Cantata of Empty Voices (S&S edition)

[memesis]

Is there anything stopping a couple of Celestial sorcerers from using this spell repeatedly to basically wipe out a whole host of Terrestrials?  Teleport yourselves to near one of their encampments, break out the Cantata, rinse, repeat.  At Essence 4, four or possibly five castings should be enough to wipe out anyone without Ox-Body, and certainly enough to slay any mortal followers.


I'm looking for specific countermeasures.  Assume I'm already aware of Sapphire Countermagic, Spell-Shattering Palm, and any magic-barrier spells in S&S.

 

[Haku1]

There's nothing stopping sorcerers from doing so.


Just as there's nothing stopping the DBs from cutting the sorcerer down as he's pulling off the spell.

 

[shifty]

By the way this brings up a point.  In the PG, it says that the minimum damage you can do is your essence rating.   Does this apply to the Cantata?  I know it states, 2L, but if you are essence 4, it might be 4L.  


I must be missing something?


What about Thunderwolfs howl?

 

[Jakk Bey]

That's with Power Combat, and relates to HTH and Melee. Spells are a bit different. I would keep the 2L damage, unless you are an ebbil bastiche.  If that's the case, feel free to House Rule it up, but be prepared for all sorts of deviousness on the part of power gamer players.


What's to keep a Sorcerer from popping back in and out? The cost of the spell for starters. That, and any ST worth his salt won't let a group of enemies fall for the same trick more than twice.


An Essence 4 Sorcerer who pops this puppy off for 8 turns, is still going to attract some attention. Doing it again, will only alert DB's to an increased chance of shennanigans, and it might be noted that it only affects living creatures, which means that Spirits and Demons are immune, and using guards that aren't to be affected, spreading out your forces to reduce the chance of a large part of the group from being affected, and issuing wax to plug up the forces' ears, while using a Spirit or small grade Demon to bird dog your quarry to ground are all measures that a Sorcery minded DB could come up with.


Wax. In the ears. Plugging up the ears completely. And suddenly, there are going to be a lot of Mortals and DB's who may want to discuss something with the choir master...if they can find his ass, what with not being able to hear where the damn singing is coming from,   with a range of 800 yards per point of Permanent Essence, it could be a lot of ground to cover.  Or not if your Sorcerers are stupid and showy.


Thunder Wolf's Howl can't be countered with the wax-in-the-ears method, but has a much smaller range, and does Bashing damage. Both are good to harry and slow down a force, but repeated castings are only opening up the nogoodniks to a force getting wise, and just peppering them with arrows for their troubles.

 

[Obsidian Soul]

Against Bull of the North, the Sidereal sorcerors were able to kill an entire city because they picked a civilian target.  Against an army, it would be fairly useless, as mortal armies have to be trained to take into account Sorcery and, to a certain extant, Necromancy, and would probably have certain common and cheap protections, like wax (also useful against any siren-like effects done by magical creatures).  The sorceror lights up as their anima flairs, making them the target of every bowman or nearby warrior.  First rule of war in the Second Age is kill the sorceror.  The second rule is kill the Exalted.  The Third rule is kill the enemy soldiers.

 

[memesis]

Just to be sure, the assumed time for this is at about 3 a.m., when the people who are awake are the sentries and insomniacs.  Are these defenses taking this into account?  If so, I'm interested in peoples' estimated response time from "I'm asleep" to "oh sweet Venus the pain" to "die Anathema scum".

 

[Persell]

Response time to "pain!" is probably a single turn. It's pain! However, any attempt to co-ordinate a response will be hindered by the darkness, the pain, and the -2 penalty the spell induces. Wits+Awareness or whatever to respond well, at -2 dice, means most of your extras are going to stumble around dying for a little too long.


Basically, a handful of people might work out where the sorceror is, plus any Exalts are far more likely to. But I don't think mortals stand a whole lotta chance against sorcerors using this spell. As Jakk pointed out, repeated castings give the army a chance to prepare, but if you did it in the middle of the night, without warning, and got the whole camp in your area of effect, that's one army bleeding from the ears.


Sapphire sorcery, booya.


On a side note, I disagree with the idea of mortal troops being heavily equipped and trained to deal with sorcery. The range of possible sorcery effects is too broad, and mortals too worthless, for any sorcery-minded leader to bother routinely equipping them with sorcery countermeasures. I'm not ruling out mission-specific equipment.


Remember also that the major destructive spells (like Cantata) can only be cast by Anathema, and the Emerald circle has Death of Obsidian Butterflies... which can't be countered through  ear-wax.

 

[Jakk Bey]

Response time depends on if the Dragon Bloods in charge suspect that they might be up against Sorcerous Anathema.  Surprise attack, from no where, with no pesky Bronze Faction Siderals involved in moving pawns around the Creation looking to quietly counter the Solars, you can do some damage the first time around. Then, you're looking at doing it again, at a cost of 30 motes again, and again?


There are easier ways to pound the crap out of defences that will cost less motes, and do much more damage--Rain of Doom as a for instance. Insidious Tendrils of Hate. Torrential Cascade. Curse of the Unyielding Mist. Total Annihilation on the commander's tent. Cantata is nice as a prelude, but I don't see it as a guaranteed win.

 

[shifty]

A FAR FAR better solution and one that is much more insidious would be for a lunar barbarian to sneak around and cast Hideous Confusion of Tongues, then teleport away via the tattoo spell.


From what I can gather, most of the time, the realm relies on order and discipline in order to win fights against the barbarians, as usually the realm has better supplies and organization, while the barbarians have better qaulity troops and numbers.   ANd barbarians tend to be least effected by that kind of thing... particularly if you the Lunar told the tribe that a major taboo for the past few months was speaking.


Removing the ability to relay orders pretty much screws a major advantage of the realm.  Not being able to relay effectively to ANYONE where the fighting is going is much much worse than the Cantata.   Whereas the barbs will be fighting on more of their own turf, mono v mono.


At least that was my take.


Most armies greatest strength was its discipline.   Take that away and you have a large mob, blindly hacking.  And Barbarians tend to be the better mobs.

 

[memesis]

There are easier ways to pound the crap out of defences that will cost less motes' date=' and do much more damage--Rain of Doom as a for instance. Insidious Tendrils of Hate. Torrential Cascade. Curse of the Unyielding Mist. Total Annihilation on the commander's tent. Cantata is nice as a prelude, but I don't see it as a guaranteed win.[/quote']
In this scenario, using Solar Sorcery is a big no-no for various reasons.  However, Cantata + Cascade looks like a good combination as well.

 

[memesis]

A FAR FAR better solution and one that is much more insidious would be for a lunar barbarian to sneak around and cast Hideous Confusion of Tongues, then teleport away via the tattoo spell.

Insidious is nice, but the 5000 barbarians you didn't lose to the no-communication Realm troops are 5000 more guys you can roll with to the NEXT town.  I'm thinking force preservation here.

 

[memesis]

Next question: does the damage affect the undead?  The disorientation penalty won't ("living creatures").

 

[Jakk Bey]

"All living creatures are vulnerable to the cantata unless they are deaf or can plug their ears completely."


Ear bleeding sounds. While some of the undead can indeed dance the Kingstown Shuffle, not too many are pumping blood around. I would say that no, the undead will just continue their boogie down on your Sorcerer's wee haid...

 

[shifty]

A FAR FAR better solution and one that is much more insidious would be for a lunar barbarian to sneak around and cast Hideous Confusion of Tongues, then teleport away via the tattoo spell.

Insidious is nice, but the 5000 barbarians you didn't lose to the no-communication Realm troops are 5000 more guys you can roll with to the NEXT town.  I'm thinking force preservation here.

I dont understand what you just wrote.