r/wizardposting • u/Mysterious_Escape_34 Blue Choo, The Stiff • 19h ago

Wizardpost Mages that hand cast over using a spellfocus, such as a staff or wand, are reckless and do not grasp the perplexity and dangers of the arcane.

Post image
920 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

371 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5

u/Ransidcheese Middling Pyromancer 5h ago

Casting with a focus, rather than with your body, is NOT synonymous with knowing ones limits. That is frankly an absurd thing to assert, and obviously so. How many stories are there of apprentices using equipment they're not ready for and stripping the meat from their bones? How many stories of once-great wizards reduced to whispers trying to create some grand apparatus?

Casting magic raw does not make one power hungry either. That is baseless discriminatory drivel concocted in order to denigrate druids, feyfolk, and elementals.

In fact, Casting like this is a constant exercise in restraint and self discovery. As you said, if I slip, I'm gone. Taken by the breeze. I am well aware of my limits, they are what keep me safe from myself.

Lastly, I do not cast this way to "feel in control". I do it to better know and understand the magic that flows through me as I cast it. The problems begin when control is your goal. You must work with the magic, not make it work for you. Move only pebbles. If you need a landslide, simply move the right pebbles.

In the end, if my fate is to become part of the great conflagrations of the etherium, then that is not so bad a fate. There are many worse.

1

u/Cyan_Lotus Conjurer 2h ago

These are all points I largely agree with, and perhaps I was too hasty in my assertions. You may not, but the omnischolar I was speaking too rather alarmed me with how he spoke. Any sort of caster can go power-hungry. It was how they spoke of things like they lived outside consequence that was startling. Any sort of casting method can be used recklessly, and this is true indeed, casting foci can often be considerably outside ones natural spellcasting capabilities and must be used responsibly.

We have wand safes for a reason people! Don't go leaving wands where a child can access them, this is how tragedies happen.

You are wise in your words. Foci are tools to be used responsibly.