Magic Knight / Tabletop Games

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• While the system in Anima: Beyond Fantasy allows fighter archetypes to use magic and mystic (magic) archetypes to use weapons, some manage that better than others (for example, paladins, dark paladins, and warlocks). However, unless done with caution, it's easy to end up with a Jack of All Stats (and Master of None) or to have one capacity (weapons or magic) far more developed than the other.
• The Chronicles of Amber roleplaying game (based on the books by Roger Zelazny) specifically mentions this trope as near-universal among Amberites and Lords of Chaos. As walkers in Shadow, both groups train heavily with swords. The laws of magic vary greatly between Shadows, but stabbing is pretty universal (and, in the few places where it won't work, your sword can double as a club). Magic and swordsmanship both take a lifetime to learn in this setting, but that's not a big deal for an Amberite.
• Alchemists in The Chronicles of Aeres use Geometric Magic to manipulate base matter on the fly, and as a result they favor fighting in close combat, using their powers to augment their weaponry and armor.
• Chronopia has this as a backstory for the One King of the Kingdom of the Firstborn. He was one of humanity's finest warriors until killed by Elves, causing the fall of the Firstborn. Eventually he reincarnated with his knowledge intact and grew up under the martial tutelage of the Sons of Kronos tribe. When he grew of age, he turned to the self-taught study of magic and invented the school of Chronomancy. Unfortunately for the Firstborn, the One King is unique, Chronomancers are purely spellcasters plus most of their magic is supportive, so they fall easily in battle.
• Pretty common in Deadlands, mostly because magic has pretty nasty side effects. Even the most devoted spellslinger will learn some mundane fighting skills to not have to risk using magic when it isn't necessary.
• As with the literary example above, this is a viable character type in The Dresden Files. Since the rules only let one get so good at so many skills and since mortal "stunts" and supernatural powers draw upon the same refresh pool, players who want to go for it will likely have to decide where exactly their priorities are and make some compromises, and some specific concepts may be out of the reach of starting characters at certain campaign power levels — but one doesn't need to go full-out Wizard just to be able to sling at least some useful magic around either, so it's still eminently doable.
• In Duel Masters, Knights are a race (subtype) of creature and spell, in opposition to the Samurai who use Cross Gears instead of magic. Most of their spells have "Knight Magic" abilities that activate twice if the player controls a Knight creature.
• A number of fighter-mage classes from Dungeons & Dragons qualify.
  • Not a class as such, but the spell "Tenser's transformation", which has occurred in several forms over several editions, allows a prepared wizard to simply swap out his caster levels for martial training for a few hours or minutes. Various other systems have magical effects that allow rewriting one's personal history temporarily to the same effect.
  • Both the original and second edition AD&D games took things so far as to allow for triple-class options, notably for half-elves who could take Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User(!), albeit with level limits.
  • In the Basic/Expert/Companion/Master non-AD&D branch of D&D, Elves were treated as a fighter-mage class.
  • In AD&D 2, Bards could also qualify, though they were more of a Jack class. Of course, Complete-s added not only Bard variants, but Bladesinger, War Wizard, Amazon Sorceress, Militant Wizard...
  • The Eldritch Knight is the original Magic Knight Prestige Class, but later supplements and editions introduced base classes such as the Hexblade and Duskblade, other Prestige Classes such as the elven Bladesinger or the defensive Abjurant Champion, and even base class variants such as the Battle Sorcerer. The fighter-mage archetype has come to be nicknamed "Gish" in the Dungeons & Dragons community, after the Githyanki term for multiclass fighter-mages, and is now a popular colloquial term for any character build that incorporates both magical and melee prowess.
  • The Swordsage from D&D 3.5 supplement Tome of Battle is a somewhat less classic example in that they don't use the game's standard magic system but in lieu of their martial skills they have two schools worth of magical abilities giving a very seamless mix of sword and sorcery.
    • There is also a brief mention of allowing a Swordsage to learn arcane spells in place of new martial abilities, but the "variant" is so brief that it mostly serves as a starting point for homebrewing. The primary issue being that an arcane caster needs several hours' rest to regain spell slots and assign spells, while a Swordsage can refresh their maneuvers in five minutes.
  • The same book also contains the Jade Phoenix Mage and Ruby Knight Vindicator, Prestige Classes that mix martial maneuvers with Arcane and Divine casting, respectively.
  • The Duskblade bears special mention, coming in at the end of the edition after the writers had more practice. They have full BAB like a Fighter, while still being able to cast a number of blasting spells. They can even channel their spells through a weapon strike to do both in one turn.
  • On the divine magic side of the spectrum, we have the Paladin, and even the Cleric itself, which can keep up with (and surpass, in some cases) dedicated fighters in close combat if built correctly. Elven Clerics, with their proficiency in Composite Long Bows and a splatbook elf-only domain, surpass nearly every other class in (physical) ranged combat.
  • Rangers tend to be fairly limited in their casting, preferring Boring, but Practical spells that buff their combat skills or help them survive, but the Mystic Ranger variant sacrifices some of their abilities to improve their casting up to this level. It's something of a Crutch Character, though, as your casting advancement doesn't get you that far.
  • Paladins and rangers also have the Sword of the Arcane Order feat, which allows worshipers of gods of magic to have a spellbook that lets them cast wizard spells. It's one of the more popular ways to keep them useful, and combos beautifully with Mystic Ranger (though since wizard spells use Intelligence, be careful about your stats).
  • Complete Arcana introduced the War Mage, who is allowed to cast spells and wear up to medium armor without the percent chance that spells would fail.
  • Complete Arcana also introduces the Spellsword prestige class. By sacrificing one level to fighter (or another martial based class), you could get all the nuke spells as well as a -30% to your spellcasting failure chance while wearing any armor. With the right enchantments on your armor, you could wear full plate armor and holding a heavy steel shield and have a 0% chance of spellcasting failure.
  • In yet another expansion on available classes, we're introduced to the Hexblades, Warlocks whose pacts carry decidedly front-line ability sets, but who still retain the class' significant damage potential and continual damage buildup over the course of each battle.
  • The Psionics Handbook (a 3.0 supplement) introduced us to the psychic warrior. Part psion (wielding magic of the mind) and part fighter, the psychic warrior's list of available psionic powers is full of things that boost one's combat prowess.
  • Races of Stone had Dwarf Runemages who used a form of runic magic allowing them to cast magic in full plate-armor with no penalty.
  • The Arcane Archer prestige class was introduced in 3.0's run and then made core in 3.5. As the name indicates, the intent was this trope with archery instead of melee combat (it was a class for elves and half-elves). In practice, the lack of spellcasting progression once you actually got the class was something of an impediment (Arcane Archers completely dropped further casting progression in favor of making their arrows magical).
  • 4th edition and 5th edition both feature bard variants who concentrate on fighting in close quarters combat, while simultaneously being able to cast a lot of spells. In 4th edition, they were a leader class, while in 5th edition, they're full spellcasters, can pick spells from every other class's spell list, and still get two attacks per round and access to medium armor. Bards are one of the strongest classes in 5th edition due to their versatility, especially at higher levels.
  • Though not available in the initial release of Fourth Edition, the Swordmage was soon introduced with the new version of Forgotten Realms. Like Pathfinder's Magus, it's a base class focusing on a mixture of Full-Contact Magic, Spell Blades, Flash Stepping, and projectile Spell Blades. To emphasize the magical aspect, it has a class feature that makes it more protected if it's not wearing metallic armor and only wielding a one-handed weapon, which is essentially flavored as an armor-variant of Battle Aura. As the Meaningful Name implies, it works best with swords, though the way weapons are handled means it can also use a Sinister Scythe, daggers, certain forms of spear, and even an axe, by virtue of the "khopesh" weapon belong to both the sword and axe groups.
  • Before that, the Wizard of the Spiral Tower paragon path let Wizards use swords and could (with some multiclassing) make an effective "gish" class.
  • The divine healer Magic Knights in 4th Edition are Clerics (who specialize more in healing) and the Paladins (who specialize more in tanking). Additionally the Runepriest, a Magic Knight focused on buffs, was introduced in the third Player's Handbook as another option for divine characters.
  • From the PHB2, the Avenger also counts, being the closest thing to a mix between a rogue, a shonen protagonist and a magic knight that exists.
  • And with the Hybrid classes, it's possible to make a combination of Fighter/Wizard, Paladin/Sorcerer or even a Swordmage/Wizard — particularly common with Paladin|Warlock and Swordmage|Warlock that mix the Paladin/Swordmage's melee abilities with a dash of ranged powers with the Warlock's dash of melee abilities with plethora of ranged powers.
  • The Knight class, if built correctly, can be this: start out as a normal Knight, end up teleporting across the battlefield, going invisible at a whim, smacking foes in the head with arcane powers and not allowing them to escape.
  • As of Fifth Edition, every class in the basic rule book has some form of magic available. The Rogue, Fighter, and Barbarian can choose an archetype at third level which gives some form of magic (although the barbarian's primary benefits are supernatural enhancements to his/her class feature), whereas the Ranger, Paladin, and Monk have spellcasting and/or other mystical or supernatural abilities as class features. Meanwhile, several of the six primary caster classes have multiple ways of enhancing their physical combat abilities. The bard, warlock, and cleric classes can be designed, through various means, to use several of the abilities more physical classes use, particularly attacking multiple times per turn, becoming proficient in improved weapons and armor, and gaining increased damage and/or accuracy. The Druid can use a number of decent weapons and wear up to medium armor, on top of shapeshifting to use more physical attacks in animal form while Sorcerers, with the draconic origin, gain enhanced armor class and hitpoints. Only the Wizard has no innate ability to become a magic knight, and this class can overcome much of that simply by taking a level in another class; a single level of Fighter, Paladin, or Ranger grants proficiency in nearly all weapons and several types of armor. Though with the later introductions of the Bladesinger subclass and spells like Steel Wind Strike, the one level dip is no longer needed. Also, a number of races start off with proficiency with some sort of weapon, like Dwarves, most Elves, Hobgoblins, and Githyanki, with a few having proficiency with armor, regardless of class. On a similar note, a number of races, like most types of Elves, Tieflings, Aasimars, Genasi, Tritons, and Yuan-Ti Purebloods, have innate magic that they can use, regardless of class. Then there's a few feats that grant proficiency with armor or weapons, or grant one access to magic of one sort or another.
  • In 3.X, Pathfinder and 5E, Paladin/Sorcerers are one of the strongest iterations and class builds in the game for a gish, gaining the charisma protections and defenses of the paladin and the spellcasting power of the sorcerer. In Pathfinder and 5e (where Charisma is the only casting stat needed), this synergy is even more pronounced. In 3.x, a properly built "sorcaladin" (say, Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8) could end up with four attacks and 9th-level spells by 20th level.
  • Dragonlance gives us an interesting situation. There's a semi-religious organization of Wizards of High Sorcery that actually try to avert this trope. They've made all sorts of laws and social stigma against a wizard wearing armor or carrying martial weapons. Wizards who do so anyway are looked down upon, such as the Knights of Neraka faction, the Knights of the Thorn. They can cast arcane spells with a reduced chance of failure when using armor, and often resort to melee combat. They are referred to as Grey Robes, in a mockery of the aforementioned wizards of High Sorcery.
  • Forgotten Realms got mentions of elven spell-archers and bladesingers from early on, and of course in elf-related sourcebooks such references are mandatory.
    • Maztica has two magical traditions — feathermagic and talonmagic. Accordingly, there are two magic-using, shapeshifting military orders: Eagle Knights and Jaguar Knights, with respective kits ^note effectively proto- Prestige Classes, since up to 5-6 level apprentices are only "proving themselves" without extra-special training. 5th edition added in a third such order, the shellmagic-using Shark Knights, who are new tradition emerging on the coastal regions.
    • Al-Qadim has Mystics of Nog — hermit battle-monk wizards.
  • In the 4e setting of Nentir Vale, the city-state of Rethmil has a strong association with Magic Knights, as it is protected by several orders of bladesingers and swordmages with all the cultural trappings of knightly orders — the most important are the Hyarthan Order, direct servants of the ruling magnate made up of warrior-wizards riding liondrakes. This association with bladesingers and swordmages comes a least in part from their time as a vassal nation of the dragonborn empire of Arkhosia, which had well-developed traditions of those classes — even in the modern era, they remain popular classes for dragonborn with an affinity for arcane magic.
• It should be noted that in any game that allows multi-classing (such as the later editions of Dungeons & Dragons), it is possible to create characters of this type, though their effectiveness may vary. (A common complaint about the multiclassing rules of D&D's third edition was how they "hosed" multiclassed primary casters if you didn't also take a suitable prestige class to fix things — a result of Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards and spellcasters' power depending solely on their class level.)
• In Earthdawn, Shadowrun's prequel, all player characters are assumed to be either mages or adepts, with magic-powered "talents" resembling the standard fantasy classes' special abilities.
• In Exalted, all Exalted player characters are like this to some degree. It's one of the many benefits of playing demigods (often mightier than a lot of actual gods) in a world that runs on Rule of Cool. All Exalted have charms and can use sorcery, while each kind specializes in specific types of magic and ass-kicking: Sidereals are the best martial artists (in a world where martial arts are themselves magical and can, for example, detrimentally rearrange the fate of an opponent), Lunars can shapeshift into bestial killing machines, Dragon-Blooded were designed to be the ultimate soldiers, and Solars and Abyssals are generally the pinnacle of good old weaponized ass-kicking. Exalted have classes called castes or aspects, but all castes include both fighting and magic.
  • Many Solar charms are actually a matter of enhancing weapons and archery with magic. Solars are also the best sorcerers, while Abyssals have equally powerful Necromancy.
  • Even heroic mortals and god-blooded can learn minor magic called Thaumaturgy, and can be initiated into the most basic supernatural martial arts. Mortals have no caste restrictions at all.
  • Meanwhile Dragon King characters, on top of being dinosaurs with opposable thumbs, can use both martial arts and Thaumaturgy, and get their own magic Paths as well.
  • Infernal Exalts tend to be the most blatant about it. The Malfeas charmset, for example, includes both "create a spear and use that to stab people" and "use that spear to shoot radiation lasers" powers. Averted with SWLIHN Charms, however, which tend to rely heavily on grabbing reality by the neck with your mind and shaking until it does what you want.
• Fabula Ultima has a bevy of classes and mandatory multiclassing, making it very easy for players to create a character who is both a powerful spellcaster and a skilled fighter. The core rulebook includes some sample builds for starting characters that want to fit this trope, such as an axe-wielding pirate who can cast lightning magic, or a samurai with Spell Blade powers.
• Fantasy Craft features the Rune Knight expert class that is exactly this. However, even a base Mage in Fantasy Craft is fully capable of wearing plate armor, wielding a two-handed sword, and being proficient in it.
• Games Workshop games:
  • Warhammer:
    • As priests of War Gods, the Empire’s Warrior-Priests of Sigmar and Ulric are highly competent fighters as well as being able to call upon the mystical powers granted to them by their deities.
    • All vampires have supernatural strength and speed that makes them extremely dangerous in combat, and are also capable of great feats of necromancy. The vampires of the von Carstein bloodline are particularly notable for their mixture of magical and physical might.
    • Highly favoured Chaos Sorcerers, especially those who follow Tzeentch the god of magic, are powerful spellcasters who are also competent in melee combat with a statistics comparable to many human combat Heroes. In at least one edition of the game, Tzeentch has no dedicated sorcerers; instead, the mark of Tzeentch grants full spellcasting abilities to Chaos Champions and Lords, who are some of the best fighting heroes in the game.
    • High Elf Loremasters are considered unusually skilled individuals, even by the standards of Elves, finding mastery of swordsmanship to be childishly easy while also possessing a near faultless grasp of magic.
  • In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, Ogroid Thaumaturges combine great strength and ferocity with a mastery of pyromancy. In battle a Thaumaturge will hurl blasts of fire into the enemy, before stampeding into their ranks to gore and pummel the survivors with their mighty horns.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Space Marine psykers (such as the elite Daemonhunters of the Grey Knights) and Chaos Marine Sorcerers combine psychic might with the physical abilities and combat training of the Adeptus Astartes. This was particularly the case in early editions of the game where high level Librarians could take on entire enemy forces by themselves.
    • The Grey Knights are an entire chapter of psychic Space Marines: Each of them is a psyker, but not all of them can cast at a Librarian's level and so use their powers to augment themselves in battle.
    • Many of the more martial Inquisitors are more than capable of defeating their enemies with power weapon and bolt pistol while also being highly competent psykers.
    • Before being interred on the Golden Throne and declared God-Emperor, the Emperor was one humanity's greatest warriors and the universe's most powerful psyker.
    • Saint Celestine is a mighty warrior and has supernatural powers well beyond the rather subtle Acts of Faith of the Adepta Sororitas.
    • Eldar Warlocks are battle psykers who lead their troops into battle, supporting them with martial prowess and psychic abilities. Only those Eldar who have walked the Path of the Warrior are able to take on the role of Warlock.
    • The more intelligent Tyranid Synapse Creatures, such as Hive Tyrants, are more than capable of confronting any opponent in melee as well as possessing prestigious psychic powers. Of particular note is the Swarmlord who is a masterful tactician, has powerful psychic abilities and wields four Boneswords with peerless skill.
• GURPS, being a classless, skills-based system, allows for a character to very easily fit this mold from character creation, and in higher magic worlds this WILL be much more common.
  • In addition the Holy Warrior template from Dungeon Fantasy fits a Paladin type. Latter supplements explain how to mix and match any of the various professions, inevitably resulting in multiple kinds of Magic Knight, as well as many other character.
  • The Mystic Knight template, introduced in Pyramid, is a dedicated Magic Knight template using Imbuements (magic channeled through weapons and armor). It excels as either a heavy armor wearing tank with magically-empowered attacks, or as a lightly armored highly mobile artillery monster (fire one arrow, watch it multiply into 20 heat-seeking exploding lightning arrows). In both cases, the Mystic Knight's magical abilities are limited to attack and defense, with no utility functions at all.
• In Ironclaw the Paladin, Warlock, and Witch Finder careers combine magical gifts with one or two combat skills and one or two magic skills. It's also possible for mage characters to spend XP on combat skills and gifts or vice-versa without outright multi-classing.
• The new version of the Iron Kingdoms RPG features a dual-career system - meaning you take two classes when you make the character instead of the industry tradition of just one. And since armor does nothing to spellcasting in the setting (as the numerous warcaster, warlocks and other spellcasting units in the wargames show) this means that you can combine Arcanist with Knight and have a sword-wielding spellslinger in full-plate. In the strategy game every army is built around a Warcaster or Warlock, extremely skilled mages who are also very powerful in hand to hand combat (although the ratio varies considerably).
• Legend of the Five Rings:
  • The system explicitly forbids this to a degree-while a shugenja (caster) can learn martial skills and be quite effective in combat, they can't gain the School Techniques that make actual bushi much more powerful fighters, and shugenja are explicitly forbidden from learning bushi techniques. The only exception is the Kuni Witch Hunters, an offshoot of the Kuni Shugenja school which uses quasi-magical powers to detect and destroy evil.
  • The Dragon Clan's Tamori Shugenja School. Tamori shugenja are fully trained in kenjutsu, carry katana as well as wakizashi, and their special school technique gives them some bonuses in standard skirmish combat. They're no match for a proper bushi, still, but they're no pushovers.
• In the Legend System, there are several ways to do this thanks to the Track system: take a spellcasting class like Shaman or Tactician and swap out one track for a combat-focused tree (Shamans are particularly good at this, since they have to take a track from outside their class); take a combat class like Paladin or Barbarian and swap out one track for either Shaman or Tactician spellcasting; fiddle the requirements a bit and swap out one of a combat class's tracks for a spellcaster-like tree such as Elementalist or the Sage's Arcane Secrets; take any class, then use the All-In option to take a fourth track at the expense of most of your magic item progression; or just play a Sage, who isn't a true spellcaster but has a mixture of spell-like tracks (such as Arcane Secrets) and things like the "Just Blade" track for fighting with a Laser Blade. Of note, there is an actual Knight track, which any class is allowed to take if it so desires, and the Multiclass Flexibility feat, which lets you mix up the ability requirements of a track so that, for example, your Strength 18, Intelligence 10 barbarian can grab the Tactician's spellcasting tree and run the whole track off Strength instead.
• Both Mage: The Ascension and its Spiritual Successor Mage: The Awakening have variants; as the more flashy, combat-intensive magic tends to ping the Weirdness Censor, it's usual that most mages will learn how to work a knife, sword, or gun, or at least take a kung-fu class at the Y. But there are mages dedicated mainly to the balance. Mage: The Ascension has the Akashic Brotherhood, an order that balances mental magic with martial arts, whereas Mage: The Awakening has the Adamantine Arrow, an order of soldiers dedicated to mastering both martial and mystical combat.
  • Generally speaking, the requirement that spells be more or less subtle and the unofficial theme of mage being "be prepared", plus their ability to beg, borrow, steal, craft, or conjure basically whatever they want without interference from the mundane law, a mage stepping into a potential conflict with merely a full suit of ceramic armor and an automatic weapon behind his magical defenses is almost unheard of. They tend to keep their shield spells up and some kevlar under their shirt even when they're going out for coffee, paranoia comes naturally when the entire universe is trying to kill or corrupt you.
  • In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, while the Theurge (seer) Auspice specializes in it and the Uktena tribe has this as their hat, all Garou have at least some arcane power... and the 8 foot snarling death-beast thing covers the knight part of the equation very well.
    • Likewise the Uratha of Werewolf: The Forsaken.
• Mutant Chronicles has the Art which is the magic that humans used after its discovery by the Durand Brothers (before they got retconned into being shape-shifted Precursors). The Durands then founded the faction, The Brotherhood and many of their most elite warrior classes such as the Fury Elite, the Mortifactors and Valkyries etc. are experts in the Art as well as excellent fighters.
  • Unlike other Megacorporations, Mishima doesn't follow the Brotherhood. Instead they have Ki Powers and schools that teach them. The ruling samurai class can learn from most of them, meanwhile the Deathwalker and Demon Hunter schools will only teach to their own class.
  • 3rd edition introduces Mutants, people with significant Guardian DNA spliced into their ancestry. Mutant deformities gives boost to stats and can make a mutant a potent natural fighter and with enough Guardian DNA, they can use Psionics which are a more advanced manifestation of the Light than the humans' Art.
  • Unfortunately for humanity, the alien Legion of the Dark Soul have many individuals and units that are masters in combat and the supernatural Dark Symmetry. Most notable are the 5 godlike Dark Apostles (Illian, Algeroth, Demnogonis, Semai, Muawijhe) and their lieutenants, the Nepharites.
• The Templar class in the LARP NERO. Earth Templars are also Combat Medics.
• Just about any character in Numenera who specializes in physical combat will wind up being this by default, since the regular acquisition and use of cyphers is a core game mechanic. However, the best examples in the game are Jacks, who not only have a grab-bag of unique utility and combat abilities to choose from, but can also take Glaive fighting moves and Nano esoteries.
• Pathfinder:
  • The Magus is a Magic Knight base class. It focuses on Full-Contact Magic, Dual Wielding spell and weapon, and channeling spells through their weapon, allowing them to both invoke certain magical traits in their weapon and to cast "touch range" spells through their weapon.
  • Pathfinder brought in plenty of new Magic Knights in the Advanced Class Guide splatbook. The Bloodrager is a barbarian-sorcerer hybrid, making for a berserker who casts magic due to mystical beings within their family tree. The Warpriest is a divine magic user similar to the Magus class, except they use blessings and an ability to channel their god's power into their weapon. The Hunter is a druid and ranger (usually) archery-based nature warrior Magic Knight, the Skald combines berserker rages and bardic magic, and the Investigator can achieve a similar effect by readying for inspired combat and using their alchemy to make a Magic Knight Jack of All Trades class.
  • Several archetypes (class modifications) can move classes in this direction. As one example, the Advanced Class Guide has the Blade Adept archetype for the Arcanist, an otherwise near-pure magic class, that bonds with (and gains proficiency for) an auto-improving blade and gains potential access to some of the Magus' trick.
• Ponies & Parasprites has non-canon, Exalted-style Celestial Templates. Characters have to already be pretty beefy to qualify for one of the eight available Templates to begin with. When they actually acquire a template, they gain access to summoned armor or pieces of armor based on their Alicorn patron as well as a variety of useful spells and abilities.
• In Rifts there are a number of classes of this type, most notably Mystic Knights and Psi-Warriors.
• Notwithstanding the earlier SNES adaptation, Shadowrun's blend of cyberpunk and magic meant that it's entirely feasible for the mage of the party to carry around a machinegun while wearing heavy armor. Granted, trying anything 'cyber-' with a mage tended to make him less mage-like in a game mechanics sense.
  • Mystic Adepts in the latest edition combines more traditional spellcasting of the Mage and the more Ki-like magic-boost of the (traditionally more physical combat focused) Adept.
  • You could theoretically build a thoroughly cybered-up character who was still a fully effective mage through the use of geasa, creating a character that is simultaneously bulletproof, possesses superhuman strength and speed, and can blow up a car with a thought.
  • But you don't even need cybers to make a good Magic Knight; many shaman builds can match front-line street samurai with a combination of buffs and a good gun, then exceed them with street spirit summons and direct damage magic.
  • Ultimately, both the rules of magic and the basic world design of Shadowrun discourage overly squishy mages. The lower drain costs of touch based spells mean many mages will want to be capable of landing unarmed strikes, requiring points in both agility and the requisite skill. And since agility is now decent, why not add a gun, and put a point in firearms. The dystopian society of Shadowrun rewards a fair degree of flexibility in its runners.
• Talislanta has Cymrilian Swordsmages and Zandir Duelists.
• The Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG: This trope is something of a necessity; the fact that the most reliable way to generate Soul for spellcasting is to attack enemies with melee weapons means that even a healing and support-focused bug is going to have to wade into combat sooner or later, so mages are likely to be at least passable in a fight. There's also nothing stopping a player from taking ranks in both Martial and Mystic paths, or making a spellcasting-focused character with high Shell and Hearts who wears heavy armor.
• The Yu-Gi-Oh! card game has several examples:
  • Dark Paladin epitomizes this trope, serving as a fusion of a Spellcaster (Dark Magician) & Warrior (Buster Blader). For bonus points, Dark Paladin also has its very own BFS, and his full Japanese name includes "Super Magical Swordsman".
  • Two others who belong to the same archtype, Dark Cavalry and Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon full Japanese names include "Super Magical Knight" and "Super Magical Dragon Knight" respectively.
  • Dark Flare Knight is also an example for the same reasons, but this time as a fusion of the Dark Magician & Flame Swordsman. He can also Special Summon Mirage Knight when destroyed.
  • Dark Magician Knight is another example, basically a Warrior-type effect monster of the Dark Magician that requires tributing the Dark Magician through Knight's Title before it can be summoned to the field.
  • Breaker the Magical Warrior and his counterpart Defender, the Magical Knight are both Spellcaster-type who wear head-to-toe armor and fight with a sword and shield, although Defender has higher defense because of his heavier armor and bigger shield.
  • Neo the Magic Swordsman, and his later version Trance, certainly look the part. In actual gameplay terms, they're Normal Monsters.
• In Zweihänder Dread Counts are the Expy of Warhammer's Chaos Lords. The Dread Counts take it up a notch though. To create a Dread Count, there needs to be a black magic ritual that binds into one body a Fell Knight (expy of a Chaos Warrior) and Havoc Summoner (expy of a Chaos Sorcerer). The Dread Count gets the combined abilities of both, but is even better than the two original servants of the Abyssal Princes.

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