How about the stronger your magic is, the more damage you take from the sword? Considering magic deals primarily with balistics, you should be able to lay quite a punch before they get to you with a sword (especially hat Antiquah magic) so that's a good counter-balance

kEEP TEH GOODA NPEESEES!!!

gah... I think I'm not feeling good...

The primary problem with magic is that you can't see far enough, and people run too fast. Or both. Whichever. There'd need to be lots of holding and healing and escape spells and things to make sure mages don't get their faces beat in, but then there'd also need to be mechanisms to stop the mages from just turning tail and happily running away when the going gets tough.

And the NPC bad guys are too slow.

Gah see i told you yesterday they were having that stupid RP with Zorgs and humans and a staff was using that silver blast thingy after i told him he shouldnt then Jagen took it away from everyone cept him and ghosty cause peeps were abusing it :p

nah, i deleted the npc temporarely

See Jagen is Smart :D