Do Mageduels equal Forcefields

[Milo v3]

I was reading the Mageduel rules in Magic of Faerun and saw that if any form of attack from outside the area hits the "arena thingy", that the attack is nullified and the mageduel ends with a draw.

Thing is because it doesn't specifically mention the limit of what attacks it blocks, wouldn't it block everything from fireballs to meteor swarms to epic spells to nukes.

So basically if there was a serious threat to a magocratic city from bombardment, couldn't all the arcane casters could get together to form one huge mageduel and cover the city in the forcefield?

[TuggyNE]

That's an amusing idea, but keeping the forcefield going past the first hit would be difficult to arrange properly. Extremely difficult.

[FinnDarkblade]

What if you covered an area that needed to be protected with level 1 dueling mages and had another pair of mages for each duel with readied actions to start a duel right as the first one ended? And there's really no limit to how many mages you can have standing by. It might be a good use for all those level 1 minions you get from the Leadership feat.

[Malroth]

meanwhile inside the force field thingy, 2 lv 1 mages ray of enfeeble themselves and start punching each other just so it still qualifies as a duel

[FinnDarkblade]

meanwhile inside the force field thingy, 2 lv 1 mages ray of enfeeble themselves and start punching each other just so it still qualifies as a duel

Save the city at the cost of your dignity....

[demigodus]

meanwhile inside the force field thingy, 2 lv 1 mages ray of enfeeble themselves and start punching each other just so it still qualifies as a duel

I'm sure we can find some level 1 or 2 spells to give them something like DR 1/magic, or DR 2/magic.

Now not only does it qualify as a duel, they can't even beat each other!

[Jeff the Green]

You could probably manage at least an intermittent field with enough prior preparation by dividing the defending mages into two teams and setting up teleportation circles to allow people to attune, step out, and step in over the course of two rounds. You might be able to set up a pending mageduel while another mageduel is going on too. It'd involve a lot of preparation and communication.

[Psyren]

So basically if there was a serious threat to a magocratic city from bombardment, couldn't all the arcane casters could get together to form one huge mageduel and cover the city in the forcefield?

You can; the maximum size of a mageduel arena is a cube whose sides are 5x the product of all participants' CL. So if you had five 10th-level wizards for instance, you would cover a cube with (10x10x10x10x10x5) = 500,000ft. sides.

The problem however is that each participant you add also lengthens the amount of time it takes the arena to form, whereas removing it requires only a single enemy arrow from outside each time. So an enemy army can simply alternate between bombarding your town with arrows and magic.