Military mages

[Blue_Lion]

How do you see mages in militaries of rifts.
This was inspired by another thread.

My view is..

No regular army is going to just take mages off the street and have them serve. They would go through a military training program that would likely change the OCC of a new mage. In addition large magic cities like Tolkeen(before its fall) and Lazlo would likely have an ROTC(ROTC is a program where students are trained to be officers) style mage training program where they teach potential mages in exchange for a mandatory term of service in the standing army.

The hard part is coming up with a way to make the mages in line units about as powerful than core mages without being redundant. The solution I came up with was a team work mechanic that allows the military mages to work well with other military mages and doing it in a way that does not affect core mages. (Team work is a big in the military) Also with the idea of an ROTC style program you can have SF mages stronger than core mages and about equal to the combat mages from FOM.

Note the team work mechanic would make such mages in most games a better GM tool than PC tool as most if not all the PCs would need to be mages with it to get the full affect.

How do you address it in your games?

[kaid]

In rifts merc adventures they have the combat mage OCC. This is a more military combat oriented mage less libraries and research and more shooting things in the face and blasting them with spells. Also the federation of magic book combat magus are a HIGHLY combat trained martial spell caster variant.

A lot of the other OCC tend more towards scholars/researchers who happen to have very combat applicable powers and if added to forces its likely a matter of just learning how to manage somebody with that back ground to point them in the right direction. I would assume any magical society does offer some basic military training to any spell user in their militia but this may simply be what we see already rolled into the OCC for these classes. Most spell casters have some basic weapon proficiencies as well as basic hand to hand or better combat training. Nobody is expecting super proficiency in mundane weaponry from a mage just can you get yourself strapped into your armor/wield a weapon if you are out of PPE and ability to follow instructions.

[Blue_Lion]

In rifts merc adventures they have the combat mage OCC. This is a more military combat oriented mage less libraries and research and more shooting things in the face and blasting them with spells. Also the federation of magic book combat magus are a HIGHLY combat trained martial spell caster variant.

A lot of the other OCC tend more towards scholars/researchers who happen to have very combat applicable powers and if added to forces its likely a matter of just learning how to manage somebody with that back ground to point them in the right direction. I would assume any magical society does offer some basic military training to any spell user in their militia but this may simply be what we see already rolled into the OCC for these classes. Most spell casters have some basic weapon proficiencies as well as basic hand to hand or better combat training. Nobody is expecting super proficiency in mundane weaponry from a mage just can you get yourself strapped into your armor/wield a weapon if you are out of PPE and ability to follow instructions.

I do not have that book as I said I started this thread to because of another thread bringing up the sections. The combat magus is an example of a military trained mage, the feeling I was getting on the combat mage OCC was it people saying it was weaker than core mages and redundant only a thin line justified its existence.

Note of the 4 core scholarly mage 2 do not start with hand to hand. The elemental fusionist come across as more physical than scholarly living close to nature.

What you are describing is a militia defense not a regular standing army.
A military often expects more from its troops than strapping on armor and dealing damage.

[drewkitty ~..~]

While there are the combat mages in the Merc. Adventures book and the ones in FoM, they don't seam to me that they are military.

The only class I can think of that is a overt military mage is the magic specialist of the Warlock marines.

Because of the outlook that mages are (sort of) equivalent to artillery I would make the mages non-ranked military where they are not enlisted but not officers (or officers or specialist NCO's that stand outside the chain of command). Each with his or her security detail. These would be combat troops trained in body guarding as to be able to do double duty both on and off the battlefield.

[Bill]

Mages always struck me as if they should be slightly psychotic. Canonically, their belief that magic should work is what makes it work; which is definitely not sane. That would incline me to think that most mages won't work well with traditional military structures. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think it's reasonable to say most of them are mavericks that break rules and forge new paths.

That said, WB16 depicts Federation of Magic mages as more regimented in their training. I like your idea of a teamwork mechanic. The magic system as written really only lets a group of mages benefit from sharing their P.P.E. while working together in a ritual. I think a specialized class ability or military category skill that adds range, spell strength, and duration modifiers could work though.

[dragonfett]

I feel that part of having militarized mages is making sure that there are spells that every single one of them know, sort of like a spell load out if you will. What spells do you see every mage in a nation's military (let's say Lazlo for instance) knowing before they start training in tactics?

[eliakon]

Through the Mirror Darkly has the Group Casting Sorcerous Proficiency.
Imagine a military where every mage has been trained in that...

[Blue_Lion]

I feel that part of having militarized mages is making sure that there are spells that every single one of them know, sort of like a spell load out if you will. What spells do you see every mage in a nation's military (let's say Lazlo for instance) knowing before they start training in tactics?

Depends on MOS.

5. Initial spell knowledge. Universal spells known regardless of MOS- Armor of Ithan (10), Fire bolt (7), Lantern Light(or globe of daylight) (1), Carpet of Adhesion (10). Combat MOS- Blinding Flash (1) Multiple image (7) Basaltic Fire (25) Deflect (10) Electric Arc (8) Orb of cold (6) Inadvisability:simple (6) Support MOS- Light Healing (6), Cure Minor Disorders (10) Cure Illness (15) Restoration (750) Resurrection (650) Teleport: Lesser (15)

[Blue_Lion]

Mages always struck me as if they should be slightly psychotic. Canonically, their belief that magic should work is what makes it work; which is definitely not sane. That would incline me to think that most mages won't work well with traditional military structures. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think it's reasonable to say most of them are mavericks that break rules and forge new paths.

That said, WB16 depicts Federation of Magic mages as more regimented in their training. I like your idea of a teamwork mechanic. The magic system as written really only lets a group of mages benefit from sharing their P.P.E. while working together in a ritual. I think a specialized class ability or military category skill that adds range, spell strength, and duration modifiers could work though.

The ritual of squad is how I do it.
It creates a link to allow them to talk telepathically and share ppe as a free action. This requires that the mages be no more than a set distance part from one the next closes mage and can daisy chain the whole squad. Affects number of People as the highest level mage and last one lunar cycle must be cast on a full moon. Note all participants must be military mages with the ritual, it is an OCC power.

Military mage OCCs have special powers to further improve the bond.

Mages of the line-the main ones, gain spell strength slower but at set levels add spell strength to the other squad members. They can also cast armor spells at 3X PPE to have it affect all within the daisy chain link.

Tactical rift experts-(military shifters) increase the resistance to mind control possession of the squad at set levels and can summon squad members for the teleport home cost.

Mystical operations specialist-(officers like the CS military operations specialist) increase morale of squad providing bonus at set levels and can mass cast invisibility on linked squad members for 3 times the PPE cost.

That should give you an idea of how it works. Gives mages trained an advantage but allows them to be lower power to core mages and still work well and not be redundant.

[taalismn]

In my own nation state traditional mages can serve in the regular armed forces, but they have to take oaths of service and if they intend to serve in the line units, they have to tone down their costuming and wear standard issue gear like the rest of the grunts(though, given the Rifts setting, whatever symbols/paraphenalia they continue to wear outside their armor is balanced by the rest of the grunts wearing their own good luck charms and individual flourishes). The idea is. psychologically at least,1) to get the mages to identify more with their comrades, and 2) camouflage them among the rest of the crunchies, so they don't immediately give their edge away, or draw fire the minute they appear on the battlefield. They get a few extra perks, like room and time to meditate, and an extra supply voucher for extra magic gear (within reason; they can't requisition human sacrifices, for example), but otherwise they're expected to bunk, mess, and keep up physically with the rest of the troops(of course, if the mage can do something on the sly that makes a joint task like KP easier, the troops are likely to look aside...but there are enough negapsychics in the nation-state military that getting caught is likely to get the mage and comrades drilled with a 'had a psi-stalker or dog-boy sniffed your little hoodu in the field, you'd all be DEAD!' lecture).
Most troops regard the mages sort of as guys with a weird, but useful, religion.

Those who don't, or who are sufficiently powerful/rare enough, can sign on as specialists, but while the autonomy and pay may be higher, specialists of the hire-on sort are understood to not have the full range of benefits as the enlisted mages, such as being able to advance in military rank, reap full GI benefits, and have access to the full range of military gear(without having it accompanied by mundanes who know how the stuff works).

[Shark_Force]

Through the Mirror Darkly has the Group Casting Sorcerous Proficiency.
Imagine a military where every mage has been trained in that...

i did that once with i think about 20 proficient casters as an exercise in what kinds of things you could use to deal with the xiticix threat. with 20, it gets pretty nasty (especialy if the main caster has the ritual casting one). i can't imagine if you had a couple hundred...

[taalismn]

[
i did that once with i think about 20 proficient casters as an exercise in what kinds of things you could use to deal with the xiticix threat. with 20, it gets pretty nasty (especialy if the main caster has the ritual casting one). i can't imagine if you had a couple hundred...

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as some have discussed aforehand, mages tend to be somewhat psychotic...and a bit egotistical... getting more than a dozen of them to agree to a synchronized ANYTHING requires some major doing/convincing(like "Hey, the Moon's about to fall to Earth and kill us all if you don't DO something!'...and even then, there will be guys warming up their Dimensional Rift spells)

[Blue_Lion]

[
i did that once with i think about 20 proficient casters as an exercise in what kinds of things you could use to deal with the xiticix threat. with 20, it gets pretty nasty (especialy if the main caster has the ritual casting one). i can't imagine if you had a couple hundred...

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as some have discussed aforehand, mages tend to be somewhat psychotic...and a bit egotistical... getting more than a dozen of them to agree to a synchronized ANYTHING requires some major doing/convincing(like "Hey, the Moon's about to fall to Earth and kill us all if you don't DO something!'...and even then, there will be guys warming up their Dimensional Rift spells)

Part of the reason I do not see an standing army using just any mage they would want a hand in shaping how he does magic and works as a team.
A defensive (or offensive) army needs team work. Does not matter if it is CS or Lazlo if the army can not work as a team it will fail.

[taalismn]

[
5. Initial spell knowledge. Universal spells known regardless of MOS- Armor of Ithan (10), Fire bolt (7), Lantern Light(or globe of daylight) (1), Carpet of Adhesion (10). Combat MOS- Blinding Flash (1) Multiple image (7) Basaltic Fire (25) Deflect (10) Electric Arc (8) Orb of cold (6) Inadvisability:simple (6) Support MOS- Light Healing (6), Cure Minor Disorders (10) Cure Illness (15) Restoration (750) Resurrection (650) Teleport: Lesser (15)

If you're trying to build a team player, I'd add in Blast Shield(17) or Sheltering Force(20) or other group-effect/protective spells. Fortify Against Disease (20) is another good one because you can affect two people by touch, and protection lasts for hours...nice to have if you're traveling through a malarial swamp and are short on DET.

[eliakon]

[
i did that once with i think about 20 proficient casters as an exercise in what kinds of things you could use to deal with the xiticix threat. with 20, it gets pretty nasty (especialy if the main caster has the ritual casting one). i can't imagine if you had a couple hundred...

Fortunately, or unfortunately, as some have discussed aforehand, mages tend to be somewhat psychotic...and a bit egotistical... getting more than a dozen of them to agree to a synchronized ANYTHING requires some major doing/convincing(like "Hey, the Moon's about to fall to Earth and kill us all if you don't DO something!'...and even then, there will be guys warming up their Dimensional Rift spells)

Except that there is no reason to believe that other than a bunch of peoples fanon and headcanon that mages should be these cool, misanthropic rebels.

There is nothing in the books that says that magic causes this.
There is nothing at all in the books to suggest that this is actually in fact a real normal behavior of mages.

But what we do have, in over a dozen books mind you, are communities some massive. All filled with wizards working for common goals. Commercial wizards, collages, formal military forces, factories...
...Sounds like "mages work well together" is the canon norm in fact.

[Shark_Force]

heh... inadvisability:simple and basaltic fire.

let me guess, your phone hates you?

anyways, i'd throw sustain in there. it's hard to imagine a military organization *not* wanting to make use of this spell. any time you hit a ley line, you recharge your food and water for several days, except you don't have to actually carry any food or water (i'm sure soldiers will still carry some for emergencies, but they would likely carry less... and therefore more of other useful stuff. i mean, it's not like they're going to just let each soldier carry less weight).

then add on top you need less sleep and don't need to breathe? well now you can make an environmental armour without the air supply/filtration system (if you're feeling brave), and hey look, there's more weight freed up. it's just too good of a spell to *not* use.

spells like fire bolt would imo be low priority from an army perspective. short range, terrible ammo supply, generally worse than an energy pistol and vastly worse than an energy rifle. long-range or good aoe damage they'll be interested in (or damage that goes through armour, like mental shock), but i would expect if they want you to be able to fire energy blasts they'll just issue you an energy rifle and some basic training in it (and also, i expect they'll make a point of telling you your job is not to be the guy on the front lines with an energy rifle, because they hired you for your other skills). now, something like impervious to energy, or invulnerability... now that they'd be interested in. if you can make an infantryman nearly impossible to harm, they'll be all over that.

[eliakon]

I would imagine that they would issue out some other spells
Magic Pigeon, Magic Net, Carpet of Adhesion, See Aura, Lifeblast, Light Target!

Combat magic is full of spells that would be of interest, and I don't think a military would take "well that's just icky" for an answer.

Depending on what sorts of sourcebooks your game uses there are a LOT of magic spells out there in the lower level range (1-7) that would be very useful.

I doubt really that they are going to want direct damage spells. That is what guns were invented for. What you want a mage for is to do all those things that you can't do with your technology, or can't do easily.
Healing and Repair, mend the broken is insanely useful here. So is mend cloth.
Reconnaissance and Scrying. Second Sight, Oracle, Astral Projection and the like
Finding/Stopping supernatural threats like mind controlled infiltrators, astral spies, entities, invisible intruders... that sort of thing
Illusions and improvised fieldworks/cover (Various magic wall spells) are also pretty valuable and oft over looked.

[Blue_Lion]

heh... inadvisability:simple and basaltic fire.

let me guess, your phone hates you?

anyways, i'd throw sustain in there. it's hard to imagine a military organization *not* wanting to make use of this spell. any time you hit a ley line, you recharge your food and water for several days, except you don't have to actually carry any food or water (i'm sure soldiers will still carry some for emergencies, but they would likely carry less... and therefore more of other useful stuff. i mean, it's not like they're going to just let each soldier carry less weight).

then add on top you need less sleep and don't need to breathe? well now you can make an environmental armour without the air supply/filtration system (if you're feeling brave), and hey look, there's more weight freed up. it's just too good of a spell to *not* use.

spells like fire bolt would imo be low priority from an army perspective. short range, terrible ammo supply, generally worse than an energy pistol and vastly worse than an energy rifle. long-range or good aoe damage they'll be interested in (or damage that goes through armour, like mental shock), but i would expect if they want you to be able to fire energy blasts they'll just issue you an energy rifle and some basic training in it (and also, i expect they'll make a point of telling you your job is not to be the guy on the front lines with an energy rifle, because they hired you for your other skills). now, something like impervious to energy, or invulnerability... now that they'd be interested in. if you can make an infantryman nearly impossible to harm, they'll be all over that.

Those are what I use as starting spells. Fire bolt at level 1 has better damage than most low level spells a good hold out for when you are in close and do not have your ammo for your weapon limit range can be an asset if forced into MD fight in a city you protect simply put it is an urban combat low level spell. As most magical kingdoms are built on or near ley lines it is easy to get the energy for it.


Sustain is a spell for field opps but not all major magic players are about sending base troupes on long range recon. Lazalo tends to keep there troops close to home. SF style mages would have a different spell choice but basic mages that are used as part of a defensive army would not be planning on being in the field for long.

Invisible simple is cheaper than superior and can be used when you are fighting something that can not see heat or invisible unlike superior.

Balistic fire is a good area suppression spell without getting in to higher level spells you can hit multiple targets or focus on one.

You are not going to give all the best spells to your recruits, just some basic ones.

With the combat MOS it was about being close and staying the fight while dealing damage(at say a gate check point), support I saw as medic, I have military TWs with spells and training to maintain gear. the goal was not super strong universal but low level general mages, that would be used to defend a city.
(What you saw was the starting spells I created for a home brewed mage, it is tempting to load them down with powerful spells but I was not trying to make them stronger than core mages. Some of the spells on the list are extremely good some would be less so. Some may be better than you think.)

[ShadowLogan]

No regular army is going to just take mages off the street and have them serve. They would go through a military training program that would likely change the OCC of a new mage. In addition large magic cities like Tolkeen(before its fall) and Lazlo would likely have an ROTC(ROTC is a program where students are trained to be officers) style mage training program where they teach potential mages in exchange for a mandatory term of service in the standing army.

I agree a regular army will have them undergo some training, but I'm not sure it would require switching to a new OCC based on examples w/n RMB (though those might be more militia than regular military). I would certainly require they have selected certain skills to reflect basic training (starting character's spend the slots at creation, experienced characters have to take down time to learn them for "free", sort of like adapting to new worlds in RCB1r) and knowledge they should have.

However, beyond that I don't think there is going to be a fixed mold every state follows in how they use, advanced training/knowledge/spells to develop their solider-mages.

I feel that part of having militarized mages is making sure that there are spells that every single one of them know, sort of like a spell load out if you will. What spells do you see every mage in a nation's military (let's say Lazlo for instance) knowing before they start training in tactics?

I think the spells they would be expected to know would be based on the role they are expected to play within the force structure, which they might draw based on what they know before enlisting. The military might provide spell knowledge itself for a given role, but that could vary from govt. to govt.

Because of the outlook that mages are (sort of) equivalent to artillery I would make the mages non-ranked military where they are not enlisted but not officers (or officers or specialist NCO's that stand outside the chain of command). Each with his or her security detail. These would be combat troops trained in body guarding as to be able to do double duty both on and off the battlefield.

So basically you make them a Warrant Officer in terms of rank?

[Proseksword]

Not to derail things, but how many magic using kingdoms in RIFTs Earth even have a professionally trained military of any kind?

Lazlo relies largely on a volunteer militia
Dweomer has a professional army, represented by the Battle Mage O.C.C.
Stormspire seems to rely on mercenaries for defense
Dunscon's True Federation of Magic is more of a feudal army of self-appointed mage-lords
In the Three Galaxies, we have the aforementioned Warlock Marines of the UWW
Arzno relies upon it's own mercenary corps, albeit quite a professional one.

I'm just not sure where such a military mage is supposedly needed that there isn't already an appropriate O.C.C. Most of the magic using powers of RIFTs Earth are feudal powers, devoid of anything resembling a modern military. Their sorcerers aren't spell-slinging privates fresh out of boot-camp, but savvy community members applying their expertise to the benefit of the community.

[Blue_Lion]

As I understand it Lazlo has both a standing army and militia. The Militia is larger but they still maintains a standing army.(not unlike how are reserve and national guard are in greater number than active duty.) Tolkeen before it fell had a large standing army. Kingsdale has a standing army, and talks about special mage training. Think new Lazlo also has a standing army it is more militant than Lazlo.
Anzo basically privatized its standing army.(its own merc force is the military being subcontracted or privatized same affect but moves logistics to the unit itself and not the city.)

Storm spire is mostly just a corp with the support it needs on its lands and the true federation of magic a terrorist group.
So that was 5 use to be 6 nations in north America with a form of standing army that use mages.
Depending on how you define powers your statement that most magic using powers are feudal powers can be inaccurate devoid of anything resembling a modern military can be highly in error. Atlantis one of the greatest magic using power clearly has a developed military structure. (Much of the structure behind our military can be traced back to feudal powers military tech changes but structure is similar.)

The question was how do you see mages in military not creation of new OCC. But how you feel they would fit in a standing army. I did list my feeling on them but that was just my feelings.

[glitterboy2098]

unfortunately our info on Lazlo is so sparse as to make it impossible to say for certain which dynamic the city-state uses for it's military forces.

so really we need to approach this in a more hypothetical approach.

my arguement, in such casem, is that for a military using mages, they will treat the mage as a specialist subset of their regualr forces. this means that mages would get the same basic training in firearms, tactics, and the like as the regular troops. only then would they receive the magic training, the same way that other troops go on to receive specialized training in heavy weapons, communications, etc.

basically they would be an MOS within the training of the troops. if mages are deployed largely frontline, of the standard Infantry class. if used more as special forces/advisory role, of the Special forces/"military specialist" class.
note that this probably would mean they would be less effective at being a Mage than a dedicated magic OCC like ley line walker or shifter.. but at the same time, they'd have more military type skills and training to draw on than a dedicated Mage OCC would. i would assume that a nation that prefers to recruit existing mages into their forces would set them up as a separate unit organized more like a supporting Auxiliary rather than try to integrate non-military trained individuals into a military units directly. (similar to the CS's Psi-Batt in some ways there.. separate on paper, but members would be seconded to standard units on a regimental, battalion, or company basis for actual deployments, with those attached units being separate out to platoons or squads as needed.)


as far as initial spell lists.. i agree that a military force would want to standardize the spells in the initial training as much as possible. at the same time, the variety of spells available even in the standard invocation list means you want some flexibility to maximize your magical options. since most lv1 mages get 8-10 spells to start (usually lvs' 1-4, which would represent the common and easy to train spell options), i'd imagine that a military would standardize around 3-5 starting spells, call it around half of what they can learn before becoming Lv1.
so lets say 8 starting. 4 standard, 4 of choice.

of the standard, i'd assume the following: 1 sensory spell (meant to help the mage locate the major threats the military usually faces), 1 defensive spell (something to provide extra protection to the mage or to his unit mates), 1 offensive spell (to supplement the standard weapons the military mage would be carrying as part of a unit, and to provide a magical offensive option for those tricky targets immune to bullets/lasers.), and the 4th i would argue should be a spell meant to support the mage or his unit.

for example, lets say that the force is most concerned with oh, Vampires and other shapeshifters.
you might want to picksomething liek the following to stadardize around..

See Aura (lets you pick out the shapeshifters from normal people)
Energy Bolt (offensive spell, overcomes most damage immunities)
Energy Field (defensive spell.. plus it is area defense so the rest of a squad can be defended at the same time.)
Life Source (the 'support' spell.. in this case giving the mage an option to quickly recharge their PPE should they run low during a fight.)

if you were fighting say, Brodkil, as your main enemy you might want Detect concealment or Sense Evil instead of see aura, to help pick up the cloaked enemies. and perhaps Light healing instead of Life Source,to make the mage able to act as a impromptu medic. etc.

the nice thing about an approach liek this is that you still have those "player's choice" spells to start.. which means ant magical spell that you think should have been included from the starting spell levels can be taken anyway. the point of the standard spell list is to ensure that all the mages have a spelllist that benefits the units the military forces they are deployed with, and a squad leader or platoon commander can count on specific abilities when they start building their plans for a given engagement.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Because of the outlook that mages are (sort of) equivalent to artillery I would make the mages non-ranked military where they are not enlisted but not officers (or officers or specialist NCO's that stand outside the chain of command). Each with his or her security detail. These would be combat troops trained in body guarding as to be able to do double duty both on and off the battlefield.

So basically you make them a Warrant Officer in terms of rank?

Equivalently yes….but warrant officers are Navy, not Army.
------
About how mages are not "as sane" as guys who "follow orders to run into enemy fire"…..*shrugs*
Personally I see it that 'everyone' (including me) is crazy, it is just that some of us hide it better then others. It is a part of being human.
So are Mages are "not quite sane" yep….just like everyone else. They are just a different "not quite sane."

[Shark_Force]

I dunno, I mostly can't see the army caring in the slightest whether you can cast fire bolt or not. if they're feeling particularly paranoid about needing more short-range damage potential, they'll just issue you a few extra e-clips for your sidearm and call it a day.

there is so much that magic can do that will just allow you to completely alter the flow of a fight, or completely change your logistics chain. those will be the things any competent military organization training spellcasters will focus on. firebolt basically just gives you extra ammo for a single member of the squad. it just doesn't do an awful lot of things. (incidentally, if a "sidearm" spell is desired, I would propose throwing stones instead).

armour of ithan makes you resistant to a handful of attack types (not necessarily common, but hey, nobody's going to complain about that) and can be shared across an entire unit to make their armour last longer. interesting, but not a deal breaker. I would expect most armies that provide spell training would include this spell, but wouldn't consider it to be the main attraction (they'll still need to bring along everything to repair armour, but the spell can save a lot of time, material, and money).

invisibility:simple I think is a much better example of a spell most military organizations would be interested in. many of the methods of seeing invisible creatures are limited in range. so I can definitely agree that this would be a very high priority spell for an army. if you can set up, say, 2,000 feet away with laser rifles and just pelt an enemy with laser shots while invisible, they are unlikely to be able to get anything more than a very general direction that you're attacking from. this would be especially true if the squad is equipped with particularly long-range weapons (4,000 foot range on a few laser rifles, for example).

another (similar) example would be the fire warlock spell that lets you see through smoke. now you can drop thermal smoke bombs at your feet and hand the spell around, and your enemies are firing (mostly) blind at you. less subtle than invisibility, but also a bit harder to penetrate (it works even if they're at close range, whereas most militaries should have *some* way of seeing through simple invisibility, ranging from psionics or magic to various optical systems).

but I very much doubt there would be a combat MOS caster that would focus on blasting spells. blasting with magic is inefficient, tends to be low range, and frankly less effective than technological means of doing the same thing. if you want to hose down an area with suppressing fire, then give a grunt one of those automatic grenade launchers and watch them rain down fiery death from 4,000 feet away in a large area. or issue someone a railgun, or even a heavy machinegun with ramjet rounds if you need to save on cost. it will work better, and you can train someone to do it much more easily. unless we're talking about high level spellcasters using some rather rare spells, it is quite likely that a regular grunt with a weapon (laser pistol/rifle, machinegun, grenade/rocket launcher, etc) could do the same thing.

[eliakon]

Because of the outlook that mages are (sort of) equivalent to artillery I would make the mages non-ranked military where they are not enlisted but not officers (or officers or specialist NCO's that stand outside the chain of command). Each with his or her security detail. These would be combat troops trained in body guarding as to be able to do double duty both on and off the battlefield.

So basically you make them a Warrant Officer in terms of rank?

Equivalently yes….but warrant officers are Navy, not Army.

US Miltary uses the Warrant Officer in all branches.
Three ranks. Enlisted, Warrant Officer, Commissioned Officer.
Enlisted are your troops
Warrants are your specialists who do specialty things (lead maintenance shops, fly helicopters, that sort of thing)
Commissioned Officers are your command staff that lead units.

Which brings us back to...
Yeah, Mages would be a good Warrant path.

[dragonfett]

US Miltary uses the Warrant Officer in all branches.
Three ranks. Enlisted, Warrant Officer, Commissioned Officer.
Enlisted are your troops
Warrants are your specialists who do specialty things (lead maintenance shops, fly helicopters, that sort of thing)
Commissioned Officers are your command staff that lead units.

Which brings us back to...
Yeah, Mages would be a good Warrant path.

Wrong, the Air Force does not have Warrant Officers, or if they do now, they sure as heck didn't when I left back on 2007.

spells like fire bolt would imo be low priority from an army perspective. short range, terrible ammo supply, generally worse than an energy pistol and vastly worse than an energy rifle. long-range or good aoe damage they'll be interested in (or damage that goes through armour, like mental shock), but i would expect if they want you to be able to fire energy blasts they'll just issue you an energy rifle and some basic training in it (and also, i expect they'll make a point of telling you your job is not to be the guy on the front lines with an energy rifle, because they hired you for your other skills). now, something like impervious to energy, or invulnerability... now that they'd be interested in. if you can make an infantryman nearly impossible to harm, they'll be all over that.

I feel that Fire Bolt would be a must have spell for any military mage. A level 4 spell (meaning that it's low enough to cast in a single action as per the RUE) which at 4d6 MD has 4x the damage potential of the energy pistols in the RUE and 33% more damage potential than the laser rifles from the RUE, it's the lowest level combat spell capable of dealing MD damage in the RUE. The Book of Magic also has Throwing Stones which is a level two spell that does 1d6 MD + 1 MD/lvl, and Orb of Cold which is level three and does a flat 3d6 MD plus numbness. The range does suck on it at 100' + 5'/lvl, which is vastly shorter than the 200' for Orb of Cold or 200' + 100'/lvl of Throwing Stones. Orb of Cold requires almost as much PPE as Fire Bolt, and Thowing Stones doesn't use much less either. All of these spells must also roll to strike.

The next best damaging spell that is level five or lower is Mental Blast (a level five spell), PPE needed is a little over 2x more, range starts the same and increases a little better than Firebolt, damage is 25% higher but bypasses any armor and SDC (if applicable), it's virtually invisible, plus it's a save vs. psionic attack rather than the normal save vs. magic.

Fire Bolt is a superior spell to Call Lighting or Fire Ball (as far as damage is concerned) up until the caster reaches level at least level 9 (at that point Call Lightning is doing 9d6 MD/two actions, Fireball would have to be cast by a 11th or 12th level caster to start doing more damage per second than Firebolt).

Now I am not saying that Call Lightning or Fireball or other higher level spells don't have their advantages (Call Lightning has no saving throw and Fireball needs a dodge for 18 and only if the target is aware of the danger), but for close combat those spells are not ideal due to the fact that they take multiple actions to get off and can be interrupted.

[eliakon]

US Miltary uses the Warrant Officer in all branches.
Three ranks. Enlisted, Warrant Officer, Commissioned Officer.
Enlisted are your troops
Warrants are your specialists who do specialty things (lead maintenance shops, fly helicopters, that sort of thing)
Commissioned Officers are your command staff that lead units.

Which brings us back to...
Yeah, Mages would be a good Warrant path.

Wrong, the Air Force does not have Warrant Officers, or if they do now, they sure as heck didn't when I left back on 2007.

You are correct, My mistake.

US Warrants are Navy and Army only.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_officer
Has some history on them. And they sound exactly like what is being looked for here. A specialist who has a special skill that is desired for a military force, that is not a common soldier of the line, nor that is to be put in the (full) chain of command.

Warrant Officers and/or a "Magic Corps" which then attaches magical assets to regular units (at what ever level) would seem to be the way to go.
This same logic would probably apply for psionics, various supernatural abilities, super powers, mystic martial arts, and anything else of that nature.

[glitterboy2098]

I dunno, I mostly can't see the army caring in the slightest whether you can cast fire bolt or not. if they're feeling particularly paranoid about needing more short-range damage potential, they'll just issue you a few extra e-clips for your sidearm and call it a day.

there is so much that magic can do that will just allow you to completely alter the flow of a fight, or completely change your logistics chain. those will be the things any competent military organization training spellcasters will focus on. firebolt basically just gives you extra ammo for a single member of the squad. it just doesn't do an awful lot of things. (incidentally, if a "sidearm" spell is desired, I would propose throwing stones instead).

armour of ithan makes you resistant to a handful of attack types (not necessarily common, but hey, nobody's going to complain about that) and can be shared across an entire unit to make their armour last longer. interesting, but not a deal breaker. I would expect most armies that provide spell training would include this spell, but wouldn't consider it to be the main attraction (they'll still need to bring along everything to repair armour, but the spell can save a lot of time, material, and money).

invisibility:simple I think is a much better example of a spell most military organizations would be interested in. many of the methods of seeing invisible creatures are limited in range. so I can definitely agree that this would be a very high priority spell for an army. if you can set up, say, 2,000 feet away with laser rifles and just pelt an enemy with laser shots while invisible, they are unlikely to be able to get anything more than a very general direction that you're attacking from. this would be especially true if the squad is equipped with particularly long-range weapons (4,000 foot range on a few laser rifles, for example).

another (similar) example would be the fire warlock spell that lets you see through smoke. now you can drop thermal smoke bombs at your feet and hand the spell around, and your enemies are firing (mostly) blind at you. less subtle than invisibility, but also a bit harder to penetrate (it works even if they're at close range, whereas most militaries should have *some* way of seeing through simple invisibility, ranging from psionics or magic to various optical systems).

but I very much doubt there would be a combat MOS caster that would focus on blasting spells. blasting with magic is inefficient, tends to be low range, and frankly less effective than technological means of doing the same thing. if you want to hose down an area with suppressing fire, then give a grunt one of those automatic grenade launchers and watch them rain down fiery death from 4,000 feet away in a large area. or issue someone a railgun, or even a heavy machinegun with ramjet rounds if you need to save on cost. it will work better, and you can train someone to do it much more easily. unless we're talking about high level spellcasters using some rather rare spells, it is quite likely that a regular grunt with a weapon (laser pistol/rifle, machinegun, grenade/rocket launcher, etc) could do the same thing.

I partially agree. it doesn't make sense to have military mages focus on offensive damage spells.. generally tech does do it better. but i could see them mandating one offensive spell as standard, much the same way that other specialists are required to train with and are assigned a sidearm.. if Firebolt or energy bolt or one of those sorts of spells is in your list, you are never disarmed, and if none of your tech weapons are having an effect (like say, if you run into a vampire or werewolf or the like, or a mage with impervious to energy and you don;t have a missile or bullet based gun to use) it gives your unit at least a basic offensive option.

and one spell out of 8+ isn't a big loss over all.

[Blue_Lion]

much more debate than I expected.

[eliakon]

I seriously doubt that most militaries would bother with mages learning low level combat spells.
That is what a TW pistol is for honestly.
If your going to have your mage be doing DD (direct damage) then pick spells that do stuff your guns can't do.
Call Lightning, Orb of Cold, Mind Blast, Death Bolt, Mental Blast, Lifeblast, Firequake, Meteor, Volley, Fireblast... Something is more than just a few dice of damage.

[Shark_Force]

I partially agree. it doesn't make sense to have military mages focus on offensive damage spells.. generally tech does do it better. but i could see them mandating one offensive spell as standard, much the same way that other specialists are required to train with and are assigned a sidearm.. if Firebolt or energy bolt or one of those sorts of spells is in your list, you are never disarmed, and if none of your tech weapons are having an effect (like say, if you run into a vampire or werewolf or the like, or a mage with impervious to energy and you don;t have a missile or bullet based gun to use) it gives your unit at least a basic offensive option.

and one spell out of 8+ isn't a big loss over all.

my copy of RUE has energy pistols that deal as much as 3d6 damage (one even has a grenade launcher secondary firing option for 4d6 in a small area) and energy rifles that go up to 1d4x10 (though considering that's a "heavy" weapon i'd expect the triple pulse for 6d6 to be more probable for standard issue). other books will even have superior options to those, if necessary (just looking at non-CS equipment, here).

if you're going to give any damage-dealing spell, it's probably going to be throwing stones. the damage isn't great, but the range is vastly superior, the damage will scale to be decent later on (by the time you're level 6 it's fairly close to 3d6), and most importantly it is super efficient because casting it once gives you 2 full melees of use. furthermore, if it is supposed to be a "nothing else works" option, throwing stones has the advantage of not being fire damage (which is fairly commonly resisted by many supernatural beings that would be immune to conventional MD weapons; in contrast, relatively few enemies resist magical physical attacks, though there are a handful where fire is necessary... but in those cases, mundane fire is usually sufficient and relatively easy to produce for a group of people with MD energy weapons).

but seriously, damage-dealing spells have got to be pretty low priority. you don't have someone go through several years of what is essentially basic training so that they can fire a low-damage, low-range energy attack. a few weeks with a laser rifle will generally give you that basic capability in a superior form. if you want a person to stand on the front lines and use a gun, well, that's a regular infantryman.

[Blue_Lion]

but I very much doubt there would be a combat MOS caster that would focus on blasting spells. blasting with magic is inefficient, tends to be low range, and frankly less effective than technological means of doing the same thing. if you want to hose down an area with suppressing fire, then give a grunt one of those automatic grenade launchers and watch them rain down fiery death from 4,000 feet away in a large area. or issue someone a railgun, or even a heavy machinegun with ramjet rounds if you need to save on cost. it will work better, and you can train someone to do it much more easily. unless we're talking about high level spellcasters using some rather rare spells, it is quite likely that a regular grunt with a weapon (laser pistol/rifle, machinegun, grenade/rocket launcher, etc) could do the same thing.

Recovering spent PPE cost 0 resources most of what you are listing as better requires some expenditure. So it is cheaper to use magic than fight with rail guns and grenades.


There are some things that can only be hurt by magic or special gear. Having mages on hand with magical attacks deal with it.

Typically magical kingdoms are built on Ley lines and nexus points so they can quickly recover PPE. Much faster than recharging eclips.

Not all fights are at max range often fights start well inside max range of tech weapons.

Sure tech can do damage as well but some things normal tech cant and magic can not be taken away, or stolen from your troops. You
can not kill a mage and learn his spells(barring some rare spell). You can kill tech user and steal his rail gun, missile launcer or grenade launcher.

[Blue_Lion]

I partially agree. it doesn't make sense to have military mages focus on offensive damage spells.. generally tech does do it better. but i could see them mandating one offensive spell as standard, much the same way that other specialists are required to train with and are assigned a sidearm.. if Firebolt or energy bolt or one of those sorts of spells is in your list, you are never disarmed, and if none of your tech weapons are having an effect (like say, if you run into a vampire or werewolf or the like, or a mage with impervious to energy and you don;t have a missile or bullet based gun to use) it gives your unit at least a basic offensive option.

and one spell out of 8+ isn't a big loss over all.

my copy of RUE has energy pistols that deal as much as 3d6 damage (one even has a grenade launcher secondary firing option for 4d6 in a small area) and energy rifles that go up to 1d4x10 (though considering that's a "heavy" weapon i'd expect the triple pulse for 6d6 to be more probable for standard issue). other books will even have superior options to those, if necessary (just looking at non-CS equipment, here).

if you're going to give any damage-dealing spell, it's probably going to be throwing stones. the damage isn't great, but the range is vastly superior, the damage will scale to be decent later on (by the time you're level 6 it's fairly close to 3d6), and most importantly it is super efficient because casting it once gives you 2 full melees of use. furthermore, if it is supposed to be a "nothing else works" option, throwing stones has the advantage of not being fire damage (which is fairly commonly resisted by many supernatural beings that would be immune to conventional MD weapons; in contrast, relatively few enemies resist magical physical attacks, though there are a handful where fire is necessary... but in those cases, mundane fire is usually sufficient and relatively easy to produce for a group of people with MD energy weapons).

but seriously, damage-dealing spells have got to be pretty low priority. you don't have someone go through several years of what is essentially basic training so that they can fire a low-damage, low-range energy attack. a few weeks with a laser rifle will generally give you that basic capability in a superior form. if you want a person to stand on the front lines and use a gun, well, that's a regular infantryman.

So at 6 levels it does less damage as a level 1 mage fire bolt.
There is more to consider than just range in picking a spell.(if it was just range power bolt out ranges many energy riffle.)
Allot of focus on just one of the spells I listed it was just one of the offensive spells I gave the mage.

[Zer0 Kay]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

[Blue_Lion]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

[Mack]

How do you see mages in militaries of rifts.
This was inspired by another thread.

My view is..

No regular army is going to just take mages off the street and have them serve. They would go through a military training program that would likely change the OCC of a new mage. In addition large magic cities like Tolkeen(before its fall) and Lazlo would likely have an ROTC(ROTC is a program where students are trained to be officers) style mage training program where they teach potential mages in exchange for a mandatory term of service in the standing army.

The hard part is coming up with a way to make the mages in line units about as powerful than core mages without being redundant. The solution I came up with was a team work mechanic that allows the military mages to work well with other military mages and doing it in a way that does not affect core mages. (Team work is a big in the military) Also with the idea of an ROTC style program you can have SF mages stronger than core mages and about equal to the combat mages from FOM.

Note the team work mechanic would make such mages in most games a better GM tool than PC tool as most if not all the PCs would need to be mages with it to get the full affect.

How do you address it in your games?

So I'm also going to recommend Merc Adventures but for a different reason than Kaid. In it there's a mini adventure called "Boot Camp!" that covers almost exactly what you're looking for. It's designed for characters that are looking to get their start in one of the mercenary companies and need an introduction to military life. The Headhunter Academy covers the basics of military skills (with bonuses for doing well). While it's geared toward Men of Arms OCCs, they do accept mages, and you could easily adapt it for your purposes.

I would expect the magical societies (Lazlo, Dweomer, etc) to have a similar setup. A mage needs to learn how to use his magic as part of a coordinated group, instead of just looking out for himself. It would teach mages how to use quick magical combos with other mages, as well as covering the basic "must have" spells.

"Pvt Modica! Why in the 9 hells did you Wind Rush those suckers AWAY from the Adhesion Carpet that Pvt Sonny just laid down!?!?!"

As for OCCs, I don't see any need for any beyond the ones we already have. The more scholarly ones just need to invest in a few skills; or a benevolent GM might allow the PC to swap a few of the default OCC skills for militaristic ones.

[eliakon]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Only if you have a new OCC
Which may or may not be true.
You could take most OCCs, and put a military spin on it based on the skills and spells they have to start with.
No need to write yet another class, especially one with really high power bonuses (the Combat Magi should be the absolute best warrior mages out there after all, they take the direct intervention of a god level being...)

[Zer0 Kay]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

NO most officers are not from ROTC. Granted I consider OCS/OTS "academy" so if we go by the actual Academy's you are partially correct in that in MOST cases Academies produce less officers than ROTC except in the Navy and Marines where the Naval Academy produces more than ROTC and the Marines produce more than 5 times ROTC. Across the DOD Academies produce 18.31% and ROTC 30.8. OCS produces 25.28% and if we use my point of view that OCS is AN "academy" then academies produce 43.59%. The rest are from direct appointment 17.75, "other" 1.15%, and unknown 6.72%. My stats came from the DOD. How about yours?

Wanna argue military with a prior ser if USAF NCOIC?

[eliakon]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

NO most officers are not from ROTC. Granted I consider OCS/OTS "academy" so if we go by the actual Academy's you are partially correct in that in MOST cases Academies produce less officers than ROTC except in the Navy and Marines where the Naval Academy produces more than ROTC and the Marines produce more than 5 times ROTC. Across the DOD Academies produce 18.31% and ROTC 30.8. OCS produces 25.28% and if we use my point of view that OCS is AN "academy" then academies produce 43.59%. The rest are from direct appointment 17.75, "other" 1.15%, and unknown 6.72%. My stats came from the DOD. How about yours?

Wanna argue military with a prior ser if USAF NCOIC?

If we are going to call OCS an academy then ROTC is also an academy...
...no seriously. If the only definition being used is "an educational system that trains an officer to prepare for being an officer" then any and all such system is one, or none are.
Now we could make all sorts of differentiations about the types of academies (I would say ROTC/OCS/Service Academy/Other myself) based on how we want to slice the term, and what we want to get out of the discussion at the end.
And honestly here? ROTC/OCS/Other are all functionally the same. Only a Service Academy is going to get you a unique specialized OCC where you can have different abilities. The others would allow you to have regular mages that have been trained to serve in the military. So if you want to make some new Military Mage of X OCC, that would come from a Service Academy. If its how does the Republic of Y train its mages, then you would get ROTC (take a regular OCC, just pick skills that will fit), OCS (take a regular OCC then slap on some sort of MOS style 'basic skill package' form the school), and Other (we hired OCC, give them a training course in our tactics and let 'em rip)

Kingsdale would be a good example of OCS, they provide training that adds skills and spells to all military mages.
The Headhunter Accadimy is another example of OCS
Most of the Mercenary groups in North America are ROTC style (the mages in them have lots of military skills...but they still follow the normal format for their OCCs)
The Federation of Magic uses a lot of Other "We just get a lot of mages together and it mostly works"
Dewomer runs a full Military Academy and trains Battle Magi

[Shark_Force]

So at 6 levels it does less damage as a level 1 mage fire bolt.
There is more to consider than just range in picking a spell.(if it was just range power bolt out ranges many energy riffle.)
Allot of focus on just one of the spells I listed it was just one of the offensive spells I gave the mage.

i don't consider the other spells reasonable either.

just because something costs PPE only doesn't mean it is free. if you have to walk up into close range through enemy fire, it is not free. if it is a less effective weapon and causes you to take more damage because you didn't take out the enemy in a reasonable amount of time, it is not free. if it costs time that you could have spent attacking (because nothing about drawing energy from a ley line suggests it is not at least one action required), it is not free. if it takes you 10 times as long (or more) to train someone to do it, and you have to pay them a higher salary because they are a rare talented expert, it is not free.

furthermore, there's the concern that handing out a dozen high level spells that have a combined market value of millions of credits is just not plausibly going to happen lightly. they're not going to teach some random person power bolt. you're going to need to earn their trust first, probably through years of service (not training, where they are the ones giving you something rather than you giving them something). especially when they don't need mages to cast power bolt. the thing about power bolt is that it is an awful lot like just firing an energy rifle, except generally a lot harder to do, takes two actions, can be interrupted, and requires a heck of a lot more training.

if your nation cannot afford to supply reloads for weapons, they cannot afford to supply years upon years of training in magic just to do worse than an energy pistol can do.

"maybe the enemy will be in range when i want to use my spell" is not a valid reason to ignore the range on a spell, especially when that range is so short compared to what you can expect engagement ranges to be like when a typical soldier is carrying around weapons that can shoot 1500 feet or more with exceptionally good accuracy. but even if, by some chance, the enemy actually is standing at an absurdly short range, there are far better things that a spellcaster can do than 4d6 fire damage. you could, for example, use a magic net, and potentially neutralize 1-6 enemies if they're so close that fire bolt starts looking like a good idea.

but you'd have to be crazy to waste your time and resources teaching an entire suite of spells that do a bad job of what a regular soldier can do with a few months of training (assuming you can even match the performance of a regular soldier at all).

you can train an infantryman far cheaper to perform far better than a mage in the infantryman role. no competent military leader is going to decide to use spellcasters as infantryman unless they have absolutely no choice, and if they are forced into it, they're not going to decide to use less effective weapons just because those weapons happen to be spells. that's even more silly than the people who insist that a ley line walker will ignore their starting WPs and equipment to use spells, because the military leader hasn't spent 10 years brainwashing themselves into being able to use magic and thinking magic is super-special-awesome.

[FatherMorpheus]

If you had a military from a magical based city state, and you had a group of magi which were pressed into service or willing volunteered you would be idiotic not to use them.

Make them an Specialist of sorts. They would be unit support. Just imagine if the 10th person in a 9 person squad was a moderately powered mage.

Equip them with a side arm, decent armor and some PPE batteries. Their job would be to take on the role of preparing the unit with Armor of Ithan, communications with Magic Pigeon or Calling, quick immediate healing with a few minor heal spells. Perhaps make a heavy gunner Impervious to Energy so they could take down another heavy unit.

They could provide unit defense with a few Carpet of Adhesion spells, thus protecting them from a rush. Need a translator, Tongues. Have a stealth mission, Globe of Silence.

They would basically be a trusted Specialist who was a true jack of all trades. They could add back to any unit a great deal of extra power in a pinch. All of these spells are fairly low level and don't cost a huge amount of PPE. If you take an average Ley Line Walker (RUE) at 1st level you have around 125 PPE. Give them a PPE Battery which can store at least that much PPE, and they could put a quick Armor of Ithan on their entire squad twice and still have a little left over for emergencies.

And they could still shot their pistol or rifle or whatever, imagine if they were given even basic combat training and they could really be a force multiplier for a standard combat unit.

And this is one of the simplest uses of them on a battle field or with a military. They could do even more as part of a covert unit. Or be super scary assassins.

[Blue_Lion]

So at 6 levels it does less damage as a level 1 mage fire bolt.
There is more to consider than just range in picking a spell.(if it was just range power bolt out ranges many energy riffle.)
Allot of focus on just one of the spells I listed it was just one of the offensive spells I gave the mage.

i don't consider the other spells reasonable either.

just because something costs PPE only doesn't mean it is free. if you have to walk up into close range through enemy fire, it is not free. if it is a less effective weapon and causes you to take more damage because you didn't take out the enemy in a reasonable amount of time, it is not free. if it costs time that you could have spent attacking (because nothing about drawing energy from a ley line suggests it is not at least one action required), it is not free. if it takes you 10 times as long (or more) to train someone to do it, and you have to pay them a higher salary because they are a rare talented expert, it is not free.

furthermore, there's the concern that handing out a dozen high level spells that have a combined market value of millions of credits is just not plausibly going to happen lightly. they're not going to teach some random person power bolt. you're going to need to earn their trust first, probably through years of service (not training, where they are the ones giving you something rather than you giving them something). especially when they don't need mages to cast power bolt. the thing about power bolt is that it is an awful lot like just firing an energy rifle, except generally a lot harder to do, takes two actions, can be interrupted, and requires a heck of a lot more training.

if your nation cannot afford to supply reloads for weapons, they cannot afford to supply years upon years of training in magic just to do worse than an energy pistol can do.

"maybe the enemy will be in range when i want to use my spell" is not a valid reason to ignore the range on a spell, especially when that range is so short compared to what you can expect engagement ranges to be like when a typical soldier is carrying around weapons that can shoot 1500 feet or more with exceptionally good accuracy. but even if, by some chance, the enemy actually is standing at an absurdly short range, there are far better things that a spellcaster can do than 4d6 fire damage. you could, for example, use a magic net, and potentially neutralize 1-6 enemies if they're so close that fire bolt starts looking like a good idea.

but you'd have to be crazy to waste your time and resources teaching an entire suite of spells that do a bad job of what a regular soldier can do with a few months of training (assuming you can even match the performance of a regular soldier at all).

you can train an infantryman far cheaper to perform far better than a mage in the infantryman role. no competent military leader is going to decide to use spellcasters as infantryman unless they have absolutely no choice, and if they are forced into it, they're not going to decide to use less effective weapons just because those weapons happen to be spells. that's even more silly than the people who insist that a ley line walker will ignore their starting WPs and equipment to use spells, because the military leader hasn't spent 10 years brainwashing themselves into being able to use magic and thinking magic is super-special-awesome.

Here is what you missed.
The damage of fire bolt is higher than most pistol damage.
Not all fights start at max weapon range.
Typically in urban combat fights are at ranges 25-50 meters so it can be used in those type of fights easily.
With other spells you can close distance if you need to get in range without taking damage.
There are also threats that lack range, and fights in rifts do seam to have the capacity to start in melee combat even CS issues melee weapons.
Fights at a check point are likely less than 20 meters.

So your regular solder armed with standard MD weapons gets attacked by something that is immune to his attack and you negate to have a mage trained in a combat spell because you think it is pointless what happens? You can have 100 regular soldiers with standard weapons if they get hit by something that normal weapons can not damage and do not have a special weapon such as silver, you can loose all 100 soldiers.
(really saying regular soldiers are cheaper sp why bother with mages is like saying it is cheaper to not use infantry, so do not bother with PA and combat vehicles because you can get as much damage with less cost using infantry.)

A mage with a combat spells can also use standard weapons so they have more flexibility and capacity than your standard soldiers. When supplies run low (that happens in combat they can extend supplies) by using magic and not draining the pool needed by common soldiers. Use of magic when the target is range does not cost resources from the nation and if the nation is built near a ley line they recover faster. (the mage can do lots of things a standard soldier can not.)

[ShadowLogan]

my arguement, in such casem, is that for a military using mages, they will treat the mage as a specialist subset of their regualr forces. this means that mages would get the same basic training in firearms, tactics, and the like as the regular troops. only then would they receive the magic training, the same way that other troops go on to receive specialized training in heavy weapons, communications, etc.

I'm not sure about this. How long does it take to actually train a mage? When is it best to start training a mage, and does the society in question consider it acceptable for someone of that age to become a solider? These factors may push for the recruitment of individuals already with the necessary knowledge rather than train them up from the ground up.

Wrong, the Air Force does not have Warrant Officers, or if they do now, they sure as heck didn't when I left back on 2007.

Well technically all the US services have warrant officers, but the AF has decided not to use them but can (in the AF they went out of favor in the 50s IINM, and according to wikipedia the last WO retired in the early 90s).

Recovering spent PPE cost 0 resources most of what you are listing as better requires some expenditure. So it is cheaper to use magic than fight with rail guns and grenades.

Recovering of spent PPE does incur a cost in terms of time. If the Military is providing additional spell knowledge, then they are spending resources to train the mage so they have the spell. Mages probably will also likely have a higher payroll cost due to the specialized abilities (magic spells/knowledge) to retain them. So while PPE maybe "free" from certain POV like air, in big picture terms it is hardly "free" in actual application.

Lets also not forget that unless your on a Ley Line (or better), PPE recovery for offensive (damage dealing) spell use may not have been as effectively spent PPE in the first place. It is very true that Tech does damage dealing better from a host of angles, though the one place magic might have an edge in is in terms of MELEE weapons (though you might have to get to the mid level spells to access them). Lightblade and Frostblade damages (even Psychic Psi-Swords) are hard to rival with most tech weapons (even exotic ones), especially in more experienced hands (Lightblade).

While Firebolt hits harder than most pistols and surprisingly accuracy, it can be part/fully negated by beings/items that grant resistance/immunity to fire or even magic. "Throwing Stones" might be a better spell since the spent PPE lasts for 30seconds, has longer reach, can take advantage of WP/PP bonuses (potentially surpassing FB's strike bonus), and is even a bit harder to defend against (parry is at penalty) its one drawback is damage (1/4 base, and it improves at an anemic rate). At the end of an encounter TS user might be in better shape PPE wise than a FB user to take down the same target, though the FB user might be in better shape in other ways (as they might have a shorter encounter).

[Zer0 Kay]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

NO most officers are not from ROTC. Granted I consider OCS/OTS "academy" so if we go by the actual Academy's you are partially correct in that in MOST cases Academies produce less officers than ROTC except in the Navy and Marines where the Naval Academy produces more than ROTC and the Marines produce more than 5 times ROTC. Across the DOD Academies produce 18.31% and ROTC 30.8. OCS produces 25.28% and if we use my point of view that OCS is AN "academy" then academies produce 43.59%. The rest are from direct appointment 17.75, "other" 1.15%, and unknown 6.72%. My stats came from the DOD. How about yours?

Wanna argue military with a prior ser if USAF NCOIC?

If we are going to call OCS an academy then ROTC is also an academy...
...no seriously. If the only definition being used is "an educational system that trains an officer to prepare for being an officer" then any and all such system is one, or none are.
Now we could make all sorts of differentiations about the types of academies (I would say ROTC/OCS/Service Academy/Other myself) based on how we want to slice the term, and what we want to get out of the discussion at the end.
And honestly here? ROTC/OCS/Other are all functionally the same. Only a Service Academy is going to get you a unique specialized OCC where you can have different abilities. The others would allow you to have regular mages that have been trained to serve in the military. So if you want to make some new Military Mage of X OCC, that would come from a Service Academy. If its how does the Republic of Y train its mages, then you would get ROTC (take a regular OCC, just pick skills that will fit), OCS (take a regular OCC then slap on some sort of MOS style 'basic skill package' form the school), and Other (we hired OCC, give them a training course in our tactics and let 'em rip)

Kingsdale would be a good example of OCS, they provide training that adds skills and spells to all military mages.
The Headhunter Accadimy is another example of OCS
Most of the Mercenary groups in North America are ROTC style (the mages in them have lots of military skills...but they still follow the normal format for their OCCs)
The Federation of Magic uses a lot of Other "We just get a lot of mages together and it mostly works"
Dewomer runs a full Military Academy and trains Battle Magi

Well you can consider it that way. The reason I lol OCS and the academies together and not ROTC is because the academy and OCS focus on military training and may include some education in other subjects while ROTC Is college with all the partying and Greek distractions frequently including a strong antimilitary liberal education mindset. So, while two setting are military plus the other is college plus.

Or to look at it a different way
An academy is a place of education a Athenaeum
The military academies are places of military education
An OCS is a place of military education
ROTC is A class on military education in a place of civilian education

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying they're worthless or a bad idea as I think it would be a better source for doctors and the like rather than taking doctors with no mil training and appointing them.

<<EDIT>> Everything else you say makes excellent sense.

[Shark_Force]

you don't build an entire corps of magic users fully specialized in something that is not needed 99% of the time just in case that 1% chance happens. simply teaching 1 damage spell in case your regular troops run into something impervious to normal weapons covers that need just as effectively as having a large portion of your magic users fully specialized in it.

if you're really extremely paranoid, add in a TW weapon or two to each squad. i mean, you've got a mage corps, you probably have access to TW devices, and all it takes is some basic psychic abilities.

magic is just not very good at damage. investing heavily into dealing damage with magic is not an efficient choice. you could instead teach your spellcasters how to teleport, or mind control people, or reshape the entire battlefield, or whatever else.

(also, if you lose 100 soldiers because the enemy is immune to your damage, the problem is not that you didn't give every mage damage spells... the problem is that your soldiers are really poorly trained, and also probably really stupid. in any event, i never said combat spells was a bad idea.. just damage spells. magic net, carpet of adhesion, wind rush, heck, most of the charm type spells, there's lots of ways to stop an enemy without damage, and magic is really good at doing those sorts of things, and they all happen to be areas where tech is typically far behind. but even if you have no spellcasters, you retreat. you don't just stand there and die. you call in support, evacuate civilians, delay the enemy as much as possible by knocking it down, putting obstacles in its path, etc, and retreat until you have proper support. which only requires your mage corps to have one damage spell. or just TW weapons. or even frequently special ammo).

magic can do so much for an army. but it just isn't good at damage.

[Library Ogre]

You know, a killer useful spell for military mages would simply be Energy Field. Cheap, spammable, walls-on-demand. Sure, they can be taken down by a mini-missile, but that's a mini-missile not going into someone else.

Given the RUE rule of "Level 1-5 spells take a single action", I wouldn't be surprised to see a very different variety of combat mage... someone given enough magical training to manage those basic spells, but without the theoretical knowledge to handle anything more advanced. Even stuck at 1st level casting ability, with no increases in spell strength, a bunch of mages like that could do significantly on a battlefield.

[Blue_Lion]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

NO most officers are not from ROTC. Granted I consider OCS/OTS "academy" so if we go by the actual Academy's you are partially correct in that in MOST cases Academies produce less officers than ROTC except in the Navy and Marines where the Naval Academy produces more than ROTC and the Marines produce more than 5 times ROTC. Across the DOD Academies produce 18.31% and ROTC 30.8. OCS produces 25.28% and if we use my point of view that OCS is AN "academy" then academies produce 43.59%. The rest are from direct appointment 17.75, "other" 1.15%, and unknown 6.72%. My stats came from the DOD. How about yours?

Wanna argue military with a prior ser if USAF NCOIC?

I highly doubt you where an NCO in charge of the whole air force so you are trying to sound more special than you are. I can be an NCOIC of a range but once the range is done I am just an NCO, just being a NCOIC of some undefined aspect of military operations does not make you a expert on quality of training of official officers schools. I am an NCO assigned to a LDAC (leadership development access center) unit so I actually help in the training of officers. (I could pull up the number of cadets I trained and what I trained them in and that over 99% tested out as meeting army standards, but there is no way to prove that here.)

You had to add OCS to it to get a higher percentage than ROTC because it was your opinion they where the same. The fact they are tracked differently means some one thinks they are not the same. OCS is a 12 week school, Rotc and academies are over the course of college education. ROTC has a 4 week initial entry training and a 4 week long field final test out step on top of all the training the receive in the course of school.(For the army I am sure classes for other branches are about the same.) Cadets in ROTC also serve as platoon leaders in reserve units during there training. So they do not just train but acutely do the job of a officer.

So yes I will argue with you that ROTC trains more than academies, and only your personal opinion of adding OCS to academies made rotc lower. Basically the stats you provided without your opinion prove my statement true.

[Blue_Lion]

Someone may have already mentions it but ROTC is NO substitute for a military academy. No one does school like mages. The military mage would be trained in hand to hand combat and they have a few direct damage spells and even fewer utility spells. They'd have high PPE and maybe the class special ability would allow them to rapid fire spells say spell lvls 1-5 two spells per action? They would never be fought rituals by the academy and there would probably be a high PE requirement so that they would have high PPE. Maybe trained in such a way as to have a larger than normal amount of PPE vs. Mages.

Most officers are trained by ROTC, so it is a substitute other wise it would not be used. (I have worked with cadet summer training and had some come through from military academies they do not always do better than students from non military academy.)
I was referring to the fact they where trained in military arts while going to school as mages, there would be times when they do dedicated unit training time.

NO most officers are not from ROTC. Granted I consider OCS/OTS "academy" so if we go by the actual Academy's you are partially correct in that in MOST cases Academies produce less officers than ROTC except in the Navy and Marines where the Naval Academy produces more than ROTC and the Marines produce more than 5 times ROTC. Across the DOD Academies produce 18.31% and ROTC 30.8. OCS produces 25.28% and if we use my point of view that OCS is AN "academy" then academies produce 43.59%. The rest are from direct appointment 17.75, "other" 1.15%, and unknown 6.72%. My stats came from the DOD. How about yours?

Wanna argue military with a prior ser if USAF NCOIC?

If we are going to call OCS an academy then ROTC is also an academy...
...no seriously. If the only definition being used is "an educational system that trains an officer to prepare for being an officer" then any and all such system is one, or none are.
Now we could make all sorts of differentiations about the types of academies (I would say ROTC/OCS/Service Academy/Other myself) based on how we want to slice the term, and what we want to get out of the discussion at the end.
And honestly here? ROTC/OCS/Other are all functionally the same. Only a Service Academy is going to get you a unique specialized OCC where you can have different abilities. The others would allow you to have regular mages that have been trained to serve in the military. So if you want to make some new Military Mage of X OCC, that would come from a Service Academy. If its how does the Republic of Y train its mages, then you would get ROTC (take a regular OCC, just pick skills that will fit), OCS (take a regular OCC then slap on some sort of MOS style 'basic skill package' form the school), and Other (we hired OCC, give them a training course in our tactics and let 'em rip)

Kingsdale would be a good example of OCS, they provide training that adds skills and spells to all military mages.
The Headhunter Accadimy is another example of OCS
Most of the Mercenary groups in North America are ROTC style (the mages in them have lots of military skills...but they still follow the normal format for their OCCs)
The Federation of Magic uses a lot of Other "We just get a lot of mages together and it mostly works"
Dewomer runs a full Military Academy and trains Battle Magi

Well you can consider it that way. The reason I lol OCS and the academies together and not ROTC is because the academy and OCS focus on military training and may include some education in other subjects while ROTC Is college with all the partying and Greek distractions frequently including a strong antimilitary liberal education mindset. So, while two setting are military plus the other is college plus.

Or to look at it a different way
An academy is a place of education a Athenaeum
The military academies are places of military education
An OCS is a place of military education
ROTC is A class on military education in a place of civilian education

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying they're worthless or a bad idea as I think it would be a better source for doctors and the like rather than taking doctors with no mil training and appointing them.

<<EDIT>> Everything else you say makes excellent sense.

The military academies are classes in a military academy that includes classes on how to be an officer.
OCS is a class on how to be an officer.
ROTC is a class on how to be an officer while getting the required degree.

All military training for each is provided by military personal. (typically officers and senor NCOs are the primary instructors.)
OCS is 12 weeks long.
ROTC has two 4 week blocks of training(for the army and the location of 4 week blocks is now Fort Knox was joint base Lewis Mcord) plus 8-12 hours of training each week and a a two day block of training every semester. So ROTC is more than a class at a place of civilian education.

Assuming that they cadet just does the sophomore year (freshmen are typically 8 hours and sophomores typically do 12) that would be 4 weeks initial entry training 9 (32-48 hours per month spent training) months if training plus 2 days a semester(6 days) then another 4 weeks for final test out and training. That matches the amount of training received in a 12 week school (with an average time spent training of say 12 hours) and they held to the same standards for military testing and graduation. (in four weeks that would be 336 12*28 hours at OCS while ROTC year is minimal of 360 32*9+72 hours in addition the training is more likely in long term memory during testing.)

OCS and military academies are isolated from civilian distractions ROTC often have to learn to balance real life with military training.

[Blue_Lion]

you don't build an entire corps of magic users fully specialized in something that is not needed 99% of the time just in case that 1% chance happens. simply teaching 1 damage spell in case your regular troops run into something impervious to normal weapons covers that need just as effectively as having a large portion of your magic users fully specialized in it.

if you're really extremely paranoid, add in a TW weapon or two to each squad. i mean, you've got a mage corps, you probably have access to TW devices, and all it takes is some basic psychic abilities.

magic is just not very good at damage. investing heavily into dealing damage with magic is not an efficient choice. you could instead teach your spellcasters how to teleport, or mind control people, or reshape the entire battlefield, or whatever else.

(also, if you lose 100 soldiers because the enemy is immune to your damage, the problem is not that you didn't give every mage damage spells... the problem is that your soldiers are really poorly trained, and also probably really stupid. in any event, i never said combat spells was a bad idea.. just damage spells. magic net, carpet of adhesion, wind rush, heck, most of the charm type spells, there's lots of ways to stop an enemy without damage, and magic is really good at doing those sorts of things, and they all happen to be areas where tech is typically far behind. but even if you have no spellcasters, you retreat. you don't just stand there and die. you call in support, evacuate civilians, delay the enemy as much as possible by knocking it down, putting obstacles in its path, etc, and retreat until you have proper support. which only requires your mage corps to have one damage spell. or just TW weapons. or even frequently special ammo).

magic can do so much for an army. but it just isn't good at damage.

With use of Ley lines and nexus in your defense magic can do damage equal to heavy weapons.
Magic damage and range doubles on ley lines and if I recall tripples on nexus.
So fighting using this (if i recall right mile wide path) a spell that off the ley line does 4d6MD is now pumping out 8d6MD worth of damage. The man portable heavy weapons used by normal grunts are typically 1d6X10MD(some do 5d6 and others do 1d4X10), non heavy energy rifles are typically 3d6MD-6d6.
So magic can match tech in infantry damage maybe not mini missile barrages or combat vehicles and bots but boots on the ground they can.
In addition to the other things you mentioned.

I said you could not that you would, if they are set on by a pack of SN they can not stop you could (have the potential) of loosing the 100 troops even if they are well trained.

[Mack]

Blue Lion & Zer0 Kay, please drop the pointless argument about academies and ROTC as it has no value to this topic or Rifts in general.

Not to mention that I have more experience with the subject than you would believe.