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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TwinBahamut" data-source="post: 5912317" data-attributes="member: 32536">These are all fair points, but there are two major alternatives that you don't mention that let you balance the game without those kinds of restrictions.First, one possibility for balancing magic to magic is to simply scale back the idea of what magic can do. If, for example, a wizard's most powerful fire-based attack spell is no more powerful than the swing of a fighter's sword, you don't need to restrict it at all. This kind of balancing is actually very common in my experience with videogames and the like, and is basically what 4E did to an extent (though it did a few other things too).The other possibility is to simply improve the power of non-magical options to the point that they match the full breadth of magic's power. If fighters can jump so high they can grab a flying foe (regardless of altitude, even) and drag them to the ground in a punishing suplex, then giving wizards the ability to fly isn't exactly an unbalancing or game-distorting effect.Of course, those two states are basically the same thing: balancing them by matching their options and potency, rather than making one more powerful than the other but giving it severe drawbacks to compensate. You really need one of those two approaches in order to make a traditional fantasy game or work of fiction function properly, and I've seen both.</blockquote>