Combat Mages?

[Degren Brightforge]

I've noticed that the rules offer little in the ways of a combat mage, that is, someone who wishes to sling fireballs along side the warriors in combat. Are there any rules or spells that allow for such a thing? Like a staff that shoots "fire" or something of the like? I ask because a friend of mine wishes to be a combat mage, as opposed to a more...regal mage:P

[Torvallis!]

Best I've got is going for 'With fire I engulf my hands' and 'With fire I enchant your weapon for X points", learning some unarmed strike, getting some gauntlets, and going to town.

Currently, if I have unarmed strike 1, I could call for 10 damage that way for one strike, and 6 damage for 1 minute. With Lady Val backing me, that'd be 16 damage and 9 damage respectively.

My current plan is to get Tier 5 fire and then Awareness 2, so if he wants to go that route, I will be able to boost him by 5 levels in any fire magic pretty soon.

[Degren Brightforge]

That seems unfortunate:P It seems like magic is, no offence to anyone, very inferior to weaponry:P Generally speaking, most games have magic being the most powerful of the two, with some obvious disadvantages such as weakened armour and mana. I suppose it is just atypical in that way.

[Malva]

Torvallis!'s reply was mostly geared towards putting magic on weapons, I think. There is still always fire strikes/water strikes (which is still underpowered), and when you get into void there's void kills (puts you into your bleed) and void destroys (basically removes you from existence). Not to mention, there are also a lot of combat-usable spells that don't directly deal damage like earth will toughen and with water I command you.

Magic doesn't just straight up deal damage like weapons do, mostly because then it wouldn't be any different than weapons. Also, the prerequisites for combat magic still set you up for a lot of other useful things, while weapons only set you up for fancier things with weapons.

[Torvallis!]

Mhm, magic is better used for its utility aspects. I can burn people's shit and make them drop anything I can't burn, for example.
Later, I'll be able to resist all attacks entirely, hypnotize people, and creating burning walls of flame.

I think an earth mage is potentially extremely powerful in combat, between 'the earth will bind your [x]', and 'the earth will throw you'.


Mages also start weaker, but end up being able to join up and add TONS of power. If I have 2 fire mages join with me, I could start hitting for 17 magic for one minute, at the cost of 1 fire mana. (For a second fire mana, I could then do 32 damage in one hit).

Likewise, water mages can alter peoples memory, earth mages can take people out of play entirely, for hours, air mages can make people take 5 second counts between attacks for hours. . .

But in terms of straight-up damage dealing, go with weapons.


It's important to remember that a LARP is not just combat. I rarely enter combat these days except to drag corpses out! I end up still having a huge effect between medic 3 and enchanting peoples weapons, though.

[Degren Brightforge]

Oh yes, I agree. It's definitely more of a utility thing (aside from literally wiping people from existence.) My friend's played too many games where the mage is a glass cannon:P I'll try to help him think of a build:P The 32 damage a hit thing though, Torvallis, is really awesome. I think he's worried because he's quite physically frail, and may be unable to keep his own in a straight up fight-- and magic, to him, was a way to even the odds.

I just noticed that you don't actually need to shell out 200$ on a larp bow to use one because you can use a stand in with beanbag arrows. So maybe he can do that? I also stressed the need for a combat healer, too, so maybe he'll do that:P

[Timmean]

As far as combat mages go, most of the bases have already been covered; there are a handful of damaging spells that are reasonably easy to get, but the damage they do is far inferior to what a fighter can do with the same XP (plus, you can run out of mana easily). However, you can also access various combat tricks, to slant the battle in your favour (and of course there's all the other uses for magic, so there's the utility thing).

As for doing damage with magic, it DOES have the most powerful offence in the game - "void destroys" is an instant kill, and very difficult to resurrect from, but it also requires a ton of XP to get (not to mention a teacher). In theory, the lower-level strike spells can do up to 25 damage, but to do so you need to max out both void and essence, at which point you'd likely just be using a void spell anyway (because, y'know, they can instant kill or do up to 50 damage).

Also, no offence to players who focus on other elements of the game - each skill type has its own devastating type of attack, but I don't think any are quite as instant or hard to recover from as void destroys. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

[Timmean]

Oh, and if your friend is interested in the "glass cannon" approach... talk to Sharon about the "suicide bomber" character from Epoch Toronto.

[Torvallis!]

I do believe Hilary's, with arrows, was $100, and I know that Sharon's set was around $40-$60, but she will have to beanbag the tips herself.

A utility mage with arrows can be pretty fantastic. Might I ask why it's required that mages are fragile? We can buy HP and wear armour like anyone else! You can, after-all, be a mage-knight.

And yeah, that damage number is coming from 3 fire mages with tier 5 and awareness 2 linking up to cast spells as if at tier 15 fire. It's a little . . .out of bounds.

I would more likely use it to enchant other people's weapons for +15 damage, but a fire mage-monk with a good unarmed strike/unarmed grapple can do amazing combat things . . .3 to 4 years into the LARP.

I've found mostly that we use our RL skills to be awesome in the LARP, not our statistics. For example, I am one of the folks who has gone down the fewest times despite having only cloth armour & 5 HP. As anyone will tell you, I run!

But I'm also not afraid of battle. People can tell you that I run towards danger when given a reason.

[Degren Brightforge]

I mentioned glass cannons because that's how they are in most RPGs:P Even D&D has arcane spell failure caused by heavy armor, so that's where the notion came from. I'm not sure a suicide bomber is a viable, long-term, character concept haha:P

[Timmean]

Not entirely true; you have a 10-minute bleed, so even if you make a huge bomb and are caught in the blast, you can still be okay if there are healers around. I normally wouldn't even suggest something so outrageous, except, well... it's been done In Epoch Toronto

[Torvallis!]

And it's a large amount of instant damage to everyone around. Coupled with a strike team ready to press the attack while combat medics stabilize and carry the body out, it's a very viable attack strategy.

[Degren Brightforge]

But yes... I don't think i saw you go down once, Torvallis. I, however, fell AT LEAST 30 times... and even had exploratory surgery and got parasite STD's.

[Torvallis!]

I've also grabbed a sword and chased everything off with my . . . 1 metal damage. People here will tell you that I'm one of our best swordfighters IRL, and I wasn't the one to start spreading that idea!

Point being, don't worry too much about your stats, it's what you do that matters! Stats are only boosters.

[Ivy]

Note on bows: They can be made relatively cheaply from PVC pipe. I tried to link to a tutorial on how to make them but That post evaporated into the aether.

On swordplay: Having OOG sword skills but no IG skill will lead to having to hit a spider 50ish times to take it down, while having the opposite means you could take it down in 5-10, if you could ever hit the thing. You also don't need more health if you never get hit in the first place.

A battle mage/war cleric would be pretty awesome to have around, as I don't think anyone has done this kind if thing yet. Although post-mulligan Hugo will certainly fill a combat support role rather than straight-up fighter.

[Degren Brightforge]

I'd say we've all mulliganed a bit since last time haha. I've taken a bit o' the old earth magic for a healing downed peeps on the run. But I've mostly sunken all my points into Shield 3 T_T Oh, and smithing!

[Volkihere Malacalo]

Ahem ahem.
I have been using a combat Mage build for more than half this season although I specialize in buffing and healing I'm not really a glass cannon.

[ValerieTheHuntress]

does anyone have any additional insights?

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