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

[pawsplay]

The problem is Pawsplay, a 1st level warrior is still weaker than a 1st level PC class.

That's not actually a problem for what I said. If you added the 1st level warrior's abilities to a 1st level wizard, you would discern the fighter's advantage over the warrior. By the same token, you can subtract the warrior's abilities from the wizard to see how much a PC has over a non-PC.

The conclusion is that compared to Joe Off the Farm, a PC has a better ability score array and one extra feat, by dint of being heroic.

If Joe Off the Farm can spend a few months becoming a 1st level warrior, why can't Magnificus the Wizard? Moreoever, why doesn't the wizard, who has regular access to one of the best sparring partners around, surpass him? As long as Magnificus doesn't acquire an extra fighter feat and reshuffle his ability scores, we haven't broken any of the assumptions made due to the PC/NPC split.

In short it doesn't really make much sense that by level 10, a wizard's weapon proficiencies are still garbage. It actually makes less sense if the wizard has a single martial or exotic weapon proficiency, and despite using this skill from time to time, does not develop the same breadth as a fighter as Joe Off the Farm.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis and most certainly NOT a "normal Joe".

Hmmm...

Wikipedia
Conan is a Cimmerian (based somewhat loosely on the Celts), a barbarian of the far north. One of his grandfathers, however, came from a southern tribe. He was born on a battlefield and is the son of a village blacksmith. Conan matured quickly as a youth and, by age fifteen, he was already a respected warrior who had participated in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium.

and

The country claimed by and roved over by his clan lay in the northwest of Cimmeria, but Conan was of mixed blood, although a pure-bred Cimmerian. His grandfather was a member of a southern tribe who had fled from his own people because of a blood-feud and after long wanderings, eventually taken refuge with the people of the north. He had taken part in many raids into the Hyborian nations in his youth, before his flight, and perhaps it was the tales he told of those softer countries which roused in Conan, as a child, a desire to see them."
-- REH, letter to P. Schuyler Miller

and

Wikipedia
The origins of the Cimmerians stretch back to the Thurian Age. The Cimmerians are the descendants of colonists from Atlantis. Living on the main Thurian continent, the colonists survived the great cataclysm which submerged Atlantis and destroyed most of the Thurian civilizations. The survivors, at this point reduced to a stone-age level of sophistication, eventually found themselves locked in multigenerational warfare with survivors of a Pictish colony. This prolonged conflict caused the Atlanteans to further devolve into little more than ape-men. With no memory of their history or even of language and civilization itself, these beings eventually redeveloped into a people known as Cimmerians.

The fall of Atlantis occurred 5000 years before the time of Conan- calling him and other Cimmerians "Atlantean" is kind of like calling me an Egyptian, Celt or Mayan or some such.

Particularly when you count Batman/Bruce Wayne as a "Normal Joe" as well.

In what way wasn't he a normal person besides his wealth and his drive to succeed? I went to a private school with the sons of multimillionaires and billionaires: most are lawyers, some are MDs, some became AF pilots and tank comanders and even plain old enlisted Marines. Ain't a one of 'em traipsing around in spandex & kevlar.

Being rich is an advantage, yes, but it doesn't make you superhuman.

 

[Elf Witch]

A wizard can fly, give himself skin that bullets cannot penetrate, move faster then a speeding bullet, give himself X-ray vision, and shoot out ice (perhaps from their breath?)

They are literally superheros.

Well that is how it should be. Magic is a powerful force. Harry Dresden for example is more powerful than a non caster because he has made items that stop bullets from getting through to him. Murphy the cop has to depend on a bullet proof vest.

At high levels mages should be scary they should be able to rain fire down on a village.

Superman is more powerful than Batman but that does not stop Batman from kicking butt and bring a world of hurt down on the bad guys.

 

[fanboy2000]

DannyA - just a nitpick, but, Conan was the last son of Atlantis and most certainly NOT a "normal Joe".

Double nitpick, in the Hyborian Age, REH makes it clear that Atlantis was destroyed thousands of years before Conan was born. Conan is from a country called Cimmeria north of Aqualionia, the country he would eventually become king of. In Hour of the Dragon, Conan emphasizes that he has no royal blood and says explicitly that "I am a barbarian and the son of a blacksmith."

Edit: Apparently, I've been ninjaed by Danny.

 

[Victim]

In short it doesn't really make much sense that by level 10, a wizard's weapon proficiencies are still garbage. It actually makes less sense if the wizard has a single martial or exotic weapon proficiency, and despite using this skill from time to time, does not develop the same breadth as a fighter as Joe Off the Farm.

By level 10, the wizard has +5 base attack over the warrior's +1. So he can use non proficient weapons almost as well as well as the warrior can use his proficient weapons (seeing as how the warrior is more likely to have a str bonus). And the wizard will be better at attacking any weapons he's trained in. Not to mention that the wizard will generally end up with vastly superior HP, so his effective defensive skill is also much higher.

In terms of general combat skill, as opposed to proficiencies and such, the wizard 1 gains the advantages a warrior holds simply by reaching level 2.

 

[Fifth Element]

In YOUR campaigns. Others obviously have different experiences.

I think it's fair to say that while you could play dirt-farmer PCs in early editions of D&D, it was not the standard or default. 1st-level fighters were called veterans, for example, implying experience in the art war. They could have plate armor and fine swords. They were not dirt farmers by default.

It has been argued in the past that 1st-level D&D characters were supposed to be dirt farmers, which is not the case. That's probably what's being referred to here.

 

[I'm A Banana]

In what way wasn't he a normal person besides his wealth and his drive to succeed? I went to a private school with the sons of multimillionaires and billionaires: most are lawyers, some are MDs, some became AF pilots and tank comanders and even plain old enlisted Marines. Ain't a one of 'em traipsing around in spandex & kevlar.

Being rich is an advantage, yes, but it doesn't make you superhuman.

...He's Batman.

Let that sink in for a minute. He's not a "normal person," because he's frickin' Batman.

Lawyers, doctors, pilots, commanders, Marines....all those are normal people. Skilled and driven, yes, but normal people.

None of those people are Batman. All of those people are normal people because they are not Batman.

This is kind of central to the idea of handling the Wiz v. Warrior balance in fantasy literature.

If you wrap your head around the apparently heretical idea that Batman is not a normal person, you see that fantasy heroes -- including Batman -- aren't normal people. They are special. They are unique. They are exceptional. They are above and beyond any lawyer, Marine, pilot, police officer, or iron-fisty European dictator. They are beyond Michael Jordan and Einstein. They are like unto gods.

This gets into some heady stuff if you follow the breadcrumb trail (like the idea that modern western society considers "hard work" and "fabulous wealth" and "science" semidivine in nature, re: The Protestant Ethic), but for our purposes here, it's enough to say that Batman is effective in a world with Superman and the Green Lantern, in part, because Batman is not a normal person, and if he was, he'd be a Marine or a lawyer, not freaking Batman. Normal people are not the kinds of people you tell fantasy stories about. They're the kinds of people you tell historical epics or modern dramas about. Once you're umm...BATMAN you're well out of the realm of normal person and consorting with the divine (even if it's a little hidden beneath a dusting of Protestant Ethic).

 

[JoeGKushner]

A wizard can fly, give himself skin that bullets cannot penetrate, move faster then a speeding bullet, give himself X-ray vision, and shoot out ice (perhaps from their breath?)

They are literally superheros.

As opposed to the fighter who can withstand fireballs, drops of 100 feet or more and break through adamantine walls with a single attack?

Dude, in D&D, they're all superheroes.

 

[I'm A Banana]

As opposed to the fighter who can withstand fireballs, drops of 100 feet or more and break through adamantine walls with a single attack?

Dude, in D&D, they're all superheroes.

Exactly why my D&D fighter should be able to chop down mountains and become invincible and wrestle rivers and single-handedly slay lions and generally be more like Heracles and Gilgamesh than like a really skilled Olympic athlete.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

...He's Batman.

Let that sink in for a minute. He's not a "normal person," because he's frickin' Batman.

Lawyers, doctors, pilots, commanders, Marines....all those are normal people. Skilled and driven, yes, but normal people.

None of those people are Batman. All of those people are normal people because they are not Batman.

Whoop de fricken' doo!

His ward, Dick Greyson, an acrobat, became Nightwing, nearly his equal.

Bruce Wayne was the otherwise normal son of a wealthy man, who, without the deadly encounter his parents had with a thug after a night on the town, wouldn't be Batman either.

He's Batman because he's driven to a point of borderline insanity- a person who has a detailed plan to take down each and every superhuman in the world, regardless of their expressed morality or numerous deeds for good or ill is not truly sane- not because he's somehow inherently better than anyone else in the world.

"Batman" is the destination he reached by force of will and training, helped along with essentially a blank check from his wealth, not some inherent property foretold in his lineage. Its what he made himself into, not what he was from the beginning.