Orcs

[Doctor Meaticus]

And off course all the Orcs are effing morons who randomly charge into battle without knowing thy enemy?!? And all the mages are uber, with unlimited magicka and master level skills?!?

Amen.

[Oathbreaker]

And off course all the Orcs are effing morons who randomly charge into battle without knowing thy enemy?!? And all the mages are uber, with unlimited magicka and master level skills?!?

Ever heard of planning ahead? If I know I'm going into battle against a shipload of mages, I'm going to arm myself accordingly. Soften them up with some Arrows of Silence and then chaaaarrrrrggggeeee!!!!!!!!

And as for the lone assassin against the mages? No fancy tricks or high level spells needed. Detect life & fireball. Done.

I realize that sometimes I throw around words and phrases that are a bit esoteric. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the term, here's the Urban Dictionary definition No. 3 for "Munchkin":

The most annoying roleplaeyers you'll ever have to deal with, who characteristicly max out their stats, mostly without reprecution, play to mindlessly kill anything in their paths and boss the rest of your players around, and get as many dots or levels as possible. Most don't really develope their characters' personalities.

Note that I quoted it verbatim. The bad grammar and spelling errors are as posted.

Believe me man, I wasn't saying they wouldn't prepare their weaponry, but I highly doubt they'd alter the armor they're comfortable in. Anyway, add arrows of silence, so long as each mage gets off a paralyze spell off as the Orcs fire their arrows it would kind of even out.

Lol@Munchkins. Silly non-developers-of-character-personality. Hell I have a character that I've never even used before for D&D and I developed damn near everything about him short of a visual representation of what he looks like (but I do have one of what weapon I eventually intend for him to have )

[Sir Frederick Chook]

and basleijser, when was the last time in ANY lore whether it be TES, LotR, or anything, have you ever heard of an army of Orcs intelligent enough to have spell-reflecting armor when they charge into a battle? It just doesn't happen man!!!

What are you talking about? The orcs are one of the most respected armies in the world, and the most respected when it comes to armour, enchanted or otherwise!

[Masser]

Orcs are prized for their armor, at least according to their race description.

[bas237]

Ah, that's where paralysis comes into play. If they're paralyzed, it won't matter if they're over-burdened or not.

and basleijser, when was the last time in ANY lore whether it be TES, LotR, or anything, have you ever heard of an army of Orcs intelligent enough to have spell-reflecting armor when they charge into a battle? It just doesn't happen man!!!

And as for the one assassin, there's no way a single assassin could slay 100 pure spellcasters. An extremely skilled assassin could get maybe 5, 10 if he was lucky. Now if you pitted 20 assassins against 100 spellcasters, THEN the outcome becomes unclear.

It really is too bad we can't witness any of this actually happening in-game.

There are some assassins who have the skill to defeat even 1000 mages. Although, he/she will get quite tired

Ok, maybe it's impossible around 1 pm, when the sun is shining and there are no clouds, and when the mages use detect life and paralyze spells, but what if it's night? What if there's no light at all?
The mages will cast light spells? Perhaps, but it'll still be dark around their beam of light. And that's where the assassin is moving around, hiding in the shadows, silently and unseen killing all the mages one for one.

Of course, a NPC assassin could never do this, but a player assassin...

[Oathbreaker]

I'm talking about how once they get a feel for their armor they don't like switching through a bunch of other stuff. Also, yes I know they're renowned or prized or whatever for their armor, because they make it, nobody said they wore the fancy stuff into battle. (I certainly haven't seen evidence of them doing it, even the Orcish Marauder Warlords I find tend to have almost nothing enchanted on them except their weapon)

[Doctor Meaticus]

Their race description also states that Orc troops in heavy armor are among the finest in the Empire. Let's face it chaps. Orcs are gnarly.

[th346]

Their race description also states that Orc troops in heavy armor are among the finest in the Empire. Let's face it chaps. Orcs are gnarly.

agreed, wish mine had more magicka though

how can i increase that rapidly?

my orc is currently level 22

[gregor]

Man, reading all this has made me think how cool it would would be to have actual battles. Not something pathetic like 'The Defence of Bruma'. I'm talking like 100 on each side. But I guess no PC could handle that.

try Mount & Blade - with some mods you can have battles of up to 500 soldiers (depending on you rocmputer though). Even with basic game you will still be playing 50 vs 50 at least... well that is as long as you have a bit newercomputer and enough RAM.

well in morrowind you can actually summon more creatures. so i used to have fun drinking fortify intelligence and fortify magicka potions and summoning large army of 16 different daedra. i think it was 16 (8+8). in olbivion there is another way to increase magicka with spells. but the game engine doesn't allow summoning more creatures i believe...

[akatosh]

Don't look at it so narrow.
An orc can be a good fighter when he's like 15 years old. A powerful mage has to study years and years to become a master in magic. So a few mages using orcs as meatshield can be extremely effective.

We'll assume that I'm a powerful Breton sorcerer. I want to conquer the world with my friends, who are also powerful sorcerers. Just like an engineer can't build a bridge without a lot of workers, the sorcerers need an army in order to be effective. So what will we choose?
Redguards? Not disciplined enough.
Nords? Those naked, drunk barbarians won't be of much use
Orcs? High willpower (discipline), very strong melee fighters and not smart enough to turn on you -> perfect
So I start training a massive army of fearless orcs, lead by breton wizard generals.
We first invade Cyrodiil, the orcs obliterate the legions in a frontal charge while the breton sorcerers take out the imperial battlemages.
Province after province falls and eventually we meet the powerful altmer wizards. Our alchemists have been preparing potions that absorp and reflect spells and they give the potions to the orcs. Again, the breton sorcerers are deployed on the flanks of the army. They will have to support the army and distract the altmer mages. Then the battle begins, the orcs do what they do best: a brutal all out assault.

[Daedricmudcrab]

I've probably had the most fun with orcs. One orc was a male under the warrior constellation, he had hand to hand, athletics, heavy armor, block, armorer, blunt, acrobatics and something else for main skills. I only used hand to hand though. He was AWESOME! Then I made a female orc under the atronach constellation and made her a spellsword, destruction, blade, alteration, conjuration, block, restoration, and illusion. She was really fun!

[MyDireLife]

I played an orc fighter for about 3 quests, then i went back to a mage ><

About the war dealio....

Just compare it to real life..... Tanks vs artillery, whos gonna win?

[Deandra]

If you think spell reflect is a perfect strategy, read The Firsthold Revolt.

Mages are much more powerful against a tightly clustered opposition, because of their area of effect spells. If they were casting wide-area absorb magicka and absorb health spells, they wouldn't run out of magicka, their enemies would die quickly while healing the mage, and on the off-chance that all of their opponents are enchanted with spell-reflect, the mage still wouldn't harm themselves. Even a high spell-reflect wouldn't protect the orcs from this indefinitely (I'm just going to assume that 100% of either physical or magical reflection is unrealistic, since then nobody would ever lose a fight).

The only way an army of orc warriors could win against mages is if they spread out and act more like assassins, which isn't their strength. And if the mages form small groups mixed with melee warriors to protect the mages, there's not much hope for the orcs.

[MyDireLife]

If the orcs somehow bottle-necked the mages into a tight spot, i think they would own em.

[Oathbreaker]

If the orcs bottle-necked the mages into such a spot... (if it was a true bottle-neck with both sides open especially) then you'd have every mage in the front lines casting what would appear from above to be a giant maelstrom of any spell they so chose in front of them, the orcs (in modern terms) would be throwing themselves directly into machinegun fire. (or to be more accurate, into a nuclear explosion) I believe there was a British army leader of some sort that tried that strategy in WWII... yeah he's not well-liked.

[DarkGodShadow]

Lets see this war in a more tactical way; In the orchish army there are going to be wariors of course but they need archers, and who says that there are no orchish wizards( There is a book about a reunion archmage traven had with two other council members before he banned necromancy from the guild and one of the council members was an orc).
So you have an orchish army in heavy armor with warriors, rangers and wizards.

Now to the magickal army; there are more than one class of wizards and they are:Battlemages, Sorcerers and Necromancers.
In this army there are Battle mages in heavy armor, Sorcerers with a big pile of scrolls and are wearing heavy armor, the Wizards are preparing there illusion and alteration, and the Necromancers well you know... summoning the dead.

At the beginning a big wave of arrows cover the skies the mages and Necromancers wear no armor so they are overwhelmed, then the battlemages start throwing fireballs while they charge to the orcs and the sorcerers are using scrolls to make some of the battlemages invisible. Then the Orcs angry enter the beserker status and destroy the battlemages with their hammers. meanwhile thge sorcerers and the orchish wizards are making a true fireworks show. Then the reamaining Necromancers start summoning zombies and skeletons but the Orchish warriors thear the undead apart. More arrows: the necromancers are dead; then the mages ( which were invisible and managed to get behind the orchish army) start summoning Dremora and Deadroth which easily take care of the orchish archers and wizards , but while they were doing their spells they didnt realized thet the orchish warriors were upon them so they desperatly start making reflect damage spells but the ocrhish are much stronger than what those shield can protect them and are deafeted but not without a fight. That just leaves a bunch of sorcerers against a bunch of orc warriors but by that time the orcs are out of the beserker state so they are much faster and they start running towards the sorcerers and sorround them...... at the end theres only one thing left: a bloody mess the orcs are victorious.

[The Magic Bum]

Part of this whole war depends on which side has more assassins, rogues, and "black ops people" (for lack of a better term)

[Oathbreaker]

Well Dark, you underestimate the sorcerers and necromancers... I've seen quite a few that can a) cast shield spells and b) summon bound armor to protect them (which is about as effective as any heavy armor can be expected to be). Thus rending them about as vulnerable to the arrows as the battlemages. So, while it can be expected (as Deandra pointed out) that in the face of a common enemy, they'd all be using area effect spells for their offense, so why can't that be assumed of their defense? This means that only a few casters would be needed to outfit the entire army with defensive spells, leaving many more casting offensive spells ahead of the battlemages, thinning the orcs of their warrior ranks. Such spells would include area effects of absorb health (and possibly absorbing any magicka the orcs might have), so even if the orcs had their own caste of wizards in their army, there's no way they could keep up with 2 or 3 times as many magick-users casting absorb spells against them.

Now, while the orcs can go berserk, it's foolish to assume the battlemages can't heal themselves. I've never seen a battlemage get seriously wounded or killed without at least attempting to heal, and since the warriors of the orcs would've already been thinned out by the offensive area spells of the sorcerers and necromancers (who would be intelligent enough to group themselves with say... 3 casters and 1 summoner per group). In addition the necromancers being dedicated to summoning undead would do so, adding troops to the front lines with the battlemages; troops which happen to be far more disposable and which are renewed every time they fall, leading to an endless army against the orcish warriors. Now you could argue that the archers of the orcs are thinning the heard of sorcerers and necromancers, but then you forget that since they specialize in archery, their endurance wouldn't be as high, thus leading to less vitality, meaning many of them would've fallen to the first few waves of offensive area spells. (Oh, and if you get really technical, you could assume the battlemages have orcs with them, further fortifying their frontlines with berserk )

Now, if any orcish wizards still had magicka left to cast (which is doubtful if any of the sorcerers or necromancers employed the use of absorb magicka with their absorb health spells), they'd be completely focused on making sure the warriors stayed healthy, which in the faces of battlemages with the ability to heal, and endless numbers of undead, would not last long, and the wizards wouldn't be able to keep up. The few wizards that saw the futility of healing the warriors would be assumed to just start casting into the ranks of the sorcerers and necromancers trying to keep them from casting their spells, which wouldn't work because they're continuously being healed by their absorb health spells.

Moving on to the warriors, they might be able to take out a few battlemages and send the undead back to their graves, but as soon as berserk wears off they lose all those great perks and begin getting overwhelmed by the surviving battlemages and the endless number of undead being thrown at them.

Looking at it with the setup you've given us, the orcs would be decimated with very few casualties.

Looking at it where the mages are cornered, the orcs get decimated. And looking where the orcs use any strategy Deandra outlined (being any possible), the orcs also get decimated, especially with your setup, because the mages have the more physically trained battlemages to act as the warriors in each group should the orcs turn to assassination techniques.

As an afterthought, instead of calling them sorcerers, it would be more accurate to just say mages... since there's an actual sorcerer class, which wears heavy armor, and thus wouldn't even need to use protective spells against the arrows... so you inadvertently gave the "pure spellcaster" side a hidden advantage.

[Cactus]

Part of this whole war depends on which side has more assassins, rogues, and "black ops people" (for lack of a better term)

I think the results so far recorded are actually more dependent on the individual's personal playing style. I think a lot of people are also forgetting that Orc's are naturally resistant to magicka and have really high health. Mages are going to have much lower health and a much higher intelligence, giving them more opportunity for strategy. I personally think, realistically, a big battle like that would be somewhat up in the air.

See how my playing style is evident? I don't like playing warriors and mages nearly as much as thieves.