Magic in Roleplay: Specialization, Limits, and Balance

Argent Dawn
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The Travel, campfires and teleportation thread inspired me to create a topic more broadly related to the use of magic in roleplay. Rather than diverting that discussion, here’s a separate thread to explore the subject more fully.

World of Warcraft is a high fantasy setting with many different magic types, with arcane being one of the most versatile. It can manipulate time and space, transmute matter, create barriers and illusions, summon creatures, read minds, imbue objects with enchantments, and more. With so much potential, it sometimes feels like there’s little magic can’t do.

So, I’d love to hear from those who roleplay mages and other spellcasters - this is a two-part inquiry:

How does your character approach magic?

  • Do they focus on a single discipline or dabble in multiple areas?
  • What drives their specialization (or lack thereof)?

How do you balance your magic user’s power level?

  • What limitations do you set to avoid making them feel all-powerful?
  • How do you engage in roleplay without always having the perfect solution?

For example, Acrona doesn’t have a clearly defined niche, which allows more specialized mages to outperform her in various areas. While I roleplay her being innately sensitive to the ebb and flow of magic, and having significant raw power when harnessing arcane energy in its volatile form - she lacks finesse in control. This vibe is why I’m always Arcane specced even OOC for gameplay, to enjoy that fantasy of wielding the magic in its pure form.

To balance the power level, I roleplay her as physically fragile and largely stationary in combat, someone who is quick to fall behind due to a lack of stamina. Her poor eyesight makes battles blurry, so in a group setting she often refrains from high-precision attacks to avoid the risk of friendly fire. With all these weaknesses in mind, I often place her in a support role, using her abilities to create openings for others, as well as boosting their abilities. It’s quite nice to help others shine at an event. The more self-indulgent displays of power I prefer to keep to art mediums, and specific situations with small, close-knit roleplay groups.

I also like to emphasize the importance of concentration in her spellcasting - the louder or more chaotic her surroundings, the harder she must focus to block out distractions. I imagine part of her training involves casting spells while her tutor deliberately tries to break her focus, forcing her to develop mental discipline. The greater the spell’s power, the higher the risk of dire consequences if she loses control, reinforcing the need for caution in high-pressure situations.

How do you handle magic in your roleplay? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Moridunum doesn’t have a niche either, just drawing from raw arcane as needed.

While his spells can grow quite powerfull the longer he is allowed to cast, this is often a big risk, as he needs to be able to concentrate on casting the spell, which makes him stationary aswell! It will get especially dangerous when a melee gets in range off him, cause while he is not especially physical weak, he cannot hold his own to a specialized melee fighter alone!

Another big downside of his magic is that, its usually outdated, and thus, almost easily counteracted by the younger generation of Magi from the Human Kingdoms or the Thalassian and Shalassian Elves!

Also I do love to use Mana in-character, which gives him a big disadvantages since he doesn’t have much mana reserves! And being allowed the chance to cast a stronger spell drains more of his mana, then say, a quick, weak, arcane barrage!(which he isn’t able to spam like a machine gun either).

All in all, using magic on Mori had a lot of downturns, but if he is able to cast a powerfull spell, it could probably turn the tide of a battle!

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I shall answer for my main RP character as they are a mage.

They dabble in multiple areas. Their story started as a Tidesage whose field of specialty was Alchemy, but after leaving the order, their affinity for water/cold remained. Character progression happened over the years and she now has an (unwanted) affinity for Necromancy after her soul was touched with Death:tm: during Shadowlands thanks to one particular Lich. Even so, she borrowed from Tidesage traditions as a foundation for all that she does today, including their Ritual of Release to help souls pass on.

The curse. Although she has an innate affinity for Necromancy, she refuses to raise the dead for moral reasons — though she very much knows how to do it. Instead she uses the lot she has been cast to help the dead pass on in peace, often seeking out hauntings to help ghosts resolve their unfinished business.

It also began her profession as a Cursebreaker, since curses are often involved in trapping ghosts to this plane, and it spun off over years of RP into a career of focused around researching, countering and suppressing different forms of dark magic.

She wouldn’t call herself a Warlock or a Necromancer out of pride, though. Her long term goal is to try and find a way to break her own curse.

She has a big pool of mana, but a naturally crippled regeneration. It forces her to pace herself, because the recovery is bad — she has ended up comatose a few times over the years from over extending herself. She has to use mana potions, herbs and other enchanted items just to be on par with a normal mage in terms of regeneration.

She’s also physically not very strong, best described as a glass cannon. At the behest of a guildie, she began practicing sword fighting as a back up, but the progress has been slow.

She is a knowledgeable person due to years of lived experience. A friend said that she is the smartest person they know, so her biggest contribution tends to be her knowledge which she tries to use to help others. Even so I try to be mindful of the logistics of knowledge she has access to and how she came to learn that. I have RPed her for half a decade now and she has learned many things by encountering all sorts of people who had much to teach her, but she doesn’t have my lore knowledge concerning every topic.

Her role is often that of a support caster setting up combos for others to exploit if the circumstances allow it. A cool shatter combo with a warrior, or imbuing their weapon with power for a big hit, or just otherwise CCing the enemy to make them vulnerable feels really rewarding to pull off. That’s not to say that she doesn’t do moves on her own, but I am always looking for opportunities to set up combos and synergise with people.

I try to follow The Last Guardian as baseline for how powerful magic is, but ultimately the power level should fit the narrative at hand, and I adjust readily to accommodate the story that is being told.

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Finally! A worthy Oppo-… Thread.

My Mage is a Troll. As such, I wanted to combine her beliefs with her magic, which lead me to the idea that she views her Loa as the source of all magic. The Leylines are nothing more than a huge web the great weaver made.
As such, she doesn’t really specialize in a conventional way. (No Kirin Tor Magic schools here). I enjoy freedom in just emoting magic as its needed, but I try to balance it through a crippling mana potion addiction.

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I think the easiest way to balance it is to respect one’s opponents.

I’m a big fan of the likes of Naga and Satyr, so if I happen to include one in an event then I make certain that they’ll put up a fight and be tough for even a seasoned combatant to take down easily.

It’s the best compromise, in my view. Things get a bit more complicated when it comes to other players but even then it all comes down to the consequences of one’s own decisions.

If someone chooses to play a generic footman who has minimal combat experience then they should not expect to be able to take down a seasoned combatant. Equally, an apprentice mage that is just barely able to cast a spell should not be expected to thrash a veteran who has fought in multiple wars.

As far as ‘balance’ is concerned, I’m generally open to my character being injured during a battle if it makes sense. The benefit of that is that it also opens the door to giving some opportunity for the nurturing healer types to step up and get involved as well.

I don’t really care much for the trope of ‘physically frail mages’ since it’s an outdated stereotype and there isn’t really anything stopping a magic wielder from also being physically fit. That isn’t to say others cannot or should not embrace it themselves but it’s merely a personal preference for me.

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This is a fascinating topic, and one where I have things to say!

When I decided in early BfA that Lintian, heretofore an archer, would pursue the arcane path, I was well aware of the story-breaking potential of magic, and I thought about her future progress and niche long term, knowing I would continue to roleplay the character for years to come.

IC, her attitude towards magic was shaped by her latest traumatic experience, which was fleeing Astranaar as the Horde army steamrolled its defenses. She blamed herself for being powerless to buy more time for the civilians, and saw with what ease Horde spellcasters froze the surrounding lake and allowed the infantry to walk across, which influenced her choice of school to specialize in: she wanted to be able to save lives.

At first, when she was still a student, she could cast only the simplest of spells, and even then, her spellcasting could fail or backfire. As her skill grew, I still kept her within her niche, which was abjuration — specifically, barriers and counterspelling — and a couple utility spells like Slow Fall, which she took because of her fear of heights. I also decided from the start that Lintian, not being Highborne, had no inborn aptitude towards the arcane and had to learn every spell the hard way, through sheer grit and repetition.

As a result, even now, she knows only a few spells and is a narrow specialist. As an abjurer, her job is to not let bad things happen, not to make flashy and game-changing things happen. For example, she knows virtually no offensive magic and still has to rely on archery to attack. And quite intentionally, to avoid trivializing travel, she knows no long-range teleportation spells; I decided that teleportation was a particularly hard subject for her.

To evaluate the relative power of spells and how relatively easy or hard they are to learn, I used common sense as well as D&D. While Warcraft isn’t a D&D world, it’s close enough that I thought I could use D&D as a rough guideline to establish which spells Lintian could learn first and which of them (which is most of them) are still beyond her reach even now.

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Completely understandable and fine! For me it’s the charm of contrast; looking frail but being able to be a tank of devastation. Having the potential to burn an entire village to crisp - but also be taken down with a single punch. And it brings interesting circumstances and dependencies if she’s temporarily stripped of her magic by external forces.

That said, the trope doesn’t extend as much to my other mage characters who are much more fit in comparison.

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Syelia is primary a Conjurer and secondary a Telemancer. Other schools are something that she isn´t very good at (or, in case of Divination, outright terrible) and usually needs preparation or a spellbook to even be able to do anything besides the most basic of spells.

I mentioned it above, but the way it translates into RP is that, often, she won´t be able to help with Illusion or Divination spell, at most offering mana to the one doing it. Also, when in combat, instead of using strong wards or mana shields, she encases herself in ice, which can be very susceptible to other magic attacks since it´s literally just a strengthened frozen water.

Personally I like when more mages can fill up the blanks in each other´s knowledge. I´d say it´s the strength of mage being so versatile a class (I´d say only druid really compares) that you can effectively be multiple separate mini-classes as long as you put in the effort to have limited IC knowledge and abilities.

But, what I´d like to add is that I´m focusing on schools of magic from WotLK instead of arbitrary Fire/Frost/Arcane divide specifically because I think that´s what can truly create limitations for mages. I´ve seen people RPing “Fire mages” who ended up being able to conjure food, make portals, turn invisible, make powerful shields, but it was all fine and balanced because they couldn´t shoot a Frostbolt at their enemy (because it would be too OP, I guess someone should contact level 6 mages in Vanilla for being badRP).
There is a certain strange belief that somehow, by making your mage unable to do either Frost or Fire spells, you´re creating a balanced character and if your mage can do both, you´re OP and bad RPer. However, more often than not, the attack spells, be they Fire, Frost or “Arcane” tend to all end up with the same effect either in RP-PvP or DMed events, whether your character can use only one category or all three.
What however is going to end up feeling very imbalanced is when a mage out there can do everything. Stranded on an island? Portal! Hungry? Conjure food! Need to see what enemy is doing? Divination it is! Need to be sneaky? Greater Invisibility, can´t touch me! Regretting your life decisions? Alter Time!
Those WotLK schools are amazing precisely because they limit the strongest part of mages: Their versatility.

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Paia is a Warlock, having RPed her since vanilla and the Warlock class having changed a lot since then I tend to RP her has a bit of a generalist Warlock - she can kind of do anything a Warlock can do but she’s not going to be the most powerful at any particular thing, I do tend to trend towards the shadow and flame aspects of Warlock but that’s more of a personal taste thing.

She’s the classic used to be a mage but the less ethical magic was too tempting warlock, she was never a particularly talented mage and being frustrated about not being able to achieve what she wanted with the arcane ended up looking elsewhere for power.

Paia’s magic is kinda bad for her, as in, it has adverse health effects with prolonged use - she’s lifetapping. She doesn’t really have mana but will get progressively sicker the more magic she is using.

Paia is about as subtle as a brick, if she thinks a problem can be solved with force she will try to solve it with force. This is often not the correct solution. Her solutions are also, often pretty evil and as a character who isn’t actively working for villains people she works with tend to not want her to enact her solution to any particular problem.

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An interesting thread already, I love reading the takes!

Having shown a particular aptitude for it, Cirelle mainly applies and refines the arcane to conjure flame. Initially, it would not have been inaccurate to consider her a Pyromancer, as she had no interest in pursuing the lofty teachings of a Blood Mage.

This status-quo took a turn of events during the Dragonflight expansion however, as IC events brought about her interest - and briefly, a means of entry - in the Firelands. Cirelle essentially assumed the mantle of what would in TWW become the “Sunfury” hero-talents for mages, communing and commanding a phoenix in unison with her own inherent power.

Of course, this means she has largely neglected other aspects of the arcane. Many cantrips typically characteristic of mages demand more focus of her than they might otherwise, and she basically has no other niche of note. No chronomancy or autonomous mirror-images for this sorceress.

Several factors, truth be told. Obviously the phoenix’s power of symbolism to the Blood Elves has an appeal, as does her vanity, when commanding such symbolism to her own ends.

Of equal importance is inherent talent. Even when the magi of Quel’Thalas were yet High Elves, hers was an early aptitude for conjuring fire of great potency, yet also great control. This is, for OOC purposes, why she is a fire mage and not a destruction warlock. Even at her most destructive, there is a controlled method to her spellweaving and its effects - rather than a blazing inferno.

Asides from her aforementioned academic shortcomings, Cirelle all but inevitably tunnel-visions when focused on a given task or foe. This is especially true when she is casting spells or performing a ritual. Thus being quite stationary when “in the zone”, she is near-oblivious to oncoming danger, as well as changes to her surroundings that might be to her benefit.

Her somewhat recent “phoenix-mage” development is also uncharted territory to her, which, while largely serving as off-screen fluff in between RP, has come at some cost. Some painful scorching to her arms that required weeks of restitution and healing, and the resignation of a servant utterly horrified by what they considered to be a disrespectful misuse of a phoenix itself.

With great joy OOC. Frankly that’s one of the reasons I enjoy Cirelle being a gifted, but ultimately quite niche sort of sorceress. Quite formidable within her own purview, yet not a proverbial Swiss army knife of cantrips and talents.

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Super interesting thread, and loved reading everyone else’s takes!

I roleplay Aethian as someone who barely passed mage school, and didn’t study the theory. So mainly, he is good at very niche things he finds interesting. Everything else will be a pretend, as he had to to get his mage licence. For example, conjuring arcane food? It will taste horrible. Transmutting anything at all? It’s probably made of glass now, sorry.

The only slight rule bending I do is him being able to cast portals despite them being very difficult, mostly because of fun factor. If I wanna go RP in Silvermoon, I wanna go RP in Silvermoon, removing the barrier of “but it’s too far, it wouldnt make sense.”

He also fought in the Nexus War, so he is very against gatekeeping magick. Whatever works, works, and isn’t puritan about how its supposed to be cast. Which has gotten him in trouble as most of his magick came from his staff – which once broken, left him very weak.

Additionally, he doesn’t see any type of magick as bad or wrong, carrying a very utilitarian view of it. Whatever is needed for survival and strength. Alhough he has learned better than to dabble with the void.

Lately I’ve roleplayed him as a shadow mage of sorts, which has been a very fun combination. The way I gatekeep that to not be too OP, is that he can only use one type at once or a very weak combination of both (ex. shadowfrost bolt). Given his main arcane school used to be abjuration, its fitting I think for him to crave the use of shadow, which is naturally more offensive.

Mostly mana. It is really fun to RP mana exhaustion imo, and having to rely on allies. On smarter spells eventually. Conserving with frostbolts, or outright going up and bonking someone with his staff, or taking a break to drink some water. The way I usually play him in combat is that he exhausts quickly. Same if he has to do a big spell for an event, such as a big teleportation. His mana for a few days is gone.

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Thanks Acrona for this :smiley:

For Itlaris, he specialises in divination and illusion (as they complement one another). Secondary is alchemy and then the the other schools, he’s adequate enough but if anyone has seen him on the odd occasion in an event, he’s more than happy to help empower another mages spell than perform a weaker one.

I love the ritual magic side of divination in particular. Seems to not be a massive thing for some, but I love the rp of prepping for the spell beforehand which can then be cast easily if prepared successfully, etc.

I rp having to use mana potions and healing ones, basically, anything to help him when casting schools other than illusion and divination.

I rp out being exhausted if performing a powerful spell, but primarily, I rp more than other things a supportive role really, with illusion and divination than offensive (I do that as well though when needed, but limit myself mostly to pure arcane rather than fire and ice, which he can’t wield as well as others).

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I play Kao as a dark magician, not a Warlock exclusively. They were a mage long ago, but something inside them cracked, and they became a nihilistic pragmatist, a hoarder of forbidden esoterica. They see the cosmos as a big machine to be exploited, and all the things in it as resources to be consumed. They’re not picky on what sorts of magic they wield, but it tends towards more sinister hues as they’re completely amoral.

Blood magic, necromancy, The Fel, Dark Shamanism, Drust sorcery, curses and hexes. They’re very much a Jane-of-all-Sorcery, Master of None…relying more on the various artifacts they have than their own power, which is limited by how inefficient it is and how corrupted they’ve become.

The only reason they haven’t gone completely demon or tentacley is because the dark powers exist in a state of constant conflict within them, with none managing to tip the balance. They’re in constant agony, but they’ve learned to enjoy the sensation. It doesn’t help that they have only half a soul left, having bartered the rest in various pacts.

They’ve wands for the other cosmic forces too, Holy, Arcane, Nature. Power for them is just power. Against the laws of nature, they want it all.

I’ve tried to reflect this in their appearance, they’re mutated, and have this creepy, almost doll-like look to herself. It’s come at a heavy cost. They’re convinced that all the dark powers they’re addicted to have actually made them more beautiful, and more sane, and more intelligent, and more perfect.

The universe is a plaything, and limits are an illusion imagined by fools and prudish old wizards and clerics addicted to the gilded cages of tradition and certainty. There’s no end to creation, no end to the delightful magicks to savour.

Truthfully, whoever they once were has been completely devoured. They’re now something other than human (or Pandaren, rather), little more than a thing that feeds on souls.

I basically play them as this sad and sadistic addict masquerading as an archmage, the easy path has eaten them, and they live in denial. The supposedly infinite powers they wield are clumsy, polluting, and have all the sophistication of a sledgehammer, or a thrown bottle. They’ve let misery win, and it will keep winning until they die, or become its master.

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I’m going to answer this as my own mage character: Opa Lorehoof.

Being a tauren, she approaches the arcane with caution but curiousity. Arcane and magic in general hasn’t been highly used with the tauren and those who generally have are usually those who aligned with dark forces like the Twlight Hammer Cult and the Grimtotem.

She is still young, and learning, however, and taking the safe steps forward.

She focuses purely on arcane magic, with a high focus on illusion magic such as mirror image, projecting forms and creating images. She does not dabble in fire, frost or any dark magic.

Storytelling! Opa wishes to use the arcane to project images of the stories of the tauren people into a visual display so that others can watch on as she tells her tales, allowing for a lot more than mere words to captivate her audience.
She conjures simple illusions that take form of the characters in her tales, and even adds a bit of fun to it by having arcane sparks fly when certain enemies ‘die’ in the story for dramatic effect.

Opa is new to the arcane, so inexperience with the craft is one method. Simply not knowing a lot of the intermediate craft, her level of skill is only one of performance, of which many others might easily outpace her, even at beginner level.

Other feature is that she refuses to consume mana potions, or absorb arcane crystals for their mana and power. When she depletes her own mana, she has to wait for it to naturally build up again, which leaves her very vunerable and ill suited for long combat. Her refusal comes from her personal belief that mages consume arcane products that leads to high levels of corruption, stress and addiction.

To that end, she is considerably weaker than the average mage in terms of power and mana.

By learning. As she is still adapting and learning, growing at a slower rate than most mages, she is effectively a student in terms of her knowledge, and has to rely on others for protection and safety.

That does not mean she is weak, still having basic tauren strength, and her illusions that she casts can help others by hindering, scaring or messing with the enemy, distracting them for her allies or allowing her to escape.

As a bonus, here is an artwork I got of Opa, drawn by the talented Bao Tai (Member of my guild):
https://imgur.com/a/arDlQkI

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Now, here’s an interesting topic.

Though Reylyn’s not a traditional sorcerer per se, Fel magic is quite integral to her as an Illidari, even if she mostly uses it to empower her physical prowess. She does know a little bit of of Shadow magic on top of that, but it’s far more limited and rarely sees use apart from one sigil.
As far as specialization goes with her magic, she’s grown into an expert on manipulating souls through various spells and rituals, though with the limitation of what she can accomplish through Fel magic. So no raising the dead, but she could dig through a dead soul for information, provided it fits the story.

What drives her specialization on working with souls?
Power, I’d say. She’s unlikely to openly admit to it, but there’s something to that feeling of holding someone’s life in your hands, being their final judge.

As far as balancing is concerned, Reylyn is a rather powerful character.
It’s hard not to be for someone who survived everything the Illidari went through, though I like to balance that out with her personality and her personal restraint. She’s always a few steps away from a demonic frenzy. She knows this, and has no intention of letting that happen.
Turning full murderhobo while setting everything in your vicinity on fire might work if you’re all alone against a number of enemies, but it’s a pretty terrible idea when you have allies by your side, so she’ll do her best to hold back in battle to avoid hurting friends. Even if that means making it easier for the enemy to wound her in the process, better for her to take additional damage than to risk the lives of those she’s meant to protect.

Additionally, she’s usually in charge of her group on the field these days, and that gives me another excuse to hold her back. It’s harder for her to keep an eye on her people if she’s too occupied going all out on what’s in front of her.

As for how I engage in roleplay without Reylyn always having the perfect solution, that’s easy. Far easier than the relative nightmare of trying to balance a DH.
Rey’s a simple woman. If she has the solution, it usually involves violence and the use of Fel. She’s also a woman who tries to do what’s right as long as circumstances allows it, so violence and soul-consumption is generally considered a last resort.
Let the characters who aren’t limited to such methods handle it.

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  • Do they focus on a single discipline or dabble in multiple areas?

  • What drives their specialization (or lack thereof)?

If gauged through the contemporary categorization of the schools of magic, Venn’s specialty has always been transmutation. It feeds into the character’s obsessive need for control and allows the most practical benefits compared to the others, which is why he pursued its mastery.

If asked, however, he wouldn’t describe himself as a transmutationist but a battle mage - that is to say, as he describes it, not a mage who wields weapons but a mage whose realm of expertise is magical combat. Given how academic mages are portrayed in the setting, I’ve always thought this implied most of them wouldn’t make for great soldiers. So a large part of his application of magic deals in practical pursuits for the purpose of warfare. Quick and simple spells are better than your five hour pyro casts, and Blink is the most single useful spell any mage can learn because surviving to live and fight another day is as great a victory as anyone can hope for.

Beyond that, I’ve always centred a lot of his RP on pursuits of the occult, in recent times mostly from the “wasted youth” motif where he looks upon his earlier days of chasing power and immortality at any cost with a kind of caution only the passing of time can instill into a man.

How do you balance your magic user’s power level?

  • How do you engage in roleplay without always having the perfect solution?

  • What limitations do you set to avoid making them feel all-powerful?

What I enjoy most about playing Venn is that he’s not some archmage with a million mana in his pocket and endless stamina to use it with. Very early on I’ve decided that his power - especially when perceived by others - is conditional on his wit and ability to resolve problems with minimal resources. The magic part of his “magical solutions” is often rather simple but put to use in creative ways. So if people see him as a powerful mage, it is because of what he knows and how he uses that knowledge, not because the scouter reads over 9000.

He doesn’t need to cast a bigger beam than the other guy because it’s a waste of mana. Maybe he’ll dodge and retaliate with a minimal but precise effort. Maybe he’ll pretend to lose but avenge the shame by conspiring against this person and causing all kinds of problems for them. Most often he won’t even start that fight because it’s a waste of his time.

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One of the reasons I have kept Atahalni as a priest and not turned him into an affli lock is that, aside from the holy side, I really like the features the priest spell toolkit gives you.

You can dispel magic. Barriers, wards and magical shields become trivial to you. You can even dispel the most powerful magic like Divine Shield and Iceblock (a spell capable of stopping literally Gul’dan juiced up with all of Legion’s power, as seen in the pre legion audio story), making you quite terrifying for other spellcasters to face.

You are also the -only- class in the game capable of directly influencing the mind of your opponents, aside from warlocks being able to make people afraid. You are not just limited to terror: You can also calm people down without needing to resort to violence.

I often sprinkle this in my emotes as subtle attempts to de-escalate sitiations with Ata here, or charming vendors to give you a better price for their services.

That alone is very cool in rp. Most magic is! Setting somebody alight is great and all, but priests can use their magic for much more utlity than people give it credit for.

And if you do run into a situation where you can actually pull off mind control on someone, it is extremely satisfying. Ata here has forced people to stab themselves or their friends, make people jump off of great heights, or briefly see their allies as their enemies.

Being a priest, you can also heal others pretty effectively, and have access to a handy cantrip in the form of levitation as well as mind vision. I rarely if ever envy the toolkit of other casters rp wise, other than warlocks and their healthstones/drain life.

Atahalni focuses on shadow, void, blood and occult magic. All of which were taught to him by his mentor Elder crone Taru Grimtotem.

He tried to reach out to the elements and An’she first and foremost, but both rejected him due to his malicious intent.

In this regard, one could think that he is very singularly focused on magic. However, this is not the case: He understands quite well how the magic of other schools works, even if he does not wield them. This is so that he can exploit their weaknesses.

Just last week for example, he created a shotgun blast of shadow and void with another priest by combining the opposite forces together against his enemies, leading to a devastating attack. Or when he mass dispelled an icw block off of a mage and grabbed them by the neck and dominant hand to prevent them from casting.

Atahalni has often said it that, had he found out about fel before he did ths shadows and the void, he would have mlst likely become a warlock instead. The fel is quitw simply a quicker and in many ways an easier path to power, but it does leave you craving for more.

All in all, Ata is a shadow priest first and foremost because the shadows and the void were the first and only force to answer to him.

Shadow and void magic isn’t the strongest source of magic when fighting creatures of shadow, void, undead or aberrations. They are also very often either very resilient or flat out immune to most mind spells, and don’t have blood in their bodies to use in blood magic. He often struggles against those opponents.

As you also point out, many of the spells like mind control, or flaying someone’s mind, take concentration and mind control especially is very easily interrupted by someone attacking him for example.

Ata is also physically weak. He can fight a human sized opponent even when he’s crippled, but anything larger than that, like a worgen, tauren, orc, troll etc makes him fold over very quick, forcing him to retreat.

Black magic is also not viewed very positively by other people. So it’s hard for him to forge lasting bonds and alliances.

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Oh, this is a fun one. I’ve a few magic users, so I’ll try to not ramble too much, but let’s see:

My forsaken mage used to be a rather talented student of the arcane in Dalaran, prior to her death. I used the partial loss of self / memory of turning into a forsaken to justify why she would no longer be an expert at certain aspects of the magics she once used, and why she had to slowly re-learn it. She was also taken under the wing of a shadow priest, who imparted some knowledge to her on their own ways. This was a couple years long a process, but it resulted in really rewarding RP and character progression for me.
On the other hand, my goblin who is only learning to apply her talents as a shaman, barely dabbles in one or two types of elemental magic, and trying new things usually messes up or plain does not work. Which, again, is fun to slowly develop and play out, because she has a personal stake in wanting to learn about all of it.

Simple as that sounds, the bigger the spell is, the worse it wears my characters out; holding a portal open for 15 minutes while the group argues about something instead of entering, will knock them out worse than a single arcane bolt. I like keeping track of my characters mana too so I don’t overreach. Needing to find a moment to rest or recover or neck a mana potion, or deal with a problem without mana, spawns its own fun.
As for not having the perfect solution - if problems arise, a quick OOC ask rarely hurts, and failing that, I’ve no qualms with just disengaging and “cutting my losses”, which counts for IC too. If my mage has no proficiency or enough magical power for some IC problem, they might leave to look for other answers, or shrug and see if someone can help them.

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In a time when it seems people try to divide magic and non-magic always more, it’s refreshing to see a post trying to approach magic discussions !

Kheena uses both Void and Arcane magic. She started by learning Arcane from her caravan, who is made exclusively of scholars who have amassed knowledge from findings, or Zandalari and Tortollan trades - At that point, she specialized in Transmutation to allow… well, everything Transmutation does - portals, chronomancy, changing the states of matter. Very useful versatile stuff.
Later on, she was enslaved by a Sethrak who experimented Void magic upon her, thanks to the ever-present seeping of Mythrax, in a way that ended up fusing her with the Void in a way similar to the Void elves. She’s team Cosmic Void though, not Old God Void. So this one, she didn’t as much learn academically as she learned to tame it.

Still, even now that she is pretty much forced into a mix of Void and Arcane (Spellshadow by game mechanics), most of her spells still deal with Transmuting things. Portals turned to Void rift, Void magic has the ability to manipulate gravity so it became another form of Transmutation, the “mutagen” properties of the Void also help in the Transmutation aspect.

So in essence, she just added another string to her bow and expanded her array of how she can transmute things through magic.

I take a very “Frieren” approach when it comes to Kheena, which is to say that while she is absolutely greatfully powerful, she just… doesn’t care about power ? She absolutely could unleash very powerful spells but I just choose to not because RP is funnier if you don’t flex power, in my opinion.
I have created entire compendiums of the spells she would possess, and they’re pretty much all practical and with funny twists - for example being able to desync someone’s shadow, rendering a metal weightless but only that specific metal, transmuting flowers into mana crystals, stuff like that.

I suppose her levity in approaching magic is a big weakness when you look at the usual combat RP, since we usually judge mages by the amount of destruction they can and are willing to wage with their spells, while she’d just shrug and let someone else shine.
Still, on more basic limits, I do play her as being quite fragile and kinda dependent on her magic, to the point she gets exhausted by just running for a short time, so she prefers to stay on the backline and let others shine instead.
And on the times I have been self-indulgent, for example wrecking a near entire fleet by summoning a chunk of Voidstone out of a portal, after receiving the entire power of the other event attendants, she was unable to cast more than a basic shadow bolt for the rest of the event.

I also play a lot on the fact that, since she’s using both Arcane and Void at once, she is still somewhat bound by the rigidity of Arcane spells (the fact Arcane spells tend to have very specific reagents, incantations, movements. Else they fizzle at best, blow in your face more or less lethally at worst) - I see a lot of players who, despite not having any proficiency as part of their character’s story, suddenly pull a spell out of their butt because they suddenly need it (let’s say someone specialized in Conjuration suddenly able to make immense shields and great portals like a master) ; Well, with Kheena, I just recognize she doesn’t have that knowledge, she’ll say “I can make a basic thing but you know, this is not what I learned”. Simple as it is, there is stuff she just doesn’t know even amidst her great versatility.

Really, I know it might sound simplistic as all hell, but I do like this idea of “I could do it but someone else also can, and this is a group setting. Let’s have everyone get a part of the cake” as an OOC reasoning to not always be the one with the solution.
Limitations tend to come by just having common sense towards myself and empathy for the other players alongside me.

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Let’s talk Holy Light:

Merondill is, as a Paladin, intended to be clad in heavy, blessed plate and with weapons befitting such a figure; though he muses on the irony of his predicament often as he acts as a utility and support caster far more than a frontline warrior. He was a Priest for his life before, and it eeks into his form as a Paladin as well.

Although Paladins are technically meant to be known for a mix of defensive, offensive and support-based capabilities, Merondill primarily focuses on the supportive aspects of the Holy Light and the Paladin toolkit. He can smite, but he’s much more effective in a situation where he can empower his allies mana reserves and regeneration, their fortitude and strength and where he can put his healing capability to good use to sustain others throughout a fight that would otherwise exhaust them all, himself included.

He was a Priest! As such he was already intimately familiar with the utility and healing aspects of the Light, far more than he ever was with its offensive capabilities. It is his personal belief that the Light should only be used offensively in a situation meriting such necessity, the tenets and his personal view of mercy lean him much more towards means of pacification than elimination.

This is a tough question. I am generally quite a big proponent of classes feeling appropriately powerful and character’s in turn feeling the same. I have characters who would be absolutely roasted should they encounter a Mage, for example, and I find enjoyment in acknowledging that profound weakness rather than trying to “balance” the combat field as it were.

Although Merondill might have the same blessings of physical strength and endurance as other Paladins, he’s still weaker than them physically because he simply isn’t and hasn’t ever been devoted to a rigorous physical lifestyle so a skilled warrior or master-of-arms who gets into close range has a very good chance of disarming him and keeping him at bay if they maintain pressure to prevent him from casting.

Generally: Be The Support. Merondill exists to empower others in combat and to make them the Main Guy in combat rather than himself. In this way I think you can avoid some of the dilemmas that come up when a Paladin enters the field of battle, being akin to an original Hero Class much like Shaman is. If you’re standing in the backline blessing, protecting and healing, the odds that you have to worry about perceptions of skewed power-balance are almost maximally reduced.

There’s something to be said for “sensing the vibe” as well, I think. Its easy enough to tell when a fight is concluding, or people are getting tired and it’s that point you should consider doing the same out of good manners and respect for your fellow RPers. Even a Paladin will get exhausted channeling the Divine through their being for a whole fight, it takes great willpower!

Ironically, despite the Holy Light being Warcraft’s foremost miracle magic, I think that’s also the exact reason why you need to be very conscious of that same fact when RPing a character who utilises it. There’s a time and a place for divine miracles and solving a rubik’s cube generally isn’t the time or place! The Light is definitely a very narrative-heavy magic, and that’s why it can also be one of the most difficult to portray in not “pulling out answers from nowhere”, because it requires that you’re intimately following the story and narrative of your fellow roleplayers. Merondill has knowledge, but its primarily theological and emotional in nature - he’s not a academic scholar by any means, although he’s had such experiences through roleplay to have some grasp of it.

If you’re having an intimate moment of RP where a character is, lets say, pondering their views and questioning their morality, then Merondill is a good character to bring in for such a scene because they can provide the appropriate counsel to enhance the emotionality of the narrative.

In contrast, if you’re having a scene where the group is trying to figure out an Arcane puzzle in an ancient ruin led by Archmage Puzzlius Maximus he isn’t someone who has the appropriate skills or knowledge to be much of any use in such a situation beyond offering sympathies that we’re all equally bad at solving the puzzle.

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