Poll of the Day > Magic as a weapon is kinda dumb in fiction...

(+) Yeah! (+)

You have a dude who summons the power of the elements and/or light and darkness or whatever!

They conjure a giant fireball, and what does he do with it?

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He throws it.

Ya! Unlimited cosmic power is functionally (and occasionally literally) just throwing rocks.

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Harry Potter should've just used a gun.

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Magic as a weapon is actually pretty awesome. People just use it in a boring way...
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SpeedDemon20 posted...

Harry Potter should've just used a gun.

https://youtu.be/E3bayNGdrQ0

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Your complaint isn't just kinda dumb, it's just plain dumb >_>

Lokarin posted... Ya! Unlimited cosmic power is functionally (and occasionally literally) just throwing rocks.

Magic in most systems is pretty fucking limited and not very cosmic. Even when super-high-end shit exists, most magic-users are incapable of casting it and/or working at a much lower level. Something like Overlord is a great example because you have a world with a diverse magic system where the strongest, most mind-bogglingly powerful spells are relatively low leveled compared to the show's protagonist. And you'll have shit like undead dragons who are believed to be immune to magic... but then it turns out that their immunity has a limit and, within the context of that world, spells strong enough to destroy them are normally unheard of.

LinkPizza posted...

Magic as a weapon is actually pretty awesome. People just use it in a boring way...

A fireball is immensely practical. It's kind of like real-life where people have the option of constructing all sorts of weird and novel weapons but 99% of the time they just use a knife, gun, or other conventional weapon because why the fuck would you reinvent the wheel?

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Cast Thunder or Blizzard vs people standing in water

Cast Water to slow down bullets

Cast Haste to move quickly, avoid danger
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In lots of literature it's used in different ways. Fireball for instance is derived primarily from DnD which was a game, required set rules etc, so you couldn't be TOO inventive with how things worked.

Many magic systems are far more in depth etc, when they are not based around a game.

Fireball is still fairly efficient though, and the minor improvement of delayed fireball makes it even more useful/efficient, then you have abilities that let you only target enemies with it etc, so it's not as simple as just throwing a rock (or fire) as the case may be.

The tactics of actually using the powers also vary greatly based on the person using them, both in game, and in literature as well.

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Well what do you want them to do with a fireball

pet it?

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MechaKirby posted... Cast Thunder or Blizzard vs people standing in water

Or just use the water to envelop them until they drown.

MechaKirby posted...

Cast Water to slow down bullets

Or just a shield spell. Or an intangibility spell. Or an invulnerability spell. Or darkness so they don't know where to shoot.

MechaKirby posted...

Cast Haste to move quickly, avoid danger

Or use teleportation.

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I'm not sure the ability to throw a fireball automatically equates to the ability to manipulate reality "if they were only more creative".
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Zeus posted...

A fireball is immensely practical. It's kind of like real-life where people have the option of constructing all sorts of weird and novel weapons but 99% of the time they just use a knife, gun, or other conventional weapon because why the fuck would you reinvent the wheel?

Don't get me wrong. I agree it's practical. Just kind of boring, magic-wise. Depending on you level and control of magic, you could do a variety of fun stuff... I was just telling Lok that it can be very different. They just use it in a boring way...
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Cast a shield spell around your enemy then fill it with water.

I mean, why do people always put the shield spell around themselves? I'd make an air tight shield spell that nothign can get in/out of, and cast that around my enemy. Even without filling it with water they would run out of O2 quickly, and if they have verbal components it would work as a silence spell in addition.

I have in the past used magic missile spells to make enemies turn on each other by targeting their backs (so it looks like only their companions could have hurt them), and tons of other interesting variations on spells in DnD (only can remember the MM one right now cause I used it within the last 6 months).

You can be very inventive with spells, even with DnD type spells, it's part of the great fun of being a wizard/spellcaster in DnD. I do tons of crap with just cantrips in fact.

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Mead posted...

Well what do you want them to do with a fireball

pet it?

So you want to be a wizard by Dianne Dunne, basically does this lol.

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LinkPizza posted...

Don't get me wrong. I agree it's practical. Just kind of boring, magic-wise. Depending on you level and control of magic, you could do a variety of fun stuff... I was just telling Lok that it can be very different. They just use it in a boring way...

If you're a wizard in the heat of battle, what are you going to do? Try to find some new, creative way to use your magic to score coolness points that may or may not be effective? Or go with a tried & true method that you've used many times over the years and know you can reliably achieve a result with?

If I specialized in fire magic and my opponents were standing in a pool of water, I'd still firebomb the fuck out of them. Sure, they might be able to submerge themselves right after to put out the flames (assuming that they aren't killed instantly and the water isn't boiling at that point), but they'll have suffered critical injuries and be out of commission.

wolfy42 posted...

Cast a shield spell around your enemy then fill it with water.

Or cast two shields and use them to crush your enemy. Or if you can summon a physical shielding object into anything, just use the shield to bisect them.

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LinkPizza posted...

Don't get me wrong. I agree it's practical. Just kind of boring, magic-wise. Depending on you level and control of magic, you could do a variety of fun stuff... I was just telling Lok that it can be very different. They just use it in a boring way...

This is more what I was getting at, the uncreativity.

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It's like criticizing fantasy for using swords >_>

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this is why I really liked mages in the BG games, versus how they are in other games, even IWD and especially in WoW.

in WoW, a "mage" is little more than a guy who throws elements at you and also is hard to hit

in BG2, the amount of "throw element at target" abilities are relatively low and only moderately effective, and instead you have an extreme number of utility spells that can make you completely invulnerable many times over if used correctly.

(and while I do like that, it could maybe also have used a little more KABOOM as well. early game, fireball will annihilate almost anything, but you can only use it once before resting. late game, even with things like meteor strike and dragon breath, while they can do a lot of damage in the right situation, against anyone you would want to damage that much, there's probably a long list of immunities that make them almost useless.)

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Zeus posted...

If you're a wizard in the heat of battle, what are you going to do? Try to find some new, creative way to use your magic to score coolness points that may or may not be effective? Or go with a tried & true method that you've used many times over the years and know you can reliably achieve a result with?

Depends on what youre fighting. Also, who said you have to come up with it in the heat of battle? You can also practice magic outside of battle, if you didnt know. And its may be better to try new ways. Especially since using magic with the environment in different ways could be better, as well... Not to mention, Lok is talking about fiction. The writer can take as long as he needs to think of creative uses for magic. And can make his character think of it on the spot. I mean, books are suppose to be entertaining, right? So, the magic that extra coolness points actually have a reason to exist...
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LinkPizza posted...

Magic as a weapon is actually pretty awesome. People just use it in a boring way...

SpeedDemon20 posted...

Harry Potter should've just used a gun.

The magic in the Harry Potter books is generally more interesting and magical than any of the stuff that happens on screen in the movies.

Book Battle of Hogwarts >>>>>> Movie version.

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It's cause wizards are fucking nerds

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SpeedDemon20 posted...

Harry Potter should've just used a gun.

A magic gun.

That fires wands.



Lokarin posted...

This is more what I was getting at, the uncreativity.

You should play Mage: the Ascension. The entire point of the magic system in the game is to be as imaginative as possible (which admittedly makes it harder for the GM to adjudicate).

The limiting factor there is "vulgarity" and "Paradox"- ie, the idea that the reason why we don't have wizards riding dragons and flinging fireballs at each other today is because the universe doesn't like blatant rule breaking. So modern wizards come up with coincidental magical effects that accomplish the same sort of things while seeming almost normal.

Why set someone on fire with a fireball you throw at them when you can just stop their heart from halfway across the room and make it look like natural causes?

In one Mage game I once used magic to kill off all of the beneficial bacteria in someone's colon so they'd suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. Now that's creative!
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

A magic gun.

tbh, it is weird that in fiction with magic you so rarely see magic guns. Given that projectile magic is practical, you'd think magic guns would be a no-brainer especially since most continuities have individuals with limited or no magic ability.

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there' was a "summon gun" in the Final Fantasy anime

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Zeus posted...

tbh, it is weird that in fiction with magic you so rarely see magic guns. Given that projectile magic is practical, you'd think magic guns would be a no-brainer especially since most continuities have individuals with limited or no magic ability.

I had a character in an Amber DRPG game with magic guns, that were basically revolvers with unlimited ammo, that could be charged with elemental effects.

Those were actually based on a pair of of guns I used in an even earlier game, which I honestly can't remember at this point. But they were basically a pair of dueling pistols called the Dioscuri (after the Gemini twins from Greek/Roman myth), and one was named Fulmine and the other was named Trueno (which is basically "lightning" in Italian and "thunder" in Spanish).

Someone I know in a Changeling game around the same time (1999-2000 or so) played a pirate captain who has flintlock pistols that he'd load with "shells" (which were literal seashells, because Changeling's whole deal is that it's like 90% childhood imagination). I can't remember their exact names, but I remember he named one of them Mjlnir, and asked me for ideas for what to call the other one, and I suggested Stormbreaker (Beta Ray Bill's hammer in the old Thor comics, before they used it as Thor's new weapon in the MCU) or Stormbringer (after a version of the hammer Storm got in the comics in the 1980s, unrelated to Elric's cursed sword from the Elric fantasy novels). I think he used one of those, but he translated it into Norse or German or something (I think the gun was named something like Sturmracher, or something similar).

Of course, all that goes back to the very roots of RPG in general - when Gary Gygax first came up with D&D, one of the very first characters made by his friend/business partner Don Kaye was Murlynd, who was basically just Fistful of Dollars Clint Eastwood with guns that worked like magic wands (or magic wands that looked like guns, depending on how you view these things).

Ironically, it's often canon in a lot of fantasy RPGs that gunpowder literally doesn't work (to head off players who want cannons or machine guns in a magical universe), so people who DO want guns usually come up with more magical versions of them to justify having them anyway.
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Lokarin posted...

there' was a "summon gun" in the Final Fantasy anime

I think that was in FFT as well you could use special guns that would shoot spells and later summons if I remember right

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To be fair science is incredibly complex with such intricate things you can do with it but when it comes to fighting our most effective personal fighting science tool is a tube that throws rocks really fast and then when you get to larger weapons it's tools to accurately throw exploding rocks. Turns out that "point at thing, thing dies" is an extremely effective way to fight.

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Zeus posted...

If you're a wizard in the heat of battle, what are you going to do? Try to find some new, creative way to use your magic to score coolness points that may or may not be effective? Or go with a tried & true method that you've used many times over the years and know you can reliably achieve a result with?

I'd argue a throwable fireball is trying to get style points, it's just a relatively easy option.

Realistically, combat mages should be blasting elemental Masenkos at each other.
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What do you want? A firecube? A firepyramid? A firedodecahedron?

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Imagine if they used their fireball explosion to launch a rock forward. It wouldn't even have to be very big. You might even put it in a tube so that it's aimed better.

I think people forget how absurdly effective guns are because we don't have anything besides relatively squishy humans to fight.

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trodi_911 posted...

What do you want? A firecube? A firepyramid? A firedodecahedron?

well now I do want those things

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Mead posted...

well now I do want those things

Would be a funny magic tier system in an rpg. Just add more sides to the shape as it gets more powerful.

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I've always liked ice over fire magic since fire is over used in things

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I like Eragon's magic system.

The magic is more taxing the farther the distance and it has to be something you could evevutally get done yourself or else you could kill yourself from the exhaustion. For this reason he learns to use small pebbles like they're bullets

Also magic energy can be stored in jewels like batteries.

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People want to see thrown fireballs because that's what looks cool. But In real life you'd fall down and break your leg.

Magic as far as fantasy is concerned can e broken down into 3 groups and unfortunately 2/3 are pretty much useless.

1. Ritual- the magic the requires a focus and actions preformed to end a result. Example dnd leap were you break a grass hopper leg to jump higher. The only saving point is that these spells sometimes stay in effect until used.

2. Evocation. The ones were a phrase is spoken. This literally telegraphs your next movie. The only people who would benfit from this are rappers , auctioneers and the guy who gives legal disclaimers. Anyone else would be instantly targeted attack. Kinda like post 9/11 when anyone spoke arabic and got randomly selected for additional screening

3. Mental abilities. These are you xmen like energy projection abilities. These would work because its basically an invisible gun that doesn't leave much in the ways of evidence. Videogame wise think cole from infamous or comic wise magneto vs avatar aang. Cole isnt preforming a stance (except for power moves) he could just chip damage aang while avoiding attacks without canceling his next move. Magneto just starts in probably doesnt even look at aang and crushes aangs heart with the iron in his blood and walks away.


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trodi_911 posted...

What do you want? A firecube? A firepyramid? A firedodecahedron?

I want to snap my fingers and make someone's blood boil in their own veins.

If you have the power to generate massive amounts of thermal energy as a fireball, there shouldn't actually be a reason why you couldn't just superheat the fluids in someone else's body, other than arbitrary limits created in fiction to justify flashier magic.

Real magic attacks should look more like the Strangers in Dark City:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAz3SFxHWnE
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SpeedDemon20 posted...

Harry Potter should've just used a gun.

whelp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSSE0thGmcc

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Lokarin posted...

whelp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSSE0thGmcc

I posted that, or a similar video

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Ogurisama posted...

I posted that, or a similar video

oopsie, i read teh posts but I don't check the links

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Lokarin posted...

He throws it.

https://i.imgur.com/S6yAFSr.mp4
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There is one place where Magic is basically unlimited and they can warp reality to their will. Meaning with the right points on a character sheet you can literally do anything.

Mage the Ascension

To counteract how insanely powerful mages are in that system the game punishes you for warping reality too much so if you make NYC truly disappear that is a major reality breach and reality itself gets pissed at you for doing it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I want to snap my fingers and make someone's blood boil in their own veins.

If you have the power to generate massive amounts of thermal energy as a fireball, there shouldn't actually be a reason why you couldn't just superheat the fluids in someone else's body, other than arbitrary limits created in fiction to justify flashier magic.

Real magic attacks should look more like the Strangers in Dark City:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAz3SFxHWnE

https://jojo.fandom.com/wiki/Speed_King

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I want to snap my fingers and make someone's blood boil in their own veins.

Beltyn's Burning Blood
This spell turns a target's blood to flame, doing 3d4 Hit Points of damage every round and driving the victim berserk with pain. The target gets to save vs. Spell every round; if successful, the damage and berserk state are negated. This spell does not work against undead or extraplanar creatures that do not have blood (such as elementals). If the creature is resistant to fire, this resistance will lower or nullify the damage from this spell.

also, there isn't actually anything all that similar about conjuring a fireball VS boiling someone's blood. maybe if you have total "heat and fire manipulation" ability, but that's not the same thing as an average fire spell.

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Sahuagin posted...

Beltyn's Burning Blood
This spell turns a target's blood to flame, doing 3d4 Hit Points of damage every round and driving the victim berserk with pain. The target gets to save vs. Spell every round; if successful, the damage and berserk state are negated. This spell does not work against undead or extraplanar creatures that do not have blood (such as elementals). If the creature is resistant to fire, this resistance will lower or nullify the damage from this spell.

That'd be an average of 6 damage, which is enough to kill pretty much any non-hero of most if not all races (assuming all non-heroes have only one HD and are unleveled/level 0/level 1)...

At its lowest damage it even is an almost confirmed kill on anyone with only a d4 HD

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Every person has access to magic, specific to themselves. Find it, hone it, own it.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

I want to snap my fingers and make someone's blood boil in their own veins.

If you have the power to generate massive amounts of thermal energy as a fireball, there shouldn't actually be a reason why you couldn't just superheat the fluids in someone else's body, other than arbitrary limits created in fiction to justify flashier magic.

Real magic attacks should look more like the Strangers in Dark City:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAz3SFxHWnE

Still trying to get to Shell beach. Gotta watch that movie again sometime.

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Lokarin posted...

At its lowest damage it even is an almost confirmed kill on anyone with only a d4 HD

it's 3d4 (3-12) (7.5 avg) per round per 2 levels of the caster. it's a level 4 spell, so only a level 7+ mage can cast it. at that level they'd get, I think, 3 rounds of damage, so 9-36 (22.5avg) total, if not saved (or 0-0, 3-12, 6-24, or 9-36 total, depending when it's saved, at lowest level).

a level 20 mage would get 10 rounds, so up to 30-120 (75avg) damage if not saved.

(actually... I'm not 100% sure if a save stops it, or if you have to save each round. I think a save stops it.)

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ya, so it'd instantly immolate non-heroes, and kill pretty much anything including heroes of a low-ish level... even non-hero hill giants with their d8+4 hp (IIRC, it's been forever) might face instant-immolation

That's one MIGHTY spell...

But how is it cast? Do you have to throw a sprig of fireblossom or some weirdness like that at them or do you just point and will it?

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Every person has access to magic, specific to themselves. Find it, hone it, own it.

Magic doesn't exist.
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Lokarin posted...

That's one MIGHTY spell...

it would be OPd without the save. the save means that most of the time it doesn't last very long. in order to get full damage, the target has to miss a save each round, which add up fast, making it very unlikely to last a long time.

But how is it cast? Do you have to throw a sprig of fireblossom or some weirdness like that at them or do you just point and will it?

as a level 4 spell it has a casting time of 4. in infinity engine games this means that you have to cast it for, IIRC, 40% of a 6 second round, and it fires at the end of that time. (so it has a casting time of 2.4 seconds, requiring a manual and verbal component, which just means you can't cast it if paralyzed or muted.)

also, note that this is an Icewind Dale spell, which has a lot of "do a lot of damage" spells in contrast to BG where it's almost all utility spells with only a few "do damage" spells here and there. (IWD is kind of a hack-and-slash game, and is all about carving your way through hordes of enemies, just with much richer mechanics than most games of that kind.)

the range is also listed as "visual range"; sometimes I think that means that if you have some way of having long-range vision you can theoretically cast it on someone miles away, though not sure if it always works out that way.

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