How is the Wizard vs Warrior Balance Problem Handled in Fantasy Literature?

[Mishihari Lord]

I really like Glen Cook's the Black Company for its take on magic. Some mages are really strong, frex the Taken are practically demigods. However they can be taken by surprise like anyone else. In the first book Croaker and Raven take down a Taken and a near equivalent with surprise and some slightly enchanted arrows. In Shadows Linger a group of fighters destroy the Limper and his escort just by pulling off a decent ambush. On the other hand Goblin and One-Eye are very weak magicians, but by using intelligent tactics in conjunction with the fighters they're highly effective.

I think magic should be really strong, otherwise what's the point? If it's no more effective than mundane tactics, there's no reason to use it.

I also like the Belgariad's limitations. Sorcery is really strong, but you do get tired eventually, which makes you very vulnerable. So hiding from that army rather than roasting them is smart because there might be another one on the other side of the hill. Also, sorcery makes "noise" detectable by other sorcerers, so if your enemies are numerous they can dogpile you if you use too much flashy magic to overcome an obstacle.

 

[Jhaelen]

How have you seen warior characters in fantasy books overcome spellcasters?

Sure. In Vanilla Fantasy Literature the imbalance is not a problem but a boon: The Warrior protagonist succeeds against all odds in defeating the almighty Wizard. Usually makes a dramatic and exciting story.

It wouldn't be a problem in rpgs either - if all wizards were npcs

Of course the imho better solution is to not have almighty wizards in the first place. _OR_ use different tacks to balance them using politics, religion, etc. (aka the Ars Magica approach).

 

[Hautamaki]

It's very rare that wizards and warriors are 'balanced' in fantasy ime. Some of the series I've read:

Wheel of Time: Casters completely run this world; non-caster characters are given things to do of course, but in actuality all non-caster characters are completely at the mercy of casters. One non-caster even gets a 'wish'--he uses it to 'be free of [magic users]' and he gets a medallion which absorbs magic. He thinks he's safe now and gets a little cocky with magic users in his party; so they use magic to drop turds on his head and tell him next time it could be a boulder or a house. His medallion is useless after all lol. A single decent magic user is worth at least 100 good warriors.

Song of Ice and Fire: supremely low-magic world which IMO is one of the main reasons it's considered 'better' than WoT (if the author ever finishes it that is). To date there is only 2 magic users in the world that we know of (a priest of priestess of a strange foreign god), and one of them has the power to kill literally anyone at any time; the other has the power to resurrect the dead; even beheaded people. Obviously these are two of the most dangerous and powerful characters, but since their competition are kings, lords, and other individuals with literally thousands under their command, it's about even I guess.

Sword of Truth: Magic owns, period. Almost every plotline revolves around the power of the few spellcasters of the world.

Malazan Book of the Fallen: Perhaps the closest to being 'balanced' of any of the series, and also perhaps my favourite of the lot. Magic users are fairly common (maybe 20-30 in an army of 5,000) but most would be considered low-level and are roughly even with a soldier in a fair fight (and considering how common and dangerous crossbows are they'd probably mostly just get shot and killed that way) but even low level magic users are highly valuable because of the greater tactical options they bring to a unit, and also of course because of healing magic.

High level magic users (an army might have 1 or 2) can take out hundreds or even thousands of enemy troops (at one point a high-magic race takes out a whole empire with basically their magic users only after gaining the power of a dark god) but often times high level magic users from the other side will cancel them out. On an individual level, very high level warrior-types have massive spell resistance and oftentimes seem to be able to power through or 'make their saves' against high level magic, making them very dangerous even to high level magic users.


The trend I've noticed though in fiction is that even high level fictional casters are not as potentially powerful as 3.x casters. Fictional magic users may often have very powerful evocation type magic--fireballs, lightning bolts, clouds of acid, earthquake type stuff, etc) but even the most powerful fictional magic users don't usually have the kind of 'game breaking' spells that D&D magic users can get. Things like wish, polymorph, time travel, resurrection, etc. Characters that DO have them are generally only, as has been said, plot points. Usage of that kind of spell is not mundane, but may happen only once in a whole book, and become a central plot point the whole story revolves around.

So in the final analysis, giving PCs access to that kind of magic seems a little 'broken' or at least not fun imo. Not even the greatest fantasy writers seem to be able to make stories work if magic users are as omnipotent as they can be in D&D, so it seems a little much to expect your average DM to be able to pull it off.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Heroes, a counter-example:

In Heroes, many powered characters have aiblities that aren't as powerful as a gun. Mrs. Petrelli's father had a "concussion blast" ability that could knock someone over. He used it to slam someone at range to the ground. His friend then shot and killed the guy.

However, most Heroes characters can just keep using their power with little to no limit. This makes the really powerful ones like Sylar unstoppable. He's not going to stop using telekinesis.

Even powerful ones (not Sylar, but those just below him on the scale) can be taken down by a few normals using either numbers, surprise, tactics or all three. An entire chapter of the show had a bunch of normals doing just that to capture powered people.

 

[Erekose]

D&D is a (generally) cooperative game. Even with intense RP and a Storytelling/Narrative component, it is still a cooperative process.

I understand some groups say they like the imbalance, but I suspect, deep down, everyone would like to feel equally as useful to the group. And thats why I prefer a magic=martial=whatever. If I wanted to play a magic is all powerful genre, I would either have all PC's be magic, or none of them.

1) You really shouldn't project your feelings about the game to others

2) "Usefulness" is subjective.

3) Some people want to play a particular PC concept within a campaign world, whether IR not others deem that PC "useful."

Somewhat weirdly I think I agree with both posts but it is entirely dependent on what the group perceives balance to be.

One of the things that was argued balanced the classes in OD&D/1E was that magic-users were very weak at early levels which balanced their dominance at later levels.

In my experience, it's about ability to do something useful in the gaming session. Players tend to be quite happy to either play or play with a wizard character who dominates when he casts his spells but these are a scarce resource that means that once they've gone they have to play more of a backseat role (at least in combat), which in a sense plays the advisor archetype of a wizard.

Balance over a gaming session (or an "in game" day) is clearly quite different from balance over an encounter (whether combat or not). I think at least some player are happy with the former and have issues with the latter as it gives a "vanilla" feel to classes.

 

[Zhaleskra]

By contrast, in Harry Potter everyone can fling spells pretty easily, though most of them aren't as dangerous as a simple gun would be. For those willing to be evil, though, there's apparently no drawback to just flinging death spells willy-nilly.

Harry Potter spells, weak as they are, are still overpowered. The only "saves" are counterspelling, getting out of the way, or putting something physical in the path of the spell (Fridge Logic on how physical items can stop a spell when another spell can't). Yes, someone can force you to make a Concentration check too. The downside to the Unforgivable Curses is that you have to really, really, mean them to get them to work properly.

Then there are the various levels of "bad stuff" spells. Curse, of course, being the highest level. Hex is probably the middle, with Jinx being the lowest level of bad stuff.

 

[Bluenose]

I think magic should be really strong, otherwise what's the point? If it's no more effective than mundane tactics, there's no reason to use it.

Swap the words magic and mundane around in that sentence. Does your argument lose it's force? If not, then you're got a perfectly reasonable argument for making magic users and 'mundane' characters balanced in terms of power.

It's very rare that wizards and warriors are 'balanced' in fantasy ime. The trend I've noticed though in fiction is that even high level fictional casters are not as potentially powerful as 3.x casters. Fictional magic users may often have very powerful evocation type magic--fireballs, lightning bolts, clouds of acid, earthquake type stuff, etc) but even the most powerful fictional magic users don't usually have the kind of 'game breaking' spells that D&D magic users can get. Things like wish, polymorph, time travel, resurrection, etc. Characters that DO have them are generally only, as has been said, plot points. Usage of that kind of spell is not mundane, but may happen only once in a whole book, and become a central plot point the whole story revolves around.

So in the final analysis, giving PCs access to that kind of magic seems a little 'broken' or at least not fun imo. Not even the greatest fantasy writers seem to be able to make stories work if magic users are as omnipotent as they can be in D&D, so it seems a little much to expect your average DM to be able to pull it off.

Fictional magic users rarely have the versatility of D&D wizards, either. There are a few who can polymorph (Aneirin, arguably a bard, is one), there are others with unusual powers. Generally though these are their personal special magics, and they use those regularly, and they don't have a huge range of other abilities. Specialist Wizards, basically, with a bit of divination and abjuration, plus whatever their particular shtick is.

One of the common balancing factors in fiction is that often magic users have to be born with the power, and that's rare. Not as common as having a wild psionic talent in AD&D. If it's that rare and unusual, any sort of magic is going to seem powerful, even if it doesn't do much more than a crossbow. Spiderman has some nifty abilities, which make him a superhero, but they're fixed and not really enormously more powerful than things a normal person could do with appropriate equipment.

Another one is cost. If casting powerful magic wrecks your health, then people can't cast it regularly and will be cautious about doing so. Perhaps there are exceptionally expensive components involved or you need a virgin sacrifice, for the most powerful spells. Or a pact involving the sacrifice of your soul. Pay the price, get the powerful magic. You just can't do it too often.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Looking at Greek mythology, most of the heroes were fighters. They didn't fight magic users per se, but a lot of magical and powerful creatures ... as well as the gods themselves (indirectly at least). Even though they often had cohorts to help them, it usually came down to the

1. the hero outlasting (HP/Fort saves) the bad guys
2. the hero winning via brute force/skill (STR, Weapon focus, tactics, etc)
3. Special equipment (shield from the gods, helmet of invisibility, etc)

Similar to how fighters are "balanced" in D&D.

Even against high level wizards, I can see a fighter using the above to win. (At least in a novel/fiction were he can always roll a 20 when needed )

 

[Umbran]

Warrior = Protagonist

Wizard = Plot Device

Quite.

More specifically, "balance" is more fully "game balance", typically the game-mechanic balance between PCs, so that everyone playing can do cool stuff. Power imbalance is an issue that often leads to dissatisfied players, as Joe the Powerful does all the cool things, and leaves Squeaky the Sidekick cooling his heels doing nothing important. Squeaky's player is apt to get bored, and that can be a problem for a game.

In a work of fiction, you don't need to balance among players, because there aren't any players. You can have massive disparity in character power levels, and not blink an eye in fiction.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Hmmm... we can include a discussion of Doctor Strange. He's the most powerful wizard in the entire Marvel universe and does go up against cosmic entities such as Dormamu and Death and Eternity.

But even he can be taken down by a group of normals. And has been.

But he can cast such spells that can wipe the memory of every single person on the face of this planet.

But he can also be taken down by a group of nromals.

As the plot demands.