The Art of Roding

Introduction

The lands are filled with dangers, most can be handled by fighters by them self with sufficient training. However their is one force that fighters can not take by them self this force is magic attacks. Magic always hits its target and most magic creatures like to keep their distance which gives them time to kill even the greatest of fighters before they have time to kill all the magic creatures.

A new approach must be created to deal with magic. This approach is still being developed however this document I hope will help educate on current best practices.

The idea is how do you protect fighters so that they can kill creatures in a magic free zone and then move them to the magic creatures one at a time in safety so that the magic creatures can be killed.

Magic creatures will generally focus their energy on the exile that is closest to them. This is of course to their advantage to do so. However it can also be used as an advantage for the attackers.

If we know that the exile closest to the magic creatures is going to take all the damage we can control who is going to be hit. The exile that is going to take all the damage is called the Draw. The Draw attracts all the damage to them so that everyone else remains healthy and can focus on fighting in a familiar way.

Many different styles of training can make a good Draw and many approaches exist in the lands a discussion on what makes a good draw may be created in some other document. For the purpose of this document we will assume you have a reasonable Draw for the task at hand.

Rod

The Draw by it self depending on its ability will be sufficient for many situations however in many cases the draw will require support to sustain the amount of magic in the area. When you combine the Draw with 1 or more healers you have a Rod. A Rod can be very effective at absorbing large quantities of magic. With a rod it is important to always keep the Draw out in front. If supporting healers of the draw can also effectively be the draw it can buy you some time by swapping positions by pulling to help distribute the damage. However this can frequently cause delays in healing and may result in things crumbling. If two draws exist it is frequently better to position the two draws such that the magic attacks get evenly distributed between the two. Then form rods around each Draw.

Two man rod

<Pictures showing draw and a speed healer. Show arc were creature can be and still hit draw. Show arc of safe area the fighters can stand in and still not get hit.>

Three man rod

<Pictures showing draw and two speed healers. Show arc were creature can be and still hit draw. show arc of safe area the fighters can stand in and still not get hit.>

Four man rod

<Pictures showing draw and three speed healers. Show arc were creature can be and still hit draw. Show arc of safe area the fighters can stand in and still not get hit.>

More people can be added to rods to heal the speed healers but more than three on the Draw will end up in always creating a second draw or changing who is the draw. Healing the speed healers will help the draw. The draw can then also focus their energy also on healing them self. This also helps when fire is about if the draw is not healing any speed healers you don't have to worry about fire bouncing.

Fire

Rods must be careful with fire around. Fire passes from a burning exile to another exile if the burning exile is touched by another exile. You are always touching the person you are healing (unless you are cadding). So if the exile you are healing gets hit with fire the fire will pass to you. If two people are healing each other fire will bounce back and forth indefinitely or until one exile is dead. As long as the draw understands this and does not heal anyone when fire is around the fire will pass through everyone in the rod once and then be done.

A fun visual effect is take a number of healers and form a circle everyone heals the person next to them in a clock wise fashion. Have someone herd a shaman into the center of the circle. Wait for Shaman to ignite the circle and watch the flame run around the circle in a counter clockwise direction.

Rod in the Open

If the rod can be positioned such that the only way non-magic creatures reach it is from behind you have a very stable situation since the fighters will be behind and should be able to kill the non-magic stuff quickly. This situation is usually achieved by using walls, rivers, trees, screen corners (green pants) etc. If those things are not available then the Rod will be out in front and non-magic creatures will pile up and then the rod will fall.

The Rod is very similar to fighters it is very effective at holding magic attacks. Just as fighters are very effective at bricking non-magic creature. However if the rod is in a situation were non-magic creature can get to it then it will fall just as quickly as fighters in the magic. This creates a very interesting situation how do you keep the magic on the draw and non-magic on the fighters.

This is were a new level of combat must be developed for a magic and non-magic heavy combat zone with no barricade.

For this combat zone large rods become virtually impossible they will get surrounded by non-magic creatures and fall quickly. 2 man rods become max (Larger rods will become possible with time and familiarity with this document). A good draw will be able to brick some very simple non-magic creatures. If this is the case the rod can let these types of creatures build up. However the 2 man rod must never let it self get trapped. The 2 man rod has to play it safe you don't want to force fighters to come to the rod. If they do they will usually end up becoming the draw and fall quickly. So now you have this pile of creatures, the Rod must have a place to take these creature. This is were a good fighter brick becomes critical the brick must stay behind the rod so the rod can dump the creature on the brick. A very simple and basic way for this maneuver is as fallow.

Suppose you have the following situation

<Picture showing brick standing behind a two man rod with small pile of non-magic creatures on draw and magic creatures off in the distance. Show path for speed and Draw to take which depicts how to transfer non-magic creatures from draw to brick.>

In this situation the Rod wants to maintain protection of the fighter but transfer the non-magic creatures from the draw to the brick. The Draw will say dump at this time the Speed moves away from the draw towards the fighter then swings around back towards the magic creatures away from the draw far enough such that the non-magic creatures will not be attracted to the Speed while the draw runs back to the brick dumps the non-magic creatures and then swings around and returns were the draw and Speed meet up again to protect the fighter. If this maneuver is performed correctly the fighter will never get hit by any magic the Speed may take a hit or two but hopefully all the magic will still go to the draw even though it is not out in front. The fighter will then quickly dispatch the non-magic creatures once this is done the rod moves forward to the magic creature. The fighter follows with and once the rod is next to the magic creature the fighter will dispatch the magic creature.

Distance between Rod and fighter will vary on creature pile up but must be far enough such that the non-magic creatures are more interested in the brick than rod.

If you take the above and put it in a situation that really requires it you will usually find that to be successful will require multiple teams as described above and the brick will probably require death fighters (Fighter that can take things out quickly) to keep the kill rate up so that everything that gets dumped is killed quickly. With multiple teams what becomes critical next is communication the best way for this would be to include a mystic behind the fighters. The mystic tracks the teams health and progress and communicates with the other teams and directs team to next target based on information from other mystics in other teams.

Bouncing Lightning

Bouncing lightning is very deadly to rods. Because of the bouncing effect that happens between exiles that are in close proximity rods can't be used to effectively hold this type of lightning. The bouncing only occurs if two exiles are relatively close to each other (about five exile distance).

The following approach is the best way to effectively hold bouncing lightning in a battle. It requires at least 2 draws and 2 speeds. The two speeds will make a healing bed the two draws will take turns drawing the lightning away from anyone else until they no longer can then running to the two speed healers to get healed. While one is getting healed the other is out holding the lightning. This rotation is the most effective way to hold this sort of lightning.