Re: (TFT) Wizards at War

[Stan <srydzews@ix.netcom.com>]

Neil Gilmore wrote:
> 
> You contradict yourself here a bit. A few hundred +3 items >which are +3
> each blow< is less useful than than putting the everyone except you at -3
> for only 3 turns. (I only have Wizard here, but it says ALL sighted
> creatures within 5 megahexes). Nothing about facing away, blindfolds, etc.
> In fact, it says '... a blinding psychic flash.' No mention of physical
> manifestation, which would make it ideal for single person covert
> operations...

Well, that's why I was saying Dazzle Gems instead of Dazzle spells.  The 
gems go off on impact, like Explosive Gems, so a few slingers could lob 
them ahead, into the enemy troops as they charge, without affecting their
own troops.  

You present an interesting analysis.  I agree that in a battle of 5000
vs. 5000, the presence of 300 +3 swords will certainly give one side a
decisive advantage.  It's huge.  But still, was making those swords the
best application of wizardly effort for warfighting?  What if the guys 
with the +3 swords are out foraging at the time because their army isn't 
being supplied through Gates, or are languishing in the wrong mountain 
pass because the enemy used more up-to-date Trance information to decide 
where to attack?  

To wax pedantic, it takes four wizards two weeks to make a +3 weapon, so 
that's 2400 wizard-weeks of work to make those swords--a lot of time.  
That's another reason why I was suggesting the dazzle gems. They're 
relatively cheap for the advantage they provide.  Of course the swords 
work all the time and are just generally better, but are they better 
enough to justify the increased expense? (of wizardly time--the money is
incidental either way.)

Now of course the great thing about enchantments is that you do them in
advance.  So if you have the wizards available all the time, and you've
finished making your +5 IQ / +2 Charm medals for the army commanders to
wear, then yes, perhaps it's time to turn to mass weapon enchantments.
But if you 'conscript' your wizards just when a war is on, I think they
will be of more use with the army than enchanting swords. 

IQ is the big thing here.  A lot of the spells I mentioned in my original
post are IQ 15+.  For the less-well-endowed wizards, perhaps the IQ 14 guys 
really are most effective doing WA enchantments.  The guys of IQ 13 or less 
are probably the ones in the commando teams.

Really though (now I'm rambling) even if you have the wizards permanently 
on your payroll during peacetime, I guess you have the choice of either 
having them do WA enchantments to prepare for war, or having them train 
to get their IQ up to 15+ in time for the war.  So there still really 
is a choice.


Finally, not to treat the real world situation lightly, or suggest that 
blowing up any one 'evildoer' is really a major goal, but merely as an 
example of the power of repeated Trance spells...

"Is binLaden currently in Afghanistan?"
"Yes he is."
Get out a map of the Afghanistan.
"Is bin Laden in this half of the country?"
"No."
"Okay, is he is in this half of the other half?"
"Yes."
"Okay, is he..."
(thirteen wizards later you're down to two square miles)
Get out satellite map.
"Okay is he in this square mile or this one?"
(eight wizards later)
"Okay is he in this building or this one?"

Now yeah, that's 20 16 IQ wizards to do this, but it only 
took each of them a moment, they didn't have to go anywhere, 
and it cost nothing other than their pay.  And if you started
with a few educated guesses as to the answer, it would take a
lot less than 20 guys.
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