[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:

The highest astral level will be targeted. I wonder if somebody can really send 3/4 archtheurg in a gating party against a weak astral nation, without having at least one enhanced with starshine skull cap and/or astral medallion.

Steve Andrewartha's "Dark Ages of Grana" game - I was Marignon (a "weak astral nation"), and my Pythium enemy gave up on equipping his AT when he realized they were outmatched in astral power by my Virtue ;-). Yet he still gated parties of 3 AT to support his Atlantian ally - he lost many, but keeping the war in my domain paid for them in the end.

I had the same problem in my own "Bloodfest" game as R'lyeh, dealing with an Abysian player (another "weak astral nation") who apparently had enhanced Warlocks everywhere (astral boosters + crystal matrices + an apparently unending supply of Conjurors - 1 blood/1 death cheap mages he used to cast Sabbath Slave). I still don't know if communion boosts astral level wrt magic duel, but he thought so and was confident, and since I was the invader, he had the luxury to shoot first and fry my best Starspawns' brains (this was before the magic duel bug fix). I kept on sending naked Starspawns in Groups of 5+ to keep him on the defensive.

Where as I would not dare pretend that somebody is rich enough to give +1 astral items on astral 1 mages which are more or less in a province to counter a 'possible' gateway.

I now do this routinely when I have 5 or more - and I need only a single item for the whole pack.

So in essence the situation you speak of is seldomly, if never encountered, in my humble opinion ( a mere +2 supremacy between an attacking party of a strong astral nation, versus a defensive and/or garrisoning party of a weak astral nation).

You're right, it's rare, but I think the main reason behind this is the magic duel mechanics wasn't completely understood until recently - prior to that everyone thought you had to be insane to equip weak astral mages with any item of importance.

so when you spoke of doing a mean, I concur. But do a ponderated mean, with the associated probabilities that the events appear.

Then let's not forget to add the "cost" of casting the spell itself - after all, an Arch Theurg could summon air elementals instead ;-)