comrade raoul said:
This qualification does a lot of work, doesn't it? High-level D&D characters--especially non-spellcasters--need magic items to inflict and avoid damage. But let's run some numbers real quick.
Anyway, let's say Jane Melee is a raging fighter 12/barbarian 3 fighting an evil opponent. She's got a Strength of 22 (or 26 when raging) and a pair of +4 holy shortswords, and the weapon-specific feats up to Greater Specialization, plus Improved Critical (shortsword), Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Two-Weapon Rend. So she's reasonably optimized for damage, but far from really fine-tuned. She's really at her best when she can make a full attack, though.
So she attacks at +27/+27/+22/+22/+17, and deals 3d6+16 points of damage with her primary hand and 3d6+12 on her off-hand. She's attacking AC 30, so she can expect to get 1.95 hits with her primary hand and 1.55 hits with her off-hand. That's 51.675 points of average damage with her off-hand and 34.875 points with her off-hand, for a total expected damage of 86.55. If she hits at least once with each hand, which she very likely will, she can also rend for an extra 15.5 points (1d6+12); she can also expect to deal a total of 12.41 points of damage from critical hits. So that's a total of more than 110 points of damage on a full attack!
Now let's take her friend, Johnny Mage, a wizard 15 who casts a quickened, empowered scorching ray followed by an empowered cone of cold. His three empowered rays do 1.5*(4d6) points of damage apiece (average 21), but need ranged touch attacks to hit; his cone of cold deals 1.5*(15d6) points of damage (average 78.75), but offers a reflex save. If all three attacks hit and his target fails its saving throw, Johnny deals 141.75. This is nontrivially more damage than Jane, but Johnny can probably only do this once a day, and his expected damage goes way down if his target makes its saving throw against the cone, or one or more of the rays miss, or the target has energy or spell resistance--all serious possibilities at Johnny's level.
In any case, Jane certainly shouldn't feel useless, or significantly underpowered. Are these characters really atypical?
You didn't talk about how that 78.75 damage can apply to many targets at once. That's a strength of a mage -- area effect damage.
But what about real strength of a mage? How about something as simple as finger of death. If the save is failed, then the target immediately dies. Yes there are ways to be immune to this, but that's pretty potent. Now if you want *real* damage, why don't we talk about a split disintegrate? At 20 CL it occupies an 8th level slot and deals 80d6 damage. That's around 280 damage on average. Now we're talking a huge difference between the fighter and the mage (damage wise).
But what about saves, SR, and other spell defenses?!
Fine, orb of fire at 15 CL deals 15d6 damage no save, no SR, and it requires a touch attack, which isn't too hard to make. Since it's only 4th level, you can metamagic the crap out of it. Not only that, but it also dazes the target on a failed for save! Empower brings the damage up to around 75 for the low cost of 6th level slot. But wait a minute, you let your barbarian invest a crap load of feats, so I think I will too.
How about Arcane Thesis (Orb of Fire) + Empower Spell + Searing Spell + Enervate Spell. That's four feats, 1 of which is very specific, but 4 of which are useful almost all spells.
With all of those metamagic feats (and arcane thesis) our spell still only occupies a 6th level slot. It deals half damage to any creature with fire immunity or any non-living creature. It deals +100% damage to any living creature with anything but fire immunity (ignores all resistance).
Overall it deals 30d6 damage to a living target, that's 104 damage on average, comparable to your fighter. It only requires a touch attack and has no save (for the damage), no SR, and on a failed save it dazes the target. The Daze effect is key, because that takes out the target for a round allowing the other party members to beat on him without fear of consequences. Even better is the fact that if conjured outside an Antimagic Field, it can still affect targets with in an anti-magic field because instantaneous conjurations function within an antimagic field.
Sure you can't go around throwing these things all day long, but you can chuck quite a few of them. If you're still itching to deal damage, you can add another feat: arcane thesis (fireball) and mix in the standards: searing spell, empower spell, and enervate spell. Since fireball is of third level, you can use use it in conjunction with spell matrix. If we use a 9th level spell matrix (greater) and 3 such fireballs we can now blast 4 such fire balls in a round. That's 80d6 fire damage (40d6 fire to creatures immune to fire & full damage to resistant targets). 80d6 (average 280) fire damage to all targets in a 20 foot radius at long range. Sure it depletes a lot of your resources (1 9th level slot, 4 fifth level slots) but you can pretty much wipe out an opposing army in a single swift + standard action.
A 20th level mage could probably preform this nova tactic 4/day. Given that the standard number of encounters per day is around 4, that's not too bad. Mages are capable of ending an encounter in a single round, warriors are not.
But that's not all! Mages can also prepare fun spells like domination, which not only eliminates enemies but adds one more to your numbers. They can conjure undead or outsiders and then polymorph them into greater beings. The utility and power of an arcanist is unmatched by a warrior.
