Magic as a whole is really versatile, I find. Sure, you may be stronger, or faster, or better smelling than I am, but that's kind of meaningless when I can do everything from throwing you into solid objects to shooting fireballs to just covering you in a bubble and waiting for your oxygen to run out.

487500

Think about it! Imagine if Twilight would go against any of the others:

- Applejack: Lightning the apples off her flank
- Fluttershy: Just say "boo"
- Rainbow Dash: Just place a barrier right in front of the pegasus as she's charging.
- Pinkie Pie: Telekinesis the pony, and just hold her still as you either light her up or (if you can't do two spells at once) stab her with your horn.
- Rarity: If she was prepared, this would be hardest, for I would assume that if you can telekinetically hold her, she could do the same. Obviously it's Twilight, so the Element of Magic would still win, but still.

All depends on how you make their magic work. The usual balance from what I see is unicorns have alot of different tricks their magic can do, telekinesis being one of the most basic; but they can't take a hit or deal a regular hit very well at all. Earth ponies are strong, durable, and are connected to the earth in ways the unicorns aren't. Pegasus are..well..pegasus. Flying around and able to screw with the weather with next to no effort. If your magic system stems from the magic flowing from the unicorn then a pegasus could outfly it possibly. And for balance it would be easy to say it is hard for a unicorn to focus on more than one spell at a time; it took a ton of energy out of Twilight just to give Rarity wings; and Twilight had to run like heck from a hydra instead of being able to fight it.

An example would be if a unicorn was using magic to hold a earth pony in place, the earth pony being as strong as they are would greatly strain the magic resources of the unicorn. Plus it seems like the unicorns magic has very few attack spells, hence why so many of the guards are earth and pegasus ponies. There magic seems more like the classic D+D bard in many ways, able to do alot of small effects, but only a few are capable of anything incredible.

Sorry, me and my friends discuss magic systems and balance all the time, and this whole rant is a little irrelevant when obviously magic 'works' the way the writer wants it to after all. If you want it to be OP, then it can be. If you want unicorns to be the weakest of the three types, then you can write them that way. It all depends on what you want. : )

487517 Yeah, writing around borderline superpowers is tough. It's why I love guile heroes so much.

487523 Well, the show doesn't really go into spells really that much other than the very basics, but I can infer a lot from it. Twilight doesn't really use magic in combat at all (or at least isn't very studied in it), and yet she can still pull off a pretty decent attack spell (granted more of a stunning spell). Meanwhile, Shining Armor, who IS trained, can ward the entire city of Canterlot for days (if not indefinitely) from an entire race of creatures. Imagine if he was trained in more offensive magic more. Oh, and if we go by exact D&D rules, then all the races are screwed, because as this analysis of D&D 3.5 classes goes, Wizards one of the very best classes while fighter types are near the lower end.

487524 Yeah, except it's hard to be politically savvy when the politician across from you just turned you into a fish. Discord's a dick like that.

487568 Yeah, kind of hard to outmaneuver someone who could say "I win" on a whim and mean it.

487568

True about Wizards, but that is why I compared the unicorns to bards, alicorns would probably be along the lines of wizards. Their magic in the show each is detailed by their cutie mark. Shining Armor can make a shield across the entire city, but his power is tied to his mark, so most likely *again, up to the writer's desires and interpretation* he will be strongest at spells that protect, and average to weak at everything else. Twilight's cutie mark IS magic so yeah, she kinda gets the "whatever I want to do I can" card.

Again, the show almost exclusively shows the guards apart from Shining as Pegasus or Earth Ponies, and even Celestia has only used a beam of magic shot out of her horn as offensive, so to my reasoning it is unlikely that Unicorns has much in the way of offensive magic at all. Now what you list as offensive can also of course mean different things. As stated, if the unicorn is able to hold a bubble spell long enough for their opponent to suffocate then yeah that can be offensive. Mind you the unicorn in question would have to probably deal with that bubble being repeatedly hit which I would assume would drain their magic faster. Much like how the repeated attacks from the changelings eventually broke Shining's bubble *yeah he was under alot of issues at the time, but it still stands to reason that the bubble around Canterlot was so strong because protecting others is his mark, and that eventually the changelings could have rammed their way through, given enough time and how many were throwing themselves at the barrier*.

And since it may be hard to umm...interpret in text; i'm not arguing at all on this, i'm just philosophizing on it. : )

487591 Just throw a Shivering Touch at the guy, and it's GG friends. Seriously, that spell insta-wins against almost anything, and it's A THIRD LEVEL SPELL!!!

487602 True true, and I understand what you say. Fine. Give any unicorn the Glibness spell, and just have them say "Hey, the way to save your life is to jump in a volcano, and as long as you have a few ranks in it and don't fuck up your roll, they'll do it.

487618 Well, I guess now we know how WoC ends.

487627

Nah, I'm going to go Magic: the Gathering on this one.

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487632 Thpoilers!

487618
Heh, let's just be glad Twilight didn't toss her smarty pants doll into a volcano in "Lesson Zero" then. ^-^

487639

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487640 Picture too large for rules...