Thread:Saris Khan/@comment-24384232-20141211031559/@comment-24384232-20141211213140

All of your examples of what a sword can do are however geared towards one specific avenue; injury. A fire spell on the other hand is rife with other secondary benefits. Fire burns, but its effect changes depending on what it is interacting with. That gives it a utility that a sword slash does not have. A sword cuts, and it cuts and it cuts. It can block an attack but thats no different than interposing any other object to block an attack.

A sword cant turn into steam, a sword cant melt earth into lava or create smoke, or burn up oxygen or any other fuel. And yes a sword can cut a tendon, a blood vessel gouge out an eye, cut off an arm or impale someone. Fire can burn a tendon, cauterize blood vessels, blow off an arm, or if concentrated into a beam impale someone. Anything that the sword was capable of doing, Fire, and by extension a spell using fire could potentially do the same.

There is filler in both kido and zanjutsu/hakuda, but only in the two latter are we limited purely by the tool. A fist is still just a fist. A sword is still just a sword. Though versatile in their role, there is very little outside their area of speciality that they can do. This is the wall I've come to, and one I've tried various methods of getting around. Unless the fist or the sword can exceed the limitations of the physical, they will never close the gap that magic/kido creates.

If I appear argumentative, apologies. Im just stressing the points I've considered and thought out, the reasons why kido and abilities like it work and why zanjutsu/hakuda feels like it fails when it comes to delivering an exciting battle. A character who summons a mighty storm of fire and lightning is almost always going to appear more impressive than a warrior who swings a sword really well. That is unless his swordsmanship can cut lightning, and just a slash can create enough pressure to blow out fire, then he's just as impressive. As I mentioned to Sei, for them to remain usable at higher levels, they need to evolve to a point where the physical marries the spiritual.