Succinct descriptions of different types of "magic"?

[danzibr]

I'm not that knowledgeable on different types of "magic." I was looking for nice ways to describe their fluff. For example,

Psionics is the power of the mind.
Incarnum is the power of the soul.
Truenaming is the power of... words?
Sword magic is the power of... ???

[Starbuck_II]

I'm not that knowledgeable on different types of "magic." I was looking for nice ways to describe their fluff. For example,

Psionics is the power of the mind.
Incarnum is the power of the soul.
Truenaming is the power of... words?
Sword magic is the power of... ???

Sword mage is the power of advanced training/skill (technically they are)
Vestiges is the power of the beyond (they are beyond the realms of gods/afterlife)

[Afgncaap5]

Honestly, I'd divide sword magic into nine different fields of magic (even if it's sometimes just a highly trained esoteric skill) that are each simple enough, on their own, to be used by individuals in fields that treat them as similar things.

Pact Magic is... I think it's a combination of the magic of agreement or cooperation, but that's a stretch. Pact Magic and Warlock magic are both what I'd feel comfortable calling "Eldritch Magic," magic that's like divine, but not from any divinity; something channeled from another. (In Eberron, I'd use House Sivis' knack for Truenaming as a cue to let it actually be the Magic of Legal Binding, or some such thing.)

Arcane magic, too, is something that I'd call more of an umbrella term that describes dozens/hundreds of different 'styles' of magic. Certain 'spells' are just the manifesting of mental powers like a psion, while all the Power Word spells (and some others, if I remember correctly) are said to be versions of Truenaming magic that wizards have practiced to the point of them being spells. Some wizardly writings are also related to the divine according to the fluff of... some "divine wizard" alternate class feature thingy? I forget.

When I describe the fluff of certain casters, I generally give them some sort of theme. I had a "Wrathwight", a caster who fuels his magic through his own fury, and one of the probably-villains of my campaign world is "Lord Torul the Chainlord", a dwarf who's mastered the magic of chains (giving him powers over connections, metalworking, imprisonment, (mechanical) tension, and the like.) Players don't really know what's up with him, but when a dwarf no longer has a regular beard and instead has a beard of chains of different sizes growing from his face (some nearly as thin as actual hair, but others definitely not) then the players know that the guy's mastered something outside of their normal understanding of magic (unless you have a dwarfish caster, in which case they'll probably have some insights into how or why it works that way.)

(As a sidenote, certain questions become really easy for people like Torul. Is a Vine rope-like enough for Animate Rope? Absolutely. Is a chain? Well... probably? Oh, it's a chain and the caster is Torul the Chainlord? Yes, it's ropelike enough.)

Having said all that... while Sorcerers and Wizards do basically the same thing magically, I like to treat wizards as dabblers in dozens of fields while Sorcerers are masters of themselves. I'll sometimes try to give otherworldly appearances to sorcerers that can seem especially pronounced when they draw on the power from their own bloodline; probably not as pronounced as what vestiges give to Pact Magic users, but something along those lines. Visible shades of crimson appearing under the skin as blood pumps for a red dragon descendant, for instance, or dim glowing from the eyes. The X-Men and other mutation-related superheroes are good go-tos for describing the fluff of sorcerers for me (or Frozen, more recently, since Elsa seems more or less spot on for this kind of thing.)

[DrMotives]

Just going off of the fluff, truenamers have an awesome theme. They're codemonkeys, guys who've studied the programming language that existence itself is written in. Whenever they utter an SLA, they're injecting code into reality. Shame the mechanics are infamously bad.

[Afgncaap5]

Just going off of the fluff, truenamers have an awesome theme. They're codemonkeys, guys who've studied the programming language that existence itself is written in. Whenever they utter an SLA, they're injecting code into reality. Shame the mechanics are infamously bad.

I think that's part of why they're better as NPCs than as PCs. I mean, it's still simpler to use a different class most of the time, but there's something really unsettling about you and a few other NPC redshirts being brought before the evil magician who's been terrorizing the land, and having the magician suddenly unspeak one of the redshirts.

I realized partway through the Dragon War book that it had 1) one of the most generic fantasy book names ever, and 2) it had a lot of really specific classes, features, and themes from the end of 3.5/beginning of 4e being described. I've not finished the book (life got busy when I borrowed it from the library, and I ran out of time before I had to take it back), but I think Kathrik Mel was using Truespeak. I might've been imagining it, but I got that sense, and it was pretty effective.

...I also think another main character was a Legacy Champion, but it might've just been someone with a Weapon of Legacy.

[Extra Anchovies]

Initiating is actually fully nonmagical most of the time. The truly magical blade magic (e.g. the [Su] Desert Wind and Shadow Hand stuff, or the Shattered Mirror discipline from Path of War: Expanded) is the sort of thing that I'd fluff as the manipulation of life force/ki, sort of like what monks do but more finely tuned.

[Afgncaap5]

Initiating is actually fully nonmagical most of the time. The truly magical blade magic (e.g. the [Su] Desert Wind and Shadow Hand stuff, or the Shattered Mirror discipline from Path of War: Expanded) is the sort of thing that I'd fluff as the manipulation of life force/ki, sort of like what monks do but more finely tuned.

Most of it's nonmagical mechanically, yeah, but I tend to describe special monk abilities and similar feats of unbelievable training in the realm of magic in my campaign setting. Certain Initiators don't use anything I'd call magic, to be sure... but others dabble in things that are beyond the realm of the natural.

Then again, I also use the word "Wizard" to mean "Highly skilled master on the global scale" for mundane things in my campaign setting, so I'm almost certainly in a minority.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Arcane magic is the power of will.
Divine magic is the power of gods.
Truenaming is the power of words.
Sword magic is the power of the body.
Binding is the power of spirits.
(Psionics is the power of the mind.
Incarnum is the power of the soul.)
Warlocks use the power of demons.
Dragonfire Adepts use the power of dragons.

I think that's everything.

[Extra Anchovies]

Arcane magic is the power of will.
Divine magic is the power of gods.
Truenaming is the power of words.
Sword magic is the power of the body.
Binding is the power of spirits.
(Psionics is the power of the mind.
Incarnum is the power of the soul.)
Warlocks use the power of demons.
Dragonfire Adepts use the power of dragons.

I think that's everything.

Shadowcasting is the power of darkness.
Druidic magic is the power of nature.

[Saintheart]

Bards use the Power of ROCK!!!

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TransformAndRockOut_small.jpg

[Afgncaap5]

Not a bad collection of descriptors. Good room for overlapping, too. (Isn't Shadow magic a facet of arcane, or am I thinking of something else?)

Should we also classify magic from things like feats, like Aberrant Dragonmark? Or would that be better covered as an analysis of the individual things they offer?

[Extra Anchovies]

Not a bad collection of descriptors. Good room for overlapping, too. (Isn't Shadow magic a facet of arcane, or am I thinking of something else?)

Shadow magic is sometimes cast as arcane spells. It's also sometimes (Sp) and sometimes (Su), though, and it doesn't have the same power source as wizards (intellect) or sorcerers (willpower).

[danzibr]

Awesome! Thanks all. I'm going to revamp and old homebrew and was looking for catchy things like this (credit will be given).