Mages in Modern Combat

[Formless]

Which edition? 3, 3.5, 4?

[loomer]

3.5. In fact, it was the very first issue of Dragon to be published under 3.5.

[Formless]

Ah, I see. I think a lot of those spells and feats didn't get properly recorded elsewhere or in hardback, and considering the overpowered nature of that one, thank heaven for that.

[fgalkin]

The mages should recieve the same equipment and training as their squad mates, so as not to stand out.

They will be acting in a support capacity, casting primarily healing and mind spells, as well as things as invisibility, and the occasional magical trap. For direct combat spells, guns do it faster, better, cheaper, and with less risk to the valuable spellcaster.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Strider]

I think anyone trained properly in 3.5 magic could be at the least an extremely effective special ops type. Some things of various wank that could be insanely useful:

[Note that to cast a spell, your wizard level must be at least (that spells level)*2-1]

True Strike (Basic book, very low wank, 1st Level Spell): It adds +20 to your next to hit roll. In game terms, a bow-type (or crossbow type, meaning gun-type) weapon has a maximum range of 10 "range increments", which vary for the weapon. You take a -2 penalty for each range increment away your target is. This means a sniper who casts true strike can hit someone at the maximum range of his weapon with the same difficulty as he would normally hit someone 1/10 of the maximum range away. I'm not sure what this would mean for powerful sniper rifles, but I imagine things could get pretty insane. Some of that +20 could also negate the -4 penalty for "partial cover", or just general bad skill of the sniper (low to hit) or hard-to-hitness of the target (high touch AC). 20 is also more than the base difference in AC between something colossal (about 30 feet big) and something fine (insect sized) [The difference is 16]. This would theoretically mean you can shoot a high caliber sniper round at some tiny weak point in say, a helicopter.

Ironguard, Lesser (Spell Compendium, moderate wank, 5th level Spell): The subject of the spell becomes completely immune to all metal for about a minute. They are effectively transparent to metals: bullets pass through them, they can walk through metal walls and bars, handcuffs fall right off. Some moderate-to-high level skeeze could be used to make this spell last 24 hours for a high-ish level mage building for it.

Control Weather (Basic book, very low wank, 7th level Spell): It does what it says, with a weather response time of 10 minutes. It effects a 2 mile radius around the caster for about a day, and can be used to produce things such as blizzards, hurricane force winds, and random (undirectable) tornados.

Scrying (Basic Book, very low wank, 4th level Spell): You can observe the target, no matter where he is, and his immediate surroundings for about 10 minutes, and hear what goes on there. This is the type of spell that can succeed or fail, but if an intelligence service had enough dedicated wizards, it could keep up a 24 hour watch on any individual with no magical protection by simply having each wizard spam it. For one such dedicated watch against a magical mook it takes 6*24*2 = 288 wizards capable of casting the spell, but it takes up only a small portion of the resources of each of them (they could keep tabs on anywhere from 1 to a couple dozen people, depending on level).

Teleport, Greater (Basic Book, very low wank, 7th Level): You and a couple of your closest friends, given a reliable description of some place anywhere in the world, inside or outside or underground, go there. And pop out of thin air. Alternately, you could go there alone, drop off a backpack nuke, and then use the same spell to leave, all in twelve seconds (or less, using some contingency or time manipulation spells)

Time Stop (Basic Book, very low wank, 9th Level): Stops time for you for between 12 and 30 seconds. Could be used for backpack nuke delivery.

In conclusion, there is some pretty fucking awful stuff there. A 17th level wizard is essentially a delivery system that can drop anything he can carry anywhere you have a description of on the planet at no risk to himself. I'm just scratching the surface of the horror here really.

[Formless]

The mages should recieve the same equipment and training as their squad mates, so as not to stand out.

They will be acting in a support capacity, casting primarily healing and mind spells, as well as things as invisibility, and the occasional magical trap. For direct combat spells, guns do it faster, better, cheaper, and with less risk to the valuable spellcaster.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Emphasis mine. I think it might have been ignored in my original long post, but in DnD at least, Wizards and sorcerers can NOT cast healing magic. The company pastor on the other hand...

This obviously does not apply to other universes: Magic the Gathering white mana users and some green mana users can cast healing spells, Harry potter has several medical spells, and there are probably others that I can't list off the top of my head that can do this.

[lance]

Actually they can, mostly its heal xd6 you take 1/2xd6 or getting healing spell through a feat. Arcane domain feat or that feat where they grab an arcane spell of another list.

[Formless]

Uh, I vaugely remember a spell or two that were in the Spell Compendium that sound like that, but they certainly are not standard fare. And what the hell feats are you talking about, and what book did they come from? I don't have every supplemental book Wizards money making factory printed, you know.

And that had better not be from Fourth Edition!

[Stark]

I hear DnD is the only thing worth talking about lol? Talking about magic in combat does not necessarily have anything to do with the absurdly stupid DnD magic system, the OP isn't just talking about DnD, etc.

[Formless]

If someone walks in here who knows Rifts style magic and rules, then we will talk, STRAK.

[Imperial Overlord]

As Stark has pointed out, most fantasy universes have magic that's pretty damn weak compared to modern weaponry. While Dying Earth, Earwa, and Malazan series magic can compete to one degree or another things like stealth magic to get infiltrate and mind control enemy leaders, mind probing prisoners for intelligence, scrying, etcetera is where magic will really pay off.

[Oskuro]

For quantification, I remember the D&D Fireball spell had some quantifiable data in it's description. From d20srd.org:

Fireball
Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
Spell Resistance: Yes

A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.
Material Component

A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.

[Samuel]

[QUOTE[
Checking my books, and... erk. You are correct. Every spell of every level requires a caster of intelligence 10 + spell level.

Of course, that also means that an intelligence 13 individual can cast up to third level spells, where most of the good combat spells come into play.

[/QUOTE]

At which point the bell curve and the fact that every other high skill job on Earth hurts you.

But that education is going to be more common in the first place. Do you dispute that? More people will be able to afford it, and more people will likely pursue arcane study.

Yes, I do dispute that. D&D societies can be magic saturated. The stats I had gave about 500 to 2000 mages for a "city" of 50,000. And this is a world where magic is the best you can get.

Well when you put it that way, how many surgouns do armies field all the time, even back in the day? Its essential, even considering the lower standards of field hospitals, that someone does the job. Same with magic, an army must either exploit this weapon, or they will get raped by those who do.

Not enough to be at anything other than field hosptitals. And the ones there aren't the best in the world.

Long time, but fielded nevertheless. I mean, the army fields tons of engineers and they take a lot of training, but they still do it.

I'm not saying they won't be used- just not on squad levels. Engineers don't get attached to squads.

Anti-magic devices require mages to make anti-magic devices. Try again.

No, they only require that because technology can't replicate the effects on the level D&D operates. Remember, living things have a magic resistance, which means it can be duplicated.

More to the point, I am not disputing the usefulness of mages- they just happen to be less useful (rarer, more killable, limited) than magical items.

NO, they would NOT be needed to keep society running, what gave you that idea? The OP assumed modern, industrialized conditions, which means that society will keep running without some of their magically inclined population around.

The OP is unrealistic- if mages exist they would become part of the civilian population and workforce.

You also do not take into account Sorcerers, which seem to occur naturally in the population. True, they are made out to be a rarity, but it does inflate your numbers a little bit. And it helps that Sorcerer spellcasting is based off the Charisma statistic, not the intelligence one, so a sorcerer can be a total dumbshit and still cast effectively.

Actually, they are as common as wizards. However, they require interbreeding with dragons/pacts with unknown powers/take your pick, so in an industrialized situation you aren't going to have many of them.

Also, what do we take as real world statistics on intelligence, and how do we correlate that to the number of people who would be potential spellcasters according to DnD? Do we go by the IQ test, which has to be adjusted every so often due to a seemingly natural tendency to rise over time?

We are going by D&D intelligence which is listed as the ability to learn more languages, more skills and spells. It appears to be the capacity for memorization.

The biggest advantage would be magic weaponary and gear. Who doesn't want a nuclear weapon that does only subdue damage? Armor that makes you phase out from reality? Guns that do not need reloads?

[Formless]

At which point the bell curve and the fact that every other high skill job on Earth hurts you.

Not that much; remember that the army and other organizations don't need everyone to be the highest skill level possible. That is why, as we agree upon later in your post, field hospitals are not the best medical care in the world. BUT they are good enough, and essential enough, to justify their use. That is also why I said that an intelligence 13 character is good enough to cast Fireball, the most ubiquitous area effect spell in the game.

Remember, every intelligence point up is supposed to be correlated to the bell curve, meaning that every rank up has fewer people in that rank. When you only need people who can cast level 3 spells, you have a wider pool to draw from then when you unreasonably restrict yourself to people who can cast level 9 spells, who are the highest 10% of the population in terms of intelligence.

Yes, I do dispute that. D&D societies can be magic saturated. The stats I had gave about 500 to 2000 mages for a "city" of 50,000. And this is a world where magic is the best you can get.

ACtually, you have two flaws of reasoning here. The first is that you claim that DnD societies represent the highest saturation of magic users possible. The problem with that statement is that we have nothing to compare them to, no civilizations or societies of a higher social-technological development to look at that can prove or disprove your statement that apply to the laws of the DnD universe.*

The next is that you have not considered or actually addressed the effect that you were disputing. Skilled labor, the kind which requires specialization and intelligence, can be shown historically to have increased over time with the industrial revolution and the proliferation of higher education. Since magic in DnD crucially requires higher education, the trend should hold unless there is some factor preventing it that you have not mentioned.

*Okay, that is not precisely true. There is the Eberron setting which was explicitly designed to depict a DnD fantasy society and civilization undergoing an industrial revolution (slightly steampunk in nature), and I believe it actually had a new spellcasting class that was supposed to be more common population wise, but less powerful in terms of overall spellcasting. I don't actually own any of those books, however, and I am not very familiar with the material. If someone who is could reign in, then we can get verification on this point.

Not enough to be at anything other than field hosptitals. And the ones there aren't the best in the world.

They don't need to be. Their job is to save the soldiers lives long enough to either get them back into combat, or until they can ship them back home. Similarly, a soldier mage need only be of intelligence 13 and fifth level to cast third level spells useful to the military, such as fireball, many illusion spells, suggestion (a basic form of mind control that implants ideas and/or thoughts into the targets mind), and the divination spell clairaudience/clairvoiance that is useful as a magical microphone or camera. (out and out Scrying is unfortunately a fourth level spell, meaning one more intelligence point and two more levels before a mage can field this one) I think it is safe to say that that covers the main bases people recognize magic as being useful for.

I'm not saying they won't be used- just not on squad levels. Engineers don't get attached to squads.

Fair enough. Perhaps we should be asking about company or platoon level instead.

Should we also ask about Clerical spellcasters being attached to the military? Real life militaries already attach pastors and priests for spiritual support, so there is a precident.

No, they only require that because technology can't replicate the effects on the level D&D operates. Remember, living things have a magic resistance, which means it can be duplicated.

Living things, and not mechanical technology. Biotech in the real world has not come far enough that I can see mundane protections from magic being something you can create.

More to the point, nothing shows there to be any mundane replacements for Dispell Magic in any of the books I have read. You are only speculating here.

More to the point, I am not disputing the usefulness of mages- they just happen to be less useful (rarer, more killable, limited) than magical items.

Okay, but that also means implimenting spellcasters into the military industrial complex. Which was what I said. We are in agreement here.

I believe this is another place where Eberron would be of use to us as the previously spellcasting class was, IIRC, supposed to be part of that process in Eberron's industrial revolution.

The OP is unrealistic- if mages exist they would become part of the civilian population and workforce.

Or maybe the society already has machinery, industry, and infrastructure that does not require as many magic users on hand constantly after it is created then it does at the time of its creation, thus freeing up mages to do other things besides civil engineering all the time? Like fight in wars?

Actually, they are as common as wizards. However, they require interbreeding with dragons/pacts with unknown powers/take your pick, so in an industrialized situation you aren't going to have many of them.

First of all, the books are deliberately unclear on what causes people to manifest natural spellcasting, otherwise known as sorcery. In the description of the class, it says:

Some sorcerers claim that the blood of dragons courses through their veins.That claim may be true in some cases-- it is common knowledge that certain powerful dragons can take humanoid form and even have humanoid lovers, and it difficult to prove that a given sorcerer does not have a dragon ancestor. Its true that sorcerers often have striking good looks, usually with the touch of the exotic that hints at an unusual heritage. Others hold that the claim is either an unsubstantiated boast on the part of certain sorcerers or envious gossip on the part of those who lack the sorcerers gift.

Which means that it could just as easily indicate that certain popular or famous sorcerers are just wankers. (consider that the charisma stat, which is essential to sorcerer spellcasting in the same way as intelligence is to wizards, is partially an expression of self confidence)

Also, you did not address my point: the population of sorcerers is going to add to the ranks of arcane spellcasters avaliable in a nation looking to field magic in a war. In fact, that you say that there are as many sorcerers as wizards betters that position.

Hell, I even said sorcerers are going to be rare, but that does not prevent them from being potential candidates for magical soldiers.

We are going by D&D intelligence which is listed as the ability to learn more languages, more skills and spells. It appears to be the capacity for memorization.

I would point out that both DnDs statistics and the IQ test give a bell curve for the total population. Why can't we consider them equivalent?

The biggest advantage would be magic weaponary and gear. Who doesn't want a nuclear weapon that does only subdue damage? Armor that makes you phase out from reality? Guns that do not need reloads?

We would (although the properties that you can give to weapons and such are a little more well defined in the books, including D20 Modern, none of which includes an infinite ammo effect.) This would require magic to be integrated into the industrial complex system somehow. This does not remove mages from the equation, of course. And of course, Eberron would be handy material to look at as well.

[loomer]

Actually, if I recall, there is a certain type of material that projects an anti-magic field. I'll trawl my collection to see if I can find it.

[loomer]

And here we are. Also, I left it too long to simply edit my post.

Other materials and items of note cropped up, too. I've left out materials specific to certain planes, although theoretically they could also be obtained, so if anyone would like, I'll bring them up too.


(Arms and Equipment Guide) Take 'blended quartz', a blend of iron and quartz that supposedly occurs naturally and lowers the arcane failure chance by 20%. If it could be refined with modern technology and used as ceramic inserts in lighter body armour, you could increase the protection for mages without interfering in spellcasting.

The magebane enchantment costs 2000 extra GP in materials and time (let's just go with that instead of doing a conversion). It grants a +2 bonus against arcane magic users, can be applied to any weapon, and also does 2d6 extra damage to arcane magic users. I dare say this particular enchantment would be of great use to snipers on missions to deal with enemy mages.

The very best mages (let's assume people like Steven Hawking, if he was a mage instead of a crippled physicist) would likely be capable of terrifying feats. Let's just look at the Epic Level Handbook for a very high end example, quite probably the kind of spell only one person alive would be capable of, if anyone.

Damnation is such a spell. If you can get an absurdly powerful mage in your enemy leader's bodyguard, all he has to do is touch him to send him Straight Ta Hell. That's not a joke. The enemy is sent to the Nine Hells (or the Abyss) for twenty hours, after which he can try and escape. Very few political leaders would ever be able to return. Only true badasses like Winston Churchill, Vladimir Putin, or the 204th President of the United States (Angry George McMurderPants) would have any real chance of escape. You also get style points if you dress the assassin-mage up as a southern preacher and have him yell 'Straight Ta Hell!' when he does it.

An easier way for an assassin-mage to strike is merely to get them within 300 feet and have them cast Memento Mori, which instantly kills any creature that does not pass a DC30 + Fortitude modifier save (essentially impossible for most people). Even if they do, they take 3d6+20 points of damage. This spell is very quick to pull off, allowing the caster to also teleport away in the same 'turn' to avoid repercussions.

Dire Winter is another one that could cripple entire armies. Cast it on a vital part of a camp, and a 1,000 foot radius around that object or person becomes bitterly cold. Water freezes out of the air into snow, and winds make it into a blizzard. Anyone exposed to the air without magical or exceptionally good (dozens of electric heaters, a sauna, and air conditioning blasting out hot air, for instance) mundane protection takes 2d6 damage per round. In a single minute of casting, you could potentially wipe out a significant portion of a field base, and definitely fuck up, say, an aircraft carrier. Sure, it wears off after twenty hours of frigid hell, but the cold will have frozen fuel and other fluids vital to the running of the carrier and its ships - good luck getting those helicopters in the air without maintenance!

Pestilence is another good one to employ as a special ops strike against an encampment. A ten minute ritual requiring two other epic mages (very hard to get together, but they personally need only be level 21), Pestilence affects a 1,000 foot radius around a specific target. Within a day, everything within begins to die. Every day a victim does not pass a fortitude save, they take 1d4 constitution damage. Assuming a soldier has an average of 14 con, even at the slowest rate it will kill everyone within that encampment radius in two weeks. The disease is not transmissable. You can also use this on large warehouses dedicated to food storage, or even factories producing MREs - the rot makes the food unfit for consumption, no matter what spell is used to try and make it work otherwise.

On a non epic scale (Sandstorm), a sufficiently advanced mage (5th level spell), cleric (5th/4th with the right domain) or bard (4th) can cast the spell 'dispel water'. It does exactly what it sounds like. But its most pertinent usage for war is the ability to actually remove regular water, rather than elementals or magic effects. 200 cubic feet of water per level are destroyed by the spell, so a higher level caster can quite literally send an aircraft carrier or battleship plummeting to the bottom of the ocean - which is probably a Very Bad Thing(tm) if you're onboard said aircraft carrier.

A druid, ranger, or cleric with the Summer domain can cast the 1st level spell 'Impede Sun's Brilliance'. In a 10ft radius, 20 feet high, the temperature drops by 20 degrees and removes the capacity for sunburn and glare. If you then apply the permanency spell, you can move on and gradually build it over an entire desert base - I bet the soldiers in Iraq would love this one! Without the permanency spell, it only lasts for ten minutes a level.

Waste strider, another ranger/druid/sand domain first level spell, would be useful for special ops teams in the desert. Lasting an hour per level, a single level 5 cleric could easily cover a team's entire active period, removing the difficulties of moving through desert environments.

The 'cool' enchantment makes armour, literally, cool. It removes all the penalties for heat, so it can be assumed that it essentially makes the armour thermally transparent - heat is not trapped by it, but it is not blocked by it. It is a perfect conductor. This could also lead to interesting developments in computing and other areas where heat-management are key. CL 3rd to enchant.

Stormwrack brings us the spell 'disguise ship', which can be cast on any vessel by a mage, and is a 4th level spell. It transofmrs the ship into any other ship desired, so long as it is not more than 50% larger or smaller. The spell lasts for 1 hour a level. Worried about the enemy realizing you're bringing in an aircraft carrier? Disguise it as a merchant ship or a tanker!

Pressure sphere, a level 2 spell available to mages, druids, ad Blackwater clerics, affects a 20ft radius sphere of water. It's given actual description here, which is useful. It takes on the pressure of the deepest ocean trenches. So you could, potentially, use this to crush parts of a submarine or a battleship beneath the surface. In terms of damage, it is described only as 4d6 damage, inconsistent with the sheer scale of pressure described. Take that as you will.

Water to acid is a 3rd level mage spell that does exactly what it says. It turns one cubic foot of water to acid per level. This is of limited use in most circumstances, but if you use it on an enemy's water storage tanks... Well, even if the tanks manage to stay intact, the first man to try for a drink will get a nasty burn. This spell also dissolves all metals at a rate of 1d6 hit points a round, ignoring hardness. Iron has 30 HP per inch, so assuming an average burn rate of 3 HP of damage, it takes roughly a minute to burn through an inch of iron. Underwater, the acid dissipates after 1 round per caster level, so against the steel plating of most combat vessels, it would be largely useless - except when cast by experienced mages.

An epic spell from the same allows a caster to part a cylinder in an ocean for an hour. If cast beneath a battle ship or carrier, this would have predictable effects of a sudden drop down and highly decreased combat efficiency - and god help them if they get caught on the edge, because they're gonna flip. The spell can affect, by default, a 30 foot high, 300 foot radius cylinder - but can also do any such cylindrical shape of the same volume.

The material known as pearlsteel apparently slices more smoothly through the resistance of water than regular steel (-1 instead of -2) and weighs 25% less than their usual counterpart. Applying this material to the formation of of the propellers and front edges of ships could have interesting implications on speed.

Got tired, taking a break. I'll dig up more in a little while. Including (you better fucking appreciate this) a thorough look through the Spell Compendium - 286 pages dedicated purely to bloody magic.

[Samuel]

ACtually, you have two flaws of reasoning here. The first is that you claim that DnD societies represent the highest saturation of magic users possible. The problem with that statement is that we have nothing to compare them to, no civilizations or societies of a higher social-technological development to look at that can prove or disprove your statement that apply to the laws of the DnD universe.*

I was using the numbers for maximum saturation on the worldbuilding section... technically you'd have to double the high ones to get max saturation possible.

The next is that you have not considered or actually addressed the effect that you were disputing. Skilled labor, the kind which requires specialization and intelligence, can be shown historically to have increased over time with the industrial revolution and the proliferation of higher education. Since magic in DnD crucially requires higher education, the trend should hold unless there is some factor preventing it that you have not mentioned.

There is. Magic subs in for technology in many sectors.

Fair enough. Perhaps we should be asking about company or platoon level instead.

That would fit much better.

Should we also ask about Clerical spellcasters being attached to the military? Real life militaries already attach pastors and priests for spiritual support, so there is a precident.

They are actually more useful. Look at their 0 level spells- they can make water and repair objects! Level 1 adds more fun- healing, endure elements, entropic field, remove fear, sanctuary- and domain spells, of course. In addition, there should be twice as many as wizards and there aren't armor problems.

Of course, that brings up more problems. Namely what religions, how they work, etc.

More to the point, nothing shows there to be any mundane replacements for Dispell Magic in any of the books I have read. You are only speculating here.

They have anti-magic jammers and magic deflectors in Spelljammer.

Or maybe the society already has machinery, industry, and infrastructure that does not require as many magic users on hand constantly after it is created then it does at the time of its creation, thus freeing up mages to do other things besides civil engineering all the time? Like fight in wars?

Except there will always be a need for new items, new gear, maintanance, trouble shooting, services, etc.

Which means that it could just as easily indicate that certain popular or famous sorcerers are just wankers. (consider that the charisma stat, which is essential to sorcerer spellcasting in the same way as intelligence is to wizards, is partially an expression of self confidence)

Also, you did not address my point: the population of sorcerers is going to add to the ranks of arcane spellcasters avaliable in a nation looking to field magic in a war. In fact, that you say that there are as many sorcerers as wizards betters that position.

Hell, I even said sorcerers are going to be rare, but that does not prevent them from being potential candidates for magical soldiers.

Sorcery is an innate gift. It must be genetic.

I would point out that both DnDs statistics and the IQ test give a bell curve for the total population. Why can't we consider them equivalent?

Here is what INT measures:
Languages known
Skills known
Spells per day (stored in mind)
-Appraise
-Craft
-Decipher Script
-Disable Device
-Forgery
-Knowledge
-Search
-Spellcraft

All these are memory based (with the sole exception of search).

IQ measures completely differant things- puzzle solving, math skills, etc.

The two are correlated, but not the same.

We would (although the properties that you can give to weapons and such are a little more well defined in the books, including D20 Modern, none of which includes an infinite ammo effect.) This would require magic to be integrated into the industrial complex system somehow. This does not remove mages from the equation, of course. And of course, Eberron would be handy material to look at as well.

In the ammo slot a portal linked to the plane of positive energy. Result? Never dying beam weapon.

Ebberon isn't such a good source. It is intentionally steam punk and grim dark. Of course, that could be the irrational hate talking.

[Samuel]

Wow.... that is dedication loomer. I'll list some useful magic item abilities.

Resistance, fire, acid, etc.- Always useful
Ethereal- physical objects pass through you.
Invulnerable- 5/magic resistance
Reflecting-bounce spells back
Silent move, shadow-unheard, unseen
Spell Resistance-guess
Dancing- weapon fights on its own for short period of time. Never go around corners again!
Flaming, Frost and other ammo boosts-increased power in a normal rifle loadout.
Distance- Doubled range
Keen- move likely to head shot.
Merciful-can do nonleathal damage with normal attacks
Seeking-what it says on the tin

That is just weapons and armor. I'll hit more tommorrow.

[loomer]

Well, the post I had for sections A-F got deleted when I accidentally hit backspace out of the text window. So here's some Magic of Faerun stuff - just the magic item enchantments, since the spells are all in the spell compendium and I don't want to cover things twice.

Blueshine is an armour enchantment that's fairly cheap. The armour must be metal, but is rendered immune to rust and acid, and is significantly easier to hide. Could be useful for tanks or APCs being used for spec ops.

MAgic eating is another armour enchantment, of a moderate cost. The armour can be anything, and gains magic resistance. Limited utility, but could be handy. Higher caster level, so tricky.

Nimbleness makes armour less cumbersome and allows more use of natural dexterity for protection. Cheap and easy to enchant.

The seeking weapon enchantment is cheap, requires moderately experienced caster, and allows the firer to ignore concealment when firing at a foe. Very useful in CQB.


Just the enchantments alone make magic of significant value for war.

[Formless]

I was using the numbers for maximum saturation on the worldbuilding section... technically you'd have to double the high ones to get max saturation possible.

You still don't have anything to compare it to. The world building section still makes the assumption that you are building a medieval setting like all the other DnD settings. It only takes into account the limitations of that kind of setting, not the kind that an advanced society would have.

There is. Magic subs in for technology in many sectors.

The Herring is Red on this one. This should have absolutely no effect on education and societal advances based upon industrialization. In fact, it should make spellcasters more valuable, desireable, and necessary to society, increasing the number of people who should be looking for training in arcane fields of study.

That would fit much better.

Alright then. With exception for special forces, I imagine? For reasons previously mentioned (invisability, enhancement spells, teleportation, etc.).

They are actually more useful. Look at their 0 level spells- they can make water and repair objects! Level 1 adds more fun- healing, endure elements, entropic field, remove fear, sanctuary- and domain spells, of course. In addition, there should be twice as many as wizards and there aren't armor problems.

More useful, but I wonder if they would be any more common. Remember, all the six stats follow the bell curve, not just intelligence. Clerics rely on Wisdom in the same way wizards rely on intelligence: they can only cast spells if they are of wisdom 10 + the spells level. So the same kind of population restrictions apply to higher level cleric spells. Of course, you are right to say that cleric spells are useful to the military sooner then wizard spells.

Of course, that brings up more problems. Namely what religions, how they work, etc.

Well, we can look at the dieties in the books to figure out pretty easily that none of them seem to be pacifist, if that is an issue. And D20 modern says that basically anyone who has faith/belief can be granted power by a higher entity. So you can literally have characters who's spells are granted by Jesus Christ or by New Age Spiritualism. The former at least is well known for making war.

Or were you talking about domain spells?

They have anti-magic jammers and magic deflectors in Spelljammer.

I need to brush up on my spelljammer (which was only version 2, they let the line drop in 3/3.5), but weren't they considered magic items that required magical creation technequies? i.e., crafted by a mage?

Except there will always be a need for new items, new gear, maintanance, trouble shooting, services, etc.

Depending on how it works, there would be fewer people needed for at least some of those things: if you can industrialize the productions of magic items, for example.

Sorcery is an innate gift. It must be genetic.

Yeah, but not necessarily as a result of abnormal or monstrous inheritance. The rates of sorcerers can be tracked and recorded, and we can say that such individuals can be found in large enough quantities to be of use to military forces.

Here is what INT measures:
Languages known
Skills known
Spells per day (stored in mind)
-Appraise
-Craft
-Decipher Script
-Disable Device
-Forgery
-Knowledge
-Search
-Spellcraft

All these are memory based (with the sole exception of search).

IQ measures completely differant things- puzzle solving, math skills, etc.

The two are correlated, but not the same.

Okay. Sounds like DnD separates the properties of IQ between Wizdom and Intelligence rather then a single statistic.

In the ammo slot a portal linked to the plane of positive energy. Result? Never dying beam weapon.

Ebberon isn't such a good source. It is intentionally steam punk and grim dark. Of course, that could be the irrational hate talking.

Well, I remember a special weapon from the D20 modern books that was a psyonic pistol made of crystal. It was not infinite in power, however. The same goes for the Positive Energy plane; we are not going to go down a no limits fallacy here. The thing could be limited by how much energy the weapon can channel before it overheats, or by the portal wearing out. But it would still be useful, true.

As for Eberron, to be honest I don't personally like any of the official settings except Dragonlance. However, Eberron does show what such a society could look like within the scope of DnDs rule structures, and data can be obtained from it useful in the discussion. So I won't throw it out just because of personal preference.

@ Loomer: nice list, very extensive. I don't think there was any doubt that magic can be a WMD, but this gives us some stuff to quantify, which is the big question. Of course, such magic is limited to the higher intelligence portion of the population. That is why I was limiting myself to the lower end spells, because as per the OP, they would be the most commonly seen among soldier-mages.

I think I will get to quantifying Fireball pretty soon. Lets see what I get out of this...

[loomer]

Regarding domain, pretty easy. You don't need to believe in a deity at all to be granted the powers. What you really need is the zeal and devotion to said ideals that a 'regular' God fearing cleric would have. It's entirely possible to be an atheistic cleric, on a technical level!

Unless that was just a house rule.

[Formless]

Actually, that is the ruling in the D20 Modern books.

[lance]

The stat requirements for higher spells is largely moot, a caster just needs a 13 and a stat booster to cast 9th level spells. I would really imagine a high demand for these though. Might be better for the president and the upper command.

A couple other things.
Warlocks would be crazy good as they can walk around invisible, and able to see in darkness as if it were broad daylight, with no scent, and have 20% of ranged projectile attacks on them auto fail.
Binders could be similar as they can use there abilities often. At low levels being able to scout through a birds eyes as well as being able to go invisible. Other things like freedom of movement, having scent for guards, illusions etc.
Clerics would be the gods of the hospital. The 0th level cure minor wounds will stabilize a person no matter how badly they've been injured.
Poly morph Any Object can turn a real army(with A LOT of castings) into a toy soldier army. Dispel magic can turn them back in to the fighting men that they once were.
Necromancy would be a bitch too. Take an aged Special forces guy and turn him into the undead, or put his mind into the body of a person 1/2 his age.

[Alyrium Denryle]

You guys are all focused on damage dealing and stealth. Stop it. The stealth is great yes, the damage dealing though is the snipers equivalent to a side arm. There for self defense when other means fail.

Wizards in modern combat are going to be useful for things. Penetration/assassination, large scale defense and terrain contro, and intell.

Low level wizards will be useful for doing things like making infiltration teams invisible, and at higher levels will be able to put up their own wards and teleport behind enemy lines, annihilate a high value target (spell sequencer anyone?)without the need for the logistical train and advance planning, and teleport out before their defensive spells fail (Iron guard, protection from energy, protection from "arrows" etc) Or they could just summon something horrible to do it for them.

The really high level wizards can literally control weather, and create obstacles to things like tanks that were not there before. They can also erect spells that keep out other wizards, or defend entire units from enemy fire (wall of force/wall of iron)

Intel... Oh god oh god, is all I have to say

[Thanas]

About D&D armour for wizards - if the wizard can cast protective sphere, which only leaves him vulnerable to magic weapons or spells, why would he need to wear armour in combat?

Of course, this is a potential no limits fallacy right there.