Thanks for making my argument for me.
If magic is rare, it's not part of the battles, it's too rare and has to be husbanded for where it's critical.
Half a dozen witches in the healing tents (BTW: Witches don't have to be specialized in healing to be the best large scale healers ever, just have to have one of their hexes be healing, that's not a lot considering even a 1st level human witch could have 3 hexes).
The half-dozen wizards you have (if you only have 6 witches in your country, you should only have 6 wizards) will all be under heavy guard doing wizardy type stuff in towers like scrying or crafting (or chained up with masks if they won't work for you, because they are just too powerful to allow to be running around by themselves). Same with the 6 sorcerers in your country.
Your 6 clerics in your country are likely with the witches, unless they are evil clerics, in which case they are likely working with your inquisitors doing torture to get more information or raising up undead to be in your army.
Again, either magic is rare, in which case you aren't using spell casters on the battlefield, in which case you're using medieval tactics. Or, it's common enough it is on the battle field, in which case you are using modern tactics. There's no in between on that. You can't mix magic and medieval tactics without massive casualties on both sides, and nobody would do that more than one or two battles before figuring out it's suicide.
Again, either magic is rare, in which case you aren't using spell casters on the battlefield, in which case you're using medieval tactics. Or, it's common enough it is on the battle field, in which case you are using modern tactics. There's no in between on that.
You know, repeating a fallacy doesn't make it true.
At what exact point, then, does magic convert from "rare" to "common"? If I have X witches, I husband them carefully and never let them near the battlefield, but at X+1 witches, they're common enough that they totally dominate the battlefield?
And what happens if one of those X+1 witches sprains an ankle and is unavailable for combat duty that day? All of a sudden, they're no longer combat effective and you pull the entire magical corps out of the army?
There is a middle ground where magic is common enough to be a consideration but not common enough to dominate.
The real battle is the magical assault on the command and control elements of an enemy army. Kill/charm/dominate/eliminate the leaders and the battle is won without all that messy mass combat.That's assuming of course you can FIND the command and control center. And your opposition isn't doing things like camouflage or even better, putting up a number of fakes for you to find. Over centuries of war, the easy mistakes do get weeded out.
The soldiers on the field have to be commanded. They can't be commanded by an invisible commander. Organizing and moving forces on the field takes direct interface by a number of commanders, banner holders, messengers, etc.
Unless you have a mage for every unit doing magical "walkie talkie" work then you must have a visible chain of command. And it must be easily discerned or your forces will be in disarray and unable to take orders.
These are command and control elements (note I didn't say "center") that are vulnerable to spellcraft. This is where the strength of a spellcaster becomes a force multiplier beyond what any fireball or sleep spell could accomplish.
You can't rely on having witches. You can't have witches unless the patrons cooperate.What you can get are alchemists, who aren't very good at it. You can maybe get clerics if you have an organized religion on side, but you can't organize any other non-wizard-like casters very well unless you have a long running sorcerer eugenics program.
Either magic exists and is available, or it isn't. Can't have it both ways.
Pick one or the other, left side of road safe, right side of road safe, middle of road, squish.
Magic exists, or magic doesn't exist, either safe. Magic exists when it doesn't interfere with cinematics - Squish!
Pretty sure you can have it both ways. Witches aren't like Wizards, where you can give some guy a spellbook and he learns magic. Witches are created by an outside source. You can make a wizard, but not a witch. At best, you can eventually find one who's willing to help.
And just because something exist, doesn't mean it's available. I would think it's like how gunpowder was around for centuries before it became widely used in warfare.
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.
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.
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.
So anything a wizard that can do that will reinforce that point will stop the flying wedge and potentially turn the tables on the battlefield. A single Wall of Force, for example, is a game changer. Similarly, anything that the opposing wizard can do to harden the wedge would be a potential game-changing spell.
I do think that the game rules as they stand (autohit on a 20) largely obsolete melee weapons as a tool of mass warfare except in special circumstances that promote close contact fighting (such as tunnel fighting dwarves, dungeon delving adventurers, or teleporting commandos), and perhaps obsolete most armor as well. You'd be more likely to see soldiers carrying an emergency melee weapon perhaps, but I can't imagine any nation investing in something like a formation of heavy armored cavalry, not when ranged troops firing at max range increment can strike them with incredibly devastating accuracy.
Basically, if lower level archers are firing at -20 to hit from ranged penalties, they hit foes in full plate at exactly the same rate as completely unarmored ones - which makes armor ineffective except at close quarters. A strange inversion of the position of armor with regard to ranged weapons in the real world, but there you have it.
Plus, half decent armor tends to be significantly more expensive than a half decent weapon.
So I don't think you would see traditional medieval tactics such as a heavy cavalry charge or heavy (melee) infantry - even with armor, soldiers are still too fragile vs even conventional weaponry for the investment in the armor to be worthwhile.
Magic further increases these tendencies and leads to armies that would fight kind of like fantasy versions of early 20th century small unit warfare. I'm thinking that perhaps some of the smaller campaigns in far-flung colonies during WWI might be good samples - around German Africa, say.
Ranged weapons have the further benefit that they are more resilient against illusions and all that. Pegging an illusion with an arrow and finding out you'd been fooled is significantly less costly than charging it and discovering the same at the end of the charge.
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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.
Magic is very much like firearms.
Yes, very much like firearms. More so than you imagine.
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. The first recorded firearm was in about 1350, and the first use of a firearm in war was shortly thereafter. It took something like three hundred years before firearms made a major impact on the battlefield. That's not a blink of an eye. If you had been the person who invented the first gun, your great-great-great-grandchildren would have still died at the end of pikes instead of being shot.
And hand-to-hand fighting was still a dominant mode of combat another three hundred years after firearms were commonplace (look at the trench warfare of the First World War for an example).
No more masses of men struggling in the mud, it was suicide.
Funny, the soldiers at the Somme with their bayonets didn't think that.
Even rifles didn't dominate the battlefield of the early 20th century. The WWI bolt action rifle couldn't put enough lead downrange fast enough to keep your position from getting overrun by someone armed with a grenade, and once he was in your trench, you couldn't aim and fire at that close quarters. (Ergo, the bayonet.) (All Quiet on the Western Front has a pretty good description of how combat actually worked, if you want a first-hand account.) What put hand to hand combat out of business wasn't the firearm, but the submachine gun (and later the assault rifle). Something that would let you spray death like a fire hose while still being portable and maneuverable enough to use at short range.
Which is basically a long-winded way of saying, "no, that's not how the history of firearms worked." How the history of firearms actually worked, however, would probably be a pretty good model for how magic would also work on the battlefield.
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.
What is it with you and the false dilemma fallacy? Magic can easily be rare and expensive, capable of affecting combat tremendously when it's available. That's the way almost any military technology has developed -- first, it's experimental and useless, then it's promising, then it's effective when you can get it, but there's not enough of it, and only after it's proven its effectiveness at a small scale can you get enough of it that it's commonplace.
That's what happened with cannons, that's what happened with firearms, that's what happened with balloons, that's what happened with steamships, that's what happened with oil-burning ships, that's what happened with tanks, that's what happened with airplanes, and that's what happened with drones. Somehow, though, you think that "magic" would be the only military technology that arrives complete....
And hand-to-hand fighting was still a dominant mode of combat another three hundred years after firearms were commonplace (look at the trench warfare of the First World War for an example).
No more masses of men struggling in the mud, it was suicide.Funny, the soldiers at the Somme with their bayonets didn't think that.
Even rifles didn't dominate the battlefield of the early 20th century. The WWI bolt action rifle couldn't put enough lead downrange fast enough to keep your position from getting overrun by someone armed with a grenade, and once he was in your trench, you couldn't aim and fire at that close quarters.
While I agree with the overall point you argued (firearms changed war slowly), hand to hand combat was not dominant in the Western Front. That would be artillery, which a quick googling suggests inflicted ~60% of total battle casualties, compared to rifles/personal firearms probably ~10% and bayonets/grenades/misc close combat weapons ~5% (machine guns making up most of the remainder).
By WWI, the change had happened. The Napoleonic wars were probably the last great wars where melee weapons could be said to have played a major (though not dominant) role, as primary cavalry weapons as well as major reliance on bayonets for the infantry.
Which is still four or five centuries after firearms were introduced to Europe, so yeah, just a nitpick.
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.
Which was what I said about 20 times in the thread above. In the post you quoted even, but later in it. So uhm, I guess you are agreeing with me in a manner that sounds like disagreement?
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.
First Homo Sapien appears in fossil record : 200,000 years (give or take 5,000)
How long Homo Sapiens fought with non-firearms : 199,700 years (give or take 100 years)
Time it took firearms to take over : 300 years.
300/195,000 = 0.0015
In other words, it took less than 0.15% of human history for firearms to take over completely and utterly. I state again, they took over in the blink of an eye (historically speaking).
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. The first recorded firearm was in about 1350, and the first use of a firearm in war was shortly thereafter. It took something like three hundred years before firearms made a major impact on the battlefield. That's not a blink of an eye. If you had been the person who invented the first gun, your great-great-great-grandchildren would have still died at the end of pikes instead of being shot.
And hand-to-hand fighting was still a dominant mode of combat another three hundred years after firearms were commonplace (look at the trench warfare of the First World War for an example).
300 hundred years sounds like a huge amount of time. If you are looking at it from up close. But human beings have been killing each other for a VERY long time (the oldest ancestor of modern man in the fossil record is about 200,000 years ago). And note that is just Homo Sapiens Sapiens. If you go back to where Sapiens and Neanderthalis diverged, it's 500,000 years ago. And yes, we've been killing each other from all the way back there, and we were doing it with primitive clubs and spears. Guess what, the tools improved, but were the same throughout all those tens of thousands of years (yes even hundreds of thousands of years). So yes, it was in the blink of a bloody eye in the history of our species.
As to trench warfare, trench's were designed to keep you from getting shot. And the only reason people got to hand to hand was the trenches were designed to force that situation.
In other words, your counter example is like saying 'Hey, we still do hand to hand combat all the time, look at any boxing ring'.
No more masses of men struggling in the mud, it was suicide.Funny, the soldiers at the Somme with their bayonets didn't think that.
<snip>
Which is basically a long-winded way of saying, "no, that's not how the history of firearms worked."
Again, compare the history of combat between various people who had two arms, two legs, two eyes, and used tools and had a brain. 200,000, 500,000... vs 300. You can argue all you want about how slow it was. Compared to the entire history of human conflict, guns took over in a blink of the species eye.
As far as I can tell, the game system assumes that people have been using magic (at a high level, given the WBL charts and NPC codex) for thousands of years. So no, your arguments fall flat. Magic is well known, common enough, and combat has adapted to it. Anything else is stupid, as it has people running around in heavy armor groups shoulder to shoulder with signs saying 'I R Dumb, Firebal Me!'.
Magic is available, certainly. You can go around with an IQ test and a fitness test and take any young person with 12 con and 12 int and 10 str and offer them a scholarship to study wizardry or alchemy if they promise to serve in the army afterwards.
Even this relies on house rules -- a common house rule, but a house rule nevertheless. It's never written anywhere in the Pathfinder rules that just anyone has the capacity to become a wizard, and it's a fairly standard fantasy trope that Muggles just can't do magic.
The amount of magic in your game world is under your control as a GM. The rules-as-written are explicit that you need the "bloodline" to become a sorcerer, so the number of sorcerers you can recruit ultimately depends on how common those bloodlines are in your population. Witches and divine casters need Help from Above for their powers, and you decide who (and how many) the Powers will select. And the rules are silent about how people develop a talent for prepared arcane casting.
If you want magic to be as common as dirt, so be it -- and, yes, if it's common enough, that will completely reshape the face of the Golarion battlefield to be nothing like the published source or like historical medieval combat. That's your choice.
If you like historical medieval combat and think that Star Trek style skirmishing breaks your sense of fitness, then magic simply isn't that common. While kings may dream of being able to field units of thousands of mages, with every field hospital staffed by a dozen witches,... well, kings dream lots of things. So do hatters. If you want magic to be the sort of thing that everyone knows about but only a few people experience regularly, that's actually a plausible and well-thought out world.
And, incidentally, it's a very good description of the world as the Paizo designers envision it.
So if you need an answer to why there aren't national conscription drives to bring promising youngsters to the Magical Academy, there's a very simple answer -- it doesn't work. (It was first tried by Arglebargle the Mad, and it didn't work, and no one since then has been able to get it to work, but I'm sure that if you try, your majesty....) If you don't like that answer, don't use it.
But don't insist that that answer's unavailable, and don't complain if you don't like the world that you yourself have created is one that you don't like.
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Not really. The Paizo Developers imagine a world with a high level of magic. There are magical items EVERYWHERE. Your average Village (that's a town of 61 to 200 people!) has 1-4 magic items for sale valued at 8000 - 27,500 GP. And 75% of all magic items at or below 500gp are ALWAYS available (meaning multiple copies). If magic is so rare, where are all these literally thousands and thousands of magical items coming from? Are the faeries leaving them under people's pillows? And that same village of 200 people will buy any magic item that has a price of 2500 gp or less, as envisioned by the Developers. That's a lot of gold for a village to have on hand if there's no magic.
Oh yes, and per the Developers 'envisioned world' that village? It has a 5th level caster in it. Two actually, one arcane and one divine, and you can get any arcane/divine spell cast in it. Which argues theres at least one of each type of spellcaster at 5th level in that village.
Let's look at a large city. A large city has dozens of copies of 75% of all magic items valued at 8000 or less. It will buy any magic item valued up to 50,000gp, and will buy them all day long. There are multiple 13th level casters in this city (7th level spells), at least one of each spell casting class, and there are 2d4 magic items for sale that are valued between 28,500 gp and 200,000gp.
I'm sorry, that sounds like an environment that's not magic rare, it's freaking magic saturated. Sounds like you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an archmage or a high priest or someone wearing magical armor.
There's nothing in the rules that says that. Nor is there anything in the rules that says someone can't be an oracle, a cleric, a bard, a witch, etc.
A specific setting might have those, but the rules have nothing.
Makes it awfully convenient for people who want to argue against using resources the game books say are available. "Yeah, I know that the rules say a village has several 5th level casters, but yeah, you can't use those guys in a war, because, you know, their god wouldn't like it, or their patron, or they can't be trained you have to win the lottery to get one."
It's basically their way of saying 'I will make up rules that make me right'. Rather than debating based on what is in the RAW, they make up every possible restriction hey can and argue from the standpoint that their position is 'RAI' at best, or 'RAW' at most obnoxious.
OK, here's how I see a perfect battle on a perfect battlefield shaping up (of course there's no such thing so at some point we will have to discuss terrain and how it affects troop make-up)
two armies line up on ridges 1500' feet apart (I picked that distance as an arbitrary amount a bit larger than the furthest range of the best missile weapons). between them lies a perfectly flat plain. The light troops begin to advance towards each ither across the plain.
When they get to 1200' feet away, crossbowmen begin to fire at them, largely inneffectually.
at 1100' spellcaster bowmen begin a steady drain on their numbers which continues into melee. In an attempt to prevent casualties, enemy spellcasters amongst the advancing troops respond with illusory troops and obscuring mist spells.
When the troops are 600' apart, spellcasters on both sides open up with scrolls of fireball and stone call, tearing gaping holes in enemy ranks, but also hitting the occasional silent image or being obscured by obcuring mist.
and then the melee begins. What arms/armour should our would be skirmishers wear? Two handed weapons? reach weapons? sword and board? Two weapon fighting?
remember, at this point, a well drilled group could theoretically form into close ranks, it is debateable as to whether or not they would be the target of a fireball (ultimately it depends on how many of your own side would be caught in the blast and whether or not that constitutes acceptable losses).
Have I missed anything?
Yeah you missed something, you missed most of this entire conversation.
Show me one mention of muggles or any reason for a character being unable to learn alchemy or wizardry other than an inadequate intelligence score in the game rules.
Show me one mention of the need for humans in Golarion to breathe oxygen. The rules are not all-encompassing, nor should they be expected to be.
If you want muggles, Golarion supports them. If you don't want muggles, don't use them. But don't insist that they have to be there and then complain that your campaign world is too high-magic.
It's basically their way of saying 'I will make up rules that make me right'.
Not all all. It's making up rules that give the group the world they want.
As opposed to you, who seem to be making up rules that give you a world that you don't want. If you think that RAW demands than anyone with int 10+ can cast arcane spells, show me the text in the rulebook.
Here's a hint: it doesn't exist. That's because RAW is silent on the issue. And RAI is pretty clearly that Golarion looks more like the High Middle Ages than it does like Star Trek.
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Show me one mention of muggles or any reason for a character being unable to learn alchemy or wizardry other than an inadequate intelligence score in the game rules.Show me one mention of the need for humans in Golarion to breathe oxygen. The rules are not all-encompassing, nor should they be expected to be.
If you want muggles, Golarion supports them. If you don't want muggles, don't use them. But don't insist that they have to be there and then complain that your campaign world is too high-magic.
Bad example
SuffocationA character who has no air to breathe can hold her breath for 2 rounds per point of Constitution. If a character takes a standard or full-round action, the remaining duration that the character can hold her breath is reduced by 1 round. After this period of time, the character must make a DC 10 Constitution check in order to continue holding her breath. The check must be repeated each round, with the DC increasing by +1 for each previous success.
When the character fails one of these Constitution checks, she begins to suffocate. In the first round, she falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, she drops to –1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, she suffocates.
Slow Suffocation: A Medium character can breathe easily for 6 hours in a sealed chamber measuring 10 feet on a side. After that time, the character takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage every 15 minutes. Each additional Medium character or significant fire source (a torch, for example) proportionally reduces the time the air will last. Once rendered unconscious through the accumulation of nonlethal damage, the character begins to take lethal damage at the same rate. Small characters consume half as much air as Medium characters.
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It's basically their way of saying 'I will make up rules that make me right'.Not all all. It's making up rules that give the group the world they want.
As opposed to you, who seem to be making up rules that give you a world that you don't want. If you think that RAW demands than anyone with int 10+ can cast arcane spells, show me the text in the rulebook.
MulticlassingInstead of gaining the abilities granted by the next level in your character's current class, he can instead gain the 1st-level abilities of a new class, adding all of those abilities to his existing ones. This is known as “multiclassing.”
For example, let's say a 5th-level fighter decides to dabble in the arcane arts, and adds one level of wizard when he advances to 6th level. Such a character would have the powers and abilities of both a 5th-level fighter and a 1st-level wizard, but would still be considered a 6th-level character. (His class levels would be 5th and 1st, but his total character level is 6th.) He keeps all of his bonus feats gained from 5 levels of fighter, but can now also cast 1st-level spells and picks an arcane school. He adds all of the hit points, base attack bonuses, and saving throw bonuses from a 1st-level wizard on top of those gained from being a 5th-level fighter.
Edit: By Raw the only thing that prevents a character from becoming a first level wizard is sufficient experience to level up. And while most npcs would have difficulty attaining such experience without dying, there is nothing stoping them from attempting it.
Your wasting time Kolokotroni, I'm sure he'll come back with 'That only applies to PCs, not NPCs' or something, because it doesn't specifically say NPCs can multiclass.
You will notice that he's ignored all the RAW about how much magic exists in the world because it doesn't match his stated 'this is how the game is played'.
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I'd argue if you're using RAW in a discussion about economic verisimilitude, you've already made a hideous, hideous error. This is the same RAW that in 3.5 let you cut the legs off of ladders indefinately to make money off of selling them as ten foot poles.
I'll also point out that according to RAW, there's no means I'm aware of that let you peg people's core stats. No way to tell if that guy who passed the test did so because he studied and got circumstance modifiers, or if he's an idiot savant who just happened to put all his expert ranks into spellcraft for some inexplicable reason. I remind normal people don't optimize. If you disagree then why do you have ranks in Knowledge (Roleplaying Games) when you could have 'just as easilly' put them into Knowledge (Nuclear Tactics) and gotten a job in NORAD.
Also, there's the question of how you go around doing the necessary conscription, and training and such and who's paying for it during peacetime.
Who's got the job of doing intelligence tests on every peasant? How is it organized?
How do you know who gets that job? Couldn't he be doing things better?
You want every schoolmarm to do it instead? How are they qualified to?
I envision a King looking at his peacetime budget for Wizardry thats consuming a lot in security, materials and staff (someone has to train the pointy hatted shmucks), and his material gain is a few good wizards and larger portion of people who can barely handle a cantrip, who probably would've served his kingdom better as a farmer, merchant or even someone with a sword.
What this would mean is that the wizards and their ilk would attempt to limit training to people who 1.) were influential enough to make them believe the costs were worthwhile and 2.) those who genuinely showed talent. The second we start narrowing things down though, the idea of legions of men a thousand strong of wizards starts to evaporate.
Also, as someone said earlier, there's a cost in blood and treasure to war. Those who look for and educate the hard to find, expensive to train spellflingers (think about all the scribing) aren't going to like seeing them wasted. Meaning specialized units, used sparringly, which means that the majority of your work is still boots on the ground by folks fighting other folks also on the ground with pointy, spikey and occasionally grumbly implements.
Even the modern United States military can't secure a place with bombs and airplanes, it needs actual warfighters there to capture and hold it.
On the divine issue, again, how do we know the god supports the military action or wants his priestly might utilized like someone might utilize a trebuchet. Its a bit murky, but there's a sin in the Church known as simony that basically applies to attempting to sell the church's sacrements for personal gain, and I imagine it might apply here, or alternately clerics might be limited by restrictions like in the real world based on hierarchy (the Pope disagrees with your border war over apples), or practice (no spilling of blood). And if you think the average adventuring party has trouble with a paladin and want them to compose large potions of your army? Whoo boy.
Oracles just sort of happen and its doubtful whatever made them wants to use them on standing in your battleline en mass for all time giving buffs to your soldiers.
And its that mass thing that keeps cropping up. A single wizard in a massed battle is useful, thats not disagreed on, but unless he's 9+ level, he's not precisely an atomic bomb. And to be honest, at that point almost any 9th level character hits just as hard in their own way. What we keep addressing is the 'legion' or 'squads' of low level wizards who inexplicably have fireballs, and fireball scrolls in abundance (I envision a half dozen really pissed off looking high level mages sitting on an assembly line scribbling frantically). If you want fireballs, thats at least level five, and those guys don't grow on trees. If its lower then that, they're not really contributing a lot.
If you're trying to argue that your legion of level 5+ wizards can handilly kick the ass of a legion of 1st level warriors, well, yeah, obviously.
The important questions here are 'Where are they coming from? and 'How are you paying for them?' And those questions aren't answered by pounding dead tree. Its answered by trying to look at the situation as if the people were humans and not piles of stats, and how economics work.
Again, either magic is powerful and common and available and used in combat, or it's rare and you can't use it combat. You can't say it's common and powerful but not usable in combat.
All the arguments above work well if you are playing a low magic game.
Default rules, magic is a everywhere, from the smallest village to the biggest city. There are spellcasters under every rock.
House rule that there is little or no magic, that's great, but then magic is rare, and it's husbanded and kept off the battle field for the most part.
Edit: By Raw the only thing that prevents a character from becoming a first level wizard is sufficient experience to level up.
Show me the text that states that this applies to NPCs as well.
Again, either magic is powerful and common and available and used in combat, or it's rare and you can't use it combat.
Repeating a fallacious argument does not make it non-fallacious.
I don't get why almost all these discussions assume only one side has wizards. If army A has a wizard with a fireball prepared, it's safe to say army B has another with a prepared dispel magic or even another fireball to counterspell automatically the first one. At the exact point wizard A lobs that fireball, somewhere in army B an archer with a true strike lets loose his prepared action and nails him. Etc. etc.
For each spell in Pathfinder/D&D there's a counter to it. If we assume one side has a wizard, the other should have another and they should cancel each other out. In the Black Company series, the mercenary company protects their mages and keeps them hidden at all costs - once the enemy knows their opponent has a wizard, their own wizards will counter their spells at every turn (protecting sensible targets against divination, counterspelling, etc).
Again, either magic is powerful and common and available and used in combat, or it's rare and you can't use it combat.Repeating a fallacious argument does not make it non-fallacious.
Repeating non-response doesn't make it a response. If you want to debate, respond to the quoted RAW I posted several days ago. Otherwise, you come across as someone putting their fingers in their ears and saying 'nanannana' whenever someone points out your errors.
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Again, either magic is powerful and common and available and used in combat, or it's rare and you can't use it combat. You can't say it's common and powerful but not usable in combat.
All the arguments above work well if you are playing a low magic game.
Default rules, magic is a everywhere, from the smallest village to the biggest city. There are spellcasters under every rock.
House rule that there is little or no magic, that's great, but then magic is rare, and it's husbanded and kept off the battle field for the most part.
Its a false paradox.
You're essentially arguing the following:
A.) Magic's Presence is allowed for by the default rules, in not restricting player classes or NPC selection of magic using classes.
B.) Magic items are relatively common to the point of allowing for shops.
C.) Therefore, it is rational to assume that there is zero restriction on magical utility in all other fields and everyone becomes a wizard as it is the most combat utilitarian option.
I apologize if I'm wrong on this summarization of your position and welcome correction.
I disagree. I don't believe the first two points feed to the third.
That being said, its not what's being argued. The question here is where the hell do they all come from.
Before a person hits level 1, the general assumption is that he's recieved training in his given skill. Rogues are taught thievery or learn it themselves, fighters similarly, sorcerors learn to use their powers, witches are taught by their patrons, clerics are shown by their deity or trained by their hierarchy, oracles just know.
Wizards require training, literacy and training to craft their books. These things don't just apporate out of thin air because 'he starts with them at first level.'
Similarly, all classes require people. And people do not always make what is viewed as the optimal choice by an outside observer. The warmaster might want everyone to be a combat wizard, but its not true that everyone will be, and conscripting everyone isn't a solution to the problem. Conscripts are not what militaries want except in time of dire need for bodies (in which case if we're positing the hundreds of wizards in the army theory, we don't /need/ hundreds of wizards).
And as I stated about two pages ago, people aren't going to necessarilly want to go off to fight on the magical battlefield and forcing enough of them is going to cause societal problems. And a high level wizard might be more interested with learning how to make walls of singing meat then throwing fireballs around for some king's petty border war. Or he might just not want to risk getting killed.
Not to mention the question of who feeds, equips, cares for and generally handles these folks if they're all wizards.
To summarize my own stance, as I summarized mdt's above:
A.) There are high opportunity costs associated with the wizard career. Low hit points, very specialized knowledge, time spent training and monetary investment in operation of the class (including incidentals we overlook from a play perspective such as components).
B.) These costs are likely are not off-set by the benefits the mages gain if they assist in combat.
C.) They will logically request commensurately high compensation of their costs (through money, support, prestige). Some might be motivated by desire to fight, patriotism or the like, but these would be individuals, and the current system accomodates the involvement of individual mages qutie well.
D.) Magic Users are likely to only pay out on the investment the system must put into that compensation after they have spent time as magic users and gained higher level as at lower level they don't contribute much to a battle then a powerful crossbowman or sapper could. (This is admittedly a point of contention. The 'what good are first level wizards' vs 'Squads of 5th, 7th' thing' which is why the rarity issue keeps coming up.) Also, higher level wizards will want higher levels of compensation but the gain they give may actually prove more beneficial then similar cost requirements.
E.) RAW has nothing at all to do with opportunity cost.
F.) I also assume NPCs don't act as if they live in a world with brazenly obvious mechanics. IE: They don't meta-game.
Based on the above. I'm coming to the conclusion that its inefficient from a cost perspective to field large groups of wizards even if they're available based on the opportunity costs at play here.
Edit: By Raw the only thing that prevents a character from becoming a first level wizard is sufficient experience to level up.
Your wasting time Kolokotroni, I'm sure he'll come back with 'That only applies to PCs, not NPCs' or something, because it doesn't specifically say NPCs can multiclass.
Show me the text that states that this applies to NPCs as well.
NAILED IT! :) :) :) :) :) :)
Which was what I said about 20 times in the thread above. In the post you quoted even, but later in it. So uhm, I guess you are agreeing with me in a manner that sounds like disagreement?
You said, at least in the post I responded to, that a single wizard wouldn't affect a battle much. I disagreed with that, that one would be very effective for a battle. Perhaps not in battle throwing around fireballs as suggested, but that's not the sole thing a wizard would be capable of doing in battle, especially against an army lacking any magic.
First Homo Sapien appears in fossil record : 200,000 years (give or take 5,000)
How long Homo Sapiens fought with non-firearms : 199,700 years (give or take 100 years)
Time it took firearms to take over : 300 years.
300/195,000 = 0.0015
In other words, it took less than 0.15% of human history for firearms to take over completely and utterly. I state again, they took over in the blink of an eye (historically speaking).
By that reasoning, the same could be said for tactics like infantry and cavalry, not to mention organized mass fighting.
Anyway, that really doesn't change the original point. As mentioned, you can't just make a magic-user. It would take a few generations to train one up or find a powerful enough one willing to work for you, and even that's presuming that the opposing force doesn't wipe you out long before you can do that. No, just because one army begins to use a wizard doesn't mean that their opponent will suddenly be able to match.
Its a false paradox.
Not really.
You're essentially arguing the following:A.) Magic's Presence is allowed for by the default rules, in not restricting player classes or NPC selection of magic using classes.
True.
B.) Magic items are relatively common to the point of allowing for shops.
Mostly true. But it's not 'relatively common' it's 'Dirt common'. Even the smallest and poorest of the poor villages has magic items. It's like phone service nowdays, even the poorest of towns in the US has phone service. Just like the 60 person village in the back of nowhere has 1-4 500 to 2500gp magic items for sale. So the poorest most remote village in the world has the potential to have 10,000gp worth of magic items for sale. That's not 'relatively common' it's all over the place dirt common.
C.) Therefore, it is rational to assume that there is zero restriction on magical utility in all other fields and everyone becomes a wizard as it is the most combat utilitarian option.I apologize if I'm wrong on this summarization of your position and welcome correction.
Wrong, and no biggie.
C.) Per the rules, even the most remote and poor village has a spell caster capable of casting 3rd level spells living in it. And since you can get spells of ANY type of 3rd level cast in the village (by raw) it must have at a minimum 3 spell casters of 5th level or higher. A druid, a cleric, and a sorcerer/wizard (sorcerer 6th). That is to say, out of 60 people, there are at minimum 3 casters. That's 5% of the population, at a minimum. By RAW. And, if we really do follow the RAW, all spells are supposed to be available, that means we really need one of each spell caster because there are a lot of class only spells. Witch, Wizard/Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric/Oracle, Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Summoner. That's a lot of casters in a 60 person village. That leads us to D)
D) Given all 3 of the points above, there is, within the rules as written, evidence that Magic is considered to be at high levels of availability. Ergo, every country is lousy with it.
I disagree. I don't believe the first two points feed to the third.
How about 3 leads to fourth?
That being said, its not what's being argued. The question here is where the hell do they all come from.
Well, considering how many casters there are (per RAW) running around, it's apparently very easy to find one to train you. And gods pretty much hand out magic to any village idiot who prays to them. And apparently dragons go around boinking a lot of non-dragons. Same with elementals, fey, and any other bloodline you care to point to. Witch Patrons are under every rock and whisper to teenagers in their sleep.
So, if you want a low magic campaign, that's fine, have one. In which case the combats will look a lot like they did 2000-4000 years ago. If it's high magic, they'll look more like modern battles.
My problem is with people wanting to go middle of the road. Middle of the road says there's enough casters for magic to be all over the place, but not enough to field them in battle. You can't have it both ways. If there's enough for battle, there's magic all over the place (default RAW assumptions). If there's not enough for battle, then people hoarde it for when they really need it. And all this BS about 'you cannot order gods or patrons to fight in your wars' is just that, BS. Sure, the king may not be able to order some witch to do healling duty. But he can sure enough order them jailed until the end of the war so they don't help the enemy, or if they are evil, they just lop off the witch's head so they don't have a nuke sitting in their back field.
It's kind of like any war, you don't leave a neutral party at your back, you leave an ally at your back. And if you are the neutral country sitting inbetween two hostile countries, guess who qet's squished?
Which was what I said about 20 times in the thread above. In the post you quoted even, but later in it. So uhm, I guess you are agreeing with me in a manner that sounds like disagreement?You said, at least in the post I responded to, that a single wizard wouldn't affect a battle much. I disagreed with that, that one would be very effective for a battle. Perhaps not in battle throwing around fireballs as suggested, but that's not the sole thing a wizard would be capable of doing in battle, especially against an army lacking any magic.
Ah, the 'only my side has magic' method of debate. Uhm, why is there only one wizard? And why do you get him?
By that reasoning, the same could be said for tactics like infantry and cavalry, not to mention organized mass fighting.
Anyway, that really doesn't change the original point. As mentioned, you can't just make a magic-user. It would take a few generations to train one up or find a powerful enough one willing to work for you, and even that's presuming that the opposing force doesn't wipe you out long before you can do that. No, just because one army begins to use a wizard doesn't mean that their opponent will suddenly be able to match.
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.
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.
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.
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Its a false paradox.
Not really.
You're essentially arguing the following:A.) Magic's Presence is allowed for by the default rules, in not restricting player classes or NPC selection of magic using classes.
True.
B.) Magic items are relatively common to the point of allowing for shops.
Mostly true. But it's not 'relatively common' it's 'Dirt common'. Even the smallest and poorest of the poor villages has magic items. It's like phone service nowdays, even the poorest of towns in the US has phone service. Just like the 60 person village in the back of nowhere has 1-4 500 to 2500gp magic items for sale. So the poorest most remote village in the world has the potential to have 10,000gp worth of magic items for sale. That's not 'relatively common' it's all over the place dirt common.
C.) Therefore, it is rational to assume that there is zero restriction on magical utility in all other fields and everyone becomes a wizard as it is the most combat utilitarian option.I apologize if I'm wrong on this summarization of your position and welcome correction.
Wrong, and no biggie.
C.) Per the rules, even the most remote and poor village has a spell caster capable of casting 3rd level spells living in it. And since you can get spells of ANY type of 3rd level cast in the village (by raw) it must have at a minimum 3 spell casters of 5th level or higher. A druid, a cleric, and a sorcerer/wizard (sorcerer 6th). That is to say, out of 60 people, there are at minimum 3 casters. That's 5% of the population, at a minimum. By RAW. And, if we really do follow the RAW, all spells are supposed to be available, that means we really need one of each spell caster because there are a lot of class only spells. Witch, Wizard/Sorcerer, Druid, Cleric/Oracle, Paladin, Ranger, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Summoner. That's a lot of casters in a 60 person village. That leads...
Power, even in the feudal era is derived from somewhere. If magic is so common (as you suppose) and people start getting locked up over this, that means that therefore a portion of the population is liable to start getting uppity about it causing social issues (that opportunity cost thing).
I do fear that the disagreement of the camps is being made clearer thanks to you above however. You're using a pure RAW argument, which is as sensible as the 10' pole - Ladder thing. Although the math works, the sense doesn't.
Things such as spellcasting being available are there for the benefit of PCs from a game perspective. Also, just because a village has those services 'available' does not mean they are immediately available. There might be a druid in a forest between villages who provides the services, or a cleric, or even an oracle living in the woods. None of these sort might be usable in a combat situation.
Also, the general supposition of the prevalence of magic items is also tied into the 'living on the ruins of empire' thing that so many worlds seem to be built on. It doesn't mean necessarilly that they're cranking them out by the bushel and dispatching them on 'WBL Equipment' Caravans.
I do want to note, for reasons of sensibility and so no one misconstrues me as being against the goofiness of magic, I have an entire bloody country of magic users who operate primarilly as strike teams off of airborne airship platforms in my personal campaign world. But I acknowledge this isn't normal. They also still retain some gropos fighter types since you can't hold ground with just an air force. And for the record, they're very peaceful and insular.
Oh and yeah, the two into three thing. I thought up a third point and forget to correct that. Whoops.
Right, the average thorp has less than how many people in it? Less than 20.
And LazerX, you need to go re-read the rules of that thorp. That 50gp is not the median price of the items for sale. It is the majority price. That is, it will have 75% of all items, magic and mundane, that are 50gp or less. That means it will have, per rules, any 1st level potion you want to buy. Universal solvents, acid flasks, etc. Ye Olden General Store is fully stocked with 75% of the items in the book under 50gp.
That 1d4 minor magic item entry means exactly what it says, it has 1d4 minor magic items. Minor magic items run from a minimum of 50gp (feather token, anchor) to a whopping 7,500 gp (boots of levitation).
So our tiny 10 (median) person thorp has anywhere from 50gp to a whopping 30,000gp worth of items for sale.
So, the poorest, most remote hatfield/mccoy thorp (you can get 20 people in one family) has access to magic. Up to 30,000gp of magic, and they will sell you 75% of all items that are 50gp or less and buy any item or items 500gp or less.
Again, it doesn't sound like magic is rare in the slightest, by the rules assumptions.
And no, it may not make sense to you, but it apparently does to the Devs, and if you look at any of the Golarion APs, you see casters left and right and magic all over the place (other than Alkenstar).
You guys should check out the Malazan: Book of the Fallen series for a decent example of large scale warfare in a high magic setting.
Massed combat is still relevant: General setup was a high level archmage shaping the army from a war pavillion or other lookout point with support magic like communal resist energy, globes of invulnerability etc. If possible they'd unleash game changers like Earthquake but were often occupied counterspelling the enemy archmage.
Essentially a mage in every squad for slinging evocation magic as well as combat healing and anti-detection from enemy mages.
Frequently deployed 2 man hit teams where the mage would DD/Silence rogues to into sneak attack position against enemy mages.
Important figures would carry around Otataral - a material that's
essentially an antimagic field + kryptonite to spellcasters.
Heavy infantry were sometimes outfitted with magic resistant shields and armor.
The Claw - a CIA esque network of assassins would be deployed into enemy countries to eliminate important spellcasters to stay ahead of the magical arms race.
Really? It looks like the rule to me Lazar.
If I asked for an item known to be under the purchase limit and the GM said "no" without rolling the the percentage dice, then he is outright house ruling the game.
And that's a mighty fine house rule, provided you don't spring it on your players like I did in my example.
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I concede I did not read the whole thread. Maybe someone pointed these things out already:
1) Magical Warfare would look a lot like industrial war.
a) by the American Civil War, rifling had become common enough that rifled musket and minie balls could outrange some cannon; rifled musket were accurate enough that the advantage of massed fire (close order drill) was ruined by the hideous amount of casualties a close order unit would suffer.
b) add to the accuracy the rate of fire provided by metal cratridges in breech loading firearms and most 'primitive' weapons fade away. See Roarke's Drift)
2) Magical Warfare would still require Boots On Ground.
a) you would need patrols and security to control ground, protect camps, defeat sabateurs.
b) All the artillery in the world will not defeat a mobile, aggressive, skilled force. Especially if such a force has arty of it's own. (See kasserine Pass, 1943)
3) Magical Warfare would look a lot like Modern War.
a) Mobility would be at least as potent as defense (think WWII, rather than WWI)
b) Mechanized forces, Airmobile forces, long range artillery, paratroops, would all have a place in the Magical/Medieval battlespace (not field, that would be too two dimensional). Dragon/Griffon Riders, teleporters...
4) Magical Warfare would look a lot like cyber warfare.
a) Intelligence and Signals would be of paramount importance; both their defense and the ability to degrade/destroy your enemies. sic, Scry Should I deny your Scry attempt, or misinform it, intentionally?
b) the ability to predict enemy actions, the ability to obscure your own... these would be the center of both tactical and strategic thought.
5) Magical Warfare would *require* Combined Arms.
a) Everything you have, your opponent probably has as well. So, how do you use the forces you have effectively? Lone Wizards are vulnerable, but so are groups of warriors. And so too, would be any support personnel you have/need. Have enough Rocks, Papers and Scissors to cover each other and you should be ok.
b) Why is this patch tri-colored? 2AD Because it is at it's core COMBINED ARMS: Infantry Blue, Cavalry Gold, and Artillery Red
In short, Magical Battlespaces would look more like modern battlespaces than industrial or medieval. Nothing exists in a vacuum and everything you have, they have. Some armies/nations/movements have more of this and less of that, but *nothing exists in a vacuum*
:D
Using the information from the Game Master Guide we can get an ideal of the level of spell casters and the number as well. Table 7-36 gives the level of spells you can pay to be cast based off of settlement type. The table on page 203 of the GMG gives a population range for the settlement types. Using a per 100,000 format you get an ideal of the level of spells and the number of casters that can cast each level of spell.
I am going to go with an army of 1,000. You would have at least 50 spell casters. 16 of them could cast 2nd level spells, and 5 of them could cast 3rd level spells.
Using the information on the table in the GMG we can figure out the level makeup of the population. The highest level of you are likely to find out of a 1000 people is level 12. Which is very close to the level given for a general which is level 11(GMG pg.287).
To get above 3rd level spells you need to be looking at a very large army. You would only have about one spell caster that could cast a 5th level spell in an army of 5,000. For 6th level spells you are looking at an army of 10,000.
So unless you are dealing with armies of over 1,000 you are not likely to be seeing higher than 3rd level spells.
A knight needs to be at least 4th level in order to have the money to buy the full-plate, if you are using NPC wealth and not PC wealth guide lines.
This is the standard I have been working from, making low level (1st-3rd) spells common enogh to be deployed widely, while higher level spells are less commonly deployed, if at all. Your higher level spellcasters are going to be the ones creating scrolls for the others to use.
This means magic exists, is widely used in combat, but is not so widespread that e.g. Teleporting strike teams are viable. (I may have to eat my words on that one).
I took the view that in order for a spell to have impact on a battle it has to be able to be deployed consistently across the entire battlefield.I think this is where you make your mistake. That's not how battles work, especially medieval ones. A basic tactical principle, for the ages, is that you hit the enemy at a weak point in the line with overwhelming force, punch through, and then move out to exploit. (This is basically the whole idea behind the strategy of the First World War, except that there were so many men involved that a "breakthrough" needed to be ten km wide to move 100,000 troops through.) A typical medieval cavalry charge, for example, would have a few hundred soldiers riding stirrup-to-stirrup, typically in a flying wedge formation, against a specific point in the line. This point would be overwhelmed, and the bulk of the cavalry would be free to raise havoc behind the front lines -- and the rest of the troops would be free to follow through the gap.
Although I describe this in terms of cavalry, the wedge formation originated in classical times (the Greeks called it the embolon, for example) as an infantry tactic. It's the same principle; put overwhelming force against a single point in the line.
The point, though, is that any reasonable attacker can't achieve overwhelming force anywhere, but it's practical to achieve overwhelming force somewhere.
So anything a wizard that can do that will reinforce that point will stop the flying wedge and potentially turn the tables on the battlefield. A single Wall of Force, for example, is a game changer. Similarly, anything that the opposing wizard can do to harden the wedge would be a potential game-changing spell.
This is a very good point. It means that a few higher level spells could decide the course of the battle. Wall of Force, however is too easy to counter with a rod of cancellation wielded by a 6th level character (any class, so most likely a Fighter type leading the charge) which would actually be common enough to be viable.
But that doesn't invalidate your point. I will have to think about how this changes things.
If anyone else can think of a good tactic for this (or any other long range spell), let me know. Alternatively, a convincing, cheap way to determine if a troop is real or an Illusion quickly and easily would be useful for commanders.Shoot them with a few arrows.
wouldn't work. RAW, a perception roll would be required and this would mean that you would be unable to work out the detail of whether or not your arrow has hit a specific target or not (especially against close order infantry) except at short ranges, by which time it is impossible to react to what is there. Also with that many mages doing that many spells it would be no problem for a few of them to swap to doing an image of casualties, and if that isn't sufficient of an argument use a mixed troop of real and illusionary troops. Now your Illusionary troop will provide real casualties.
This is likely what would be used in a bluff; enough troops to engage and pin the reserves sent to intercept them while the real attack comes against a weak spot.
I'm actually beginning to think that Clairaudience/Clairvoyance and witness spells would have to be used by "spotter" spellcasters to determine what's real and what's not. It doesn't help much against a mixed real/Illusory troop unless you have been trained to know the difference between the sound of close order infantry on the march and skirmish infantry on the march. The only other possibility is True Seeing cast from scroll by your higher (4th+) level spellcasters.
The real battle is the magical assault on the command and control elements of an enemy army. Kill/charm/dominate/eliminate the leaders and the battle is won without all that messy mass combat.That's assuming of course you can FIND the command and control center. And your opposition isn't doing things like camouflage or even better, putting up a number of fakes for you to find. Over centuries of war, the easy mistakes do get weeded out.The soldiers on the field have to be commanded. They can't be commanded by an invisible commander. Organizing and moving forces on the field takes direct interface by a number of commanders, banner holders, messengers, etc.
Unless you have a mage for every unit doing magical "walkie talkie" work then you must have a visible chain of command. And it must be easily discerned or your forces will be in disarray and unable to take orders.
These are command and control elements (note I didn't say "center") that are vulnerable to spellcraft. This is where the strength of a spellcaster becomes a force multiplier beyond what any fireball or sleep spell could accomplish.
At 50 spellcastrers/1000 men, I don't see how it would be a problem for them to do a "Walkie Talkie".