Welcome to Gaia! ::

This would be in your direction Maha. I'm brain dead today :3

there are super heroes who have augmented strength depending on the phase of the moon. look up Moon Knight from the marvel universe. his power comes from a moon god and his strength is augmented by the phases of the moon. on a full moon or new moon phase his strength could rival that of superman.

that's a great one - many fantasy authors choose to incorporate stones and crystals into their stories



starters off, we have the crystals and minerals each having special properties of their own - think of the Deltora Quest if you've ever read it.
For example, one mineral glows when poison is nearby, another one lends healing powers, and one can show glimpses of the future.


another commonly used power is that the crystal/mineral also has storage properties - they collect energy/magic to be used later. there
is also a use of such stones to enhance magical powers or restraint them. sometimes crystals have their own natural power used to enhance
magical performances, or they call upon the already stored energy inside of them. they can also be used to channel power. (thinking of KHR)


it can also be linked to power of the EARTH - minerals and crystals are summoned to encase objects or people, preventing them from further
action or damage; summoning minerals from the earth would fall under this category.



hurr...this is technically only three, I'm afraid. [/shot] my brain's dead at the moment.

Bearing in mind I'm not a definitive guide here are my thoughts:

Telekinesis is generally the movement of objects with ones mind, so you can move object x to point y without touching the box, in combat Telekinesis can be used to throw stuff at your enemies and if the psychic is strong enough throw other people at their enemies. Thus Telekinesis is locked at moving objects and the like such.

Psychokinesis is inherently different and difficult for me to explain, considering "kinesis" is a direct descendant of the word "kinetic" which is movement energy generally, although "kinesis" in relation to special powers just means control see pyrokinesis, umbrakinesis and the like, thus Psychokinesis to me would be mind beams, stuff like the attacks in pokemon like Psybeam, telekinesis could come into it somewhere but is not limited to it, because if we refer to pyrokinesis again pyrokinesis being fire control Psychokinesis would be mind control, and could range along the entire psychic spectrum all the way from telepathy to telekinesis.

Again, I may be wrong but still I hope this helped in some way. And Hello new comer.

There hope it worked. sweatdrop

Anyway on to my question. Is there any sort of hierarchy among the elemental powers? By which I mean electricity/lightning, earth, water, fire, air, light and darkness. For example if two equally skilled poeple fought each other, one with say water and the other air would one inherently be disadvantaged over the other?

There is always a hierarchy (Ever you ever seen the Elemental Gelade Edel Raid "ring" list? It should be on Wikipedia under the Anime/Manga name.)



Let's start with the powers you mentioned, between equal-power users of course, since a sufficiently powerful user of one element can beat another, regardless.

Earth beats Air, mostly because it's heavier and wind is not physical, however if the air-user is able to fashion wind into "blades" this could be a coin-toss.

Fire and Water, in my mind this depends on how powerful the equal-power users are, if the fire-user can create a flame hot enough, water doesn't stand a chance, it will turn into steam before ever touching the fire-user. (although could still be overwhelmed by large amounts of water.) Again though, it mostly depends on the heat of the fire or the coldness of the water, I think this is also a coin-toss, how skilled are you with your power? Did you choose quality (heat/cold) over quantity? What is the location you are battling in? (Mustafar, or Hoth?) This does not generally apply to Earth and Air/wind, due to canyons having plenty of both.

Electricity, as Mahareshi said, beats water, water however beats Earth, water makes everything heavier, assuming that the use of powers is similar to element-based telekinesis, this hurts the earth-user, and remembering that water is far more flexible, water wins. Electricity might also cause Earth-based elements to crumble apart, and gain a greater advantage against crystals. (However, conductivity has to be accounted for.)

Electricity is probably on even footing (more or less, perhaps 48/52 depending on mechanics.) with Darkness, but weak to Light.

Light is stronger than Dark, I believe this is usually observed with turning a flashlight on, magic has properties we experience in the real world as well, which is why lightning, a temporary light source, is equal with Darkness.

Earth beats Light, let's face it, doesn't that make sense? If not, please raise your hand.

Darkness beats Earth depending on the "variety" of "earth" that the Earth-user controls, this also applies to Light and Earth, if the Earth-user summons a crystaloid, it's pretty much a field day for the Light user, and if the Earth-user summons something (see, cracked boulder.) that inherently contains darkness. (assuming a completely solid object neither admits darkness or light until broken) then I would Darkness would hold the advantage, this also applies to caves, depending on the overall strength of the users. (Sure, there's more rock than darkness, but can you make use of it?)


Fire and Darkness shift win/loss positions based on area. (Can the fire-user create a self-perpetuating flame on objects around, or not? Also; see the cave example earlier.)

In my opinion both Light and Darkness beat Air, sure, neither of those have physical attributes (technically, but magical energy actually does, however while Light and Dark manifest that energy in an abnormal way, Air doesn't to as great a degree.)

I just think Light or Darkness based attacks would mostly cut through the in-ethereal. (Of course if you're an air user, you can manipulate, to some degree, physical objects.)

Now about your standard magician? Generally the same applies, despite their varying skills, however those skills and those tactics need to be considered on character design, including spells, and let's face it, emotions.
(I'm not a fan of the emotions-fuel-magic-to-an-unstoppable-degree, however, they do provide motivation and desire and sometimes mental or physical strength, both of which are involved in magic casting.)

Magical trinkets or ingenious casting. (Such as a spell that acts like a conducter, once cast, provides power and stability to itself, usually requiring the opponent to negate the spell entirely, instead of just disrupt it.) are also always a consideration.

It's all too easy to forget that the physical world and our faux-magical worlds co-exist and that our text characters, while certainly forced to be fallible, really *are* only human, subject to all the ignorance in areas of expertise that we as humans face.

Example; suppose an architect and a lawyer were both equal-level flame-users, who do you think could bring the building down faster, more efficiently, and with less use of power?

Knowledge is power, suppose your designer of cars (see, magical conductor a few paragraphs up.) really does form a spell, that, like a car battery, feeds on the power it produces to stay charged. (which may require some time to get positive magical charge, depending on the energy used to craft the spell.)

You see this used all the time when the hero gets a friend and totally outwits the big-bad-egotistical-villain in shows all the time.

Incidentally, agility or numbers are not to be discounted, the levitation of a wind. (Or even, in my opinion, an ice-user, due to water being present in the air.) and the amount of ice or wind they can bring you against from multiple angles, could easily shock a foe into indecision or overload their ability to comprehend their surroundings, have you ever viewed your character as just that? You sit down and type and proofread and change your post, sometimes over the course of an hour? It leeches the human aspect from it because it gives you 20/20 hindsight in advance, sanity is chaos, everyone, a power list isn't the most important thing. (However you can't be some super-devious genius that has a solution for everything either, there are many ways to "godmod")


Knowledge is power.
For that matter, throwing out some Jason Bourne quotes here.
"Rest is a weapon, use it."
"Opportunities will present themselves, recognize them, act on them."
And lastly; "Move!" P:

Sounds fun :3 I'm working on a character that uses Kinetic Energy :3 Can't waits xD.

Sorry for the late reply (So many things have been going on in my RL).

My concept of TK is that the user also has the ability (should they use it.) to be psychically aware, or have extrasensory perception, of objects they can manipulate in the respective radius of their powers, and that the size of these objects is not overly important as is the mental strength to grasp them, in effect, a TK user can control any physical aspect of their nearby environment, but the finite control over molecules of, say air, is impossible to do in large numbers.

Now that we've gotten my own personal clarification out of the way, I would put an experienced TK or PK user at, if not (in some cases) the same tier as an experienced elemental (Wind, ice, fire, etc.) user, for the most part a TK user, as someone who usually wields solid matter, would follow along the same strengths and weaknesses as one who wields Earth or Water.

However usually wielding elemental magic powers is displayed as being something inherent from birth, yet untrained, instinctive on a deeper level than something like Telekinesis is, TK's major strength is that they wield their power across all the playing fields, they are not limited to one type of solid matter as elemental users are, I also believe a TK'er uses their power more directly than an elemental user can, for an example; the elemental user has to magically generate or control their respective element to do their bidding, while a TK user can just mentally grab/push/lift.

If the tiers went as so:
Top tier: Fire, energy, wind, earth.
Tier 2: Telekinesis.
Tier 3: Water, ice, light (depending on definition, see list below), darkness.


Or, alternatively, for a longer tier list.

Top tier: Psionics (including TK), Earth, Holy (light) magic.
Second tier: Fire, water, energy, wind.
Tier 2.5: Telekinesis.
Third tier: Darkness, ice.

I know most people are accustomed to the "Fire > Water. Wind > Earth. Energy > Ice. Light > Darkness" idea, but most, if not all roleplays exist in a physical reality, not just a magical one, and magic is usually just a means to an end, not a be-all-end-all.

I personally believe that, environmental properties being even, the physical weight of earth would trump most other elements (Except perhaps energy, water could do it, but wet soil is still earth, and rocks don't get that damp at all.)

As to light being in a top-tier, that's where your definition comes in, the powers of Light magic are pretty extensive and interesting, the element of light itself is pretty destructive, but that depends on concentration (see: lasers.)

Most of the reason I reject Darkness and Ice is because their powers are either done by proxy (Necromancy) or because they lack the physical flexibility of the Second Tier. (Tier 2.5 is +/- second tier depending.)



If I were to sum it up in one or two sentences: Telekinesis is like a hammer, there comes a point when speed and strength in quantity wins the day.

Which brings up an interesting point, magic should not be so limited to elements, magic itself is a force of power that can directly influence the world, some people know this, and others don't, but I rarely see it discussed.

Perhaps that's because it's so hard to pin down, much like the exact power ratio of Telekinesis to other powers, I still view TK as powerful as magic is, even though a TK-user will need to think geometrically, which is another reason I compared them to earth-users.

Who needs to raise up a big hulking object to shield themselves sometime?

Exactly.



This is of course all my opinion, that TK is pretty cool and is a high-tier skill (Think 7 on a normal tier list of 10, but I don't have a good tier list handy right now.)


While powers in roleplaying depend on the creator because of the thousands of different viewpoints and no one person can say for sure, I find thinking less in the abstract and more in physical terms clears up most issues. (Not that magic is altogether forgotten though.)

I hope this freakishly long-winded post (Hey, it just kind of kept going, and you *did* ask a question involving comparison, so it was called for.) helps you with your own opinions P:


PS: Whatever is it you may need my help that you were working on, if you still are working on it, you can drop me a private message and ask, my schedule is less busy so you could probably expect a reply the same-day, most days.