Why is Earth magic so criminally underrated in most systems?

>>48458975
Because it's not as flashy as fire or air, and it doesn't heal like water. Plus, what can you do with Earth? Earthquakes, chasms, grow plants?

>>48459181
Earth would be the most quickly and massively destructive element, really.

Earthquakes are no fucking joke. Sure you can't flash fry someone, but you can impale them. Or crush them. A lot of things, really. I also don't see why water would be healing. It's just as destructive as its other counterparts.

>>48459220
>I also don't see why water would be healing
When somebody passes out, you don't throw a clump of dirt on their face to revive them.

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Magic does exactly as much or as little as the author decides, thus it is impossible to over- or underrate it.

>>48459248
oh, shit! so that's what I've been doing wrong

>>48459220
Because one of them has to be healing, and all the others are a worse fit to healing than water.
Plus, water in damage terms really needs to be hyper pressurised or over decades, neither of which work for battles.

Plus for life you gotta have water available.

>>48459248
That thing where shaking, slapping, or dropping someone slightly fixes? I bet you if you hit someone in the face with some dirt they'd wake up anyway if they were in a position to wake up in the first place. Water doesn't suddenly make people conscious if they simply can't wake up right away.

>>48459248
But when somebody gets hurt, they always tell them to rub some dirt in it.

>>48459286
>water in damage terms really needs to be hyper pressurised or over decades, neither of which work for battles

Living creatures are 80-90% water.

Realistically a water mage could kill you better than anyone else.

>>48459316
Well in that case the fire mage can just immolate you from the inside out and the wind mage can explosively decompress you.

>>48459286
Why does there HAVE to be a healing element? And sheer masses of water (you know, tsunami) can fuck shit up too. Flash floods can carry cars with just a few feet of water. Ice can kill you. Acid can kill you. All of this water based stuff can off you quite reliably.

>>48459248
There are several mythologies where the first humans' bodies were formed out of clay or some other earthen material, so if the setting gives mortal races similar origins it might be symbolically appropriate to give earth magic healing and other body-altering effects.

>>48459344

Your body is not flammable. It would require ridiculous temperatures to ignite someone from the inside.

Meanwhile a water mage could just boil you. Or make your blood rip you apart. Or just destroy your heart.

>>48459344
>explosive decompression
>bad
that takes like 60 combat turns, anon.
More, if you know how to deal with low atmosphere environments.
And all you really get is the bends and some tissue damage, then.

>>48459352

I'm pretty sure water killed more people than any other element.

>>48459352
Because healing magic is cool and we want healing magic.
Of course, there doesn't HAVE to be healing magic. But there also doesn't have to be offensive magic. Or magic.
Magic system makers want healing magic so they put it in water.

Plus it lets healzerkers be a thing.

>>48459248
>Not throwing rocks at unconscious people

>>48459286
>Plus, water in damage terms really needs to be hyper pressurised or over decades, neither of which work for battles.

>because niggas have never drowned in the history of ever

>>48459376
Assuming that they can directly affect water that is mixed in with all the other bits of a human and built around the setting's equivalent to a soul.
The thing that lets a mage do magic can also protect against magic, in many settings.

>>48459428

Fire mages can create fire out of thin air. Water mages would have like 20 times easier job considering 80% of you is already water.

And things like hydrokinesis should work on humans perfectly fine.

>>48458975

Try GURPS. Earth spells are excellent. If anything, earth college might be the best (or tied with Fire to be the best). Stone Missile is almost stupidly good, and more broadly useful than even Fireball (itself very good). Then you get the transmutation spells, often accused to be economy-destroyers.

>>48459401
Magic healing removes almost all consequence most of the time. What's the point of injury if you can heal? It ends up "Did it kill him instantly? No, back in the fight. Yes? Oh well moving on." or even worse "is he dead? REVIVE!".

>>48458975
Because it's pretty grounded.

>>48458975
Because real earth magic is chemistry.

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>>48458975
Because it's OP.

Because it's vague. Are your powers just telekinesis and you throw rocks around? Do you only control rocks or also dirt, sand, etc? If you can control rocks why can't you control iron and metal in general? That would be overpowered.

>>48459540
Shut the fuck up, Carlos, you stupid spic fuck.

>>48459611

Usually earth magic actually also means metal control.

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>>48459286
Fire healing as part of channeling divine fire of creation.

Earth healing with origins of earthly creation or flesh being solid in nature despite its fluid content.

Air healing in breath of life concepts, reviving those near death and giving them a second wind.

Not even clear what it is. In some settings it deals with plants, in others it's just the ground, in others it's a lot more.

Also, how would you make a concentrated earthquake anyway? You just can't make an earthquake near you that doesn't harm you.

>>48459667

Fire also has phoenixes and flames of rebirth.

Elemental magic it's shit

>>48459671
You make damn sure that you personally are in an empty field with no tall objects or steep ledges to fall under or off of before you launch your quake.

I liked how in Golden Sun, earth, water and fire all had healing spells. Elements are pretty fucking wide, they all should cover a nice amount of offensive and defensive options, including buffing, debuffing and healing.

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>>48459181
Terrain manipulation.

>>48459482
That's why most systems include a series of tradeoffs that restrict the power of healing magic.

>>48459671

Earthquakes would be more dangerous to castles or cities.

In normal fights stuff like collapsing parts of earth to swallow everything standing there would be pretty deadly. Or turning areas into quicksand or muddy swamp.

>>48458975

Because most systems don't have aliens, and 'Welcome to Urf' only works on ayylmaos.

>>48459355
By that logic, life is also a breath and a spark.
All four classical elements should have access to healing or at least buffing.

>>48459248
Does fire count as healing if it's used to cauterize wounds?

Fire Opposes Water
Earth Opposes Wind
Ice Opposes Lava
Light Opposes Darkness
Lightning Opposes ???

>>48459816
Sounds good to me.

>>48459816
>>48459877


see >>48459667
>>48459681

>>48459873
Rubber?

>>48459935
>That damned condom wuxia is beating my lightning dick style!

>>48459296
>Water doesn't suddenly make people conscious if they simply can't wake up right away.
Not true, actually. Your body has two basic sets of reflexive actions; normal and priority.
Normal reflexes respond to general or generic stimulus, such as being touched, movement, and other reactions where the stimulus isn't tied to a specific concept. This is the kind that the doctor tests by hitting your knee.
Priority, on the other hand, are selective responses to more narrow types of stimuli where the response is tailored to the specific, ingrained concept of the stimulus. These are the sort where simply flinching or moving away aren't sufficient responses, but the sensation needs to be immediately reacted to.
This sort of reflex is triggered by, for example, the feeling of water on your face (body assumes you are about to drown) or a bug crawling across your skin.

In short, throwing water on someone's face is in fact several orders of magnitude more effective at waking them up quickly than throwing anything else, because it trips the body's evolutionary response which assumes your sleeping area has been flooded and you are about to die.

>>48459998
Try dropping someone when they are asleep. They will be up before they hit the ground every time. Or they're drunk.

>>48459998
It's even more effective to put water directly into their mouth or nose, although then you have to deal with water down the wrong pipe.
If someone doesn't immediately come to when you pour water down their throat, they're dead or in a coma.

>>48460043
That's another priority reflex I should have mentioned. Good catch.

Slightly harder to implement on a sleeping person in most circumstances, though, unless they fell asleep near a convenient ledge. Otherwise you'd have to lift the up first, and if they wake up while you're holding them you've invited shitty harem anime cliches into your life.

>>48460107
>carrying someone is shitty haremshit

Bruh.

>>48459873
Force. Kinetic energy (moves matter) opposing electromagnetic (moves itself through matter).

>>48460119
>not wanting carrying your passed out bro to turn into an an ecchi shonen-ai series

>>48460226
>implying I have bros or friends

>>48459873
Gravity?
Lightning comes from the air, and gravity comes from the earth. There are many similarities between electric fields and gravitational fields.

>>48459181
The power of creation. Oh, a tornado, a tsunami? Cute. And you over there, playing with fire. You burned down the forest did you? I put my thoughts and my power together with the ground we all tread upon and presto, a castle.

>>48459873
Metal
Or Void, since electricity cannot travel without a medium without extreme energy

>>48458975
>Earth Spikes
>Petrify
>Stone Form(Str bonus and Damage barrier at a slighty slower MV? Why not)
>Forge(Non-Earth users and their having to worry about time modifiers. Hilarious)
>Detect Minerals(There's GOLD in them thar hills!)
>Earthquake
>Slowness
>Weight Increase
>Magnetic Shield
>Pass Through Solid Matter
>Reverse Gravity
>Gravity Destruction(STR check or squish, fags)
>FUCKING METEOR!

Anima is not most systems. Only drawback is usually a lack of damage against spectral beings, solved by the Metamagick Sphere Energy Control, which just ups the cost to cast by 10 points.

>>48460249
It'll be okay; I'll swing by, we can do whatever, then at some point one of us will say something that is an entendre or we'll have some kind of physical contact, and then you'll get a bit flustered and angry. Everything will work out.

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>>48459935

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>>48460543
>>48459935

>>48460119
>reading compression
No, nigga, I'm saying that waking up to find you with your arms around them is going to look seriously weird, and "I was just going to drop you to wake you up, honest" is only going to sound even weirder.
Then they go "Kyaa!" and slap you.

>>48460513
But under the Eastern classical system of elements, Metal and Void are the same thing and are associated with lightning.

>>48460567
>people slap people instead of putting them down

You watch way too much anime, dude. Most people would just drop out of your grasp or ask you to put them down. Because if they slap you, you're going to drop them and they won't be in a position to land safely. People aren't that stupid. Mostly.

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>>48459947

>http://webmshare.com/07GP1

>>48459873
I am reminded of an old World of Darkness game.

You have your four classic elements, Earth, Fire, Air and Water.

As usual, Fire opposes Water and Earth opposes Air. Then you have your "mixed" elements.

Lightning, Fog, Clay and Lava.

Lava = Fire + Earth
Lightning + Fire + Air
Fog = Air + Water
Clay = Water + Earth

Lava acts as opposition to Fog while Clay opposes Lightning.

>>48460604
>what is a joke

>>48461494
>implying anyone here has a sense of humor

>>48460587
>Metal and Void are the same thing
Nigga what. No. Just, no.

Void/Ether/However it translates is often seen amongst the classical four Western/Greek elements once you start heading eastward (India, Japan, etc.), but Metal is its own thing and a part of the Chinese cycle, which is totally separate and distinct from the Western four.

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>>48460866
wut

>>48459220
>I also don't see why water would be healing.
Because water symbolizes life.
Also to stay healthy drink at least 2 liter water a day.

>>48458975
>DCSS
>iron shot as an all purpose damage dealer
>crystal spear for gigantic single target damage that can't be resisted
>rapid deconstruction to destroy any terrain you can see and deal massive damage to stone enemies

>>48460962

Don't think that's oWoD, think that's straight up how the quasi-elemental planes in D&D work, though between Earth+Water is ooze not clay, and steam was between air+water.

>>48460866
Well then. That was something.

>>48458975
we had an arcane archer once in a campaign. he would put earthen arcane runes on his arrows so that if he shot it into stone it would create a small pillar of the stone where the arrow hit. He'd use it to create cover at a moments notice or block passageways. it was pretty damn cool.

I know I'm not adding anything to the discussion just that it was relevant/cool enough to share.

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>>48458975

Post cool earth magic

>>48459220
The body is 70% water.

>>48459220
From a mechanical standpoint, I think water makes sense as healing.

Being able to stanch bleeding, for example, would be a massive benefit towards preventing deaths, especially their ability to identify and deal with internal bleeding. You can easily work that into preventing and removing infection/disease as well, imagine a water themed mage who could extract harmful bacteria from your blood, or identify parts of the body that were having trouble.

Hell, imagine a water mage who could break up kidney stones or even deal with issues like constipation.

>>48459376
>Your body is not flammable. It would require ridiculous temperatures to ignite someone from the inside.

While this is true, raising your body temperature by even a few degrees will incapacitate anyone with a fever. A few more and they cook alive in their own juices.

Not as flashy, but quite effective.

>>48460866
Am I supposed to be aroused or laughing?

>>48462978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3BxvHhz4XQ

erf magic done right

>>48458975
Ever heard of the golden sun videogame series? Good earth magic there

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>>48462978

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>>48462978

>>48459935
Rubber is more conductive than /air/.
If something is strong enough to pass through that, rubber won't stop it.

>>48458975
>most systems
do you mean only d&d?
It was the best magic path in Hero Quest
Stupid good in Heroes of Might and Magic
Can be broken like any other element in dresden files.
Toph kicked ass in last airbender.

>>48464337
>Toph kicked ass in last airbender.

Earth gets even more ridiculous in the sequel, Toph founds a whole police force of metalbenders, and then you have fucking lavabenders like Ghazan, who can do shit that the entire Fire Nation military couldn't manage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YECBvh4pv38

After this he destroys one of the Air Nomad temples by himself.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/o28mh6nv22w9ciy/Eldritch+*ss+Kicking+Corebook.pdf

>>48464311
In terms of dielectric strength, rubbers rate several times higher than air, the fuck you trying to say

>>48458975
As you can see from pretty much every response in this thread it's because most people are tremendously bad writers.

>>48459267
>What?! Fifty zombies?!

>>48458975
Eh, earth magic is usually the best of the four element systems variety because it's the creation magic. Pretty much everything is made out of earth, and so it gets all the powers that deal with making and unmaking things.

>>48458975
Because the biggest benefit of Earth magic is that it can be used to create permanent objects, like walls or forts.

This is usually overlooked, as most systems are more concerned with the players going out and killing lots of enemies rather than sitting around constructing forts and waiting for threats to come to them. That tends to be why it loses out compared to the other types of magic, which tend to be better while travelling or on the attack.

There's also the fact that in a typical dungeon crawling game, Earth magic is usually restricted so the party can't simply burrow through all the walls and skip to the end of the dungeon. Basically it's a combination of Earth being better on Defense than Offense, and having its main offensive uses nerfed to make sure things aren't too easy.

>>48458975
It's not flashy enough and is straight up broken in terms of terrain control.

>>48459248
Waterboarding them doesn't fucking heal either.

>>48462978
Go away Tenshi.

>>48464469
Compare thickness. Meters of air between whatever's shooting lightning at you and some inches of rubber you'll be trying to hide behind.

>>48460587
In the classical Chinese 5 elements metal is associated with death .

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>>48464685
China confirmed metal as fuck

>>48458975
Who is this semen demon?

>>48464730
Filename+google, anon

Or GIS for specific character.

>>48458975
It usually seems like it's either really overpowered (open a chasm, knock enemies from their feet, hurl boulders, petrify enemies!), or it's just the most boring reskin of the exact same set of basic powers.
I am kind of surprised that that's how it is since Avatar The Last Airbender did an awesome job with it.
Negima also does a decent job with it, though the one that uses it is an extremely powerful mage, so we definitely get an OP view on it.
Maybe because their version just makes tunneling too easy, which would ruin a lot of good rail-roading opportunities.

>>48464665
Waterboarding does heal. It heals the following afflictions:
-treason
-terrorism
-extremism

>>48458975
Earth is the most passive element (cold/dry and blunt/dense/immobile). Black bile (melancholia) was the humor identified with earth. You can't create or transform things with dust alone, you need energy of the other three elements for that.

Earth-based death magic could be interesting, I guess. Life/energy drain or dissolution, raise the dead from dust/turn the living to dust, spread plague, encase in concrete substance, bury alive, etc.

>>48463028

Who do you think could raise water temperature faster, fire mages or water mages?

Seriously, water mage just needs to raise the temperature of water in your body by 70 degrees and you pretty much explode.

>>48458975
In might & magic its very good.

>>48464730
...Fuckit, here's your spoon.

She's Edna from Tales of Zestria. Her weapon of choice is her parasol and her personality can best be described as, "Sarcastic little troll." She claims to hate humans (she's a type of holy spirit being), but tolerates the MC mostly because he promised to help save her brother and if she hangs around with him, she can mess with his other human companions.

For example: https://youtu.be/0KpFweDUw8Y?t=50

As you can see, she is clearly the best character in the game.

>>48465213
Wow, those dialogue scenes would shit me up the wall

>>48465361
Yeah, they're 90% terrible. Fortunately, they're also 100% optional.

Shit you could do with standard earth magic:
>launch boulders
>stone spears
>rock walls to block incoming attacks
>terrain modification to create manholes, vantage points, swamp-level mud to slow down or even completely stop enemy movement
>golems and shit
>sand control
And that's without taking into account plant and metal-based spells. You even have a retarded instant death option in petrification.

>>48460510
still not shiny enough it's not like lightning or fire or light or ice or magic lasers. People just love shiny things.

>>48460538
>Earth Spikes
one can do that with hands
>Petrify
Not earth magic it does nothing with earth it turns a person to stone
>Stone Form(Str bonus and Damage barrier at a slighty slower MV? Why not)
See: Petrify
>Forge(Non-Earth users and their having to worry about time modifiers. Hilarious)
Does not manipulate the earth
>Detect Minerals(There's GOLD in them thar hills!)
Okay but not good for flashy battle scenes
>Earthquake
point
>Slowness
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
>Weight Increase
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
>Magnetic Shield
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
>Pass Through Solid Matter
No good for show
>Reverse Gravity
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
>Gravity Destruction(STR check or squish, fags)
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
>FUCKING METEOR!
Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way it comes from the sky

>>48465542
I can confirm. I am a person and I love shiny things.

>>48465563
>Earth
>not flashy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4awia4cRu_U

>>48464661
>everything around you going to hell and shit getting swallowed up by dirt isn't flashy

I feel like earth's strengths lie heavily in terrain control and BIG things, that could maybe be scaled down.

>instant pitfall trap
>Creating walls and pillars
>Mud and trenches
>Stone golems, arguably better than ice golems
>Really stonking big golems
>"This is my brick wizard's tower, it's also a mobile fortress golem"
>Spikes shooting out of the ground
>Throw big things, boulders, spears/arrows made of stone. all at speeds they should not be able to travel.
>Shatter rocks at a distance for frag grenades.
>Rock armour.

Adding in minerals and suddenly you're an anti-warrior.
>shatter armour and weapons of an enemy.
>re-fit armour easily
>Those stone swords and spears you make? now actually metal.
>Metal locks are nothing
>find yourself an iron deposit and buy the land on top of it, own the market.
>metal armour... wait damnit!
>Stylish shiny things, gemstones as focii, emerald grenades, etc.

A lot of this is also kinda just "earth manipulation", not counting more magic-y stuff based on earth as an element (which would be heavily setting based probably). Also, a lot of stuff earth does can also probably be done with ice, for whatever that's worth in this discussion.

>>48458975
>all these niggas not liking Stone Immortal

>>48458975
What the fuck are you talking about. It's not underrated, it's fucking overrated.

>>48465542
>not shiny enough
>implying Earth magic doesn't extend to manipulating metal and crystals

>>48459707
There were attack spells, buff/debuff spells and healing spells, and every single class had 2 out of the 3 eventually, it was awesome. And I think some had 3/3 but that might've been a special case.

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>>48462978

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>>48464673

Never!

>>48464665
Water boarding isn't actually torture, we're just adding freedom to a person in a pure condensed form

>>48458975

Easy. It doesn't have a laser type.

Ice magic? You shoot cold themed lasers.

Fire magic? You shoot fire themed lasers.

Air magic? Lightning lasers!

But Earth magic? How do you turn that into a laser? Thats just bullets. You are doing physical damage, like a shitty casual FIGHTER.

In order to make earth magic relevant, you have to do all sorts of terrain hacks or change the battlefield environment. That sounds mess, situation, and complicated.

Wouldn't you rather stick to lasers? You have so many to choose from!

>>48459181
BUILD A WALL.

>>48465563
>Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way it comes from the sky
You're pulling a rock. It's no different from pulling a rock that was below water.

As mentioned throughout the thread, earth doesn't seem to have the flash of fire or air. It's also worringly inconsistent was counts as "earth" magic.

As an aside, most anime protagonists are affiliated with fire or air. When have you ever seen an earth lead protagonist?

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>>48468153
The Golden Sun series always has one in each game.

>>48465563
>Does not involve the Earth as an element in any way
Earth has a magnetic pull niggerwaggler.

>>48464684
>Inches vs METERS

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I imagine one of the major reasons you don't see earth more often is that isn't harder to flavor it as being conjured up out of nowhere than it is the other three classicals, which makes it seem substantially less mystical or something, probably.

It's not a practical concern given that you're, you know, standing on it 90% of the time, but hey.

>>48460538
>Anima is not most systems
Anima is a gift of the universe desu.

>Martials useful
>Magic variated and fun
>Non-vancian
>Long rests to develop characters out of combat
>Needing protecting from the non-resource using classes
>Surpasing humanity
>Fighting forces of supernatural as a mere and simple man

>>48468738
That too. Earth is everywhere, so it's not a secret where everything is coming from.

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>>48458975
Because it's just not very glamorous. When we think about "earth" our minds leap to mud and dirt and peasants tilling fields and working mines. Fire is the most volatile and exotic of the elements, and water and air get a pass since everyone needs those, but we've got centuries of culture telling us that toiling in the soil is for the lower classes.

Besides, it's a lot less "subjective" than the other elements. You can accept, using fantasy physics, that someone can brush off being hit by a gust of wind or a crash of water or even a gout of flame if they just shield themselves with their cloak or something. A rock is a rock.

>>48458975
It ain't in Earthdawn. Earth Lance motherfucker.

>>48468934
Working class miner wizard when

>>48468934
Honestly earth magic seems to be pretty letahl no bullshit just a big boulder to your face. The bigger and more powerful the enemey the bigger the boulder.

>>48458975
>not barefoot
What's the point?

>>48465563
>One can do that with hands
Get your spike-fists out of here then, changeling.
>Not earth magic it does nothing with earth it turns a person to stone.
You heard it here first, people Earth=/=Stone
>Does not manipulate the earth.
Most metals came from the earth, anon. Hate to break it to ya.
>Not good for flashy battle scenes
No, but a good setup: "I sense steel moving towards us on the other side of this wall" followed by Pass Through Solid Matter for "HEY KIDS, WANNA SEE A DEAD BODY!" Surprise attack.
>Slowness, Weight Increase, Mag Shied, Reverse Gravity, Gravity Destruction
See >>48468650
>Meteor
See >>48467843

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>>48465563
I see your autistic whining and raise you MAGNETO MASTER OF MAGNETISM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bku97eaHKPE

>>48459716
Pretty much this. Earth magic, if used or imagined correctly, could cause classes relying on melee to be left at a serious disadvantage. How do you fight if the floor is constantly shifting, dropping, rising, breaking, turning etc etc, whilst boulders rise from the ground like missles.

>>48469488

By becoming gishes who can, if not counter earth magic, utilize magic items that would allow you to fight on an even playing field.

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>>48469488
My smashing the earth asunder with your strength.

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>>48469488
By punching it all back into shape with your family's own terrain manipulation skills that have been passed down your line generation after generation!

>>48459707
>>48466793
With the DS game wind also got healing spells. Also, mixed classes had spells of one element that were more similiar to the other element of the class.

The series has a really nice element system and I like how every element got it's own flavour of healing spells.

>Earth has single target healing, resurrection and some quite agressive debuffs.
>Fire has weak, but cheap group healing and resurrection, with some buffs to attack and defense
>Wind has one line of weak single target healing spells, but buffs and debuffs out the wazoo
>Water has the strongest single and group heals and can remove debuffs, but the spells are also really expensive and learned quite late. It also can't ressurect the dead and has no buffs/debuffs

>>48469050
>I cast Rock.

>>48463067
Yes

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>>48458975
THE BOULDER FEELS CONFLICTED ABOUT THIS THREAD

>>48467603
Fuck that. Crystal-focused lasers? Or metal mirrors focusing a laser? Earth magic can do lasers.

But why the fuck would you want to? Terrain alteration is so much more interesting and fun.

>>48468992
I'd love to play that, or have one in my party, or meet one as an NPC!

A wizard who treats his magic as a tool to do a job. He drinks with the miners and toils with them and uses engineering and good common sense to shift rock and earth. He doesn't get pretentious about his 'art' or the 'ignorance' of non-magic-users. He's friendly, down-to-earth (hurr hurr) and a bit crude.

Hmm... Communist rebellion wizard fighting against the bourgeois anyone?

>>48469488
Sure, it's the bane of heavily-armoured or slow and un-maneuverable martials, but that's what the agile and swift ones are for, who can make it through the difficult, dangerous and shifting ground with ease to stab the geomancer in the kidneys!

>>48469461
Muh mugga

Earth magic is harder to balance, as other people have already said. Getting to the end of a dungeon is easy when you have the ability to read the earth and dig with ease, so the walls, floors and ceilings are all going to be magically sealed so you can't cast magic on them. And then the earth mage is useless because they can't use the earth around them. Which means that, unless they prepared and brought plenty of rocks and dirt and crystals and shit, they can't do anything. Being shut out of the game is fun right?

The same is true for castles and other buildings, because they either can manipulate the environment and just win or can't and are useless.

And they can create difficult terrain for enemies, making martials suck more than they already do. Shutting others out of gameplay is also fun, right?

>>48469353
earth magic =/= planetary magic

That >>48460538 list is goes way over what anything earth magic should be capable of doing. It uses other fundamental forces of the universe they are far more abstract than what Earth magic should be doing. They are at the level of using fire magic to create love, or air magic to time travel, it's bullshit.

>Slowness
time magic
>Magentism/Gravity/Weight
Arcane or other abstract magics
>Petrify/Stone from
This is polymorph this is Transmutation
>Meteor
this goes way beyond, even if you consider Earth magic = planet magic, this literally means you reach far beyond comprehensible distances and dimensional barriers to call piece of rock into your world.

>>48465763
I read "mobile fortress gundam" and immediately thought of two walking wizard towers duking it out while said wizards ride on top shooting spells at eachother.

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>>48458975
I don't understand why either. It seems like a potentially great defensive element to work from, allowing you to quickly form temporary barriers and raise defensive abilities, and you can also...you know, fucking throw rocks and shit, or form them around your fist to put more weight into a punch.

The only videogame I've even seen make use of it is Dragon Age, and I've rarely seen it brought up in TTRPGs.

Is it geomancer or terramancer?

>>48472189
>I want earth magic to be cool
>Here, cool stuff
>NO THIS COOL STUFF ISN'T ALLOWED BECAUSE I SAY SO! ANYTHING YOU SAY IS INVALID BECAUSE MUH DEEEANDDDEEEE

>>48460866

I remember this from years ago.

What's it from? I never could find the source.

>>48472189
Not in anima it isn't, anon.
Hell, fire magic gets sacrifice spells because you're figuratively burning a portion of your HP/MP/Characteristics to boost your power.
Wind users get Teleportation and speed shenanigans.
Water gets ice magic as well as some healing spells.
Light and Dark trees get teleportation, as well as spells to mess with feelings.
So on and so forth.

>>48472189
>time magic
A nice chunk of any living being is composed of carbon, which exists in Earth as both inorganic minerals and organic matter. You could extrapolate that slowness on a physical label would be to use Earth magic to weigh down the human body.
>Arcane or other abstract magics
We are not talking just D&D here, nigga. In plenty of elemental magical systems gravity and magnetism is covered by earth magic.
>This is polymorph this is Transmutation
Once again, not necessarily D&D. Also, you could just encase someone in a stone shell without actually transforming them.
>this goes way beyond
Plenty of space trash flies in orbit that's big enough to become small meteors. It's not as ridiculous as you assume.

>>48473381
He doesn't realize that meteor can be as simple as flinging a sizable rock into just before orbit from just out of view and bring it back down on someone nearby.

I once killed my party after they became a group of douches by having a giant golem the size of a mountain bellyflop onto the town they were in. Earth magic is fun, especially when golems are involved.

For the most part earth requires a bit of an imagination, but can be VERY good at doing what needs to be done.
Need a barrier? Got you covered.
Need to stop an army ASAP? Got that too.
Need some gold or gems? It'll never be as easy finding those as anything else.
Want golems to protect your shit from that dark elf sue? Do you want iron or adamant flavors?
The list goes on and on.

>>48467574
Well apparently water is freedom. What am I doing here on dry land?

>>48458975
Because the best magic they can every come up with is along the lines of Earth Explosion/Volcano and Earth Implosion/Earthquake.

Shit like your Pic OP are like 100% with what is wrong with how people think of earth magic.
There needs more variety.

>>48459707
This. I got the impression that whoever had healing simply came down to "whichever character chose to study healing magic in their backstory."

Realistically, there are arguments that can be made for pretty much any kind of magic being healing.

Off the top of my head, using the D&D schools of magic:
-Necromancy, in pre-3e, since it was the school of manipulating life energy
-Conjuration in 3e (IDK about later editions, since I haven't played much of them) because of something about conjuring energy from the Positive Energy Plane I'm guessing?
-Technically Evocation would fit the 3e model too, since it deals with energy
-Transmutation could close wounds and the like
-Abjuration could block open wounds with magic force fields or some shit to help blood clot and keep dirt out of the wound
-Divination wouldn't be able to heal directly, but it could be used in combination with modern-ish surgery techniques (the ones about sticking a camera and some tool on a wire into a small incision and messing with stuff remotely)
-Enchantment could theoretically be used to get people to clench or unclench certain muscles and that sort of thing to direct bloodflow (basically mimic the fluff behind a lot of Monk-type self healing)
-Illusion could theoretically kinda work like abjuration, depending on how illusion magic works in your choice of system, but it wouldn't be reliable unless you used it on someone with a super shitty Will save.

>>48467603
I think the "lasers" thing is a big part of it in some systems (like D&D), with the different damage types.

Fire, cold, lightning, thunder, bludgeoning, piercing, slashing, and force. (What's the difference between force and bludgeoning anyway?). Adding "earth" gets a bit weird because then you're basically hitting with bludgeoning/slash/pierce but it's "different" because they were created by magic rocks.

Of course, it depends what "earth" means in-setting. The fact that there's an elemental plane of earth really gives no excuse for a lack of earth lasers in D&D considering there is an entire plane based around the existence of earth as an energy type. (unless I'm wrong in what being a plane means, which I might be, I never really took more than brief read of each of the planes for story ideas).

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>>48465563
This meets this:
>>48468153
>It's also worringly inconsistent what counts as "earth" magic.
Which I agree with.

So heck >>48465563 what counts as earth to you? If it's just ROCKS then Magnetic, Meteors, Gravity, and density should count. (Some) Metals should be there as well since they are a different type of natural rock. And there are some Acids that are solid rocks that chemically burn and never appear in liquid state.

If you mean more like Mother-Earth, then one needs to through in some life giving/taking shit.

>>48458975
You can only hit a dude with a rock so many ways, anon.

>>48473782
>(What's the difference between force and bludgeoning anyway?)

Force affects ethereal enemies.

>>48473894
Why not hit him with metal pulled from the earth instead? Or turn that metal into swords/spikes and skewer that necromancer from below?
Or how about releasing poisonous gases from beneath the earth and watch your enemies die horribly?

>>48473894

How about shredding him with a rain of diamonds? Or turning him into stone?

>>48473894
OH I got one... how about a REALLY BIG rock? Or making him fall and hit himself with the rock(Ground)? Apply "squeeze" to his feet until they break? Make golems to hit him with themselves?

>>48472595
>I want earth magic to be cool.
>What if it could control gravity and magnetism and let people pass through walls and change people's form? That's cool, right?
>But none of those are related to manipulating earth, they're unrelated things that you're just calling "earth magic".
>BAAAAAAAWWWWWW YOU BUTTHURT WHIIIIIIINEEEEERRRR THESE ARE YOUR TEEEEEAAARRRRRRSSSSS BAAAAAAAWWWWWW
I disagree.

>>48459707
In fact, Earth had some of the only revive spells in the game.

>>48474165
I mean, if earth gives you access to magnetic materials, why wouldn't you have magetism-related powers?

without food(earth) you die in weeks
without water you die in days
without air you die in minutes
without the spark of life(fire) you die instantly

we are but flickering candles in the darkness

>>48474301
Go home, fire. No one asked for you.

>>48474278
I'm not him, but I think magnetism should come from the same element as light, which I think would be Fire.
Gravity should come from Earth, unless you're just redirecting it.

>>48474165
It's a good thing that the other element magics are 100% dealing only with the literal elements, or else your arguement would be totally fucked. I mean, can you imagine a setting where fire magic covers anger or passion or can heat things up wihtout literal fire, or air magic can call upong "blades" of wind or even lightening bolts, or water magic encompasses healing? Man, what a crazy concept.

Good thing no setting, and certainly no D&D setting, has ever done those things!

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>>48474369
Well fuck you too then.

>>48473894
>You can only hit a dude with a rock so many ways
You can only cut a guy with a knife so many ways.
You can only set a guy on fire so many ways.
You can only polymorph guy so many ways.

>>48464954
yur funneh

>>48474375
But light and magnetism are so far divorced it's laughable. That doesn't make any sense.

>>48460539
C-can I ? Not because I like you or anything like that

>>48474487
Very much agreed.

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>>48460539
>>48474550

>>48459181
>what can you do with Earth?
Aside from the usual "hit people really hard"? Build a fucking unassailable fortress of solid bedrock. Mine. Make perfect soil for bountiful crops. Imprison enemies without even needing to harm them. Fuck's sake, man. What can you do with the other three? Fire only burns. Sure, you need it for cooking and smithing and firing clay, but what benefit does magic add to that? Air is needed for breathing and I guess you can fly if you're good at it, but the best thing you can do is fill a ship's sails. Water does fuck all, associating healing with it is arbitrary and not inherent to the element.

>>48459611
This applies to all elemental shit.

>>48471149
>Jumping into a tornado made of house-bricks without as much as a skid lid

Take care to enjoy the brief passing sensation of being in several places at once.

>>48464711
Not exactly rare. What are weapons made of?

>>48459873
Lightning Opposes Itself

>>48468153
Rune Factory.

>>48474795
The Chinese?

>>48474856

No, positive lightning opposes negative lightning.

>>48471149
That's what defensive stone walls are for.

Sure, a sufficiently strong fighter could smash through them... but that's what terrain shifting is for.

>>48473570
Your soul is bound by the chains of gravity.

>>48475079
If positive lightning's out and about, we've got bigger problems than negative lightning.

>>48459181
Earth could easily do healing too, and in fact does in some games.

>>48458975
Because it's not air magic.

Suck all the air out of someone's lungs. Shit you could just make a vacuum around them and watch them die terribly which also negates fire completely.

Facing water magic? Fuck you I can't drown with mah air pocket helmet.

Earth? Trying kicking rocks at me while I toss you into the stratosphere.

Air is superior to all, especially if you're poor and live in a trailer.

>>48475477
>give air relatively far stronger powers than the others
>"air is da best"

>>48475477
>Earth? Trying kicking rocks at me while I toss you into the stratosphere

>he says as a spike comes out and Vlad III's him

Okay.

>>48465213

So she's this game's Rita. Good to know.

>>48472411

That's fucking metal.

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>>48459181

A geomancer i made in a FATE game killed a big ass demon by forcefully making him swallow a magically conjured flow of petrol. It was a fire demon.

That was very, VERY flashy.

>>48473894
Well why do we fucking use spears then? Only so many different ways you can stab people.

>>48464536
it would only take 7 zombies to kill newmakrul.

>>48472654
Source there is Nichijou

>>48465158
Probably the people who control temperature.

Which isn't to say that water magi couldn't do some fucked up things of their own with the water in your body. But heating it isn't their gig.

>>48474165
You already got btfo D&Drone...

>>48459873
Dragons.

>>48480814
>I wasn't crying like a baby over my mistake being called out, I was PWNING you by crying like a baby over my mistake being called out!
I disagree.

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Combine Earth + Air, acquire Music.

>>48481295
>Be D&Drone
>Get BTFO'd by every other system
>Start denial armor, for only D&D is right, only D&D exist and 3.5 edition is perfect

3.5PFD&D is the fastfood of /tg/, utterdogshit only enjoyed by the lowest of humans humans who go in denial when called out on their shitness.

>>48475257
wouldn't positive lightning just be a particle beam? A spray of alpha radiation or some other proton stream?

>>48472514
Depends. Do your powers work on the moon or other celestial bodies?

>>48459181
Why would water heal?
Other than thats how it worked in Avatar

>>48486378

Because "healing waters" is an ancient thing that pops up in a range of world cultures often in different forms, whether european style drinkable springs, the river ganges or Japanese hot springs.

Ain't nobody ever been nursed back to health on a diet of dirt or fire, but soup? Soup is magic, and soup is mostly water.

>>48486378
We're mostly water, we need water in it's pure form to survive, it's consumption is more noticable than that of air, life comes out of the water, water is soothing on some injuries.

That doesn't mean that water is the only element that can have healing magic, nor is it to say that all it can do is heal.

>>48463028
I seem to recall there's an IRL weightloss drug that has a tendency of really fucking people up via boosting their body temperarture. Saw some chick who's calve was practically charred by it

(whether or not that pic is a legit result of that drug idk)

I can't remember what it's called.

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>>48459947
> implying rubber would save you from the Shining Dragon

>>48458975
Does anyone else think this webm is really hot?

>>48488010
No, but my first thought was "Footfags are getting off to this aren't they?"

>>48468590
Quality game

>>48482562
>Oh no, my strawman didn't work! He still noticed that my snarky condescending "suggestions" weren't related to earth magic at all! How can I make him forget the obvious?
>I know, I'll use the same strawman again! That's sure to blow his brains the fuck out!
No, my brains are still in my head.

>>48493743
So you're saying he hit the skull but missed the brains?

>>48490761
I'm not a footfag, though. But I am a masochist, so that's probably the reason.

>All these people shitting on earth
I guess we should all forget the fact that a seriously powerful geomancer could just up and chuck a mountain at someone as casually as they would a pebble. I mean sure, it doesn't sound as impressive as parting an ocean or conjuring hurricanes with a breath, but still, having a mountain tossed at you will fuck your day up just as hard. This is of course assuming that a geomancer don't just make the ground beneath your feet open up and fucking swallow you. Not to mention that the potential that earth magic has for sheer dickery easily surpasses the other elements. Tripping folks with uneven ground, shaking buildings down with earthquakes...burying everyone's shovels.

>>48469960
>Rocks fall.