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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CandyLaser" data-source="post: 9498927" data-attributes="member: 7029413">Blades in the Dark also does this to some extent. There's one playbook that focuses on mystic capability, but their special abilities aren't better than the ones on offer to the more "mundane" playbooks. For something classless, I'd point to Swords of the Serpentine. In SotS, investment in magic skills preclude investment in mundane skills. There are two magic skills in SotS - Sorcery and Corruption. Sorcery is basically a combat skill, used to launch attacks. Magic users also have freeform magic of two forms. First, they can use magic as flavor and describe themselves using magic to do something they could have done via mundane methods, like lighting a candle or jumping across a gap (though the latter might need a roll). They can also make use of Corruption for very big, significant freeform effects, like blowing up a tower, but these impose long-term costs on the caster that can limit overuse, as well as some other limitations based on the sort of magic the caster uses.Because of how the game works, though, mundane skills offer more-or-less equal ability to impact the plot, albeit usually in different ways. Characters can spend points from certain skill pools to give themselves bonuses to rolls, boost damage, and change or introduce narrative elements, and characters all have the same number of skill points, so magic ends up feeling like just one tool among many. It is a powerful tool, but an exotic one that isn't always reliable - and because of the nature of the game, the person playing the mage probably only gets one or two chances to really cut loose and show off with it. Since that's true of every other character as well, acting within their specialty, it ends up feeling pretty good.</blockquote>

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