Defending against Sorcery

[Jaif]

Ok, I mentioned this in another thread, so I'd like to pose a question to the viewing audience.

1) How do sorcerers defend themselves from other sorcerers?  Let's be clear, as a sorcerer you can use vision to find a person wherever they may be, and then use something else to kill them; say, shrink their skull down many times and destroy their brain in one fell swoop.  Or, to avoid any messy art or WP rolls, just bring the house down around them.

What can you do to defend against that?

2) What can a regular guy with means do against a sorcerer?  Let me pose this problem another way: Uglub has, say, 50 decent quality sorcerers under his command (and possibly many others with limited abilities on the front lines).  Each of these guys can kill a single person pretty easily, so they could, in a month's time, wipe out most the nobles in Stahl (or whatever).  Furthermore, at some personal sacrifice, each could summon a demon and send it after a spicy target (like a stronghold).  Furthermore, each of these sorcerers are guarded by a well-trained army, which can deal with a mundane threat for at least a time.

How can a mortal army reasonably oppose one that has access to sorcery?

I do have some thoughts, and I may have some additions to the world to smooth some edges, but I'd like to here what others think as well.

-Jeff

[Rattlehead]

That's a tough question to answer. I've been thinking about it myself, and the best I can come up with is this:

Firstly, magic is rare in Weyrth. So rare that "educated" people don't even believe in it. I honestly don't think Gelure is home to that many sorcerers. They have a tolerant (even encouraging) policy toward them, but they're so rare, there can't be that many. Still, one is enough to mess up your whole day...

Second, I imagine that while those that wield magic are happy to see Gelure welcome their kind, most probably don't care. I imagine that most sorcerers in Weyrth are unconcerned with the goings on of the nations around them. They care only for their own goals, which are probably beyond the ken of 99% of the populaiton of Weyrth. Now, if Uggie can get some leverage on a sorcerer, maybe find something that he can give them that no one else can, then maybe they'll help him burn and pillage. But what can he give them that they can't get for themselves? His offer of shelter to those who practice the art is probably appreciated, but I'm sure it's not something a sorcerer needs. If you are able to find a sorcerer's den, it was because he either didn't care if you found him, or he wanted you to...

That's how I see it, anyway. But I'd love to hear what others think.

Brandon

[Jaif]

Thanks, I've had some of the same thoughts, though I think Uglub has a) soaked up a lot of sorcs (10s, perhaps high 10s if you count people with little real power), and b) put them to work, at least to some degree.  The game mentions that Gelure will expand in the start year, and it's going to have to do it on the backs of the sorcs.

However, all of this sidesteps the mechanical issues.  Sorcs are very much a "first strike" weapon.  Unless I'm missing something, if Uglub strikes first, he wins, even against other sorcs.  Furthermore, humans really don't stand a chance.  Between diseases, demons, and long-distance assasination of key leaders, Uglub should be able to roll through everyone.

My first step is to worry about how a sorc defends against another sorc.  I don't mean in battle, I mean on a day-to-day basis.  Once I crack that, then I need to address sorcs vs the populace, which I think will come down to more social things ("You want me to waste 2-years of my life for what?").

-Jeff

[Lance D. Allen]

I will tell you one thing... Conquest cannot be had by heavy artillery alone. You do need ground troops, and ground war. Assassination may weaken a nation, but it cannot conquer it. There will be a ground war.

Other than that, I cannot answer you. The sorcerors will be as effective as combat support as they are as heavy artillery.

[Ian O'Rourke]

I will tell you one thing... Conquest cannot be had by heavy artillery alone. You do need ground troops, and ground war. Assassination may weaken a nation, but it cannot conquer it. There will be a ground war.

Other than that, I cannot answer you. The sorcerors will be as effective as combat support as they are as heavy artillery.

Reading between the lines of the original post I think your answer glosses over the problem? The key to counteracting modern artillery and precision technology in mordern warfare is: (1) not being found and (2) sheltering yourself so well, if they find you, there first strike does not kill you (such as deep bunker).

If I have it right, it now depends on how good the vision thing the original poster mentioned. If a Sorcerer can find you with a vision, then you've lost item (1) and I suspect burrying yourself deep in a mountain would not protect you either.

So while, yes, a ground war would still occur, the side with complete impunity to dismantle the other sides command structure is probably going to win.

After all, this has been NATO military doctrine for decades - precision over numbers.

[Shadow]

I would say there is no real way for the army without the sorcery to resist effectively.  As Ian points out, the command structure of the sorcery-weak force would be undefendable and could be picked off as needed.  Since you cannot run nor hide from sorcery, the only recourse I can see would be attempts to take out the enemy sorcerers.  Assassinations & such would be attempted, but these would not be nearly as effective as the sorcerer's methods (there are ways to defend against assassins, but not against the sorcery).  The side with a decisive advantage in sorcery should win.

If one nation or faction has a clear sorcery advantage over others, but does not control most of the sorcery in the entire world, that nation could be cautious in using its advantage, for fear of bringing others into the conflict against them.  So, Gelure might employ just enough sorcery to take on its foes one at a time.  Still they would be expected to win, however, up until the point that enough foes (with enough combined sorcery) turned against them.  This might at least slow down the progression of world domination by a sorcerous faction.  This all presupposes that they do not have enough sorcery to take on the rest of the world all at once, though...

[Jaif]

I'm going to disappear for a week, and hopefully run TRoS during that time.  Here's some of my thoughts on these things:

1) Vision lvl 3 says it can find anything, anywhere, as long as the sorcerer has some link to the place.  Unfortunately, that last part is vague, but I'm going to assume that a person hiding randomly in the wilderness is mostly safe unless the sorcerer gets his hair or fingernail clippings, or the sorcerer has a servant who finds him, or something similar. Presumably the sorc has made a link between himself and the servant, and can work something out from that.  I'll also assume that well-known location, like a castle, can be linked-to pretty easily.

2) Spells can be inverted as defense.  I think we can assume that a smart sorcerer will find someway to hide his presence from prying eyes by inverting a vision spell.  I need to find a cool way to make this permenant.

3) We've never touched on the magical properties of items.  Is iron deadly to the sidhe? Silver hurt undead?  Maybe detailing magical properties of other items might come up with some materials that make spell-casting difficult in the area, and some nobles often use that material (like people in Xanar).

4) Social.  A prior poster was right, this is an issue I'd rather avoid now.  I can come up with a group of witchhunters who always where hoods when they do their work, make no friends other than other witchhunters, dress in black, are orphans, are meticulous about their hair and nail clippings, and generally hard to find w/vision.  It is part of the solution.

5) I agree with another prior poster; this is about someone who can take out key defensive positions & command personnel with precision.  The rest is just a detail.  This doesn't mean Gelure has the resources to take over massive amounts of ground, but it does mean they can destroy what they want limited only by the number of sorcs they have, and the amount of energy those sorcs expend.

Last, I want to point out that sorcerers don't need to expend that much energy to give a decisive advantage to their troops.  An illusion of gadflys on a troop of cavalry, bringing down a section of wall in a castle, floating a few soldiers into the gate house at dusk, and so-on.  All of this will give a decisive advantage on the battlefield, and is pretty easy to do.

-Jeff

P.S. Thought of one last point: just because there are limitations to sorcery doesn't mean most people know what they are.  It's unlikely that nobles throughout the world religiously guard themselves from sorcerous vision.

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi guys,

Something else to consider, not having read the rules yet, let alone played....

But if I remember correctly from the eighty gazillion posts I've read over the last week, Sorcs are not even believed by most folks right?  There's got to be a reason for this.  I'd offer a) most people don't see big ju-ju all the time b) the sorcs like it to be secret.

I'd offer that sorcs have every reason in the world not to attract attention -- say armies of villagers wielding pitchforks and torches -- let alone soldiers.  Yes, they could hold out with magic for a while -- but their very defense depends on the expenditure of the life -- which is the very resource they're trying to defend.  Not as cost effective as just keeping a low profile and being smart about it.  So whatever they do in public, will be limited, infrequent and carefully hidden so that no one starts putting together clues and start spinning the tale that there must be a sorcerer out there doing all this -- which would of course be true and lead to further clues each time the sorcerer took action!

I think one more thing to think about about SA's and sorcs as people.  In other words, let's make sure we don't fall into the DnD trap of thinking at Sorcerers as artillary.  Why are they sorcerers?  These are men and women who's devoted years of study to a secret and fearful profession that involves tapping strange forces that can litterly kill them if used incorrectly.  Why?  What it is about magic that draws them?  To what end?  Just as a fighter in TRoS is more than a guy who can kill (and that's what makes him interesting), let's assume there's more to a sorcerer than the ability to vanquish tower wall or kill a leader.  He could do these things... But why?  How are his SAs actually lined up?  How many Sorcerers have a Passion for Serving Military Big Wigs?  How many of them  have a Destiny to be a Court Monkey Boy?

Once you combine the desire for secrecy (which means careful, long range planning and action -- just like all those soldiers now carefully laying ambushes all across Weyrth!) with SAs that actually focus action in personal and meaningful ways, I think you'll find the tool of the state problem begins to melt.

As for defense on an individual level -- remember, SA's hook characters both ways.  If someone's gunning for you, giving the Narrativist angle, you probably know it. It's now a story.  As has already been pointed out, there are conditions for the spells.  The intended victim is now taking action to wipe the guy out -- or trying to appease him some how. As pointed out on another thread, fighter aren't out to kill everyone they meet  It's not DnD. The goal is not killing, but attending to the SA's.  If a sorcerer has them, and he will, he too isn't a killing machine, but someone with an agenda.  This is another point where story kicks in -- how can that agenda be negotiated, mitigated, scattered?  Can allies be gathered who are gunning for the sorcerer?  Does the sorcerer have a weakness?  Yes, there's a ticking clock: if the sorcerer is patient, he will nail you... But can you win first.  And will the sorcerer be satisfied with less than murder?  If he's not just a fucked up psychopath, probably.

I think the key is remember these are men and women working within the realm of characters with SAs.  The above concerns are still present, but extremely rare within the extremely rare population of sorcerers.

Yes?

Christopher

[Atomic Requiem]

Assassination may weaken a nation, but it cannot conquer it. There will be a ground war.

Mmmm. Conquer3 and the king's ear for 15 minutes would be much more fun than assassination!

*AR*

[The_Fey]

The general populace of Weyrth either a) thinks magic is a myth or b)persecutes the Gifted as if they were the minions of the Dark Betrayer.  For those people in group 'a', they generally move into group 'b' if they are proven wrong.

I generally think that most Gifted would prefer to keep as many people in groups 'a' as they can.  It's better than being hunted all the time, because eventually you WILL run out of sorcery pool, or you WILL age just a tad too much.  It's just a matter of time.  So I don't think they go around killing people indiscriminantly.

[Jake Norwood]

I'd also like to point out that it isn't that most people disbelieve magic (though Stahlnish nobles are a notable exception), but rather that they've just never seen it. People ARE very superstitious, at least the rural folk. City folk may not really believe much, but whatever the case I agree with The_Fey in that sorcerers mostly want to keep out of reach, as they could get in a lot of trouble. Think of the recluse sorcerer trying not to get found and going insane from lonliness and the effects of spending your life to get what you want...

Jake

[Jaif]

I'd offer that sorcs have every reason in the world not to attract attention -- say armies of villagers wielding pitchforks and torches -- let alone soldiers.

I get it.  I really do get the whole social angle to this.  The problem is that there are people like Uglub running around organizing sorcerers into the army, and perhaps tossing his own magic into the mix. It's suddenly socially acceptable and encouraged to be a sorcerer in Gelure.

Look, a sorcerer can easily shrink a person's skull and reduce the brain inside into goo.  This is not a difficult roll, and probably doesn't involve much chance of aging, though a WP roll is called for.  It is mostly a waste of time considering the SP refresh rate, but it does become important if it's an important Target.

Also, a sorcerer can also undermine a wall by having an engineer point out a key spot, then destroying the stones in that spot.  Again, this is a very cheap thing to do in the system.

Now, along comes Uglub who organizes these people and gives them small but tough armies and a great spy organization to back them up.  Let's say he gives one powerful, vengeful sorcerer 2 assistant sorcerers, 2000 soldiers, 20 ships, and tells the sorc to conquer Farrenshire. As incentive, the sorc will be the new ruler of this province of Uglub's growing empire.  Uglub's spies routinely tell our sorc the location of all the important nobles, and provide the most accurate maps and weather predictions in the world (literally).

From what I can tell, Farrenshire is blown away without trouble.  My problem is that I don't see how Stahl (etc.) can resist in the long run.  If Stahl masses a large army, it will be sorcerously destroyed easily.  If they don't, then Stahl is conquered piecemeal bit by bit.

How does Stahl compete with that?

-Jef

[Lyrax]

That's the thing.  If Stahl amasses a huge army, I don't think it will be blown away.  Look at volume 3.  Nowhere does it say that you can kill more than about ten guys with one spell, and that would be a tough spell (range 2, volume 3, target 1 or 3, Level 1 to 3... at least CTN 7, perhaps as high as 11), which might knock out the sorceror.  If the sorceror uses an easier spell of three, he will do one powerful thing in a matter of minutes, but he will be vulnerable for at least a minute.  In the battlefield, that's probably a mistake.

Also, about Farrenshire.  People would have to know about the attack before it happened.  How would Angharad respond?  Remember that although the Celts have little love for the Farrenmen, the Celts would probably rather raid the soft Farrenmen than the aggressive Gelurians.  So, they might come and slaughter the Gelurian army with a few druids and a slew and a half of woad raiders.  Also, Cyrinthmeir, a country that is uneasy with Gelure, might see this as a good time to attack.  Then there's always a chance that the highly trained Farrenmen might beat back the Gelurian dogs and surprise us all.

In short, I think you assume too much.

[Jaif]

In short, I think you assume too much.

Page 201:

1467 WEYR. (This is the recommeneded year to begin play.) The king of Gelure -- a mysterious man with black skin and white hair -- declares himself emperor and opens a violent campaign in conquest of his neighbors.  By the end of the year he has all but taken Farrenshire and Ouestenreich, and has begun to work on Cyrinthmeiran borders.

I bolded part, and any transcription errors are mine, all mine. <g>  The premise of the world is that Gelure under Uglub is powerful enough to defeat their two weaker neighbors very quickly.  I envision Ouestenreich falling to treachery/politics along with the sword.  Farrenshire, the heart of chivalry, is simply blown away (again, my picture).

Uglub's resources are listed as a small but tough army, many sorcerers, and a good spy network (no doubt sorcery-enabled at key points).  Now, take away the sorcerers, and I don't picture Uglub losing.  Therefore, I'm exploring how sorcerers work, and I've decided that figuring out their limitations is probably the single most important aspect of this.

That's the thing. If Stahl amasses a huge army, I don't think it will be blown away.

We differ.  I do not picture Gelure massing its tiny army on a plain against Stahl, and then using it's sorcs as limited artillery.  Instead, I think they'll fight an entirely different campaign in which they use the following tricks (and plenty of others):

- Kill key commanders.
- Use vision to read the enemy's plans.
- Hell, as long as we're spying, send a demon into the command tent when they have their strategy meeting.  It costs a lot, but a leaderless army is powerless, and rumors of sorcery will cause people to scatter.
- Age food & drink, causing it to spoil.
- Hell, just ignite the supply tents/wagons.
- Break bridges and create illusions that they're still there (etc, you can see the varying sides of that.)
- Avalanches into ravines, baby!
- Take over key commanders and give false orders.  Maybe use this long before a battle to create believable fights between fractious nobles.

I'm sure we can do others.

Nowhere does it say that you can kill more than about ten guys with one spell,

You can do MA # of targets.  2000lbs is another limit.  Not sure about the "ten guys" limit.  Anyway, as you can see I'm not targetting all 50,000 Stahlnish military men, I'm gunning for command, control, logistics, and so on.  There's no way a medieval(ish) army can survive the stuff that sorcery can throw at it.

-Jef

[Lyrax]

Note about the "ten guys limit": It's not an actual limit, but rather something that I've noticed would be extremely hard, if not impossible to do.  Sorcerors shine most with individuals, not armies.

Also, killing the stahlnish commanders wouldn't work that well.  The whole army is already in chaos, so the troops are probably used to it.  It's not like Stahl has a central leader or something.