Tarqiup Inua
2014-05-19, 04:51 PM
Is there any system in D&D 3.X that governs battle magic?
I am somewhat dissatisfied with the way wizards have such an easy time when they are used in war offensively and at the same time they have very hard time protecting - say, a city from magic attacks from outside during a siege.
The idea is as follows - it should be something resembling circle magic - several mages would invest their spell slots into the pool, which would then act as a sort of a buffer - a lot like rod of absorption, but not automatically working - whenever someone from outside of the circle would cast a spell within certain distance (say within a mile or two, though exact distance would depend on number of participants), the wizards in circle would get an option to counter the spell using more lenient rules than those for counterspelling (casters passing some spellcraft check would drain the pool more and creators of circle would get to choose whether to block particularly well-cast spell).
I think such mechanic would have its advantages - wizards would still be very much important on the battlefield, but the spellcasting would be much harder in battle and the main role for casters would be keeping enemy casters at bay and earning time for your soldiers so they could resolve matters in combat.
It would allow for sieges to last, actual battles to take place...
The in-game disadvantage would, of course, be the difficulty of setting up such "shield" over an area in the first place, and the fact it would keep spellcasters occupied unable to do much else.
What do you think?
And is there similar mechanic anywhere to be found? How would you do it?
I am somewhat dissatisfied with the way wizards have such an easy time when they are used in war offensively and at the same time they have very hard time protecting - say, a city from magic attacks from outside during a siege.
The idea is as follows - it should be something resembling circle magic - several mages would invest their spell slots into the pool, which would then act as a sort of a buffer - a lot like rod of absorption, but not automatically working - whenever someone from outside of the circle would cast a spell within certain distance (say within a mile or two, though exact distance would depend on number of participants), the wizards in circle would get an option to counter the spell using more lenient rules than those for counterspelling (casters passing some spellcraft check would drain the pool more and creators of circle would get to choose whether to block particularly well-cast spell).
I think such mechanic would have its advantages - wizards would still be very much important on the battlefield, but the spellcasting would be much harder in battle and the main role for casters would be keeping enemy casters at bay and earning time for your soldiers so they could resolve matters in combat.
It would allow for sieges to last, actual battles to take place...
The in-game disadvantage would, of course, be the difficulty of setting up such "shield" over an area in the first place, and the fact it would keep spellcasters occupied unable to do much else.
What do you think?
And is there similar mechanic anywhere to be found? How would you do it?