I hate it when people undermine other people's characters, or efforts. When people use super-powers to undermine the efforts or meaningfulness of other character's lives or input in a story. Suddenly teleporting out of trouble, or behind someone, or on top of a place someone else can't get to without a huge amount of effort like you're Goku or the anime character of your choice while actively being engaged in melee combat.. is using magic in a way that undermines other people's characters.

 

Instantly summoning a pile of gold to give to some poor bar-maid.. or casually floating something you want into your hand while you're talking about it -- these are very bad narration that hurts the importance of other players.

 

It diminishes their characters (mortal or more mundane) efforts as unimportant
 to the story. When I was young? I was guilty of this. So? When I use magic, whether I'm playing a Sorceress, a demon, a dragon, or something with only a passing interest in magic ... I go out of my way to make spell-casting, or the effects of magic interesting. Depending on the power of the spell? Especially in combat situations -- I may make my character's spell, or power take more then one turn of my effort to complete.

 

The sorceress held her hands out wide, palms inward-- fingers splayed, waving about, gathering energy.. illuminated white faerie-dust floating on air about her fingers, like sparks of energy, swirling about her hands as she condensed this dust inward into a loose, oblong sphere of light.. smaller groupings of light convolescing as she tried to force them into the larger whole, empowering her spell-- but still, smaller spheres began to form or break away and orbit the larger sphere of light as her palms pressed inward as if against an outward rushing force as she whispered arcane words, which were growing louder as the air about her began to waver as if with a growing heat.. arcs of electrical energy begining to crackle from the core of energy as the collected power began to grow unstable between her hands..

 

You know ... give people time to get out of the way before the lightning bolt throws them across the room.

 

I'm of the impression people can walk at least slowly while spell-casting.. that they can take cover behind something while casting, and spin from behind a pillar and let someone have it..  I'm of the impression that people should be able to dispel eachother's spell-effects or counter-spell eachother as they're casting so long as they put fourth a similar amount of IC effort into doing so as the person who's trying to exercise magic; that usually means ... starting to counterspell them on the first turn they begin casting (otherwise, you're to far behind)... and continuing through the counterspell until they finish casting so you can blow it back in their face.

 

It's all about respecting other players, and their effort -- whether their character is magical, or not. 

 

Don't use magic to ignore the physical limitations of your character; celebrate your characters weaknesses by suffering them ... the 'devils bargin' of magic or the supernatural.. whether it's a lack of 'physical fitness' or the disturbing and horrible drawbacks of achieving an unnatural immortality through necromancy or other means.. the continuing tragedy of your character continuing to justify their bad choices and lifestyle are what story-telling is all about.

 

Floating runes, light shows, echoing arcane words.. and taking some time to build up your magic spells makes things more interesting for the player you're about to fling across the room, or escape from via teleportation.

 

First thing you need to know? My Drowess is not a big spell-caster. She's just a passable warrior and minor spell-caster -- but I typically live by these rules when I play primary spell-caster types.

 

Instant-cast (meaning the spell goes off in the same round that my character starts casting it) are usually minor hinderances.. like a silence spell that deafens everyone in the radius (but doesn't overtly prevent anything including spellcasting).. or a buff spell that increases my character's strength. These may also be minor finishing moves when your character is already near helpless, or battered and about to fall down.. such as to sap their remaining strength and let them fall unconscious. ( Start Casting AND effect in one post.)

 

If I'm using two-round spells? Usually.. these have discernable effects on a character.. significant hinderances~ a magic missile of force and light that flies unerringly ... ignores armor ... and is the equivilent of getting punched in the face or rib cage. (Full round casting + More casting and Effect on next round ).. these can also be minor, but life-saving healing effects that don't necessarily restore someone to fighting condition.. but certainly will keep them from dying. Maybe a feather-fall to glide down slowly from a high elevation, or a levitate to slowly hover up to five feet to grab something off the top shelf..

 

Three round casts are my big wammies. If I'm in a combat situation ... and I start casting -- and I take THREE ROUNDS while other people are making combat actions ... it's pretty justified that a spell-effect would have a large effect on others. You're three posts short, and giving everyone lots of opportunity to interrupt your character or beat feet. This might be a lightning bolt that'll have a deafening crack of thunder and throw an enemy across the room... it could be a fireball that explodes into a raging inferno and throws people out windows.. but basically, these are some of the more spectacular if minor effects that occure in D&D. It's usually reasonable to assume that at least one enemy is done being able to fighting after one of these go off; and the others? May be scared shitless. Hold person, or paralyze.. something that to a real person would have the same impact on someone's ability to fight back as being struck by lightning (which is significantly more disabling then being tazed, isn't it?)
 

Four round+ casts are ... ridiculous.

Meteor from the sky, Hell-Fire, Teleporting across the continent, Rituals, A vampire turning another into a vampire, Animating the dead as walking corpses.. someone winding up for four rounds of good RP can flatten buildings. They're good to describe with large light-shows, powering up auras and all that ridiculous anime crap people like to have fun with. Keep in mind? Unlike in most anime ... this stuff is interruptable! Very likely, people are going to *try* to stop you -- but when you absolutely have to destroy that dark portal, or castle gate and you have enough meat-shields to hold the enemy off.. ..boom.

 

Going past this, honestly, really just gets redundant in most instances.. and a single person probably shouldn't have that much power in the first place; but they can make an effective villain or antagonist when played properly with the cooperation of other players. Especially if they have bodyguards or other people backing them up and adding to the mood as they make power-plays to alter the course of the story-line.

 

Keep in mind? Exercising this much power probably has serious draw-backs. And should, to keep the tragic devil's bargin air of romance that magic and the power of the gods in legend has always had.