New to this hobby of LARP? Need a little help choosing what to play? Well then let’s together look at some basics to building a starting character. When playing a fantasy LARP there are generally three major classes warrior, rogue, and mage. This article will explore the strengths, weakness and some ideas on what you can do with each class, both combat based and role-playing based. In addition, we will look at some of the cost of playing each class.
Let then move on the mage class. All thou this class is the weakest class when it comes to hitpoints and ability to hit their enemies with a weapon. Even thou they suffer that previously mentioned weakness, they wield the arcane arts. The arcane arts are some of the most powerful things in the game. One magic spell can change a battle in your favour. Spells can do all sorts of things from slow or stop the movement of an opponent, do heavy damage. mind effects, healing, and bluffs. At higher levels, mages can cast rituals that can change the events of the entire game. The two most common weapons mages are staff or dagger. The reason that these are the weapons commonly used by mages is that that most games allow all characters to use these weapons without spending experience points on using them. Mages general choose to put their experience points into magic. The staff is a great weapon for blocking and keeping people at distance but it is a large weapon you have to carry all day and get to and from LARP. The dagger is more easy to manage but because of its small size, it’s harder to block with. Neither weapon is very good at offense. Mages are good against fighters, they are able to hit the fighter with magic before the fighter’s weapons can reach the mage. The heavy armour of the fighter will slow them from evading you and they lack the skill to dodge. But against the rogue class, the mage will have more trouble. The rogue has the skill to dodge out of the way of an attack and can use this against the mages magic. As the mage, you have to be wary of that when fighting against the rogue, as they also have abilities to assassinate people in one hit. Some roleplaying aspects for the mage that will work in most games are healers, seers, and scroll makers. You could play healer to heal other players for coin and or cast protection for people. A seer can read a players fortune. Or you could make scrolls and sell them to other people. Some good examples of mages in fantasy are Merlin, Rand al’ Thor, Melisandre of Asshai the Red Priest and Gandalf the White.
In conclusion, the mage class is the only class that can use magic. Magic can change things in one spell, mages are some of the most powerful characters in games. They do not generally wear armour so they avoid that high out of game cost. Some of the few downsides are you have to memorize a ton of spells. However, you only have a limited number of casts that you can use each day. So you have to use your magic carefully. Stay tuned in as we talk about the last class rogue.
