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

[billd91]

This, right here, this is the crux of the issue.

The magic system is more or less dictating the setting. The idea of a specialist team and modern day soldiery is anachronistic to say the least. The average soldier in a modern army is far and away more educated than a medieval soldier for one.
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I mean, how many feudal lords would be comfortable allowing a peasant soldier with a Charm Person spell?

Very few, I suspect, which tells me something about just how much magic should dictate the system. If magic is so dangerous to have in just anybody's hands, various social forces will align to make it rare enough that it may not dictate much about the setting at all.

 

[triqui]

A bunch of arcane spellcasters might be truly formidable, but if they get hit by a silence spell...

That's not Balance. It's arm race. You can't really say "spellcasters are balanced, becouse other spellcasters can counter them". This only shows spellcasters are so unbalanced, that only other spellcaster can balance them. It's tantamount to make dragon a player race, and say it's balanced becouse other players can choose to be a dragon as well

 

[triqui]

Given that both Color Spray and Sleep have Will negates saves, I'm still leaning toward the fighter.....unless you're talking about your whole unit consisting of 20 lvl 1 mages, so that whe they run into 20 lvl 1 fighters. If in any way the fighters outnumered the mages, the fact that half the fighters would pass their save (or rather, 45% of them, I think) would leave several of them who could easily do the 4 hp dmg needed to kill the spellcaster.

Depends on what version of the game you are playing. In 2e, 5 lvl 1 wizards with a small number of shieldbearers in front of them would crush 100 or so lvl 1 fighters with area of effect sleep spells (no save throw).

Talking about fiction, magic is not restricted by things like "saves". You never see a spell "missing" in fiction (or an arrow, for that matter. Miss and hit are RPG things, not fiction things. In fiction, the main character only miss when the author feels appropiate). Any small amount of wizard will completelly change the way medieval armies fight.

They would become easily the equivalent of modern artillery (fireball), modern airforce (fly), modern covert action teams (mass invisibility), modern logistic (scry). Heck, probably they would change *modern day warfare* as well. I bet US Marine Corps will pay to have someone using a "invisibility wand" for Falluyah house-to-house insurgence cleansing. While they already have stone-skinned fireball-launching "tanks", and everbody gets a "magic missile wand" called M-4a1, magic would make for even better tactics.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The kind of societal changes required to allow a modern day army to function would have an enormous impact on the setting.

I mean, how many feudal lords would be comfortable allowing a peasant soldier with a Charm Person spell?

That just tells you how few people- writers, designers & gamers alike- actually think through all the consequences magic would have in a world.

You've been her long enough, Hussar- do you remember the biiiiig thread from a couple of years ago about what a REAL fantasy castle should look like in a world with flying enemies everywhere? No spires and high, crenellated walls: it would look like a modern bunker setup.

That's not Balance. It's arm race.

Who said anything about balance? Not me, that's for sure!

It was just an observation: mixed forces work best. The silence spell reduces the mages to powerlessness and then the fighters charge in. It's a massacre.

 

[Votan]

Very few, I suspect, which tells me something about just how much magic should dictate the system. If magic is so dangerous to have in just anybody's hands, various social forces will align to make it rare enough that it may not dictate much about the setting at all.

Or, the presence of magic will make the social structure (itself) less stable. I suppose that this could be one role of Wizard's Guilds (to create a social structure for mages to prevent a power struggle between the nobility and the mages). This is more likely in (for example) AD&D 1E with few spells, dramatic magic being dangerous and long spell memorization times. Even high level wizards would be subject to being taken by surprise or would need to be very, very paranoid.

One sees the beginning of a social compact . . . and one that probably includes mages not being able to be ordinary men at arms.

 

[triqui]

It was just an observation: mixed forces work best. The silence spell reduces the mages to powerlessness and then the fighters charge in. It's a massacre.

Sure. But it is, becouse of the silence spell. Just like if mages cast sleep, and then fighters charge in, it's a massacre. Or if Mages cast mass invisibility, then rogues charge, it's a massacre. Or if Mages cast haste, then fighters charge, it's a massacre. Or cast Illusion Wall, and your archers rangers kill everybody behind it. Or mass fireballs and then some peasants mop up everything. And so on.

Sure, it's mixed force. But the key there, is what the wizards do. Be it cover, artillery, covert actions, logistic... whatever, is their job what makes the win or lose. Everybody else is there just for the dirty job: charge, shot some arrows, or mop up. But the party is over when the wizards turn end. Including when wizards turn end with oponent wizards silenced

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think this varies greatly from book to book. But I am not sure they really care about balancing out the power levels. Their concern is providing a cool setting that is believable and friendly to telling a good story. I've read books where wizards are uber powerful and basically run the show, read others where they are powerful outside of combat but not in it, and read others where they are pretty weak. Personally, I still like the classic AD&D approach, where warriors are better to start, but over time the wizards become the major powers.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sure, it's mixed force. But the key there, is what the wizards do. Be it cover, artillery, covert actions, logistic... whatever, is their job what makes the win or lose. Everybody else is there just for the dirty job: charge, shot some arrows, or mop up. But the party is over when the wizards turn end. Including when wizards turn end with oponent wizards silenced

First- minor quibble: Silence is a Bard/Cleric spell.

Second: the point of mixed forces is so that one tactic doesn't take you out while simultaneously having the ability to have more than one offensive tactic that will not be defeated by a single defense.

Look at tanks. Awesome tools of war. But taking an all tank unit into a city is stupid- they'll get eaten by infantry with Anti-Tank weaponry popping up from windows, corners and rubble. Tanks go into cities with infantry support.

So my answer is: so what if magic is the deciding factor in every battle? Magic is basically indistinguishable from tech. It's the flipside of Arthur Clark's aphorism.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I think this varies greatly from book to book. But I am not sure they really care about balancing out the power levels. Their concern is providing a cool setting that is believable and friendly to telling a good story. I've read books where wizards are uber powerful and basically run the show, read others where they are powerful outside of combat but not in it, and read others where they are pretty weak. Personally, I still like the classic AD&D approach, where warriors are better to start, but over time the wizards become the major powers.

I think that to really appreciate 1e's balance, you need to play all the time. Multiple characters in different stages of evolution, dropping like flies and being replaced: that way you will appreciate the sweetness of a 5th-level Magic User. The balance in 1e is much more strategic in that sense.

Unfortunately, I don't have enough time. In D&D heaven, however, I will linger in the 1e vestibule.

 

[pemerton]

I find in practice, in 3E, including random encounters that can disrupt the party while they are resting makes a big difference. Occasionally, they just find a new spot to camp and rest up again, and get lucky with no encounters the second time......and then other sessions, it results in a downward cycle of attrition where they still haven't rested enough to replenish spells, they've expended more of their spells on random encounters, have used up their healing magic, are more damaged than before, and when they try to rest, 3 hours into it they get hit by another random encounter.

This works for some playstyles - those that emphasise operational play of the classic AD&D 1st ed variety - but doesn't work so well for other playstyles. And I'm not just talking about adventure path play, or about hard scene framing play. Even pretty vanilla urban adventuring gives the players much more control over pacing than is being suggested here (on the assumption that, in a verisimilitudinous world, the chance of a random assassination attempt against the PCs in their houses/upmarker inn rooms is not all that high on any given night - especially as the higher the PC level, and hence the greater the issue of wizard-warrior balance, the more likely those houses are to be well-defended by magical as well as mundane means).