ALWAYS lean towards giving the players more freedom to determine their character and "class" archetype.

That's just a given IMO.

Chances are they will probably come up with some damn interesting things, and it's better to let people's abilities develop organically than select from a rote list of abilities.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. Thanks, Kebs.
Another one, then!

Here it is:
If people get so much freedom with magic, how do I make melee fighting more attractive? Honestly, who wants to bash enemies with sticks when you can be shooting lasers and fireballs, right?
How do you make warriors likeable in such a game?

Give them an advantage.
In Legends of the Sky, Magic is admittedly pretty powerful, but many giant creatures have Anti-Magic adaptations making normal magic useless.
Warrior types on the other hand can learn Willpower techniques, which are basically magic except not magical. Like the special techniques and crap you see in animu. They hit with all the punch of magic, but they're not affected by the normal limitations that magic otherwise has.

But that's just mine.

Give them the same variety of options that mages receive (and maybe give them access to a little magic of their own as well!).

The potential for varying archetypes is endless; you could play a drug-fuelled, cleaver-wielding melee berserker, an ascetic priest-templar of the Phlegethon who can call upon the flaming wrath of their patron god, or even a magic-nullifying soulless drone warrior locked inside a suit of looted, ancient auto-armour.

Even relying on primarily physical disciplines and equipment objects, you can still make playing a warrior hella attractive.

Unfortunately, I want magic to be somewhat science-y, which means you can't just be "resistant to magic" per se. You have to be resistant to... energy. Which is impossible. So I can't make magic less effective.

I COULD make everyone a mage, but that means that nobody feels special (besides the fact that there will be several specialty areas). So scratch that too.

Hmm... what I'm thinking is that warriors get access to a bunch of combat SKILLS, which are essentially attacks specialized to certain weapon sets. These attacks would function kind of like coup-de-grace moves (Ex. An axe user grabs a foe with the neck of their axe, tripping them, and then hacks their skull in half).
But that kind of limits the moves, too, only letting them take effect when finishing an enemy. They aren't even abilities, really, just fun ways to take out foes.

I kind of like your idea, Torrent, with the Willpower attacks, but that wouldn't make sense within my magic explanation.
... Wait. No, it could. Hmmm...
My idea is that mages, to cast magic, pull invisible energy-bearing particles into themselves and then convert that "pure energy" into different forms of energy and manifest them however they want. But the particles are toxic in large numbers, and when they're used, their non-energy component "sticks" to the user. Those who use magic often build up a resilience to the toxicity, which is essentially the explanation for the MP system. But if I made warriors use the same thing, they'd have to use MP as well.

UGH. How did I manage to back myself into such a corner?

I'm thinking of just making everyone some kind of mage. That wouldn't be so bad, really. They'd all just use it in a different way. Some of them in a more WEAPON-focused way.


Well, thanks for the input guys. Cleared up some things, and gave me some more options to think about.

My LotS magic system is basically, magic is a wave/field, covering the entire planet, a lot like Earth's magnetic field. People can manipulate it with a special organ in their brain or something, the exacts of THAT are semantics, and it causes magic to happen in the world. They can only do so for so long before fatigue sets in and they have to stop using it, but otherwise the magic is pretty damn unlimited.
Anyway, all magic usage like that leaves traces/signatures of the magical energy on whatever the magic was used to do. So there's a difference between regular fire and magical fire. Magic resistance is just something that is insulated against the magical wave, and thus repulses the inherently magic-infused whatever.
Willpower techniques on the other hand, don't have the magical signature on it, for reasons I don't particularly care about. They're magic in pretty much all other regards, but are NOT magic. And so, they can penetrate through anti-magic materials!

Give them divine powers and shite.

Unless the gods aren't really a factor.

Just let physical/melee fighters be incredibly badass.

Like, major speed/strength bonuses, dodging capabilities, able to ignore certain levels of pain, things like that.

That works too.

Yeah, that would probably help. Would make the entire game pretty damn impressive, too... I just have to make sure that my descriptive writing is up to par.

You could make it so that everybody has an innate way to use the particles, and warriors are specially gifted in that they use it passively, or something.
Like, he swings an axe and his passive particles get pushed into it, making it like a big ol' energy swing, cleaving the dude in half.
Maybe.

I kinda like that idea, too, Izen. Everyone could manifest their ability to control the particles in a different way... and some of them could do it instinctively. This would mean that, while everyone will use the MP value, some of them would be far more warrior-ish.

I have an idea of what I could do, actually. I wanted to separate mages and warriors by using different values for their special abilities (in the warrior's case, EP: Energy Points), so why don't I just make the warriors capable of using their own bodily energy (which they have a damn lot of) to fuel their special skills? It would be like magic, but would be activated not by concentration, but by willpower, adrenaline, and stuff like that. This means their abilities would be a lot more "crude" compared to mage magic, and more like the kind of thing you see in the animu, as Torrent said before.

Deez ez guud. I think this could work. Thanks again for all the input, guys! I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Happy Thanksgiving, DRLFF bros (and sistas, since I don't know the genders of ya'll)!
I am thankful for anoher kickass year of RtD and being able to be in such a fabulous community.

*Raises metaphorical glass in a metaphorical toast*

Happy thanksgiving. Have another infidi roll.

Ok. Roll Alarm set for 5 days a week.
5 days a week, I drop what I'm doing and ROLL LIKE A ♥♥♥♥.