historical fantasy.
Access to teleportation would turn war into something completely unfamiliar. Depending on the scale supply lines would stop mattering or war would focus much more on a back and forth of elite strike teams sabotaging each other
>For instance, take Plate Armor.
Oh this thread got of to a stupid start.
On all the settings I make main is low key enough that it's place is not the battlefield, but the information/disinformation war before hand.
On the field of battle a wizard isn't more powerful than a man with a good sword arm. And even the most powerful wizard had problems casting with a knife in his back.
Wizards are best used scrying, sending missives, using mists and illusion, ensorcelling infiltrators and trying to peer through the opposition's obfuscation.
Mail is a force multiplier not a weapon in itself.
This is a great example of what I was talking about. I think maybe it's used to kill all of once, but used for all sorts of non-combat tricks and illusion.
In my setting, the goddess of magic is sort of a gigantic bitch, so any magical superweapon would find itself turning the originating city into landlocked Atlantis.
Teleportation is still rare enough that you can't go anywhere whenever you want, so jumping past city walls is still not a major thing.
>>What is MTG backstory.
The Brothers War was fantastic
It'd depend on the way it works. If they've got way points it gates, warfare probably consists of holding strategic points, and counter matching the long way to attack from different angles. Maine fishing to establish/stop the opposition from establishing new gates and connections, depending on how hard that are too set up.
If you can just mass teleport troops wherever you want, there's probably a war reading over teleport and teleport denial magic. You might not have any army nicer than commando units, and just teleport explosives/golems/undead/demons at enemies as fire and forget weapons.
You're completely retarded. Well-made metal plate armour remained viable armour against explosives and small-arms up until the Korean War in the '50s, after which plastic-aluminium prototypes were made, leading to flak in Vietnam, which eventually columnated into the famous kelvar armour that's common practice today.
I mean for fucks sake, the first flak vests were literally brigantine armour, metal plates sewn onto bulletresistent nylon.
Magic follows the inverse square law in my setting, casting at range is difficult, and magic items are rare and cannot be manufactured with their current tech level.
Eventually someone will crack the code on how to synthesize simple spirits, and/or direct the attachment of spirits to an object, and you'll start seeing actual magic weapons; but for now, it's used as a way to bolster elite troops and a way to ease logistics. It means that smaller forces, lighter equipped armies, can rely ona contingent of logistic engineers for lots of material, instead of dedicated supply chains. But the issue is, those skilled individuals come at high cost, and are a high value target for both killing and capture by enemies.
Still, a unit of dedicated casters in heavy armor are one hell of a shock trooper unit, phalanxes with soldiers that can channel extra injury through their weapon can better penetrate armor; it's one of the reasons for the battlefield supremacy of one of the races for a long time until other races caught up.
#
My setting is similar to this.
Magic users are uncommon, but not rare.
Having one in a battle unit is not unusual, but only necessary if it's an important battle or if the enemy is likely to have one ad well.
Also, nit every magic user is the same, nor can they all cast the same spells.
Counterspells are fairly common, but the quality of a battlemage is their ability to adapt to the battle at hand with their skill set.
One difference is that powerful evokation casters slinging small fireballs is entirely possible, but also paints a giant "Here's the mage! Kill him first!" flag on a wizard not concentrating on defense, so it's often avoided.