What should be the true role of magic users?
Some people cast them as medieval style artillery, powerful but difficult.
Some people have them as support characters; able to greatly improve others by means of their spells and magical abilites.
Some people make them masters of utility, greatly reducing the need to lug around dumb equipment in favor of a clever mage.
Some people have them be a jack of all trades, can do anything but nothing spectacularly.
Some have them work the best as or with plot devices, vehicles of fate or momentum.
What do YOU like to cast them as? How do you feel they should be utilized?
>>48005477depends on the setting
but imo the coolest way to fluff them is to make them like lotr wizards. magic can do pretty much anything you want it to but it's dangerous to fuck with except for when you're in dire need
>>48005566
Got it in one.
Magic is super, super powerful, and there's basically nothing it can't do.
It's also super, super powerful, and even using it very humbly and properly carries an enormous risk of backfiring and screwing you horribly.
Think about, oh I dunno, a standard 20th century working stiff who suddenly acquires a Star Trek replicator and instructions for it. Sure, depending on their individual personality there might be a lot of variation in what they do initially, but how long do you really think it'll take them to fuck everything up Twilight Zone style?
I'm not a fan of 'magic can do everything better than mere plebs', so:
Magic is a skill you can learn.
The skill and practice it takes to do something magically is roughly equal to the skill and practice it takes to do something the regular way.
Learning to light a fire magically takes just as long as learning it the regular way.
You can develop your magical telekinesis to learn to lift a boulder... but it's exactly as difficult as it would be to work out and lift weights until you were capable of lifting a boulder.
The role of magic and magicians is that magic doesn't care how physically strong you are, so it's a common thing to learn for the frail, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged.
>>48005477
>What should be the true role of magic users?
'Magic user' is just a trapping. It is separate from the roles you describe. It's almost like asking 'what should be the role of people wearing hats'.
There can be distinct magic users who do all of the things you describe in the same setting without stepping on each others toes.
There can also be people with mundane means doing the same things as those magic users. There could be some toe stepping there.
Ultimately, it's up to the player and the GM to make sense of the character's capabilities in a way that resonates with the setting and the other players.
Wizards are like nukes, every big player needs to have some to keep the knife the others' throats, but nobody can use them because an all out mage war would basically wreck everything
>>48005477
All of thoses but not in one package.
Balance every magic specialisation with the corresponding mundane equivalent.
After that if you want crazy hybrids, don't forget to give martials a few toys even if it falls into "anime fightan" because a "realistic" fighter WILL be bad next to high magic.Of course, you adjust this depending on the setting, if it's low magic you probably want it to be mages know few spells but are not the cloth wearing weakling route. Or else you'll either get no magic at all or bitchy players.
>>48005477
Magic is better than everything else but needs to be set up in advance
So a mage can temporarily make himself the best swordsman in the kingdom by setting up a ritual where he bathes in giants blood or w/e more setting appropriate plot device you desire
Without prep time a mage is just a human with a bag of parlour tricks
Also there are no methods to powergame via time compression or any other type bullshit, as soon as you hit "I stop time and set up a bunch of spells" levels then it's time to stop and go back because something has gone wrong.
>>48005477
more like an esoteric set of knowledge than superpowers. the mage knows how to read the stars for portents of the future, knows how to brew special potions, knows how to make a charm that wards off evil spirits, knows what kind of herbs will kill a werewolf, and what kind will heal the venom of a basilisk, the proper rituals for appeasing household gods, the names of demons and ways to bargain and bind them, paths from the physical world into other realms of existence and how to find your way back again. plus a healthy dose of psychology and trickery for making plebs think they are more powerful than they really are. it's like a special set of knowledge that deals with the supernatural, not so much about waving your hands around and something just happening.
but that's just my preference, there is no "true role" of magic users.
>>48005477
Now go shitposting somewhere else
>>48005477
Adding cool flavour and plot hooks, being really cool villains, and absolutely never ever getting played by a player in a game that revolves mainly around killing monsters.
>>48005566
>>48005689
So 40K Roleplay, basically?
They should be unworthy witnesses to my martial glory, and nothing else.
Petty parlor tricks should never be the match of a good sword wielded with real skill.
>>48005477
>What should be the true role of magic users?
That's kind of a dumb question considering how vague the term magic is.
Also >>48005933
But going by the example D&D has set for us:
jack of all of trades, master of all trades but with serious conditions.
Assuming you are going with magic-users use any supernatural force and can potential do anything they will be both flexible AND powerful or if not powerful hard to counter do to the naturally unusual nature of the supernatural.
To balance this there are hard limitations to their power.
They can do anything well but only once. Possibly because the spell they bound dissipates after use or because they need prepared reagents that are spent in casting. Best balanced by increasing the power of spells with experience OR number of spells castable but not both in equal measure i.e. 3.PF
It could be that spells come with a heavy drawback, such as drain in shadowrun, insanity in CoC or mutations in pick-your-favourite-totally-metal-retro-clone. I find this is best balanced with a threshold for risk increasing with the use of magic. A static risk threshold can usually be easily be counteracted by players with a mind for powergaming which can lead to infinite magic with little risk.
There is also the potential drawback of needing length rituals in advance but this is less friendly towards the traditional adventure style games.
Of course you guys knew this shit already.
I think >>48008152 is a decent style too that is often underused. However knowledge style play is often hard to pull off without turning it into game of 'mother may I' with the GM. It would probably work well with a simple set of rulings for information gathering and open ended mechanics for altering small details in the case of potions and charms.
>>48005477
As with all such answers, it depends on the setting. Which is to say, "There is no true Correct answer; what actually matters is what works best/is coolest for the world and story and game experience you want."
Personally, I tend to favor magic as a thing that's pervasive and everyday, and low-powered enough in practice to still render a world like that recognizable, and to make it impractical and uneconomical - or even impossible - to do everything with magic alone. Lots of people know a little, useful spell or two, or have some small charm or talisman or at least have somebody in their village who can do a bit of magic in one specialization or another or sells useful magical goods and services.
"Magic-user" is as broad as "Engineer", or "Doctor" and for that matter most doctors and engineers know a bit about magic; there's no sharp border. There's a lot of specialization and it takes lots of study and training and expertise actually become professional in magic and do interesting things. Anyone can become one, but it helps a lot to have talent, and most people wouldn't be suited to magic as a career.
Magic is, generally, not terribly useful as a weapon, since it's hard to improvise stuff that's not in your absolutely-most-familiar-could-do-it-in-your-sleep range of expertise. It is, however, excellently suited to *making* weapons, defenses, tools, and other such things that are made long before a battle, and it can be used as a useful and versatile tool for a great many things if you have the time, space, and equipment to set up a quick or not-so-quick ritual.
Basically, the wizard isn't so much the blaster as the guy who gets the rogue's bow to work as a blaster. So yeah, support character and utility guy. A completely general wizard will probably suck at everything; they're more likely to focus on a general area, or to have some combination of training in a nonmagical skill class and expertise of magic related to that class.
>>48005477
I like all of the above, but different disciplines of magic.
You have warmages who take care of blasting and are typical artillery.
You have the priests who support and boost others.
You have the enchanters who have little combat ability but many non-combat uses.
And then you get someone who dips into all of them to learn the basics for a jack of all trades, but without as much power.
Basically, mages should have strict dividions so they can't just do everything. Its the same reason why Warriors and Thieves are separate
>>48008304
>Thread is an opinion piece about how YOU like something and how YOU like it done in /tg/
>Mongoloid posts that image and smugly acts as though he's 'won' an argument that nobody wanted, nobody started, and isn't useful in any way to the thread
>>48009678
Not him, but his point still stands - answering that question, even if solely based on my personal preferences and choices, depends on factors so numerous it makes clear and to-the-point answer impossible to express.
And given how this thread sank down, with your passive-agressive bullshit being the only activity for way over a hour should ring you a bell, OP
>>48005689
>but it's exactly as difficult as it would be to work out and lift weights until you were capable of lifting a boulder.
You can't lift a really huge boulder.
>>48008334
The second one is literally nothing like psyker powers
>>48009678
This is a really annoying trend on /tg/ and it tells you a lot about the demographic...
A lot of ill mannered nerds who feel intelligent for rebelling against a simple discussion prompt.
>>48005477
My magic-users come in a variety of flavors, and their role depends on that. Warriors capable of superhuman feats are also magic-users, they just use it differently than spellcasters.
In basic terms, magic can do anything as long as you know how to make it happen. Sometimes focusing on how to get good at something relatively simple is more effective than studying a wide variety of more complex matters.
>>48005477
Well D&D has them as all of those at the same time, and I've never seen anyone complain about that setup. So just do that.
>>48005477
>What should be the true role of magic users?
Using magic.
>>48009678
>>Thread is an opinion piece about how YOU like something and how YOU like it done in /tg/
The thread began with:
>What should be the true role of magic users?
That does set a certain tone for the discussion even if
>What do YOU like to cast them as? How do you feel they should be utilized?
was added after.
While that image was overly snarky I get the initial sentiment.
>>48011019
I like to think I understand people pretty well but whatever the thought process must be of people who write shit like that does elude me.
Do you think you're funny? Clever? What's your goal? Do you expect to impress somebody? Do you expect the OP to feel bad about himself? Are you trying to act out a witty persona? Are you upset at the prompt itself? What is it?
You people are so fuckin weird
>>48005477
It's magic, if most of those don't fit you have a setting with severely limited magic.
>>48011124
It's the necessarily retarded response to an entirely retarded question. "What do YOU like to cast them as?" is an OK question. "What should be the true role of magic users" is a retarded question. What should be the true role of mathematicians? Doing math. What should be the true role of soldiers? Soldiering. What should be the true role of cooks? Cooking.
>>48011124
I like to think I understand people pretty well but whatever the thought process must be of people who overthink things like this does elude me. Do you think it's a big deal? A thoughtful post? Why does it matter? Do you expect an answer? Do you expect them to change how they write? Are you an armchair psychologist? Are you upset that it's magic and he ain't gotta explain shit? What is it?
You are so fuckin weird.
I like slow utility. The sort of things most people cannot necessarily do but isn't necessarily more helpful than basic skills. Talking to dead bodies, modifying the weather, or divining that is limited to the mage's personal senses.
Or the kind of thing everyone else can do, just a lot slower and more roundabout. Yeah you could swim across the river in a minute or two, or I can make myself immune to drowning and walk and flail across because I don't actually know how to swim gargle blargle blub.
Don't worry guys, I'll just remote view the past of this location to watch the murder in progress so we can figure out who the killer is...I have no idea who that is.
That or alchemy as a profession rather than magic. Either allowing people to use use ghetto magic in a setting which otherwise wouldn't have any, or limits who can cast. Or is just a part of the world and how it works, alchemical trinkets lying about, usable by anyone, and purchasable on commission at your regional university.
Though when it comes to magical trinkets, I tend to go for the unique and specific. As in nobody can really make them, but certain circumstances might lead to their existence. A sword that fights for a righteous cause found on the ground next to a rusted out knight corpse. Ever try to do something criminal or selfish with it and it will be as rusty and blunt as a sword left to the elements for a few decades should be.
>>48008304
>That moment when Wichura and co. turn into a 4chan meme
>>48008757
I like this a lot, it opens up options for small inventive things you can come up with to add a lot of flavor to the world (not!Olympics embroiled in an illegal magical influence scandal) while also keeping the whole PC's are special deal going on.
The most often example used is always there are warriors in the town guard but they're not Fighters per say, maybe the Captain of the guard is a level one. This way you can show the same thing for Wizards and other magical classes, plus some more utility for them around town. Overall my favorite position on this debate
>>48011195
You're exaggerating the distinction - you're basically attacking a tiny shortcoming of word choice, and it's not even fully correct at that. The role of magic users can be incredibly diverse or specific depending on the setting. Magic use itself as a concept encompasses so much that what you just said
>What should be the true role of mathematicians? Doing math. What should be the true role of soldiers? Soldiering. What should be the true role of cooks? Cooking.
Is an invalid point. All those professions are more specific than magic use.
Magic can be healing, killing, fixing, creating, observation, innovation, and deception. Magic can be cooking. Magic can be soldiering. Magic can be fucking anything, and the OP is asking what it SHOULD be for the sake of a good setting.
>>48011217
>You are so fuckin weird.
Nope, I'm actually pretty cool.
>>48005477
The way I plan on implementing casters in my homebrew setting/system is that they can't kill anyone with magic directly. You can put someone in a coma by scattering their spirit through a curse but other than that you'll still need to spear the fucker in the gut to kill them for good.
Casters are purely in the non-material domain.
>>48011516
Well, if the first question should be entirely disregarded, then the answer to the second question that it depends on so many things that it's not even funny.
>>48005566
LotR magic doesn't work that way at all. There were no real averse effects to magic use outside of stuff like the Ring. The wizards, who were gods in disguise, could use magic without ill effect, except for the fact that they were sworn not to interfere directly like that in affairs on Middle-Earth. Most elves couldn't or could barely use magic, and only on a very small and inconsequential scale, at least by the time of LotR. Even Fëanor, the most creatively capable of all non-god beings in the history of Arda, could only create the Silmarils by borrowing power from the greatest creations of the highest gods. Places like Nargothrond and Gondolin were hidden through magic, but again it was gods of the greater or lesser order who did it.
>>48005477
Crafters.
Alchemists, enchanters, diviners etc.
Mages as healer, artillery, utility etc. are overrated. Direct effects are overrated.
>>48005477
>Most Wizards are utility/battlefield control focused. Magewrights are to Wizards as blue-collar is to white-collar
>Artifice and Alchemy are sciences which involve magic usage
>War Mages focus on blastin', but use a staff or focus to avoid hurting themselves through misfired spells
>Often included in armies as "smart siege weapons". Fireball volleys are cheaper than bringing along an engineer corps to make trebuchets
>>48011459
It's not really a position in a "debate", just a way of building settings that I liked.
The way I support it In My Setting is with bits of how magic itself works; it's a bit difficult to sustain a spell once it's been set up since free magical constructs require magical power and mental maintenance simply to exist, but if bound to a physical object they hold their shape on their own and require much less maintenance, and it's *much* easier to bind magic to a thing which already does something similar due to the principle of sympathy. So it is way easier to make a bow shoot magical projectiles than it is to make a spell to shoot equally effective projectiles out of your eyes, especially because the mechanics of the bow and its use do some of the conceptual and mechanical work - storing and releasing energy, aiming - for you. (Also, simply from a magical design perspective, it's much easier to amplify something physical or move some physical effect from one place to another, than it is to simply directly convert magical potential into physical energy and momentum. So having muscle power available and a convenient mechanism for storing and delivering it saves a lot of effort)
And once you've bound a spell into a tool, it's pretty easy to make it usable by anyone who isn't a mage - first, because literally anything alive has at least some natural reservoir of magical potency in it, and the excercise of opening it up to let it pour through a magical device is a pretty simple trick a lot of people know, and if it takes too much out of them to do that (non-mages don't usually have a large reservoir) it's more convenient to add the extra knots to needed to store a charge in the tool and fill it up in your downtime.
So it ends up making a lot more sense for the mage to enhance other people's capabilities than do everything themselves.
>>48011876
Picture lacks best Alice
>>48008009
This is my favorite answer. Spellcasters in 3.5/PF wouldn't be nearly as obscene if they couldn't drop an encounter changing effect with the same speed and immediacy of a fighter attacking once. Or better, once you stack initiative bonuses and pick up Celerity, Quicken, and Time Stop.
>>48012328
I suppose in this instance debate is more just an exchange of ideas meant to draw out positive aspects and make them better than something you can "win".
Turns out I agree with you on a lot of points. The closer that the function of an object is to the goal of a spell the better that object is going to be at holding and producing that spell. A healing spell bound to a roll of gauze or an ointment is going to be better at holding and reproducing the desired affects than (on the far end of things) a Dagger of Healing would. For 99% of mages creating a Dagger of healing is simply impossible anyways, the dagger is too much an antithesis of the spell.
I suppose the only detail I disagree with you on is that it requires the use of a natural reservoir of magic. Once the spell is in the object how many times you can use it depends on how the object was crafted. One use items for minor benefits can be crafted with only some training and skills in shaping the "winds" of magic. Multi-use items are only going to be able to be crafted by Journeyman level of mages and the quality improves with skill from there.
So as an example of a farming town in this universe you've got a small shop in town run by either a hedge wizard or apprenticed alchemist where the townspeople goes to buy their band-aids, dowsing rods, cosmetics, and other simple items that allow for return business. Anyone can use these with no training outside of maybe an instruction with a command word or gesture.
Meanwhile in the county there might be a traveling cleric, mage, or druid (or possible all three) that comes through town every couple months or so. These are the people who take care of minor surgery level healing, crafting the orb in the mayors office that gives a forecast for the weather, or brokered the deal with the local water spirit to help irrigate the fields. Not all of these go off as planned (water spirit doesn't get the proper offerings and the PC's need to step in)
>>48012849
Instead of putting a limit on how much you can use the items based on your own reservoir which can run out it's more of an economic limit based on what you can buy and the quality of items you have access too.
>>48012634
>implying McGee's Alice isn't the best
You are being literally and factually wrong.Artist is Ceramic Man.
Law of the jungle implies that they should be top of the food chain if they can defend themselves suitably. Band together in to high enough numbers in order to defend themselves against pitchfolks, muskets and swords.
I prefer a combination of the first two. Powerful units that cannot operate on their own, and are best as a supporting/artillery factor.
One Merlin for the Round Table, as it were.
If applicable for the setting, my preferred flavor would be: if a wizard tries to fight a battle on their own, they get rushed and kicked around because their magic requires time and concentration. He cannot solve every problem, but he can work miracles greater than a common swordsman. And yet without defenders he is next to harmless.
Metaphorically the supercarrier of a naval fleet. The strongest member of the party by far, and yet utterly dependent upon the party.
>>48012849
>Once the spell is in the object how many times you can use it depends on how the object was crafted
>Anyone can use these with no training outside of maybe an instruction with a command word or gesture.
Yeah, I getcha. For what it's worth, that's sort of what I was getting at with objects having a "charge" - anyone can use a spell that's been bound to an object without any magical training or ability at all, if the spellwork has had power knotted up in it beforehand.
(In the magic system I'm working on, spells are sort of like invisible constructs of interwoven lines or threads; there's a distinction between "open" spells (which are like braids or knots) which take in power, transform it, and release it in another form, and "closed" spells (which are like loops or mathematical knots, and which the standard ritual circle is the simplest and most common form) which can hold power within themselves, circulating it around.)
And, I suppose like with batteries, it's probably quicker and cheaper to build a nonrechargable or one-shot spell than one which can be easily refilled. (It's much easier to release power from a closed spell by simply breaking open the loop and turning it in to an open one, than it is to spell some complicated exchange mechanism that lets power flow into and out of a loop in a controlled fashion without rendering the loop itself leaky.)
Once all the power leaves a spell, the spell itself vanishes, because it is itself made of magic and needs that spark of empowered will to exist. A decent amount of the trick of binding spells into an object is to make the spell sufficiently well-attached to the object that it won't just wash away with the current flowing through it. Still, it will wear out over repeated use and finally burn out entirely unless it receives regular maintenance, retracing worn conduits, patching fraying knots, nailing down the loose bindings and firmly reminding the spell of its original charter.
>>48013172
You have good taste my guy.
>>48013172
2.5/10, would not die for
>>48014016
Ah so we're honestly dealing with the same basic implementation of magic just slight differences on the way magic works in the universe.
For me magic is a pervasive sort of radiation spreading and infusing the universe since the creation coming even before the Gods and Planar entities which so many of the common folk pin as the source of this power. It's the spark which caused so much of the universe to be dynamic and changing instead of random bits of floating matter.
The wizard works most closely with the unaffiliated magic, the loose "dust" which can be formed in any way but requires more study and ritual to effectively bind. The wizards own nature also comes into play here with the tendency of their soul's magic making the different schools easier for them. Theoretically though there are as many different schools as there are goals with magic.
Meanwhile druids and clerics use magic already collected by and fueling metaphysical entities which makes their magics more powerful in the domain their bonded entity is close to.
For me this explanation gives me the most flexibility with the different traditions interpretations of their art.
Honestly your idea give me a catalyst for a coven of witches that bind their rituals into looms for their work, with a healthy dose of the classical Fates thrown in. So thanks for that.
>>48014987
My magic comes from a more setting-specific route; I like my magic to have flavor to it, so stuff noticeably doesn't line up to the conventions of do-everything-well D&D magic. Magic-users aren't really like sorc/wiz/druid in the toolkit they have available or how they can use it. More creative improvisation with simple but widely useful tools; dependence on sympathy and contagion; more reliant on physical tools and their environment. Oh, and no creation of matter, or direct permanent transmutation, whatsoever. (You can fake the creation of matter, however, with very good illusions; it's often easier to make a construct solid by projection of qualities from something like a stone than it is to directly construct an abstract force field, and you can help chemical and physical reactions and natural growth along, and guide them, to achieve permanent material changes to the nature of matter. You just can't turn lead into gold, or directly turn wood into bread, without upkeep to keep it that way.)
I would post some huge infodump about the nature and uses of the soul and magic, how spells are made, the forms of magical power, and the practice of magic, but typing that would take hours on mobile & I really need to go to bed.
>>48015935
I know the feeling when it comes to writing out the whole cosmology, takes a while and I certainly wouldn't want to do it on a mobile. You have a good night man and thanks again for the little nudges.
>>48009678
Why are you posting shitty Tumblr memes?
![taoist____by_youxiandaxia-d2z86za[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/35j8xxz.jpg "taoist____by_youxiandaxia-d2z86za[1].jpg")
>>48005477
>What should be the true role of magic users?
Sufficiently advanced skill and cultivation ought to be indistinguishable from magic.
>>48012105
>>Often included in armies as "smart siege weapons". Fireball volleys are cheaper than bringing along an engineer corps to make trebuchets
Honestly I'd prefer it if they had to use trebuchet sized machines made of McGuffium in order to sling fireball volleys
>>48005477
utter indifference to everyone else.
in any human interaction they've got the choice to deal with things through words and actions or get the same results by wiggling their fingers really cleverly. the first option is good for one instance, the second is a skill they can hone forever.
novice wizards isolate themselves because they can't be sure they can deal with everyone who might bother them conveniently. the masters eventually begin to take breaks from their studies just to fuck with random people.
Every single magic user is a politician, casting silenced/stilled mass suggestions on the world, competing with each other for power and wealth without often resorting to violence.
The rest of the world believes magic is a myth.
>>48009678
>Anonymous internet imageboard
>Tumblrinas and reditors acting smug and working for credit as viable members of some imaginary community
You forgot your tripcode. Or where the fuck you are.
>>48020501
Nigger, at least make a fucking argument that makes sense, rather then screaming HURDUR TUBBLA HUDRUR REDIT for no reason.
