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#Post#: 894--------------------------------------------------
Magic: How Hard is it?
By: PLOTYNSTYNE Date: January 29, 2014, 1:07 pm
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Something that came up earlier that probably bears some
consideration. One thing that Unicorns have access to is this
little force that can change the world: Magic. Not the cheesy
"friendship is magic" kind of magic either (though that is
included), but actual, "reality"-altering juju. Of course, some
are better at it than others. Twilight is a pretty top-notch
caster, and Celestia may be able to grind her into the dust. An
important aspect of creating a Unicorn character is expressing
just where they fall on the power scale.
Part of this includes what kinds of spells they can cast. Each
Unicorn's magic includes a spell relating to their special
talent, but there are also spells that can be common between
them. Levitation (or telekinesis, whichever you want to call
it) is the most basic of the basic, and anypony who can use
magic can lift a spoon, for example.
Then you have the cosmos-altering spells Celestia and Luna use
to raise and lower the sun and moon. There probably aren't
going to be any applications for ponies who can do that.
Then there's everything in between. I like to think that any
Unicorn is capable of learning a variety of magic, given that
there's even a school for gifted Unicorns, but how hard is it to
learn to, say, teleport? Heal? Mend clothing? Put another to
sleep? Naturally any spell related to somepony's special talent
will be easier to learn than normal, but just how hard is it to
learn it "normally"?
Feel free to discuss.
#Post#: 896--------------------------------------------------
Re: Magic: How Hard is it?
By: Haywire Date: January 29, 2014, 1:26 pm
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Difficult. I've always felt that new spells for a unicorn,
unless playing up to their talent, should be very difficult to
pick up. Spells like teleportation for example should be
something special that not everyone knows because of how
incredibly useful it would be. I mean, imagine if anyone could
learn that spell and start teleporting wherever they wanted? How
long would it be until everyone wastelepoeting into vaults and
what not? I personally am trying to play up magic as a seriously
powerful force that isn't just something people go to the
library and pick up over an hour long study session, unless
they're Twilight of course, and have actually thought about this
a lot. Magic that has the potential of being destructive, in any
sane world, would need some kind of license in my opinion, like
a concealed weapon in real life. Carrying a gun is pretty
similar to casting a fireball at someone when you simplify it.
Because of all this I've always thought that guards, compared to
civilians, should be far more capable in wielding magic in
battle or just in general as its possible they, as part of their
training, go to a kind of magic college.
#Post#: 897--------------------------------------------------
Re: Magic: How Hard is it?
By: Brash Date: January 29, 2014, 1:55 pm
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There's likely a lot of restraints on gaining the proper
knowledge in the first place for many spells that are
destructive or could be used with ill-intent. One likely needs
to go to school to learn how to even get started as well.
Then there's a few things to consider when it comes to casting
spells, most probably need line of sight, stalwart focus, and a
good bit of energy.
Also something to consider is the power of the spells. Twilight
can lift huge things with her levitation and Rarity can't get a
heavy banner off its hook. So there's likely both the barrier of
learning to begin casting the spell and then practicing it
enough to make it useful.
I'd say it'd be rare to find an uneducated unicorn that knows
more than 3 spells, and on top of that they wouldn't be too
powerful. Then educated ones would have more with greater power,
and have an easier time learning further as well.
#Post#: 908--------------------------------------------------
Re: Magic: How Hard is it?
By: Jazz Date: January 29, 2014, 4:55 pm
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Restrictions on dangerous spells is pretty obvious. We haven't
really actually seen much spell use in the show, the only one
from a "normal" unicorn I can remember is Rarity fixing the
wagon wheel in her recent episode. Other than that it's always
been alicorns or ponies who are obviously exceptional, like
Shining Armor. Trixie may be a better measure for what your
standard unicorn can do, but I'm not entirely sure. That said, I
think it's definitely possible for a unicorn to learn non-talent
related spells. The difficulty of course would depend on the
spell, something like a light spell would probably be fairly
easily picked up by anypony, whereas a teleport or conjuration
(like what Twilight did with the parasprites in Magic Duel)
would be harder. For the average unicorn, I'd agree with Brash
on this one that three spells is probably what you'll usually
find, though I'd say those that have dabbled a little further
aren't especially rare, mostly for the sake of RP.
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