Anyone have good ideas for playing a magician using tricks mid fight?

Anyone have good ideas for playing a magician using tricks mid fight?

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Their fiighting style would probably be conceptually similar to magic tricks.

A magician distracts the crowd with one hand while the other hand is doing the real work behind the scenes.
In a fight a magician will use flashy tricks that the enemy will concentrate on, all while not realizing that a more subtle trick is in effect that will cause the real damage.

>The magician pulls out a giant sword and swings it wildly around him
>the enemies concentrate on dodging and avoid it easily while looking for a new opportunity to attack
>they don't realize that the magician is throwing poisoned needles at them, hiding the throwing motion with the wild and unpracticed sword swings
>don't feel the initial prick of the needle because they're too concentrated on dodging and looking for opportunities
>poison has time to work while they are distracted
The "wild" sword swings were highly practiced beforehand to look like the wielder is just randomly swinging it around while still being effective at keeping the enemies at bay.

I've seen videos of card throwers cutting into fruit with their cards, this would probably also hurt an unarmored human.

Deadlands hucksters use the magic of evil spirits and disguise it as common parlor tricks

Fighting that looks like this:
youtube.com/watch?v=fsxCIkN7Zy8

A magician would likely not be as focused on in-your-face combat. Veeky Forums will probably crucify me for bringing this up, but Joseph Joestar is a good example of incorporating magic tricks into combat. Sleight-of-hand that hides weaponry, laying traps while distracting an opponent with an insult or feint, generally just misdirecting the enemy away from what really matters.

>Veeky Forums will probably crucify me for bringing this up, but Joseph Joestar is a good example of incorporating magic tricks into combat.
I won't crucify you if you tell me who that is and cite some examples.

Watch me pull a grenade out of my hat.

youtube.com/watch?v=6BgqFYrD8UM

youtube.com/watch?v=qOzP35MO8l0

This is the dumbest thing I've seen in some time.

that's JoJo's bizzarre adventure in a nutshell really, dumb shit played off in an entertaining way.

More mundanely, any trick that grabs the opponent's attention away from the tip of your sword or screws with their appreciation of blade length/attack angle would cripple their ability to dodge or parry effectively.

There are more cinematic tricks in anime/manga that are borderline hypnosis but wouldn't be out of place in D&D or whatever.

It's not even that entertaining. I guess there's something lost on me, and it might be because the art is hideous.

Mix Gambit from X-men with Zatara(or Zatanna)

The top hat is MANDATORY.

It's an acquired taste.

>Fake magic
>In a world where real magic exists and is easy to use/get

>Vilain put you in an anti-magic zone
>make a magic trick
>damn how can you do magic in my anti-magic zone, you are too powerful for me I surender
Mind game user, mind game.

I have a stage magician in my setting. One important note is that it's not generally considered possible to hide magic, and most people can sense magic when it's being actively used.

So it's not so much that he claims to be using magic in a setting where a significant minority of people can do that, but that he claims to be using magic in a setting where everyone knows he isn't, and yet can't figure out how he actually IS doing it.

You know. Exactly like stage magic in the real world.

youtube.com/watch?v=qDeHgwG1_r8

No spell slots/mana cost for using trickery. That and it'd be more fun.

Isn't this just a case of Dex+Wis vs Int?

Look up Now You See Me. There's some fight scenes in there.

Voila.

I re-read OP's post and still didn't see where he said he's talking about D&D.

I like the idea of a fencer magician who uses flash paper and bang snaps and the like to throw their opponents off balance in combat. That plus knife throwing and tricks would be effective while fighting. Then in town he does magic shows and a bit of hustling to make cash and connections.

That movie was held back by Jesse Eisenberg being insufferable and the twist the FBI agent was in on the conspiracy being able to be called from a fucking mile away once you notice it's the one character in the movie the writing does NOT at one point tease might be in on it.

The twist that the secret society was real and magic really did exist for real was actually pretty awesome on paper but also kind of predictable in the movie because it violated a basic tenet of mystery writing - it brought up the concept and then dismissed it for seemingly no OOC reason.

Make him actually really fucking good in a straight-up fight, possibly specializing in using a weapon he could justify having as a stage magician (staff = wand, sword for cutting qt girls in half, etc).

Let's face it, a remotely savvy villain is going to expect a magician to be a sneaky slight of hand fuck. It's being a great standing fighter that will catch them off guard.

Combine these two. When people think he's just using the tricks to cover up less than stellar swordsmanship and take those away from him have him have the badass skills anyways. He uses the tricks because they are fun and effective but doesn't actually need them.

Morgan Freeman's voice trumps all of that.