Re: (TFT) Magic in combat and TFT...

[Rick Smith <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Craig, everyone.

On Wed, 2006-08-23 at 14:29, Craig W. Barber wrote:
> Loved the comments.
> ...  What really struck me on more thought was the
> combination of Gates, Teleports, etc, and WMD:  Infiltrate a heavy wizard or
> two and destroy an enemy city.   

  I've created rune lines that divide up areas into
separate magical zones where spells / gates magical
creatures can't cross the boundaries.

  As I've watched this list, I'm coming more and 
more to think Gate is just too powerful spell with 
far too low an IQ.

>  (I also had to give up on TFT:AW as a basis for my magic, due to the
> problem of short spell life.  Oh well.  I like the "times 5" idea.)  BTW, for
> statistical reasons, illusions and images become nearly worthless, even for
> scouting duty, when the enemy has a whole army of IQ8 guys on disbelief duty.
> "If it moves, disbelieve it, Private!  If it doesn't move, disbelieve it
> anyway!"

  Short spell life?  I generally find wizards 
keep getting more and more powerful and 
increasing 5 fold their effectiveness is not
the way I would jump.

  Out of curiosity, why do people feel they
need to beef up wizard's power so significantly?


  My last campaign put several restrictions on
wizards and I did a lot to beef up heroes to 
try to keep the two classes about equal at high
levels.

> 
> Meta-issue:
> 
> The real problem here is one that you've all talked about before.  The TFT
> rules are clearly laid out for adventurers and small unit meeting engagements,
> NOT for military campaign play.  Remember the discussions a few months ago
> about unit sizes, LOU, and so on?  It's possible to scale up, but we need to
> do a LOT of play-testing.  The comment about mass production of magic items is
> an example.

  I'm not sure that we need a lot of scaled up
spells.  My example was Summon Gargoyle.  Not
only is it a nifty "scout that counter" spell 
it also can serve as a "get this unit across
the water faster" spell.  At the wargame level,
you don't care which trick a wizard uses to 
scout the company, just that it gets scouted.

> 
> Spells: Mark pointed out that you'd want to make up spells a bit different
> than the ones you use when you're planning a trip to the dungeon.  That is,
> you wouldn't extrapolate from 1 hex wall to 7 hex wall up to Instant Great
> Wall by means of a bunch of wizards in a line: then have the wall poof out of
> existence a minute or five later.  Instead, with the resources available to a
> nation-state or even a city-state, it wouldn't be tough to come to battle with
> a bunch of new tricks every year!  Super long-distance telepathy and mind
> control, fast spell shield against them, hyper-divination, divination shield,
> cloud cover, mass disguise, one way Gate, Gate shield, long-distance Word of
> Command, wide-area Word of Command (a wizard with an amplifier?) and so on...
> you wouldn't use the tool kit of spells from AW if you had the resources of a
> whole nation to do research on specialty military spells against your enemy
> and the counter-spells to protect you from your enemy's spells.
> 
> It'd get nasty, really nasty.

  Yeesh! 

  I've invented a LOT of spells for TFT, some up to
IQ 35.  (No one has ever got close but I like the
idea that the PC's alway have a reason to want just
one more IQ...)  And most times my PC's have got 
their hands on long duration spells I've come to
regret it.

  Some frightening thoughts there.


  I once had my game poo - pooed by another gamer
because I had invented spells that I felt were
economically important.  (A spell that helped 
insulation and another that made fires burn slower
and warmer - needed because I had a campaign with
long, very cold winters.  Over hundreds of years
you can darn well bet that wizards would make 
efficient spells for warming people up.) 

  He sneered at me.  In HIS game you could only
get spells that were invented properly: they had
been written by a fantasy author & published in a
fantasy novel.  GM invented spells were just lame
or something.  (Or maybe he didn't like industrial
magic disease.)

  
  But in TFT there are rules for making new spells.
What would people come up with when an Evil Empire
spends $$$ making a 60 fST ubber combat spell.

  Warm  regards, Rick.
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