Is there a point in keeping martials and mages separate from one another?

Depends on the setting.

>With this in mind, is there honestly a difference between a dude who punches fast enough that the air itself catches fire and another dude who uses magic to ignite the air to shoot a fireball at someone?
Where their powers come from and how they interact. For example
>Fire punch might be a melee attack that adds fire damage
>Fireball is a ranged attack that only does fire damage
Since the former is due to physical capabilities their secondary and related abilities should also be physical in nature. So the guy who can punch fast enough to light air on fire probably can't use punches to do cold damage but a wizard could do cold damage with magic. The wizard may only move at human speeds while the fighting man might be able to run at 50 mph but the wizard can teleport.

Well, yeah. The mage is throwing fireballs and shit, the martial is firing an ultra-longbow. They might be achieving the same basic effect but they're using different mechanisms.

Theme and scope are important. 'Martial' and 'Mage' can never really be comparable in scope unless the setting is very strict on what magic can do - Remember, low fantasy can also have martial/mage parity, it just does so by making mages shit, rather than making martials good. Incidentally, this is why your question is STILL a pointless argument starter with no objective answer, even with your amendments.

However, you are talking high fantasy derring-do, so I'll oblige. What I tend to do is divide both categories as much as I can, so that all of the archetypes have strict limits as to what they can and cannot do, and there is as little overlap as possible. Some overlap is gonna happen, but the idea is to limit it. So the pyromancer can throw fireballs and use flame whips. That's his shtick. Take him outside of his shtick and he's maybe got a few cantrips that won't do much. The rogue hides super good and stabs people in the back. The knight eats ballista bolts to the face and keeps on trucking. The berserker cleaves elephants in half. The healer heals. The necromancer raises a group of corpses. Et cetera, et cetera, you get the point.

What I am basically trying to describe is the issue wherein 'Martial' has some fairly narrow preconceptions surrounding it, which you need to work hard to break. 'Mage' doesn't, it's a very vague term. 'Pyromancer', on the other hand, also has pre-defined conceptions. If a pyromancer is raising corpses and conjuring illusions, people are going to wonder what is going on, while the mage is just throwing around all sorts of shit and not being questioned.

Mundanes are treated as nukes in the magical world in the DF for two reasons. First, they have large numbers, and two, they are the most innovative creatures around. See how Marcones hit team fucked over wamps and ghouls at the Raith deeps. Normal humans using normal weapons.

>'Mage' doesn't, it's a very vague term. 'Pyromancer', on the other hand, also has pre-defined conceptions.
This is a massively important thing that many DMs and players of D&D need to learn. Its why i've implemented certain houserules about the wizard class that make this distinction even greater. Yeah you took levels in wizard, but you're an evoker, so no, you don't get to use the spell Create Undead, that's for Necros.

But that's a setting conceit. It's basically irrelevant when talking about individuals like player characters.

>Linemen
>Running
>Jumping
>Throwing
Y'wanna know how I know you don't watch any sports?

At that point though, is there really a difference between the Fighter who can survive being sucked into a black hole and the Wizard who can conjure monsters and energies?

Taken to their logical conclusion, they'd both be magical abilities, or at the very least, supernatural ones.

Marcone also had the assistance of a fucking Valkyrie though so you can't really say that his people are 100% human.

Yes you fuckign dingus, its the how. How they fucking achieve their effects is the important bit, not the fact that they are doing magical shit.

True enough. D&D is basically patient zero of the preconception problem.

Yes, there is absolutely a difference. Theme and scope. Do you actually want an answer to your query or are you just ignoring all input and repeating yourself?

But they're both doing magical shit though, you just admitted it. How they do it is irrelevant.
>Theme and scope.
I heard you the first time, there's no need to repeat yourself. You still didn't really answer the question though because who is to say that the Fighter isn't something like a "Muscle" wizard whose spells focus on dealing damage or a "Survivor" mage who only focuses on staying alive?

You can have gish characters without necessarily sacrificing any of your setting's theme and scope, it just seems arbitrary because it feels like the only reason why they're still separate things is because of D&D.

>'hur dur fighters can throw fireballs by slashing the air really hard' is a shitty examples.

No, Fighters can cause brief spurts of flame by slashing the air so hard the resulting friction causes ignition, duh.

>unconventionalstats.com/stats/the-average-top-speed-of-a-starting-nfl-offensive-lineman-is-15779-mph
>youtube.com/watch?v=P0gsgyY_QW0
>youtube.com/watch?v=75f6-LrXW5A

The average NFL lineman is much more athletic than most people you know.

>But they're both doing magical shit though, you just admitted it. How they do it is irrelevant.
No, it's the most important part of the whole equation. That the effects are magical is a non starter. It's the expected outcome of a high fantasy setting. The how is the most important in figuring out the distinction of mage and warrior. A mage is someone who learns magical techniques called spells that act as ways in which to alter reality in some way. A spell is a system of words and physical actions which program a specific magical effect to happen. Quite literally from Google dictionary "a form of words used as a magical charm or incantation." The important bit of what makes a mage is that they are casting spells to evoke their magical abilities.

A warrior instead learns techniques that bypass and go way beyond what's capable of an Earth based warrior. from learning the technique to harness his own chi to create slashes of razorlike wind, to allowing his odic force to repeal the heat of raging fire so he remains unburned. There are no spells, no magical incantations, no things that could be misconstrued to be that of a mage.

You could in fact mix the two, a mage warrior who has learned techniques to create razor wind slashes and who also knows how to cast sells of protection. He is thus both a warrior and a mage.

Basically, you're an idiotic autist who doesn't understand words and is trying to shitpost a very retarded argument.

You dense motherfucker my answer explains exactly why those things are perfectly valid. I mean, if literally everyone can do literally everything then definition becomes pointless and you might as well title everyone as 'Dude'.

Okay. So, when the fighter is a 'muscle wizard', he is no longer a 'fighter', he is a 'muscle wizard'. How your setting defines what he does is irrelevant, call it muscle wizard, steelmage, battlefighter, warfist, whatever, the point is that you have defined the niche of what this guy does and then given that niche a title within your setting, thus limiting his scope and theme to what that title implies. He's not just a fighter, which is it's own defined niche, with it's own (Admittedly fairly wide, but still nothing compared to 'wizard') scope and theme.

'Survivor' mage who focuses on staying alive means absolutely fucking nothing because that's a narrative archetype, not really a class/character archetype.

This entire exercise is about defining the scope and theme of what you want any given character to do, and then adjusting the naming conventions accordingly. This wizard can conjure fire, but not much else, so he is a pyromancer/blastmage/whatever. Since he is a pyromancer, and not a wizard, the audience has a clear expectation of what he can do. This fighter uses a bow with clearly supernatural accuracy and strength, but not much else, so he is a sniper/ranger/whatever.

Are you understanding me yet? This is a very common thing in almost all non-D&D fantasy literature if you actually look for it, and for good reason.

I'm not saying that linemen never do those things and I never said that linemen weren't athletic as fuck, I'm just saying that in most games, the linemen's job is to protect the QB from getting sacked, not necessarily to score touchdowns on their own.

The guy who originally brought up foosball never said that that was their job, just that they were all capable of doing those things at an above-average to elite level.

There were no einherjar in the assault squad on the Raith deeps. Only his regular thugs.
PCs are on a powerlevel too high to compare to regular folks, nevermind the setting. And hojestly, if you want to play games about tilling and woodchopping, there's Harvest moon and farm simulators.

>The how is the most important in figuring out the distinction of mage and warrior.
Not really. If you compare a warrior who trained long enough to break the sound barrier with his fists and a mage who focused on body augmentation to hit hard enough to shatter diamonds with their biceps, the results would be the same.

It's all semantics really, and the only reason there's a distinction is because for some reason, we consider throwing fireballs to be strictly magical while punching hard enough to ignite the air is somehow...not.

Not to mention, if you really want to be technical, a martial artist performing a kata would be the equivalent of a mage learning the somatic components of their spell.

>Basically, you're someone who disagrees with me, therefore you are autistic and shitposting because how dare people on a Mongolian macaroon forum have an opinion.
FTFY

>You dense motherfucker my answer explains exactly why those things are perfectly valid. I mean, if literally everyone can do literally everything then definition becomes pointless and you might as well title everyone as 'Dude'.
You can still have different distinctions without splitting characters between "Martial" and "Mundane."
>Are you understanding me yet? This is a very common thing in almost all non-D&D fantasy literature if you actually look for it, and for good reason.
Is it a thing because it actually serves a purpose or is it only a thing because writers choose to make martials and mages mutually exclusive? Like if you look at most literature, a lot of "non-magical" characters are still capable of doing shit like strangling lions, rerouting the flow of a river, or stealing a guardian of the land of the dead from its domain.

>There were no einherjar in the assault squad on the Raith deeps. Only his regular thugs.
Wait, is that the book where Harry works undercover in a porn studio because a dude's ex-wives keep dying in unlikely ways?

The one with the frozen turkey killing a blamp, yes.

Ah I gotcha, I was mistaken and thought that you were referring to that time that Harry and Carlos went into the deeps to fight that white court vampire who got off on fear instead of lust.

I think it was the one where Molly became Harry's apprentice.

Congratulations, you've found the line where they blur, and have declared them the same thing, like finding the line where black and white mix and calling all of it grey. Because that's what you've done.

A mage who focuses on augmenting his body is one of those blurring concepts, and it's meant to be that way. Kata as somatic components could be argued either way, though I say not since they are merely training exercises that aren't applicable in actual combat where that fireball throwing is going to happen, and he isnt going to do some silly arm movements like they do in Avatar (who are are variant mages with combat training).

Stop focusing on the grey area inbetween the two areas and actually look at the whole of it.

>Stop focusing on the grey area inbetween the two areas and actually look at the whole of it.
I am looking at the whole of it, and from what I can see, there isn't really much reason to keep them separate from one another aside from preconceptions borne out of tradition.

If the line is blurred then what's the point of pretending that the two halves still serve a purpose? You could easily just say that warriors are variant mages with combat training in physical prowess and it still wouldn't change their function as a dude who fights dragons with nothing but a sword and armor.

From a game design standpoint, I've always considered mages and magic to be an excuse for mechanics not covered by "human ability taken to the extreme".

Olympic athletes can jump six feet into the air. So thanks to the very same magic that lets dragons fly and giants ignore the square cube rule, people who've trained their bodies (i.e. Fighters, Monks...) to supernaturally high levels get to jump 20 feet into the air.

Similarly, a talented real life burglar can probably open an average locked door in a short amount of time. An experimented Rogue can pick a lock in five seconds and disable deviously complex mechanisms like safes and death traps in thirty.

But there's no human ability to shoot fire with your hands. So if you want giant fireballs, that's what Mages are for. Want to shoot an arrow through the head of three people at once? Sure, play a fantasy archer. Want to create passageways to other realities? Wizards exists to allow this.

Just call them Adventurers and use a point buy system with a feat tree, so if Jack wants to play Conan he can, alongside Bob the Merlin and Siegfried the Spellsword.

Or go low fantasy where fireball is 9th level and most mages can do is buff, debuff, field control, with undead control being evil NPC ritualistic pact magic the PC will never have access.

Fuck Jim Butcher and his reusing of locations. If I didn't know better, I would've thought that Chicongo was a 20000 people town, based on the locations in DF. Now I'm not sure what I wa s getting at. Yeah, fuck the deeps. And fuck my tired brain.

>Is there a point in keeping martials and mages separate from one another?

I feel that the separation was incidental in the first place. Warriors and mages are both fantastic in fiction. In the end it's just up to you where you draw the line in your setting.

"Magic" is not a role. "Guy with high impact abilities, but limited resources" is the role. This can be because of magic, but it may as well be the guy with a rocket launcher, and the know-how to make more rockets.

ITT neckbeards get mad at the mere suggestion that martial jocks be as good as their enlightened bookwizarda

>Hey Veeky Forums what pizza do you like
>>Depends on so many different factors that it reduces your question down to a pointless argument starter with no real resolution

It's okay to have an opinion.

Well I mean, the Raiths are an important faction within the story, what with Harry being related to Thomas and all.

Also, considering that it was a fight to settle a score with a fellow white court vampire, and the Raiths are one of the more powerful white court vamps in Chicago, it'd make sense that they'd use the deeps for something like that.

You really are retarded. A mage casts spells. What is a spell? A form of words used in an incantation to create a magical effect. Sometimes there are physical movements, somatic components, such as finger waggling, whole body movements that may mimic dancing, and such things. A spell can create fire from nothing via words and somatic components.

A warrior is a highly trained master of a bunch of fighting techniques and weapons. He may be able to do things that no Earth person is capable of, but on his world it's just a bunch of repeated training of his body to create these effects. A warrior can slash the air to cut an enemy 20 feet away via extensive training in how to hold the sword and training his muscles to be able to do so. No extra words or somatic components required to perform this "magical" effect.

Very often the magical effects that the two can create are very different, but there are some that overlap. A warrior cannot raise the dead, while a mage can. A mage can't tank a dragons tail to the face, while a warrior can. The effects that distinguish mages and warriors are different due to the ways in which they go about tackling problems, and sometimes they are the same.

See what I mean by White and Black, and the grey area in between that you are so fuckign focused on.

Pic related is a mage. Notice one of this interesting effects often tied to mages in many media, that are almost always missing from warriors who perform magical effects? Its the presence of a spell.

>A warrior can slash the air to cut an enemy 20 feet away
That's literally magic you fucking retard. There is no possible way to create that effect mundanely with just a sword and a lever. That is a pure magic effect.

Duh. Of fuckign course it is. But it isnt a spell. Do you understand the difference yet? Just because its magical doesnt mean its a spell.

Why are you putting it in spoilers? It's been 13 years since that reveal. And it was kinda obvious since Biancas party.
Yeah, the deeps are an important place, but the warehouse where the lycan gang was hiding isn't, yet it was featured twice in the novels and once in a short.

>A mage casts spells.
Not every mage casts spells though.
>A warrior can slash the air to cut an enemy 20 feet away via extensive training in how to hold the sword and training his muscles to be able to do so.
That's clearly a magical effect though.
>A mage can't tank a dragons tail to the face, while a warrior can.
Wouldn't that depend on whether or not the mage in question has access to magic that would increase his constituition though? Not to mention, what about magical effects that produce a wall of force or redirects damage?

Wait...its been 13 years? Fuck man, I still remember reading through most of the books when I was in High School.

Yup. Had to check it. Blood rites went out in 2004. I thought it was 2006. And my condolences. I only found out about it 2 years ago and reread it three times. Shaking like a druggie while I wait for Peace talks.

>And my condolences.
It's nothing to be sad about, desu I got into the Dresden Files around 2010-2011 and I finished reading around the time Skin Game came out.

So for me, I've been reading it for probably around 4-5 years or so, so the time gap isn't that major in my case.

Every mage casts spells, its intrinsic towards the meaning of what makes a mage. They are magicians who cast spells.

Yes it's a magical effect, god, you fuckers seem to think every magical effect must equal to a spell. They aren't the fucking same. Cu Chulainn's warp spasm is a magical effect, and yet it isnt a spell. There are a ton of warriors in myth and legend who perform magical feats that arent fuckign spells. They aren't mages, they aren't spellcasters.

And yes, a mage could probably have some spell up that protects him, but should he not, that dragon tail is taking off his head, where the warrior will be mostly fine. And the mage is prone to having his constitution boosting spell removed if that dragon happens to also know the Dispel spell, while the warriors health will still be way up. You've never really given this any thought greater than a superficial treatment that just looks at the fact that they both create magical effects, and it's starting to obviously show.

Is the Wim Hof method martial or magical?

>Every mage casts spells, its intrinsic towards the meaning of what makes a mage. They are magicians who cast spells.
>Yes it's a magical effect, god, you fuckers seem to think every magical effect must equal to a spell.
Okay, but what exactly constitutes a spell? What distinction is there from a wizard casting "fireball" a few times per day and a warrior only being able to ignite the air a few times per day because it puts a strain on certain muscle groups?
>And yes, a mage could probably have some spell up that protects him, but should he not, that dragon tail is taking off his head, where the warrior will be mostly fine.
Um...if we're going to go that route, most knights aren't going to be capable of taking a dragon tail to the face either. Also, what if the dragon prepared a spell that halves the warrior's innate STR and CON?

Have you literally not been reading my posts at fucking all?

> A spell is a system of words and physical actions which program a specific magical effect to happen. Quite literally from Google dictionary "a form of words used as a magical charm or incantation."

>What is a spell? A form of words used in an incantation to create a magical effect. Sometimes there are physical movements, somatic components, such as finger waggling, whole body movements that may mimic dancing, and such things. A spell can create fire from nothing via words and somatic components.

Read mother fucker, it could make you not look like a mouth breathing retard.

A warrior can do it through training and exercise, and isnt beholden to outside forces or creating the specific programs that alter reality. He punches the air and just creates the fireball. Yes it puts a strain on his body, but oh well, that's the consequences of lighting air on fire with your fist. The mage in the meantime has to carefully cast the spell via certain words and finger waggling movements timed in precisely specific ways so that he can conjure fire to propel it into something. He can only do this a few times per day due the fact that he can only hold so many magical programs within his mind/soul at a time.

>Um...if we're going to go that route, most knights aren't going to be capable of taking a dragon tail to the face either. Also, what if the dragon prepared a spell that halves the warrior's innate STR and CON? Why are starting to move the goalposts about the differences in mages and warriors into how combat is a highly varied arena full of various effects. But to answer this, then the warrior gets his head taken off just like that mage. Or maybe he resists the spell due to his training in fighting spell casters, his body rejecting any form of magic resulting from spells. He tanks that tail slap just fine then.

>Um...if we're going to go that route, most knights aren't going to be capable of taking a dragon tail to the face either. Also, what if the dragon prepared a spell that halves the warrior's innate STR and CON?
Why are starting to move the goalposts about the differences in mages and warriors into how combat is a highly varied arena full of various effects. But to answer this, then the warrior gets his head taken off just like that mage. Or maybe he resists the spell due to his training in fighting spell casters, his body rejecting any form of magic resulting from spells. He tanks that tail slap just fine then.

final paragraph fixed.

just keep things at the same power level user thor and oden as warrior and wizard in one game and Aragorn with Merlin in in another.

>A spell is a system of words and physical actions which program a specific magical effect to happen.
>A form of words used in an incantation to create a magical effect.
These two definitions oppose one another which is why I wanted clarification. Like for example, would a spell that activates the moment you lock eyes with an opponent no longer be a spell because it lacks "a system of words" to activate it? Also, what about spells that can be performed without any verbal or somatic components at all? Would that also mean that if a Warrior did a shout as he swung a sword to activate a wind slash, that he was using a spell since it has both a verbal and somatic trigger?
>Or maybe he resists the spell due to his training in fighting spell casters
So then couldn't the mage also resist the dragon's attempts at dispelling their spells then? Couldn't he just counterspell the attempt since he's an adept mage who knows what he's doing?

>Okay, but what exactly constitutes a spell? What distinction is there from a wizard casting "fireball" a few times per day and a warrior only being able to ignite the air a few times per day because it puts a strain on certain muscle groups?

Gameplay wise or fluff wise?

What is supernatural IRL isn't in the game world. So, the flame blade is magical here, but may be mundane in-setting. See wuxia.

How in the fuckity fuck are those two phrases opposing each other? They both say pretty much the same thing, one just has a second possible component to the casting.

As to the eye one, did you take into consideration that the mage still had to cast the spell before the eye contact? No you didn't. He had to do all the casting to set up the activation sequence of making eye contact. Do you even know how spellcasting works in pretty much any system? Because right now I'm getting the impression you're making a bunch of arguments from severe ignorance.

And those silent still spells are still cast by thinking a sequence of words into an incantation. It's not verbal, but it's still words.

As to the warrior, it depends on just how he does his effect? The only time it could be a spell is if that shout happens to be a magical word needed to set off the effect. Otherwise it's just a breathing technique as often done by practitioners of Karate or Kung fu or other martial arts.

What RPG systems and fantasy settings have you played in or read about? I need to know this since its looking like you're someone who has never engaged with any form of fantasy before and are going off some really idiotic pop culture ideas of how magic works.

>How in the fuckity fuck are those two phrases opposing each other?
In retrospect, the word I was looking for was "contradict." The reason they contradict one another is because in one definition, a spell requires BOTH an action and a phrase but then in the other, you say that all you need is a phrase to activate.
>As to the eye one, did you take into consideration that the mage still had to cast the spell before the eye contact?
What if it's something like a gorgon's effect where eye contact is enough to activate the spell?
>And those silent still spells are still cast by thinking a sequence of words into an incantation. It's not verbal, but it's still words.
If all it takes it think of the effect, couldn't the fighter just as easily be shouting "WIND BLADE!" in his mind the moment he performs the ability, thus making it a spell?
>Otherwise it's just a breathing technique as often done by practitioners of Karate or Kung fu or other martial arts.
What's the difference?

>What is supernatural IRL isn't in the game world.
Wouldn't that make magic in and of itself mundane though?

A gorgons petrification isnt a spell. It's a supernatural effect, yes. But it isnt a spell. There is no word activation, only the gorgons supernatural biology working, like a snake and its venom.

>Is there really any point in distinguishing an offensive lineman from a quarterback?
american football newbie here, they dont have different rules for those names?

>hey Veeky Forums what pizza is the flavor that is the absolute best and all other people who like other flavors are complete incompetent retards who should never dare to presume to speak about pizza ever again!?

>Trying to have realistic martial fighters alongside high fantasy wizards (Or grounded, low key magic users alongside inhumanly powerful warriors) is just a trainwreck waiting to happen.

point buy system

And as I forgot to answer the rest of your post. If the warrior is "casting the spell for wind blade" than that makes him a martially oriented mage. It really is that simple, though with you severely misunderstanding the difference between a supernatural effect and a spell, I doubt you'll get it.

The kung fu shout is literally just a random noise made by exhaling quickly while executing a move. A spell is a specific noise with certain connotations in the magical language that makes up spells. That is the difference. You'd know this if you had done any reading of fantasy books, RPGs, or mythology.

What Fantasy settings, books, or RPGS have you played or read?

>A gorgons petrification isnt a spell.
Note: I said
>like a gorgon's effect
I never said that it necessarily worked exactly like one.
>There is no word activation, only the gorgons supernatural biology working, like a snake and its venom.
So would that mean that spell-like effects like an Ifrit being able to cast burning hands 1/day count as a supernatural effect or would it still count as a spell that Ifrits simply get by default?

Wouldn't a good pointbuy system mean that equal points makes you equally powerful? i.e. you couldn't stay a mundane person with the pointbuy that allows an epic wizard unless you purposefully spread yourself so thin you basically have 1 in everything.

>And as I forgot to answer the rest of your post. If the warrior is "casting the spell for wind blade" than that makes him a martially oriented mage.
So why even have a separation in the first place? If a Fighter is a combat oriented mage and a Wizard is a spell oriented mage, they're still mages.
>The kung fu shout is literally just a random noise made by exhaling quickly while executing a move.
For all we know, they only seem like random noise made by exhaling. I mean, if you listen to most incantations spoken aloud without a background in magic, you'd think that it was all gibberish too.
>What Fantasy settings, books, or RPGS have you played or read?
This question has nothing to do with the discussion, which was whether or not there needs to be a separation between martials and mages anymore.

I understand that you're upset but that's no excuse to try and move attention away from the discussion at hand.

>Wouldn't a good pointbuy system mean that equal points makes you equally powerful?
In a sense yes, but it would also depend on what you're using your points on and how you utilize these abilities during play. Like having a character who owns every level/ability/spell/etc. doesn't mean dick if the player themself has no idea how to use it.
>you couldn't stay a mundane person
You really shouldn't be trying to make a mundane person in any game anyways, there's a reason why you rarely see something like a "peasant" class in most well designed games and it's because the main focus of the game is being heroic, not shifting about until you die of disease at the age of 32.

Theyre supernatural effects of their magical biology that are replicated mechanically within the game system by spells. A lot of people are dumb and miss this.

And I've never heard of a spell that is cast just by making eye contact (Don't bring up the Evil Eye, that's a curse and not a spell). Every spell that works by making eye contact I have ever read works by the mage casting the spell beforehand with eye contact activating the intended effect. There is still casting by reciting specific words and/or gestures.

>So why even have a separation in the first place? If a Fighter is a combat oriented mage and a Wizard is a spell oriented mage, they're still mages.
Nice try at a gotcha, but a wizard isn't a spell oriented mage, he's just a fucking mage. And a fighter isnt a combated oriented mage unless he is literally casting spells like a wizard while doing combat. However, if he is doing supernatural, extraordinary (non magical but exceed the capabilities of Earth people), or even magical effects without casting, then he is not a mage.

>For all we know, they only seem like random noise made by exhaling. I mean, if you listen to most incantations spoken aloud without a background in magic, you'd think that it was all gibberish too.
Just because you think it's gibberish doesn't make it so. Spell casting has always used very specific language, often of some unknown, ancient or foreign one, to cast its spells. Exhalation is literally just that random sounds and thus do not count.

>This question has nothing to do with the discussion, which was whether or not there needs to be a separation between martials and mages anymore.
The question helps narrow down your level of expertise and knowledge of the relevant discussion so that I can find better and more accurate analogies. It sets the bar on just how much effort I have to expend to bring you up to speed on how this shit actually works. So answer the damn question.

Okay, so what is supposed to mean?

So harry potter wizards who do wandless/wordless spells are not casting spells?

So a still/silent metamagic spell is not a spell being cast?

Oh for fucks sake, talking to you is beyond pointless you autistic twit.

Martials and mages aren't exclusive at all, they're arbitrarily split into arbitrary sub-classes based on the theme and scope of what the character can do. The world might acknowledge that it all works on basically the same power source (Willpower, ether, mana, SP, whatever), but what a character does with that source defines how they are titled and considered by the world.

Fuck off.

That's not how this thread has gone at all. It's mostly angry neckbeards yelling at OP for being dense as a neutron star and not understanding any arguments against his incredibly nebulous point.

There has been very little talk of martial caster parity because the very basis of the thread is that they are already able to accomplish effectively the same level of feats.

>Nice try at a gotcha, but a wizard isn't a spell oriented mage, he's just a fucking mage.
So is the Fighter apparently.
>a fighter isnt a combated oriented mage unless he is literally casting spells like a wizard while doing combat.
You just listed such characters as being a "martially oriented mage" though, I got it from your post. Please don't shift the goalposts.
>Just because you think it's gibberish doesn't make it so.
Okay, just because it sounds like random sounds doesn't mean that it's just him exhaling.
>The question helps narrow down your level of expertise and knowledge of the relevant discussion so that I can find better and more accurate analogies.
It's also irrelevant to this discussion and you're only doubling down on this in an attempt to divert attention away from your ailing position.

Harry Potter spells work by thinking them. Going wandless/wordless is about being so adept at casting you can just think the spell and it works. Thats how it's even described in the books, as far I remember.

The above also covers still/silent metamagic and is also described like that in the D&D manuals.

I think you are equating anime with fiction in general, which is a false dichotomy if there ever was one.
Perhaps posing an anime-themed game would solve your troubles?

So then spells don't actually need either to be spells?

Basically, you can use a point buy system to help reign in the power level of the group as a whole by limiting both how powerful an ability your players can buy and how many of such abilities they can buy without being cripplingly overspecialized.

Like if I were in a game that gave us 50 pts. to spend and something like "fireball" cost like 30 pts. it'd mean that someone could own a fireball spell right out the game but they'd also be lacking in other areas that a more frugal person would have experience in.

So basically, point buy makes it so someone like Megumi from "KonaSuba" has access to an explosion spell that can OHKO a castle, but she can only do that sort of thing once per day and she'd need her party members to drag her unconscious body back home once the spell has been used.

>Martials and mages aren't exclusive at all, they're arbitrarily split into arbitrary sub-classes based on the theme and scope of what the character can do.
So you admit that it is arbitrary.

Hello troll. I see you've got nothing better to do than be an annoying contrarian. I've always wanted to ask people like you just what you get out of being so purposefully idiotic?

Maybe capital letters will allow you to see and read better what i'm saying. YOU ARE STILL THINKING THE MAGICAL INCANTATION IN A STRANGE MAGICAL LANGUAGE IN YOUR HEAD AND THUS STILL CASTING THE SPELL BY DOING SO. That better? Do you understand now?

Okay?

Class based systems can do this too.

>That better? Do you understand now?

Okay. How do you know? Why do you think it applies to all settings? How do you know the innate spell casting abilities of an Ifrit you dismiss offhand up-thread don't work the same way?

Your definition is very rigid and you seem upset by your views being challenged.

It's not just anime though, you see it across the board.

Harry Dresden for example is a wizard, but he's also someone who is capable of throwing down with someone with either his cane or his revolver.

In FFV, there's nothing stopping you from having a combination of job skills where you have the ability to block attacks as a knight while also being able to cast spells like a Black Mage.

Or how in Bayonetta, the main character is equally proficient in firearms, melee combat, swordplay, and can even summon demons from hell to finish off her foes.

And those are just examples off the top of my head.

I'm not sure it's really important for balance to necessarily allow people devoted to swordplay to do things that defy the laws of nature to stand toe to toe with mages. If we're talking about stories, I've seen plenty of fiction in which weapon-wielding heroes kill powerful mages, and they do it simply by dodging or resisting their magical attacks and then stabbing them through their shitty robes. It's not necessary to keep mages and martials separate as long as there's good balance and playtesting, it just depends entirely on what flavor of fantasy you're going for, and yes, for a system that doesn't want anime battles, there's should by a mechanical distinction.

No you dumbass. Everything in fantasy should be magic, don't try to quantify it autistically.

Not necessarily.

In a class based system, "fireball" would be baked in to the "mage" class and if I wanted that spell, I'd have to get a bunch of other spells that I might not necessarily be interested in getting.

Not to mention, because it's a package deal, I'd have to wait until I reach the appropriate level to own "fireball" to boot, which may not be for several levels past level 1 (or its equivalent).

Finally, because it's a package deal, and I have access to additional spells beyond the "fireball" one that I want, it also means that my character would be exponentially stronger than a class like Fighter whose powers are centered around dealing damage or surviving damage, which is useful mind but not nearly as exciting as having access to a spell that shoots fire out of my character's hands.

To say nothing on games that allow you to earn levels in multiple classes at no penalty either.

Dresden is explicitly a worse shot and fighter then every other professional warrior in the series, by his own admission. Also not a Vancian caster so he's not playing D&D. I rather imagine he's using the DFRPG system instead.
FFV is Japanese, and Japanese stuff used the rules we think of as being "anime" before anime used them. In addition, FF doesn't use Vancian casting so they're not playing D&D.
Bayonetta is even MORE anime then FF is, and exists in a world and style of gameplay where the laws of physics are at best strong suggestions rather then hard rules. In addition, she is not a Vancian caster and thus she is not playing D&D.

I think I've nailed your issue.
You feel the need to combine casters and martials because for some reason you seem to think D&D is the only real option to play (your usage of the HIGHLY D&D-originating specific terminology such as "casters" and "martials" also suggests this), when in fact to accomplish what you want there are better systems out there rather then trying to make D&D do it when D&D has only ever been good at doing D&D, despite pretentious and blatantly disprovable claims about it being a good "universal" system by it's most recent franchise owners who really are just trying to get you to buy more books.

> How do you know?
The setting, and or system tells you. Like really, spellcasting in D&D, mythology, and a fuckton of others pretty much tell you how they work to a certain degree. Ive just read a fuckton of such works so I can reference it.

>Why do you think it applies to all settings?
I dont, but the vast majority of settings work this way.

>How do you know the innate spell casting abilities of an Ifrit you dismiss offhand up-thread don't work the same way?
Because the game manual describes it that way. Oh, i'm sorry, were you talking persian myth ifrits? Than that's also just their supernatural biology as beings of smokeless fire. You guys really do need to actually go to the library/google and read some shit. Expand your knowledge of things.

>I've always wanted to ask people like you just what you get out of being so purposefully idiotic?
I'm merely asking you to defend the position that you've so desperately decided to cling to. If you're upset by me challenging your views and asking you to justify them it doesn't make me a troll, it just means that you've taken this discussion too seriously.
>YOU ARE STILL THINKING THE MAGICAL INCANTATION IN A STRANGE MAGICAL LANGUAGE IN YOUR HEAD AND THUS STILL CASTING THE SPELL BY DOING SO.
So whose to say that a warrior's shout is really just nonsense and not actually some sort of martial equivalent to an incantation?

>In a class based system, "fireball" would be baked in to the "mage" class and if I wanted that spell, I'd have to get a bunch of other spells that I might not necessarily be interested in getting.

I mean, KonaSuba literally has a class system and a character with "1 spell-a-day" as you say. Not every class system has to be D&D.

>Everything in fantasy should be magic
So if everything in fantasy is magic, why separate martials and mages rather than having them be one and the same?

More contextless contrarianism that tries to equivocate between two disparate things by ignoring the meanings of the various words used. An incredibly common technique used by trolls to muddle the debate and fish for gotchas.

And I already answered those questions up thread, new troll poster to the thread.

Answer the question: what do you get out of being so purposefully idiotic?

It has a class system but in the same way that ShadowRun has a "class" system. I mean, the main character learns how to "steal" even though he's not a thief and it's also possible to redistribute your skill points within the setting at no apparent cost.

Classes in KonaSuba seem more like "roles" or "archtypes" rather than any hard-coded class system. Then again, I've only just started it so for all I know, I missed something important about how that shit works.

I guess, it just reminded me of the Ragnarok Online system where you got a class, and then that class has a talent tree where you can spend points pretty liberally.

I mean, I honestly think any system that allows that level of crippling overspecialization is kinda shit but w/e.

I never claimed it was anything but arbitrary, you complete pissant

In fact, my entire argument hinged on it, which you would have noticed were you not so dense that the very structure of reality distorts in your presence, allowing you to send your autism back to the past to create an exponential cycle of transcendental retardation

>Dresden is explicitly a worse shot and fighter then every other professional warrior in the series, by his own admission.
Doesn't Harry also have a low opinion of himself? Also, worse is relative when you're friends with people like Murphy, Kincaid, and the Holy Knights.
>FFV is Japanese
Why does this matter?
>Bayonetta is even MORE anime then FF is
Why does this matter?
>You feel the need to combine casters and martials because for some reason you seem to think D&D is the only real option to play
You're the one who brought up comparisons with D&D, if you're going to continue, attack my arguments and not the strawman that you've set up in the corner.
>(your usage of the HIGHLY D&D-originating specific terminology such as "casters" and "martials" also suggests this)
I used those terms for the sake of conveyance. People on this board are more likely to know what I'm talking about if I refereed to Warriors as "Martials" and Spellcasters as "Mages."

You seem to be mistaken.

>More contextless contrarianism that tries to equivocate between two disparate things by ignoring the meanings of the various words used.
You yourself have made equivalence between martials and mages and have also mentioned that the line between them was blurred. If anything, you should be citing yourself for trying to equivocate "two disparate things." if we're being honest.

I don't see why you're so angry over such an innocent question. Just because we disagree doesn't make me a troll.