Aspect mirrors: underpriced?

[Cicciograna]

From Complete Scoundrel, page 113.
Essentially videophones that work on any distance, as they allow the user to contact another mirror and see and hear everything on the other side, thus allowing two way communication, or simply surveillance on a given area.

The price is 4000gp: isn't it too low?
And if it's not, would an item allowing only auditive communication (basically a phone) be balanced at 3000gp?

[Draz74]

Magic Item Compendium, Ring of Communication, 2000 gp.

[Cicciograna]

Magic Item Compendium, Ring of Communication, 2000 gp.

Limited to 1 mile.
No distance limitation for the mirror.

[ericgrau]

Ya normally you need a hilarious number of expensive sending scrolls or a pair of 42,000 gp crystal balls or such. Long term communication is one of the few remaining obstacles in D&D. Can you imagine Red Hand of Doom if even poor towns can afford mirrors set up to contact other towns in case of an impending invasion? Boom no more campaign module (well, kinda).

The closest low level spell I could think of would be a permanent whispering wind for 3x2x2000=12,000 gp with a 3 mile range, audio only. Even that involves a bit of fudging. I suppose you could fudge it as a permanent psionic mindlink for 1x2,000x2 = 4,000 gp. But even that power normally links only a specially trained telepath to 1 other person, not any 2 people. Hmm... so maybe it depends how many sourcebooks you allow and how loose you are with them.

Are you telling me these mirrors don't even have a duration limit? That could help cut down the price by a lot since you usually aren't talking all day.

[deuxhero]

4000 each or a pair?


It doesn't matter, 8000 (and 4000 to a lesser degree) gets you magic items that have a benefit from a gameplay prospective, and a cell phone gets you surprisingly little for that.

[Cicciograna]

Ya normally you need a hilarious number of expensive sending scrolls or a pair of 42,000 gp crystal balls or such. Long term communication is one of the few remaining obstacles in D&D. Can you imagine Red Hand of Doom if even poor towns can afford mirrors set up to contact other towns in case of an impending invasion? Boom no more campaign module (well, kinda).

The closest low level spell I could think of would be a permanent whispering wind for 3x2x2000=12,000 gp with a 3 mile range, audio only. Even that involves a bit of fudging. I suppose you could fudge it as a permanent psionic mindlink for 1x2,000x2 = 4,000 gp. But even that power normally links only a specially trained telepath to 1 other person, not any 2 people. Hmm... so maybe it depends how many sourcebooks you allow and how loose you are with them.

Are you telling me these mirrors don't even have a duration limit? That could help cut down the price by a lot since you usually aren't talking all day.

I think this answer my question: Aspect mirrors are heavily underpriced. They don't have duration limits. The only limitating feature of these items is that they are created in sets, and each mirror is only capable to contact other mirrors of the same set; if all the mirrors of a set are destroyed save one, the surviving mirror becomes a non magical object.
I've never played RHoD, but if you tell me that such a cheap item could break an entire module, then I think something is wrong.


4000 each or a pair?

4000 each, and at least two have to be created as a set.


It doesn't matter, 8000 (and 4000 to a lesser degree) gets you magic items that have a benefit from a gameplay prospective, and a cell phone gets you surprisingly little for that.

I disagree. The ability to quickly transmit information is the staple of any successful society. While maybe not giving heavy bonuses to single adventurers, the diffusion of such a cheap communication device would lead to a deep mutation in the social and political behavior of towns, cities and even nations, thus leading to a very different roleplaying experience.

Just to make an example, and not the best of them since I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed, imagine this: since every little town can afford such a cheap trinket, to communicate with the Captain of the Army in the capital or the King's advisor, external threats such as an incoming warband of orcs can be met with different tactics, reinforcements can be asked more promptly, distress calls can be made more quickly, and even critical information can be communicated without the need of messengers or the like.

[Seb Wiers]

I think the big weakness here is any mirror can contact any other mirror. Which means that you have to assume some other mirror owner (enemy or just random) may be listening in when you use it (I'm presuming you keep it in a lightproof, noise proof box when not using it for communication; leaving such a thing where it can spy on you is lunacy.)

If you wanted to get devious (which is how cheap magic items often work) you could even set it up so that there's a "master mirror" (perhaps actually a scrying ball or some cuh) that can't be contacted, but automatically displays all images / sounds from any mirror that is contacting another mirror. Then you make your mirrors available at a low, low price to all the spymasters of the world...

[Cicciograna]

I think the big weakness here is any mirror can contact any other mirror. Which means that you have to assume some other mirror owner (enemy or just random) may be listening in when you use it (I'm presuming you keep it in a lightproof, noise proof box when not using it for communication; leaving such a thing where it can spy on you is lunacy.)

No, mirrors are created in sets, and a given mirror can only communicate with other elements of the set.
However, nothing prevents me to set up a Hall of Mirrors, a hub where many mirrors from different sets lie, as the mirrors of the other sets reside in critical sites...

[aquaticrna]

I think the big weakness here is any mirror can contact any other mirror.

mirrors can only contact other mirrors in their own set

edit: ninja-ed!

[Flickerdart]

8000 might be cheap for an adventurer (and even then, only one of fairly high level) but even the Town Mayor might not have the cash to spare, and when the choice is between planting food for the harvest and a telephone, most towns will choose to eat.

[ericgrau]

A good house is 5,000 gp or even a simple one 1,000 gp. A town will choose to have 1-4 less houses rather than get conquered. This really is campaign plot destruction. Kings, huge cities, fine, fine. Watchmen and signal fires, fine fine; they can be assassinated. But not every small town in the world should be able to get a reliable warning / communication system.

Telepathic bond comes to mind for 45,000 gp per subject in the bond. 90 minutes per day could be 1800 x 9 x 5 / 5 / 4 subjects = 4050 gp per subject. And it has a similar drawback to signal fires: it's not always on so you can't notice that something's amiss if it gets smashed or the user assassinated or etc. So maybe 90 minute 1/day mirrors for 4,000 gp would match the guidelines, prevent shennanigans and still be plenty useful for PCs. Still might be more powerful than what you can get otherwise, not sure, but even if it's not quite balanced it's a starting point.

[PersonMan]

A good house is 5,000 gp or even a simple one 1,000 gp. A town will choose to have 1-4 less houses rather than get conquered. This really is campaign plot destruction. Kings, huge cities, fine, fine. Watchmen and signal fires, fine fine; they can be assassinated. But not every small town in the world should be able to get a reliable warning / communication system.

That's to buy one. As in, if you were to walk into a town and buy a house, that's what you would pay-the town mayor doesn't shell out 1-5k to build a house(or a few houses).

Besides, if you can assassinate watchmen and their signal fires, couldn't you just take out the mirror? Suddenly the mayor is looking at another 4 or 8k(depending on if he gets the full cost or not) expenditure.

[JaronK]

There's already plenty of magic items that would be campaign breaking if they existed. Decanters of Endless Water can provide incredible amounts of power and water and acceleration if used right. Lyres of Building can easily make most workmen obsolete with incredible speed when used creatively. The list goes on and on.

JaronK

[ericgrau]

That's to buy one. As in, if you were to walk into a town and buy a house, that's what you would pay-the town mayor doesn't shell out 1-5k to build a house(or a few houses).

Besides, if you can assassinate watchmen and their signal fires, couldn't you just take out the mirror? Suddenly the mayor is looking at another 4 or 8k(depending on if he gets the full cost or not) expenditure.

Taxes. I'm sure the roads, paying guards enough money so that they can live in a house and so on cost quite a bit too.

And then couldn't someone look at the mirror and say, hey, I can't contact that one.



There's already plenty of magic items that would be campaign breaking if they existed. Decanters of Endless Water can provide incredible amounts of power and water and acceleration if used right. Lyres of Building can easily make most workmen obsolete with incredible speed when used creatively. The list goes on and on.

JaronK
It's actually not that much water if you figure it out for most purposes. You can't, for example, flood a dungeon with it. Likewise other items cost quite a bit for what they do; it's nice, but not plot shattering.

At best the mirrors are a bit cheap compared to other items and need a cost bump or duration decrease. At worst they do something that's difficult if not impractical by any other means. Not every town has a high level caster willing to make daily trips to other towns, for example.

[JaronK]

It's actually not that much water if you figure it out for most purposes. You can't, for example, flood a dungeon with it. Likewise other items cost quite a bit for what they do; it's nice, but not plot shattering.

A single decanter, hooked into a 1' long 1" diameter tube (made of Riverine most likely), with the rune the turns all water touching it to steam written in the tube, generates about half the thrust of the space shuttle engine.

Yeah, it's a lot.

Meanwhile, a single Lyre on a Warforged Bard 3 with 6 ranks in Perform (and make it a Masterwork Lyre) can basically do all of the construction for a metropolis by continually playing, which will rapidly create returns on the original investment.

JaronK

[Yahzi]

A single decanter, hooked into a 1' long 1" diameter tube (made of Riverine most likely), with the rune the turns all water
That isn't exactly the same as a single Decanter.

By itself, the Decanter is important (no more marching your army from water hole to water hole) but not game-breaking (it doesn't produce enough water to support agriculture).

The Lyre, though... ya, even without a War-Forged, it's broken. Especially for an item with a minimum creator level of 6.

[ericgrau]

If you restrict the outlet on the decanter the flow will decrease too, just like putting a stopper on it would stop it entirely. Just like you couldn't hook a thin tube up to your garden hose to produce a deadly rifle. If you really want to be a RAW stickler and say n'uh the rules say I get this much flow then you can't only leave the flow unchanged, you have to leave the damage and other effects unchanged too.

[deuxhero]

Just to make an example, and not the best of them since I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed, imagine this: since every little town can afford such a cheap trinket, to communicate with the Captain of the Army in the capital or the King's advisor, external threats such as an incoming warband of orcs can be met with different tactics, reinforcements can be asked more promptly, distress calls can be made more quickly, and even critical information can be communicated without the need of messengers or the like.


For 8000 gold, you can hire adventurers to slay the orcs many times over!

[ericgrau]

50 orcs, yes, 5000 orcs no. Heck the town guard handles 50 orcs in the larger towns. That's more like hire some adventurers to rescue the tiny town b/c they're dirt farmers and don't have a militia. Or hire the adventurers to fight alongside the town guard of 1,000-5,000 plus several level 5 captains.

[Cicciograna]

Were I the king of some country, I'd personally instruct my court wizard to craft as many mirrors he could and dispatch them to all my bordertowns. The ability to be warned from incoming threats is well worth 4000gp for a couple of mirrors for every town on my borders. And if I'm expanding my territory, communication between my commanders would be my first and foremost preoccupation. Heck, modern war is ALL about information.

In the end, I wouldn't allow such an item in my campaign: the implications on every-day life, not to mention in emergencies, would be too heavy.
I could only admit it in an Eberron game, having it strictly managed, for example, by House Orien and adding the prerequisite of a dragonmark for its creation.

[PersonMan]

Taxes. I'm sure the roads, paying guards enough money so that they can live in a house and so on cost quite a bit too.

And then couldn't someone look at the mirror and say, hey, I can't contact that one.

If you're willing to have people constantly contacting the mirrors in towns, then you'd get some warning-but all you know is that the mirror is down. Was it destroyed intentionally, or was there some sort of fire or earthquake that caused the damage?

One mirror being destroyed ruins a set. Due to their high cost and (presumed) fragility, they'd become instant targets for anyone who was an enemy of the kingdom or wants to attack a town. I can imagine that the costs would quickly become very, very high.

If, say, your kingdom has 30 border towns and you equip them all, you've just spent 240,000 GP, which is a pretty absurd amount of money. If, say, orc hordes change their tactics and begin to send in mirror-destruction parties, your costs can rise even higher, as each mirror lost takes 8k to replace.

If you want to equip every single town with one, your costs quickly become ridiculous-it'd honestly be easier to just hire a couple high-level adventuring parties to keep tabs on villages and take care of threats like orcs or whatever, rather than pay hundreds of thousands of GP on mirrors that can-and probably will-be broken at some point, due to accident or malevolent activity.

EDIT: And once you've bought all of these mirrors, you still have the normal costs for you army, etc. Additionally, after a certain point your wizard can't craft any more unless he goes out and gets more XP-you can't craft yourself down levels, and he only has so much.

[Cicciograna]

If you're willing to have people constantly contacting the mirrors in towns, then you'd get some warning-but all you know is that the mirror is down. Was it destroyed intentionally, or was there some sort of fire or earthquake that caused the damage?

If mirrors were to be used as an emergency device, I'd station 24/7 at least two men to communicate with the capital in any situation requiring attention from the king or his advisors. I'd try to give them a modicum of protection, and even if the mirror is destroyed for some reason, at least the king now knows that something is wrong and can begin investigations.


One mirror being destroyed ruins a set. Due to their high cost and (presumed) fragility, they'd become instant targets for anyone who was an enemy of the kingdom or wants to attack a town. I can imagine that the costs would quickly become very, very high.

Again, giving some protection to the mirror would become an important task; however, consider that if you keep it in the house of the mayor and somehow someone manages to destroy it, then the city is already screwed, as an assassination atempt would be more than concrete.


If, say, your kingdom has 30 border towns and you equip them all, you've just spent 240,000 GP, which is a pretty absurd amount of money. If, say, orc hordes change their tactics and begin to send in mirror-destruction parties, your costs can rise even higher, as each mirror lost takes 8k to replace.

The prices are all to be halved. The net costs to CREATE the mirrors would be 120000gp + 9600 XP: gather 10 7th level Wizards and then it's 960 XP for each one of them. And if you are the king of a country who can afford to create 30 pairs of mirrors it wouldn't be much of a hassle to find so many mid-level wizards.

However, you're basically giving me credit: you are assuming that the standard orc horde must change it's modus operandi to adjust for the presence of the mirror, not just rampaging as the iconical marauding horde, but dispatching mirror-destruction parties, which is not a thing the typical horde does often. So the impact of such a cheap item on the world would be meaningful.

By the way, one hasn't to equip all the bordertowns with mirrors: they are there to support, not completely replace, ordinary means of communications. If a bordertown is sufficiently near to a big city, where the mirror is present, a net of scouts and messengers to surveil the local area and keep the big city informed is more than sufficient, thus cutting on the expenses to craft and staff the mirrors. If borderstowns are to be equipped then, only the most vital ones should be, and safe zones can be left without, relying on mundane, slower methods of communications: I place the most potent radar bases on the coasts and borders of my country, not in the center.



EDIT: And once you've bought all of these mirrors, you still have the normal costs for you army, etc. Additionally, after a certain point your wizard can't craft any more unless he goes out and gets more XP-you can't craft yourself down levels, and he only has so much.

This is true for every installment: houses, roads, bridges, keeps, towers, you name it, you have it. A pair of mirrors costs as much as 3-4 simple houses, but once the cost is paid, no more mainteinance is required apart from staff. I think that the expense is more than affordable.

[PersonMan]

If mirrors were to be used as an emergency device, I'd station 24/7 at least two men to communicate with the capital in any situation requiring attention from the king or his advisors. I'd try to give them a modicum of protection, and even if the mirror is destroyed for some reason, at least the king now knows that something is wrong and can begin investigations.

Although, beginning investigations won't help much if the town is sacked by orcs the next day. Instant communication =/= instant transportation, after all, so you'd still need however long it takes for your armies to get to whatever problem location there is.


Again, giving some protection to the mirror would become an important task; however, consider that if you keep it in the house of the mayor and somehow someone manages to destroy it, then the city is already screwed, as an assassination atempt would be more than concrete.

And you wouldn't do similar things to the guards of signal-fire towers? I mean, busting into a room to kill a guy and smash a mirror worth 8k and busting into a tower, climbing it and killing two guys isn't all too huge of a difference. Although, the first case will probably have less protection, as a large amount of money is being put into the production of these mirrors and draining funds otherwise usable for defense of, say, signal fire posts. And it will be draining those funds-even if it only costs as much as a few houses, well...I'm no expert, but I still think that the state didn't commission the construction of every other house in the realm, especially in medieval-esque times.



The prices are all to be halved. The net costs to CREATE the mirrors would be 120000gp + 9600 XP: gather 10 7th level Wizards and then it's 960 XP for each one of them. And if you are the king of a country who can afford to create 30 pairs of mirrors it wouldn't be much of a hassle to find so many mid-level wizards.

Unless you, the king, are making them or are giving all of the work to wizards devoted to making magic items for you at no cost, you're probably going to be commissioning them from local wizards, which means you pay the full price.

Of course, there's the issue of whether or not you can afford it-especially if you make all of the mirrors at once.


However, you're basically giving me credit: you are assuming that the standard orc horde must change it's modus operandi to adjust for the presence of the mirror, not just rampaging as the iconical marauding horde, but dispatching mirror-destruction parties, which is not a thing the typical horde does often. So the impact of such a cheap item on the world would be meaningful.

Yes, but even the presence of, say, signal fire towers does so. As long as you don't make the signal people absurdly easy to target, a rampaging orc horde would need to either take them out or live with the fact that the message is going to go.

Although, it's not like this would destroy plots.

Mayor: Help us! The orcs are going to attack the town!
PC: What about the king's army?
Mayor: Oh, you mean the guys who need like a week to get here? Yeah, the orcs will attack sooner than that.
PC: Ok, then.

Or even:

Mayor: Help us! The orcs are coming!
PC: And the signal fires?
Mayor: Lit! The army will be here in a few days, but the orcs will get here first!
PC: Ok, then.


By the way, one hasn't to equip all the bordertowns with mirrors: they are there to support, not completely replace, ordinary means of communications. If a bordertown is sufficiently near to a big city, where the mirror is present, a net of scouts and messengers to surveil the local area and keep the big city informed is more than sufficient, thus cutting on the expenses to craft and staff the mirrors. If borderstowns are to be equipped then, only the most vital ones should be, and safe zones can be left without, relying on mundane, slower methods of communications: I place the most potent radar bases on the coasts and borders of my country, not in the center.

Well, isn't one of the main traits of rampaging orc hordes that they move? I fail to see how a plot would be destroyed if you just said that the orcs had moved into a formerly save zone-in fact, it'd even open up the gates for a whole slew of "protect the mirror as it's transported" "someone stole the mirror! Find it!" and "someone's been making sets of 3 mirrors, and could be selling the 3rd piece to our enemies! Find out who!" quests and plots.



This is true for every installment: houses, roads, bridges, keeps, towers, you name it, you have it. A pair of mirrors costs as much as 3-4 simple houses, but once the cost is paid, no more mainteinance is required apart from staff. I think that the expense is more than affordable.

Normal 8k expenditures can't be made worthless by a single guy with a hammer and a few seconds. And half the problem is that you think it's affordable-but maybe the nobles who are dealing with increased taxes don't. I can imagine that, once a couple of these mirrors were destroyed, there'd be pressure to switch to, say, signal fire towers-after all, even if the men are killed, the towers are harder to take down.

[Xtomjames]

Well let's bear in mind a few things here. I think that it's been obviously stated that the mirrors are underpriced in the opinion of some, and that the opinion of others is that they're not. We need to look at the actual value of gold in game.

In game a peasant maybe makes one gold piece a year, a middle class worker maybe a gold piece or two a month. Adventurers are inherently richer in game on the basis of they go out and do the extraordinary.

Even the richest magistrates, barons, and kings in game don't have that much gold available to them. On average 10,000 gp for the richest amongst them. Only a handful of the most rich have gold stock higher than that. Most of the richest characters in game are the PCs, Dragons, and mages who sell their wears.

This means that 4000 gp for a single Aspect mirror 8000 for two is rather expensive in game terms. Not necessarily for the PCs but for the NPCs in the game. You wouldn't have a village with a pair of these let alone several villages with them. We're talking for just one of them a good decade worth of earnings from Everyone in a village to pay for it.

You're also forgetting scarcity. Unless you know an Artificer or a Mage who has the craft wondrous items feat who is willing to make them for you, these mirrors are rather rare. PCs might have them but that's because they're PCs. PCs again are also technically rare beings in the world of D&D. We don't often think of this because we play the PCs who are the super heroes essentially of the D&D world (or super villains), we don't think that we're the minority in the otherwise large scope of the D&D universe.


So, in my opinion, the Aspect Mirrors aren't under priced in the slightest.

[FMArthur]

I think it would actually make for a more interesting item if they were made independently and could scry on the general area of any other such mirror (not just look through its face) in the same plane. I might just make such a custom item for my world... Making them a useful but dangerous tool with unknown levels of risk.

[Cruiser1]

Aspects Mirrors are very nice, but easily circumvented, such as by a level 3 Wizard. :smallamused: Consider an invading army wanting to take a border town without the capitol becoming aware. Invading army sends level 3 Wizard in their employ into the border town. Wizard casts Locate Object looking for a magic mirror until he detects the mayor's house. Level 3 Wizard casts Invisibility, sneaks in the house, and steals the mirror, perhaps casting Sleep to disable the guards next to it. Wizard returns to invading army, giving them the signal to burn and pillage. Meanwhile the people in the capitol use the Aspect Mirror to check on the border town. Level 3 Wizard casts Disguise Self to look like the mayor, and Silent Image to make the war camp behind him look like the mayor's bedroom. "Nothing exciting happening here!" :smallsigh: In summary, mundane signal fires are better in many respects.

[Jack_Simth]

Meanwhile, a single Crystal Ball with Telepathy, combined with a known paid commoner-1, gives you a central point that can contact any city in the kingdom for 70k. Have someone stationed at the central location who simply contacts each target commoner in turn. If someone can't be contacted, it's possible they simply made their save. Try again. If they can't be contacted twice (it's only DC 16, after all), send an investigator. If you have more than 16 locations to manage, it's less expensive.

Edit: Oh yes, and while you can use your central crystal ball to try and spy on other people, you don't have a set of mirrors available that are hiding where they can be captured, and used to spy on your communications network.

[opticalshadow]

50 orcs, yes, 5000 orcs no. Heck the town guard handles 50 orcs in the larger towns. That's more like hire some adventurers to rescue the tiny town b/c they're dirt farmers and don't have a militia. Or hire the adventurers to fight alongside the town guard of 1,000-5,000 plus several level 5 captains.

or one wizard.

a army of 5k orcs doesnt stand a chance, for the price of an adventureing party and that many gurads you could easily get a cast with 9th level spells.


Edit: another thing i think hasnt been mentioned. peopel keep bringing up that 4k gold to replace a broken mirror isnt much and a king coudl afford it, the problem is, you cant replace it. you have to make another set. so if one mirror was broken in that 30 mirror communication ring, you need 30 new mirrors. not jsut one.

[Jack_Simth]

or one wizard.

a army of 5k orcs doesnt stand a chance, for the price of an adventureing party and that many gurads you could easily get a cast with 9th level spells.


Edit: another thing i think hasnt been mentioned. peopel keep bringing up that 4k gold to replace a broken mirror isnt much and a king coudl afford it, the problem is, you cant replace it. you have to make another set. so if one mirror was broken in that 30 mirror communication ring, you need 30 new mirrors. not jsut one.
Nah, you need two. One in a central location, the other in the target city. You have a main watcher in the central location to relay messages if need be.

[ericgrau]

or one wizard.

a army of 5k orcs doesnt stand a chance, for the price of an adventureing party and that many gurads you could easily get a cast with 9th level spells.

You can't get a defense for 4,000 gp regardless. Heck standard fee for a single 9th level spell is 1530 gp minimum, if you even have a 17th level caster in the area. And as OotS showed even that only goes so far before you run out of spells. It's not that you can't wipe the floor with them, it's that you can't wipe the floor with so many of them.

I think there was a recent thread with all kinds of odd magical ways to take down a castle wall. I figured out that the damage was way too small and too slow and that catapults were cheaper and more effective for the army's coffers. It's similar for the rest, I think. Damage from hundreds of piddly sources is a lot cheaper; save the adventurers for trap-filled dungeon infiltration and dragon hunting.

[NNescio]

You can't get a defense for 4,000 gp regardless. Heck standard fee for a single 9th level spell is 1530 gp minimum, if you even have a 17th level caster in the area. And as OotS showed even that only goes so far before you run out of spells. It's not that you can't wipe the floor with them, it's that you can't wipe the floor with so many of them.

I think there was a recent thread with all kinds of odd magical ways to take down a castle wall. I figured out that the damage was way too small and too slow and that catapults were cheaper and more effective for the army's coffers. It's similar for the rest, I think. Damage from hundreds of piddly sources is a lot cheaper; save the adventurers for trap-filled dungeon infiltration and dragon hunting.

Gate -> Solar -> GG.

Granted, it'll cost somewhat more due to the xp cost to the caster.

Alternatively,

Shapechange -> Fight -> GG.

Probably going to cost even more though, since the caster is involved in combat.

[opticalshadow]

Gate -> Solar -> GG.

Granted, it'll cost somewhat more due to the xp cost to the caster.

Alternatively,

Shapechange -> Fight -> GG.

Probably going to cost even more though, since the caster is involved in combat.

actually given the typical power (level) of a typical orc soldier, and how inexspencive magic actually is. a wizard just using simplier spells and wipe the whole army out before it ever got close to the town.

given the actual temperment of orcs, a single AoE kill spells (cloud kill, weird or such) would kill a conciderable amount of them (cloud kill could wip emost of the army out as they camp) and i doubt the rest would stay seeing entire chunks of the army just fall over dead.

for 4k gold, i could see being able to get a wizard to protect that easy, esp cause somethign as simple as dropping that mirror can cost the king 240k, since he has to replace the entire set.

[ericgrau]

A few hundred dead soldiers, maybe, for a rare caster that takes far more than 4,000 gp to hire. Otherwise the orcs would just as easily have one too (but it's not likely for either side). But then 2 of the 50 pesky scattered commanders with magic arrows hit every round or even several of the 1st level magic missile sorcerers or insert 7th option here that you didn't think of and it's crud, well, I'm done, gl with the rest of orcs.