Excellent. Now, we're gonna start with the most common type of battle used here on SP. When creating the SLERP course, one question I often asked myself is if this course should be included or not, and I decided that it should be. Yes, we teach battle as it works on Shattered Planes, but that's because most, if not all, of those enrolled in SLERP RP on SP. However; the content from this and all the other courses can be taken off board, and even out of roleplaying, because this class can give you a better sense of conflict and resolving it.
As I'm sure you know, in stories and books, you as the writer tend to not take the easy way out of a conflict, but make things go from bad to worse for your character, then reveal a solution the readers never thought of, all without actually cheating the readers. We apply a similar concept in battle, only instead of trying to advance the conflict for our character, we try to advance the conflict for our opponent's character, all without godmoding or taking control of the other character, by controlling our own character's words and actions.
So, we will start with one of the more common types of fights here, Magic vs. Magic.
Now, you've got a character. We're going to advance things a little now, and actually get to the battling part of things. You're likely wondering a billion questions. How does magic work here? What should you do? What are "the rules"?
I want you to read over the Beginner Combat Class's lesson one.
Lesson #1: Accepting the ideas of magic, getting used to the basics.
So, the biggest problems that newcomers have to the RP is getting accustomed to the magic. I think this is mainly because they don't know how magic works. They want a straight-fire answer on how to RP with magic. The answer? There is no answer. There are so many different ways to do this that it's not even funny.
For humans, magic generally flows through the body freely, and is produced through intense will, concentration, and "oneness" with the universe. Cliche? Yes. But when applied to a battle, it makes for fucking awesomeness. But then, you may ask, how is magic produced in the bodies of some other races?
Relorians have "Weaves" which basically work the same as humans, only on a more spiritual level. Sages have an actual physical organ in their body called a soul which produces magic. It's different for every race. What matters is how that magic is used.
You have to open yourself up to the possibilities of magic, to the fact that it exists in the RP. You have to let your creative juices flow in you, and throw logic out when you're fighting. That's the only way you'll ever win, much less survive. You have to let yourself get used to magic.
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Now, while that is true, this intermediate course will deal with taking the basic sense of battle and applying more strategy to it. I'm going to give you a test which I start all my combat classes with.
Setting: Era Valley (meadow with a lot of grass and hills that spans for miles, basically empty)
Setup: Okona and Zere are in combat.
IC:
Finally, Zere had his victim. As he and Okana danced around each other, they could see the fierceness in each other's eyes. A battle was about to begin. This game of cat and mouse was about to be over. Zere was going to tear this man apart.
The maniac pranced across the battlefield, towards Okana, who was only a few feet away. A wild smile was painted across Zere's face as his hands were stretched wide, like he was about to give the man a giant bear hug. He had been waiting for this! Finally, his feast!
"My, my, my. You had to go and get yourself killed. Oh, well. I was bored anyway. You're quite entertaining."
He clenched his fist, the skin upon his hands rotting, his nails long like talons. Each nail became coated in fire, its hue black as night, ever so obvious in the bright day that they were currently fighting in. Inside the black flames, one would see small, green circles made of some energy, swirling around in the small little flames.
Zere held his hand up and threw the flames like baseballs at Okana.
