The Sorcerer's Apprentice might be a workable example.
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Weak wizard - strong wizard
- Thread starter AllisterH
- Start date
(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Maybe it's from western fiction. There are lots of Sword and Sorcery books out there (the genre, not the publisher). I read a lot of fantasy books, and wimps-to-wizards stories are rare.
Then again, I never see wizards done properly in novels, although properly is an adjective that varies from person to person. Usually they're either really powerful, really weak (most), or are really powerful but have some limitation that renders them weak (most series, including many based on DnD!).
In the first book of the Kingless Land (a series by Ed Greenwood; when he's not writing Mary Sues he's a good author!), the sorceress was powerful, but had been tapped out and never got to recharge. (The druid character had some similar excuse, which would wreck the plot if I said it here.)
In DnD novels, especially newer books, most spellcasters are either a weaker spellcasting class (Lei the artificer, for instance), multi-classed (so low level) or just start out low level. If said character becomes high level (eg Sadira from the Prism Pentad, or any of the Chosen) they tend to become ridiculously powerful. Sadira is an interesting example; she started off having the approximate power level of a 9th-level mage or so (which is a bit suspiciously high) which led to some exciting and interesting uses of magic (and, on a few occasions, using non-magical skills instead) before she got her hands on an overpowered magic staff and then got a Chosen of Mystra-style upgrade. (She was powerful enough to take on sorcerer kings single-handedly, at least in the magic department, as she wasn't psychic. In the books, psionic combat was so nerfed too.)
And there are plenty of series (Drizzt!) where none of the main characters have any magical powers. (No, Harkell isn't a main character.)
mach1.9pants
Hero
Well who ever started it it meant in my first proper campaign my Magic User PC had 2 HP and Shield for his spell (the DM made us roll). Things improved at 2nd level though, I got to use Floating Disk once a day as well! (we didn't quite understand spell memorisation)
Nellisir
Hero
The OP didn't rule out post-D&D books, just books obviously based on D&D.
Alv/Elof, while not a stereotypical wizard, develops from a slave/apprentice to a powerful (most powerful) runesmith over the course of The Winter of the World trilogy.
Nifft
Penguin Herder
I remember reading some rules to handle this kind of power imbalance in the Buffy rulebook, but never got to play with them, and now my memory is foggy...
Anyone know what I'm talking about, and have experience with that kind of rule set?
Thanks, -- N
Chaoszero
First Post
Umm... Hello? Does no-one watch movies? They count as fiction right?
-Luke Skywalker is the quintessential weak farmboy turn wizard.
-Dragonslayer has the main character as an apprentice wizard that grows as a great hero.
-Willow Upgood wishes to be a sorcerer and (as far as the books say) does so.
-Eragon (see Star Wars)
-Harry Potter (I know he was mentioned before)
-The Merlin tv series (the one with Sam Neill and Martin Stewart, not the other ones)
-Dune. Paul Atredes becomes a world savior and psion-savant.
There are tons out there.
-Luke Skywalker is the quintessential weak farmboy turn wizard.
-Dragonslayer has the main character as an apprentice wizard that grows as a great hero.
-Willow Upgood wishes to be a sorcerer and (as far as the books say) does so.
-Eragon (see Star Wars)
-Harry Potter (I know he was mentioned before)
-The Merlin tv series (the one with Sam Neill and Martin Stewart, not the other ones)
-Dune. Paul Atredes becomes a world savior and psion-savant.
There are tons out there.
The problem with the list is that they all have pretty thick plot armor by being the protagonist. There's weak as in "I can't blow up a mountain / I lose against the bad guy." and then there's weak as in "I can die to a housecat." Low level D&D wizard is weak as in the second type.
Simply by being the protagonist, "weak" fictional wizards are protected from going splat the same way as D&D wizards do.
Very rarely do protagonists start off being weaker than even other commoners. Even in high-powered shounen anime/manga, the protagonist is special somehow. Actually, this is the standard. At the very worst, the protagonist is an Ordinary Highschool Student, maybe is a Loser Nerd guy or have some type of Soap Opera Disease.
Weak fictional wizards are weak because they're still learning or they haven't achieved all their powers. They're never weak because they became a wizard and thus have less survivability than commoners.
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Hadrian the Builder
First Post
I think that "leveling up" is really just an artifact of the game to provide purpose and rewards for players.
Maltese Changeling
Vargold
Let's look at a few of these "zero to hero" candidates:
Dragonslayer, Willow, Eragon, the Harry Potter series, and the TV <i>Merlin</i> all postdate D&D by some time (decades in some cases), so let's rule those out of bounds for now.
That leaves us with Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreides.
Luke is 1977, so he postdates the earliest D&D books, but he predates AD&D, so we'll keep him around for a bit. What can Luke do (when he's not surprised by a Sand Person)? Head on down to Beggar's Canyon and bullseye womp rats while flying his T-16--and, as we all know, those womp rats aren't much bigger than 2 meters! He can also shoot lots and lots of stormtroopers, swing across nigh bottomless access shafts whilst holding on to a princess, and, oh, blow up the Death Star--all on his first adventure after leaving the farm. He does go on in the next 2 movies to multi-class to Jedi and start getting big power-ups, but I'd say that he starts off as a pretty potent hero nonetheless.
Paul Atreides predates D&D, so he's kosher. What can he do? Well, in addition to being a genetic messiah (someone cheated on those 3d6 rolls), Paul has had Bene Gesserit training while still a teenager, giving him all those funky psychic control powers. Oh, and he's been trained in combat and tactics by three of the baddest mofos in the Padishah Imperium. Again, all of this before Paul ever earns a single XP.
I think we need some new candidates.
Dragonslayer, Willow, Eragon, the Harry Potter series, and the TV <i>Merlin</i> all postdate D&D by some time (decades in some cases), so let's rule those out of bounds for now.
That leaves us with Luke Skywalker and Paul Atreides.
Luke is 1977, so he postdates the earliest D&D books, but he predates AD&D, so we'll keep him around for a bit. What can Luke do (when he's not surprised by a Sand Person)? Head on down to Beggar's Canyon and bullseye womp rats while flying his T-16--and, as we all know, those womp rats aren't much bigger than 2 meters! He can also shoot lots and lots of stormtroopers, swing across nigh bottomless access shafts whilst holding on to a princess, and, oh, blow up the Death Star--all on his first adventure after leaving the farm. He does go on in the next 2 movies to multi-class to Jedi and start getting big power-ups, but I'd say that he starts off as a pretty potent hero nonetheless.
Paul Atreides predates D&D, so he's kosher. What can he do? Well, in addition to being a genetic messiah (someone cheated on those 3d6 rolls), Paul has had Bene Gesserit training while still a teenager, giving him all those funky psychic control powers. Oh, and he's been trained in combat and tactics by three of the baddest mofos in the Padishah Imperium. Again, all of this before Paul ever earns a single XP.
I think we need some new candidates.
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Not sure how it works in Buffy the RPG, but in Ars Magica, there is troupe play. Basically, every session, the players would switch who would be the
"leading" character.
e.g. If you're playing Magi Alexander, next session somebody else would play Magi Barnabas and you would then run your lesser powered companion Meepo who was expected to now support Barnabas.
re: Definition of weak and non D&D fiction.
Other posters have gotten it right. It ca be post D&D published fiction, but it can't be based off D&D directly (the WOTC/TSR novels) or somebody's home campaign (Feist's Riftwar Saga)
Similarly, when I mention weak, I'm talking weaker than a normal person in the setting. Now just inexperienced. E.g. Rand for example starts off pretty green, but even before he's acknowledged as the "Dragon", it's mentioned that he and Mat were the best Q-staff fighters in the Two Rivers after their fathers themselves. Definitely not "weak" (as shown by Mat being able to beatdown two experienced Warders-in training).
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