Mr. Tomo's page

Now, this tl;dr comes with these points I've been trying to make:

1.) You always need men, even with magic.
2.) There's a hell of a lot more to warfare then the stats of the people fighting it (Geography, politics, etc).

I do admit, my examples might be a little janky as they're more pre-rennissance nationstates and less 'kingdoms.'

I agree with the second point, but not really the first. Even with the majority of them having only an Int of 10~12, I think they would still be more useful then just being commoners. I mean, them being wizards wouldn't prevent them from doing the same work as commoners, they simply would have a better advantage in doing said work. For example, Mage Hand to move things and Mending to repair broken tools. It's not as if they would lose something by becoming wizards, other then time I guess.

I have actually shown you the rules, multiple times. You simply choose to stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'NYAH NYAH NYAH' every time someone says something or points to rules you don't like.

No, you have shown me rules stating that spellcasting in a settlement is of a certain level. But nowhere in the rules you posted contradicts what we were previously told, that while there can be casters in the lower settlements, it's not the norm. Nothing you have given even implies that there will always be spellcasters in every settlement, which is what is being argued. I directly responded to the rules in the Game Mastery Guide, whereas you wrote off me using the core rules as "house-rulings". So sorry, but it seems like you're the one going "Nyah Nyah Nyah" here. I asked for a simple thing, the ruling stating that every settlement would have a caster. Since there is no such ruling, there is nothing contradicting the core rulings.

I actually don't see a problem with a large chunk of the farmers being low level spell casters. If you look back in mythology, how many farmers wives were midwives?

I see it as perfectly acceptable for farm wives to be adepts or low level oracles, healing, blessings, and such.

That's what the Heal skill is meant for. Anyway, that reasoning just doesn't work. If anyone could become a spellcaster, then why wouldn't everyone become one? Magic would clearly give them a advantage over the everyday toil and they would never again have to worry about food or water. There wouldn't be any reason for one not to become a caster. The world you're talking about is one where the majority of people are casters, which changes the act of war far beyond what's being discussed here.

Ah, the 'only my side has magic' method of debate. Uhm, why is there only one wizard? And why do you get him?

This discussion began over the belief that one army using magic to win a battle. then suddenly everyone else would be doing the same. It really doesn't matter where said wizard came from in the overall discussion.

Not really. Cavalry yes, but not organized mass fighting. Or at least, not because it was something new. We just didn't have the population odo it. We did mass up as many club wielders as were in the area though for battles.

Organized forces doesn't require a set number of people to be used. And it's quite different then wildly charging in without any form or tactic.

Again, the default assumption within the rules (and I quoted things to back that up, odd how nobody arguing against me can quote one single thing from the rules stating magic is rare or only recently discovered), is that magic has been around for tens of thousands of years. So no, saying it would take a few generations is like saying it would take me a couple of weeks to make a few hundred arrows, so bows are useless in a fight.

Aside from the fact that we were discussing a specific situation, not a general one, I'm not sure what rules you are talking about. The core books all pretty much imply that magic is uncommon, and high-level casters are rare.

From the Core Rulebook: This cost assumes that you can go to the spellcaster and have the spell cast at his convenience (generally at least 24 hours later, so that the spellcaster has time to prepare the spell in question). If you want to bring the spellcaster somewhere to cast a spell you need to negotiate with him, and the default answer is no.

In addition, not every town or village has a spellcaster of sufficient level to cast any spell. In general, you must travel to a small town (or larger settlement) to be reasonably assured of finding a spellcaster capable of casting 1st-level spells, a large town for 2nd-level spells, a small city for 3rd- or 4th-level spells, a large city for 5th- or 6th-level spells, and a metropolis for 7th- or 8th-level spells. Even a metropolis isn't guaranteed to have a local spellcaster able to cast 9th-level spells.

So while you may find a caster in a village to case a 3rd level spell, normally you would have to go to at least a small city to guarantee it. And even then, there's no guarantee that the caster in question will even help you, especially with a spell that has a dangerous consequence (like making said wizard the enemy of an entire country).

The Ultimate Campaign mentions how a 3rd level Wizard would likely have to move to a large town or city to not be noticed. Then there's the fact that by RAW, a wizard (the only caster that can be “made”) isn't even prepared for 1st level til they reach the ages of 22. At best, they could stumble upon one of the intuitive casters at the age of 17, but even then we're talking about a 1st level caster. I don't see anything disagreeing with the claims I've made. If it takes at least seven years of training to get a 1st level wizard, then as said, it's gonna take a few generations til they reach a high enough level to actually be of help. And as the Core Rulebook states, buying the services of a high-level caster will completely depend on if said caster is willing, and even then it'll cost quite a bit for a single spell.

And again, I love the argument that this magic that's been around for thousands of years, and for which there are casters all over the freaking place cna only be had by one army, not the other. It's hilarious. Utterly bogus and dumb argument, but hilarious.

Aside from that not being the case, that was never the argument being made.

If magic isn't available, then it's a closely guarded secret, there are no +1 swords floating around, and therefore magic just doesn't affect combat very much. You might have a wizard here or a cleric there in combat, but it's not going to affect things much.

Something being a closely guarded secret wouldn't prevent it from being available (see gunpowder). While it's true a single wizard or cleric wouldn't change much in an actual battle, as pointed out in this thread, a single wizard can be quite useful for an entire military campaign. One magic-user scrying the enemies movement, summoning some elementals, or creating an undead army could easily grant their side the advantage.

Magic is very much like firearms. Once you introduce them into combat, it explodes and takes over. We fought for literally tens of thousands of years one man against another. Then we invented guns. And in a blink of an eye, it changed everything about how we do war. No more masses of men struggling in the mud, it was suicide. The massed volley fire of the Musket Men ended that sort of warfare really fast.

That's not really true. It took hundred of years for firearms to spread, and even longer for them to become a regular part of the military. If I recall correctly, men to men fighting was still going on for quite some time, up til WW1. But in all fairness, the strength of firearms wasn't truly realized til rifling and mass manufacturing. Magic wouldn't have such limits. The limitations of magic would be either genetics, “being chosen”, or the sheer time necessary to learn, none of which would make the spreading of usage as long as firearms.

There's a critical mass point for magic, so yes, it could be that that +1 witch suddenly makes it go off. But it's more likely that +1 battle fought and won by magic. Just like archery started an arms race, and just like firearms did, magic would as well.

Even if a battle is won by magic, that in no way would mean that the opposition would/could begin using magic. They would still have to find a magic-user. If magic was presumably unknown before due to there only being a few magic-users existing, the king and his generals suddenly discovering magic isn't gonna suddenly make more appear. They can't just start producing magic-users out of nowhere. It's still gonna be rare.