Poll: What's the coolest type of magic, in your opinion?

[ImperialSunlight]

Your Temporal/Time magic would fall under Arcane, just everything related to spacetime-manipulation (portals, teleporting, etc).

I would say that "time magic" describes an effect that magic can have, not the source of the magic. "Holy Magic" describes the magic as coming from the divine, arcane magic comes from understanding obscure knowledge, etc. So I'd say that "time magic", "fire magic", "ice magic", etc. describe different things than the others.

Out of these, though, I think holy magic is pretty cool. Not sure why, I'm not religious in a conventional sense.

 

[Vegosiux]

Ice magic, is the coolest one, of course. Objectively. No no, really, it is objectively the coolest, because it deals with the lowest temperatures. All others are warmer.

Also, ain't it funny that "cool" and "hot" mean such similar things?

 

[BishopofAges]

I don't see Bardic Magic on the poll (Music, influence, celebration, semi-sorcery), it seems to be the savior of all other magic because it doesn't have to make sense, only the lyrics have to make sense.

To give an example, creating a nightmarish semi-real illusionary block aid to force enemies to funnel right down the path of most destruction, just by singing about how horrible this place looks or putting uneasy guitar strums between blended melodies of hatred and fear.

Healing someone simply by gallivanting and doing a short presentation about good health and body mending.

Bardic magic can touch any real source of magic and give it a jaunty twist.

 

[Yopaz]

Personally I would say that polonium bending would be the best magic, you should really make a poll option for that.

As for the lightning debate, there were only 8 slots in the poll. Apart from casting lightning, there's not much else in the category of lightning magic, so I don't think it deserves its own slot anyway. Perhaps it fits into arcane.

Other is always a good poll option. Also fire, ice, lightning, water and earth could probably be compressed into elemental magic.

 

[SonofaJohannes]

I like Holy magic, if you got a God on your side then I don't see why anyone would settle for some fireball. Plus it's a great source of morale for your troops.

 

[ToastedCorpser4Lunch]

Demon magic of course, I guess it has a few overlaps with necromancy but summoning demons, demonic pacts, blood magic and hellish things sound cooler than skeletons to me.

The best type of magic is the one that explains how it does what it does and what the fundamental working rules are.

So none? Or is this a contrived type of explanation? Sounds like you'd rather have super advanced science over magic, which kind of relies on being unexplained, I mean, it's fantasy.

 

[Bob Thenecromancer]

Necromancy, Why Fight your enemies when you can make the dead do it. I mean its not the dead are actually doing anything. We spend millions of dollars every year to get rid of them might as well make them do manual labor.

 

[Salus]

As for the lightning debate, there were only 8 slots in the poll. Apart from casting lightning, there's not much else in the category of lightning magic, so I don't think it deserves its own slot anyway. Perhaps it fits into arcane.

Lightning manipulation has the same amount of uses as fire, if not more.

I'd have to mildly disagree with you there, I can't think of many games that had more than 1-2 lightning spells, while often whole skill trees and colleges of magic are built around fire or ice.

Lightning - Chain Lightning, Ball Lightning? Never heard of a lightning elemental.

Fire - Fireball, Fire Tornado, Fire Elemental, Volcanoes/Lava, Fire-Breathing Dragons, Rain of Fire/Meteors...



The science vs. magic debate came up! It's funny how that works out. Is something considered "magic" if we can explain it in particles? People seem to think "intangibles" are more romantic than "explainables." For example, if emotions were some "unexplainable" spirit that flowed through our souls, we'd have a completely different attitude to them. But now that scientists have discovered that they are "just chemicals" we put them down. Like it makes any difference.

People don't realize that "chemicals are boring" is just as much of a myth as anything else. If you want to spot this, look for the following words: "Just" and "only." It's just chemicals. It's only your amygdala. How different is that from some wizard telling you that your inner energy is reacting to this place? Edison, Tesla, these people were magicians, but we put them in a separate mental compartment, because what they do is explainable. If we got down to the nitty-gritty of divination, would that not also be explainable on a tiny, invisible-to-the-eye scale?

I think what makes magic compelling, as a concept, is that it's a way to externalize our emotions. That's my theory anyway. Because it's one thing to heal people with a Heal-Beam 3000, and another to have Arwen call upon the light to save Frodo. Necromancy is just an outward manifestation of what a power-hungry person's psyche would look like if it was outside of him (and walking around). I don't know, just thoughts.

 

[SKBPinkie]

Fire for me. Considering how chaotic fire can be, it just looks cool when someone can control and wield it as a weapon.

Also, this is a good example of why fire > everything else.

 

[Headsprouter]

Would air magic go within Nature? Either that or you missed a pretty big one...

Anyway. For me, toss up between Nature and Voodoo. Either way, plenty of creepy-crawlies, and a lean towards either of them because Nature (assumably) has the cool air magic, and Voodoo lets you assemble mishmash monsters and freaks to do your bidding. Punish your followers, strike fear into your enemies, all that good stuff.

 

[purplemonkey555]

Shapeshifting, which I guess would be under nature, right? That would be great if it was really deep, a different animal for any given situation.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Clearly ice magic is the coolest, as it is the lowest temperature.

In all seriousness, I usually go with cold based magicks when given the option, I'm nnot sure what draws me to it.

 

[StormShaun]

Lightning magic ... combine that with holy magic and you have some really good magic.
For now just lightning, which you forgot ... don't worry I know that there was limited number of poll slots, but you shoulf have added a "Other" poll selection too.

Still, lightning magic.
I have seen that in multiple forms.
Fantasy
Sci-Fi
And many other forms of genre.

Especially my own mind, I have experience playing/roleplaying a character well versed with the powers of lightning and electricity. Since he was the Archangel of Lightning Barachiel (In another form).

So yeah ... lightning/electricity magic.

 

[Mister K]

Magic that allows me to aid my allies and hurt my enemies? Yeah, I'll go with Holy magic.
In the words of Omniknight: "Healing and harm!"

 

[piinyouri]

Why isn't lightning/electric magic on the poll? Chain lightning is so absolutely broken in everything that has it.

Look at this shit, it just destroys EVERYONE:

Out of the ones listed, probably arcane or necromancy. Arcane wins out over necromancy though, because summoning the undead probably involves dealing with a lot of rotting flesh.

Oh man......
Diablo taught me two things. Chain lightning EVERYTIME YOU SEE IT, and fuck acid maws.

OT:Arcane, incomprehensible, ancient eldtritch kind of stuff.

 

[blackrave]

As for the lightning debate, there were only 8 slots in the poll. Apart from casting lightning, there's not much else in the category of lightning magic, so I don't think it deserves its own slot anyway. Perhaps it fits into arcane.

Lightning manipulation has the same amount of uses as fire, if not more.

I always thought Fire/Water/Air/Earth were under Elemental magic (or something like that- don't know exact name)
Lightning would fit under air

 

[Angelous Wang]

Chaos Magic, the power to bend and warp reality.

It's basically omnipotence if you can control well enough.

 

[Heronblade]

Of those listed, Arcane magic.

My true choice however is thaumaturgy. Basically the physics nerd version of magic, the wielder of this particular variety does his/her work by means of complex formulae and machinery.

While the thaumaturge requires more patience and preparation than most, the nice thing about this discipline is that they are able to manipulate reality much more directly than most magic wielders. Transfer some thermal energy and one enemy freezes solid while another burns alive. Lower the melting point of base metals within a region temporarily and watch as the armor and weapons of an entire army liquifies and reforms into useless lumps, possibly trapping the wielder at the same time. Use a patient's left arm as a model to regrow his right. Cause a flywheel the size of a city block to automatically match the rotational velocity of a much smaller one that can easily be spun by hand, use big flywheel to power other machines, including the small flywheel.