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I was using that as an example, don't rain on my goddamn parade. gonk

Give a black mage that massive nuke attack.

Now pit him against a white mage.

Just watch the white mage try and avoid a nuke-like explosion.

Clarifications on my part:

She's in my top tier of characters, the "Circle of Potential Gods/Goddesses", the product of my first real storylines built around Gel. Though much about them can be inferred just from that, they're all former mortals. In her first life, Tinanitico was a scientist, studying the origins and behaviors of magic. And out of all the members of the Circle, she's got the most power and control and intelligence, though she's also got particularly stubborn mental issues and a lack of real combat experience. Speaking of real combat experience, she doesn't have any - every fight she's been in has been at the urging of another member of the Circle, and she hasn't yet killed anyone. In fact, since she's relatively peaceful, this is the first established fight against a mortal she's been in, and while there's a lot of unfilled blank space in her backstory, fighting doesn't fit her personality so there'd be very little of it if any no matter how things go.

As a result of her knowledge and intrinsic affiliations (areas in which her abilities are strongest and most natural), she's got the most direct control over magic, and is currently the only member of the Circle who can do things like directly cast antimagic spells or directly attack a spell at its component parts - and, speaking of which, Smiling-Jak is incorrect. There's a few basics to all magic - for instance, there's always some underlying power fueling it, and it's that power that should be targeted if you're planning to attack magic at its core. That's why I tell Ertai that mechanics don't matter so much - in both magic and psionics, there are certain simple things common to all members of an ability category, and it is those which should be attacked. Anyway, Arch's character is a mostly-melee character whose magical skill is only at the level of weak chi manipulation, so it's a faceoff between Tinanitico and the weapon. Physical items rarely store enough mana to fight off a mage, and without magic-defense powers of its own, Arch's polearm (no, it's not a zanbato, that arose from a misunderstanding in which he used weapon names from a videogame and didn't check his facts) wouldn't have a chance - especially since Tinanitico annihilated it physically and magically at the same time. Its only defense is to attack Tinanitico back - and that won't work, all the members of the Circle are high-power incorporeal beings linked to physical form, and assaulting their life energy tends to be very inefficient as they have a lot of it and are skilled at conserving it and stalling attempts to consume it.

Really, this doesn't even affect me that much, as I haven't yet revealed to Arch she's not human (though he'll find out if he reads the thread); if everything's ruled in favor of him, I'll just cut the arm and that part of her presence, and use the spell energy for something else.

(This post will probably be edited out in a few hours to prevent Arch from seeing; if you'd like a copy of it after that time, PM me)